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A gentle knock jolted Clark from his sleep.
For a split second he wondered who could possibly be knocking on his bedroom door, before he was quickly reminded by unfamiliar sheets and pillows that this was not, in fact, his own bedroom, and he was, in fact, stark naked.
“Uh—” he started, when the gentle knock came again, then stopped and looked at the door. He didn’t have a single clue who was knocking.
Trying not to panic, he reached out and shook the shoulder lying motionless under a pillow next to him. It groaned quietly and stilled again.
“Bruce,” he hissed, before coming to a screeching halt. Because that was Bruce Wayne lying probably naked next to him.
That was Batman. That was Batman and Bruce Wayne, because Bruce Wayne and Batman were the same person.
The previous night came flooding back to him, the yelling and the fighting and the masks coming off and then everything coming off and flying them both through a huge window of a huge mansion that was, thankfully, open at the time.
“Bruce,” he whispered again, really starting to panic. He slept with Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy and frequent subject of newspaper articles. He slept with Batman, infamous vigilante and maybe kind of his best friend. So many lines were crossed, in so many directions, he imagined this is what being dizzy felt like. And someone was still knocking.
His Ma is going to kill him for taking so long to answer. He doesn’t know how she’ll find out, but she will.
“Batman,” he tried, louder this time. “B, someone’s knocking!”
“Five mor’ minutes, Alfred!” the lump slurred unhelpfully.
Horribly, Alfred took that as permission to come in. Clark squeaked and pulled the bedsheets up to his chin out of pure instinct, but Alfred—an older, balding gentleman in a suit—hardly seemed fazed by his presence.
“Good morning, Master Bruce, Mr Kent,” he said lightly in a very posh British accent, striding over to the window and pulling back the curtains.
Under the pillow Bruce groaned loudly.
“Breakfast will be served in fifteen minutes,” Alfred continued, pulling back the curtain of the next window. “The children are all waiting, so I expect you to be prompt.”
Clark tried wildly to think of something to say and came up painfully blank. This did not deter Alfred any more than Bruce’s grumbling.
“If you don’t mind, Mr Kent,” he went on, disappearing into what Clark could only hope was a closet, “I will take the liberty of pulling out a spare set of clothes for you, as it seems you have none suitable for breakfast.”
Clark glanced in horror at the discarded, clearly visible, and possibly torn pile of red and blue that was his super suit.
“Be nice, Alfred,” Bruce finally spoke. He emerged from under the pillow with the most magnificent head of bed hair he’d ever seen. Clark was a little in love.
“Always, Master Bruce,” Alfred said agreeably, coming out of the closet with what looked like sweatpants and a robe. “I feel I must inform you that Master Jason is taking care of breakfast, so I do have time to stand here until I see with my own eyes you have actually left the bed.”
Clark could feel the awareness snap into Bruce, and was weirdly comforted by it.
“Jason is here?” he asked suspiciously, sitting up properly. “Making breakfast?”
“Yes, sir,” Alfred said. “He’s making Belgian waffles.”
“Steph too?” Apparently now alert, he rolled out of bed. While a small, tiny (okay maybe not so tiny) part of him mourned the loss of sleepy Bruce, the rest was obscenely comforted by the return of the more familiar, more paranoid Batman. “Who else is here?”
Clark, in his own snap of awareness, remembered that Bruce Wayne had kids. Lots of them. To the point where it had been a meme, after the last one—a biological son? Clark tied to remember desperately—had shown up out of the blue.
Oh dear god was going to have to meet them? Now?
Clark switched from trying to remember the names and faces of the Wayne kids to trying to figure out how to reach the spare clothes Alfred had placed on the dresser without losing the sheets.
“All the children are here, including Miss Gordon.”
“What are they up to?” Bruce asked, disappearing into the closet.
“Haven’t the foggiest,” Alfred said placidly, in a tone that Clark just knew meant he definitely knew what the kids (how many of them?) were up to. “I will venture to say there does seem to be quite a lot of gloating and a fair amount of money exchanging hands.”
What on earth did that even mean? There’s no way—
Before Clark could finish the thought, Bruce emerged from the closet scowling, now clad in what Clark would bet good money were pure silk pajamas and robe.
At least they were black. He wasn’t sure he was ready to see Batman wearing colors.
“What on earth did they do,” he growled, bending down to pick up his slippers. Clark’s eyes lingered without his permission.
“I think you will find, Mr Kent,” Alfred said, looking at him with amusement (at him or Bruce, he wasn’t quite sure), “that Master Bruce has unfortunately passed along to his children his own lack of boundaries.”
Rao above this must be hell.
“Maybe I should—” he finally choked out. “Maybe I should go?”
That made Bruce pause and look at him contemplatively.
“No, that would never work,” he sighed after the world’s longest heartbeat. “They would never let you live it down. Come on then, get dressed.”
Clark reddened, glancing at Alfred only to realize the man was gone. He hadn’t even noticed, super senses be damned.
Suddenly there was no obstacle to the fresh set of clothes sitting tantalizingly on the dresser, except Bruce’s expectant and shameless stare, which, in light of the events of the previous night, did not serve as a decent excuse for modesty.
The patented Bat-glare looked strange on Brucie Wayne’s face, but apparently it was doing things for Clark, if the way his damn cock twitched meant anything.
Before the morning could get any more humiliating, Clark used his super speed to get dressed. Probably the coward’s way out, going by Bruce’s less-than-impressed raised eyebrow, but Clark had other things to worry about at the moment.
“Are you ready?” Bruce asked dryly.
No! Clark wanted to scream, but Bruce was already halfway down the hall, stalking exactly like Batman did down the hallways of the Watchtower. The last time Clark had seen Bruce—Bruce as Bruce Wayne, not as Batman, or whatever in-between he’d stumbled into bed with—he’d been fluttering around a ballroom and slipped on a cream puff, which his children had been using as a hacky sack.
“I don’t think I am ready,” Clark admitted, using a tiny bit of super speed to catch up to Bruce. “To um. Meet your children. All of them.” However many that might be. “Not that I don’t want to—it’s just we never really got to—”
Clark broke off, not sure what they never really got to last night. They definitely covered all the physical bases. Multiple times. They’d even talked, between rounds, filling in some of the gaps left by secret identities. The real first time they met, at a gala in DC instead of a cold rooftop two months later. Clark living in a tiny apartment in Metropolis instead of an arctic fortress. Bruce’s habit of switching champagne for ginger ale. They’d even talked about feelings, however gruff and brusque Bruce had been about the topic (Clark had found it hopelessly endearing, although he was smart enough to keep it to himself.)
Kids had definitely not come up.
“Don’t worry,” Bruce said nonchalantly, rounding another corner and going down a set of stairs. Clark had already lost his place in this labyrinth of a house, and made an effort to follow Bruce a little more closely. “You’ve already won over Dick, the rest will follow. Well, Damian might try to stab you, but he’s been behaving much better the last couple months. I haven’t had any parent-teacher conferences in two whole weeks.”
Clark made a distressed noise. He didn’t recognize either of those names. Oh, if he could go back in time, he would never duck out of a conversation with Cat Grant ever again. For half a second he entertained the thought of sneaking away to the bathroom and calling her to get the rundown on the Wayne children, but there’s no way she’d hand out the information without knowing why it was needed.
“Dick?” Clark asked tentatively, hoping that was indeed a name. It sounded like a safer bet than the one who apparently might stab him.
Bruce gave him another unimpressed look. “Nightwing? I thought you were rather fond of him. He looks up to you.”
“Nightwing is your son?” Clark gasped. “How old are you?”
At that Bruce finally stopped his march through endless corridors to fully turn around and scowl at Clark, whose traitorous cock jumped again.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m just—this is a lot to process,” Clark babbled.
“I get enough elderly jokes from my children,” Bruce said, pinching his nose. “Please, do not contribute.”
“Seriously?” Clark laughed. He’d never seen Batman look so distressed. Or say please, for that matter.
“Jason got me a walker for my birthday last year,” he continued, pained. “Steph gave me reading glasses. Someone is putting Werther’s in all my pockets and I can’t figure out who.”
World’s Greatest Detective, indeed. Clark felt some of his earlier anxieties slip away, and the shape of this Bruce come into focus, the familiar hard edges of Batman softened by domesticity.
“Won’t contribute, scout’s honor,” he said, raising his hand cheekily in the way that always made Batman huff with exasperation.
Clark was delighted to see Bruce roll his eyes in time with the huff, and wondered if he did that under the cowl.
“You were never a Boy Scout,” Bruce grumbled predictably, spinning around and continuing the long trek through Wayne Manor. “And I was only twenty two when I adopted Dick.”
“So um—Do they—um, do they know?” Clark asked. Nightwing must—Dick, Dick Grayson, he remembered, now that he wasn’t near blind with panic.
“Of course they know about us,” Bruce hissed. “But how did they find out? They must’ve gotten Babs in on it early, I haven’t taught Tim all my tricks yet.”
“Wait—that’s not—”
Bruce glanced back again at Clark, frowning. “You’re right, it’s not important how they found out, although I will have to find the leak eventually. It was probably Cass, and I’m useless at disciplining her.”
“But what about—”
“No, Dick and Jason will be the most trouble, and I already used that video of Jason coming out of anesthesia to get him to stay for Christmas, so I’ve got nothing on him,” Bruce sighed heavily, rounding another corner. “And I’ve never been able to get anything good on Dick. Babs might have something, but she’s clearly already picked a side.”
“You blackmail your own children?” Clark frowned.
“You’ll understand when you meet them,” Bruce said grimly. “Don’t worry, it’s me they’ll be focused on. Do watch out for Damian though—I’m sure Dick has confiscated any kryptonite, but it’d be best to err on the side of caution.”
“They know you’re Batman?”
Bruce suddenly stopped to stare at him.
“Yes, they know I’m Batman,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like Clark himself hadn’t found out about it just last night after lots of shouting about trust and friendship and wanting to see his face.
“Right,” Clark said, like the last twelve hours weren’t revelation after mind blowing revelation. “Should I—should I tell them I’m Superman?” Although if Damian was potentially hoarding kryptonite already—
Bruce gave him that same considering look. “The choice is always yours, but you’ll have maybe a week before they figure it out. If they haven’t already.”
“Is this—is this a game to you?” Clark asked, feeling hurt.
Bruce frowned, differently than how he had been all morning. Clark rarely saw this frown, the one that meant someone was behaving oddly and Bruce didn’t understand why.
Clark’s never seen it directed at himself before.
“With my children?” Bruce asked. Which, in itself, was significant, given how rarely Batman stooped low enough to ask clarifying questions.
“With me!” Clark snapped. With the World’s Best Detective and his apparently similarly deranged children competing in the world’s most fucked up game of chess, he’d barely had time to process the—the activities of the night before.
But underneath the confusion and panic at the prospect of meeting the fucking Wayne children was the cold sting of—of—well, not rejection, as dragging Clark to meet his family was kind of the opposite of rejection, but he’d grown used to Batman treating him as an equal, a partner, and suddenly it felt like he’d been thrown back to the beginning of their friendship, with Batman stomping around doing his own thing and Clark struggling to catch up.
Clark’s face must’ve been an open book, because Bruce softened and clapped a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Clark is a little embarrassed to admit he melted into the touch, but, well, they did sleep with each other last night. He thought he could get away with it.
“This isn’t a game,” Bruce said quietly, a touch of Batman’s rumble coloring his voice. “Not between us. Never between us. I meant every word I said last night.”
“I know that,” Clark said. He did, he really did.
“Look, my children are horrible. Menaces, all of them. A couple are banned from the Netherlands. I had to bail another one out of jail just last week. They’ve crashed so many cars. So many. They’re the reason fireworks are illegal in the state of New Jersey.” Despite the words coming out of his mouth, Bruce looked hopelessly fond, and Clark’s poor heart could hardly take it. “And, whatever Alfred likes to imply aside, I am completely aware that all their bad habits come directly from me. But I promise they’re good kids. The best. Better than me, and if you’ve put up with my bullshit for this long—”
Clark couldn’t stand still anymore. He grabbed the front of Bruce’s robe and hauled him in, pressing their lips together. Bruce let out one, short gasp of surprise before responding enthusiastically.
If not for the soft silk in his fist instead of Kevlar, it would be a perfect deja vu of the night before.
He was ashamed to admit he had no idea how long they stood there, making out like teenagers in the middle of a hallway in Bruce’s gigantic mansion, before a polite cough broke them apart.
“The eggs are getting cold, Master Bruce,” Alfred said with a single, raised eyebrow that made Bruce (Batman himself!) flinch. Clark had a suspicion that, although Bruce had said Nightwing was the one he had on his side, it would be Alfred who he really needed in his pocket, which was strengthened when the butler disappeared as quickly and silently as he’d appeared.
“I’d love to meet your kids,” Clark said, before Bruce could power walk away again. “Really. They sound amazing.”
He meant it too. Now that the shock was fading, he imagined it would be rather fun to see whatever chaos the kids were clearly planning for the unshakable Batman. Maybe if he joined in they’d like him more, scout’s honor be damned.
The corner of Bruce’s mouth slid up. “They really are.”
“Let’s go?” Clark offered out his hand. He’d offered Bruce his hand like this countless times, before nearly every major battle they’d fought side by side.
Not that they were going into battle with the Wayne children. Or maybe they were?
Bruce studied his hand for a long moment.
“No,” he said, knocking Clark’s hand aside. His eyes widened in a split-second of hurt, before Bruce grabbed his shirt like Clark had minutes ago and hauled him in for a fierce kiss. “Let’s run away to the Fortress. See how long it takes them to find us.”