Work Text:
Holy. Cow.
Batman is Bruce Wayne.
Bruce Wayne is Batman.
Batman is my best friend.
I slept with my best Wayne—I mean my Bruceman—No, he’s not mine, per se—wait that’s not the point—Oh gosh, BatWayne’s staring at me—I mean Batman. B. He’s still B. B is staring at me. Nope. That’s a glare. Definitely a glare.
"Kaaaa—"
Why is he talking so slow?! Is he okay?!?! Oh shucks, I’m in superspeed right now, aren’t I? That explains the glare. He can totally tell I’m in superspeed right now. Apparently I can’t tell when I’ve slipped into superspeed but of course he can tell.
Seriously, how does he always do that? I know he’s already told me how—something about subconscious eye movements still being performed while in active thought even at superspeed which mostly just gives my irises a blurry appearance when viewed at normal speed—but like… How?! How is this glorious man always so gosh darned perceptive all the time? Who told this man he was allowed to perceive me so completely?!
Rao, this man will be the death of me.
"—aaaaa—"
Oh my gosh. If B, in all his perceptive glory, is also Bruce Wayne, then that means Bruce “Hold My Champagne Or I’ll Spill It On You” Wayne is Batman levels of perceptive. No. Wrong. Not Batman levels of perceptive, he is Batman. That means everything I did at those galas of his was so totally and utterly perceived. He knows. He has to know.
Sure, the bumbling Clark Kent act works on everyone because they’re not looking for anything more than that, but Batman? Batman’s always looking. Batman’s always perceiving. He would totally figure out that the stumbling is fake. That when I bump into people, I barely make physical contact with them and my movements are exaggerated. That I’m the only one who comes out with spilled papers or drinks—unless you count Bruce Wayne, he spills drinks too once he’s done getting drunk off of—Oh my god, he was never drunk, was he?
Batman doesn’t get drunk.
Bruce Wayne—I guess it’s just Bruce at this point, isn’t it? Rao, this makes my head hurt—Bruce seems like he’s drunk but… If he’s able to act like both Bruce Wayne and Batman, two of the most opposing personalities possible—which is probably the whole point now that I’m thinking about it—then he can definitely act drunk.
That means… If he’s just acting, and he’s stone cold sober, then all those times when he stumbled into me, ran his hands along my arms, looked at me like that… Then he wasn’t actually flirting, was he? He was perceiving, not flirting. He would have noticed the muscles I try to hide, he wouldn’t have bought the whole “farm work” spiel—Seriously, you don’t just get muscles like Batman without knowing a thing or two about how to get muscles like Batman—and honestly even if he only had his suspicions about what I hide under my horribly fitting suits, he’s literally seen me naked for crying out loud.
"—aaaaa—"
Oh.
Oh Rao, no…
There’s no way he saw—and felt—all of that and didn’t… I mean—Did he—When we—Did he know I was Superman?! I mean of course I’m Superman, but that Clark Kent is Superman? That Superman is Clark “Aw Shucks” Kent? Clark “The Sun Can’t Turn My Skin Red But Bruce Wayne’s Flirting Sure As Heck Can” Kent?? Clark “Couldn’t Pass For Natty In A Million Years, But Of Course It’s Just Farm Work” Kent???
No. Nope. Not at all. I refuse. I’m probably—definitely?—wrong, but I refuse to accept it.
No way in heck would B knowingly sleep with a Justice League member and compromise a working relationship like that. Sure, we only slept together once and it was almost a year ago—11 months and 13 days, to be exact, but that’s the eidetic memory talking, it doesn’t mean anything—but the guy’s so married to his Mission I’m sure he’s even got the paperwork for it somewhere in that cave of his. Sleeping with someone outside the context of the Mission is probably tantamount to cheating on the Mission by Batman’s logic, right? So he definitely wouldn’t sleep with Superman… Right?
"—aaaaa—"
Then again, even if he didn’t know he was sleeping with Superman, and thought I was just Clark Kent from the Daily Planet, that’s still on-brand, isn’t it? Bruce has definitely slept with the press before… Though now that I think about it… A lot of those stories were never able to be verified, were they? So I guess it’s possible it’s all just a ruse, or at least some of it—most of it?—which means—Oh my Rao, does Bruce engage in tactical sex for the sake of the Mission?!
Okay. Well. No judgement. Seriously, when you look like Bruce and you’ve got money like Wayne, it… It makes sense in the eyes of the public. As for Batman, it probably makes sense…? It’s really hard to reconcile the two different lifestyles—Actually, yeah. Nevermind. That makes total sense. Identities and subterfuge. Very Batman. Very Sexy—Wait, I didn’t mean it like—Oh what the heck. Yeah. Yeah, I meant it like that.
Gosh, what’s wrong with me, why am I talking to myself?!
"—aaaaa—"
Shit. He’s still trying to get my attention. Gotta think faster.
Alright. So maybe it does make sense that he would sleep with me—I mean, not me me, but like… “Clark Kent, Daily Planet” me—but wait… Does it still count as me if he doesn’t know it’s me—me as in Clark, not Superman—and he thinks I’m just Clark Kent—Now that I think about it, is there really even a difference between Clark and Clark Kent in this case? I mean obviously there’s a surface level difference but—Wait. Hold up. If Bruce wouldn’t want to sleep with me if he actually knew it was me—Superman me—then does that mean—If I didn’t actually have his proper consent then—
Oh my god, did I sexually assault Batman?!
"—aaaaa—"
😭
"—aaaaa—"
That’s it. It’s over. Our friendship is over. Heck, my life is probably over. He’ll never forgive me—Actually, no. He would totally forgive me. He’s a total softy at heart. But that’s okay, I’ve got his back because I don’t think I’ll ever forgive me. How could I? Neither of us may have meant for this to happen, but… After everything we’ve been through, after all the work he’s put in to keeping both parts of his lives separate, and especially to telling all of us to stay out of Gotham—
Holy sh—was that rule in place just to make sure he didn’t sleep with any of our civilian identities?!
No! Focus, Clark, focus!
Rules aside… If it were mutual lack of proper consent then that would be one thing, but no… No, that was very consensual on my part. Or would have been, had we both known. Seriously, when he looks like Bruce and acts like Batman, I—He—Jesus Christ—of course I wanted to. Heck, I still want to.
Not like any of that matters, of course. He clearly knows me as Superman and wants nothing to do with me—Well… Actually… I mean I guess that’s not a proper conclusion to make if it’s more about the Mission and less about his personal wants—I swear the guy’s a total emotional martyr for his Mission—but that’s besides the point—Batman has already chosen to do nothing about Superman and Bruce Wayne probably doesn’t even remember the name Clark Kent, assuming he even knew it in the first place.
"—aaaaa—"
Okay. Alright—not alright alright but… Ugh—Time to deal with this…
…How the heck do I even deal with this?
Do I just come out and say, “Holy Identity Porn, Batman!” and hope he doesn’t nail me to a wall with batarangs? Do I fly up to Wayne Manor in my supersuit and hope the Batman-level security system doesn’t kill me before I fess up? Do I wait until the next gala where I lean in close and whisper, “I know what you do at night” and just hope he gets it?
…Yeah, no. Not that last one. He would definitely say something like, “Hopefully you” and despite being the Strongest Man on the Planet, I am also the Weakest Man at the Daily Planet.
Seriously, I don’t think anyone could go through a night like that with Bruce friggin’ Wayne and come out disappointed. I didn’t even know things could—! And when you—! Jesus Christ, B, do you know what your flirting does to me now?! Every single time! Every gala and charity event since then! You! Flirting!! More!!! Why?!?! Every time Perry sends me out to your events I have to practice saying Mr. Wayne in a completely normal voice because I swear to Rao if you keep flirting with me like that, my voice will—
"—aalll?"
"Yes, Mr. Wayne?"
—crack just like that.
Shit.
So much for subtlety.
Yeah… There it is… I can see that look he’s giving me—cowl be damned—where the facial micromovements across his mouth and cheeks tell me exactly what his face is doing under there. It’s admittedly far more revealing than B would ever be comfortable with—not like he wouldn’t already know I can see that, mind you. Batman perception and all that.
Right now, he’s… Oh. Oh. Yeah, that’s definitely a surprised look. But… Not a bad surprise? Surely he wouldn’t like someone finding out his identity—especially after saying his name out loud like that, Jesus Christ, Clark—so he wouldn’t be this… Happy? No, not happy, just… Wait… Is that…? No… Is that recognition? Without anger?
Shit, why am I excited that he recognizes me? Doesn’t that make this worse?!
If he recognizes me, then he realizes he’s blurred that line and slept with a coworker. It doesn’t matter that Bruce Wayne slept with me and then kept coming back to proposition for more. It doesn’t matter that Batman is my best friend and constantly looks out for me. All that matters now is that I redirect this and convince him I know him from some other, totally platonic, not at all compromising—
“Kent.”
“Fuck.”
Oops.
I… definitely said that part out loud, didn’t I? Yeah, that’s another look of surprise. A good one, though, he’s apparently pleasantly surprised that I actually swore. And now that surprise is blending into… Into…
Rao above, is Batman giving me a Brucie grin?! Since when is BatBrucie a thing?! No. No, no, no. I’m not prepared for this. This does not compute. It’s impossible. This can’t be—
“With pleasure.”
CLARK.EXE HAS CRASHED