DCU
Strange Days
As always, he awoke with the dawn, and — as always — the transition was soft and golden as he lost himself in the feel of the sunlight caressing his face like a lover and the embrace of crisp, clean cotton sheets. In the muzziness of half-waking he allowed himself to imagine the feel of another embrace, too; arms warm and sure across his back and breath ghosting softly across his ear. He smiled at the thought, shifting himself closer and joy curled in his chest as his ghost-lover did the same, breath still even in sleep but nevertheless fingers closed around his when he reached for them in wordless reassurance. Because the sun was still half-asleep, too, and in these moments of fragile dawn he could imagine he was loved. The illusion would not last long, he knew — in a moment he would have to wake, to dress for work — but for now, it was his.
And then, “Nahn tsuhgemzegt khahp vot rraop.” Slurred and sleepy but the deep, rumbled Kryptonian jolted him awake and in one, terrible moment panicked reality rushed in. This was not his bed, not his bedroom. He didn’t know where this was, only that the voice and the arms around him and the stubble-grazed chin on his shoulder were all very, very male.
“Jesus—!”
The world tiled then shook with a dull thud and Clark Kent landed inelegantly on the floor beside someone else’s bed with no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there.
“Clark?” The voice was deep and rich and a moment later the face it was attached to — the face that had, mere moments ago, been nuzzling contentedly against his neck — appeared over the edge of the bed.
Thick black eyebrows furrowed in concern above impossibly sharp, wolf-blue eyes and the not-quite-stranger seemed to be about to say something else when Clark’s brain clicked and he heard himself say, “You— you’re Bruce Wayne!”
Concern deepened. “Yes, sometimes.”
Clark tried not to notice that the parts of Wayne he could see — thankfully there weren’t many — also appeared to be significantly lacking in clothing. Instead, he spluttered, “What’s going on here? Where am I?” in a voice that wavered between demanding and panicked.
Wayne regarded him for a moment with a dark, inscrutable expression Clark thought had absolutely no place being on a man whose reputed interests consisted of ‘golf’, ‘cars’ and ‘women’. Then he said, “Clark, what’s the last thing you remember?”
Clark tried not to notice the softness that touched Wayne’s voice when he spoke Clark’s name. Instead, he tried to muster up as much confident dignity as he could find while sitting naked on the floor of another man’s bedroom.
“Going to bed. Not here,” he added, in case Wayne attempted to accuse him otherwise. Actually, he’d been back home in Smallville, and, “What have you done with my mother?” That sounded better. Not that Wayne seemed to notice, merely continued to regard him mildly; albeit slightly warily.
“Your mother is fine, Clark. What is the date?”
“December 26th,” he supplied automatically. There; his mother’s heartbeat. Slow and even in sleep and surrounded by the soft sound of corn. Wayne was telling the truth.
Wayne was also getting out of bed; rising with an easy, lithe elegance and Clark suddenly wasn’t sure where he should be looking, only that it probably shouldn’t be… there. He tried not to notice the scars.
A rustling sound and Wayne’s smooth voice said, “This was not how I’d intended to spend the day after Christmas.” He sounded darkly irritated and Clark bit back the ridiculous urge to apologise. Wayne continued, “Your clothes are in the dresser and the wardrobe. Get dressed and meet me in the study when you’re ready.”
Then he was gone.
A moment later, Clark admitted that he didn’t seem to be about to wake up any time soon and picked himself up off the floor, trying not to feel too self-conscious about it. They were definitely in Gotham — the city hissed and murmured outside, cut by the screams of Arkham — and Clark’s clothes were definitely where Wayne had said they’d be. Exactly where Clark would have put them if he’d found himself clearing small spaces in someone else’s life. There was a framed photo sitting on a side table; the two of them in front of what looked like some kind of Japanese temple. Clark mugging and grinning with his arm thrown casually around the stoic, sharp-eyed Wayne.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as the toothbrush.
It was his toothbrush; exactly the same in every way as the one that should have been sitting on the edge of the bathroom sink back on the farm. Back where he’d put it, only a few hours ago now. This toothbrush sat on the edge of the basin in Wayne’s en suite and glared at him with misplaced accusation. In the end, he used it.
He wanted answers. He didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger, but he was in a strange house with a strange man and apparently it was his strange man and yet the idea was nothing short of so preposterous that he couldn’t even begin to image how he was supposed to have ended up like this. Something had gone wrong. Something had gone really wrong overnight somehow and Clark had to admit he hadn’t the faintest clue as to what it could have been. The only theories he could think of were either ludicrous
(Time travel?)
or simply so bizarre
(Reality TV?)
that he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why anyone would want to go to all that trouble to fool Clark Kent of all people and—
Wayne had spoken to him in Kryptonian.
Clark felt himself just stop as the thought struggled to the surface from where it’d been buried under the rest of the strangeness. Still half-asleep and Wayne had mumbled the formal, intimate greeting without hesitation, without tripping and worst of all his accent had been good. Clark turned the thought over in his head; he supposed it didn’t necessarily mean Wayne knew about him but… but it almost certainly did. Which meant… what, exactly? Wayne had had a partnership with Luthor’s fledgling company for a while but that had crumbled within a year and no-one really knew why. Clark tried not to think about that. Because Bruce Wayne was supposed to be, well, an idiot and Clark had only met the man once but that brief encounter hadn’t done anything to shake the impression.
The man Clark had woken up next to hadn’t been an idiot.
In the end, there was really only one thing to do.
He got halfway down the corridor when it occurred to him he had no idea where he was going. Wayne’s house was huge, and he had been just about to start looking through walls when a voice behind him said, “This way please, Master Clark.”
“Uh…” The man was a butler; Clark had never actually seen one in real life before but he couldn’t for the life of him imagine who else would be walking around in a dinner suit at seven in the morning looking so… English. And butlery.
The man didn’t wait for a reply, instead turned with a slight gesture that indicated he expected to be followed and started walking down the immense, plush hallway. Clark had to scurry to catch up, and when he’d drawn level with the man he said, “I-I’m sorry, something seems to’ve—”
“I am Alfred, Master Clark,” said the butler, not missing a beat. “Master Bruce has informed me of your condition.”
“Oh.” There didn’t seem to be anything more he could say to that, and the man — Alfred — didn’t seem to be intent on making further conversation.
Three turns and a staircase later — Clark thanked whoever might be listening for eidetic memory — they arrived at their destination and Alfred dismissed himself, noting that breakfast would be bought up shortly. And then Clark was alone again, with only two inches of wood separating himself from this strange, unfathomable alternate life.
He opened the door.
The inside of the study was every bit as opulent as the rest of the house and, Clark thought, suspiciously non-functional. It looked like the place hadn’t been seriously used as anything other than decoration for a good fifty years; not even a computer, and there was no way Clark could believe someone like Wayne wouldn’t have one. For his part, Wayne was sitting behind a huge oak desk, elegantly sipping a latte underneath looming bookshelves filled with ancient, bound tomes.
There was a book sitting on the desk. Wayne gestured to it. “Look.”
The whole thing felt like some kind of bizarre job interview. There was an antique, leather chair on his side of the desk but Clark refused to sit in it, instead simply stood as he flipped through Wayne’s book.
It was a photo album, and in page after page his own goofily grinning face stared out at the camera, side-by-side with Wayne’s; sometimes the grim, stoic man of this morning, sometimes the idiot playboy of the tabloids. Gotham, Metropolis, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Aspen, the Burj Al Arab… and no less than three sets of photos from Smallville, including one of his mother tying Wayne up in tinsel under a half-decorated Christmas tree.
After a while, he said, “This… would be a very elaborate hoax.” He tried not to think about how… happy the photo-Clark looked.
Wayne simply raised an eyebrow genteelly. “Do you think it is a hoax?”
“I don’t—”
“Here.” Wayne pushed something across the table towards him. Clark took it without really thinking, mind still focused on the album. It was a heavy platinum chain, and hanging off the end—
His heart stopped. “This is—” He swallowed, hard, trying to fight down the tide of rage and fear and… and hope in his heart and failing terribly. “Where did you get this?” It was supposed to be a demand, and came out more like a whisper.
“Where do you think?”
“This… this is a mzhao-nvao!”
“Yes. I know.” Wayne’s tone was completely flat.
Clark tried to calm the hammering in his heart as he stared at the object hanging off the end of the chain; a glimmering, blue-white crystal, about two inches long with shifting Kryptonian engraved impossibly in the centre.
Nahn khatav ovon zov nahn zhodiv ovon.
When he touched it, he felt desire and joy flush through his fingers like he knew he would; the crystal keyed to his DNA, keyed to Wayne’s. Carefully, as if it would shatter at any moment, he put the chain back down on the desk. Wayne collected it quickly, fastening it back around his own neck, hidden underneath his sweater though Clark saw his fingers linger over the spot where it hung, unseen.
“All right.” Clark’s voice was almost inaudible. “I believe you. I— I don’t know how, but…” He didn’t know how to finish to sentence.
Wayne simply nodded. “We were in Smallville until just after midnight,” he said. “When we returned you were fine. I… have no credible theory as to what’s gone wrong.” He made it sound like the most shameful of confessions. A pause, and then, “I— you are not my ovon. But you’re close enough and we will find out what has happened. You have to trust me.”
“Do I have an alternative?”
“No, not really.” Wayne was nothing if not brutally honest, and in a strange way Clark could respect that.
“Okay,” he said.
Wayne nodded. “Then come with me.”
About five minutes later, things started to make a lot more sense.
“Oh,” said Clark and fancied he caught the edge of a smile on Wayne’s face. “Oh.”
Bruce Wayne, it seemed, was The Batman. Clark supposed that, in retrospect, it made sense; he’d met the dark, sharp-edged vigilante enough to see how the Wayne he’d seen in the house above — the real Bruce Wayne, not the Wayne created for public consumption — could be the face behind the mask.
Clark had to admit that the cave was definitely impressive; from the chittering bats to the blinking computer screens, and Wayne meticulously took him through it all. That had puzzled Clark for a while until he realised that Wayne was going through a formal, Kryptonian welcome — This is my home, my knowledge. You are welcome here. — and then he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the honour.
The introduction took a little under an hour, though it seemed to go a lot faster; Wayne’s stuff was simply fascinating, for starters, and for seconds there was something about the way the man’s eyes would gleam as he explained this invention or that feature that Clark had to admit he found… appealing. Because Wayne was beautiful — that one was in enough tabloids that it was hardly a secret — and apparently he was brilliant, too. And Clark had seen Batman work enough to know he was powerful and graceful, and…
They’d never quite been allies. Batman had initially treated him with an open hostility that had eventually worn down somewhat simply from the passage of time, but Clark knew the man didn’t exactly trust him. So Clark had returned the favour, and tried to ignore the stab of disappointed loneliness that had caused. In a way, it was difficult to overlay that Batman with this one; someone who obviously trusted his Clark implicitly. And it was silly, because Clark had always secretly dreamed that one day they could become friends… but never like this.
Wayne was halfway through explaining the impressive tactical capacities of his motorcycle when Clark suddenly asked, “How did we meet?” and felt instantly mortified for no real reason.
Wayne didn’t even miss a beat. “At a press conference,” he said, smoothly. “I was going into business with Luthor and you suggested that perhaps I shouldn’t. Awfully audacious of you, incidentally.”
“I-I remember.” The meeting hadn’t exactly gone well, and Clark had left dispirited and wondering why he’d bothered.
“Hm,” said Wayne, tapping one finger against his chin thoughtfully. “That’s interesting.”
“What?”
“When you spoke to me I happened to have a moment of… coincidental epiphany as to your identity. Pursuing you in order to substantiate the theory was, I suppose, how we… fell in love.” The words came out oddly strained, and Clark got the impression Wayne wasn’t used to saying them. He wouldn’t normally have to, Clark realised. Vocal declarations of affection were a human tradition; transitory and prone to deception. Kryptonians traditionally relied on more tangible, empirical evidence of love; objects like the mzhao-nvao and—
“Do we, uh… do we have a, y’know, a—”
Thankfully, Wayne seemed to understand what he was trying to ask. “Yes,” he said. “We share jachnarr. And no, I can’t feel you through it; the connection has been closed to me since this morning.”
“Oh.” That was… good. He supposed.
Wayne regarded him sharply for a moment and then switched track, “The press conference might be the key,” he said thoughtfully. “A single point of failure.”
Clark blinked. “You think it might be… time travel?”
An elegant shrug. “Or the appearance thereof.” A pause and then, “I have no way to prove either.”
For a moment, Clark simply watched Wayne’s elegant scowl. He knew what the other man was thinking. Knew because he was thinking the same thing. Wayne had access to cutting-edge technology, true, but it was human cutting-edge technology and if what they were talking about was time travel — or something like it — then they were still firmly in the realm of theory. They could talk about Tipler cylinders until the cows came home but they both knew no-one could actually build one. Even finding a place to start looking would be next to impossible.
Clark sighed. There was nothing else for it, really.
Any doubt left over the situation was erased from Clark’s mind when they got to the Fortress. The trip from Gotham had been not nearly as awkward as he’d imagined; when he’d suggested it, Wayne had simply nodded and stalked off, returning a short time later in full Batman regalia. Clark had followed suit, and then they’d been airborne; Wayne showing no hesitation or reluctance, and the way he fitted himself neatly against Clark’s side spoke of someone who was no stranger to Air Superman, as it were.
Clark tried to be professional about it. Tried not to think of how… warm and solid Wayne felt in his arms.
The Fortress recognised Wayne. He was dreadfully polite about everything — following Clark a half-step behind, not touching anything unless invited — but Clark had felt the way the temperature had risen and the lights dimmed slightly; compensation for human senses, human comfort. His Fortress didn’t do that; he’d never told it to. Never had a need.
And Wayne spoke Kryptonian. Fluent enough to not only operate the computers — which, Clark noted, he seemed eminently familiar with — but to locate and start reading though an incredibly dense text about Kryptonian temporal theory. All in all, Clark wasn’t particularly sure what he thought about that. He flitted from room to room, unsure of himself and wasn’t that ironic? Because this was Wayne’s place more than it was his, really. Wayne and his Clark.
In one room he found a holographic recording of Wayne sleeping; just an endlessly repeating loop of the man’s face, about a minute of peace followed by a brilliant, secret smile. The intimacy of it was… troubling, and Clark knew he should have turned it off but there was something about that smile…
Wayne was beautiful. He could just about admit that, quietly in his own head. And he wasn’t stupid; the version of himself who lived here apparently loved the man so it wasn’t exactly surprising if Clark was starting to feel it too, just a little bit, being mostly the same person and all. There was something morbidly depressing about the thought; that love and comfort and an ally had been one press conference away, all this time. And somehow he’d just… missed his chance.
He wandered back out into the main hall to find Wayne painstakingly assembling a small device out of crystal parts. He had the cowl down and the gauntlets off, and Clark just watched him work for a few minutes before asking, “What’s that?”
Wayne didn’t look up. “I don’t know,” he said. “If we’re lucky it detects fluctuations in quantum energy levels that may indicate temporal disruption.” He snapped the sleek, translucent chassis back into place and touched a glyph; the device spluttered to life with a cool, white glow. Clark had to admit he was impressed. More than impressed, really, but he tried to ignore the sharp, clear stillness he felt pooling in his belly. Especially because Wayne was looking at him, and — worse — had stood up and was coming his way.
He stood still as Wayne waved the device over him, trying not to think what would happen if they were unlucky. He suspected it didn’t come up much. Not with Wayne. Not when luck had nothing to do with anything, really.
“Well?” he finally asked.
Wayne simply scowled — he didn’t smile, Clark realised; that’s what’d been so oddly compelling about the recording — and fiddled with the device a little, before turning back where the computer had started to process the data that had been beamed back to it. He watched it scroll for a while, then, “They are different.”
Wayne nodded. “Seems that way. Whoever you are, you don’t belong here.” Something about that hurt, but Clark tried to ignore it.
Instead, he said, “It’s not time travel.”
“Oh?”
“Well, it can’t be… can it? Otherwise why am I the only one with different memories?”
Wayne didn’t answer immediately, instead started tapping furiously away at the computer. Eventually he said, “A parallel universe?” He sounded disgusted with the question.
“It’s a kind of time travel,” Clark suggested.
Wayne seemed to consider that for a moment before snorting slightly. “Theoretically, I suppose. This is all very… theoretical.”
Like a lot of things in this strange new universe, Clark though dully.
A day passed. They read dense texts in Kryptonian and Bruce created device after mystifying device to scan and test and analyse and Clark found himself fascinated by the deft hands and quick mind. He’d been thinking that the man would’ve made a good Kryptonian when he abruptly realised that that was the whole point. Bruce and this world’s Clark shared their strength, their comfort, their knowledge; all the marks of a traditional Kryptonian marriage, and the more time they spent together the more Clark could appreciate that for a man like Bruce the cool, logical certainty of the arrangement would be… reassuring. He could appreciate that — Kal could appreciate that — and the more he thought of the inevitable rationality of it the more he felt the calm, still sensation growing in the pit of his stomach. He found himself entranced by Bruce’s hands — gauntlets on or off — and thoughts of what it would feel like to have them against his skin, in his mouth, around his—
Well. Just around.
And it didn’t help that Bruce smelt amazing, either; rich and deep and musky and Kal knew with a jarring certainty that he was falling in love. Just as he knew with that same certainty that he was a fool to do so. Because this was not his Bruce and he was not this Bruce’s ovon and anyway all of the man’s efforts were currently being thrown in to finding a way to send him away. Back to his timeline or universe or whatever and Kal realised he couldn’t stand the idea of going to back to that hollow, lonely place. Not when he’d seen this. And surely it would be easy to possess, really, because he wasn’t Bruce’s ovon but he was damn close — just one press conference in it — and surely Bruce could see that. Could see that all the traits he cherished in Kal were still there, if only he’d look…
Which is probably why, a little over twenty three hours after waking up in the man’s bed, Clark Kent found himself kissing Bruce Wayne. He tasted… exquisite; all strength and grace and shadows and oh Rao what was he doing?
He was kissing Bruce Wayne, but Bruce Wayne wasn’t kissing him back; had gone quite still in his embrace, actually, and as soon as the revelation reached him Clark pulled back as if burnt. Wolfish blue eyes regarded him evenly and he found he couldn’t meet them, shame rising sharply in his heart and he turned away, half-muttering an apology and half-about to flee the Fortress.
And then Bruce said, “It’s perfectly understandable.”
Clark felt as if he’d been slapped — with kryptonite — and found he couldn’t do anything in response to the off-hand comment other than gape.
“You’re still you,” Bruce elaborated at Clark’s dumbfounded look. It all made a terrible kind of sense and he wasn’t sure whether to be thankful for the matter-of-fact assessment — the very same one he himself had made — or horrifically mortified. He eventually settled somewhere in between. There was a long period of silence during which Bruce studied him intently, before finally saying, “You aren’t my Clark. But I’m not your Bruce, either.”
Clark sighed, fervently wishing Bruce would stop being so sensible about everything and dimly realising that this was not only unlikely but also completely unreasonable. Might as well ask the sun not to burn. So instead he heard himself say, “No. ‘My’ Bruce loathes me.”
That got him a raised eyebrow and another inscrutable expression. “Your Batman mistrusts an invincible alien with the power to destroy cities.”
And it… made sense, really, when put like that.
Bruce was still talking, voice heavy with self-depreciating amusement. “But your Bruce doesn’t hate you, Clark. He doesn’t know you. Heaven forbid I find myself giving anyone dating advice for the pursuit of alternate-mes…” and then he proceeded to do just that.
Clark listened, fascinated despite himself as Bruce laid out layer after layer of his life; his favourite restaurants, music, books… nothing too personal but nevertheless the sorts of information people were supposed to exchange on a first date. After interests, Bruce proceeded to detail a highly intricate plan of attack in the event that Clark should want to seduce his alternate self upon returning home. And then another in the event Kal might like to try. And then two more, in case the target of choice was to be Batman (it was Bruce’s opinion that the Clark/Batman strategy would be the most challenging, and had taken the longest to devise). Clark’s head was spinning; powerless to do anything but let the deep, rich voice wash over him, and somewhere in there it occurred to him the Bruce knew he wouldn’t forget a single word.
All the while, Bruce continued to work; scanning and analysing and tweaking, Clark dropping suggestions or corrections when he caught them but mostly his brain was busy with other things. Like wolf-blue eyes and shadow.
In another twenty-four hours, they had a solution. One of Bruce’s myriad of tests had turned up a small metallic object buried just under the skin at the nape of Clark’s neck. That had caused extensive consternation, especially after Clark had confessed to an extremely odd encounter three weeks prior with an unidentified assassin robot. He’d taken the machine out but it had been difficult; whoever made it had riveted the hull with kryptonite and Clark had to admit it would have been highly possible for it to have injected the mystery object in the struggle. They’d analysed it the best they could in the circumstances but it had soon become apparent that it would have to come out. The Fortress provided the how. Bruce provided the knife.
It occurred to Clark, lying face-down on the table, feeling the numbed ghost-touch of Bruce’s scalpel next to his spine, that the thought of being so vulnerable in front of someone he, quite frankly, hardly knew, really should have been more distressing that it was.
The object turned out to be a small metal pill about a quarter of an inch long and packed with high-tech, complex circuitry. Bruce had theorised it as being some kind of anchoring device for whatever system had caused the flip in Clark’s timestream, though anything more specific than that, neither could say. It was the Fortress computer that finished the rest off for them, suggesting a method for reversing the device’s signature in such a way that would make a home journey possible. Maybe.
The patch to the circuitry was quick — too quick, really — and soon Clark was holding the little device in one hand and a diode in the other, waiting for Bruce to flip the switch that would send the jolt of electricity through his body and (with luck) activate the device and send him home. He realised he wanted to say something. He had no idea what it would be. ‘Goodbye’ didn’t seem right; he would, after all, see Bruce again and vice versa. Of course, not this Bruce — not exactly — but one who was… similar.
He said, “See you soon, then.” It wasn’t a question. Bruce looked at him inscrutably for a moment before finally, inexorably, smiling and just as Clark was about to say something else… he flipped the switch.
Something happened.
Later, Clark wouldn’t have been able to describe exactly what it had been, only that one instant he’d been in the Fortress and the next moment he’d been… somewhere else. Still the Fortress, still looking at Batman, except this one wasn’t smiling.
He cleared his throat somewhat nervously and said, “Did it work?”
“You tell me.” Batman’s raspy growl was like broken glass in his ears and Clark realised the Bruce from the Other Place hadn’t been using it; had simply been speaking like, well, Bruce.
“I… it worked.”
“Good.” Batman stepped away from the console and after a while Clark realised he was waiting for Superman to start shutting down the system. His system. Though thought left him feeling… flat. He wondered what his own parallel self would be doing right now with his Bruce. His smiling Bruce. Would they kiss? Hold each other? Swap wild-eyed stories and laugh and reaffirm their bond? Because alternate-Clark had been here, he was sure; there was no other logical reason for Batman to be present, doing exactly the thing his alternate self had been doing. What had they talked about? Did this Batman now know Superman’s identity in the same way Clark now knew his? He couldn’t for the life of him think of a way to ask that wouldn’t have been awkward.
He could feel Batman’s eyes all-but burning into his back.
“I should take you home,” he said eventually.
“Yes.”
He wanted to grab the man, Clark realised. Grab him and throw him against the nearest wall and hold him down and kiss him until he was breathless and panting. He quashed the impulse quickly, instead tried to negotiate a way of carrying Batman that wouldn’t feel… awkward. The other man wasn’t exactly making things easy and the flight home was uncomfortable to say the least. He made it short, maybe a little too short, really, though Batman made no indication of complaint. In the skies over Gotham he realised he had no idea where to land. He could go back to Wayne Manor but somehow that seemed far too presumptuous. Especially if it turned out Batman didn’t know his identity and Clark realised he really, really didn’t want to scare Bruce off like that before things had even started. He wasn’t clear, exactly, on what those Things were going to be, only that there were definitely going to be some. Eventually.
Hopefully.
So instead he found a rooftop; the same rooftop, in fact, on which they’d first met. He knew Batman remembered. He tried not to think about that too much.
“Well…” he said after they’d landed. Batman had already moved himself into the shadows atop of a gargoyle, watching Clark in a way that was not quite hostile but not quite friendly, either. He realised he still had no idea what to say. He wanted to ask about what had happened but this Bruce was hardly an ally and Clark had to gloomily admit he’d rather simply bite his tongue altogether than deal with deliberate obfuscation. “I… I suppose I’d better be going. Don’t want to be seen in your town, after all.” It was supposed to be a joke. It came out sounding simply bitter and Clark kicked himself mentally, lifting into the air slightly too quickly; flooded with the desire to escape before saying anything else… foolish.
“Wait.”
He froze. So did his heart.
He looked down, trying desperately to quash the desperate hope that rose in his throat. Batman’s expression made the task easier. It was not friendly.
“I refuse to speak up to you. Come down here.”
Clark thought he’d probably gone quite pale — and thank Rao for the Kryptonian physiology that made the reverse-blush incomprehensible to humans — and floated until he was eye-to-eye with Batman. Slightly below, to tell the truth; so much for the pride of the House of El. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Better?”
“Quite.” And then, oddly, it’s was Batman’s turn to look awkward. A beat and then, “I will be in Metropolis next week. On business. I… would like to see you.”
Clark’s heart stopped, shock freezing his body and stealing his words. Shock… and something else. Something cool and sharp and clear and joyous and, damnit, he’d hesitated too long and the moment of vulnerability had gone from those wolfish eyes.
“Never-mind. Forget—”
“No!” The sound of his own voice shocked him, and Bruce too from the look of it. He tried to smooth out the panic and tried again. “No, I—I’d like that. To see you.”
He found himself studied for an eternal moment until, “Good.” And then, with a twang and a ripple, Batman was gone. Clark made no attempt to follow him; instead let go and soared high into the clouds, pulled upwards by his own fool heart.
He got out of the atmosphere, grinning like a loon, before he realised they hadn’t set any kind of time; Clark wasn’t even clear on who, exactly, had just been asked out. Somehow, he knew it wouldn’t matter.
He was home.