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February 19,
'Gotham's Prodigal Son 30th Birthday Bash!'
'Millionaire Bruce Wayne turns 30 today.'
By: Clark Kent, Daily Planet
Clark looked down at the newspaper on the lunch room table. It wasn't his finest work he will admit. But Perry was still on repairing public relations between Metropolis and Gotham after the whole Superman versus Batman debacle of two years ago.
So was he, he thought with a secret smile, looking toward Batman frowning down at the paper and the two young men reading it together.
"I don't care if he's almost old enough to be my father," Barry whistled at the photograph accompanying the article. "I would let him do things to me that I definitely wouldn't let my father."
"Bruce Wayne is not old enough to be your father, Barry," Cyborg grew quiet while he calculated. "Unless of course we are speaking of your mental age."
"I'm just saying," Barry held up the paper. "Bruce Wayne just gets better with age, he's going to wear middle age well."
"Thirty is not middle age," Batman growled out.
"Well of course he's not as old as you B," Barry winked. "Or as sexy, wouldn't you say Supes?"
Clark hid his smile behind his hand. "I don't know, Bruce Wayne does smile more."
"Bruce Wayne is handsome in the way that sells newspapers and magazines," Cyborg turned his head to the side to better look at the photograph. "His features are aesthetically pleasing to the human eye."
"His kind of money can buy handsome," Batman sneered at the photograph.
"I wonder what he was looking at," Barry turned the photograph back around. "If Bruce Wayne looked at me like that my clothes would melt right off."
It had been Clark that had taken the picture himself on his cellphone. And although his clothes had not melted off, it had taken a little more effort than that, they had both been quite naked soon after it was taken. He blushed as though the other two could read his mind.
"I bet it was Clark Kent," Barry continued without waiting for a response from one of the others. "I ship those two so hard."
"Ship?" Clark asked confused, he did not understand the term.
"Yeah, you know ship them together," Barry grinned up at him. "I'm not the only one, they even have a ship name, Blark."
"Blark?" Batman laughed deeply. "Sounds like barf."
"Hey, you know you and Supes have a ship name too," Barry said a little too innocently. "Superbat."
"Should I ask, why his name should come before mine?" Batman crossed his arms over his armor. "I am the leader of the League."
"Not how it works," Barry shrugged. "Batsuper doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it? Sounds like a super sized soda at Batburger."
"Barry would know," Cyborg said. "He runs a popular Superbat blog online, he even writes fan fiction under the pen name Fl-."
"Stop right there, Vic, or I'll short circuit your voice box," Barry interrupted his partner in delinquency. "And you should both know, if I did write fan fiction, which I don't, but if I did, Cyborg here would do the fan art for my website. Which doesn't exist, so he doesn't. But if it did."
Clark understood about half of what Barry had just said but going by the expression on Batman's features he had understood every word the young man had said.
"If you two are quite done ogling Bruce Wayne," Batman grabbed the newspaper out and Barry's hand. "I am clearly giving you too much free time if you have time to write fan fiction. I expect a 10K essay on the theory quantum physics and the effects on time by the next time we meet." Cyborg laughed. "Both of you," Batman added.
"Hey, you're not my teacher and you're definitely not my dad, I don't have to do anything you tell me to," Barry complained.
"You do if you want to stay in the League," Batman pointed at him. He left the lunchroom, his cape dragged behind him.
"He can't do that, can he?" Barry turned to Superman.
"Don't worry, I'll talk to him," Clark promised, touched Barry on the arm. "But maybe write that essay just in case, yeah?" Bruce's bark might be worse than his bite but sometimes his bark could be just as bad. He turned to follow Bruce.
Also, he figured the boys probably deserved it for whatever they had done.
"Be careful," Barry called out, "B's been in a bad mood all day. Like he's had bats in his cape all day."
"Didn't you use that line in your last fan fiction?" Cyborg tilted his head, probably searching his memory core.
"Shut up," Barry pushed Cyborg. "Come on, we've got an essay to write. And that Blark fic to update for Wayne's birthday. We can't let our fans down."
Clark wondered what Barry would think if he knew that his Bruce Wayne was none other than the Batman. With a quiet laugh he followed Bruce.
He found him in the changing/shower room where he knew he would be. Bruce had changed out of the batsuit and was standing there in nothing but form fitting briefs, black of course.
Bruce's body was slimmer than his own but just as powerful in its own way, and impressive for being only human. Bruce was a fighter and it showed on every inch of his form, from the long muscles in his arms, back, and legs to the bruises that was always present on his narrow ribs.
Clark wanted nothing more than to push Bruce against the tiles of the shower and loosen those tight muscles, it wouldn't be the first time, but he had promised Alfred that he would make sure Bruce was not too late for his own birthday party. And Superman did not break his promises.
"Was that really necessary, Bruce?" Clark walked towards him, discarding the cape as he got closer. The cape was impressive he did not deny but in close quarters it tended to get in the way.
"They are writing fan fiction about us, Clark," Bruce turned around. "About both of our alter egos, doesn't that bother you even a little?"
"What is fan fiction, and why does it bother you so much?" Clark reached Bruce and put his hand on his shoulder. Without Batman's boots they were of the same height.
"They write stories about us," Bruce gestured between them, "together and put them online for other fans to read, doesn't that bother you?"
"Stories?" Clark asked. "Like of our adventures together," he shrugged. "Seems pretty harmless to me."
"They're sexual stories, Clark," Bruce whispered as though afraid of being overheard.
"So you're saying they know about us?" Clark didn't know what he thought about that. He didn't like lying to the team but it had been Bruce's idea to keep their relationship a secret and he had agreed to go along with it. But it was one thing for the team to know, quite another for strangers online to know of their sex life.
"No," Bruce rolled his eyes. "They just ship us, apparently." He put his fingers in quotation marks around the word 'ship'.
There was that word again, Clark thought. "What is a ship?" There were still moments that he felt like an alien among these humans despite the fact that he had been raised himself as one.
"It's... well, it's short for relationship, it just means two, or more, people you want to be together," Bruce explained. "Like how you cried the first time you watched the Notebook, Noah and Allie would be your ship, see?"
Clark thought he got it but one thing was still unclear to him. "But those are fictional characters, we are not. Do people actually also ship real people?"
"It is considered an invasion of privacy," Bruce glowered almost as well as the Batman. "But yes, apparently they do."
Clark chuckled. "It makes our friends happy to think of us together, I don't see anything wrong with that."
"What if they also figure out who we really are?" Bruce rubbed his temple.
"You know my thoughts on that," Clark removed his hand and started to rub Bruce's temples himself. "I think we should tell them. There should be no secrets among the League."
"My enemies cannot know who I am, Clark," Bruce leaned into his hands.
"They are not your enemy, Bruce," Clark kissed his temple. "And you once thought of me as your enemy, may I remind you."
"I like to keep my enemies close," Bruce smirked and tugged Clark closer. "Haven't you ever heard the term 'sleeping with the enemy'?"
There was one brief moment of doubt at Bruce's words. Was that all this is, his mind asked. Another way to keep an eye on the alien in case he went rogue again.
But no, that wasn't Bruce's way. As he had learned in the last few months Bruce was much more direct than that. He stopped Bruce's wandering fingers from distracting him below the belt, so to speak.
"Don't you have a party to get ready for?" Clark asked pointedly.
"Why don't we skip the party and I unwrap my present now?" Bruce leered.
"What is this really about, Bruce?" Clark looked him in the eyes. "This isn't about Barry, it isn't about shipping or fan fiction. What is it?" Something was clearly bothering him and he intended to get to the bottom of it.
"It's Bruce Wayne's birthday today in case you missed the news," he grabbed the newspaper from the bench and shoved it at Clark. "The big 3-0 ."
Bruce was speaking of himself in the third person, that was bad.
"Your birthday?" Clark unfolded the paper even though as the author of the article he knew every word by heart. "Didn't think you were the type to shed a tear about being a year older."
He knew some humans looked at birthdays as a curse of getting one year older instead of a blessing of another year but he hadn't thought Bruce was one of them for he knew his vanity was mostly for show, or so he thought.
"It's not just any birthday," he said. "I'm thirty. I'm ten years older."
Bruce looked so serious Clark had to laugh. "It's only a birthday, Bruce. You're one day older than you were yesterday, not one year and certainly not ten."
"Did you know humans gain on average ten pounds every decade of life," Bruce squeezed his side. "Do I look a little thicker to you?"
"Up here maybe," Clark tapped his head gently.
"I'm serious, Clark," Bruce knocked his hand away. "Didn't I used to be taller than you? Humans loose an inch of height every ten years, did you know that?"
Clark thought Bruce was making up facts again but with Bruce he could never tell. "You took off the batboots, Bruce."
"Ten more years and I'll be as short and fat as the Penguin," Bruce pouted. "Did you know Oswald Cobblepot used to be six foot one?"
"Now you're being ridiculous," Clark started laughing at him. "I'm older than you, Bruce. By at least six years."
"Says the Superman," he rolled his eyes. "You'll see how much you'll still want me when I'm older than you, short, fat, and bald."
Ah, Clark's investigative reporter side came out, now we get to the real problem, he thought.
"I'll still want you," Clark kissed him quickly on the mouth. "And I can't wait until you're my sugar daddy in truth," he teased.
At last that cracked a smile out of Bruce. "How do you not know what shipping is but you know what a sugar daddy is?"
"I'm not the alien you think I am, Bruce," he said. "I was raised in Kansas. What do you say about me giving you your present now?"
"If it includes finally getting you out of this suit," he touched the emblem on the suit, "then please."
"Not quite," Clark pulled off the wristwatch he had been wearing on his right wrist. "Here, I wanted to give it to you before we left for the party."
"A watch?" Bruce took the watch and looked down at in his hand. "You know I have like a hundred of these back at the manor, yes?"
Clark knew that was just the way Bruce was, but it still took Clark by surprise, he was nothing but a simple farm boy at heart still after all.
"But you don't have one like this," he suddenly felt very foolish but it was too late to back out now. "Push the button on the side, there."
Bruce pushed the button causing the face to light up with Superman's trademarked logo. "Bruce Wayne is a secret fanboy of Superman," he laughed. "I like it."
"That's not all," Clark held up his own right wrist showing his own watch, alike with the other in every way except on its face was the Batman's own trademarked logo. "The watches are synced together using Kryptonian technology, as long as it's mate is worn we will feel each other's pulse through these devices."
Clark had discovered the ancient technology in his father's logs. It was by custom worn as a bracelet and was by tradition a way of asking for hand in marriage but Clark thought it was a little too soon to be thinking quite in those terms.
"Wow, that's actually a little creepy," Bruce laughed. "But romantic in a 'let's wear vials of each other's blood around our necks' kind of way."
"This way we'll feel when each other is in danger," Clark explained. "It's an alert system."
Bruce smirked. "You'll feel my pulse every time it quickens from excursion or danger?"
Clark knew better than to trust that look on Bruce's face. "Yes. And it works both ways, you'll also feel my pulse."
"So... Every time I jerk off you'll feel it?"
Clark blushed. "I suppose so, it hasn't been tested in that capacity."
"Don't you say we better test the hypothesis out then?" Bruce put the watch around his wrist. "In the name of my birthday and all that."
Well, Clark thought, he had told Alfred they would be running late.
The next day Barry and Victor were already at the lunchroom table. Barry yawning every few moments.
Clark dropped the morning Daily Planet edition on the table between them. "Did you see the news?"
'Blark Has Sailed?'
'Millionaire Bruce Wayne locks lips with Daily Planet's own Clark Kent at birthday bash.'
By: Lois Lane, Daily Planet
Below the headline was a photograph of Bruce Wayne holding a drink in one hand and holding the back of Clark's head with the other, the two figures clearly kissing in front of the camera.
"Oh, shit! Is that real?" Barry was suddenly wide awake and using his phone. "Whoa, it's all anyone's posting about. And we missed it," he playfully shoved Victor. "Yes, Blark is canon baby, I told you!"
Clark smiled, apparently, as he had discovered the night before, even Lois 'shipped' him with Bruce.
"Hey, Supes," Barry smiled up at him. "How about making Superbat canon too, huh?"