#either way he IS weird n squirrelly about intimacy. clark IS right abt that

[notquiteaghost]

the thing abt bruce wayne is he will go out his way to torture himself for the sake of others cuz he has, yknow, deep n profound trauma. and the thing abt clark kent is he knows that about bruce, obviously, as anyone who has managed to wriggle past bruce's defenses does, but there is knowing it and Knowing It

so. bruce is in love with clark. he realised this after clark & lois got together, because he is an emotionally repressed idiot (dick: hey what are you & clark doing for valentine's i need ideas / bruce: wh. why would we be doing anything / dick: you're dating??? cmon B i have eyes / bruce: no we aren't / dick, with great disbelief: uh huh. sure), and because he is a compulsively self-sacrificing emotionally repressed idiot he decides he is going to just pine away forever because clark is dating lois and they're good together. insert typical 'lowest self worth known to man' bullshit. bruce will be clark's friend and that will be enough!!!!

except. dick asks clark if he and bruce are dating, again in the 'i know this to be true i am giving you the opportunity to admit it to me so i can stop pretending like weekly dinner isn't date night' sense, and clark goes oh. oh damn we are huh. lois did you know i'm dating bruce??? to which lois says yes, obviously, christ you have the weirdest blind spots

and clark is like. well we don't kiss or have sex or??? ...bruce is ace isn't he. cool okay. i am a good boyfriend who respects my repressed idiot's boundaries so i won't make him talk about this i will just follow his lead.

We Continue Like This For Years.

eventually they do get a clue. probably when jon is five or so & clark is asking bruce for his opinions on schools n it finally twigs as weird, the amount of consideration clark is giving to bruce's thoughts, & bruce is like. it IS ultimately yours and lois' decision. and clark frowns n says "i know you're not his biological parent but obviously you still have a say". bruce stares at him for a very long moment experiencing a sinking kind of deja vu then says "why", and clark frowns harder, because they? talked about this?? bruce agreed to be involved in raising jon??? just like clark is involved in raising bruce's kids??? bruce you are aware we are co-parenting???

and bruce, his whole world tilting to the left and suddenly looking completely different, says "do you think we're dating". clark says "do you not?" and bruce says "sometimes i can be incredibly stupid. how long have we been dating". clark says "wait have you never kissed me because you thought we were just friends–" and bruce kisses him