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Clark didn’t have many other options, so he just…ate the grenade. He didn’t want to bother flying it away from the fight and so he picked up the high powered tech, and simply bit into the thing like an apple. He made sure his first bite covered the main charge, leaving a useless detonator. He finished it in a few quick bites before returning to the fight with both hands and one less problem.
Unfortunately, this was just after the JL decided to try out bodycams to improve post-fight debriefs.
“Were you…feeling snackish, Supes?” Flash was asking. “Is that a regular part of your diet?”
Clark felt heat rise to his face, answering the ensuing slew of questions meekly. It was never fun to have your personal differences pointed out in front of all of your peers. Thankfully, Batman stopped the onslaught of well-meaning curiosity.
“While Kal-El’s diet is important, it is not crucial to the logistics of future battles and may be left for more independent study in the future. I wish to discuss the potential for electric charges to take out our communication systems–” Clark gratefully tuned in to the backup plan for a backup plan that B had crafted.
B caught up with him after the meeting, pulling him subtly aside. He had a split lip and Clark was waging an internal war not to lean in and kiss it better.
“I wanted to ask,” B began. “I know you are not always fond of discussing your more…xenobiological differences, but would you be willing to let me test your diet?”
“Like, you want to feed me different explosives and see what happens?”
Batman huffed goodnaturedly and, with a tiny shrug, said, “More or less.”
“Sure. I could eat.”
“Then let me buy you dinner, I guess,” Batman said, mouth twitching into the barest hint of a smile. Clark’s stomach flip-flopped and he wished it were the real thing, but being a lab rat meant spending extra time together, so it was still a win.
A quick zeta ride to the Batcave leant Clark the privilege he’d had just a few times before of watching Batman become Bruce. He was something more than Brucie, but, if not less than Batman, then certainly less intense. The cowl made his hair stick up when he took it off and he slicked it back with a gloved hand as Clark watched. The eye makeup was heavy and dark, but Agent A was there with makeup wipes and two mugs of tea, hot and very sweet the way Clark had learned Bruce liked and Alfred liked to scoff at. He accepted gratefully.
“To wash down the incendiary devices,” Alfred said, slyly, then disappeared on silent feet.
Bruce finished removing his armor, then set about scrubbing his makeup away. When the last of the paint was gone, his face was left damp with whatever was on the makeup wipes. Clark watched, clutching his mug of tea, as the lights of the Batcomputer illuminated his skin. Seemingly fed up with the wet feeling, Bruce pulled the hem of the black compression shirt he wore beneath his armor up and bent over, wiping his face on it. He seemed surprised when he noticed Clark watching, then slightly sheepish.
“Sorry, can’t stand that oily feeling leftover,” he said.
Clark shrugged, letting his shoulders say Think nothing of it , while his mouth was busy feeling suddenly very dry. He took a sip of tea.
“So,” Bruce said, crossing to the computer, “Tell me about what you can eat that humans can’t.”
The interview was pleasant and easy, Clark sharing a couple anecdotes that made Bruce chuckle, which always felt like winning a medal. Bruce’s questions were informational but never othering, and while Clark could tell his analytical brain was kicking into high gear, he mostly didn’t show it. Clark wouldn’t have minded, Bruce was at his best when he was passionate about a project or mystery. It was in the way his posture sharpened, he spoke less, but moved more decisively, as though every action was being reserved to expend more energy thinking. When the cowl was off he got a faraway look in his eyes that was both calculating and incredibly distant. Some people might have felt awkward or even offended when it seemed like Bruce was looking right through them, but Clark never felt that way. As Bruce seemed to shift into that mode a little more now, he simply admired it. It was like a perfectly sharpened knife cutting neat slices, the simple pleasure of watching Bruce’s mind do exactly what it had been honed to do. Clark settled in with the last of his tea, watching as Bruce doubtless was analyzing hundreds of ways potentially dangerous situations could be improved or worsened by Clark’s little quirk.
Something flitted across Bruce’s face, briefly furrowing his brow and tugging at his lips. Clark could watch his face forever, like watching the changes of the sky or the tides of the sea. Whatever thought had interrupted, however, seemed to be both disruptive and amusing.
“What does a grenade taste like?” Bruce asked simply.
“The one I ate today was bland, kind of like licking a penny. Gunpowder is almost salty but also feels a little greasy.”
Bruce’s head tilted to the side, assembling new knowledge. “Greasy?”
“The feeling it leaves on my teeth, I suppose. Gunpowder residue. And it doesn’t brush away or wash down for at least ten minutes.”
In a note section on the Batcomputer, Clark watched Bruce type Decontamination Toothpaste–send to R&D and smiled.
“Would you be opposed to doing some bite tests for me and eating a few things while hooked up to some monitors?”
“You did promise to buy me dinner,” Clark joked, feeling the dryness in his mouth return.
“I’ll make sure to set out the good linen,” Bruce said, pulling a paper sheet for the medical exam table from a drawer.
“At least the waiter seems to know his stuff,” Clark said, smiling at Bruce.
“Of course, although I doubt I can help you with wine pairings.”
Clark submitted easily to the various monitors and wires that Bruce attached to him, the both of them making easy jokes all the while in their familiar way. Clark ignored, as always, the way it made a corner of his heart ache for more, relishing instead the fact that the jokes were made at all.
“Normally I get dinner before I let someone do that,” he said as Bruce indicated that he needed Clark to take off his suit. He regretted the joke almost instantly because then Bruce was sticking a monitor to the inside of his thigh, only a few inches from the hem of his briefs. Clark held his breath,since he didn’t really need it anyway.
“Not a cheap date? Don’t worry I promise I’m good for it,” Bruce responded, a hint of his more flirtatious public persona shining through, even as he looked over a checklist on a tablet. “One more, then the interesting part. Are you cold–no, of course not. Would you like a blanket or sheet anyway?” Bruce’s eyes never left the tablet.
“That’s okay, I’m not shy,” Clark said. He felt a little shy, perhaps, only because it was Bruce , but this was strictly scientific.
At last B’s remarkable eyes left the screen of the tablet, examining Clark as he sat on the table. “You haven’t got any reason to be,” he said. Was it just the addled desires of Clark’s own brain, or had that been a little more flirty than simply reassuring?
Alfred returned with a cloche, a proper thing, heavy and probably actual silver. He set it down on the desk beside Bruce and left as swiftly and silently as he’d arrived. Bruce took off the silver cover, revealing assorted weaponry and…
“An apple?” Clark asked.
“A baseline, if you’re willing,” Bruce said mildly.
“Of course, tell me whenever you’re ready.”
Clark bit the apple at a nod, waited, then chewed and swallowed when indicated. He didn’t finish the apple, setting it aside for later. Bruce started small after that. He offered Clark standardized sizes of bullets, changing the material to see how his body reacted. Lead tasted familiar, the steel jacket didn’t taste like much at all, the incendiary round filled his mouth with the powdery, greasy feeling of gunpowder and similar such substances. His reaction was biggest, and clearly intrigued Bruce the most, to the tracer round.
“Flavor?” Bruce asked, clearly having seen the perplexed expression on Clark’s face.
“Like biting into a lime that had sex with a firework, then cover that whole thing in lead.”
“A lime?”
“But the outside, the peel. It’s bitter, but also astringent.”
“Hmm,” Bruce took careful note, then pulled on some nitrile gloves. “That should be all for now, perhaps another time we could discuss the possibility of large incendiary devices, maybe some alien tech? Only if you’re comfortable, of course.”
“Any time,” Clark said. “It really isn’t anything to me.” Spending time with Bruce meant a lot, of course, but the action of eating weird things was very easy, especially when it made Bruce furrow his brow and study Clark with that breathtaking intensity.
“Could I swab your mouth?”
Clark nodded, letting Bruce swipe around with some gauze, then a few cotton swabs, and then finally, the strange feeling of Bruce dragging a gloved finger over his teeth.
“Lead residue,” Bruce said. “Interesting, you must produce shavings when you bite. Do you always bite them, or have you ever swallowed them whole?” He began removing the sensors from Clark one-by-one.
“The small ones, sure.” Clark said, once fingers were out of the way of his teeth. “Not usually the larger ones we tested today, although maybe if I had something to wash them down, like a pill.”
“Fascinating,” Bruce said. “But you’re still so…” he gestured vaguely. “Soft. Gentle.”
Clark shrugged.
Bruce handed him the last item on the tray, a small paper cup with something blue. “Mouthwash,” he said simply. “Figured it would be nice after.” Clark took it gratefully, swishing and then swallowing before remembering that normal humans weren’t supposed to do that. He glanced at Bruce, who was smiling, and shrugged.
“See you at the next JL meeting?” He asked. He wanted to linger, wanted to bask in the smile that was warmer and larger than usual here in the privacy of the Batcave.
“You aren’t staying for dinner after all?”
Clark blinked, then glanced at the tray, now devoid of anything but a half-eaten apple and a paper cup.
“A real dinner, I mean,” Bruce said, dimples showing in his cheeks.
“I’m not dressed for it.”
“Your suit is fine.”
So Clark redressed in his super suit, feeling both over and under dressed as Bruce led him up the stairs. They skipped the formal dining room, to Clark’s surprise. He’d expected to eat in a scene like one from a vampire novel, the two of them at opposite ends of a long dinner table. Bruce led him instead to the kitchen. Alfred was nowhere to be seen, but the small table was set for two, fresh flowers in the center of the table and a bowl of pasta with two plates. The lights were dimmed and the whole scene was…intimate.
“Bread?” Bruce asked, lifting a cloth from a bowl on the counter.
“Please.”
The bread was garlicky and warm, a testament to Alfred’s impeccable timing. Sitting across the table from Bruce in the quiet kitchen, it felt much more like the kind of dinner Clark had wanted to have with Bruce. They talked, updating one another on the lives of their secret identities, swapping stories and occasionally making one another laugh.
“So how did you find out?” Bruce asked eventually.
“That I can eat anything?” I was just a kid. I don’t even remember the reason, but I managed to eat a monopoly piece. I think I wasn’t winning so I decided to chew it up. It was the little car.
“Small mercies, at least it wasn’t the little dog.”
“I’m a sore loser, not a monster.”
“So you’re still a sore loser then?”
Clark shrugged, laughing and blushing. “I wasn’t allowed to do sports, because I wouldn’t throw a game or a match, but it also wouldn’t have been fair. I guess I just never got used to the feeling of losing. Big things, a promotion at work, I’m okay with, competitive but not bitter, it’s the little things where I become less gracious.”
Bruce smiled at him over his glass of wine. “I can be the same way, a trait I shared with my mother. I’m also vindictive and petty and enjoy insulting people without them realizing it.”
“And have you been insulting me?”
“I’d hardly tell you if I was.”
Clark laughed, it sounded slightly too loud in the quiet kitchen.
Bruce shifted his chair over, suddenly leaning in close. “I am also a misanthropic asshole who is sometimes too focused on his work and his theories.”
Clark cocked his head, feeling the change in tone but not quite understanding why it was there.
“I guess what I would like to say is that I enjoy being around you, Clark. I am also fascinatedby you. I hope today was not too much or too insulting and I hope…I hope that you would tell me. I would like you to tell me”
Clark’s mouth felt dry even though the wine was sweet. He couldn’t think of anything to say except, “I like it.”
Bruce sat back a little, a tiny furrow appearing between his brows. “You like it?”
“The attention, someone asking questions. I never get to talk about it, I barely understand all of it myself. I like it when you do it, because I know— “
“Because you know that I…care? Do you know that I care, Clark?” Bruce’s hand was warm and solid on Clark’s knee. “About more than the science, I mean.”
“Yes.” Clark looked into Bruce’s eyes, knowing the detective could read him like a picture book, and took a leap of faith. “I care about you too.”
Bruce lifted Clark’s hand to his lips, a gesture that was chivalrous and old fashioned and at home in the kitchen of this grand house.
Then he grinned in a way that was devilish and modern. “I believe you said that normally someone buys you dinner before they get you to take of your clothes?”
Clark smiled back. “Shouldn’t we take things slow?” He asked, his grin belieing his words.
“Too midwestern?”
“I’m not quite…”Clark paused, watching Bruce lean in in anticipation. “Well, I’m a little unexpected…all over, if you understand.”
Bruce paused, halfway through standing, then that beautifully calculating expression came over his face, a war between curiosity and something more animal. Ego and Id fighting in his eyes.
Clark winked at him. “Grab a notebook.”