Okay so I asked @chiplin about their wip title for the ask game and I guessed completely wrong about what it would be so now I'm here to deliver superbat angst:
Superbat fling. Or, well. Clark has a fling for Bruce. Bruce falls head over heels for Bruce. And, as flings are wont to do, they end.
Clark goes to Bruce when they were supposed to meet up, their hangouts that always ended up with significantly less clothes by the end of the night. Hangouts, because only Bruce considered them dates.
Clark sits down giddily next to Bruce and grabs his hands, a smile breaking out over his face. "I think Lois likes me!"
Bruce freezes. Clark keeps going, talking about how he hears her pulse pick up around him, hears her breathing change, and even yesterday had it confirmed by overhearing Jimmy tease Lois about it.
It's ironic in a painful way that Clark can understand the vital signs of the girl he likes to mean she likes him, but can't understand the ones of the man he's been fucking for months as his entire world comes crashing down.
Bruce smiles, and claps Clark on the shoulder. "I'm happy for you."
They spend the evening planning out how he'll ask out Lois. The clothes are still on when Clark leaves, and Bruce goes to dinner despondently. Dick looks up when he reaches the table, and frowns.
"Did you and Clark break up?" He asks, because he's torn into the room earlier to say hi to his favourite uncle, and as he often fantasised aloud, future step-father.
Bruce chuckles, shaking his head, but can't manage to muster a smile for his ward. "Turns out," he hums, "we were never together."
Lois says yes when Clark asks her out.
Bruce smiles and congratulates him.
Lois says yes when Clark asks her to marry him.
Bruce smiles and congratulates him.
Lois says yes when Clark asks if it's true.
Bruce smiles and congratulates him.
He sends them both flowers the first time. He offers to pay for the wedding the second. He hands over his card for baby shopping the third.
He never says anything about his feelings ever again. He's happy for them, and that is no lie. They are both his friends, and he loves them dearly. Simply, sometimes, not in the way he's supposed to.
"When did you start calling Dad Uncle Clark?" Jon asks, floating in the air above Damian, looking at Dick.
Bruce's eldest shrugs. "When I was younger. Him, me, and B were a pretty tight-knit group, so he graduated to uncle status pretty quickly."
Bruce thinks that's the end of it, and smiles at the memories. Then his son opens his big mouth, and deconstructs all of Bruce's carefully maintained lies with a single sentence.
"I actually thought about calling him 'Dad,' too."
Bruce feels his blood run cold. His other children perk up, as does Clark, while Dick remains in a world of his own.
"You did?" Clark asks, and he can feel the Kryptonian's eyes on him, can feel that familiar probing gaze that means he's heard Bruce's vitals and is looking for the injury that caused it.
Dick hums, buried in his phone. "I mean, yeah. You acted like a dad anyway, and I knew it was only a matter of time."
Bruce pleads the universe to make Dick stop talking.
"Until Bruce put his money where his mouth was. I mean, heâ" Dick's mouth clamps closed, and Bruce sighs. Too little too late, universe.
Tension settles over the room like a weighted blanket, and Bruce feels all eyes on him. He does not look up from his book.
"Bruce what, Dick?" Clark says, and Dick rests his phone on his forehead, letting out a mortified groan.
"You and Supes were a thing?" Steph asks.
"Dick?" Clark's voice is stern, and Bruce curses the universe. He's like a dog with a bone, Bruce doesn't stand a chance at getting out of this.
"Yeahhhh that's fair." Dick ducks back behind his phone, and Bruce slides a bookmark between his pages before setting the novel aside.
He lifts his eyes to meet Clark's, and tips his chin up. Clark meets his gaze firmly, and studies him. "I'd like you to explain, Bruce."
"Don't play stupid, Clark. Dick has given you more than enough information to figure it out."
"You were in love with me."
"You wanted to marry me."
Jason whistles lowly, Tim stares at them with wide eyes, Kon looks like he's experiencing revelations, and Bruce can see Cass' worried gaze scanning his form.
"We've never dated!" Clark protests.
Bruce swallows. "So it seems. But at the time, I believed we were. As did Dick, and Alfred. Diana too, naturally."
Clark rubs his hands over his face. Bruce's eyes catch on his wedding ring. "But weâ"
"We spent most of our time together, you were all but co-parenting my child, and we ended up in bed together most nights," Bruce interrupts. "Forgive me the mistake, Clark, but you didn't exactly set clear boundaries between friendship and whatever it is you catagorised our relationship as."
"So you've just...stuck by my side as I married and made a family with another woman?"
Bruce shrugs, and manages to muster a smile. "I'm glad it was her. She's the love of you life."
