for justlikeacircus: Returning to Land

[stands_for_hope]

Despite Bruce's comments to the contrary, Clark was finding it just a little difficult to return to life after, of all things, a four day cruise with Bruce Wayne. Of course, quite a few things had happened on that boat, and some off of it.

For one thing, Bruce had kissed him. For another thing, he'd done a bit more than that, in public, outing not just his more inclusive sexual preferences but also the fact that they were in a relationship. And yet, it wasn't the part of the whole thing that had him feeling as if he was on another planet. Mostly he was still reeling from the fact that he was in a relationship with Bruce. More than a few years of being in love with someone somehow didn't prepare him for actually getting to kiss the man. He's not sure anything could have, to be honest.

Not that things had gone smoothly, were going to go smoothly. He knew that. He was well aware of what he'd signed up for. He also knew that since their original plan to keep things quiet and mostly go about things the way they had been (with the occasional private affection off to the side, as their own business) had been blasted out of the water, by Bruce of all people (the man had a very funny way of showing his affection sometimes), that he was going to be playing the front offense on handling most of their friends and family. In fact, he already had and he was proud that he'd managed to keep Diana from setting up some sort of party, honestly.

...at least he hoped so. She could be surprisingly sneaky at times.

He was far too terrified of Alfred to even begin meddling there, but he knew Dick. He was friends with Dick. Friends slash doting uncle slash coffee buddies with Dick. He'd watched the kid grow up, but he'd made a point of remembering and treating him like the adult he'd become and they had a pretty good relationship. That was why he texted him asking when he had time to perhaps have dinner at the restaurant they'd gone to the last time he'd been in town.

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[justlikeacircus]

Dick was quite certain that he would have been one of the first people to find out about this, or at least that's what he told himself, though he maintained no illusions that it would be Bruce that told him, because he knew that wasn't going to happen, he would have expected Clark to keep him in the loop.

If it hadn't happened on a cruise ship that was already being watched by reporters hoping to get some kind of scoop before Clark Kent got back to the Planet, who had eagerly rushed this latest bit of big society news to the presses practically before the rather public kiss had even ended, meaning that Dick heard about it within a day of it happening and so did everybody else in the country. All at once.

He knew it was just Bruce being... well, Bruce, and he was so bad at this sort of thing he probably thought it was a brilliant idea, or maybe he was just tired of hiding everything and thought this was one thing that was too important to lie about, who knew the way he thought most of the time?

Still, despite all that he couldn't help but feel just the tiniest bit hurt that he hadn't at least got some kind of heads up, that he hadn't had any warning for the day the reporter from E! News shoved a microphone in his face and asked him what he thought about his father's new relationship, and he had to hide his surprise and pretend it wasn't the first he'd heard about it and cheerfully tell the world he was very happy for them both - which, as it turned out when he discovered what she was talking about, he was. If it was actually a thing that was happening, he couldn't ignore the possibility that it was all just some really, really weird cover story.

When the text from Clark came, he knew it was going to be the explanation he'd been waiting for, so while he was still in the slightest bit of turmoil over the whole thing, he agreed and arranged a date.

He arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early, wondering how this was going to go.