Every now and then I wonder if we, as a fandom, are exaggerating some superbat tropes. But then I'm reminded that no, Clark really has Bruce's heartbeat memorized as well as his own wife. He really can be brought back form mind control by Bruce alone. And yes, he's absolutely so unhinged about Bruce's dying he will drop him into the Lazarus Pit without a second thought or destroy the world for taking his Bat from him.
So there's this minor running thread in the comics where Bruce eventually retires as Batman, comfortable in knowing he can entrust Gotham to the future generations, and becomes a well known author by publishing his case files as a book series (coming with the bonus that the comics themselves are implied to be him writing down how events went for his books so he's waiting on a rooftop on stakeout thinking of a good monologue he put here to timeskip over the boring bit) and I think Bruce should let Clark read some of his drafts as a sign that Bruce trusts him.
I think Bruce should die suddenly and then Clark gets a data package one morning and realizes they’re Bruce’s drafts, with a message attached from Bruce that says he’s the only one he trusts to publish them as they are, without editing out the difficult parts.
And then there’s a 30k fic where it’s just Clark’s POV of reading them and his own memories of appearing in these cases or hearing about them.
I just had this random thought that it's kinda funny that Alfred actually wears this butler attire solely because he wants to, Bruce likely wouldn't care if he was wearing a t shirt or a maid outfit
And then I thought
Bere with me
Batman, where everything is exactly the same except Alfred is in a maid outfit (nobody mentions it)
They weren't drunk or under the influence or anything else. It's just, they were the last two people at the Daily Planet, both stressed out and frustrated with their articles respectively. And suddenly, they're going at it with a passion that Clark has realised he's missed. A passion that he hasn't experienced in a good while.
His love for Bruce hasn't died down in any way. It's simply their spark has fizzled out a bit, their spark of passion. They've both gone through the awkward horny and strange happenings of puberty. They've lived through the throes of being in their 20s and wanting to just making out and fuck anyone that breathes. And they've even gotten through what some seem to call a "second puberty" during their 30s, if not with each other, then with other people.
So now, late in their 40's and coming up to their early 50's, the need to have sex isn't has pressing or urgent. It's not a need, it's an occasionally indulgent thing to happen, instead.
And this thing he's got going on with Lois had been unspoken for several months now. This pull toward each other, as if they're back in their mid 20's, arguing about an article, an interview, the subject of it. It's as if they're going through this whole phase again, of discovering how much the other can dish out and serve, and how much the other can take.
It's as if they were back in their 20s, suddenly meeting each other for the first time and taking one look at each other and smirking, trying to figure out ways how to test one another. It's Lois' first time calling him "Kansas" and it's Clark's first time calling her "stubborn".
It's a wholly wildly passionate thing that Clark now find themselves down in each other's pants.
After it, they're both panting, in disarray and sticky with cum, slick, spit, and sweat, in a dimly lit office where their coworkers would come in for tomorrow's shift. The realisation of what they'd just done coming down in a rain of bullets as they quietly dressed themselves up and packed up for the night, never once saying a word to another one.
It ends there, Clark knows. He also knows that he should tell Bruce. Let him know of what he'd just done. Be honest and not make excuses.
Except, he doesn't. He doesn't and suddenly, it's happening again...
And again. And again.
When he comes home, Bruce is there, ready and with a smile, giving him kisses and handing out a plate of food. Then they would spend time, one catching up on more work and the other reading or simply browsing on their gadget, maybe one of them would be watching a show or a movie and the other is just there, trying to decompress. Then they'd get ready separately and lay on their bed.
They don't have hard lines on who's space is who's. But there's a routine, a pattern.
Despite Bruce not liking waking up to the curtains drawn back and the sun blaring on his face, he sleeps by the window. While Clark takes the side closest to the door because the faster he can get out of the room the better.
They still hold each other. Just not in same way that sex does. There's hugs, there's kisses, and cuddles, and invading the other's space. So, they hold each other tight and lay right down in the middle of the bed for the night, meeting one another.
Now, he finds himself laying in Lois' bed in her apartment, staring blankly at her ceiling after having been given one of the most mind-blowing head he's gotten in all his nearly 50 years of being alive.
Lois is sleeping on her side, her back facing him, her skin still glistening with traces of sweat, and he can taste her on his tongue. Can feel her nails down his back.
He thinks of Bruce. Married for 4 and together for 6, friends for longer. And he wonders what Bruce would say if he saw them right now. What he would do upon finding out that he's been fucking his ex-wife of nearly a decade. The same ex-wife who helped him realise his feelings for Bruce isn't as platonic as he initially thought it was. His ex-wife who he used to rant and wax poetic about Bruce to.
The same ex-wife who's legs were spread wide open for him, who's nails had clawed down his back, and who's cunt squeezed around him tightly as they both came. The same ex-wife he doesn't hold romantic feelings for anymore.
But the sex--the sex is thrilling, it's exhilarating. It makes his blood boil and his chest heave in a way that it hasn't in years now. In a way that hasn't with Bruce for a good while now. And it's so good. Lois grabs him by the hair as she fucks herself on his cock, her pussy tightening and releasing with every bounce of her body; Clark grabs her by the waist and watches in fascination as he carves himself deeply, his cock bulging on her stomach.
Clark looks at the ceiling. Heart slowly coming down from the adrenaline. His gaze hazing in the dark, spots of shapeless beings, taking note of how there's a bit of light coming through from the slightly drawn curtain. There's a cat's meow echoing in the silent street.
He thinks of Bruce. Bruce who thinks he's on some kind of business trip in a different state, working diligently on a piece. Bruce thinks he's in some hotel room, resting, sleeping most likely, miles away from him and their family.
Instead, he's in Metropolis in Lois' posh apartment fitting her Editor-in-Chief position that she shares with Clark. He's on her bed still coming down from the thrill of cumming, sweat cooling on his skin.
Looking at her, he thinks of inching closer, of wrapping his arms around her, of pressing a gentle kiss on her exposed shoulder and slipping himself between her legs. Just like he used to do with Bruce.
Bruce Wayne at the circus, seeing a shocked eight year old little boy kneel on the ground in a puddle of his parents’ blood, and rushing from the stands to wrap him in his coat and carry him away. Bruce Wayne tucking the boy’s face into his shoulder and whispering as calmly as he can, “Don’t look. You’re going to be okay, I promise you’re going to be okay, just don’t look.”
Detective Gordon, watching as he walks by, being transported to twenty years prior when he was a rookie cop first on the scene for the Wayne murders and finding a shocked eight year old little boy standing in a puddle of his parents’ blood. Remembering how he wrapped his jacket around him and carried him away in a hurry, tucking his face into his shoulder and whispering, “Don’t look. You’re going to be okay, I promise you’re going to be okay, just don’t look.”
Gordon watching as the supposed playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne does everything he can to comfort Dick Grayson, this little boy from the circus he’s never even met before, because he knows exactly the kind of pain he’s going through in this moment.
Gordon realizing that his moment of panic when trying to get little Bruce Wayne away from his parents’ dead bodies had more of an impact than he ever could have imagined.
Men of old and young are gathered in droves. Their raucousness swallow the silences, leaving no stone unturned with their cacophony.
The storm had left him weary. Ichor covered hands, calloused fingers still quivering. There's the tiniest fleck of dark brown blood, stuck deep in his nail bed.
7 long years of wandering hadn't been enough to rid him of his sins.
But here—in these sunlight covered halls, he could, perhaps, find salvation. Find his life, his paradise—his wife and his son.
The years, they hadn't been kind, though. His hair as grown to lengths he never thought it would. His face is scruffed with scars and greying hair His hands are calloused, world-travelled yes, but dirty and forever stained.
The lives of his men cling to the muscles of his shoulders, nails clawing for their lives as they rake down his back—reminding him of his failures, of his pains, his plans. His hubris and his weakness.
He tugs the covering over his head further. It's no use. The men he sees—healthy, strong, they speak of youth he no longer has. Of life behind their eyes that he doesn't have.
With their soft palms and cared for hands. They know not of the lengths he had to go through. They know not of what determination means. They know not of the sacrifices made just to survive.
He looks at them as he keeps himself to the walls of the great hall, watching as they converse. Servants rushing to bring more and more ale and wine for them to partake.
The air reeks of their combined scent. They sweat, and their odour, their naivety and their ignorance.
It's no fit for a king to be so coltish. But the kingdom hasn't had a king for 20 years.
In some ways, he feels he should be surprised. His wife, cunning, ruthless, and smart. Using his wits and the people around him, weaving tales, buying time for his monster of a husband.
All that time, all that effort—wasted on him. As the sunlight gleams, he comes to realise, he no longer lives in this.
In the world where the sun touches. He no longer breathes the same air as them, no longer looks upon another and consider them a brother.
His journey was treacherous, long, and more oft than not, painful. Lonely.
None of these men know.
The doors are open as the men come and go as they please. Their laughter blending in to each other's. Their cups are raised into the air, breaths reeking of yeast and hops.
But their lives are untouched by pain, by sorrow, by fears, and caution. Their lives are untouched by the gods who view them as ants. They are so, so simple.
And perhaps. After all this time, all that his wife and son will need is simple.
Perhaps, this is the time that the King of Ithaca dies.
-
Birds chirp as it flies past over head. The sun shining once more. Beyond his perch on the balcony is the great sea, shimmering azure, with no hint of the storm that once raged days before.
He still thinks of it.
The storm and its swirling dark clouds. How the water had pulled back as if summoned to gather someplace else.
The wind had been great, the rains had been strong.
Arriving as if it manifested into a being, and gone in a blink.
Such an... Unusual storm it was.
And as he unweaves the threads of the shroud he sows, the storm lingers.
It had lasted for all of a day. Came and went. As if it merely passed through. Came and went as if it ran away.
Came and went, as if it dropped someone off—
He runs to the balcony and scans the sea. He stares and tries as he might, looks beyond the shroud of distant horizon. The boats he spots are anchored neatly along the shore, with no sign of the great ship his husband had sailed away in.
No commotion seems to be happening, no chorus of gasps and curious exclamations.
Yet something within him pounds. His heart beats, lodged in his throat, and his blood sings with a hope renewed.
Oh, could the storm—was it? It couldn't be, could it?
"A sign?" He asks, with no answer forthcoming, he knows, but the hope, the elation sings true and clear.
It must have been. It must have been! A sign, a signal, a tell of his love finally coming back to him.
Bringing his skirts up, he runs to their shared chest, and propped, atop the fabrics of his wedding robes and the blanket he'd held their son with is the bow.
Missing its string, for more than 10 years now. Waiting for the moment to be used.
It's—a risk. He's sure that none of the men outside knew how to string such an unusual bow, none of the men outside knew how to fire with a sure aim, none of the suitors outside have steady hands and steady breaths.
Not like his husband—not like his Kal.
"It's time." He speaks, hoping that somewhere, through the curved length of his bow, his husband will know. That he is here, waiting, always.
He lays the bow on their bed, only one side unmade with his tossing and turning, the roots have grown since it was planted, slithering like a reminder along the floor, thick tendrils almost devouring the length of the room, its branches encompassing the entire wall that helped support it previously. The ceiling had to be broken through to allow the dense thicket of leaves to flourish, and he had to place a canopy just below it to keep rain water from seeping in.
He changed out of his robes. Stringing his hair up into a loose bun, strands of black locks falling, framing his face, and no doubt the wear of the years darkening his features further, emphasizing the creases and lines that have since appeared when Kal had first kissed him and their son good bye to the shores of Troy.
He wears the veil he'd worn when he held their son, still just a tiny babe, the same veil he'd worn as he watched his husband sail away.
Their colours, of the azure sea and the deep crimson of berries, flecks of gold and the deepest shadows of black, weaved into simple fabric.
And he wears the necklace his husband had courted him with, the jewelry on his wrist that his husband gave just before their wedding night.
Giving one last look out where their bedroom faces the sea, he prays for the gods to hear him. He prays for the gods to lead his husband home, to never leave him astray.
"I'm here, Kal." He whispers as a breeze enters their room, caressing his face gently, "I'm here. Come home, my love."
-
The hall quiets as the Queen enters. Back straight and eyes facing forward. He doesn't react to the coos and whistles given as he passes by. He doesn't bat an eye to the winks and snickers thrown his way.
Rather, he marches his path to the front of the hall, where a two-step dais present the King and Queen's throne.
The great hall, is just that, however. A hall. It is filled with benches and tables for the guests taking residence in his home. Temporary and, no matter how long, will be short-lived.
He stands at front of the King's throne, where Kal's warmth has long since faded, but his presence remains. Clear as the day he knelt in front of him, asking for the world for them to wed.
He still recalls the very moment he said 'yes', and the brightest of grins on his Kal's face.
Arms held him strong and true, lifted from the grass, shaded by the very tree they've carved their name into.
The bow in his hands are heavy, and with callouses on his fingers and palms, it feels unworn. His husband's favourite bow, hopefully finally finding use once more.
As the crowd of men stop their lecherous jeering and hollering, he presents the bow, props it from the floor up to his waist.
It stands tall, it stands firm, it stands unyielding. "I will choose a suitor." That has the men watching him listening to him with rapt attention, "To whoever can string my husband's old bow.
He raises it to show it's curve, "It's been unused, unstrung, for 20 years." Yet it shows no sign of damage, brittleness, no wear or tears that years of disuse would usually show.
"Whoever can string it, and shoot through 12 axes cleanly shall be the man to wed me. He shall be the man to sit beside me. He shall be the man to sleep next to me, and rule the kingdom with me as his Queen.
"Show me that your aim is true, present to me the strength you wield as you shoot, reveal to me the steadiness of your resolve as you string this bow. Only then, shall I choose you as my King."
He doesn't provide them with the string Kal once used. He doesn't show them what bow should look like.
If they are warriors, if they know anything of the battle field, of life outside from a palace's gleaming halls, then there's no need for demonstration.
Calling over a servant woman and scribe, he instructs them to watch over the men, to leave no man unattended, to watch how they string the bow, how they aim, and how they shoot.
He instructs another servant to prepare 12 axes—Kal used to shoot through 20. 12 is a mercy.
"Keep them occupied for the time being. The challenge will start at dawn. And light the torches."
"Of course, your Majesty." They incline their heads in a bow as he makes his way.
The men around him too busy dreaming of what they'll supposedly do once they're made King.
Just as he leaves the hall, about to turn for his quarters, he spots a figure.
It huddles in the shadows, cloaked and hunched in on itself. And in the dimming light of the late afternoon, he thinks—he hopes that he has come home.
But then one of his hundreds of suitors shuffle, effectively hiding the figure from sight.
When he pushes through the man covering his view, the figure is gone.
The wall is shrouded in warmth oranges and flickering fire as a servant hangs a torch.
Swallowing, he straightens his posture once again and turns. Heading back to a too empty wedding bed.
Batgirl (2024): Cassandra thinks of Bruce as "Father", and she can read his micro-expressions, meaning that while he is standing as he always does, in the cowl, barely saying anything and with his bitch-resting-face, she reads him as non-threatening and comforting, when most react badly to Bruce when he is standing like this, seeing him as an asshole and putting judgement behind his stance.
Hehehe superbat where Clark thinks he's nobody to Bruce because he's just an ordinary reporter, and Bruce thinks he's nobody to Clark because he's just human. It just hits different.
Thinking of Superbat being Clark who has memorised Bruce's heartbeat and then panics because he can't hear it anymore(it was only a split second). So he rushes to wherever Bruce is immediately. Only to then find out he sneezed.
When people want to subvert Superbats usual dynamic so that Bruce is the sub & Clark is the dom....but they swap their personalities too so I have to imagine Battison with Man of Steel :(
Justice for bratty, cold, immovable object Bruce who clings to his emotional detachment & unaffected demeanor until his last breath while loving, warm, unstoppable force Clark breaks him down with soft affection & gut wrenching tenderness until B finally feels safe enough to let someone else be responsible for his wellbeing.
bruce’s dad lore has got to be the most insane thing.
and like, he’d drop it at the most random times, because he genuinely doesn’t believe it’s all that interesting.
so here’s some good potentials.
dinner at wayne manor-
duke: so like, a cult is-
bruce, without pausing his eating or looking up: i was kidnapped by a cult when i was eighteen. they wanted to drain my blood.
everyone:
tim: what the fuck bruce
alfred, passing through: ah yes, i had almost forgotten. no one speak his name, or he will know master bruce survived.
the rest of the table:
in the batcave-
jason: being buried alive is a very traumatizing experience, i’ll have you know.
bruce: yeah, i got mud all in my mouth cause it was raining.
the kids:
bruce: oh, and i broke the casket when i finally got it open, so i had to get my dad a new one.
jason: what the fuck
on patrol-
steph: hey, bruce! if you were to go back in time, would you go to, like, fifties bop or midwestern cowboys
bruce: well, the midwestern cowboys were sort of fun, but there was this one guy shooting everyone with a gun from the future, and i had to fight robot pterodactyls. so i guess if i didn’t have to deal with that, the widwestern would be more fun.
the coms:
barbara: bruce what the fuck
the dinner table, again-
dick: i’m just saying, arkham isn’t the best mental institution to base your opinion on.
bruce: it was a lot worse in the eighties. the food was awful and the doctor only wanted to experiment on me.
the kids:
dick: what the fuck
alfred, passing through: master bruce, how many times do i need to apologize for that before you cease bringing it up?
bruce:
the batcave, again-
damian: from what i’ve researched, dent was fairly intelligent before he succumbed to his insanity, and-
bruce: actually, harvey cheated off of me whenever he could, which didn’t actually make any sense, because he was studying law and i was studying medicine, but most of those grades are mine, anyways. and some are probably harley’s and john’s, i’d bet.
everyone:
duke: what the fuck
on a stakeout-
jason: i’m just saying, old man. if you’d kill the joker i-
bruce: well, i did try.
jason:
bruce: stupid kryptonians getting in the way.
jason:
the coms:
jason: what the fuck.
on patrol, again-
cass: poison ivy and harley quinn were spotted downtown, two of us should-
bruce: oh! i forgot i scheduled dinner with them. you kids have patrol covered, right?
the coms:
damian: what the fuck
in the living room, watching an action movie-
bruce: this reminds me of the time i climbed mount everest.
the kids:
stephanie: what the fuck ?
in the hall, looking at the new family portrait-
bruce: you know, when i was a kid i tried to get alfred into the family portrait because he was dating my parents and we all wanted him to be a part of the painting, but he refused.
