SOMEHOW I'M STILL MANAGING TO DRAG THIS OUT EVEN MORE. OOPS. This is getting more self-indulgent by the part, and I'm sorry. Also, judging by past experience, this part being long is only a sign that probably the rest of the parts will be even longer. Double oops?
Except of course it can't stay that way. For all that he tries not to absorb much of Bruce Wayne's popular image, Clark is still well aware of the pattern his relationships have tended to fall into, and they don't involve Bruce keeping his hands on people's arms fifteen seconds too long.
But Bruce is—Bruce is actually really considerate about the whole thing, in a weird way. He doesn't just dive into slipping Clark tongue every time they're within fifty feet of each other, or ferrying him around in limos half-dressed, or—whatever else. He eases them into it instead, just a step at a time.
Clark, newly aware that Bruce has been dogged about this at least as much as he has, guiltily googles and finds more video than he'd expected: Bruce had never made a joke like at the talk show again, had looked at the cameras with dismissive smirks and said things like, "I assure you, Mr. Kent has better taste." But nothing he'd tried had stopped him from getting a half-dozen followups every time.
And now that Clark knows what Bruce has been doing, it's easy to see how his tack has changed since the roof. He smiles at the questions before he brushes them off—less like he thinks the person asking is stupid, and more like he's someone with a secret he's happy about. (Clark had realized Bruce was a good actor, even if he'd never been sure whether it was Batman or Bruce Wayne who was the act. But Bruce is—Bruce is a really good actor.) He says things more like, "Don't jump the gun, he hasn't said yes yet," and, "Clark's not that kind of girl—but I'm wearing him down," with terrible sleazy winks tacked on at the end.
In response, like magic, the gossip blogs start to change their tone. Or most of them do, anyway. It's like before they were trying to kind of—punish Bruce for lying to them, thinking he could trick them; but now that he's conceding, letting them in on it, they just seem pleased to have something to speculate about. People stop trying to catch Clark before they can lose sight of him and start smiling, waving, before they take his photo. It only seems polite to smile back, and before he knows it, Cat's greeting pictures in the morning turn more flattering. And while the speculation about Clark's past dating history seems really excessive, he finds that he actually prefers six detailed paragraphs attempting to gauge the exact shape of his ass over the posts that baldly asked readers to weigh in on whether he was just using Bruce for his money.
Even if the former leads to Cat shouting things like, "—a perfect Kansas peach, Kent!" down the hallway after him.
Ron starts giving him crap for it again, of course, and so does Lois; but it's easier to take their fond hassling when it's—when it's on purpose. Clark rolling his eyes and turning vaguely red and trying not to look at the shirtless picture of Bruce Wayne that Lois has made into his desktop background are all just part of the plan.
It's fine.
And it's not all Bruce for long. Clark does his part, of course. Wayne Enterprises holds a ground-breaking ceremony for their newest building going up in Metropolis, and Perry gives the story to Lois—and then Clark goes anyway. When someone notices, because he can pretty much count on that these days, it's the easiest thing in the world to duck his head and clear his throat and say, "No, I'm—I'm not here for the Planet, I'm just—uh—"
Bruce notices him about halfway through the event, and—and does a good job pretending to be pleased, Clark thinks. His face lights up, he abandons the conversation he was partway through with a laugh and a handshake and doesn't look away from Clark. And Clark braces himself for—for he doesn't know what, struggling to imagine what Bruce might do: hug him? Grope him, more like, or—or kiss him, even—
(Bruce doesn't do anything but keep a hand on Clark's elbow, stand a little too close, and keep smiling. By the time the party's over, Clark's teeth ache with waiting.)
In fact, Bruce refuses to rush it so hard that that actually becomes a spectacle of its own. He starts—sending Clark things, flowers and good wine, weirdly excellent lunch for the entire Daily Planet office. "Your boyfriend is awesome," Ron tells Clark sincerely, mouth still half-full of a piece of lightly-toasted bruschetta with tomatoes, olives, prosciutto. He makes a noise as he finishes chewing, and then his eyelids kind of flutter as he swallows. "Seriously, when you're finished with him? Point him my way."
It's nothing like what Clark's been expecting. Definitely not Batman's brusque goal-oriented focus, but not really Bruce Wayne's brand of slick ostentation either—it is ostentatious, of course, but also kind of—courteous? Or—Clark's not sure how to quantify it, exactly. He just knows that thinking about it for too long makes him feel like the ground's gone unsteady under him.
He can't track Batman down just to ask him why he's giving Clark so many presents. And crying wolf, or manufacturing some kind of crisis just to get Batman to come around—one of those is a bad idea, and the other is just stupid.
But then it occurs to Clark: he doesn't need to. The whole reason they're doing this to themselves is because they need an explanation for why they're seen together sometimes out of uniform. Clark doesn't have to have an excuse, doesn't need to be Superman. He can just walk right up to Bruce's office building—and Bruce can't even make him go away without setting off a dozen TROUBLE IN PARADISE??? taglines. It's perfect.
Clark knows where Bruce spends most of his day—so does Diana, because Bruce had wanted both of them to be able to find him in an emergency situation without having to shake down half a dozen skyscrapers. And the receptionist clearly recognizes Clark, even though Clark's only been here about twice, and never when Bruce wasn't expecting him: his eyebrows start to go up before he catches himself and puts on a professional smile, and he calls Clark "Mr. Kent" before Clark even has a chance to introduce himself.
But he also buzzes up to Bruce without hesitating or feeding Clark any lines about Mr. Wayne's prior appointments. And when he says Clark's name into the phone, Clark can hear the breath Bruce draws on the other end of the line. "By all means, send him up," Bruce says, and his tone is teetering on the edge of implying filthy, filthy things; Clark shuts the hearing back down immediately, but he can feel his ears going red.
He decides not to think about what the receptionist is going to imagine is happening in Bruce's office.
Bruce is waiting for him with one eyebrow raised, his hands loosely clasped over a tablet that's playing a muted video of what looks like some kind of press conference at the UN, and the whole skyline of Gotham stretches out behind him through the plate glass, Metropolis gleaming faintly in the distance.
"A personal visit? You shouldn't have," he says. "You could have just sent another thank-you note. I think Alfred's been getting them individually framed."
"You mean you don't just have an intern shred them?" Clark says, which, whoops, comes out a little more hostile than he meant it to.
Bruce goes still. In partial profile like that, backlit, his facial features are briefly difficult to pick out; for a moment it's like Clark's looking at Batman instead.
And then Bruce swivels his chair just enough so he's looking straight at Clark, and says, "Is there a problem?"
"I—no," Clark says, because you haven't kissed me yet but I know you're going to is a totally inappropriate answer. "You weren't wrong about it getting worse to start with. And I know you warned me about that, but shouldn't we just—I mean, is all the stuff really helping?"
Bruce looks at him expressionlessly, and then leans back in that stupid chair, one forearm propped against the gleaming edge of the desk—shining mahogany, which somehow makes it even harder for Clark to drag his eyes away from the crisp white lines of Bruce's half-rolled sleeve.
"The longer it lasts," Bruce says flatly, "the more boring it gets. And, as I believe I mentioned: you're a cut above my usual, Clark."
Which, he did say that before, Clark recalls, but it—it sounds different like this: my usual, instead of his, maybe; and Clark. And it just—is different, looking Bruce right in the face like this. No cowl, no darkness, no Batman dispassionately talking about Bruce Wayne like he's a third person entirely. As distant as Bruce's voice is—
Or—or as distant as Bruce is making his voice, Clark thinks. Because, after all, Bruce is a really good actor.
"Which means," Clark prompts carefully.
Bruce glances away, spreads his hands. "I've dated a lot of people," he says. "People I could use—people who could use me. People who understood what they were getting into, who were happy to trade me their time and company on a limited basis for whatever it was they wanted: money, jewelry, a couple rides in a limo, and," he adds, with a brief sharp smirk at Clark, "some very good sex."
Clark can't help clearing his throat, but he doesn't let himself look away. He knows perfectly well that Bruce has had sex with lots of people. It's not anything worth being uncomfortable about. "But?"
"But," and Bruce looks away again; disinterested, Clark would think, except he keeps talking, so maybe—maybe it's something else. "But that's not going to be the case with you. It won't fly, not if anyone spends five minutes looking you up. And definitely not after the internet got a hold of those pictures of you waving politely at the paparazzi."
"One of them waved first," Clark tries to explain.
Bruce gives him a flat stare. "As I said. You're a cut above my usual, and everyone can tell—which means I must not be dating you for my usual reasons. I must think of you differently than I think of anyone I've dated in the past. I told you we needed to construct an appealing narrative." And this time he's still looking at Clark, voice so coolly disengaged he might as well be reading the phone book, when he says, "I have to have fallen hard, Clark. It doesn't make sense any other way."
It's silent after he says it—silent for too long, Clark realizes, and manages to scrape up a faint, "Right, of course," from somewhere. It does fit, after all: that's the groundwork Bruce has been laying, Clark can see it now. Joking about Clark's good taste, about Clark being a different kind of girl; moving slowly, none of the usual PDA splashed all over the tabloids, steadily ordering flowers over and over. Setting up something long-term.
Because—because the longer it lasts, the more boring it gets. And the tabloids want a scandal, not office lunches and arm-touching.
"Of course," Clark says again, more steadily. "Right. I—sorry. Thank you," and then before he can fumble anything else out, he turns and heads for the door.
FILL: tell all the truth (but tell it slant); Bruce/Clark, fake dating (6/?)
Except of course it can't stay that way. For all that he tries not to absorb much of Bruce Wayne's popular image, Clark is still well aware of the pattern his relationships have tended to fall into, and they don't involve Bruce keeping his hands on people's arms fifteen seconds too long.
But Bruce is—Bruce is actually really considerate about the whole thing, in a weird way. He doesn't just dive into slipping Clark tongue every time they're within fifty feet of each other, or ferrying him around in limos half-dressed, or—whatever else. He eases them into it instead, just a step at a time.
Clark, newly aware that Bruce has been dogged about this at least as much as he has, guiltily googles and finds more video than he'd expected: Bruce had never made a joke like at the talk show again, had looked at the cameras with dismissive smirks and said things like, "I assure you, Mr. Kent has better taste." But nothing he'd tried had stopped him from getting a half-dozen followups every time.
And now that Clark knows what Bruce has been doing, it's easy to see how his tack has changed since the roof. He smiles at the questions before he brushes them off—less like he thinks the person asking is stupid, and more like he's someone with a secret he's happy about. (Clark had realized Bruce was a good actor, even if he'd never been sure whether it was Batman or Bruce Wayne who was the act. But Bruce is—Bruce is a really good actor.) He says things more like, "Don't jump the gun, he hasn't said yes yet," and, "Clark's not that kind of girl—but I'm wearing him down," with terrible sleazy winks tacked on at the end.
In response, like magic, the gossip blogs start to change their tone. Or most of them do, anyway. It's like before they were trying to kind of—punish Bruce for lying to them, thinking he could trick them; but now that he's conceding, letting them in on it, they just seem pleased to have something to speculate about. People stop trying to catch Clark before they can lose sight of him and start smiling, waving, before they take his photo. It only seems polite to smile back, and before he knows it, Cat's greeting pictures in the morning turn more flattering. And while the speculation about Clark's past dating history seems really excessive, he finds that he actually prefers six detailed paragraphs attempting to gauge the exact shape of his ass over the posts that baldly asked readers to weigh in on whether he was just using Bruce for his money.
Even if the former leads to Cat shouting things like, "—a perfect Kansas peach, Kent!" down the hallway after him.
Ron starts giving him crap for it again, of course, and so does Lois; but it's easier to take their fond hassling when it's—when it's on purpose. Clark rolling his eyes and turning vaguely red and trying not to look at the shirtless picture of Bruce Wayne that Lois has made into his desktop background are all just part of the plan.
It's fine.
And it's not all Bruce for long. Clark does his part, of course. Wayne Enterprises holds a ground-breaking ceremony for their newest building going up in Metropolis, and Perry gives the story to Lois—and then Clark goes anyway. When someone notices, because he can pretty much count on that these days, it's the easiest thing in the world to duck his head and clear his throat and say, "No, I'm—I'm not here for the Planet, I'm just—uh—"
Bruce notices him about halfway through the event, and—and does a good job pretending to be pleased, Clark thinks. His face lights up, he abandons the conversation he was partway through with a laugh and a handshake and doesn't look away from Clark. And Clark braces himself for—for he doesn't know what, struggling to imagine what Bruce might do: hug him? Grope him, more like, or—or kiss him, even—
(Bruce doesn't do anything but keep a hand on Clark's elbow, stand a little too close, and keep smiling. By the time the party's over, Clark's teeth ache with waiting.)
In fact, Bruce refuses to rush it so hard that that actually becomes a spectacle of its own. He starts—sending Clark things, flowers and good wine, weirdly excellent lunch for the entire Daily Planet office. "Your boyfriend is awesome," Ron tells Clark sincerely, mouth still half-full of a piece of lightly-toasted bruschetta with tomatoes, olives, prosciutto. He makes a noise as he finishes chewing, and then his eyelids kind of flutter as he swallows. "Seriously, when you're finished with him? Point him my way."
It's nothing like what Clark's been expecting. Definitely not Batman's brusque goal-oriented focus, but not really Bruce Wayne's brand of slick ostentation either—it is ostentatious, of course, but also kind of—courteous? Or—Clark's not sure how to quantify it, exactly. He just knows that thinking about it for too long makes him feel like the ground's gone unsteady under him.
He can't track Batman down just to ask him why he's giving Clark so many presents. And crying wolf, or manufacturing some kind of crisis just to get Batman to come around—one of those is a bad idea, and the other is just stupid.
But then it occurs to Clark: he doesn't need to. The whole reason they're doing this to themselves is because they need an explanation for why they're seen together sometimes out of uniform. Clark doesn't have to have an excuse, doesn't need to be Superman. He can just walk right up to Bruce's office building—and Bruce can't even make him go away without setting off a dozen TROUBLE IN PARADISE??? taglines. It's perfect.
Clark knows where Bruce spends most of his day—so does Diana, because Bruce had wanted both of them to be able to find him in an emergency situation without having to shake down half a dozen skyscrapers. And the receptionist clearly recognizes Clark, even though Clark's only been here about twice, and never when Bruce wasn't expecting him: his eyebrows start to go up before he catches himself and puts on a professional smile, and he calls Clark "Mr. Kent" before Clark even has a chance to introduce himself.
But he also buzzes up to Bruce without hesitating or feeding Clark any lines about Mr. Wayne's prior appointments. And when he says Clark's name into the phone, Clark can hear the breath Bruce draws on the other end of the line. "By all means, send him up," Bruce says, and his tone is teetering on the edge of implying filthy, filthy things; Clark shuts the hearing back down immediately, but he can feel his ears going red.
He decides not to think about what the receptionist is going to imagine is happening in Bruce's office.
Bruce is waiting for him with one eyebrow raised, his hands loosely clasped over a tablet that's playing a muted video of what looks like some kind of press conference at the UN, and the whole skyline of Gotham stretches out behind him through the plate glass, Metropolis gleaming faintly in the distance.
"A personal visit? You shouldn't have," he says. "You could have just sent another thank-you note. I think Alfred's been getting them individually framed."
"You mean you don't just have an intern shred them?" Clark says, which, whoops, comes out a little more hostile than he meant it to.
Bruce goes still. In partial profile like that, backlit, his facial features are briefly difficult to pick out; for a moment it's like Clark's looking at Batman instead.
And then Bruce swivels his chair just enough so he's looking straight at Clark, and says, "Is there a problem?"
"I—no," Clark says, because you haven't kissed me yet but I know you're going to is a totally inappropriate answer. "You weren't wrong about it getting worse to start with. And I know you warned me about that, but shouldn't we just—I mean, is all the stuff really helping?"
Bruce looks at him expressionlessly, and then leans back in that stupid chair, one forearm propped against the gleaming edge of the desk—shining mahogany, which somehow makes it even harder for Clark to drag his eyes away from the crisp white lines of Bruce's half-rolled sleeve.
"The longer it lasts," Bruce says flatly, "the more boring it gets. And, as I believe I mentioned: you're a cut above my usual, Clark."
Which, he did say that before, Clark recalls, but it—it sounds different like this: my usual, instead of his, maybe; and Clark. And it just—is different, looking Bruce right in the face like this. No cowl, no darkness, no Batman dispassionately talking about Bruce Wayne like he's a third person entirely. As distant as Bruce's voice is—
Or—or as distant as Bruce is making his voice, Clark thinks. Because, after all, Bruce is a really good actor.
"Which means," Clark prompts carefully.
Bruce glances away, spreads his hands. "I've dated a lot of people," he says. "People I could use—people who could use me. People who understood what they were getting into, who were happy to trade me their time and company on a limited basis for whatever it was they wanted: money, jewelry, a couple rides in a limo, and," he adds, with a brief sharp smirk at Clark, "some very good sex."
Clark can't help clearing his throat, but he doesn't let himself look away. He knows perfectly well that Bruce has had sex with lots of people. It's not anything worth being uncomfortable about. "But?"
"But," and Bruce looks away again; disinterested, Clark would think, except he keeps talking, so maybe—maybe it's something else. "But that's not going to be the case with you. It won't fly, not if anyone spends five minutes looking you up. And definitely not after the internet got a hold of those pictures of you waving politely at the paparazzi."
"One of them waved first," Clark tries to explain.
Bruce gives him a flat stare. "As I said. You're a cut above my usual, and everyone can tell—which means I must not be dating you for my usual reasons. I must think of you differently than I think of anyone I've dated in the past. I told you we needed to construct an appealing narrative." And this time he's still looking at Clark, voice so coolly disengaged he might as well be reading the phone book, when he says, "I have to have fallen hard, Clark. It doesn't make sense any other way."
It's silent after he says it—silent for too long, Clark realizes, and manages to scrape up a faint, "Right, of course," from somewhere. It does fit, after all: that's the groundwork Bruce has been laying, Clark can see it now. Joking about Clark's good taste, about Clark being a different kind of girl; moving slowly, none of the usual PDA splashed all over the tabloids, steadily ordering flowers over and over. Setting up something long-term.
Because—because the longer it lasts, the more boring it gets. And the tabloids want a scandal, not office lunches and arm-touching.
"Of course," Clark says again, more steadily. "Right. I—sorry. Thank you," and then before he can fumble anything else out, he turns and heads for the door.