Chapter Text
Clark knew a lot of things about Bruce. After just a weekend together, he knew Bruce was Batman, what prescriptions he took, that he had a sweet tooth, even what he liked in bed (despite not having sex). Yet there were still so many things they still hadn’t done together and countless conversations they still needed to have.
The first ever official Justice League meeting would be on a Saturday night, in a very small town in Rhode Island called Happy Harbor. It was chosen mainly because it was equally out of the way for everyone. Bruce would never have even entertained the idea of going until he met Clark, but Clark had been the exception in his life so many times already that a few more wouldn’t hurt.
Since their relationship was still new (and very undefined), Bruce and Clark agreed on getting dinner beforehand a few towns over in a seafood shack with plenty of windows. Bruce insisted on driving Clark there, but the gentleman in Clark couldn’t seem to accept.
It was beginning to become apparent that Clark was the type of person to be chronically late. Bruce snagged a seat at one of the few tables ten minutes early and quietly worked on his phone. He wore whatever part of his suit could hide under a cashmere black turtleneck and jeans, and the rest was in his car. Fifteen minutes after the agreed upon time, Clark stumbled through the door.
Bruce knew that Clark was from the west, but seeing him outside of his ill-fitted work clothes made it even more apparent. He wore a flannel, battered jeans, his chunky glasses, muddy boots, and a god-forsaken camouflage baseball hat that was sun faded.
“You look like a hick,” Bruce stood up and pulled Clarks chair out for him.
“Well, I think I blend in,” Clark nodded to a man walking past their table wearing the same exact outfit. He looked over to the menu board by the wall of the restaurant's various local awards and sat down, “thank you,” he told Bruce.
Bruce nodded and returned to his seat.
“So what do you know about the people we’re seeing tonight?” Clark asked as he watched Bruce rearrange the condiments on the table.
“Everything.” Bruce turned the vinegar bottle around so the label faced them.
“Everything? Including…” Clark gestured to his face.
“Including their real identities, yes. But you don’t need to know that and it wouldn’t have any net benefit for you.” Bruce stared down the waitress and although the woman seemed disturbed by it, she quickly headed over to their table.
“Hiya, what can I get you two?” She pulled out her notepad and clacked her long french tip acrylics against it.
“Broiled lobster with a side of salad please,” Bruce didn’t look up.
“And for you?” She turned to Clark as she scribbled down the order.
“Just a cup of clam chowder, thanks,” Clark smiled in his big warm way.
“Just that? Anything else?” The lady seemed concerned that that was all such a large man was ordering.
“That’s all, thank you,” Bruce affirmed. The lady nodded and headed back to the kitchen and Clark leaned over to Bruce. “Yes, I’ll eat the chowder for you,” Bruce told Clark. Clark let out a sigh of relief and leaned back a bit. “Are you going to look at who everyone is? Those who don’t show their face?”
“Oh, no, I don’t normally look like that. People find it rude.” Clark shook his head.
“Really?” Bruce gave knowing eyes to Clark.
“Okay,” Clark chuckled, “I only did that with you by accident. It happens sometimes when I get caught off guard or over stimulated and those more… natural things just slip out.”
“Aw, almost had me thinking it was because you liked me.” Bruce toyed.
Clark bashfully took a sip of his water and rested his chin on his hand. “About that–”
Bruce looked up to Clark, feeling like he was about to be proven wrong.
“Oh I like you, no doubt about that, but I just wanted to plan our next date. I know you like to do those things in advance.”
Bruce nodded, “you have an award ceremony coming up,”
“I thought you said you wanted to keep this private?”
“I do, but if you ever wanted some arm candy or a one-on-one after party I’d be okay with that.”
Clark bit a smile and swallowed, “I love that, but I’m not going.”
Bruce's brow tightened and his head tilted.
“I just think that kind of stuff is…chauvinist and just a big circle-jerk.”
Bruce coughed into a laughing fit, taken aback that someone like Clark would use the term ‘circle-jerk’. It was like a bunny giving someone the finger. Clark snickered in response to the sound of Bruce's laugh and once the two were done they both took a drink of water.
“Doesn’t Lois love going to award ceremonies though?” Bruce pointed out, Lois was just about the only person Clark looked up to around their age. Something told him that Clark also had feelings for her at some point, but if he was willing to go after Bruce then they must’ve died out.
“That’s totally different,” Clark went into a professional defensive mode, “she’s the most awarded journalist of our time, and she’s a woman. When she does go to those kinds of things, it’s because it’s feminist and a big deal. Most of the time, she’s the only woman getting an award. When I go, it’s just another man.”
Bruce nodded. “You still deserve to be praised, though. Not as the big ‘S’, but as Clark Kent.”
Clark smiled at Bruce, who was looking away with a slightly pink face, and sighed. “Okay, I’ll see if they’re still accepting RSVPs.”
Bruce nodded and tapped the table with his fingers. He wanted to tell Clark something and Clark could tell. “You remember Holly Robinson?”
“Oh, Holly! Selina’s friend, have you worked out a statement with her yet, about Zucco yet?” Clarks face lit up at the memory of her.
“Yes, she’s moved to Bludhaven for the time being though just in case,” Bruce added. “What did you think of–”
“Here ya go,” the waitress gently placed a small cup of clam chowder in front of Clark and a large plate of lobster and butter in front of Bruce. “I’ll be right back with that salad,” she added before walking away.
Clark slid his bowl to Bruce, “you were saying?”
“I just wanted to know what you thought of her moving,” Bruce lied.
“Oh,” Clark was caught off guard, “I…guess that’s great, what’s she doing down there?”
“Getting her GED,”
“Don’t all Wayne Corp. employees get paid to get their GED before working?”
“...possibly.” Bruce turned to the waitress rearing the corner and took his salad from her before she could say a word. “Thank you,” he then turned back to Clark so she wouldn’t interrupt them again.
Clark watched Bruce eat in silence for a good while, wherever he learned his manners seemed to be ingrained in him. Even in a clean-adjacent hole in the wall, Bruce did everything with a certain level of grace and precision.
“You’re not acting like how you normally do in public,” Clark pointed out, “the Bruce I met would’ve been sweet talking the waitress,”
Bruce swallowed and dabbed his mouth clean, “no one here expects me to be that kind of person. I’ll never see these people again and they won’t remember the face of a man who ate their most common dish with their average salad.”
“Not unless you come here often,” Clark offered. “If you plan on going to all our meetings, maybe this could be a tradition of ours.”
Bruce tightened his lips and rubbed his buttered fingers together, thinking about how that would all work. The time he would need to be away from Gotham, having his presence be reliable in yet another location, the identity or safety procedures that would need to be made. He glanced up to Clark and could see his open expression, the aura of optimism that constantly surrounded him.
“Not all, I’m a part-timer.” He took a sip of water, “but we could, for the ones I go to.” Bruce added.
That seemed to be enough for Clark, because a soft grin spread across his face as he settled back down into his seat to watch Bruce eat. As Bruce resumed his work on a lobster claw, Clark remembered something and dug around in his pockets before pulling out a lighter sized container that was matte black. “I almost forgot, here you go.” He sat it down on the table.
Bruce gagged on his food. He had sent the container to Clark earlier that week as the only request he had before they had sex; it was full of Clarks semen.
He told Clark that it was because he wanted to know what it would do to AMAB humans, but also because there was jack shit on Kryptonian anatomy. As a species impenetrable to most things, blood samples would be rendered impossible to collect. Clark never worked hard enough to sweat, and spit only contains so much information. Clark didn’t know any of this of course, just that Bruce was worried about any possible side effects of fucking him.
Bruce quickly snatched up the container and tucked it in his pants, “please never put that kind of thing on a table I eat at ever again,” Bruce begged.
“I mean, I sterilized the outside of it as soon as I filled it.” Clark said as if it was obvious, “and,” he leaned in closer, “I hope you know I’d wear a condom.”
Bruce sighed, “those can break, or leak, or just slip off. Trust me, I know,” Bruce spoke from experience, shuddering at the amount of pregnancy scares he had in life. “And if you want to be committed, then I’m okay with not wearing them.” He added.
Clark froze, “you’d do that?”
“Yeah, I mean neither of us could get the other pregnant, unless something proves otherwise–”
“You wouldn’t sleep with anyone else?” Clark cut him off.
Bruce didn’t realize the gravity of what he said, but that didn’t mean he regretted saying it either. “I guess I wouldn’t.” He confirmed and cracked another claw of his lobster. Some questions started to rise in Bruce, “When you said you wanted to take things slow, what exactly did you mean by that?”
“Well, I’d like to get to know you more, as a person, before we get serious.” Clark said as if it was obvious and clear.
“So do you already plan on us liking each other enough to be serious? If so, then why go slow? And at what point would you consider a relationship to be a couple?”
“Um, well. I like you enough to be serious, it’s just that I…” Clark rummaged around his mind, looking for the right words, “don’t like moving fast. Like I need time to adjust to having new people in my life that I care about and figuring out how we work together. I don’t like doing that all at once. And the couple question, I’d say when it feels right.”
Bruce thought for a moment, and once he digested what Clark had said, he nodded. “Okay.”
Clark let out a sigh, apparently Bruce's approval was important to him. “You really like your planning, don’t you?”
Bruce scraped the bowl of chowder with his spoon, “I’ll be the only person in the room tonight who bleeds like a human. Who gets the flu, who needs to sleep eight hours, or even gets food poisoning. All the strategies I make, the plans you’ll never see, it’s what makes me able to sit at the same table as you and all the others. My tools help, yes, but I only carry them because of the foresight I have. Strength, speed, magic, I know that as long as I’m human I will always have lower limits than people you. But being a step ahead, that’s what makes up for all of it.”
Bruce knew there was nothing for Clark to say because he was right. Anyone else could have the resources he had, but none used them like he did. No one else worked with his ethics or morals and kept working. No one purely human, that is.
“I don’t see you as a challenge or as a threat,” Clark spoke. Bruce looked into Clarks eyes for the first time in a while, he looked worried, “because I only see you as my equal, wholly.”
Bruce felt a tightness in his chest, whatever Clark thought light and breezy was in a relationship was far from what he was familiar with. A man of few words, Bruce could only dart his eyes away and gnaw at his bottom lip.
Bruce finished the rest of his meal in silence, and although Clark was watching the entire time it never felt unsettling. More like he was paying attention. Once done Bruce stood up and sat the napkin on his lap on the table.
“Are you not going to pay?” Clark stood up as well.
“I already did, before you got here,”
“But you don’t know what I would’ve ordered,”
“Well, it was less than the $500 I gave.” Bruce got into his car parked out front. Clark hunched down to look at Bruce, his giant frame dwarfing the size of the car. “Did you fly here?” Bruce noticed no additional cars in the parking lot.
“Yeah, but I parked a few states over,” Clark closed the door for Bruce and wandered just out of sight before a blue and red flash shot out of some trees.
The rest of the drive there, Bruce could only think of what an odd pair the two made.