Chapter Text
Clark walked down the steps to the Batcave, his stomach churning with anxiety. This was it. Today was the day he would reveal his civilian identity to the Justice League.
He knew, logically, that he didn’t have too much to worry about. He’d worked with these people for years now, and trusted them with his life.
And yet his palms were all clammy and his heart was beating out of his chest and his nervous energy was apparently obvious enough that Bruce could sense it without taking his eyes off of the screen in front of him.
“You don't have to do this.” He sighed.
“I know, I know. But I want to. Everyone else has already shared theirs, it’s only fair that I do the same. I need to show them I trust them.”
“They know that.” They’d had this conversation practically every single day for the past two weeks, ever since Clark grilled Bruce on the pros and cons of revealing his identity.
“Do they? I mean sure they know I trust them to have my back in a fight, but surely that should extend to trusting them with more than just work, no? You’ve seen how much closer they get once they know someone's real name. It’s like a mental barrier, or something. That you can't fully trust someone unless you know their name."
“Hn.”
“I’ve been trying to predict what everyone's reactions will be.” Clark leaned on the desk, frowning off into the distance. “Diana knows, J’onn knows, Oliver and Dinah know who I am but we’ve never actually talked much outside of the suit. Arthur probably won’t care, or at least he won’t get excited over it. So it’s the others I’m worried about, really. It could range from ‘oh cool I have no idea who you are’ to ‘tell me everything about yourself right now.’”
“You don’t have to tell them anything you don’t want to.” Bruce grunted, clearly trying to get the conversation over with so he could go back to work.
“I know, I know. I’m just… anxious. I guess.”
Bruce softened slightly at that, reached out a hand to squeeze his wrist, and said, “you can back out at any point. I’ll make sure no one makes you do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
Clark smiled down at him. Rao, how he loved this man. “Thanks, B.” He murmured, pushing himself up from the desk. He leaned down and kissed his husband’s cheek, then turned to walk out of the Batcave, his heart significantly lighter than it had been when he came in.
~•~•~
Clark was not super proud to admit that he barely listened at all during the League meeting that evening. He could feel Batman’s annoyed glances toward him and he knew that, on any other day, he’d get called out and asked to recap what was just discussed. He was partially grateful for this leniency, but also, if there were any actual consequences for his zoning out, he might be more inclined to pay attention. As it was, Clark sat there for two hours bouncing his leg and thinking about anything and everything but the meeting.
Finally, finally, Batman cleared his throat and put his bat-tablet down on the table. “That concludes all announcements and action items. As always, if there is anything that comes up during the week that requires immediate attention, you will be alerted. Is there anything else that anyone would like to bring to our attention?”
Clark looked around the room at all the bored faces, clearly eager to get away from this room. Well, he didn’t really want to be the cause of any annoyance if anyone had stuff to do and really wanted to leave and what if Clark was stopping someone from going to see their parents or going on a date and maybe he should postpone this for now and try again on a day when they were ending early so that he didn’t take up everyone’s ti-
Bruce cleared his throat once more. He wouldn’t actually pressure him into making this decision, but they both knew that Clark would beat himself up about chickening out if he didn’t just speak up right now and-
Batman straightened up and opened his mouth to dismiss everyone and Clark panicked.
“I-” He blurted out. All eyes turned to him. Oh, God. He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. Batman sat down, waiting. They were all waiting. For him. Why did he do this? “I have an announcement. Or, well, I guess it’s not so much an announcement as much as- as a- I- I don’t know. Something. But um-” Clark, stop stuttering. He drew in another breath. “Okay. I know you all know the importance of keeping secret identities safe.” He saw a couple of people perk up at the mention of secret identities, probably looking forward to figuring out who Superman was underneath all that spandex (Bruce’s words, not his). “So I trust that you know that this information cannot leave this Watchtower.” There were nods all around. Clark took yet another breath in, and reached up to tousle his hair and slip on his glasses that he’d gotten from a hidden pocket in his suit. “I’m Clark Kent. I’m an investigative journalist for the Daily Planet.”
As expected, practically no one knew who he was. But Ollie froze and stared at him with wide eyes and Dinah’s gaze kept darting between the two of them as if to confirm that she wasn’t going crazy and Ollie was seeing this too. Clark shot a shaky grin at both of them and Ollie’s jaw dropped.
After about 15 seconds of silence, Barry yelled, “YOUR DISGUISE IS GLASSES?”
Bruce let out a huff of amusement quiet enough that Clark was the only one who heard it, and he just barely resisted glaring at him.
“Wait… I know you. Why do I know you?” Hal asked, squinting his eyes so much that Clark wasn’t sure if he could actually see through the slivers.
“I don’t know?” Clark responded. He really didn’t. He didn’t think Clark Kent had done anything particularly noteworthy recently that anyone outside the news industry would know him. “I mean, I won a Pulitzer a few months ago… maybe it’s that?”
“No no no, I don’t care about that.” Hal said, shaking his head as though the very thought disgusted him. Uh huh, yeah that’s what Clark figured. “Something gossipy.”
“Something gossipy?”
“It was in the news a few years ago.”
“Uhhhh…” Clark paused, running through the past few years in his head. There was that one time a couple years ago when he sparked a very small Twitter debate by sharing a controversial article, but that hadn’t ended up in the news, as far as he knew. Then there was that other time he’d rallied all of his reporter friends and all of Bruce’s socialite friends to save all the struggling animal shelters in the Gotham-Metropolis area. That one had ended up in the news, and Clark was proud of it. And then there was- “I dunno, I got married to Bruce Wayne?”
Hal’s jaw dropped to the floor to join Ollie’s.
Clark had just enough time to think ‘oh shit’ before the entire table exploded. It didn’t really, but the effect that that one throwaway sentence had was so loud and immense that it might as well have.
It seemed as though everyone had ten different questions that they had unknowingly (or, in Hal’s case, probably very knowingly) stored up for the unlikely event that they met Bruce Wayne’s husband.
Clark was sure that a regular human would have been overwhelmed by the amount of noise that suddenly burst through the room, so for him it was a thousand times worse. He squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to eliminate one of his senses to make it more bearable. It didn’t work. It might have actually made it worse, because now there was nothing else to focus on other than the noise and it was so loud. He balled his hands into fists to distract himself but his damn fingernails wouldn’t hurt his damn skin and it was too much too much too much.
A sudden loud bang sounded somewhere in the room and all the noises ceased.
He took a moment to slow his breathing and pried his eyes open to the sight of Batman leaning over the table, fist resting on the table where he had probably slammed it down a few seconds ago. He growled, “Superman will answer your questions only if he wants to, but I expect a certain level of decorum in this meeting room which many of you have failed to uphold today. Superman has shared this information with us out of respect, and we will show him that same respect going forward. Am I understood?”
There were various noises of assent from around the table and a few apologies directed at both of them. Bruce settled back down and nodded at Clark, giving him control over the conversation once more.
He blew out a long breath. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll take five questions and no more. We all have places to be and I don’t want to drag this out.” He watched as they all quieted down to deliberate over the best questions to ask.
After a few seconds, Ray raised his hand. Clark nodded at him. “How long have you two been married?”
“Oh, come on!” Wally exclaimed. “You can just look that up online! We have to ask things that actually matter! Like how big is his di-”
“NO!” Clark shouted. Wally cackled and Clark debated tackling him to the ground. “We’ve been married for six years. It’ll be seven in November.” He heard the groans of disappointment from the people who considered this a waste of a question, and he rolled his eyes.
“Is he the same as the gossip mags show him?” Hal asked.
“Absolutely not, no. He’s so much more.” Clark felt his face break into a soft grin. He loved talking about Bruce. He didn’t get to gush about him enough because the people he spent his time with were either the kids and Lois, who all groaned when Clark got gross and sentimental, his parents and Alfred, who listened indulgently but barely reacted after ten years of the same conversation, or the League, who he hadn’t been able to tell until now.
Diana had a small smile on her face as she raised her hand and asked, “What is your favourite thing about him?” She’d known Batman’s secret identity for years, but they’d never met outside of the suit so Clark guessed that this was coming from a desire to know who Bruce could be when he wasn’t dark and brooding. Well, he was always dark and brooding, but she wasn’t wrong in assuming that the real Bruce was a lot more interesting than the masks he put on.
Clark considered this question for a bit, letting his eyes flick over to Bruce for a fraction of a second before dropping to the table. “There are way too many things to pick out a favourite. I love his smile, and the way his mind works, and the way he treats the kids, and his sense of humor, and how he trusts me with every part of himself. He’s the best person I know and the best person I ever will know, and I’m so damn lucky I get to spend the rest of our lives with him. I could keep going but I don’t think you’re all here to see me get sappy.”
He glanced around the room, taking in the looks on people’s faces. Some of them were smiling, probably finding it sweet to watch Superman get mushy. And some of them were fake gagging, clearly finding it absolutely disgusting to watch Superman get mushy. He looked over at Bruce, face impassive as always, though Clark could hear his heartbeat thumping just a tad harder than usual.
Arthur, who Clark was pretty sure hadn’t said anything the entire time, broke the thoughtful silence that had settled over the room. “How many children do you have?”
“NO!” Wally interjected again. “YOU CAN GOOGLE THAT! DON’T ANSWER THAT! Supes, what’s the weirdest thing about Bruce Wayne?”
“Weirdest?” Now, that one had actually caught him off guard and he wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Yeah, like not annoying or bad but just weird.”
“Hmm…” Clark thought back over the past decade or so of being with Bruce and tried to come up with something that he still wasn’t quite able to normalize and still thought of as strange. “Oh! He puts his ice cream in the microwave!” He could feel the weight of Bruce’s death glare and resolutely decided to ignore it. “Not to melt it a bit so it’s easier to scoop, no no. He’ll scoop it out into a bowl and then put the bowl in the microwave for thirty seconds! It comes out completely melted and barely even cold anymore. He has never once eaten ice cream normally in the entire time that I’ve known him.”
Clark heard the laughs from all around him, but his focus was solely on the way Batman’s gloved hand had come up to pinch the bridge of his nose.
“He sounds like a monster.” Barry gasped out between bouts of laughter.
Clark grinned. “Yeah. He’s the best. Right, last question. Make it count.”
Hal leaned forward. “Is he as good as they say?” He asked, shit-eating grin on his face.
Clark felt his face heat up and shot that line of questioning down immediately. “Not answering that. Nope. Nuh uh.”
“Aw come onnn!” Hal whined. “Then you gotta answer another one ‘cause that one doesn’t count.”
“Fine.”
“Can we meet him some day?”
Clark hesitated. It wasn’t as though his professional life and his personal life overlapped very often, Bruce and the kids being some of the very few exceptions. Oliver and Dinah were already well acquainted with Brucie, but they were in his social circle so crossing paths was common. The only way Clark would be able to introduce Bruce to the League, aside from him getting kidnapped and them having to save him, would probably be to bring him up to the Watchtower. Out of the suit. As a civilian. And Clark didn’t see Batman being comfortable with that any time soon.
“Probably not, but we’ll see.”
Batman’s attention had been focused squarely on Clark during this whole interaction, but now he caught it shifting to Hal and then around the table at the other members. Most people would have brushed it off as inconsequential, an acknowledgment that the conversation was over and everyone should be dismissed, but he knew better. Bruce was up to something. Clark wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was.
~•~•~
The next few weeks passed easily, and Clark had almost forgotten the entire Bruce Wayne meeting the Justice League thing.
No one brought up Clark’s civilian identity again, which he was glad for. He hadn’t wanted that knowledge to change how the League saw him, both as a leader and a fighter. Hadn’t wanted them to see his identity as a flaw or a weakness in Superman’s persona. In hindsight, that was a stupid thing to get worried over. After all, most of the others had civilian identities and no one questioned their importance to the team as a result of it.
Today was miserably quiet, and Clark had noticed his attention drifting a while ago but hadn’t made any effort to bring his focus back. There wasn’t anything to focus on, anyways. They were all gathered around a few tables in the mess hall. Some of them had food, some were playing a card game, and all of them could feel the boredom weighing them down. Bruce had said he was going to be there, but his meeting was running late.
Just as Clark was about to stand up to go find some food or go to the training room or walk around or do something that wasn’t just sitting down being bored, he heard the sound of the zeta-tube going off. He perked up. Batman would come in and see them all sat around doing nothing and he’d get all pissy and start ordering people to run drills or go on patrol, and finally they’d have some motivation to get up.
Clark was too busy imagining Batman’s little tantrum that he didn’t realize something was wrong until the footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. The wrong footsteps.
That wasn’t Batman.
Batman’s footsteps were steady and measured and heavy. Bruce’s footsteps were also steady and measured, but didn’t have the suit lending him extra weight.
These footsteps were inconsistent and light and Clark buried his head in his hands and groaned. He could feel everyone’s attention turn to him, but they didn’t have the chance to ask him what was wrong before Brucie goddamn Wayne sauntered through the doorway.
Clark raised his head to glare at him and was met by the infuriating smirk that his husband wore when he knew he’d fucked with Clark successfully and he couldn’t retaliate.
The entire room was silent for a few seconds. Then Brucie said, “Hi!” And all hell broke loose. Which wasn’t too bad, actually, once Clark realized that all hell breaking loose was basically just Hal and Barry saying ‘oh my God it’s Bruce Wayne holy shit what the hell’ over and over in an otherwise silent room.
Brucie ambled over to them, pushed Clark upright from where he was still sat hunched over in embarrassment, and sprawled himself sideways on his lap.
Great.
Clark closed his eyes, breathing deeply and reminding himself that he did, in fact, love this man, and that he would probably not be easily forgiven if he stood up right now and let Brucie fall on his ass. He should’ve guessed. Bruce was all too aware of his distaste towards his public persona, so of course this would be his plan to fuck with Clark.
He opened his eyes again just as Bruce was finishing up with introductions that were entirely unnecessary. Diana was hiding a smile behind her hand, Oliver was clearly trying not to seem like he knew Bruce (which, for some reason, consisted of staring wide-eyed at anything and everything that was not Bruce. Clark hadn't known the ceiling was so interesting), and Hal still looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes. Fair enough, honestly. Brucie Wayne in the Watchtower was not something he thought he’d ever see, and he was pretty sure it was something he never wanted to see again.
Clark glared at the side of his head. “What are you doing here?”
Bruce grinned at him innocently. “What? My meeting just ended so I figured I’d come and visit you! I mean, now that everyone knows we’re married, I think it’s about time I met all your teammates, don’t you?”
“Well, not all of them,” Wally interjected. “Batman’s not here.”
“Batman.” Bruce scoffed. “I live in Gotham. We’ve met.”
This curt response was clearly not the reaction some people were expecting. Both Clark and Bruce knew that their fondness for Batman only extended so far, but Clark guessed that they hadn’t heard a civilian be so dismissive of a superhero before. In the interest of keeping the reason for that dismissal a secret, he said, “I’d appreciate it if you kept your personal opinion of my teammate outside of my workplace.”
Brucie just waved his hand flippantly, apparently not even deeming that worthy of an answer. “I’ve actually come to take you home. Today’s been sooo loooong and I don’t wanna go home without you,” he complained, letting a bit of a whine into his tone. If Bruce would have ever considered revealing his identity, Clark was sure that the memory of this event would stop him. There was absolutely no way he’d let them know that Batman and Brucie Wayne were in any way related after this little performance.
“I can’t just leave, I’m doing things!”
Bruce gave him a look. “Really. As far as I could tell, you were sitting here bored out of your mind. At least at home you can put that big, strong body to good use and do something more worthwhile.” He wiggled his eyebrows to let him know exactly which activity he meant.
“Nope!” Clark stood up abruptly. He didn’t let Bruce fall on his ass, though, and he was quite proud of himself for resisting the urge. He stood them both on their feet and grabbed his husband’s shoulders, pushing him over to the door. He could feel his face burning up. “Nope. No. Absolutely not. I will see you at home later after I speak to Batman about your visit today.”
He gave him a firm shove to start walking back down the hallway and glared at his retreating form, ignoring the laughter coming from it. Then he turned back to his team, face probably still red with mortification. “I am so sorry about him. He’s an asshole.” The laughter behind him redoubled and Clark brought his hands up to drag over his face.
Wally cackled. “I like him a lot.”
Clark groaned.
~•~•~
The moment Batman stepped into the room ten minutes later, Clark shot up from his seat. He stalked over to him, grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around, cutting off the little tantrum that Clark had predicted earlier before it could start. It would have been so welcome just fifteen minutes ago, before Bruce came in and did all that.
“I need to talk to you.” He said, pushing him out of the room and down the corridor.
As they walked away, Bruce had the audacity to say, “I got an alert about an unauthorized visitor to the Watchtower. Know anything about that?”
Clark glared at him, scowling at the back of his head so hard that there was no way he couldn’t feel it. “I hate you so much.” He muttered.
They walked to Clark’s room and stepped inside. Batman pulled his cowl off, revealing Bruce’s stupid face grinning up at him. Not one ounce of regret. Fantastic.
“What the hell are you doing?” Clark hissed.
“What? I’m not doing anything!” Yeah, the fake innocent act was not working one bit.
“Right, so you’re not going to explain why Brucie Wayne just waltzed in and embarrassed me in front of people who should respect me.”
“Oh, come on! I barely embarrassed you.”
“You sat on my lap and propositioned me!”
Bruce scoffed, dropping down on the edge of the bed. “Propositioned.”
“You couldn’t have told me you were going to do this?” Clark continued, ignoring the interjection. “Bruce, if I was going to introduce Bruce Wayne to the League I would have introduced them to the actual you and not the guy who has a reputation for sleeping around and passing out in the middle of charity events!”
“That happened one time and it was because Ivy-”
“I don’t care!” Clark knew his volume was rising so he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I need to know now if you’re planning on bringing Brucie around again, and I need you to tell me when."
“You don’t want me to stop completely?” Clark opened his eyes again and saw his husband cock his head to the side and raise his eyebrows.
“As long as I know when I’ll be able to brace myself for any of your,” He waved his hands in the air, “shenanigans.”
Bruce snorted in amusement. “Got it. Anything else?”
“Well, I guess I would appreciate if Brucie stopped coming around and was replaced by Bruce, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen. So I guess just don’t… don’t embarrass me? Too much?”
“Clark, you’re embarrassed by everything.”
“Am not!”
“Uh huh…” Bruce shot him a very unimpressed look and Clark met it with a glare.
“Well then just be slightly more you, then. I’d like them to at least get some sense as to why I married you, and that’s not going to happen if all they see is that guy.”
Bruce rolled his eyes and huffed. “Fine. You have to admit their reactions were pretty funny, though.”
He didn’t have to admit anything, thank you very much.
And yet…
“I’m pretty sure Hal pissed himself when you came in.”
Clark realized then that he would do anything for the grin that stretched across Bruce’s face. And if “anything” included introducing his husband’s incredibly obnoxious public persona who famously couldn’t take anything seriously to a group of superheroes that saved the world on a regular basis?
Rao, he was screwed.