Method Acting

by dewkissedsoul

Summary:

Clark Kent has an ordinary job, an ordinary life, and absolutely no plans to fall for Gotham’s favorite movie star.

Chapter 1: Shrimp Happens

Summary:

From red carpets to flying food carts, Clark didn’t have Bruce Wayne crashing into his apartment on his bingo card.

Clark Kent cultivates boredom the way other men cultivate beards—patiently, deliberately, until it seems permanently grafted onto his face. His life is a careful archive of near-misses and almosts, each one neatly filed under a private heading he calls Things That Might Have Made Me Interesting.

Almost got that promotion last year. Almost finished with his exposé on the mayor’s “consulting fees” before the story got buried. Almost asked out the barista at Joe’s Coffee, right up until he discovered she was married to the guy who runs the competing coffee shop across the street. Clark may be many things, but he draws the line at becoming the protagonist of a soap opera.

“I lead a life of quiet dignity,” he tells himself, usually while eating lo mein straight from the carton at midnight, alone in his apartment.

So when Cat Grant descends on him at the Planet’s coffee machine one Monday morning, stilettos tapping like a countdown to disaster, Clark feels the universe slide a degree off-center.

“Clark, darling,” she purrs, “I need the tinieeeest favor. Microscopic. Barely even a favor. Really, a gift. And you—lucky, blessed you—are the only remotely competent soul in this mausoleum of mediocrity who can save me.”

Clark has learned to treat Cat’s favors the way most people treat spam emails about winning a Caribbean cruise. The last time she asked for “the tiniest favor,” he wound up spending seventy-two hours shadowing a city councilman who turned out to be romantically entangled with his campaign manager, his yoga instructor, and possibly his accountant.

The story never runs—Cat later admits the councilman is her second cousin twice removed—but Clark still can’t see a hot yoga ad without breaking into a cold sweat.

He steels himself, coffee cup paused halfway to his mouth like a shield. “What kind of favor?”

“I need you to cover Metropolis’s Shadows in Gotham premiere tonight. Red carpet, interviews, the whole glamorous circus.”

Clark blinks. Once. Twice. The words do not get more rational on repeat.

“Cat, I write about municipal corruption and water treatment scandals. I don’t do entertainment. I don’t even watch entertainment. The last movie I saw in theaters was—”

“But you do have a pulse and opposable thumbs, which makes you infinitely more qualified than half the so-called entertainment reporters in this cesspit of a city.” Cat’s smile sharpens, a predator scenting blood. “Besides, it’s not just any premiere. Bruce Wayne is going to be there.”

“The actor?” Clark asks, with the tentative tone of a man afraid to be wrong in public.

Her eye twitches. “No, Clark, the other Bruce Wayne. The one who runs a hot dog cart outside the courthouse.”

Clark actually pauses, brow knitting like he’s storing the information for later fact-checking. “Wait, really? There’s a hot dog vendor named Bruce Wayne? That’s either the worst coincidence in recorded history or the best cover story I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Cat’s voice could etch glass. “Yes, the actor, Clark. The brooding, devastatingly handsome movie star who’s made entire zip codes question their marriages.”

Clark tries to picture himself at a red carpet premiere: photographers shouting names, celebrities gliding past in couture, and people who can tell a tux from a suit without whispering panicked questions to the rental clerk. The image leaves him clammy in a way that has nothing to do with the office’s perpetually broken air conditioning.

His ears warm pink. “Right. Him. I just… don’t usually run into people who make zip codes do that.”

“My stylist ghosted me,” Cat announces, skimming right over his attempt at self-preservation. “Can you imagine? One tiny curling-iron incident, and suddenly I’m blacklisted in the beauty community. I look like I wrestled a badger and lost.”

She touches her hair. It gleams like a shampoo commercial had a spiritual awakening. Clark blinks at it, certain that perfection itself is breaking the rules if Cat still finds fault.

“I need someone reliable,” she continues, eyes narrowing like she’s selecting a champion for ritual sacrifice. “Someone who won’t abandon me the moment things get messy.”

“What about Lois?” Clark blurts, grasping at the last lifeline in reach. “She actually knows about movies. And celebrities. And how to talk to people without accidentally asking them about zoning ordinances.”

“Lois is busy dismantling systemic police corruption.” Cat leans in, jasmine perfume curling into his personal space like smoke. “She doesn’t have time to hold my hand through the shark tank of Hollywood publicity. You, however, have both hands free.”

Clark blinks. “I… don’t think that’s how beats work.”

“Come on, Clark. It’s one night. Ask a few questions, scribble a few notes, try not to body-check an A-lister into a velvet rope. How catastrophically difficult could it be?”

Famous last words. Clark feels it settle in his chest like an omen, but Cat is already flashing that glittering smile, the one that makes refusal feel like a moral failing. He has always been helpless against loyalty, guilt trips, and the creeping terror of disappointing people. It is, unfortunately, his kryptonite.

“Fine,” he mutters, defeated. “But I’m an investigative reporter, not an entertainment blogger. If I accidentally ask Bruce Wayne about municipal water fluoridation, that is entirely on you.”

Cat claps her hands as if he’s just agreed to donate a kidney. “You are an angel, Clark Kent. Hollywood’s glittering elite will never know what hit them.”

The rest of the day unravels in a blur of panic and highly questionable preparation. Clark googles “Bruce Wayne” and is immediately swallowed whole by the internet’s shrine to Gotham’s favorite enigma. There are glowing reviews, paparazzi shots of him brooding in various coats, and fan sites that analyze his every eyebrow twitch with the precision of NASA engineers calculating a rocket launch.

Bruce Wayne is, objectively, absurdly attractive. He is also infuriatingly private, ends interviews faster than most people end small talk, and inspires bloggers to debate whether he is a misunderstood genius or simply the world’s most unbearable man.

Clark rehearses questions in the cracked mirror of the Daily Planet’s men’s room, which is about as glamorous as it sounds.

“So, Mr. Wayne, what drew you to this role?” he asks his reflection. The reflection raises one skeptical brow, unimpressed.

“What’s your process for getting into character?” The reflection layers pity on top of the skepticism, generous in its disdain.

“Mr. Wayne, are you seeing anyone?” The reflection recoils like Clark has just confessed to tax fraud.

By five o’clock, he has changed shirts twice: the first lost to a coffee stain shaped either like Nebraska or a small dog, depending on the angle. He borrows a tie from Jimmy, who swears it is vintage and definitely not “something I pulled from the thrift store dumpster.” Clark repeats to himself—firmly, like a mantra—that he can do this. He can attend a red carpet event, face down one of the most famous men on earth, and ask questions like a professional.

How hard could it be to avoid disaster, really?

---

The Metropolis Grand Theater is every bit as terrifying as Clark feared, and somehow worse, because his imagination clearly did not have the budget for this level of choreographed chaos.

Red velvet ropes divide the chosen from the condemned. Photographers circle like vultures in designer suits, lenses for beaks, flashes like lightning. Security guards, built like architectural features, stand watch with the weary indifference of men who have seen too much and would like, just once, to see less.

Clark hands his press credentials to a woman with a clipboard. She looks him over the way an appraiser might glance at a chipped vase, cataloguing every wrinkle in his shirt and finding his entire existence surplus to requirements.

“Daily Planet,” she says, scanning the list. “You’re Cat Grant’s replacement?”

“She had a… styling emergency,” Clark replies. The excuse sounds absurd even to him, but it is also factually correct, which feels like progress.

“Mm-hm.” The clipboard woman’s tone suggests this is the least interesting thing she has heard all evening. “Section B. No flash photography during the interviews, no questions about Bruce Wayne’s dating life, and under no circumstances are you to bring up the Method Acting Incident.”

“The what now?” Clark asks.

But she has already moved on, corralling another reporter, leaving Clark to wonder what kind of catastrophic chaos could possibly earn capitalization as the Method Acting Incident.

Clark shuffles to Section B, where photographers bark orders like drill sergeants at celebrities who glide into place with the precision of chess grandmasters. Behind the barricades, fans scream declarations ranging from the enthusiastic “MARRY ME, BRUCE!” to the slightly alarming “I LOVE YOU, DADDY BRUCE!” Clark makes the executive decision not to think too hard about that one.

That is when Bruce Wayne arrives.

The black car door opens, and the atmosphere tilts. Photographers surge like sharks, shouting his name and clawing for angles. Flashbulbs stutter in a manic storm of artificial lightning. The crowd pushes against the barriers with the fervor of the newly converted.

“Bruce! Over here! Give us the smolder!” one yells.

“Bruce, tilt your head twelve degrees—yes, just like that, baby!” another cries.

“Bruce, who are you wearing? Armani?”

Bruce meets the onslaught with composure that borders on superhuman. His tuxedo fits as though divine beings drafted the blueprint and master tailors defended it with their lives. His dark hair does not move in the evening breeze, as if even the weather knows better than to interfere.

And then he smiles. Just barely, the faintest curve of his mouth, but it is the kind of smile that causes traffic accidents, fainting spells, and possibly a measurable uptick in the city’s marriage license applications.

Clark’s pen nearly slips from his hand.

“Bruce, show us the jawline!” someone shrieks.

“Give us the brooding stare from Shadows in Gotham!” another pleads.

“Adopt me, Bruce!” a fan howls.

“I VOLUNTEER AS YOUR SECOND BUTLER!” comes from somewhere disturbingly close to hysteria.

Clark has done his last-minute research. Obviously. He has watched the movies, skimmed the glowing profiles, and endured a YouTube deep dive he regrets. But seeing Bruce Wayne in person is different. More immediate. More there. It is the difference between glancing at a photo of a tiger and realizing you are standing in the same room as the actual tiger, uncertain whether it plans to tolerate you or make you the day’s enrichment activity.

Bruce poses with co-stars, signs programs for fans who appear seconds away from swooning, and fields questions from the big-name outlets. Every gesture is calculated to the millimeter. Charming without carelessness, gracious without eagerness, enigmatic without straying into contempt. It is less red carpet and more performance art, and Clark watches from Section B like a tourist studying hieroglyphics without a guidebook.

“So, uh…” Clark mutters into his notepad. “How’s the… acting business? You like… pretending to be people for money?” He grimaces. “Brilliant, Clark. Pure Pulitzer.”

A fellow reporter side-eyes him. “You okay, new guy?”

“Totally fine,” Clark lies. “Just… practicing.”

“For what, spontaneous combustion?”

Clark is practicing, technically, for the moment he will humiliate himself so catastrophically that future journalism students will cite his implosion in textbooks.

That is also when the canapé cart makes its entrance.

Later, Clark will replay the disaster in his head like a detective reconstructing a crime scene, only the corpse is his professional dignity. The cart is meant to deliver overpriced appetizers to the VIP lounge. Instead, it bursts onto the red carpet like it has been possessed by the ghost of NASCAR, stacked precariously with shrimp cocktails and piloted by a server whose eyes already hold the hollow despair of a man negotiating with fate.

The kid, barely twenty and already a cautionary tale, pushes forward with the doomed determination of someone realizing physics has filed for divorce. The cart wobbles, accelerates, and barrels down the carpet like a seafood-loaded missile.

“Oh shit!” someone screams.

“Everybody move!” another howls.

Photographers dive behind their barricades. Celebrities scatter in heels designed for graceful photo ops, not evasive maneuvers. Security shouts into radios with the urgency of men calling in an airstrike.

Clark does not think. That is his first mistake.

He just moves because the cart is bearing down on a cluster of people that very much includes Bruce Wayne. And Clark may not be smooth, or coordinated, or even in the same postal code as graceful, but he is absolutely not the kind of man who watches a preventable disaster unfold. Never mind that “preventable” and “Clark Kent” rarely coexist in the same sentence.

His second mistake is believing he has any athletic ability beyond jogging to catch the bus.

His third is forgetting that Bruce Wayne, for all his reputation as an ornamental brooder, clearly has the reflexes of someone who has spent years rehearsing fight scenes and taking it personally when a stunt double gets too much screen time.

Clark lunges at the runaway cart, arms out in what he hopes reads as decisive. Bruce, however, sidesteps with the calm precision of a man who has already mapped Clark’s trajectory three moves ahead and resigned himself to the outcome.

Which is how Clark’s grand act of heroism becomes, without fanfare, a full-bodied tackle.

They collide with the graceless impact of two people who have never once successfully coordinated anything in their lives. Clark’s momentum slams into Bruce’s sidestep, and together they crash onto the carpet in a tangle of limbs, silk, and hubris. Clark’s notepad spins off into the night; Bruce’s legendary composure takes flight in the opposite direction.

The canapé cart does not pause to thank them for their sacrifice. It thunders past, shedding shrimp cocktails like confetti, before burying itself into a massive promotional poster for Shadows in Gotham. The crash echoes with the finality of civilization’s downfall, or at the very least, one caterer’s contract.

Clark blinks and realizes he is sprawled on top of Bruce Wayne. In theory, it is a romantic tableau. In practice, they are surrounded by shrimp casualties and paparazzi flashes documenting what will almost certainly become the single most humiliating moment of Clark’s professional life.

Bruce’s hair, flawless thirty seconds ago, now hosts a lone prawn clinging like an unfortunate, overpriced accessory. His tuxedo is skewed, his bow tie has migrated toward his ear, and his expression remains unreadable. Clark cannot tell if it is fury, shock, or the quiet calculation of a man estimating the cost of erasing Clark Kent from existence.

“Oh god. Oh god, Mr. Wayne, I am so sorry, I didn’t—the cart was—heading right for you—I thought you were going to get hit, and I just—”

Bruce sits up slowly, extracting the shrimp from his hair with deliberate care, the kind that suggests either saintly patience or a man counting to ten in several languages to avoid homicide. Around them, chaos rages on. Photographers snap like jackals at a carcass. Celebrities edge past, careful not to risk contamination by proximity.

“Well,” Bruce says at last, voice clipped enough to drop Clark’s stomach into freefall, “that is one way to secure an exclusive interview.”

Clark stares, braced for divine wrath, security intervention, or a blacklisting so permanent it echoes across time. Instead, Bruce simply looks at him.

“Once again, I am so, so sorry, Mr. Wayne,” Clark blurts, because his vocabulary has apparently narrowed to apologies and self-destruction. “I can pay for the dry cleaning, or buy you a new tuxedo, or—”

“It’s fine,” Bruce interrupts, taking a steadying hand from a co-star while Clark flails on the floor like an upended Labrador. His tone is maddeningly even. “These things happen.”

They do not, Clark thinks. Not to normal people. Certainly not in front of forty photographers and several million shrimp.

Bruce should turn away. He should glide back into the curated perfection of his evening, let an assistant scrape the shame off his tuxedo, and never think of Clark Kent again. Instead, his eyes catch on Clark’s and linger a moment too long. Something flickers across his face—something Clark cannot name, which is probably for the best. Because any hint of emotion from Bruce Wayne right now would reduce Clark to ash from sheer embarrassment.

Security finally descends, more worried about headlines than human casualties. Someone presses a monogrammed handkerchief into Bruce’s hand, as though he might duel Clark at dawn. Someone else thrusts a napkin at Clark, who uses it to smear cocktail sauce further across his shirt in a bold new technique of sabotage.

Within minutes, the catastrophe is technically contained, though not remotely forgotten. Not with photographers still snapping like vultures documenting a kill. Not with celebrities skirting them as if humiliation is contagious. Not with the certainty that somewhere, right this second, gossip blogs are already sharpening their knives.

The rest of the premiere blurs into a haze of mortification so thick it feels like a fever dream. Clark stumbles through photo ops, fidgets with his notepad during speeches about “artistic vision” and “creative collaboration,” and tries to convince himself that maybe this particular humiliation will not lead to his immediate firing and lifelong exile from journalism.

Bruce Wayne, meanwhile, navigates the evening with infuriating grace. His tuxedo is mended, his hair restored to impossible perfection, and he moves through the crowd as though the canapé catastrophe never happened. Clark catches him glancing over once or twice, though the expression remains unreadable—balanced somewhere between mild curiosity and active revenge plotting.

At last, Clark’s interview slot arrives. He approaches Bruce with all the confidence of a man walking toward his own execution, notepad clutched in hands that appear to have forgotten how to stop sweating.

“Clark Kent, Daily Planet,” he manages, his voice cracking like he’s thirteen again. “Mr. Wayne, I suppose we should talk about Shadows in Gotham. Though after tonight, I may have cast enough shadows of my own.”

It is, without competition, the worst opening line in the history of journalism. Clark immediately wants to melt into the carpet and live there forever.

But then, the impossible happens: Bruce Wayne’s mouth twitches. Barely. The faintest betrayal of composure, as if he is fighting off something dangerously close to amusement.

“Creative approach,” Bruce says, his voice dry as old stone but not entirely unfriendly. “Most reporters just ask about my process.”

“Right, your process.” Clark seizes on the word like a drowning man reaching for driftwood. “What is your process? Do you do a lot of research, or just… brood until it feels right?”

“I don’t brood.”

“You absolutely brood. It’s practically your brand.”

One of Bruce’s eyebrows arches, a subtle, lethal motion that suggests Clark has either said something interesting or something that will get him sued. “Are you implying my acting is one-dimensional?”

“I’m saying you’ve perfected the art of looking mysteriously tortured under dramatic lighting.” Clark realizes, with some horror, that he’s actually relaxing into this. “It’s a skill. I hope I’m not—well, I hope I’m not being rude.”

Bruce almost smiles this time. Almost. “That’s your professional assessment?”

“That’s my personal observation. Not personal personal. Professionally personal. Journalistically personal.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It could be.”

And somehow, against all odds, they are talking. Bruce asks Clark about his other work—apparently someone who writes about municipal corruption is, in his words, “refreshingly honest about boring topics.” Clark, in turn, finds himself making bolder and bolder observations about Bruce’s filmography, speculating whether his character choices reveal a deeper psychological pattern or simply very good career management.

“You think I have a psychological pattern?” Bruce asks, his tone unreadable, like he is testing the words before deciding whether to file them under insult or intrigue.

“I think everyone does,” Clark replies.

“And yours?”

Clark actually thinks about it. He has the audacity to treat the question seriously. “Catastrophic overthinking,” he says at last, “followed by spectacular public failure.”

Bruce laughs. Not a polite exhale, not a press-friendly chuckle, but an actual laugh, low and genuine. For a heartbeat, Clark forgets about the cameras, the handlers, the circus of Hollywood publicity. For a heartbeat, it feels absurdly like they are just two men having a conversation—ridiculous, impossible, because one of them is Bruce Wayne, for Christ’s sake—but the feeling lodges itself anyway.

Then Bruce’s handler materializes like a sharply dressed harbinger of doom. She wears an expensive suit and does not so much as glance at Clark, as though he is an inconvenient piece of furniture someone forgot to remove.

“Mr. Wayne,” she says crisply, “we need to move. The after-party is waiting, Fallon is expecting you, and the morning show circuit starts at six in the morning.”

Bruce’s expression shifts so quickly Clark almost doubts it happened. The humor vanishes. The warmth folds away. In its place is the polished charm Clark recognizes from glossy spreads and red-carpet footage—the kind of perfection that looks natural only because it has been rehearsed within an inch of its life.

“Of course,” Bruce says, straightening his tuxedo with practiced grace. His gaze flicks back to Clark, brief but pointed. “Thank you for the… interesting interview, Mr. Kent.”

He’s gone before Clark can respond, swept away in a tide of handlers and assistants and people whose entire job appears to be keeping Bruce Wayne moving from one obligation to the next. Clark is left standing alone on the red carpet, holding his notepad and wondering what the hell just happened.

The interview had been good. For a few minutes, he had spoken to a person instead of a brand, to someone who laughed and argued and looked at him like he mattered. But now Bruce Wayne has vanished back into the orbit of managed appearances and calculated soundbites, leaving Clark with nothing more than a handful of quotes... and the unsettling sense that, however briefly, he had glimpsed the man behind the performance.

---

The article practically writes itself, which is either proof that Clark has stumbled onto his true calling or evidence that the evening was so surreal it bypassed the laws of normal journalism altogether. He stays up until three in the morning, running on a jittery cocktail of caffeine and adrenaline that makes everything feel both crystal clear and completely deranged.

He covers the premiere, the film, the speeches—everything Perry will expect. But he also leans into the canapé incident, framing it with the kind of self-deprecating humor that somehow makes disaster sound like a quirky human-interest feature instead of professional self-immolation.

He calls Bruce Wayne “surprisingly human amid the glamour,” which feels accurate but also laughably inadequate. He even manages to spin the shrimp-in-hair catastrophe into something endearing, the way one might talk about a very dignified cat caught falling off a counter.

The piece has personality in a way most entertainment journalism doesn’t. It is honest about the absurdity of the night, painfully self-aware about Clark’s own inexperience with celebrity culture, and, most damningly, genuinely affectionate toward its subject without tipping into fawning.

At three forty-seven a.m., Clark hits submit. Panic descends immediately. It is too casual. Too personal. Too weird for the Planet’s usual coverage. He takes two Advil, collapses into bed, and dreams of being hunted down by an army of canapé carts armed with shrimp skewers.

By Thursday morning, the article had gone viral. Not just popular—viral. It is everywhere: quoted by entertainment outlets, dissected on late-night talk shows, and memed into oblivion by fans who find the image of Bruce Wayne with a prawn in his hair not just amusing but apparently absolutely irresistible. 

Clark’s phone buzzes nonstop with interview requests, follow-up questions, and messages from college friends he hasn’t spoken to in years, all of them suddenly desperate to know if he is “actually friends with Bruce Wayne now.”

The Daily Planet’s traffic numbers skyrocket. Perry White ambushes Clark at the coffee machine, his grin so blinding it should come with an eclipse warning. Nothing good ever starts with Perry grinning.

Seriously, why is the coffee station everyone’s favorite place to ambush him lately?

“Kent!” Perry booms, because everything Perry says is apparently worthy of booming when website metrics are climbing like rocket launches. “I don’t know what kind of sorcery you pulled at that premiere, but do it again. Three different publications are trying to poach you, and five entertainment editors want to know if you’re free to freelance.”

Clark should feel triumphant. Instead, unease gnaws at him.

It isn’t just that he’s supposed to be an investigative reporter, and none of his corruption exposés have ever made it past page six. He tells himself he isn’t bitter about that. The problem is the article itself.

It was honest, yes, but it hinged on Bruce Wayne’s moment of vulnerability—even if that vulnerability involved nothing more than surviving Clark’s catastrophic tackling skills. Clark had tried to frame it respectfully, highlighting Bruce’s humor and professionalism instead of the humiliation, but the truth lingered: the piece was built on someone else’s misfortune.

He is still wrestling with that ethical tangle, still wondering if it is possible to feel guilty about success, when he gets home that evening and stops dead.

Because Bruce Wayne is sitting on his front steps.

Clark freezes. Bruce is dressed down in black slacks and a dark sweater, his hair mussed like he has been running a hand through it for hours. He looks tired in a way Clark has never seen on a screen—less movie star, more man who has fought three wars and lost at least two of them to insomnia.

“Mr. Wayne?” Clark’s voice comes out in a squeak that is absolutely not the professional, mature tone he was aiming for. “What are you—how did you even—”

“Your address is in the old phone book,” Bruce replies. The explanation is somehow mildly threatening. His gaze flicks to Clark. “And it’s Bruce.”

“Right. Bruce. Okay.” Clark nods too many times because his brain has apparently defaulted to bobblehead mode. He glances at his surroundings—the modest apartment buildings, the laundry strung across fire escapes, the corner store with bars on the windows that do nothing to deter crime—and wonders how this must look to a man who probably has a different wing in his mansion for every day of the week. “This is… unexpected.”

Bruce rises smoothly to his feet, and that’s when Clark notices the paparazzi. They are scattered across the street, pretending to be casual pedestrians, but the telephoto lenses give them away. Half a dozen at least, maybe more, all aimed squarely at Clark’s very unremarkable front door as if he had just become the most fascinating man in Metropolis.

“They’ve been following me since Tuesday,” Bruce says, his voice low. Not angry exactly, but edged with exhaustion, frustration carefully folded into composure. “I was wondering if I could… hide out here for a while.”

Clark blinks. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Hide. Here. From them.” Bruce gestures toward the photographers with the restrained irritation of a man who has survived too many red carpets and lost every battle. “Just until they get bored and move on.”

Clark stares. Bruce Wayne, a man with a team of professionals trained to whisk him out of any crisis, is asking to hide in Clark Kent’s apartment. Like they are friends. Like Clark is the kind of man who has friends who are famous actors, instead of the kind of man whose most intense social exchange this week was a passive-aggressive fight with his landlord about the air conditioning.

“Please,” Bruce adds.

“Yeah,” Clark hears himself say, his voice sounding like it’s coming from somewhere very far away. “Yeah, okay. But I should warn you, my apartment is… not what you’re probably used to.”

Bruce’s mouth quirks—just slightly—in what might be the beginning of a smile. “I think I can handle it.”

Clark fumbles with his keys, which suddenly feel like they’ve multiplied out of spite. Why does he own this many keys? Why do none of them fit when he is under the judgmental gaze of professional photographers? Meanwhile, Bruce stands close enough that Clark can feel his warmth, distracting in a way that makes Clark’s hands shake and his brain short-circuit.

Finally, the lock clicks open, and Clark can only think one catastrophic thought as Bruce Wayne steps inside:

Bruce Wayne is in his apartment.

And nothing in his life is likely to recover.

The apartment feels smaller instantly, as though Bruce’s presence bends the laws of physics. Clark becomes painfully aware of every coffee ring staining the table, every book teetering in a precarious tower on the floor, every dish still soaking in the sink. Bruce takes it all in with that unreadable gaze, cataloguing details without offering the courtesy of judgment out loud.

“Sorry about the mess,” Clark blurts, sweeping newspapers and takeout containers into his arms like he is about to juggle them in a doomed audition. “I wasn’t expecting company. Especially not… you.”

“It’s fine,” Bruce says. He crosses to the window, parts the blinds just enough to survey the street, then shuts them in one quick, decisive motion.

“So… what happened? With the photographers, I mean. Why are they after you now?”

Bruce runs a hand through his hair, mussing it further, which should be illegal given how good he still looks. “Someone snapped photos of me at a pottery class on Tuesday. Now the internet thinks I have a secret love child because I was helping some kid with a clay bowl.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Clark says, and he means it. “Can’t you sue them or something?”

“For what? Taking pictures in public? Inventing parental responsibilities I definitely don’t have?” Bruce gives a short, humorless laugh. “The headline was ‘BRUCE WAYNE: SECRET DAD OR JUST TERRIBLE AT POTTERY?’ They even included close-ups of me covered in clay, looking like I’d barely crawled out of a mudslide.”

Clark bites back a smile. “Were you actually terrible at pottery?”

“Disastrous. The instructor had to rebuild my mug three times. I turned a bowl into something she generously called ‘abstract art.’” Bruce’s mouth twitches, betraying the faintest amusement. “Now half the internet thinks I’m hiding children, and the other half is circulating photos of me looking like I lost a fight with wet cement.”

Clark thinks about his own article, about how he turned Bruce’s vulnerable moment into copy—even though he tried to be respectful—and guilt twists in his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “About the article. I tried to be fair, but I still wrote about you getting tackled by a canapé cart, and that wasn’t exactly your choice—”

“Your article was fine,” Bruce interrupts, shutting down Clark’s spiral before it detonates. “More than fine. It was the first piece written about me in months that didn’t sound like a vulture gnawing on roadkill. And believe me, I’ve read some truly brutal things about myself and pottery.”

Clark blinks. “What? Really?”

“You managed to write something funny without making me look like an idiot. It was ridiculous, and you treated it that way. You could’ve spun it into me secretly having a family, or worse, accused me of harassing you over a canapé cart.” Bruce shrugs, as if he hasn’t just said the most disarming thing Clark’s ever heard. “That’s why I came here.”

“To thank me?”

“To lay low until the world decides I’m not secretly raising a family of pottery prodigies. Bad pottery prodigies, at that.” Bruce hesitates, then adds, quieter, “But yes. Also to thank you.”

Outside, camera flashes flare against the windows like bursts of lightning. The paparazzi have settled in for the long haul, turning Clark’s apartment into something that feels uncomfortably like a bunker. Their voices drift, trading gossip, speculating about Bruce’s supposed breakdown, and comparing lenses like soldiers comparing weapons.

“How long do they usually stick around?” Clark asks.

“Hours. Sometimes days, if they think there’s money in it.” Bruce drags a hand through his hair again, and Clark tries very hard not to notice the way the gesture makes his stomach flip. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. I just… I didn’t know where else to go.”

The thought knocks Clark sideways. Bruce Wayne, Gotham royalty, global celebrity, the man who can book an entire island just to brood in peace, has nowhere else to go. And somehow he has ended up here, in Clark Kent’s cluttered apartment, because it is the only place that feels safe from people determined to auction off his life in real time.

“You can stay. If you want. Until they leave. I’ve got coffee, and tea, and…” Clark waves a hand vaguely at the apartment, trying to come up with anything remotely enticing to a man who probably has staff to mix his beverages and chefs to cook his meals. “Cable?”

Bruce’s mouth quirks, the faintest ghost of a smile. “Cable sounds perfect.”

They end up on Clark’s couch, which is at least structurally sound if you don’t look at it too hard. Clark makes coffee for himself, tea for Bruce, and then sits, hyperaware of every inch between them, every threadbare cushion under scrutiny by a man who probably owns couches worth more than Clark’s yearly salary.

It should be awkward. A journalist and a movie star cornered in a modest apartment, waiting out the paparazzi siege. But it isn’t. Somehow, Bruce Wayne is startlingly easy to talk to when he isn’t flanked by handlers or drowning in flashbulbs. He listens intently while Clark rambles about municipal corruption and zoning board drama, and he offers absurd Hollywood stories in return, delivered with the kind of bone-dry humor Clark is beginning to recognize as his baseline setting.

“So there I am,” Bruce says, gesturing with his mug, “hanging upside down from a helicopter for the third take because the director wanted ‘more authentic fear in my eyes.’ And I’m thinking, maybe my college advisor was right about the accounting degree.”

Clark almost sprays coffee across the room. “You studied accounting?”

“Business, technically. But accounting was part of it.” Bruce’s expression tilts toward something wry. “My parents said I should have something to fall back on.” A shadow crosses his face, brief but unmistakable. “They died when I was eight.”

Clark sets his mug down, voice soft. “I’m sorry. That must have been—”

“Yeah.” Bruce cuts him off gently, the word flat but not unkind. “Acting was never the plan. It just… happened. And now here I am, hiding in a stranger’s apartment.”

“We’re not strangers,” Clark stammers, then immediately regrets how eager it sounds. “I mean—we’re not friends, exactly. But not strangers either. We’re… something. I don’t know. Are we friends now?”

Bruce looks up at him, eyes unreadable, the weight of them making Clark’s heart lurch in his chest. Then, after a beat: “Something like that.”

They talk until well past midnight, their conversation meandering from childhood memories—Clark’s farm chores versus Bruce’s boarding school duels with Latin homework—to career disasters. Clark recounts his infamous hydrant interview, while Bruce admits to an on-stage breakdown during Hamlet that made tabloids question whether tragedy was contagious. Bruce describes directors who mistake shouting for vision and co-stars who insist on staying “in character” through lunch. Clark counters with politicians who treat corruption like a personal brand and sources who vanish faster than free donuts at the Planet.

Somewhere along the way, they drift toward the middle of the couch. Knees brush whenever one of them leans forward, or when Clark gestures too enthusiastically, or when Bruce reaches for his mug with deliberate calm. Clark becomes painfully, acutely aware of the contact.

Then Bruce catches him staring, their eyes locking for a moment that lingers just a little too long. Clark’s breath hitches, his heart pounding against his ribs like it’s trying to break free. For a second, he thinks—maybe—

But Bruce looks away first, gaze flicking toward the window. “I should check if they’re still out there.”

Clark nods, pretending the air between them isn’t humming like a live wire. Bruce parts the blinds, cautious. The flashes have stopped; the street lies quiet, littered with scraps of late-night Metropolis, empty but not entirely safe.

“I think they gave up,” Bruce says, though his voice suggests otherwise. “Or they’re waiting for me to walk out the door.”

“You can stay the night,” Clark offers again, aiming for casual but landing somewhere closer to desperate. “The couch pulls out. It’s not much, but it beats running a gauntlet of photographers.”

Bruce hesitates, weighing his options. “Are you sure? I don’t want to impose.”

“It’s not an imposition.” Clark knows that’s technically a lie—because Bruce Wayne in his apartment feels like the kind of thing that could kill him, albeit in a pleasant way—but he presses on. “I insist. Or you can take my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

“I’ll take the couch,” Bruce says.

And so Bruce Wayne spends the night on Clark Kent’s pull-out couch, which is surreal enough to make Clark consider the possibility of hallucination. But no. Bruce is really there, wearing one of Clark’s oversized flannels, brushing his teeth with a spare toothbrush dug from the back of a cabinet, moving with a quiet ease that makes the apartment feel… different. Like it belongs to both of them for the night.

Clark lies awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of another person inhabiting his space. The couch creaks as Bruce shifts, trying to fold six-foot-something of himself onto a mattress designed for someone shorter. Clark bites back the urge to offer his bed again. Not for romantic reasons. Mostly. The pull-out couch was never built for men who could single-handedly model for a watch ad.

This is insane, Clark thinks. Bruce Wayne is sleeping in my living room because paparazzi chased him here, and tomorrow he’ll leave and go back to his real life.

Then it will be nothing more than a strange story to tell at the office, assuming his colleagues don’t interrogate him into incoherence first.

Chapter 2: Very Friendsly

Summary:

Clark battles gossip, tabloids, and Bruce Wayne rumors—then finds the world’s worst rom-com script in his inbox.

“Clark. Clark. Did he touch your arm? Just blink twice if there was meaningful eye contact.”

“Can I quote you in my gossip column? No? What if I make it anonymous and spell your name with a K?”

“Do you think he’d sign my laptop?”

“…Do you think he’d sign me? Like, right here on my forehead?”

Clark Kent arrives at his desk, moving like a man returning from war, specifically the kind where you accidentally tackle both Hollywood and Gotham royalty and somehow live to tell the tale. He lowers himself into his ergonomically hostile chair and tries to spiritually fuse with the upholstery, praying that if he becomes indistinguishable from office furniture, maybe everyone will leave him in peace.

They do not. They never will.

Not when half the newsroom, including three coworkers who have avoided him ever since the Great Potluck Disaster of Christmas, are suddenly united in their burning curiosity:

What does it feel like to tackle Bruce Wayne?

What does it feel like to drag a full sentence out of Bruce Wayne, a man who otherwise communicates exclusively through polite smirks and emotionally distant shrugs?

And what does it feel like to write the one article in recent memory that makes Bruce Wayne sound like a human being? Not a cryptid caught on a grainy camera. Not a high-profile lawsuit wearing cufflinks. Definitely not the unwilling poster boy for at least four high-profile scandals.

Naturally, everyone wants details. Personal details. The kind Clark does not have, will not share, and definitely is not thinking about every five minutes like some kind of—

“Clark, my disaster child,” Cat Grant purrs, appearing beside his desk in a cloud of perfume that is definitely not Monday’s perfume. This one is sharper, louder, probably French, and almost certainly more expensive. “I come bearing gratitude.”

Oh no. Cat Grant. Again. And she is in that mood. Again.

He looks up with the expression of a man who has just spotted his own obituary in the morning paper. “Morning, Cat. I appreciate… whatever this is about to be. But really, you don’t have to.”

“Of course I do.” She sweeps a hand through the air like she's unveiling a monument to her own magnificence. “You saved my entire reputation from the fashion equivalent of nuclear winter. Do you understand what would have happened if I'd shown up to that premiere with bad hair, Clark? Bad hair. They would have buried me alive in the Style section.”

She presses a hand to her heart, every inch the tragic heroine. “But now? Sweet, miraculous vindication. That article is pure, accidental genius. You made the Planet trend harder than a royal divorce and a government conspiracy combined.”

“I’m just glad it worked out.”

“Name your reward. Anything.” Her eyes glitter with dangerous delight. “Front row at the Met Gala? That politician’s son who called you ‘cute’? Or”—her grin turns positively wicked—“Rebecca from Sports.”

Clark goes scarlet. “Cat, I really don’t need any of that.”

“Clark Kent,” she sighs, dripping pity, “your love life is a tragic little novella written entirely in invisible ink.”

“I’ve dated!” he protests. “I’ve had relationships. And… situationships.”

“Be for real,” Lois cuts in. She’s got coffee in one hand, disdain in the other. “Your last actual relationship was Lana Lang. In high school. You gave her a plastic rose at Homecoming and nearly passed out before she said yes.”

Clark whirls so fast he nearly pulls something in his neck. “How do you even—That’s not the point! I’ve had hookups. Casual ones. Very casual. Consensual-adult-level casual—”

He should stop. He knows he should stop. Every word out of his mouth is another shovelful, burying himself alive with a novelty-sized spade. At this point, it sounds less like a defense of his dating history and more like sworn testimony before a congressional ethics committee.

Cat lays a manicured hand on his arm with all the pity of a funeral director. “Sweetheart, your idea of flirting is saying ‘nice weather’ and actually meaning it.” She tilts her head. “This is why I’m intervening. Consider it community service.”

Lois sips her coffee with the smug ease of someone who has Clark’s entire tragic history archived and cross-referenced. “Cat, please. Your matchmaking skills aren’t exactly legendary either. Last time you tried, a man cheated on his wife and switched political parties.”

“That was not matchmaking,” Cat replies, serene as royalty delivering a decree. “That was a romantic intervention. And technically, his wife should not have subscribed to our gossip alerts if she didn’t want to know.”

“You emailed her surveillance photos,” Lois says flatly.

“Anonymously,” Cat corrects, chin lifting with regal dignity. “Completely different ethical framework.”

Jimmy Olsen then springs up from behind a filing cabinet like a jack-in-the-box, camera already half-raised. “Did someone say photos? Because I’ve been perfecting my stealth paparazzi technique, and Clark’s tragic love life is perfect training material.”

The shutter fires with the grim commitment of a war correspondent covering a humanitarian disaster.

“Give me that ‘mysterious celebrity encounter’ face!”

“I don’t have a mysterious celebrity encounter face,” Clark protests, immediately shielding his own like he’s on the run from the IRS and several hostile entities.

Jimmy circles him. “Everyone has one. It lives somewhere between ‘I’ve seen things’ and ‘no comment for legal reasons.’”

Click. Click. Click.

“Jimmy,” Clark warns, ducking behind his laptop like its cracked screen qualifies as riot gear. “I am not a story.”

“Oh, you’re absolutely a story.” Jimmy grins, swapping lenses with the efficiency of someone who has been waiting years for this moment. “Headline writes itself: Local Reporter Who Tackled Bruce Wayne Now Develops Genetic Fear of Cameras.”

“And... I’m not camera-phobic,” Clark mutters. “I just prefer to preserve the little dignity I have left.”

“Same thing,” Jimmy says cheerfully, adjusting his zoom.

Lois clears her throat. Not a polite throat-clear, but the kind that signals a public execution. “Speaking of mysterious celebrity encounters…” She raises her phone like evidence at trial, her expression already halfway to guilty verdict.

The photo is grainy, slightly overexposed, but the damage is clear. Bruce Wayne—impossibly recognizable even in the most normal outfit—stands on the steps of Clark’s apartment. Beside him is Clark, mid-gesture, looking like he has just been caught in the act of confessing either a crime or his undying love.

Clark’s soul evacuates, detours briefly through a parallel timeline where he makes better life choices, then slams back into his body with the weight of catastrophe. “Where did you get that?”

“The internet,” Lois says, scrolling with the grim focus of a woman drafting her dissertation on public scandal. “Where reputations go to die and conspiracy theories breed like fruit flies. You’re trending. Again.”

Clark blinks. “I’m what?”

Trending. Not the Pulitzer kind. Not even the canapé-cart kind, which at least had charm. This is the other kind—the kind with hashtags, fan edits, and entire Reddit threads dedicated to dissecting a single badly timed expression as though it’s classified evidence.

Lois keeps scrolling, merciless. “Some of these headlines are art. ‘Billionaire Actor in Midnight Rendezvous.’ ‘Secret Lawsuit Settlement or Hidden Love Child?’ And—oh my god—this one comes with charts. Actual pie charts. Someone built a full red-string conspiracy board about you, Clark.”

“We’re not—” Clark’s voice cracks like a teenager getting caught sneaking in past curfew. “It’s not—he’s not—I’m not—we’re not dating.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Lois replies evenly, still scrolling as if she’s checking the stock market. “I said everyone else thinks you are.”

“But people are wrong!”

“People also think birds are government drones and that pineapple on pizza is a war crime,” she says. “Accuracy has never been the internet’s strong suit.”

Cat fully rejoins the conversation like she’s been waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Her eyes narrow. “Clark Kent, did Bruce Wayne actually come to your apartment?”

“It’s not what it looks like!”

“Because if Bruce Wayne came to your apartment and you didn’t immediately call me with a full debrief,” Cat continues, her voice climbing into a register fit for both opera houses and emergency sirens, “that’s a betrayal of trust I will take both personally and legally.”

She slams both hands on his desk. “Is this why you keep rejecting my matchmaking? Because you’re secretly involved with Gotham’s most eligible bachelor and arguably the hottest man in Hollywood?”

“No!” Clark blurts, louder than intended. His face burns so hot it could be used to power the building’s heating system. “I am not dating Bruce Wayne!”

The words ring across the newsroom with the clarity of a courtroom confession.

The newsroom falls silent for a beat, every head turning at once. Keys stop clacking, phones stop ringing. Even the copy machine seems to pause mid-groan.

Clark feels the weight of every gaze. He is surrounded by investigative journalists, trained to sniff out scandal before it exists, and they are staring at him like he has just announced his sideline as a serial killer.

This is it. Not a blaze of glory chasing down city hall corruption. Not even a quiet retirement in Smallville. Clark Kent will perish here, by public humiliation, immortalized as a walking headline. And all of it, every excruciating second, is because of Bruce Wayne.

Clark exhales through his nose, bracing like a bull about to charge. “He was avoiding paparazzi. That’s it. He needed somewhere to go. That’s all.”

“He needed somewhere to go,” Lois repeats slowly, like she’s narrating the opening line of a romance novel everyone knows the ending to. “Clark, celebrities don’t just wander into random apartments. They have security details. Secret exits. Decoy cars. Probably teleporters.”

And she is not wrong. Bruce Wayne, whose net worth outpaces small nations, almost certainly has panic rooms scattered across every city on Earth. If he needed to hide, he could have vanished into a five-star suite or the back of a bulletproof SUV. Instead, he picked Clark’s aggressively average apartment.

“Maybe I was just… convenient,” Clark says, the word weak on his tongue.

“Convenient,” Cat repeats, tasting it like champagne she doesn’t quite believe is vintage. “Or—and humor me here—Bruce Wayne has developed a personal interest in our adorably slow-on-the-uptake Mr. Kent.”

Clark opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

“That’s not—That’s—”

He doesn’t finish. Because the second he declares that’s impossible, someone will ask why. And then he’ll have to admit he is just a man from Kansas who routinely loses arguments to automatic doors, panics in the presence of attractive people, and once told a senator she had a “firm handshake” in a tone that sounded like foreplay.

“Because,” Lois cuts in, her voice honed to a scalpel—mercy never her style—“I checked. Bruce Wayne has never once taken shelter with a reporter. Not even when cornered by twenty paparazzi. He has people for that. He has infrastructure for that. He has decoy planes for that.”

She flips her phone in her hand again like she’s brandishing a dagger. “And yet—there he is. Outside your apartment. After one incident involving shrimp and a rogue canapé cart.”

Clark stares at the photo. Then at Lois. Then at the floor, which stubbornly refuses to open into a sinkhole. He makes a mental note to petition the universe later. Sinkholes are natural disasters. No one blames you for natural disasters.

“And may I remind you,” Lois says, her tone slipping into prosecutor mode, “that the drive from Gotham to Metropolis is forty-five minutes. Minimum. That’s not a casual detour. That’s a decision. That’s typing your address into GPS and committing to it emotionally, spiritually, and logistically.”

Clark clears his throat. “Maybe he had… meetings. Leftover… movie stuff. In Metropolis. Hollywood business.” The words collapse in the air like alphabet soup with bad intentions.

Lois doesn’t even blink.

“We’re… friends now, too,” Clark tries, every syllable weaker than the last. “I guess.”

“You’ve spoken once.”

“Yeah, but it went… really well?”

“Right. Just be careful, Clark. Celebrity friendships can be… complicated.”

The conversation collapses into newsroom chaos after that—Jimmy launches into a monologue about his “avant-garde candid project,” Cat renews her feud with the fashion editor at the Metropolis Tribune—but Clark can’t shake the suspicion that Lois has already filed away... something.

By lunchtime, his inbox looks like it’s been personally targeted by every entertainment journalist. The subject lines read like a slow descent into madness:

• BRUCE + REPORTER? EXCLUSIVE DETAILS INSIDE.

• DAILY PLANET HEARTTHROB IN SECRET SCANDAL?

• WE ANALYZE THE WAYNE–KENT BODY LANGUAGE (WITH PROFESSIONAL CHARTS).

• BREAKING: BRUCE WAYNE SEEN WITH MYSTERIOUS REPORTER (PHOTOS INSIDE).

This is hell. Not the fire-and-brimstone kind, but the uniquely modern variety, where your inbox becomes ground zero for a media frenzy and your face is one bad crop away from becoming a reaction image. Clark isn’t just trending; he’s being dissected, theorized about, and turned into digital folklore. Somewhere between the fan-made timelines and speculative body language breakdowns, he has officially entered the conspiracy theory multiverse. All because one (1) movie star stood outside his apartment and entered his life.

He grabs a sad desk-drawer sandwich and escapes to Centennial Park, where the trees do not care about trending tags and the pigeons respect his anonymity. For thirty minutes, he chews in relative peace and pretends his life is not spiraling into slow-motion absurdity.

That is when he sees it.

Buried between a dozen press inquiries and a suspiciously enthusiastic “ARE YOU DATING BRUCE WAYNE???” from Jenny—his old campus radio partner, who adds, Also, is he as hot in person as he is on screen? Asking for science. And also me personally ;)—there it is:

From: [email protected]
Subject: Thanks again + something that might make you laugh – B

Clark stares at his inbox. Somehow, Bruce Wayne has gone from mysteriously acquiring his home address to acquiring his email. At this point, Clark half-expects to find a handwritten letter tucked into a tree stump or a message spelled out in the flight path of carrier pigeons.

Realistically, flash mobs are probably next. And knowing his luck, he’ll trip during one and go viral for all the wrong reasons.

He exhales, clicks open the message, and braces himself the way people usually do for performance reviews or medical test results.

Kent—

Thanks again for the refuge last night. Hope the media circus doesn’t cause you too many professional headaches.

Too late for that. The phrase “media circus” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Speaking of professional headaches, I’m attaching something that should either make you laugh or seriously question my career choices. Both reactions are completely valid and probably accurate.

Let me know what you think. Might need a journalistically professional opinion from someone who understands how normal humans communicate.

—Bruce

Clark blinks at the email. Then, at the attachment. Then back at the email.

He can’t decide what’s more surreal: that Bruce Wayne is sending him emails like they’re coworkers in a very strange office job, or that Bruce apparently considers him a translator for normal human behavior.

Attachment: Hearts_in_Hiding_Final_Draft.pdf

Clark clicks. Immediately chokes on his sandwich hard enough that a passing jogger slows down, debating whether to attempt the Heimlich or just dial emergency services.

It’s a script. A romantic comedy script.

He blinks at the screen once, then again, as if the title might transform into something less aggressively saccharine. It does not.

The tagline practically shouts at him in cursive italics: When a reclusive billionaire, weary of gold-diggers, masquerades as a humble bookstore owner and falls for a quirky veterinarian who swears love is a luxury she can’t afford, they must both discover that the heart’s truth is worth more than all the world’s riches.

Clark continues to stare.

Starring:
Bruce Wayne as Sebastian Hawthorne
Selina Kyle as Harmony Meadow

Harmony Meadow.
Harmony. Meadow.

Clark does not know whether to laugh, cry, or lie down in the nearest field and let squirrels dismantle him. Who signs off on this? Why does she sound like she was named by a lifestyle blog that also sells artisanal teas?

FADE IN:

EXT. QUAINT BOOKSTORE – DAY

SEBASTIAN HAWTHORNE (30s, devastatingly handsome) arranges books in the window of The Dusty Tome—a charming, underperforming bookstore that definitely doesn’t run on offshore accounts or suspicious shell companies.

SEBASTIAN
Another day of pretending to be poor. Thank God my trust fund covers method acting classes.

Enter: MR. WHISKERS, a dog with the coordination of a drunk toddler. He launches himself at the window like a furry missile.

HARMONY MEADOW (20s, quirky) hurtles after him, colliding directly with Sebastian and obliterating a display of what might be genuine first editions.

This is—Clark thinks with dawning horror—alarmingly familiar. Swap the bookstore for a red carpet, the dog for a canapé cart, and this isn’t fiction. It was Monday.

HARMONY
Oh God! I’m so sorry, Mr. Whiskers thinks gravity is a suggestion, and I was busy calculating how many organs I’d need to sell to cover an emergency vet bill—

SEBASTIAN (detangling himself from what may or may not be a Gutenberg Bible)
It’s fine. Are you hurt?

HARMONY
Only my pride. And maybe my belief in evolution, because clearly Mr. Whiskers exists to disprove it.

TIME SLOWS. ROMANTIC MUSIC SWELLS. It is wildly inappropriate for a sidewalk pile-up involving a concussed dog and probably book damage.

SEBASTIAN
You have very... compelling thoughts about veterinary economics.

HARMONY
You have suspiciously expensive taste for someone who allegedly sells dusty books for a living.

SEBASTIAN (visibly sweating)
I... have very discerning... book-loving... deceased relatives?

Clark lets out a sound halfway between a snort and a dying whimper.

Bruce Wayne—a man whose most recent film included forty-seven uninterrupted minutes of meaningful silence and a kitchen fire used as metaphor for generational trauma—is about to star in a romantic comedy that reads like it was written by a malfunctioning algorithm that only consumed expired greeting cards and Hallmark scripts set in “Mistletoe Falls.”

Sebastian’s attempts at romance are worse: yacht club galas disguised as “community sailing nights,” museum fundraisers repackaged as “local educational luncheons,” and dialogue that looks like it survived two nervous breakdowns and a round of Google Translate.

HARMONY
Sebastian, is that an original manuscript of The Great Gatsby?

SEBASTIAN (panicking visibly)
That’s... an extremely convincing replica. Practically indistinguishable from the real thing. But absolutely fake. Just like me. I mean—it. The manuscript. It’s fake.

HARMONY
Are you secretly wealthy?

SEBASTIAN
Define “wealthy.”

HARMONY
Having more money than the GDP of at least three small European nations.

SEBASTIAN
Then no. Definitely not. I’m just a humble bookstore owner with a very generous inheritance from great-uncle Bartholomew. Who is absolutely real. And definitely not someone I invented five seconds ago to justify my suspicious lifestyle.

Clark is horrified. Clark is transfixed. It’s like watching a luxury car crash in slow motion: everyone is impossibly attractive, the choreography feels suspiciously meaningful, and the flames are bathed in golden-hour lighting.

This is so bad it loops back around to good, some deeply unwell corner of his brain whispers. Cosmically terrible, yes, but in the way that dares you to keep reading just to confirm that yes, it really does get worse.

It does. It absolutely does.

The climax is, predictably, an airport confrontation, complete with torrential rain that only makes everyone look more photogenic and a surprise orchestral score that apparently blasts through the terminal’s PA system with Dolby-level clarity.

SEBASTIAN (running through the airport)
Harmony, wait!

HARMONY (spinning on cue, hair catching the wind like she’s being directed by a sentient fan machine)
Why should I? So you can lie to me again?

SEBASTIAN
Yes, I lied about the money. Yes, I may have bought that vineyard just to stage a “magical coincidence” wine tasting. Yes, I own three helicopters and a heart-shaped private island.
But I never lied about this—
(gestures wildly at his chest like he’s having a melodramatic coronary)
—about us. About the way you make me want to be a man who owns fewer helicopters.

HARMONY (tears streaking her face in a way that somehow makes her look more radiant)
How do I even know what’s real anymore? How do I know you’re not just another billionaire who thinks love is something you can buy with aircraft and geographically improbable real estate?

SEBASTIAN
Because I’d give it all up. Every penny, every property, every piece of aggressively themed architecture.
You’re not something I can afford, Harmony—
You’re the necessity I can’t live without.
My bank account is overflowing, but without you, my heart is bankrupt.

HARMONY (pausing)
Did… did you just use a financial metaphor to declare your love?

SEBASTIAN
I panicked!
The point is, I love you more than my money. Which, as you know, is a lot.

HARMONY (softening despite the flagrant abuse of language)
Oh, Sebastian… You beautiful hedge fund of a man.

Clark is so locked onto the cinematic trainwreck glowing from his laptop that he doesn’t notice Lois’s shadow creeping over his sandwich until it blots out the sun like an omen.

“Having fun?”

He jolts like a man caught watching something inappropriate in a public library. “Lois! I didn’t see you there.”

She raises an eyebrow and drops onto the bench beside him with the ease of a jungle cat on a coffee break.

“Clearly. You were making faces like someone experiencing either acute gastrointestinal distress or a war crime in screenplay form.”

She unwraps what looks like a responsibly balanced lunch, the kind with vegetables, while Clark’s half-eaten desk-drawer sandwich sits in silent shame.

“So,” she says lightly, taking a bite, “what’s got you out here in the park, looking like you just watched the Titanic sink in 4K?”

“Just… reading.”

“Mm.” Lois chews thoughtfully, her grin all teeth and trouble. “Reading what? Because that was not the face of someone enjoying prize-winning literature.”

Before Clark can formulate a response that doesn’t involve confessing either his growing fascination with Bruce Wayne or his complete inability to process any of this like a normal human being, his phone rings.

Unknown number.

He stares at it like it might explode. Then it rings again. It’s the same number, but with the persistence of someone who has both unlimited minutes and questionable boundaries.

Against all instinct, he answers. “Hello?”

“Kent.”

The voice is unmistakable. Low and slightly rough. In the background, Clark can make out distant voices, the hiss of what sounds like industrial steam equipment, and someone yelling, “If that Versace jacket gets singed, you’re all fired!”

“Bruce?” Clark blurts. “How did you get my number?”

“Old phone book,” Bruce replies, because apparently that’s his solution to everything. “Did you get my email?”

Clark’s heart attempts several Olympic-level gymnastics routines and sticks absolutely none of the landings. “The… yes. I got it.”

“And?”

“And what?”

The pause is heavy, deliberate. Bruce doesn’t need to say it. He’s waiting. Clark knows it, feels it, and panics anyway. Clearly, Bruce Wayne wants feedback. And Clark, disastrously, is still reeling from the fact that he read the script twice.

“You read it,” Bruce prompts. “And I want your journalistically professional opinion.”

Clark glances around for backup. Lois is frozen mid-bite, openly eavesdropping with the intensity of a hawk spotting prey.

“It’s… okay?”

“That’s diplomatic evasion,” Bruce says flatly.

“It’s also completely insane,” Clark mutters, rubbing his forehead like he can massage the problem out of existence. “Sebastian has the emotional subtlety of a neon billboard advertising his trust issues and tax fraud.”

There’s a pause on the line. Then Bruce says, flat, “Says the man who turned me into a seafood casualty in front of the entire entertainment industry.”

“That was an accident!”

“So was this script. Allegedly.”

Clark blinks, mouth open, trying to process the words. It’s like waiting for an old computer to load, the screen frozen on a single pixel. “Wait. What do you mean by ‘allegedly’?”

“I mean,” Bruce drawls, voice dipping into something sour and unmistakably tired, “I didn’t exactly choose this project. It was… strongly encouraged.”

“That’s vague in a very sinister way.”

There’s a noise on the other end that might technically qualify as a laugh, though it’s closer to a bitter exhale that got lost on its way to being human. “Apparently, my last few films have been too cerebral. Too moody. Critics love them, but the studio’s concerned I’m being, in their words, ‘prestige pigeonholed.’”

Clark frowns. “So you’re being professionally punished for winning awards?”

“For winning awards and having what they call ‘insufficient mass market appeal,’” Bruce replies, and Clark can hear the disdain sharpen around the words like air quotes carved out of glass. “They think I need to prove I can be”—he says the word as if it’s coated in poison—“relatable.”

Clark tries to smother the laugh climbing out of him. He fails. Loudly. “Sorry, sorry. But really? Sebastian Hawthorne is their idea of relatable? If the average person owns a private jet, three trust funds, and a secret wine cellar guarded by lasers, sure.”

“You’re not helping,” Bruce says, but the dryness in his voice makes Clark grin wider.

“Can’t you just back out of the contract?”

“You’d think,” Bruce replies. “But contractual obligations are beautifully suffocating. And studios have creative ways of destroying actors who develop a reputation for being ‘difficult.’”

Clark winces. “So you’re stuck.”

“Not entirely.” Bruce pauses. “The money is decent. And Selina Kyle can actually act.”

Clark waits. He knows there’s more, feels it in the silence, the way Bruce leaves a door cracked but doesn’t step through.

“But?”

“But the script,” Bruce says finally, flat and brutal, “is complete garbage.”

Clark glances at his phone, where Hearts_in_Hiding_Final_Draft.pdf still waits like incriminating evidence. “I mean… the core concept isn’t that bad. It’s just… catastrophically written.”

“Exactly.”

“And that airport scene—”

Bruce groans. Actually groans. It’s the kind of low, gravelly sound that should not be this satisfying, and it sends Clark into helpless laughter before he can stop himself.

And it feels easy. Too easy. He’s not tripping over his words, not choking on apologies or excuses. He’s just sitting here, in Centennial Park, bantering with Bruce Wayne about terrible romantic comedies like this is a thing he does now.

“I know,” Bruce says, and there’s a smile in his voice. “That ‘necessity I can’t live without’ line makes me want to fake my death.”

Clark snorts. “It’s so melodramatic.”

There’s a pause.

Then, before he can stop himself, Clark blurts, “But what if it wasn’t terrible? What if you could actually make it work?”

Bruce doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice carries the tone people use when circling an idea they know could end in brilliance or catastrophe. “You mean rewrite it.”

“I mean, fix it.”

Another pause, longer this time. He’s not dismissing it. He’s considering. Actually considering.

Clark finds himself sitting up straighter.

Then Bruce says, slowly, “Will you help me?”

Clark blinks. His brain stutters, like someone just pulled the plug on his internal operating system. He must have misheard. Misinterpreted. Bruce Wayne—A-list actor, global phenomenon, world-class enigma—did not just ask him for script help.

“Me?” Clark croaks. “You can’t mean me.”

“You,” Bruce confirms, infuriatingly calm. “You’re a writer, Kent. A good one. You understand how people actually talk.”

His voice shifts—deeper, steadier. There’s weight behind it now. “And you clearly think this script is terrible. So help me make it less terrible.”

It’s absurd. Ludicrous. Entirely outside his wheelhouse. Clark writes about municipal budgets, zoning reforms, and occasionally the odd corruption scandal. Sure, maybe once he covered a film premiere that ended with him tackling an actor slash billionaire into a seafood explosion, but screenplays? That’s not his world.

“I’ve never written a screenplay,” he says helplessly.

“I’ve never starred in a romantic comedy,” Bruce replies, voice even.

A fair point.

Clark sputters anyway, grasping for logic. “But why me? You could hire actual script doctors. People who know the structure, the jargon, the whatever-it-is. Professionals who don’t accidentally commit physical assault on celebrities during press events.”

It’s a valid question. One Clark tries to keep rooted in sense and not influenced by the traitorous hum rising in the back of his head. That quiet, irrational suggestion that maybe Bruce just… likes talking to him. That this isn’t entirely about fixing dialogue or cutting bad metaphors. That maybe... this is about something else.

Lois’s voice echoes in his memory, sharp as ever: Celebrity friendships are complicated. Like she already knew where this was heading.

Clark grits his teeth, forcing the thought away. No. Not helpful.

Just because Bruce is asking for help doesn’t mean anything. People ask for help all the time. It’s normal. Platonic. Friendly. That is all this is—just two people, becoming… friends.

On the other end of the line, Bruce exhales slowly.

“Because you’re not on my payroll,” he says simply. “Which means you’ll tell me the truth, instead of whatever you think I want to hear.”

A pause.

“Because you write about people like they’re real. Like they matter. Like their stories are worth telling.”

Another pause. Quieter, almost reluctant.

“And because I trust you.”

The words hit Clark square in the chest, blooming warmth where there should only be nerves. It’s like taking a sip of coffee you expect to be bitter only to find it smooth, exactly right, the kind that carries you through a terrible morning.

Bruce Wayne trusts you, his brain whispers, and for once it doesn’t sound sarcastic or panicked. It sounds amazed.

Bruce Wayne, who has assistants for his assistants. Who probably employs entire departments dedicated to guarding his public image. Who could have hired any professional screenwriter in Hollywood—one, or ten, or fifty.

But he asked Clark.

Maybe they really are becoming friends. The thought makes Clark smile despite himself. Friends. Good friends. The best of friends. That’s… actually nice.

“Okay,” Clark hears himself say. “Yes. I’ll help.”

There’s silence on the line, like Bruce wasn’t expecting agreement so easily.

“Really?”

“Really. But you should know, I might be terrible at this. I might make it worse. I might accidentally turn your romantic comedy into a documentary about municipal water treatment systems.”

“Given the current state of the script,” Bruce says, dry as desert sand, “I’m not sure that would make it worse.”

They settle on meeting that evening, at Clark’s apartment. Bruce has a photo shoot to finish—“something that’s either a magazine cover or a psychological experiment, I honestly can’t tell anymore”—but promises to bring dinner and his marked-up copy of the script, which he describes as “an extended act of violence in the margins.”

When Clark finally hangs up, he becomes aware of Lois. Still beside him. Still staring.

Her gaze has the sharp, unblinking intensity of a detective who just solved a high-profile cold case.

Clark does not like that look.

That look means Lois has theories, and Lois’s theories are almost always both correct and deeply uncomfortable.

“Sooo,” Lois drawls, “that was Bruce Wayne.”

It is not a question. It is a statement, a verdict, and possibly a death sentence.

“Maybe,” Clark mutters.

“Asking you to collaborate on what sounds suspiciously like creative work.”

“Possibly.”

“And you said yes.”

“Definitely.”

Lois chews, calm as a cat dismantling a bird. She swallows, takes another bite, and continues eating her lunch with the composure of someone enjoying a leisurely picnic rather than presiding over the collapse of Clark’s entire reality.

“You know what this means?” she asks at last.

Clark braces. His entire body tenses like she is about to inform him he is either being sued, deported, or accidentally betrothed.

“That I’m in over my head?” he tries.

“No,” she says, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. Her voice is calm, but her eyes glitter with the thrill of the hunt. “It means Bruce Wayne is actively pursuing your platonic relationship. Congratulations.”

The word platonic leaves her lips with the exact intonation of a priest announcing an omen. It doesn’t sound reassuring. It sounds like prophecy.

---

By six-thirty, Clark has cleaned his apartment twice, then gone back to re-clean the parts that didn’t actually need it. He has made coffee three times, and immediately regretted the last two because jittery-and-anxious is somehow worse than just anxious.

He has changed shirts four times. The final pick makes him look like he is either going to a job interview or a very specific kind of first date. Which this is not. Obviously.

It’s not a date.

It’s Bruce. Bruce is a friend. A friend who also happens to be a movie star, which is exactly the kind of detail that makes Clark sit down, stand up, and then sit down again as if basic furniture choreography can erase the humiliation searing through his nervous system.

At some point, he opens his notes app to jot down “questions about scene structure” and somehow ends up typing “Does Sebastian really need to own three helicopters?” followed by “Is this a metaphor? Is this about Bruce’s life somehow???”

At exactly seven o’clock, there’s a knock at the door.

Clark opens it.

Bruce Wayne is standing there in a hoodie and dark jeans, looking criminally normal. He is holding two paper bags that smell like every comfort food Clark has ever denied himself, either because it wasn’t in the budget or because it didn’t feel justified.

“You brought food,” Clark blurts, stepping aside. “You didn’t have to—”

“I promised,” Bruce cuts in, striding past with all the ease of someone who has never once second-guessed knocking on another person’s door. “Besides, I’ve seen your refrigerator. It’s a monument to poor life choices.”

“I prefer to call it low-maintenance,” Clark says, closing the door behind him. “Unlike certain houseguests who apparently require five-star catering.”

“Are you calling me high-maintenance?” Bruce raises an eyebrow, mock-offended.

The flutter in Clark’s chest is immediate and deeply unprofessional. “I’m calling you someone who just showed up with enough food to feed a small army, which suggests either generous hospitality or alarming assumptions about my appetite.”

“Both,” Bruce says easily, with no shame whatsoever. His smile is small, nothing like the polished red-carpet version, but Clark feels its impact like a direct hit. It’s unfair how much better this smile looks—like it belongs to him, like it wasn’t meant for the cameras at all.

“I also brought wine,” he adds, lifting a third bag Clark hadn’t noticed. “Because something tells me we’re going to need it.”

Wine, Clark’s brain echoes. He brought wine. For a work session. Between friends.

Friends can drink wine together, he tells himself firmly. That’s a completely normal thing that friends do.

They spread the script across Clark’s battered coffee table, which tonight has been upgraded into a battlefield of takeout containers. Pad thai that smells like it could solve world peace, green curry glowing like an oil painting, spring rolls so crisp and perfect Clark suspects Bruce had to sign away a portion of his soul just to acquire them.

Bruce’s copy of the script is a casualty of war. Pages bent, stained, scrawled over in blood-red ink. Entire paragraphs blotted out like government redactions. Margin notes so scathing they look like evidence from a particularly aggressive homicide investigation.

“Where do I even start?” Bruce mutters, flipping to a page that could be classified as a crime scene. “Sebastian is supposed to be a brilliant businessman, but apparently he thinks elaborate deception is the foundation of a healthy relationship. Which is—what, emotionally illiterate at best, lawsuit-worthy at worst?”

Clark nods, his brain clicking into gear like it’s been waiting for this. “And Harmony. She’s a veterinarian. Someone grounded in science and compassion. Why would she swoon over a man whose greatest skill set involves hoarding suspiciously rare first editions?”

“Exactly.” Bruce gestures with his fork, pad thai balanced precariously. His eyes sharpen, his words quicken. He’s engaged now, the kind of focused that makes Clark forget this is a man known for brooding silences on magazine covers. “Every so-called grand gesture is just him throwing money at the problem while insisting he doesn’t have any.”

And God help him, Clark finds that… attractive.

No. Not attractive. Professional. He is professionally admiring the depth of Bruce’s creative investment. Perfectly normal journalistic appreciation. Between collaborators.

Between friends.

Between a friend who is, against all odds, devastatingly handsome when passionate about dismantling a bad script.

Clark coughs, flipping pages. “What about this scene where Sebastian rents out an entire restaurant and claims it’s just ‘a quiet place he knows’? How does Harmony not notice there are no other customers and the staff is practically bowing like he’s royalty?”

Bruce snorts, the sound low and unexpectedly warm. “Or when he ‘accidentally’ flies her to Paris for lunch because he ‘knows a guy with a plane.’” He makes air quotes with long, precise fingers, and Clark—who should not be noticing hands at all—very much notices. “What kind of person doesn’t question that level of coincidence?”

Clark exhales a laugh, grateful for the air in his lungs. “Someone either incredibly naive, or willfully ignoring red flags the size of commercial aircraft carriers. Neither one makes for a compelling romantic lead.”

They find a rhythm. Scene by scene, they rip the script apart and patch it together into something almost coherent. Clark relaxes as they go, marveling at how natural it feels. Bruce is sharp, funny in a way that sneaks up on you, and—shockingly—open to critique. He listens like Clark’s thoughts actually matter.

When they hit the notorious airport scene, Clark leans forward. “What if Sebastian isn’t hiding his wealth because he’s scared of gold-diggers? What if it’s deeper? What if he believes money is the only thing that makes him worth anything? Without the success, without the status, there’s nothing underneath.”

Bruce goes still. “That’s… actually not terrible.”

Clark narrows his eyes. “Wow. High praise. Truly glowing.”

“No, I mean it.” Bruce leans forward too, elbows on his knees. The space between them shrinks, and suddenly Clark is aware of how close they are, close enough to notice the sharp edges of concentration softening Bruce’s face. “That’s a real motivation. It makes him vulnerable.”

He’s excited, Clark realizes, watching the way Bruce’s eyes spark. He looks almost alive with it, like the idea of working together might actually be fun, like sharing thoughts could be something close to exhilarating. For one reckless, impossible second, Clark wonders if Bruce has ever looked at anyone else this way.

He hopes not.

“And it gives Harmony something to respond to,” Clark adds, tapping his pen against the page. “Not just the lie. The fear behind it. That he didn’t trust her enough to show who he really is.”

Bruce’s voice drops. Quieter now, but charged. “That’s the spine. That’s the heart of it.”

Hours continue to vanish. They dismantle the airport confrontation line by line until the coffee table is chaos incarnate: scribbled pages, balled-up drafts, sauce-smeared napkins, and the ruins of once-glorious takeout.

Bruce finally sinks back into the couch, arms stretched along the backrest like he’s claiming territory. His gaze traces the ceiling. “We should test it.”

Clark blinks at him. “Test it?”

“Read it out loud.” Bruce’s tone suggests this is obvious. “Dialogue only works if you hear it. Say the words. See if they land.”

Clark hesitates. “You mean perform it?”

Bruce tilts his head. “Unless you don’t want to.”

“I just...” Clark clears his throat, pulse rioting. “I’m not an actor.”

Bruce’s laugh is small, low, dangerously pleasant. “You don’t need to become Harmony, Kent. Just read the lines. See how they feel.”

He leans in a fraction again, and suddenly air feels like a finite resource. The distance isn’t indecent, not technically, but it feels like it anyway. Clark swallows.

“Come on,” Bruce says, voice pitched low, coaxing. “Where’s that investigative fearlessness?”

“Investigating corrupt officials doesn’t require acting ability.”

“Good thing we’re not aiming for Oscars,” Bruce replies, deadpan.

Clark eyes the sea of red ink bleeding across the script. “Okay,” he says, already bracing himself. “But if Harmony suddenly develops strong opinions about fiscal transparency, that’s on you.”

“Risk accepted.”

Bruce rises from the couch, and the air tilts. He is still Bruce Wayne—cool, composed, infuriatingly magnetic—but now he carries something else. His posture sharpens, his voice tightens, and in a breath, Sebastian Hawthorne takes shape in front of Clark. Not the hollow caricature from the page, but someone frantic, cracked at the edges, desperate not to unravel.

“Harmony, wait,” Bruce calls, voice breaking like a man holding on too tight. “Please.”

Clark fumbles with the pages, eyes blurring. His throat catches, but somehow the words make it out. “Why should I?” His voice is uneven, half-hurt, half-baffled. “So you can lie to me again?”

“Yes, I lied about the money,” Bruce says, stepping forward. “Yes, I bought that vineyard and called it fate. I own three helicopters. A heart-shaped island. All of it.”

He doesn’t point at his chest like the script demands. Instead, his hand hovers between them, claiming the air as if it belongs to them both. His voice softens. “But I never lied about this. Us. The way you make me want to be better.”

Clark’s breath stumbles in his lungs. This is ridiculous—objectively, cornball nonsense—but Bruce is looking at him like the words aren’t lines at all. Like they’re pulled from somewhere under his ribs.

“How do I know what’s real anymore?” Clark asks. The question trembles out of him, smaller than intended. “How do I know you’re not just another billionaire who thinks love is something you can buy with novelty real estate and air traffic violations?”

Bruce doesn’t blink. “Because I’d give it all up,” he says, rough, too rough to be just acting. “Every penny, every jet, every absurd property. You’re not a luxury, Harmony. You’re the necessity I can’t live without.”

Clark’s brain short-circuits. The words are corny, Valentine’s Day rerun corny. But Bruce delivers them like a confession, and Clark cannot breathe under the weight of that gaze.

“But you lost it anyway,” Clark says. His voice wavers somewhere between a devastated lover and a customer at a diner still waiting on cold fries. He gestures helplessly between them. “This whole thing was built on lies. How am I supposed to trust any of it?”

Bruce takes a breath, steady but jagged at the edges. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to fix this. I only know that what I feel for you is real, even if everything else was pretend.”

Silence. Not dramatic, cinematic silence. Real, awkward, oh-God-we’ve-made-eye-contact-for-too-long silence. And Clark has no idea if this means absolutely nothing or the kind of everything that breaks your brain and rewires your entire worldview.

All he knows is that he’s standing in the middle of what was supposed to be a low-stakes script session, and somehow it now feels like the world has narrowed to a single impossible choice: either kiss Bruce Wayne or throw himself out the window.

Jesus. Why is he even having thoughts like this about his friend?

“Bruce,” Clark starts, voice cracking open—only for the moment to snap in half.

Bruce’s phone rings. The spell breaks so abruptly that Clark feels physically yanked back to reality. Bruce stares at his phone like it just set curtains on fire as the screen lights up with a name: ALFRED PENNYWORTH.

“Emergency?” Clark asks quietly.

“Alfred,” Bruce says grimly, which is apparently enough explanation. “So... yes.”

He answers the call with visible reluctance. “I’m here.”

Whatever Alfred says makes Bruce exhale hard and close his eyes like the universe just pulled the rug out from under him.

“No, Alfred, I didn’t forget. I know I have the late shoot. I’m still working.”

Clark can’t hear the other end, but he can read the reaction spreading across Bruce’s face—strained, irritated, vaguely flustered.

“Yes, with Kent. No, I am not—” Bruce’s neck flushes red. “Why would you even ask that?”

Clark pretends to focus on straightening the script pages, but his ears are very much tuned in. His brain, traitorous as always, spins increasingly unhinged interpretations.

Bruce shoots him a brief glance. “No, he doesn’t need to come to the photo shoot with me.”

The exchange on the phone is brief but baffling, filled with half-heard comments and one-sided irritation. Bruce’s reactions—his flushed neck, his sideways glances—suggest a conversation that’s strayed well beyond logistics. And though Clark can’t hear Alfred’s end, the context is increasingly strange.

Whatever’s being said, it’s clearly not just about a magazine shoot.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Bruce says tersely. “And no, I’m not wearing the leather jacket. We’ve discussed this. Goodbye.”

He ends the call, then turns back to Clark with an expression like he’s trying to put something into words and not finding the right ones.

“Sorry,” he says finally. “I have to go. Late-night magazine... thing.”

Bruce doesn’t look annoyed. Or bored. He just looks… mildly devastated to be torn away from something he was actually enjoying, like a man forced to wake up from a dream where brunch was free and no one asked personal questions.

It’s probably just that he wants to finish the scene, Clark tells himself. Totally normal. Totally platonic. Definitely not the look of someone mentally bookmarking your face like it’s a particularly well-sourced article. Nope. Nothing to see here.

“Of course,” Clark says, standing as well. “This was… really productive.”

As Bruce leaves, Clark finds himself thinking that this is definitely more complicated than that 5,000-word exposé he once wrote about municipal embezzlement, and the underground raccoon-fighting ring it unintentionally uncovered.

But maybe... maybe it isn’t entirely a bad thing. Maybe they really were becoming the best of friends.

The very best.

Notes:

Okay, so I may have gotten a bit carried away with this chapter. It was an actual delight to write, especially getting to sneak an entire cheesy rom-com plot into the main storyline.

Also... the foreshadowing in here is not subtle. Like, at all. Is it even foreshadowing if I’m basically holding up a sign that says “THIS WILL MATTER LATER” in blinking lights? Probably not. But here we are.

As always, thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoy the chaos in the chapters ahead!