Racing Turtles

Texts From Superheroes

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This text is now available in sketch form!

Clark Kent finally goes to get therapy but the only person who knows both of his identities AND is in any way actually qualified is Harley Quinn

They're staring each other down in some bland ass room painted a soothing blue like

Clark: ... This HAS to be some sort of conflict of interest

Harley: aww not to worry Supes I'm totally profresh

Clark: that's not actually that reassuring

Clark starting to try and open up even though that usually requires an emotional crowbar: it's just... isolating, sometimes. There's not really any one person that is in the same position as me and it's... Hard

Harley: well that's why we have emotional support networks rather than just one person! I know I'm your position it's especially hard to build that up, but you've done a rather impressive job so far. I mean, you break it down, and Lolo may be your wife, but she's not gonna know everything you go through, nor should she have to. She understands your workplace stresses, the justice league is there for hero stuff, Diana gets being powerful enough to scare people, Kara and J'onn are both in the last survivors boat, and when it comes to the complications of balancing identities, Brucie will be there. The best part of all this is that you also don't have to be everything to any one person, which is something you seem ta struggle with.

Clark: oh. You're... good at this?

Harley: I fuckin told ya I was

Lois stopped typing, her annoyance disappearing at his tone. "Hey." She reached over to touch his shoulder. "I was kidding. You know I'm kidding, right? I don't want to sleep with Bruce."

"I know," he said.

"I think it's sweet," she added. "How secure you are in your, you know. Bromance. If teasing you about it is making you uncomfortable, I'll stop. I don't want to make you feel like you have to start no-homoing it."

Clark rubbed his face.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was trying to be funny about how I'm the slut and you're the prude, but I guess Bruce is also a slut so that made it weird for you. And you're straight. Shit. This is like if I was joking about Jimmy hooking up with Wonder Woman. There's a lot of aspects to this bit that I hadn't actually considered. It's a bad bit. I can't believe you've spent a year letting me do a bad bit."

"Lois."

"Sorry," she said, shutting her laptop. "I'll workshop new bits later." She set her laptop onto the end table.

"I should probably tell you something," he said as she settled into the pillows.

"Okay," she said. She tried to sound nonchalant about it. Based on their history, this could be anything from admitting that he didn't actually like her new lipstick to revealing he had a secret third family on the moon.

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chapter four is up and i'll get around to updating the tags to accurately reflect the goings-on tomorrow probably

i really liked this comment but didn't want to spoil anything however i think my attempt at despoilerfying made it seem much worse actually

i am unironically obsessed with adam west batman not only trying to be a good dad to robin, but actually succeeding. also love robin's insane energy levels and his ability to go from seething bloodlust to manic glee in record time. i think any superman worth his S would fit right into the family ^_^

So I've just been thinking about clark kent wearing glasses, because i think the prevailing canon is that he wears glasses with no correction, but as someone who wears glasses i don't think that would last long as a pretense bc you always end up switching glasses with your friends/having them stolen by your normal visioned friends so that you can flex about how shitty your eyes are. Also there's a visible difference between lenses with correction and without. So people would know!

Here are some options ive thought of for what actually goes on:

Clark Kent’s birthday canonically being February 29th is hysterical to me. Not because it’s meant to jokingly explain away how Superman is a timeless character, but because it implies Martha and Jonathan Kent found an alien baby in a cornfield, and when pressed to choose a birthday for their new baby, they gave him the most difficult birthday possible.

clark is clearly not a newborn and they're just going "well he is a leap day baby we don't really know how old he is! you know how newborns are, we lost track of time, the kitchen calendar got ruined by water when the upstairs shower leaked! he could be 1, he could be 2!"

wait i'm not done.

this man is an ALIEN. he meets Batman AS AN ALIEN BEING. imagine knowing Superman for like, a year or so, enough that this friendship is solidifying, and his age/birthday comes up (maybe because he insisted on getting something small for Bruce's more publicly known birthday!) and this adult alien who is NOT BEYOND pulling petty shit when it's harmless and funny, says with a straight face and no explanation, that he's six years old. what is bruce supposed to do with that? maybe kryptonians age differently! clark could draw it out for a while, letting Bruce think he's younger than Robin! and Bruce wouldn't have a good reason to disbelieve it unless he like, went digging for Clark's high school records or something (which he MIGHT do but then maybe he's trying to respect a little of the privacy of the one friend he managed to make, pre-intense paranoia days).

and then it was just a leap day joke

AND THEN KON SHOWS UP AND IS LIKE

"I'm six!"

AND BRUCE IS LIKE

"i'm not fucking falling for that again."

Clark Kent, trying to leave a gala he’s covering: Ope, just gonna squeeze right past you.

Bruce Wayne, who heard Superman say the same thing at a Justice League meeting that morning: No fucking way

people get so confused trying to figure out the Lois/Clark/Superman situation that somehow they come to the conclusion that Clark is cheating on Lois with Superman

I mean Lois clearly has nothing to hide, everyone from here to Krypton’s seen Superman fly her with a chaste hand around her waist. but Clark puts an awful lot of effort into making sure no one ever gets a pic of him and Superman together

what is he worried Lois will see

people shake their heads sadly every time Superman visits the Daily Planet and then Clark emerges from a closet disheveled and tucking his shirt back into his pants. but if Lois won’t see it there’s nothing they can do

When Lois finds out she thinks it’s hilarious, and when someone finally tries to ‘break it to her’, she’s all ready. 

“Oh, I know.”

“You… know?”

“Neither of them would ever lie to me.” 

“So… *gears frantically spinning* this is like some kind of threesome thing?” 

“Oh! No, no, no, absolutely not. *Lois pauses and grins the most lascivious grin she can produce* I just… watch.” 

Clark gets a lot of very weird looks that day that he can’t understand at all. 

@elidyce​ no, no, no. don’t hide a shit-stirring bruce and chaotic lois in the tags. this is an important addition, too. just gives that final touch that’s dearly needed to really complete this, y’know?

the sheer amount of artistic talent put into these panels to portray the right feeling on clark’s face is amazing

None of the images in the notes look like eachother but they all look like Clark wtf

Every time this graces my dash I can’t help but laugh until I’m on the verge of tears

It’s a face that says “you aren’t wrong, but not for the reason you think”

Do you think Clark Kent's first few major articles were about the continued presence of lead pipes in parts of Metropolis' water system

(Average Metropolis reader after investigative reporter C. Kent's 452nd article on yet another case of landlords/business owners/factories' continued use of lead pipes/paint/gas/glass knowingly exposing the public to dangerously toxic lead levels) what the fuck happened to this guy

One day Bruce Wayne mentions in an interview that heroes like Superman are overrated, as the most effective way to reduce crime is to provide public resources and improve local infrastructure, then cites how neighboring city Metropolis has effectively lowered their violent crime by 13% after addressing their outdated water system and investing low income housing. the reporter conducting the interview suddenly starts looking a little uncomfortable

To be clear, Clark is still a fantastic investigative reporter. He still has to track down the sources to prove all this shit

"Who, Clark Kent? Yeah, we're pretty sure he's a Meta. Is he a superhero? Like what, "Lead-detector guy"? "Captain pipes?" Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and it's a handy trick, but it's lead detection, not laser vision. He's not about to go running around in tights any time soon."

I just love the idea of a cape maintaining their secret identity by pretending to be a completely different and less impressive kind of parahuman.

everyone assumes that kent is so squirrely around superheros because he’s just desperately hoping not to be conscripted to the JLA to fix their plumbing

"OF COURSE He's never around when Superman shows up; could YOU tell Superman no?!" XD XD

X

You get it.

This is exactly what Superman stands for.

Superman was created by two second-generation Jewish immigrants in the 1930s.

He was created to represent Jewish refugees, partially-assimilated immigrants, and orphan refugees. They couldn’t admit it at the time or he would never have been popular.

Whoever Little Light is they understand Superman far more than the majority of people.

Superman is the hardworking Hispanic immigrant who has developed a taste for apple pie.

The Muslim who plays baseball between prayer calls.

Every immigrant who still speaks their own language at home.

This is perfect and I love you for it.

#original#ficblogging#i don't. remember.#if i ever actually used the bit about clark#and how he left a bunch of stuff in his childhood bedroom#which included a printout of an art trade a friend made him on livejournal#which bruce definitely noticed while trying to sleep during christmas in kansas and didn't say anything at the time but made a note of it#which is how bruce wayne found clark kent's teen lotr fanblog which he was VERY intense about#bruce found this extremely funny and immediately made a backup#in case clark remembered it existed and deleted it#i think i killed that particular darling for being TOO self-indulgent pop culture reference#but it exists in my mind as important background teen lore#along with clark and lana's terrible green day cover band#and clark's collection of thrift store flannel shirts and those little wrist sweatbands#sometimes in life you write a lot of things and think about a lot of things and then forget which is which (via @unpretty)

Lois stopped typing, her annoyance disappearing at his tone. "Hey." She reached over to touch his shoulder. "I was kidding. You know I'm kidding, right? I don't want to sleep with Bruce."

"I know," he said.

"I think it's sweet," she added. "How secure you are in your, you know. Bromance. If teasing you about it is making you uncomfortable, I'll stop. I don't want to make you feel like you have to start no-homoing it."

Clark rubbed his face.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was trying to be funny about how I'm the slut and you're the prude, but I guess Bruce is also a slut so that made it weird for you. And you're straight. Shit. This is like if I was joking about Jimmy hooking up with Wonder Woman. There's a lot of aspects to this bit that I hadn't actually considered. It's a bad bit. I can't believe you've spent a year letting me do a bad bit."

"Lois."

"Sorry," she said, shutting her laptop. "I'll workshop new bits later." She set her laptop onto the end table.

"I should probably tell you something," he said as she settled into the pillows.

"Okay," she said. She tried to sound nonchalant about it. Based on their history, this could be anything from admitting that he didn't actually like her new lipstick to revealing he had a secret third family on the moon.

Read More on AO3

there's slightly more of this than there was nine hours ago but none of it is sex unfortunately