When he returned to the living room, Bruce almost tripped against the Kryptonian drone. It had hung back in the shadow of the room divider. He couldn’t be sure the reporter hadn’t seen it, but the shadow was awfully deep, and he seemed engrossed in one of Alfred’s picaresque tales.
No reason to tempt fate, he decided. Bruce motioned at the machine to hide itself in his room.
The tentacle-arm wiggled the polysomnogram at him again, and motioned in the direction of Alfred and the reporter.
Bruce slashed vigorously across his throat, hoping it meant cut it the fuck out in Kryptonian as well. Bingo. The drone peevishly resumed an inert form. In the context of his spartan living room, the rounded metal hexagon looked like a piece of modernist art, or a very non-functional end table.
The metal surface rippled in a cascade of smaller hexagonals, until the polysomnogram appeared on its surface. That was...less easily explainable, but still fine.
The pink and white screen flashed. It read: D:<
Great. He was being back-sassed by an end table.
Bruce blew out a frustrated breath, and pinched his brow. He was losing contact with his character. Bruce Wayne wasn’t being harassed by alien emoticons in his own goddamn home-- and really he was going to have words with whomever had taught the drone. That wasn’t a problem that even existed in his world. Bruce Wayne wouldn’t care if he was caught hungover in a costume, so he shouldn’t. Bruce loosened the belt, and let the gown fall open to his navel. By the time he’d fought his irritation back to an acceptable level and turned to his “guest”, Alfred had set a tea service in the living room.
* (B) *
The three men drank tea on the low, uncomfortable living room set. Alfred had chosen this furniture years ago to make the place seem too sleek for entertaining, too streamlined for practical use. Alfred and Kent sat a shoulder-length apart on the couch, while Bruce had chosen the chair directly opposite and watched them over the rim of his cup. Kent’s knees were practically to his chest, and he wobbled as he settled his saucer against his chest. The entire gathering took on an awkward meet-the-parents feel.
The question was: who was Clark Kent? He was agreeable, obliging, uncompromising, honest and--admittedly--handsome, in a down-to-earth, middle-America kind of way. He had secured his job at the Daily Planet under the tutelage of Lois Lane, and had covered half-a-dozen international stories since he made his front-page debut with a scathing expose on the Metropolis Reconstruction Fund, half of which had been funneled into LexCorp shell companies and then miraculously recovered (Bruce stayed tight-lipped about his role in that recovery). His history prior to Metropolis was obscure. Kent mentioned waiting tables, and made a joke about pulleys that only a sailor (or a bat vigilante) would find particularly amusing. A half hour of awkwardly talking around the issue--making the most banal observations about the Gotham Knights’ losing streak that could reasonably be expected from a man who had run a Fortune 500 company in his younger days--and Bruce couldn’t put a finger on what made this Daily Planet reporter more well known to the Wayne household than any of Gotham’s society hacks.
He wasn’t without his points of interest. For instance: Clark held his saucer and cup like he was afraid they would break at any moment, but conversed with breezy sincerity. That combination of deep anxiety and philosophic unconcern--in Bruce’s experience those traits signaled a man who had hidden something so long, he’d forgotten it was a secret. For a man like Clark Kent, that secret was likely something just as elemental and prosaic as the rolling wheat fields of Kansas.
Bruce Wayne’s public persona skated by on the indulgence of society that thought him a little dim, a little uncaring, when both intelligence and compassion were in fashion with the ultra-rich. As such, Bruce Wayne was not normally confrontational when he was playing to the crowd, but now that the reporter was inside of his home, he felt cornered. The more ill at ease he felt, the more inane his conversation became.
When Bruce had resorted to philosophizing on monk-strap shoes to bore Kent out of what was left of the Wayne estate, Alfred thumped his cup down on its saucer.
“No coffee, Alfred?” Bruce asked, sipping his tea lightly.
“Make it yourself--after we’ve concluded our business.” Alfred squared his shoulders, and tugged at his waistcoat with the grim resolution of a man about to face the firing squad.
Bruce felt his world drop away with Alfred’s next sentence.
“What’s Mr. Wayne’s current cover?”
If Bruce Wayne had been on a nasty bender, it would be natural for Alfred to arrange a cover. That wasn’t what brought Bruce up cold. It was the familiarity with which both of the men fell into a conspiratorial huddle, instinctively turned away from the bedroom, away from what would have been his empty chair. Bruce’s attention skated out to the trees, covered in snow.
The realization, when it hit, bowled Bruce over. He, Kal and Diana had fought Doomsday in autumn. It was winter now. Bruce hadn’t been out for a night, or even a week. Months. It had been months.
The cup didn’t even rattle as Bruce set it down on the floor, and sat back in his chair to watch the conspirators across the gulf of everything he didn’t know.
Kent pulled out a notebook, and flipped over pages of pigeon-scrawl. He stopped on a page that appeared to be nothing but dates, numbers, names, places. “I had a sighting in Monaco three days ago that a few Gotham papers snapped up.”
“Credible?”
Bruce swallowed at that question. There was a story buried in that word.
“A mediocre photoshop from a previous trip,” Kent admitted. “But received well enough that I think that’s where we can plan Mr. Wayne’s re-entry.”
Alfred pulled out his tablet, his clearly non-civilian one, and tapped a few screens. Bruce breathed in sharply. Kent either didn’t notice anything amiss, or a butler with military-grade tech had become an unremarkable occurrence.
(He did shoot Bruce a small, pensive look, but Bruce was doing his best to ignore it.)
“A Wayne Enterprises plane out of Marseille will land tomorrow evening. It’s not ideal but--” Alfred lapsed into thought. Kent didn’t press for more details, and Bruce wouldn’t until he had Alfred alone. Alfred cleared his throat, and continued. “Naturally, Mr. Wayne should be seen as soon as possible to allay persistent rumors about his illness.”
Kent bobbed his head in agreement, and it was settled. Alfred tapped his screen a few more times.
“Was the picture at the Hermitage Hotel?” Bruce asked, as steadily as his voice would allow. Alfred glanced up with a tight grimace. Bruce shrugged back. What other material was there of Bruce on the Riviera?
“A balcony shot outside of the Diamond Suite villa. Seated. You’re, um, shirtless. I photoshopped out the bandages. It’s still very tasteful,” Kent reassured.
Alfred paled. So Kent didn’t know that, at least.
Bruce had stayed at the Hermitage hotel only once before--another one of those incidents that Bruce kept tightly locked down in a twenty year career of dealing with his physical limitations and moving on with clockwork efficiency. He shifted in his seat as he imagined a twinge in his lower lumbar, where Bane had splintered his vertebrae.
“I’ll back-date the suite’s charges to Mr. Wayne’s personal account,” Alfred said a little wanly. “Was Mr. Wayne spotted at any of the local nightlife...?”
The tips of Clark’s ears pinked. “The rumor is that he retreated to Monte Carlo with a, a--”
“Paramour?” Alfred supplied. Clark’s shoulders slumped, and he nodded once, sharply.
Bruce resigned himself to Clark’s answer. His public tastes swung to the socially vapid, extremely dull heiresses that he so richly deserved: Aliya Van Patten, or maybe Tara Pierce of the West Coast Shipping Pierces. Bruce Wayne would have to been seen with whomever the reporter had picked--at least twice in full daytime shots in the local papers before he could close down that cover and move on to the next Wayne escapade.
“She got a name?” Bruce asked flatly.
(Clark and Alfred both startled, as though they’d forgotten he was there.)
“I used a couple of shell accounts to speculate,” Clark said. “Short, gorgeous, blonde. Tall, brunet, um,” Clark clenched his hands around the teacup, and Bruce thought he heard the faint sound of porcelain cracking. “Male,” he added, finally, eyes darting anywhere but Bruce’s face.
“How delightful, Mr. Kent,” Alfred said with a lighter sarcasm than Bruce would have expected. “I believe you just nominated yourself to be Bruce’s date tomorrow night.”
FILL: Regroup (6/many) -- Bruce/Clark, rough hatesex
When he returned to the living room, Bruce almost tripped against the Kryptonian drone. It had hung back in the shadow of the room divider. He couldn’t be sure the reporter hadn’t seen it, but the shadow was awfully deep, and he seemed engrossed in one of Alfred’s picaresque tales.
No reason to tempt fate, he decided. Bruce motioned at the machine to hide itself in his room.
The tentacle-arm wiggled the polysomnogram at him again, and motioned in the direction of Alfred and the reporter.
Bruce slashed vigorously across his throat, hoping it meant cut it the fuck out in Kryptonian as well. Bingo. The drone peevishly resumed an inert form. In the context of his spartan living room, the rounded metal hexagon looked like a piece of modernist art, or a very non-functional end table.
The metal surface rippled in a cascade of smaller hexagonals, until the polysomnogram appeared on its surface. That was...less easily explainable, but still fine.
The pink and white screen flashed. It read: D:<
Great. He was being back-sassed by an end table.
Bruce blew out a frustrated breath, and pinched his brow. He was losing contact with his character. Bruce Wayne wasn’t being harassed by alien emoticons in his own goddamn home-- and really he was going to have words with whomever had taught the drone. That wasn’t a problem that even existed in his world. Bruce Wayne wouldn’t care if he was caught hungover in a costume, so he shouldn’t. Bruce loosened the belt, and let the gown fall open to his navel. By the time he’d fought his irritation back to an acceptable level and turned to his “guest”, Alfred had set a tea service in the living room.
* (B) *
The three men drank tea on the low, uncomfortable living room set. Alfred had chosen this furniture years ago to make the place seem too sleek for entertaining, too streamlined for practical use. Alfred and Kent sat a shoulder-length apart on the couch, while Bruce had chosen the chair directly opposite and watched them over the rim of his cup. Kent’s knees were practically to his chest, and he wobbled as he settled his saucer against his chest. The entire gathering took on an awkward meet-the-parents feel.
The question was: who was Clark Kent? He was agreeable, obliging, uncompromising, honest and--admittedly--handsome, in a down-to-earth, middle-America kind of way. He had secured his job at the Daily Planet under the tutelage of Lois Lane, and had covered half-a-dozen international stories since he made his front-page debut with a scathing expose on the Metropolis Reconstruction Fund, half of which had been funneled into LexCorp shell companies and then miraculously recovered (Bruce stayed tight-lipped about his role in that recovery). His history prior to Metropolis was obscure. Kent mentioned waiting tables, and made a joke about pulleys that only a sailor (or a bat vigilante) would find particularly amusing. A half hour of awkwardly talking around the issue--making the most banal observations about the Gotham Knights’ losing streak that could reasonably be expected from a man who had run a Fortune 500 company in his younger days--and Bruce couldn’t put a finger on what made this Daily Planet reporter more well known to the Wayne household than any of Gotham’s society hacks.
He wasn’t without his points of interest. For instance: Clark held his saucer and cup like he was afraid they would break at any moment, but conversed with breezy sincerity. That combination of deep anxiety and philosophic unconcern--in Bruce’s experience those traits signaled a man who had hidden something so long, he’d forgotten it was a secret. For a man like Clark Kent, that secret was likely something just as elemental and prosaic as the rolling wheat fields of Kansas.
Bruce Wayne’s public persona skated by on the indulgence of society that thought him a little dim, a little uncaring, when both intelligence and compassion were in fashion with the ultra-rich. As such, Bruce Wayne was not normally confrontational when he was playing to the crowd, but now that the reporter was inside of his home, he felt cornered. The more ill at ease he felt, the more inane his conversation became.
When Bruce had resorted to philosophizing on monk-strap shoes to bore Kent out of what was left of the Wayne estate, Alfred thumped his cup down on its saucer.
“No coffee, Alfred?” Bruce asked, sipping his tea lightly.
“Make it yourself--after we’ve concluded our business.” Alfred squared his shoulders, and tugged at his waistcoat with the grim resolution of a man about to face the firing squad.
Bruce felt his world drop away with Alfred’s next sentence.
“What’s Mr. Wayne’s current cover?”
If Bruce Wayne had been on a nasty bender, it would be natural for Alfred to arrange a cover. That wasn’t what brought Bruce up cold. It was the familiarity with which both of the men fell into a conspiratorial huddle, instinctively turned away from the bedroom, away from what would have been his empty chair. Bruce’s attention skated out to the trees, covered in snow.
The realization, when it hit, bowled Bruce over. He, Kal and Diana had fought Doomsday in autumn. It was winter now. Bruce hadn’t been out for a night, or even a week. Months. It had been months.
The cup didn’t even rattle as Bruce set it down on the floor, and sat back in his chair to watch the conspirators across the gulf of everything he didn’t know.
Kent pulled out a notebook, and flipped over pages of pigeon-scrawl. He stopped on a page that appeared to be nothing but dates, numbers, names, places. “I had a sighting in Monaco three days ago that a few Gotham papers snapped up.”
“Credible?”
Bruce swallowed at that question. There was a story buried in that word.
“A mediocre photoshop from a previous trip,” Kent admitted. “But received well enough that I think that’s where we can plan Mr. Wayne’s re-entry.”
Alfred pulled out his tablet, his clearly non-civilian one, and tapped a few screens. Bruce breathed in sharply. Kent either didn’t notice anything amiss, or a butler with military-grade tech had become an unremarkable occurrence.
(He did shoot Bruce a small, pensive look, but Bruce was doing his best to ignore it.)
“A Wayne Enterprises plane out of Marseille will land tomorrow evening. It’s not ideal but--” Alfred lapsed into thought. Kent didn’t press for more details, and Bruce wouldn’t until he had Alfred alone. Alfred cleared his throat, and continued. “Naturally, Mr. Wayne should be seen as soon as possible to allay persistent rumors about his illness.”
Kent bobbed his head in agreement, and it was settled. Alfred tapped his screen a few more times.
“Was the picture at the Hermitage Hotel?” Bruce asked, as steadily as his voice would allow. Alfred glanced up with a tight grimace. Bruce shrugged back. What other material was there of Bruce on the Riviera?
“A balcony shot outside of the Diamond Suite villa. Seated. You’re, um, shirtless. I photoshopped out the bandages. It’s still very tasteful,” Kent reassured.
Alfred paled. So Kent didn’t know that, at least.
Bruce had stayed at the Hermitage hotel only once before--another one of those incidents that Bruce kept tightly locked down in a twenty year career of dealing with his physical limitations and moving on with clockwork efficiency. He shifted in his seat as he imagined a twinge in his lower lumbar, where Bane had splintered his vertebrae.
“I’ll back-date the suite’s charges to Mr. Wayne’s personal account,” Alfred said a little wanly. “Was Mr. Wayne spotted at any of the local nightlife...?”
The tips of Clark’s ears pinked. “The rumor is that he retreated to Monte Carlo with a, a--”
“Paramour?” Alfred supplied. Clark’s shoulders slumped, and he nodded once, sharply.
Bruce resigned himself to Clark’s answer. His public tastes swung to the socially vapid, extremely dull heiresses that he so richly deserved: Aliya Van Patten, or maybe Tara Pierce of the West Coast Shipping Pierces. Bruce Wayne would have to been seen with whomever the reporter had picked--at least twice in full daytime shots in the local papers before he could close down that cover and move on to the next Wayne escapade.
“She got a name?” Bruce asked flatly.
(Clark and Alfred both startled, as though they’d forgotten he was there.)
“I used a couple of shell accounts to speculate,” Clark said. “Short, gorgeous, blonde. Tall, brunet, um,” Clark clenched his hands around the teacup, and Bruce thought he heard the faint sound of porcelain cracking. “Male,” he added, finally, eyes darting anywhere but Bruce’s face.
“How delightful, Mr. Kent,” Alfred said with a lighter sarcasm than Bruce would have expected. “I believe you just nominated yourself to be Bruce’s date tomorrow night.”