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Some version of Bruce will always be just a little disgruntled that he didn’t figure it out sooner. Standing in his bedroom, slowly shucking off his gala clothes, he thinks he should’ve realized it the first time he ever saw Clark Kent.
It’s just a pair of glasses.
It’s ridiculous, the idea that glasses and a slightly different hairstyle and unfiltered Midwestern charm were enough to fool the world’s greatest detective for the three months they’ve been dating, and the two months before that where Clark humored Bruce’s shamelessly terrible flirting while Bruce poked at his history, searching for flaws and secrets and motivations. Clearly, Bruce is not the detective he thinks he is, if he missed the fact that Clark is Superman.
But if it wasn’t Bruce’s extensive pre-relationship research, it still should have been Clark Kent that gave it away. Some slip-up that revealed he wasn’t just the normal man he claimed to be. As Bruce got closer, and they got to know each better, Bruce should’ve seen the signs that Clark was keeping something from him.
The thing is that Clark Kent skips out on dinner dates an awful lot. He’s always apologetic, always promising to make it up to Bruce some other time. There was always an emergency at work, a sudden but important deadline coming up, and Bruce could always see the traces of guilt on Clark’s face, but he chose not to think about why. Bruce believed him, accepted his excuses with nothing but a short goodbye kiss—maybe because he wanted to, maybe because Bruce had enough emergencies of his own that it just made sense to him.
And if it wasn’t Clark’s fondness for racing out of the room mere seconds before another giant robot attacked Metropolis—and returning later looking more than a little windswept—it should’ve been his powers.
Bruce is a professional when it comes to his identities; he knows what they wear, what they sound like, what they should be physically capable of doing. Clark Kent is a kindhearted farmboy who tries very hard to pretend like he doesn’t have powers—and in hindsight, Clark isn’t very good at it, in a way that makes Bruce wonder if he was even really trying.
Every coffee Clark had ever handed Bruce was the perfect temperature, thanks to his heat vision. One night, he’d picked up Bruce like he was a feather, carrying him to bed bridal-style, joking about how he wondered how Bruce ever went to bed before Clark. He always woke up earlier than Bruce, and sometimes he’d get up to stand by Bruce’s blackout curtains, soaking up the few rays of sunlight that penetrated the dense layer of clouds above Gotham like a sad little flower. He had the magical ability to avoid any of Bruce’s still-sore injuries while they were kissing, no doubt aided by his X-ray vision (that, Bruce can excuse himself for not noticing, because he was preoccupied with the actual kissing-his-boyfriend part). Clark didn’t get hurt, he didn’t get sick, and he was aghast at the notion of Bruce walking around in any kind of pain, as if normal people didn’t sometimes need to work through a broken rib because really, Clark, it’s fine, I’ve had worse.
And if it wasn’t Clark who messed up, then it should’ve been Superman, the kindhearted, super-powered alien who tries very hard to pretend like he wasn’t raised in the American Midwest. That, at the very least, Bruce can say he figured out—the more time they spent together as partners and friends, the more Bruce began to recognize traces of a truly human upbringing, and the more opportunities Superman had to slip up and say things like ope, let me squeeze past you, and Jesus Christ instead of oh Rao, and suggest that the League plays whatever the hell cornhole is.
(There was even one time, during that sleeping-curse incident, where Superman was too tired to pretend like he didn’t have a Midwestern accent. It was before Bruce had met Clark, because otherwise he undoubtedly would’ve recognized it; it’s what Clark sounds like when he’s just woken up, or when Bruce catches him on the phone with his Ma.)
And if it wasn’t Superman’s upbringing, it should’ve been...well, it could have been any number of things, but it definitely should not have been the sight of a Cybertruck flying past the floor-to-ceiling windows of a Metropolis gala venue.
The first time Bruce ever saw Clark Kent see a Cybertruck, they were in Metropolis. He was walking Clark back to the Daily Planet after a lunch date—Bruce paid, of course, slipping his card to the waitress before Clark could protest—and one drove past them.
“That’s the ugliest car I’ve ever seen,” Clark muttered to Bruce, eyes filled with a certain amount of disgust that was usually reserved for Lex Luthor and people who don’t hold the door open for the little old lady walking behind them. “And I work with someone who drives a—well. I don’t see why anyone buys them.”
(In hindsight, Bruce is going to have to ask Clark what that was about. The Batmobile is well-designed, aerodynamic machine that he’s spent years perfecting, thank you very much.)
“They hardly seem worth the money,” Bruce agreed mildly. He’d never even considered buying one; Clark’s right, they are ugly, and in some part of his mind, he was already fearing when he’d need to get a true bat-minivan.
“You couldn’t pay me to drive one of those,” Clark continued, still staring after the speeding Cybertruck as if he wanted to blast it apart with his laser vision.
“I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about electric trucks.”
Clark scoffed. “It’s barely a truck. It doesn’t even have any bed space.”
Clark, as Bruce would learn over the course of the next few weeks, hated Cybertrucks. He said as much anytime they saw one, a sight that was becoming amusingly common. They couldn’t even handle a car wash; how could they handle a dusty back road, or a winter street covered in rock salt? They were advertised as all-terrain vehicles, but Clark doubted they could even handle a pothole. Bruce, if you ever think about getting one, we’re over.
(At that, Bruce had just cleared his throat, and showed Clark the specifications for a minivan. Clark had faked a tired sigh, eyes fond as he said, well, at least it’s not a Cybertruck.)
A week before this fateful gala, they’d been sitting on the couch in Clark’s apartment, just spending time together. Clark had made a disgusted little scoff at something on his phone, and Bruce looked over, teasing, “Cybertruck?”
“They don’t even have buttons,” Clark replied, sounding distraught and offended. “You can’t even adjust the air conditioning without staring at a screen when you’re supposed to be watching the road.”
(Looking back, Bruce is just glad that no press member has ever asked Superman his thoughts on electric not-really-trucks, for his own sanity’s sake.)
Clark hadn’t wanted to go to this gala tonight, as much as Bruce had tried to convince him otherwise; Luthor’s galas were even worse than the normal ones, but Clark being there would make it much more bearable. So Bruce arrived alone, stepping out of the back of his car, buttoning up his suit jacket and staring at the graveyard of Cybertrucks in the parking lot, driven by Metropolis’s finest, pockmarked with fingerprints and smudges of dirt. He smirked a little to himself, thinking about what Clark would say if he were here, the way his eyes would roll.
The gala was just as dreadfully boring as Bruce thought it would be, up until the thirty-minute mark, when the ground shook with echoes of the giant robot heading towards them. Adrenaline kicked in as soon as he heard the panicked screams, but this was Superman’s city, and he would handle it, and Bruce would have an easy excuse to go home to his lovely boyfriend.
Sure enough, a flash of blue and red swooped past the window, and Bruce forced himself to relax. He moved for one of the grand windows, taking stock of the situation. Even in the late afternoon, Metropolis was still disgustingly bright outside, giving Bruce plenty of sunlight to see how well Superman was doing.
He seemed desperate to keep the giant robot from crashing into the gala venue, though the giant robot seemed equally as desperate to crash here. Bruce was sure Luthor had something to do with it. The security guards outside were already rushing people out the back doors, keeping them out of the fray.
Something shiny flew past the window, drawing Bruce’s eye. Outside, the ugliest car Clark Kent has ever seen was slamming into the body of a giant robot, fragments of a bulletproof windshield spraying out.
Bruce blinked.
Superman didn’t cause property damage if he could help it. He certainly didn’t throw cars if he had another option, too aware of how thoroughly someone’s life could be ruined if their car got totaled in a superhero fight. Insurance companies weren’t even covering that kind of thing nowadays, unless you paid extra.
A second Cybertruck hit the giant robot. Its gears gave a low whining roar as it stumbled backwards with the force, and Bruce could hear Clark Kent’s voice in his ear, saying, a Cybertruck isn’t a truck. It’s barely even a car. It’s an expensive status symbol that looks like trash, and it’s funding a fascist billionaire, and—
Bruce could see Clark’s face from the night before, fast asleep on one of Bruce’s pillows, his hair loose and messy, with one dark curl in particular that Bruce had brushed gently off his forehead. He should’ve seen it then. He was definitely seeing it now.
The giant robot swung, and the large window beside Bruce shattered as Superman—Clark Kent—crashed through it. The upper floor was empty except for them, but Bruce could still hear the panic happening downstairs; Clark was already analyzing that as he got to his feet, head on a swivel, and his eyes widened in panic when they met Bruce’s.
Clark got to his feet, taking the champagne glass from Bruce’s hand, pulling him towards the stairs.
“You should get out of here, Mr. Wayne. I’m sure you have someone waiting for you at home.”
He’s right here, Bruce wanted to say. I thought you didn’t want to come, was another bad option.
Instead, he dropped into his Batman voice, saying, “We’re talking about this later.”
Clark dropped his hand, mouth open. Bruce took his champagne flute back and headed downstairs, pulling up the rear behind two women dripping with jewelry that still probably cost less than the remaining hunks of Cyber-metal outside.
He got outside just in time to see Superman launch himself at the giant robot, sending a blast of heat vision straight through the giant robot’s heart.
He made it back to Wayne Manor before Superman did—a good thing, because it gives him time to reflect on what this means. Why he didn’t catch it before.
By the time Superman touches down on Bruce’s balcony, looking a little sheepish, a flake of bulletproof windshield in his perfect hair, Bruce thinks he might just have an answer.
“I wanted to tell you,” Clark starts. With a nervous laugh, he adds, “Obviously if I had known it was you, I would’ve.”
Bruce puts him out of his misery; he tugs Clark inside by the shoulders, pulling him into a kiss that says this doesn’t change anything and I think I love you and I promise I will never buy a Cybertruck.
“How did you figure it out?” Clark asks, when Bruce lets him go.
Bruce smirks up at him. “It’s a pair of glasses, Clark. It wasn’t hard.”