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The calendar wasn’t Clark’s fault.
It was a gag gift from Lois for Christmas: twelve photos of Bruce Wayne, shirtless and smirking at the camera. All the proceeds had been donated to a charity in Gotham, which was half the reason Clark didn’t try to return it immediately—the other half being, of course, that it was a gift, so it would’ve been rude not to use it.
Clark wished he could say that the gift had been solely inspired by that one tweet where Bruce Wayne claimed to be a member of Superman’s supposed harem; the truth was that the real inspiration came from Clark’s reaction to the tweet, which made it painfully clear to Lois that Clark had had a crush on Bruce Wayne for a year already.
It wasn’t a weird crush. It was just...Bruce Wayne was, objectively, a very attractive man, and he wasn’t nearly as bad as Clark’s coworkers—both sets of coworkers—thought. Clark had never had the chance to meet him, either as Superman or as Clark Kent, which he didn’t mind—it was probably for the best, actually, because Clark wasn’t sure if he could survive some of Bruce Wayne’s more suggestive lines being directed at him. Clark simply appreciated him from afar when they were attending the same galas, and watched the few interviews he gave, and didn’t look away when the latest scandalous photo dropped.
And he had a photographic memory, so it wasn’t weird at all that it only took a flip-through of the calendar to have the sight of Bruce Wayne’s glistening, well-defined chest etched permanently into his brain.
He’d recognize this chest anywhere.
Even without the precisely flattering lighting of a photo shoot. Even while using his X-ray vision to see through his partner’s armor.
“Well?” Batman asked dryly.
Clark blinked, trying to process anything other than Batman’s abs look exactly like Bruce Wayne’s. For once, Batman was actually right about being fine; despite the rough hit he’d taken earlier, he only had a few bruises, aside from the scars and healing cuts he’d had before the battle. Clark chose to focus on that instead.
“You’re fine,” Clark said, hoping his voice didn’t sound as odd as he feared it would. “I should go.”
August Bruce Wayne was waiting for him, smiling coyly, when Clark got home. Clark tried to push it out of his mind completely, but he could feel those pretty blue eyes following him around the room, daring him to check for certain.
Bruce Wayne didn’t have bruises on his chest, not like Batman did—but those could’ve all been covered up by make-up, or explained away by Batman just having easy patrols leading up to whenever this photo shoot was. Bruce Wayne did have scars, though—scars that had always been explained away by extreme sports accidents, though now that Clark was looking, really looking…
His finger trailed along the small, glossy scar running under Bruce Wayne’s left pec, remembering the fight last year where he’d watched Batman take an alien sword to the chest.
Well, crap.
Clark viscerally remembered how much that cut had hurt Batman in the moment, and he instantly felt guilty for ever thinking it looked kind of hot on Bruce Wayne.
He swallowed. Then flipped back to March Bruce Wayne, which had always been Clark’s favorite photo for reasons he could never quite place. The reason felt obvious now, painfully so; it was the one photo where Bruce wasn’t smiling, where his expression resembled more of a moody, smoldering frown.
If Clark drew a little cowl over March Bruce Wayne’s face, he’d look just like Batman. The resemblance was unmistakable.
Clark didn’t know how he missed it earlier; surely, he’d spent way more time looking—respectfully—at Bruce’s lips, jawline, and light stubble than he ever did at Bruce’s abs. Surely he should’ve recognized his best friend’s face on Bruce Wayne. It must be a context thing—the same thing Clark relied on for his own secret identity; he’d seen Bruce Wayne and Batman’s faces hundreds of times, but this was the first time he’d ever actually looked at Batman’s torso, which was always covered in a thick plating of armor.
Batman obviously trusted Clark not to look without permission, and even though he had permission tonight—feel free to look for yourself, Kal—it still felt like he’d betrayed Batman’s trust, by connecting the dots with the bare—distractingly bare—amount of information he’d been given.
But he couldn’t just forget that Batman was Bruce Wayne.
Batman, Clark’s partner and best friend, had the prettiest eyes Clark had ever seen. Batman stared lewdly at Clark from the kitchen wall every morning. Batman returned to galas after conspicuous disappearances with mussed hair and reddened lips. Batman wrote a viral tweet about how he was a proud member of Superman’s harem.
The identity reveal should’ve made things easier; Bruce Wayne was nothing like Batman, not really, and that alone should’ve shocked Clark’s system like a bucket of cold water, resetting his silly little infatuation, reminding him that Bruce Wayne was essentially fictional.
Except they weren’t all that different, not really—not the parts that Clark liked about Wayne, anyway. The thought haunted him as he stared up at his ceiling that night, struggling to fall asleep. The memory of Batman’s—Bruce’s—abs through the material of the suit was leaving afterimages on the white popcorn pattern above him, taunting him.
Bruce Wayne was Batman, too; Bruce was kind and clever and meticulous, even more so than Clark gave him credit for. He was firm to his principles, and those were tied to helping people; he could be just as gentle as he could be intimidating, and Clark had seen it all.
Bruce Wayne was safely unattainable. Clark saw Batman all the time. He was going to have to drop out of the League, wasn’t he?
“Late night, Smallville?” Lois teased.
She didn’t know the half of it.
“Bruce Wayne can throw me across a room,” Clark mumbled, before realizing what he’d said and straightening up in his chair, face red hot. “I meant—”
Lois got over her surprise quickly, laughing. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I don’t.” He fumbled for an explanation that made sense. He came up empty. “I just…”
He just knew, now, that Bruce Wayne’s abs didn’t just look like they could pull a city back together, but they actually could. He didn’t have super-strength, but Clark knew for a fact that Bruce Wayne could pick Clark up clean off the ground and carry him away, because he’d done it before, when Clark had been stupid enough to waltz into a Kryptonite-lined trap Luthor had set for him.
“I’m so screwed,” Clark muttered into his hands.
He still hadn’t taken the calendar down.
Clark, surprisingly, wasn’t screwed as he thought, when it came to working with the League. Fighting alongside Batman in the field was easy—concern for civilians and the constant threat of danger were both effective tools in keeping Clark’s attraction in line. He and Batman worked as effortlessly together as always.
The problem came after, during Batman’s post-mission analysis, when boredom crept in and even the low, gravelly sound of Batman’s voice made him think of August Bruce Wayne, waiting on his kitchen wall back home.
Even worse, Batman had almost certainly picked up on it. He’d been shooting Clark increasingly annoyed frowns—which, unfortunately, just reminded Clark of March Bruce Wayne—throughout the entire thing, and asked to speak to Clark, alone, before Clark could speed back to Metropolis.
“is everything alright?”
It sounded like an interrogation, Bruce’s voice short instead of concerned. Clark folded immediately.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“So you do know my secret identity,” Bruce said. He didn’t sound that angry—compared to normal Batman standards, anyway—and Clark felt himself relax just a little. “I assume you looked under my mask while you were checking me for injuries. If this is about the harem tweet—”
“No!” Clark said quickly. The idea of Bruce Wayne flirting with him in real life was bad enough; he really didn’t need Batman to explain the logic behind the harem tweet. “I mean, I wouldn’t do that—look under your mask. I didn’t. Your trust means a lot to me, and I wouldn’t break that.”
“Then how did you figure it out?”
Oops. Clark swallowed. He could lie—with all his supersenses, surely he could come with a way of having recognized Batman by accident, through his heartbeat or the tone of his voice or something. Batman might even believe him. But, well, he knew Bruce was only asking because he was concerned about his secret identity, his privacy, and Clark at least owed it to him to tell him the truth.
“I have one of your calendars,” Clark admitted. “I didn’t buy it, obviously—it was a gift, from a friend.”
“My calendar,” Bruce echoed flatly.
“Your, um, charity calendar that went on sale last year. There were lots of photos of your torso in there. When I looked through your chestplate, I...recognized it. Your, um, torso.”
“You figured out my secret identity because you recognized my abs.”
“Well, they’re nice abs.” Was it hot in here, or was it just Clark? “Objectively, I mean. And, at the very least, I doubt anyone else will find out that way, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
There was a long, long pause, long enough for Clark to consider making a break for it before Batman used his Kryptonite.
Then, he let out a deep sigh. “I can’t take that risk. I’ll have to cancel next year’s.”
“Oh,” Clark said. “Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.”
Batman strode out before Clark could say anything else, which was probably for the best, because half of Clark’s brain was still stuck on the prospect of twelve more shirtless, smirking photos of Bruce Wayne.
One week later, Bruce Wayne went on record with the Gotham Gazette to say that although last year’s calendar sales were a rousing success, some unexpected complications meant that they wouldn’t be doing another one. Instead, Bruce would be hosting a gala to help raise money for this year’s chosen charity.
The Gotham RPF twitter page that Clark definitely didn’t follow was ablaze with people demanding retribution for whoever caused these so-called complications. Privately, Clark was a little glad none of them had Kryptonite.
A week after that, a small, flat package appeared on Clark’s desk, with no indication of who sent it. His curiosity piqued, he did a cursory scan of the contents, and—oh. Oh no.
Inside was what must’ve been the sole survivor of next year’s canceled shirtless calendar, stamped with a pink post-it note that read, heard you were a fan. Twelve more photos of shirtless Bruce Wayne, just for Clark. And, god, judging by the cover art, at least one of them was Superman-themed.
Blushing, Clark gently crammed the calendar, still wrapped up, back into his workbag before Lois could see it.
Lois saw it anyway, because of course she did. She gave a pointed glance at his bag, eyebrow raised. “You didn’t, huh?”
Clark sighed.