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Big.
That was Clark’s first thought when he saw B.
Please don’t misunderstand. This B is not that B. Not the one in the dark bat suit, perched on a gargoyle in Gotham, his very name striking fear into criminals. This B was a hen that Clark’s parents kept.
Yes, a hen.
Clark had named her B himself. He’d never told anyone, because he knew—the moment he did, the real B would find out. Thank Gotham, thank Earth, that Batman didn’t have telepathy, Superman thought—though B didn’t need superpowers to know what they were thinking.
As for why the great and upstanding Superman named a hen after his teammate… well, see for yourself:
B was a beautiful hen, with glossy black feathers that shone like oil in the sun. She didn’t huddle with the other hens for warmth. Instead, she perched alone atop the coop, looking down at all the other chickens—and at the Kryptonian who came to collect eggs—with cold, aloof disdain.
Clark had never seen B lay an egg. But she protected every single egg laid by the other hens. The moment Clark reached into the nesting box, B would swoop down from the roof and attack the despicable Kryptonian. Clark always had to soften his skin, afraid of breaking her beak or claws. But B could never really hurt him—after all, she was only named B, not actually made of kryptonite.
Superman was the greatest hero in the world. He could lift a truck with one hand, melt enemy weapons with his heat vision, and catch falling civilians mid-flight with pinpoint precision.
But in front of B, Clark was just a helpless farm boy.
What? You asked which B? I don’t think it makes a difference.
---
Clark stood outside the fence, staring down at the fresh chicken footprints on his T-shirt, and sighed quietly. Of course he wasn’t hurt, but B always gave him a strange sense of defeat. This chicken never backed down, never showed fear, never made concessions for his size, his strength, his identity.
Just like the real B.
No, Clark corrected himself. The real B wasn’t this unreasonable.
When he showed up in Gotham, the real B would at least listen to his explanation and ask why he was there. Hen B, though? Hen B would spread her wings and assume a defensive stance the moment Clark came near the coop.
Clark could only try to reason with her—reason with a hen.
“Look,” Clark said patiently, “you guys don’t even brood. What’s the point of hoarding all these eggs? I’m not trying to steal them. This is rent. You live in my house, I feed you, I give you water—all I ask is for a few eggs. That’s not too much, right?”
B tilted her head. Clark thought he’d made progress—until the hen charged.
God, this was harder than convincing B. B was stubborn, but at least he understood English. (The world’s greatest detective, being compared to a hen: Achoo!)
But Clark wasn’t about to give up.
Late at night, he floated into the coop with a basket. Kryptonians didn’t need flashlights to see. The hens were sleeping soundly, huddled together, making soft clucking sounds. Clark couldn’t find B anywhere—she was a black hen, naturally camouflaged. But that didn’t matter. As long as he got the eggs before B noticed—
A pair of jet-black eyes were staring right at him.
Wait. Since when?
Clark felt like a thief caught red-handed in someone’s house.
“Shh—” Clark raised a finger and whispered, “Don’t make a sound. Please—”
B ignored him. She hopped down from a beam, landing soundlessly, and spread her wings to block Clark’s only exit.
A hen had trapped Superman in a chicken coop.
Clark figured no one would believe him if he told them. Not that he would tell them. Just imagine it: at a routine Justice League meeting, he raises a hand and says, “Hey everyone, I got trapped in my parents’ chicken coop by a hen.” The Flash would laugh himself out of his chair. Wonder Woman would have that “I want to stay serious but I can’t” look. And Batman—
Batman would stare at him expressionlessly, barely suppressing a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Noted: Superman once got trapped by a hen.”
Just imagining it made Clark feel a deep, cross-species sense of secondhand embarrassment.
“Listen,” Clark set down the basket and crouched to B’s eye level. “I’m not the enemy. Have I ever hurt anyone—I mean, any hen? No, right? I just want a few eggs to make scrambled eggs for Martha and Jonathan. You know who they are? They’re the best people in the world. They feed you and clean the coop when I’m not around—wait, how do they get the eggs?”
B didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
“Alright.” Clark raised his hands in surrender. “I’ll go, okay?”
But he didn’t stand up right away. He stayed crouched, looking into B’s dark, gleaming eyes, and said quietly, earnestly:
“You know? You’re just like him. Not in looks—though you’re both black. It’s the… presence. That refusal to take a single step back, no matter who’s in front of you.”
B blinked.
Clark froze.
Because that blink—slow, deliberate, carrying an air of “are you done talking?”—was so familiar.
Clark shook his head violently, trying to shake off the absurd thought. What was he doing? Sure, B really did resemble Batman. Sure, Batman was also dark, liked heights, and protected every single egg—er, Gotham citizen—with everything he had. But that didn’t mean anything.
“Fine.” Clark stood up and sighed in resignation. “You’re great. I mean it. Don’t change. I’ll figure something out.”
B moved.
She scurried past Clark’s feet, gently pushed aside some hay with her beak, and revealed several clean, intact eggs beneath. Nothing special—small, but whole. B looked up at Clark, nudged the eggs toward him with her claws, and said nothing.
Clark crouched down, looking from the eggs to B.
“For me?”
B didn’t nod—she was, after all, just a chicken. But she didn’t attack him either.
Clark reached out carefully. B watched his hand the entire time, but never moved. Only when he held the eggs in his palm did B let out a soft “Cluck” before turning and hopping back onto the beam, disappearing into the darkness.
When Clark walked out of the coop with those eggs in his basket, the Kansas wind was blowing through the wheat fields, bathing everything in silver moonlight. He stood outside the fence, eggs still clinging to bits of hay, and glanced back at the dark coop.
His lips curved upward without his permission.
This felt strange. He, Superman, had witnessed the vastness of the universe, heard the heartbeats of countless lives, saved the world more times than he could count. But here he was, feeling a near-childish thrill because a hen had allowed him to take a few eggs.
“Thank you,” he said softly, even though he knew B couldn’t hear him—and if she could, she wouldn’t understand.
---
Clark felt like he and Hen B had become friends. At least, she didn’t peck him on sight anymore.
“I appreciate you giving me the eggs, but, uh,” Clark said as he scattered feed, “you don’t need to give up your food for the other hens. Really. There’s enough for everyone.”
B ignored him. She just stood at her high perch, quietly watching the others eat, stepping in before any fights broke out.
“Alright. Whatever makes you happy.”
Clark started visiting the coop every day. Not for the eggs—though B occasionally let him take one or two—but to pay his respects. The phrasing was odd, but Clark couldn’t find a better word. He’d crouch outside the fence while feeding the flock and talk to B for a bit.
“Talking” was more like talking to himself.
“Lois asked me why I’ve been smiling like an idiot lately.”
B tilted her head.
“I said I was thinking about the chickens at home. She didn’t believe me.”
B listened quietly.
“She was right,” Clark admitted. “I was thinking about something else.”
Bruce Wayne.
He was thinking about Bruce Wayne. Batman. The man who stood alone by the window after meetings. The man whose eyes softened at the corners when he spoke to his children. The man who was always silent, always shadow-like.
Clark thought he was sick.
Not a fever, not a cold, not some alien virus. It was a sickness that started as a warmth in his chest and spread to his fingertips, leaving him restless and uneasy. Every time Batman stood beside him, Clark felt like that boy standing at the coop entrance—wanting to go in, but afraid of getting pecked.
“So,” Clark looked at B. “What should I do?”
B looked at him like he was an idiot.
“Never mind. Don’t answer. You’re just a chicken.”
B pecked the ground, presumably in protest.
---
Clark figured he’d officially lost his mind—confessing his emotional problems to a hen.
What could a hen say? At most, peck the ground, shake its head, and stare at him with its shiny black eyes.
Clark waited for a moment. When it became clear B wasn’t going to react further, he laughed bitterly.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked himself. “For a hen to tell you to just go confess already?”
He paused.
“No. I can’t. He wouldn’t—” He looked at B and met her calm black eyes.
He shut his mouth.
Wouldn’t what? Accept? Understand?
Clark remembered a mission that had ended with Batman standing beside him, the evening wind blowing their capes together. Batman hadn’t said anything—just stood there until Clark said, “I’m heading back to Metropolis.” Then came a soft “Mm.”
What had he been thinking then? Or rather, what had Clark wished he was thinking?
He didn’t know.
He’d never been so confused in his life.
---
“You’ve been acting strange.”
Batman said it like a statement of fact, his eyes fixed on Superman.
“Strange? Me?” Clark laughed nervously. He really shouldn’t have spent so much time talking to a hen. Before, seeing a hen made him think of Batman. Now, seeing Batman made him think of hens.
How awkward.
Batman raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“Uh… I’ll head back to Metropolis now.”
“Wait.”
Batman called out to him. Superman paused mid-air, not sure what he was hoping for—
“That’s a rooster.”
“What?” Clark’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t believe his ears.
“I said the chicken you’ve been talking to is actually a rooster.”
“A rooster? Are you kidding me—wait, have you been spying on me?”
“It’s not spying.”
“I thought we agreed—wait, wait.” Clark held up his hands. “You’re saying it’s a rooster? What does that even mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“That’s impossible,” Clark said firmly. “I know chickens. It’s round as a ball, smells like sunshine. How could that be a rooster?”
“Have you checked?” Batman countered. “Have you ever seen it brood?”
Clark opened his mouth, then closed it. Well… no.
“Not all hens brood. But it protects eggs. Roosters don’t protect eggs.”
“This one does.”
God, Clark thought, Batman was being so childish, arguing with him over a chicken’s gender. And he was just as childish for bringing Batman home over something like this.
“Be careful,” Clark, or rather Superman, said as he led Batman toward the coop. He called out to the hen—or rooster—named B, that Schrödinger’s chicken. “He doesn’t like strangers—”
Clark fell silent.
Because the chicken was sitting perfectly still in Batman’s arms.
“He’s well-behaved,” Batman said. “And yes… quite big.”
He paused tactfully. “What have you been feeding him?”
“Just regular chicken feed. He always lets the others eat first.”
“Are you sure?” Batman asked, slipping his hand into the bird’s feathers. “He’s got muscle. Have you ever touched him?”
Clark felt a pang of annoyance. His chicken, the one that tried to peck him on sight, was letting someone else hold him.
Well. Batman wasn’t exactly someone else.
Batman flipped the chicken over to show Clark its underside—and sure enough, it was a rooster.
Having confirmed the gender, Batman made no move to put the chicken down. Clark stood there, watching helplessly as the creature nestled comfortably in Batman’s arms, even closing its eyes in contentment. The same fierce creature that had once spread its wings and trapped Clark in the coop, the dinosaur’s distant relative, was now curling its claws and letting out a satisfied purr that Clark had never heard before.
“What did you use?” Clark asked dryly. “Pheromones? Technology? Some kind of… Bat-chicken translator I don’t know about?”
Batman looked up at him and smiled faintly.
“I just picked him up,” Batman said. “Unlike you, who pours your heart out to a chicken.”
Clark’s face turned bright red.
“You—” he stammered. “You heard that?”
Batman nodded silently.
“How much did you hear? I mean… what do you think?” Clark fidgeted, his fingers twisting together. He didn’t look like Superman anymore—just an ordinary farm boy, nervously awaiting his crush’s response.
“I was wondering…” Batman said, poking the chicken’s head. “Why did you name a chicken after me? Are we really that alike?”
Oh, no.
“Wait, let me explain—no, how do you even know that? I never told anyone—hold on…” Clark paused, then looked at Batman—or rather Bruce—with a hint of complaint. “You’re changing the subject. That’s not what I asked.”
Bruce laughed out loud. B purred contentedly under his hand.
“You haven’t answered my question,” Bruce said casually. “How am I like it?”
“I never said—”
“You said ‘presence,’” Bruce said, looking down at the chicken in his arms. B stared back at him with unblinking black eyes. “You said I never take a step back, no matter who I’m facing. You said—”
“Stop—” Clark buried his face in his hands. “How do you remember all that?”
“Because I’m Batman.”
“Right. You’re Batman. You’re amazing. You know everything.” Clark resigned himself to his fate. “Can you forget it?”
“No.”
Bruce’s voice was warm with laughter.
He held the chicken up.
“From today on, your name is Bat-chicken.”
B—Bat-chicken—clucked twice, as if in approval.
“That’s my chicken,” Clark said glumly.
“He’s mine now,” Bruce said, tucking the chicken back against his chest. Bat-chicken immediately buried its head in Bruce’s pectorals. “And so are you.”
Clark thought he might be hallucinating.
“What did you just say—”
“What? You don’t want to?” Bruce tilted his head and smiled so beautifully that Clark’s heart skipped a beat. “Then I’ll just take Bat-chicken and go.”
“Wait.” Clark reached out to stop him. He looked almost shy. “Then… Bat-Superman?”
“That sounds terrible.”
“I can’t help it.” Clark dropped his head, looking up at Bruce like a sad puppy.
Bruce looked away.
“You don’t have to change the name.”
“So you weren’t serious?”
Bruce sucked in a sharp breath. Clark laughed.
“I’m joking,” he said, and leaned down to gently brush his nose against Bruce’s forehead.
Bat-chicken wiggled its bottom and buried its head even deeper. What came next wasn’t meant for little chicks’ eyes.