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platypanthewriter · 5 years

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Blind as a Bat

Silly 5+1 misunderstanding chat prompt for @susiecarter! Ao3 link in the notes!

Clark Kent widened his stance in front of Bruce Wayne’s desk, steadying himself for a blow. He frowned down, and adjusted his press pass. “So, ah, the thing is. I love you.”

Bruce’s smile flickered, the arms of his calf-leather desk chair creaking under his hands, before he spun it around and stood, straightening his blazer. “...really.” He crouched, and ran his fingers along the bottom of the chair, then frowned under his desk. “I, also, yes, our posteriors are obviously designed to complement each other, Mr. Kent.” Standing, he waggled his eyebrows, grabbing his desk phone and frowning into the undercarriage. “Go on, I’m listening--”

“...Bruce. Your office isn’t bugged. I seriously can't make this any simpler, I love you. I, Clark Kent, love--”

“Are you mind controlled?” Bruce stepped in close, eyes narrowed. “This is a clever signal.”

Clark backed away, waving. “Actually, you know what, no, Mom was wrong. I can't do this, Superman out--”

“I have a scanner for interference by hostile entities--”

Clark groaned. “Nope, no, we’re good, it's fine, I fixed it. Just now.”

The stillness made Bruce Wayne resemble his alter ego. “That's an astoundingly obvious ploy, but given the initial attempt at intimacy, not out of character--”

Clark stalked out. “I am having a picnic. With my blanket, on the moon.”

Months later, Aquaman requested their help, and Clark found himself questioned in front of a device humming in the rhythm of the dancing fish that hovered and stared at it.

“No, I’m not feeling it, Arthur,” he sighed.

Batman’s voice burbled through his scuba gear. “I'd know if Superman was mind controlled. We have a signal.”

Clark repressed a vicious urge to point out Batman looked ridiculous with bright orange diving weights strapped everywhere, and a fish swimming in and out of his cape. “Oh my god.” He turned to smile at Arthur. “Yes, okay, if I get whammied I'll just...I’ll tell Batman he's hot even though he can't move his neck in that getup. His little ears make me wild.”

“...that should do it,” Arthur bit back a grin, crouching to frown at the device.

“‘I would thrill to remove his Batboots, and see whether his Batsocks have little Batpatterns,’ I’ll say.”

“...that is more than sufficient,” Batman burbled, drifting slightly sideways. “If we could stick to the actual plan.”

“I could say absolutely anything, couldn't I?” Clark’s Politeness Smile felt more fake than usual, and he dropped it. “Bruce Wayne, I'd like you to smile and suffer through my weekly meatloaf for the rest of our lives. I'd like to help you into the Batsuit, and every night, help you peel out of it.”

The barnacle-covered rebar Batman was clinging to in his inexorable tidal drift burst as Clark spoke, crunching into a cloud of grey shell fragments and rust in the water. Batman adjusted his grip on the machine in his other hand. “Stick to simple control statements, or I can’t recalibrate the sensor.”

“Bruce.” More barnacles crunched, and they both ignored them. “What would convince you I'm telling the truth. One truthful sentence. What kind of tests--”

“Howzabout you two go back to the boat, if you’re not gonna help--” Arthur glanced back, eyebrow raised.

“If you could take this seriously--”

Clark laughed so hard he had to steady himself against the rocks, and Arthur glanced back with a grimace. “I have never taken anything so seriously, nor been so tempted to fling a human being into the soundless vacuum of space. What tests.”

Batman made a noise. It was hard to tell through the scuba bubbles, but probably he was clearing his throat. “Nothing can rule out every possibility--”

Clark snorted, leaning his head away from an inquisitive fish. “Or we could borrow Diana's lasso. ‘Diana,’ I’ll say, ‘We need your lasso to discuss my mom's recipe for meatloaf, because Bruce Wayne believes in nothing and no one’--”

“...I would never doubt your mom's recipe for meatloaf,” Batman said flatly, and Arthur covered his mouth, shoulders shaking.

Clark, not seeing the humor, hissed back. “In that case, I will tell my mother that at least you believe in something.”

Diana crossed her arms, watching Clark floating on his back in a slow, ranting circuit of her apartment ceiling. “ ...of course you may borrow it. I can do no less, if you think it will help.”

“It has to, right?” Clark turned to frown down.

“I once offered to cover while he was on vacation,” she confided. “He clenched his jaw and said he'd keep me in mind the next time he required transplant of a crushed organ.”

“The...the next time?” Clark froze in midair, staring back, and she gave a wide-eyed, graceful shrug.

“Keep it as long as you like,” she said, eventually. “I’ll use the time I’d spend doing paperwork for interrogations on doing my actual job.” At her soft smile, he dropped to watch her unwrap something extremely...broken. “This just arrived from a dig in Akrotiri. You...understand my fascination, I think,” she glanced over, “--having so little, of Krypton.”

He nodded, and whisked off to get the brushes and glue. Together, they leaned over the shards until close to morning.

“I’d give up on him,” Clark muttered, squinting at what might have been a piece of a pattern, then leaning back to see the sizable chunk of urn they’d reassembled. “I mean, I did quit trying for a while. But it's just bothering at me, now. How can someone so smart--”

Diana grinned. “I wish you both joy.”

When Clark wafted down onto the balcony at Wayne Tower, Bruce was leaning on the railing. “So do you have a few minutes free? Or are you busy staring out over Gotham and adding to the Batman Translate on Google.”

“What?” Bruce snorted, his gaze fixing on the lasso Clark had wrapped around his arm. The ice in his glass settled.

“May I,” Clark breathed through his nose, trying to sound civil, “--have your permission to tie us up securely in this, Diana's lasso, for the purpose of convincing you that you, Bruce Wayne are honest to god my--”

“You have some reason to believe I’ve been compromised.” Bruce's smile faltered, and he held out his hand.

“Uh, I'll, ah.” Clark wavered. “Y’know, actually, I'm--I’m losing momentum. Uh, do you remember what I was saying in your office, when, um. And about meatloaf.”

Bruce frowned deeply, taking the end of it. “I do remember. You suspect someone successfully duplicated a lasso? This is excellent scotch.” The lasso glowed and twined, and he winced. “It seems to be working.”

“...never mind,” Clark sighed, and whipped back to Diana.

Behind him on the wind, he heard Bruce Wayne’s voice. “...what?”

When Bruce showed up at the party Diana and Atlanna were throwing for the finale of Game of Thrones--“To yell at it?” Clark had asked. “They, ah, they sort of address it with great sincerity, and then tell it they’re disappointed,” his mother laughed. “It’s worth watching.”--Clark was in the kitchen, sliding the third pizza in the oven. Arthur and his mom had oddly similar confusion squints at the screen, heads cocked in unison, and Diana was flopped over the arm of the couch on her belly, investigating Clark’s mom’s knitting. Clark found a plate to scrub just as Bruce Wayne crossed from the front room carpet to the linoleum kitchen floor.

“...may I help?”

The gall of him, Clark thought, posing like a fashion ad in my mother’s kitchen. “I dunno, can you understand the words I say?”

“You have been...strange, recently.” Bruce stepped closer, placing a gift bag with two bottles of wine on the counter. Their chests nearly brushed. Their breath mingled, Bruce minty, and Clark, he thought in passing, probably redolent of pepperoni. He met Bruce’s gaze, and watched him swallow, his gaze flicking down. Bruce opened his mouth, closed it, and Clark leaned in without meaning to, letting his head tip just slightly, so their lips would meet. “You’re standing in front of the drawer with the corkscrew,” Bruce whispered.

Clark stalked by him, remembering he was Superman, and as satisfying as it would have been to shoulder-slam by, he could hardly claim Bruce deserved a broken collarbone. He let himself drift to rest on the roof, listening to his city, and only roused himself at the rising smell of burning pizza.

Two weeks later, Clark watched Batman fail to find any crime, and dropped next to him on a roof. He dodged two batarangs, and caught the third. “Okay, as an experiment. If someone were in love with Batman, what signs would you expect them to exhibit.”

Bruce’s voice was especially throaty when startled, unless he was coming down with a cold. “No one knows Batman, he's a construct of--”

“Someone that does.” Clark held up a hand. “Okay. Let’s just say. Someone that does know Batman.”

“...I am not participating in any of the Flash’s ridiculous projects, and I do not need a personals ad.” Batman swooped his cape around him like a smoke bomb, and rapidly scrabbled down the side of the building.

Clark thought about that for a long moment, cocked his head, and then shook it to dismiss the image. Bat seeking partner for aerial maneuvers, his reporter brain supplied. He dropped next to Batman in the alley. “Somebody three blocks away is trying to pee on a wall, but mostly it’s going in his boot,” he reported, saluting. “Unless that needs your attention, can we talk?”

“...you’ll let me know if anything else happens,” Batman growled.

“I’m not trying to get anyone hurt.”

Batman snorted and muttered something, unintelligible in the Batvoice, and stalked away down the alley, and Clark floated along behind him like a balloon on a string.

“I--I know this isn’t anything you want to talk about,” Clark kept his voice low, “--but if--if you are repulsed by--by all the people that know Batman, now’s the time to speak up, and, uh, I’ll. I’ll just--I’ll go buy some ice cream.” Bruce had stopped walking, and the silence stretched out. “...there’s even an apple pie flavor,” Clark forced a laugh. “Perfect for me, midwestern boy, right? And Mom sent me a new comfy sweater, it’s, uh, it’s fine, y’know. Fine.”

“If you already assume I will not be receptive,” Batman’s voice scraped, “--than this is a truly--” He staggered forward as the breeze of Superman’s passage whumped his cape against his back.

When the knock came, Clark was in his Kansas City Royals boxers, and his fluffy sweater with the too-long sleeves and the slightly crooked sigil of the House of El. It still smelled like his mom--her lotion, and instant coffee, and the slight lingering stench of burned pizza. He’d ensconced himself on the couch with a spoon and a gallon of mint chip, just as his phone lit up with a Songs To Cry Through While Heartbroken playlist from Kara.

The knock came again. As it wasn’t likely to be League business, he hunkered down, stuck a huge bite of ice cream in his mouth, and resisted the urge to laser his visitor through the door for interrupting his caterwauled duet with Adele.

“What!” he finally yelled.

The knock came a third time, and then movement made him pay attention to the other end of the couch, where Bruce Wayne stood. He was dressed down, a bit, holding a leather briefcase in both hands. Of course Batman wasn’t slowed by a locked door. “What,” Clark groaned, wishing he could get drunk.

“I did ask if I could come in,” Bruce pitched his voice over Adele, and Clark narrowed his eyes, and clicked her off.

“Pretty sure I didn’t say ‘yes’.”

“...is that...Titanic, The Notebook, and Romeo + Juliet?”

“Yes. I’m watching loving couples die. What do you want.” Clark shoveled in another mouthful of ice cream.

“...of course I’ll leave, if you want me to,” Bruce clicked his briefcase, and shiny cobalt silk billowed out, “--but I did bring pajamas. And--” he waved back towards the door, “I asked for your order at the bodega. Pastrami sandwiches?”

Clark considered for a long moment, eyeing the Batjamas, then the delicious smelling bag of sandwiches. “...I don’t want to make a habit of accepting bribes, but…”

“It is one of the things I admire about you,” Bruce said, straight-faced, and Clark paused half out of his blanket cocoon to stare over.

Bruce’s eyes strayed down the admittedly lumpy sweater to his Kansas boxers, and Clark hugged himself, shuffling over to the bag of sandwiches. “Apology accepted, then. Why’d you bring your...loungewear, or whatever? You can’t think I’d want to see you.” He snorted, unwrapping the deli parchment. “And you obviously didn’t want to see me--”

“What I said about knowing Batman was true,” Bruce came over to lean against the counter, watching the lights of the city outside Clark’s apartment, and Clark rolled his eyes. “No one truly knows Batman, not enough to love him. No one...really knows Bruce Wayne, either.”

Clark wanted to argue, or throw a sandwich at his head, but either of the options involved more pastrami in his mouth, so he listened, and chewed.

“I’m not...perfect--”

Clark coughed. “Well that’s your application in the trash,” he snorted. “I can only date perfect people.”

“I have...hidden some things, even from the League,” Bruce smirked, ducking his head, “--my money makes certain aspects of my...unforgivable lack of foresight just...go away. There have been times I have--not chosen the most effective plan, because it caused me personal discomfort.”

“If this is supposed to make me feel better,” Clark swallowed, and took a sip of the supplied root beer, “--it doesn’t. What do you want, Bruce. I won’t cause problems in the League, I’m not--you have every right to refuse my attentions.”

“I brought the pajamas in case you would like to know...me,” Bruce told the counter, smile practiced and charming, his knuckles white on the handle of his bag. “I will understand, of course, if you--”

Clark dropped the sandwich, speeding so fast around the counter it probably looked to Bruce like he’d teleported. “You’re saying yes?”

“Clark…”

“You brought your pajamas, Bruce,” Clark clenched his teeth, torn between the fizzy feeling of hope urging him to spin them around the ceiling like Mary Poppins characters, and the strong need to tie Bruce Wayne to a lamppost outside a police station--with his own pajamas--and a note taped to his chest that said ‘DANGER TO SELF AND OTHERS’. “When you couldn’t prevent harm as Batman, you did your best to help as Bruce Wayne, that’s what I’m hearing.”

“That is--optimistic.”

“Get in your goddamn pajamas,” Clark pointed with his second sandwich half, and narrowed his eyes at Bruce covering a grin. “I’m not Superman right now, I’m enraged. What do you mean ‘personal discomfort,’ that’s what we’re working on, you not risking yourself in every fight. Flash is talking about making a stamp booklet. You get one every time you don’t dash in front of a bullet--” Clark choked, pounding his chest, as Bruce dropped his pants, revealing black athletic socks, pale, scarred hairy legs, and a rapidly-covered patch of black silk undies.

Bruce shook out the pajama pants, pulled them on, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Sometimes the strategy requires the strategist endanger himself, for the cumulative good.”

“Don’t give me that--”

“I don't want to watch any of those movies,” Bruce told his own buttons, frowning down. “I’m not sure why anyone does--do you have something less...?”

“Ye-yeah,” Clark swallowed, close enough he could feel the warmth from Bruce’s skin. He grabbed his half-eaten sandwich, slowly chewing as Bruce revealed more scars, and muscles, and he tasted nothing. “Um. Is this a date?”

“Perhaps.” Bruce buttoned himself into his pajama top, and Clark watched his fingers fly, wishing he didn’t have pastrami all over his own. He frowned at the sandwich, wondering if he’d fallen for a trap.

“Depending on what?”

“Whether you like what Martha Wayne’s boy actually turned into.” Bruce smiled his polished magazine cover smile, dropped it to go oddly blank, and then stared into the distance between he and Clark’s bag of sandwiches.

I should enjoy his discomfiture more, Clark thought, but he just changed the subject to Netflix selection, and watched Bruce flick through the selection with a darkening frown. “Does Martha Wayne’s boy want a bowl of ice cream?”

“...maybe?” Bruce squinted back at him, and Clark leaned over the back of the couch to bump shoulders.

“You are your choices, and all, but I promise not to decide who you are based on Netflix special.” He caught Bruce’s eye, and grinned, enjoying the quirked smile he got in return. “Just pick the next thing that looks fun, you’re thinking too hard about this.”

Bruce nodded, watching the preview for what looked like a show about friendship between female wrestlers.

Clark properly served a bowl of the less-melty ice cream near the bottom, instead of passing over the carton, and Bruce’s lips twitched.

“...what.”

“Oh, just remembering Alfred sitting the ice cream out until it wasn’t rock-hard. Your powers are so versatile.”

“I’ll remember to list ice-cream scooping next time anyone asks.” Clark grinned back. “Is that why you're here? You staying the night? There’s a good diner around the corner.”

Bruce accepted the bowl. “I did bring condoms.”

Clark steepled his fingers, frowning at the drippy ice cream scoop. “...so either you’re saying yes to dating, or you’re planning to zipline off my balcony as soon as I fall asleep. I hope it’s the former.”

“Not that kind of boy?”

“I mean,” Clark glared over, “I want to--to at least date you, not just ...have sex with Bruce Wayne, like I’m some--some person you will smirk at in the elevator for the rest of our lives.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows at his spoonful of ice cream. “Batman does not smirk.”

“What a relief,” Clark growled. “And no, look, there is a Bat Smirk--do you want to make up a contract, would that work better for your brain? Should I let you talk to lawyers first?”

Bruce went still again. “...I--I apologize if--”

“No, sorry, I’m--I’m sorry.” Clark took a deep breath, and let it out. “I just--I thought you’d say yes, and--” he scrabbled at his hair, “--this would stop, I feel like--do you even want to be here?!”

“Relax,” Bruce scooted closer, leaning in to press his lips warmly against Clark’s, “--yes. And I can promise I won’t sneak away. If something does come up, I’ll leave a note.” He was smooth-shaven and cologne-scented, his pajamas warm and smooth under Clark’s uncalloused fingers.

Clark pulled him closer, grinning against his mouth, and feeling only slightly guilty about introducing pastrami onto Bruce’s mint-chocolate tongue. “We do usually figure things out,” he whispered, licking in for a deeper kiss, while Bruce waved the bowl of ice cream until it hit the coffee table.

“We do,” Bruce agreed, then relaxed--a bit--into the kiss. “That we do. If anyone could make this work--” He trailed off, letting Clark pull him closer, and smiling against his mouth.

Clark let his eyes close, until he felt Bruce laughing. He pulled back to realize he’d floated up with his arms around Bruce.

“Someone is going to look up and see us...why doesn’t the weight of my body make your points of contact hurt my ribs?”

“You know nobody looks up,” Clark nuzzled into the smooth-shaven skin at Bruce’s throat. Bruce leaned his head back, eyes fluttering shut. “...why isn't my face covered in bugs when I cross the city,” Clark mouthed against Bruce’s thudding jugular, breathing his cologne, “--it’s because I’m magic, Bruce. I’m a magic alien.”

“...hrmph," Bruce grunted, frowning his scientist frown, and Clark grinned, letting himself slowly spin in the air with inertia. He squeezed Bruce carefully tighter. "We should try out those condoms,” Bruce hummed against his mouth, and then staggered as Clark dropped back to the floor.

“There’s not--I didn’t--we don’t have to--”

“I know. But I’m very much that kind of boy.”

#superman #batman #superbat #platypan #platypan fic #platypan FINISHED FIC #crack fic #Clark loves Bruce #Bruce thinks it's mind control #Or a call for help #or a code for surveillance #Bruce is smart yet dumb #5+1 #short and silly

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