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“Uh...hey, Cass,” Clark said as he stared down at the girl in front of him, blocking his way, not a small amount of confusion in his voice.
She stared back.
“Is B home?”
Silence.
“Could you...take me to him, please?”
She looked away, thoughtful. Then, finally, she nodded—though, the action was hesitant and almost reluctant. Clark was instantly suspicious. He didn’t have time to voice his suspicion, though, before she carefully grabbed his hand and started to lead him through the manor.
Someone was up to something, Clark realised after the third wrong turn. And Cass, who knew the ins and outs of this manor to a slightly frightening point, knew what.
She stopped at one point, knocked on a door in a pattern Clark didn’t recognise but knew had to mean something for how out of the blue it was, then turned around and started dragging him back through the large house. Back where they came, he realised with a barely concealed groan.
“Cass...” he began when the dining room entrance came back into sight, a little strained. He wasn’t in a hurry but, well, he had something rather important to do. “We just—”
“Trust me,” she said, and she said it with such firmness and conviction in her usually quiet voice that Clark, honestly, couldn’t bring himself not to. Not when she stopped them in front of the door and looked at him with determined, blazing eyes. And not when she pointed to the door that they’d only recently walked out of at the start of this goose chase. “Open.”
He let out a soft sigh and pushed open the door, before he walked in with her at his heels.
“I don’t know what you’re—” Clark cut himself off abruptly when his eyes fell on the four sitting around the dining table, all staring at him and Cass. He blinked.
Tim, Damian, Dick, Jason, all four of them.
He looked back at Cass, who grinned proudly at his side now at her brothers—giving them a thumbs up by her side. His eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he looked back to the boys. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I really need to see Bruce, and—when did you even get here?”
Silence.
A knock on the wall next to him. The same knock from before—oh. His eyes widened.
“Oh, I get it!” he exclaimed, then unable to help himself, he added, “the knock was a bird call!”
The children groaned.
Clark grinned.
“That was terrible, Clark, and that’s coming from me,” Dick told him from where he sat at the head of the table—in Bruce’s seat—a pained look on his face. A spark of pride ran through Clark at breaking the ice so successfully, though, despite the disappointed stares he earned.
Even Cass agreed, humming a short, “it was bad,” as she walked over to the table and took the seat in between Damian and Tim.
“Steph wanted to be here, but we needed someone to distract Bruce,” Jason said when she said down. Clark looked at him and frowned.
“Why are you on the table, Jason?”
“Don’t change the subject, Clark.”
Any retort from Clark was cut short by an abrupt, sharp, “Father is doing something foolish!”
All eyes snapped to Damian, who looked ready to combust where he sat next to Cass, across from where Jason sat on the table. Cass placed a hand on his shoulder and frowned, tilting her head down to meet his eyes.
“Damian’s just being dramatic,” Jason scoffed.
Dick hummed a small sound, which could have been agreement or scolding—Clark wasn’t sure. Then, he leaned back in his chair and sighed, “We do need to talk to you, though. Before B gets back.”
There was a certain air of seriousness to his voice that had Clark’s shoulders tensing.
There was no way they knew. How would they know? They couldn’t know. Not yet! He wanted to ask Bruce first. He had a whole plan, and—and there was just no way they should have known!
“Fuck,” he blurted before he could think about what he was saying. A lamenting, mournful exclamation. The room fell dead silent. The eyes on him felt like his own lasers. Honestly, he was Superman and all it took to break him was his boyfriend’s kids. “We weren’t—I wouldn’t—I mean—yeah, I was gonna pop the question, but I swear I was going to sit down with you all to talk about it after to make sure you were okay with it if he said yes, but I would never want to—did you tell him?”
“What? No—no, God, Clark, what are you talking about?” Dick sputtered, pushing himself to his feet with wide eyes, “you’re proposing? Today?”
Fuck. Double fuck.
Clark swallowed hard and shifted from one foot to the other. “You…didn’t know? You mean this isn’t about that?”
“Uh, no?” Jason pitched in, sounding a little too amused.
“This just got a lot more complicated,” Tim murmured, speaking for the first time since Clark had walked in, and pulled out a tablet from… Clark frowned. Where did he pull that tablet from?
Cass was smiling, a secretive kind of smile, amusement dancing in her eyes, and beside her Damian looked only a little horrified. He masked it well.
Clark’s head was still reeling from the fact that they hadn’t known and now did because of him.
“I’m surprised you didn’t ask our blessings,” Dick joked after a few moments of awkward silence. Clark grimaced. He knew that would come back to bite him; he really did.
“I…well, I mean—” he paused and cleared his throat. “I asked Alfred’s.”
“You didn’t.” Jason stared at him like he’d grown a second head, slack-jawed. When Clark only nodded, a sheepish look on his face, he huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “Fuck, you really are a country boy.”
“He is an alien,” Damian corrected in a grumble.
“An alien who grew up on a farm in the country,” Jason countered, cocking an eyebrow—daring him to argue that.
Damian sulked, glaring at him.
“Dick,” Clark cut in, voice more than a little bit strained, “explain.”
“Well, uh, here’s the thing… Actually, why don’t you sit down?” Dick replied, laughing in that particular way he only did when he was in a bit of trouble. Clark suddenly felt like he’d ran around the world four times.
He sat down across from Dick regardless, though, and clasped his hands together on the table in front of himself.
“We can’t really…explain,” Dick told him.
“We wanted to know how serious you were about Bruce,” Tim said, contradicting Dick with ease. “Clearly, our concern was unwarranted.”
“Though, it leads to another issue—”
“I, for one, think it’s fucking hilarious, actually—”
“Me too.”
“It is a nightmare.”
“Damian,” Dick scolded lightly, “you promised Bruce.”
Damian’s glare darkened and he crossed his arms over his chest.
Cass gave his head a small pat, smiling through the [lightened] glare turned her way. Clark wondered if he was supposed to understand the situation now. If anything, he was more confused. They wanted to know if he was serious about Bruce?
Of course, he was serious about Bruce!
He couldn’t believe they would doubt him. Even Damian had finally conceded and agreed to stop trying to sabotage him after seeing how truly happy he made Bruce (and fuck, if that hadn’t been a battle). Now, they doubted his commitment to him?
“I don’t understand,” he said softly, frowning. The bickering around him silenced. Eyes locked onto him as he slumped down in his chair.
“Clark?” Dick asked.
He looked up, chewing his bottom lip lightly. “I just—” he paused, took a breath. “—I thought you all knew how much he means to me. Did you really think that I…that I would leave him? That I wasn’t serious?”
“No,” Dick assured him.
Clark wasn’t sure he believed him.
It must have shown on his face, though, because Jason let out a sigh and swung his legs off the side of the table. He stood up and walked over to Clark, slapping a hand on his shoulder.
“You’ve put up with the bastard longer than most can stand,” he said, ignoring the violent look from Damian at his words against his father, “I don’t know how you do it, but I know you love him. We all do.”
“We don’t doubt you, Clark,” Tim agreed, setting his tablet on the table and giving him his full attention. “There are just some…circumstances…that led to this conversation becoming necessary. It wasn’t born out of doubt.”
Clark opened his mouth, but before he could even get a single word out, Dick spoke up again, “we can’t tell you what, before you ask.”
Clark frowned.
“It’s not for us to say.” Dick at least sounded a touch apologetic. “Some of us—” A glance to Damian, “—just needed to hear the words from you, one last time.”
As if rehearsed, Damian took a breath and finally—finally—looked at Clark, meeting his eyes. “You will not hurt my father. Ever.”
It was posed as a statement, but Clark knew Damian well enough to hear both the thread and the question behind his words. He relaxed slightly. They didn’t doubt him. Damian was just…being protective again. Clark could handle that.
“Never of my own will and intent,” Clark promised, “I know I’m not your favourite person, but your father means the world to me, and I would do anything to see him happy. I want to marry him, Damian, and I never want to let him go.”
“You mean that?”
Clark tensed, eyes wide, when he heard the breathless words from behind him. His heart pounded in his chest. Bruce. No, no, no—his plan! He had a whole plan!
Bruce crossed the room in a blur, taking Clark’s hands in his own and lifting him to his feet. His eyes were wide, and his hair was a mess, but he was grinning. Really, truly, sincerely, genuinely grinning.
And it was quite possibly the most beautiful thing Clark had ever seen.
Then the doors burst open.
“I tried to keep him out! I really tried! I tried everything but Alfred called him and told him Clark was here and—”
“Steph, breathe,” Tim said as Cass pushed away from the table and walked over to her with a grin. She guided Stephanie over to the table but didn’t sit back down—instead opting to stand behind Tim with her. “Why would Alfred do that?”
“Said Jason was sitting…on his table,” Steph explained after taking a few deep breaths to compose herself.
Jason’s expression soured.
“Back up a minute,” Bruce interrupted the interrogation, “Clark.”
Clark held his breath. “Bruce.”
“You want to marry me?” he asked, voice softening. “You’d—you would want that?”
“Yeah.” Clark nodded. “I, uh…man, I had a whole plan, but…well, the kids kind of—ah, okay.”
Bruce’s brows furrowed in confusion when Clark pulled his hands back. Clark ignored the confusion, though, and shoved a hand into one of his pockets. He watched as Bruce’s eyes widened. Watched the recognition and realisation dawn over his expression. Watched the…amusement?
“Bruce?” he asked nervously when he started to laugh quietly. He held a small velvet box in his hands between them, his heart racing, and Bruce was laughing. “If you don’t want—”
“No! No.” Bruce sobered in an instant, “no, I just, well. It appears we…had similar ideas for the outcome of the day.”
It was Clark’s turn to be confused, as Bruce dug around in his own pocket and pulled out a velvet box of his own. He popped it open, and Clark gasped. The ring sitting in the plush cushion in the box was a simple (what looked like) silver band—perfect for Clark, who would forever swear he hated Bruce spending money on him even if he relished in the soft fabrics and rich sweets that he accepted from time to time.
Once he was able to pull himself out of the shock of what he was looking at, the realisation settled over him. His lips quirked up into a grin.
“You—” he looked over to the table, at the group of kids watching with rapt attention. “You lot, this is why you dragged me in here to talk about commitment?”
“Yeah, well, now you know why you complicated things with your little admission,” Dick snorted, grinning, “We didn’t exactly know you were planning to propose too.”
“Talk about commitment?” Bruce frowned, “is that—” he turned to the table as well, eyes narrowing into a glare, “—is that why you’ve had me dragged around the city all day on some wild goose chase? So, you could, what, shovel talk Clark?”
The kids shrugged.
Clark sighed and looked back at Bruce.
“Regardless of what they did or didn’t do…Bruce,” he got down on one knee as Bruce returned his gaze to him, “will you marry me?”
He popped open his ring box, showing Bruce the silver ring that he’d bought months ago, and grinned.
“Say yes!” A voice whispered from the table, as if he’d say anything but.
Bruce snorted quietly and held out his hand for Clark. “I suppose I might as well.”
“Woo!” Steph cheered from behind Tim, clapping. Clark fought back a laugh and slipped his ring onto Bruce’s finger, warm affection spreading over his chest at the sight.
He rose from his knees and moved to wrap his arms around Bruce. Bruce stopped him, though, and cocked an eyebrow. He didn’t sink to one knee like Clark, but he presented his own ring box again and cracked a small smile.
Oh, of course.
“You’re not ruining my proposal,” he told him. Clark bit back a retort about Bruce ruining his and let him continue. “Clark, would you do me the honour of joining my family?”
His heart fluttered at the phrasing.
“Bruce,” Clark said softly, still smiling, “I already am a part of your family.”
“Kal.”
“Alright! Alright.” He didn’t hold back his laugh this time. “Yes. Yes, I would love to officially join the family. I would love to marry you…if my proposal didn’t say that enough.”
Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Give me your hand.”
Clark held out his hand for him. The ring was cold as it slid onto his finger, but it fit perfectly. He didn’t even remember telling Bruce what size ring he wore… Then again, he supposed he didn’t need to. He was Bruce Wayne. He was Batman.
“This better be silver,” Clark murmured when Bruce let go of his hand to close his ring box. “I swear, Bruce, this better be silver.”
Bruce paused.
“It…is—”
“White gold,” Jason deadpanned, cutting him off, not hesitating for a moment at the change to rat him out. “It’s white gold.”
Clark fixed Bruce with a stern look.
“It’s more durable than silver,” Bruce defended with a huff. “It was merely a choice of practicality.”
That was bullshit and they both knew it. Clark didn’t call him out on it, though. He settled for rolling his eyes and finally slipping his arms around Bruce’s waist, tugging him close.
“I’m helping plan the wedding,” he said, “to keep you and that wallet of yours in check.”
“You can certainly try,” Bruce scoffed. He leaned in close, their noses almost bumping. “Maybe Steph will have to send you on a wild goose chase next.”
“I had one of my own with Cass.”
“Oh, really now?”
“All over the manor.”
“Uh, guys.” Dick cleared his throat. “Children. Still here.”
Bruce ignored him in favour of pressing his lips to Clark’s, in a firm but chaste kiss. Neither of them could resist laughing at the series of grossed out groans and gags that echoed in response.