Bruce had hemmed and hawed and talked around it until Clark had channeled Ma, throwing up his hands and saying, "For Pete's sake, Bruce, if you want us to come to family dinner just say that!"

Then Bruce had turned beet red while Lois grinned at him, shark-like, and Clark had felt bad for needling him. Well, a little bad. But they got that invite.

Dinner this time was a low-key affair. Alfred set the kitchen table for eight: himself, Bruce, Lois, Clark, Damian, Duke, Babs, and Dick, the latter two clearly visiting to gawk at Bruce's newly semi-public relationship. Babs would definitely call it gathering intel, but Clark suspected Dick would happily admit to gawking. (Someone had to, anyway; Clark knew Steph would want any and all Bruce gossip, but she and Cass were 'out, and don't call it a date or they'll get really mad', per Dick.)

Clark couldn't even blame Dick for being willing to gossip about this. Bruce was flushed and happy despite only having had coffee with dinner. He laughed at Lois's jokes and left his foot resting against Clark's under the table. Babs was as unreadable as ever, but Dick's head whipped between the three of them with undisguised fascination. It made Clark want to needle Bruce even more, make him laugh while leaning into Lois, brag about what he was so, so lucky to have.

Probably, though, that would be sort of weird to do in front of Bruce's kids. So he kept his hands to himself. Mostly. At least until after dinner, when he pushed Bruce and Lois both against the wall of the hallway, carefully kissing each of them, unable to contain his smile. Bruce snorted and pushed him away. "We'll be helping Alfred clean up after coffee, you know."

"I know." Clark dipped his head to kiss Lois, then brushed his lips against the corner of Bruce's mouth, just one more time. "I just couldn't wait."

"Or you were antagonizing them," Lois said dryly.

She couldn't possibly have heard Babs' garbled, mostly-suppressed What the fuck, whispered at the end of the hallway right as Clark had slipped Bruce some tongue. But she might have seen them, since she'd been the least occupied of the three of them just then. "Well, maybe a little."

"Antagonizing who, exactly," Bruce said, but Clark and Lois were used to demands for their sources; they only laughed.

Much later, after dinner and several urgent Justice League issues and two more Lois Lane Pulitzers, Clark would wrack his brain trying to remember how, exactly, Alfred had managed to get him and Lois alone in the kitchen that night. He'd sent Bruce out for...something, but Clark didn't remember the request, or why Bruce had agreed to it when he had to know what would happen next: Alfred cornering Lois and Clark and affixing them with a gimlet stare.

"I'm very glad Master Bruce has you both."

"Um." Alfred's apron had kittens all over it. Clark focused on a calico as he said, "Yeah, um, me too? I mean I'm glad to have him. Them. Both of them."

"I'm glad Bruce has you, too, Alfred," Lois said. "Should I be making vague threats about what'll happen if you try to move to Cabo when you retire?"

"Butlers don't usually retire to Cabo, Miss Lane. And I'm not sure what I'd do if I retired, but rest assured I would remain in Gotham."

"Well. Good."

"Quite."

"...anyway, who wants some cookies? I've got a care package from Ma." Clark didn't mention that the care package was thanks for an ultra-high-end compact espresso machine that he very much had not researched or purchased. Lois and Bruce, respectively, wouldn't take direct thanks, and Ma knew it.

He didn't even have to pretend to be surprised when Bruce appeared in the nearest doorway, nor when Duke, Babs, and Dick melted out of shadows at the entrance all the way across the room. There'd be plenty of sneaky eavesdropping in his future, Clark figured. As long as it came with the kind of kiss Bruce planted on him as he grabbed a cookie, as long as Lois was there with him to say, "Very subtle, guys," he figured it was a pretty good deal.