Yes, I admit it.
I’m doing SuperBat again because I’m in more of a fiction mood than a non-fiction mood. I mean, I was going to blog anyway…
* * *
“Mr. Wayne?” Clark fought the urge to adjust his tie and his glasses, and simply extended his hand in greeting. Bruce Wayne, billionaire, playboy, urban renewal champion, caught him in a crushing grip and smiled.
“Mr. Kent. I’m surprised they sent you out on this one. Don’t you usually do crime beat?”
Clark fought the urge to roll his eyes. Bruce was there–impeccable in an earth-brown European cut suit, complete with–oh my God–the cravat that Clark had helped him tie that morning. Bruce knew goddamned good and well that Clark had been put on this story because Lois Lane had bribed Perry White with cookies to have Clark go because she was in Dubai following a lead on Lex Author, and she wanted him to dig up dirt on her favorite crush.
He liked Lois– loved her like a sister, in fact–but he was tempted to lock her in a lead vault for all eternity because she mooned over Bruce Wayne like a love-struck teenager.
And dammit, Bruce was his. Which was–he could admit it–why he’d planted the lead that led Lois to Dubai.
Bruce had told him the interview was coming weeks ago. He was here as the Wayne Enterprises’ front man, making himself at home in the penthouse of Metropolis’s best hotel, surrounded by his entourage of PR personnel and engineers.
Tim Drake, who was working as his publicist for the moment, met Clark’s gaze dryly.
Oh yeah–Tim knew. Bruce had mentored the boy, through his Red Robin days and into his service for Dick Grayson. He hadn’t disclosed why Tim was back at Wayne Enterprises now, but Clark had a feeling it had something to do with the improvements Bruce was paying for in the Eye in the Sky. Bruce didn’t admit he needed help often, but that project was a monster.
And his projects in Metropolis were the cover for that monster.
“I do, in fact,” Clark said easily. “But it’s not every day that an industrialist from Gotham beats out Lex Luthor’s company for a contract in Metropolis. My editor thought this deserved a second look.”
Clark was maybe the only one who knew what that tiny tick about Bruce Wayne’s eyebrow meant. Uh oh. Clark shifted in his seat, aware that tomorrow, he might not be able to so much as sit down.
“Well, there’s not much to see here,” Bruce said, smiling that disarming, playboy smile. “There was an opportunity to develop the margins between the thriving urban area and a rather depressed suburb, so I took it! Lots of money to be made in offering services, Mr. Kent–that’s not really newsworthy.”
Clark’s eyes narrowed, and he was reminded again how much he hated Bruce’s playboy persona.
“You’re building a youth center and a daycare, Mr. Wayne. That’s hardly a goldmine.”
“But we’re hiring the parents to work in the engineering firm nearby,” Bruce told him, smiling disarmingly. “Really, I’m just getting a less distracted employee, that’s all.”
“You started the firm,” Clark snapped. “It’s renewable energy. From what I understand it’ll cut the drain on Metropolis’s power grid by ten percent.”
Bruce waved at Lucius Fox airily. “Well, Lucius would know all about that. I just signed where he told me to, isn’t that right, Lucius?”
“Sure,” Lucius said, face impassive. “That paperwork doesn’t do itself.”
Bruce sent Lucius a killing look that the older man didn’t bother to return.
Clark eyed Lucius with mild interest–and pretended he didn’t see his wink.
“Did you have any other questions?” Bruce asked, leaning back in his seat. “We were going to have lunch brought up. You’re welcome to join us.”
Clark shrugged. “As long as it’s all still on the record.”
Oh, you bet it was on the record. It was on the record as he overheard Bruce’s board talking about how much more money they could have made if they’d started a fracking plant instead but had refused. It was on the record when Bruce took a tearfully grateful call from the local WIC program, and another one from WEAVE, because the mothers were so relieved to have a job and childcare, and low income housing in a nice neighborhood. It was on the record as Bruce made arrangements with a local junior college for the workers at the plant to learn computer and management skills so they could more efficiently staff the engineering firm, as well as a mentor program that would funnel those truly gifted in math and spatial relationships into the sections that did actual engineering.
The only thing that was off the record was when the local mob boss called and told Bruce that he was so grateful for a chance to keep his little brother out of the family business, he and his boys would not only leave the area alone, they’d make sure any other “families” would lay off as well.
But Clark took note of it, and his eyes didn’t leave Bruce Wayne once as he charmed and flattered and played the fool for his board members and staff and even the mobster, who all left that room convinced that the man was an idealistic ass who would find himself firmly taken advantage of in the end.
Clark was there in the morning as Bruce did his numbers.
He was highly aware that Bruce Wayne would make money off of this enterprise as he did off every other, and he would funnel the profits back into the community just as he did in Gotham.
Finally, the afternoon was over, and Bruce and his entourage were heading for the jet. Clark tilted his head, just a smidge, and Bruce smiled at them all as they got on the elevator.
“Lucius, please see everybody home. I’m going to spend one more night in Metropolis. Do you mind?”
Lucius gave a shrug. “Not at all. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” His eyes flickered to Clark. “Or would.”
And then the elevator doors shut and Clark was on him and naked in the time it took to fly across the room.
“Are you crazy?” Bruce hissed, and Clark ignored him, ripping his three piece suit down the middle, like cracking an egg in half.
“Yes,” Clark snapped, falling to his knees and burying his face in Bruce’s taut, iron-ripped belly. “I am crazy, because I’m one of three people in this room who didn’t think you were an arrogant idiot trying to impress the Metropolis social scene.”
In one swift move, he engulfed Bruce’s cock and sucked hard.
“Nungh!” Bruce tightened his fingers in Clark’s hair and tugged hard, but Clark didn’t yield. “I don’t care what they think!” he hissed and Clark deep-throated him again, swallowing deliberately, knowing it would grip the head of the thing with powerful ripples.
Clark pulled back, gripping Bruce’s prick with a solid stroke. “I care,” he snapped. “Every time you joke about what an idiot you are, it’s like you’re disrespecting my property, and I hate it!”
“Well your property needs you to bend over,” Bruce ordered. “Because otherwise I’m going to come on Superman’s–“
Clark tugged on his balls, and he exploded.
Over Clark’s closed eyes, his cheek, his open mouth.
Bruce’s knees gave, and he sank slowly to the ground. Before Clark could wipe his face off, he felt Bruce’s mouth moving over him, tongue extended.
He licked and suckled, and mouthed, eliminating his come from Clark’s skin as he eliminated any trace of the man Clark knew him to be.
“Feel better?” he whispered.
Clark wrapped his arms around Bruce’s waist and buried his sticky face against his neck. “No.”
Bruce dropped a tender kiss in his hair. “Will you feel better after you write the article you’re planning?”
“Maybe.”
And he had the nerve to chuckle.
“Will you feel better if we make it to the bed and I do that thing I was planning to do when I told youth bend over?”
“It’s a possibility. You know what would make me really feel better?”
Bruce sighed. “Not yet.”
“Why not? You’re nearing… an age. Why is it important everybody assumes you’re an idiot and Lucius is the one behind the company even accidentally making money?”
“Because there’s still a lot of good I can do by acting the fool,” Bruce said patiently. “Why is it so important that anybody knows I’m not one?”
Clark groaned. “Because I love you, and you’re brilliant, and you’re kind, and you’re brave. And nobody will know it and that kills me!”
“Nobody will know Clark Kent is Superman,” Bruce said, standing up and offering Clark a hand up.
“But they’ll know Clark Kent worked for a better world,” Clark said, taking the hand and wrapping Bruce into the hardest, most all-concmpassing hug in his arsenal.
“And you’ll know Bruce Wayne did.” Bruce melted into his arms bonelessly, as though Clark was the only one on the planet who could take his weight.
Maybe because he was.
“You deserve more,” Clark muttered, but they’d had this discussion before. There was no changing it.
Bruce laughed and pulled him toward the bed. “I don’t even deserve you, but I’m taking you! Now bend over! I”ve got plans!”
Clark did, wrapping his wrists voluntarily in a towel, submitting his body to all the things Bruce craved.
Bruce craved Clark. Not money. Not accolades. He yearned to set the world right. He craved farm boy and Boy Scout reporter, Clark Kent.
Clark would give him everything.
It’s the only reward Bruce would ever take.
