“Clark.”
Bruce’s tone was flat when he spoke, hands steepled with his calloused fingertips pressing together atop his mahogany desk. “You’re forty five years old. What do you mean you don’t have a birth certificate?” His brow furrowed disapprovingly, and his mouth was set in an even flatter line than usual.
“Well.” Clark chuckled nervously, leaning back in— and nearly falling out of— the chair opposite Bruce’s desk. He looked around like everything in Bruce’s study was suddenly a thousand times more interesting and more important than this conversation. “I mean, I wasn’t born on this planet. My ma and my pa never really… Thought it was important for me to have one. I mean- growing up in Smallville, there wasn’t really a reason to bother with it.” His words were more defensive than he would’ve liked them to be, but this was a subject that Lois had already scolded him on a million times before.
“You didn’t think that it was… I don’t know, relevant to get one when you moved to Metropolis?” Bruce scoffed, looking Clark up and down. It was difficult to associate his mental image of the Man of Steel— always so strong, so smart, and so untouchable— with this blubbering idiot. “How did you get your passport?”
“About that,” Clark hesitated, a nervous chuckle escaping him.
“You don’t have your passport.” Bruce squinted, nose scrunching up slightly. Clark cringed at the sight. He had never seen Bruce make such an offensive face at the worst criminals before, and it felt like an attack to be under such harsh scrutiny.
“I can fly. Why would I need a passport?” Clark’s cheeks felt hot.
“In case you, I don’t know, get arrested overseas? Or god forbid, get questioned- because how is a reporter who legally doesn’t exist reporting live from Africa?”
“Look, Bruce, I never thought that far ahead!” Clark protested. “Are you gonna help me apply for one or what? Because if you’re just going to mock me, I’ll ask someone else.” Though, he knew very well that nobody else would be any more helpful.
A long moment of silence fell between them as Bruce weighed his options and silently judged his best friend. Eventually, though, he spoke.
“Fine, fine. Do you have the paperwork?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” Clark took a thick stack of papers out of his briefcase and plopped them onto Bruce’s already cluttered desk. Even though Bruce could be positively insufferable, he was grateful to have someone to help. He had always found paperwork like this boring enough to put him to sleep, which, was probably the reason he had put off filing for his birth certificate for so long.


















