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Clark had stepped into the Justice League meeting that afternoon with bone deep exhaustion and a futile hope that the abysmal coffee Oliver called ‘saving money’ might do something to help his day.
Bruce had already been in the large room, sitting with a rigid posture and a menacing stare Clark likely would have found intimidating if he’d had enough energy to care. As it was, the two lengthy articles he’d delayed to the very last minute had him pulling all nighters for the last week, and to make matters worse, Metropolis had experienced no sunny days for the last week in some upstart villain wannabe’s attempt at weakening Superman.
So, all in all, Clark was feeling more than slightly tired. Just a tad, enough that as he sat at his end of the grand table staring absently at its lead surface he regretted the moment that foolish bastard had ever been fucking born—
And as Clark felt a hot pressure behind his eyes build up, he had to admit that his exhaustion was not in any way mild if he was trying to sear a hole in the table from the mere thought of someone who had been in police custody for over a week by now.
“Kal?” he heard someone say, and jerked his head up to be met with a rather concerned stare from Diana. From the tone of her voice and the other eyes that had landed on him, it was not the first time she had called for him.
“Yeah?” he said, and realized that in his fatigue he’d let his voice slip into something much closer to Clark Kent’s Midwestern drawl than Superman’s transatlantic one.
He blinked twice—more out of force of habit than true necessity—and fixed his face to be something more Man of Steel than about to keel. Diana still looked worried, but when she searched his face she must have found something satisfactory because she turned back to Batman as he continued his presentation(when did that start?).
“As I was saying prior,” Batman continued, and Clark could feel the man’s eyes bore on him through the cowl, “As we have all constructed plausible ways for us all to be present at the conference in the report I sent to be filled as of Monday—”
“–Batman,” Clark interrupted, in a manner he knew to be uncharacteristically rude but was truly too tired to care about, “I never received that email.”
Bruce sent him a look that conveyed both annoyance and mild exasperation in a way that Clark had quickly come to associate with things that Bruce found to be obvious. Normally, those things weren’t actually obvious to members of the general population who didn’t possess extraordinary tactical skills, but considering that Clark was now the receptor of similar stares from Barry and Oliver, he felt like he might truly be missing something obvious this time.
“ Superman, this assignment requires us to be present in our civilian wardrobes,” Batman stated, and Clark was feeling like a moron because that cleared up absolutely nothing.
“Meaning..what exactly?”Clark inquired, and found himself shrinking in his seat as the entire team stared at him as if he was a complete and utter idiot.
“Dude, c’mon don’t be like this,” Barry exclaimed, and Clark found himself starting to get a little irritated from the fact no one could just say whatever they were all beating around.
“No, really, why didn’t I get that email?” Clark knew he was dramatizing a bit, but he was tired, and snappy, and honestly couldn’t care if he threw them off with his dragging vowels and sharp tone. His head ached, more so from lack of time to stop and rest in the last few hours rather than a need to sleep.
“Superman…you are the most recognizable man alive, and this is meant to be a no hero event,” Bruce eventually deadpanned and Clark thought he finally understood.
“ Oh…I get it now,” Clark said, his expression loosening as he realized what the problem was, “You all think that my civilian identity would be too recognizable. Well there’s no need to worry, because—”
“—You don’t have a civilian identity, Kal-el doesn't count,”Wonder woman said softly, “Similarly, though I go by Diana Prince, my face is almost as recognizable as yours and the identity would not hold up under scrutiny.”
Clark, thrown for a loop, looked around the room as if to see if this was the general consensus everyone had come to. Everyone seemed to be feeling the same thing, which was absolutely ridiculous. They knew he had a civilian life, right? Clark found himself looking to the other end of the table where…Batman’s face was just as oblivious as everyone else’s.
Then, suddenly, it clicked.
And Clark laughed. Not the patriotic chuckle of Superman, but the shoulder-shaking guffaw that Lois had told anyone and everyone within reasonable earshot made him sound like a Chuck-E-Cheese mascot reject. He probably wouldn’t have found it so hilarious if he was at his best, but Clark was running on fumes and the situation felt like the greatest joke he’d ever heard. He pried his eyes open and was greeted with various shocked, and some taken aback, expressions.
“Wait. So all this time…” He cut himself off, taking a few breaths simply to try and regulate himself lest they take him to a white padded room as an honestly understandable reaction to his sudden hysterics, “Not one of y’all thought I had a life outside of being Superman?”
The room seemed to hold its breath for a moment as the Justice League processed the recent—and Clark had thought obvious—information. Barry’s jaw had quite literally dropped, Hal was staring at his hands as if they would hold an explanation, and Oliver was squinting at Clark as though he would be able to glean his secret identity. J’onn was rising in his seat in that way that meant he was about to pretend he knew all along, while Victor held his head in his hands with a shame Clark found almost endearing on the usually reserved man. Diana looked stunned, while Bruce was blinking in a way that would read as an expression of slight surprise on any other person but meant that he had been completely off guard.
“I swear you said you lived in the Fortress of Solitude,” Barry sputtered, breaking himself out of his stupor.
“When have I ever said that, Barry,” Clark deadpanned, and Oliver, scandalized, clutched onto Hal in a manner which an old lady might her pearls.
“On your file, you have no reported addresses for emergencies barring the Fortress,” Batman added, letting the others know that even the Batman was unaware of something with a regret that showed on the man’s face not a moment later.
Clark, careful not to let even a hint of his growing bemusement through, retorted, “I’d have assumed that the rest of you don’t put all of your personal information on the easily accessible database, no?”
The ensuing silence both made him want to start laughing again and give his colleagues a good talking to about how a secret identity worked. But, using the self-restraint he was beginning to believe was another enhanced superpower from his Krytonian ancestry, he kept his newfound disappointment from being too obvious and barreled on.
“I mean, with guys as psychopathic as Luthor after me, I couldn’t be as frivolous as some of you guys are about it.” To punctuate his point, Clark stared directly at the Flash for a few moments before leaning back in his seat.
“Wait,” Hal interjected, “so if you somehow do have a secret identity, then what is it?”
Clark let a light smile curve his lips upwards as he made a quick decision on how to tell them. Before common sense and caution could stop him, reached under the table for something he now realized not a single member of the Justice League had clocked to be there.
His Hypno-glasses came out and onto his face without a sound, and for a moment, it was as if everyone had been frozen.
“No…” Bruce breathed, and it sounded like all of the air had been punched out of him.
“Clark Kent?” Oliver croaked, and his face was turning to a pallor too pale to be healthy by any understanding of the word.
Clark felt the urge to start laughing again, but refrained lest it finally be the thing to break the team. That and, considering the absolute bullshit that Brucie Wayne and Oliver Queen had gotten up to at the galas Clark reported at, their horrified reaction was perfectly reasonable.
The room exploded in a cacophony of shouted questions, and Clark, like the tease he was, stepped out of the meeting room and flew away before anyone could stop him.