Chapter Text
"What are you, five-nine and a half? Six foot?" Guy Gardner asks, the words muffled around a mouthful of peanuts, bits of shell flaking from his lips. “That's kind of short. Somehow, I thought that you’d be a lot taller.”
To Bruce, Guy has always looked like a child’s first attempt at drawing a man -blocky head, unfortunate bowl cut, eyes set too close together. Annoying by design and personality, too.
“Don’t you think, Kendra?”
“Subtract the boots and the armor bulk,” Mr. Terrific says dryly, not looking up from his screen. “And he's six-one. You’re barely an inch taller, Guy. So maybe don’t throw stones.”
Kendra snorts from her upside-down sprawl on the couch, thumbs still tapping away at her phone.
“H-hey, now!" Guy sputters. "I'm six-three!”
Mr. Terrific rolls his eyes. “You wear lifted insoles. You’re five-eight. I was trying to be generous.”
Bruce doesn’t bother responding. He’s not here to make friends, or to tour their HQ like some wide-eyed up, up and coming vigilante that hopes to become a proper hero. He’s here because Superman summoned him and Bruce just so happened to be curious enough to answer.
"Ohmmygodddd, enough with the dick contest." Kendra groans, tossing her phone down. "Besides, Superman is taller than everyone in here."
"That doesn't count," Guy insists. "He's an alien. It's like comparing apples to oranges."
“Ooh, do we have oranges?” Superman announces himself, striding into the office with a tray of coffees in one hand and a firm grip on Krypto’s leash in the other. “I love oranges.” The dog barks, jumps, floats, and slams back down hard enough that his paws splinter the concrete. The tray falls as Superman attempts to get him under control, spilling cream, sugar, coffee.
"Would you stop bringing that damn dog in here!" Terrific snaps. "We just got the floors redone!"
"S-sorry. Kara's gone off planet again and-" As if noticing The Bat for the first time, he stutters, cheeks turning pink. He slips in the coffee, nearly going down before giving up on gravity and hovering above the pooling mess. "Kara is my cousin," He explains to Batman, like it holds any relevance to him. "I dog sit for her when she's gone."
Bruce glances at the panting, scraggly thing, now lapping up the mess of coffee. Growing up, his father hired a security team with guard dogs to roam the property. They'd been muscular, long-legged, intelligent and trained. They could sniff out ill intent and gun residue from miles away...Superman's dog didn't look anything like them. Really, it looked like the kind of dog that didn't even have the whisper of a thought in its head.
“I meant to bring coffee for everyone,” Superman says, sounding genuinely regretful. “I stopped by that new shop Kendra mentioned-”
“Brew House?” she perks up.
“Yeah. The line was insane though, which is why I was late. I, uh… I’m sorry about that. I’m not usually-” He clears his throat, flustered. “Anyway. I hope these guys didn’t scare you off.”
“I don’t scare easily,” Batman replies.
Superman smiles and Bruce dimly takes note of the fact that he has dimples. "No, I imagine not." He rubs the back of his neck, then gestures toward the hallway. “Come on, let’s talk somewhere private.” The leash slips from his hand, and Krypto bolts.
He careens through the headquarters like a car with its brakes cut. Leaping, flying, zigzagging after Terrific’s floating spheres and crashing into things. Guy panics and conjures up a giant green net, but the dog veers effortlessly around it, faster than the Lantern can track.
Kendra springs up onto the couch, arms outstretched. “C’mere, boy!” she coos.
Krypto obliges at a bullet's speed.
She shrieks and dives for cover. A loud crash follows, and Mr. Terrific bellows, “Shit!”
“Krypto!” Superman’s already in the air, chasing after the mess of fur and chaos, their capes a blur of red. “Krypto! Stop it. Krypto, Sit!”
It’s chaos. Utterly uncoordinated and pathetic.
Bruce just watches. Silent. Unmoving. The eye of calm in the storm of flying dog hair and shouting superheroes. His eyes track Krypto’s path. It's erratic but predictable, arcing back toward the coffee spill at the end of each run. The dog’s just about to slam into Bruce’s side when he steps forward, raises one hand, and says firmly: “Sit”.
Miraculously, Krypto skids to a halt -nails screeching across tile- then sits. Head tilted. Confused, but obedient.
The room goes quiet.
"Ain't no way," Terrific says.
"Did you just-" Guy starts.
"Superman," Batman interrupts, calm and cool as ever. He hadn’t actually expected that to work on the dog, but he doesn't let the surprise touch his voice. “Your office?”
*
It is by design that Batman looks smaller when he is Bruce Wayne. The custom-fitted designer suits are all tailored in such a way as to invoke a certain sense of softness and wealth. Pretty boy, party boy, rich boy. The kind of man that works out in the gym purely for cosmetic reasons. Abs for the mirror, biceps for the beach. The kind of body that looks good in photos and at Charity Galas.
It doesn't matter that he's six foot, that his knuckles are almost always scraped raw or swollen, that the intelligence behind his eyes goes far beyond what's expected of a tech manufacturing heir.
People look at Bruce Wayne and they see what he wants them to see: a civilian.
When he is The Bat, he can shed Bruce's skin off. Fill out to his full height and relax that tight, forced, smile on his face, trading it in for a comfortable glower. When he's the Bat he is big, he is scary, he is vengeance. But still… Superman is bigger. Stronger. Kinder. And somehow, that combination of warmth and power, makes Batman look small. Feel small. Even in the suit.
Which is new. Unsettlingly so.
“Wow,” Superman says, still marveling like a little kid. Giddy, almost. “I have no idea how you did that! I’ve been trying to teach Krypto some manners for years, but-”
“You didn’t bring me here to talk about your dog.”
Clark’s smile fades a bit. “No, you're right," he says. “I didn’t.”
A beat. And then the ease of his posture gives away, the friendliness morphing into a man, an alien- of pure business.
“I wanted to talk to you about Bruce Wayne.”
Batman's stomach drops. He keeps his cool. "What about him?"
"Luthor may be behind bars now," Superman continues, walking over to a small desk in his office that's filled with a mess of different papers. News reports and photographs. There's a half eaten dog biscuit and an abandoned bag of chips on there, a picture of an old couple in what appears to be a stretch of farmland. "But he's still got influence. There have been rumors-"
Bruce crosses his arms, an excuse to be closer to the emergency button at his elbow to alert Alfred if he doesn't end up making it back home to Gotham after all. "Get to the point, Superman."
Superman's jaw tenses. "It seems like there's a conspiracy surrounding LuthorCorp and Wayne enterprises. To my understanding, Wayne refused to partner up with Luthorcorp even before his incarceration and well...There's gonna be a kidnapping attempt at next weeks' Charity Gala."
Bruce blinks, trying to keep his face steady. "You think there's going to be a kidnapping attempt on Bruce Wayne?"
"I don't think. I know."
He turns, leading Batman to a nearby bulletin board cluttered with maps, photographs, documents, lines of red string connecting each piece with surgical precision. It’s unexpected. Clinical. It's the level of detail Bruce would expect to have in his own study; All borderline obsessive and incredibly thorough. It's not what he expected to find in the headquarters of an optimist in a cape who can't even seem to control his dog.
"What does any of this have to do with me?"
Clark meets his eyes. "You know Gotham better than anybody else. I want- well, I was hoping, that you might be able to help us take down Luthor and keep Bruce Wayne safe?"
One part of Bruce is internally screaming -at the absurdity, at the irony, at the fact that Superman is asking Batman to protect Bruce Wayne- The other part, the quieter, colder half, is already assessing and calculating entry points at the gala. Crowd control. Exit strategies. Likely suspects. Unlikely ones. Luthor's men always came armed and dangerous and while the Gala was going to have security, it wasn't going to be the type capable of going toe to toe with Luthor's henchmen.
Bruce keeps his expression unreadable. His breathing even. “Right,” he nods. “Bruce Wayne.”
"So will you do it?" Superman asks, earnest in a way that Batman rarely is. "Will you help us?"
Alfred's going to laugh when he gets back to Gotham.
"Of course."