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Red cape flapping in the atmosphere, Superman hovers just above the ozone. Below him the planet glows in ribbons of blue and white, clouds spinning slowly as if the world itself is catching its breath. The comms crackle, static, a warning, a flare from the Watchtower. A distress beacon pings from low orbit.
He’s there in seconds.
A black silhouette cuts across the thin shimmer of the atmosphere, sleek, angular, barely holding together. Nearly bowling over the craft in his path, Clark steadies himself, scanning the damage with a quick sweep of heat vision. The batplane. Of course.
“Bruce,” he murmurs, before he even realizes he’s said it.
He rips the cockpit open like foil.
Inside, amid flickering red lights and the soft hiss of oxygen, Bruce is slumped against his seat, cape torn, cowl cracked down the middle. The air smells faintly of ozone and smoke — and blood.
“Superman?” Bruce’s voice is a rasp, half disbelief, half exhaustion.
“Don’t move.” Clark’s tone is sharper than he means it to be. He scoops him out of the wreckage as if he weighs nothing, angling down toward the Watchtower’s emergency hangar. The wind howls against them; Bruce’s hand grips his suit weakly, more instinct than protest.
When they touch down, medbay lights flood them in sterile white. Clark sets him gently on the nearest bed, activating the diagnostic scanners with practiced precision. His hands are steady, too steady. He’s been here before, holding him like this, trying not to let the fear show.
“You shouldn’t have been flying solo,” Clark says quietly. “Not this close to the ion storm.
”
“I had it under control,” Bruce mutters, pulling off a glove with trembling fingers.
Clark looks at him. The cowl is split wide now, one side of Bruce’s face exposed, pale, bruised, human. Clark feels the air shift. He shouldn’t know. He shouldn’t look. But he already does.
And he’s not surprised.
“Bruce,” Clark breathes, the word heavy, inevitable. “You—”
Bruce freezes. “Don’t.”
But the denial hangs empty between them. Clark’s gaze softens, no heat in it, only something raw and aching.
“I’ve known,” he says simply. “For a while.”
Bruce’s head tilts, suspicion flickering behind his eyes even through the pain. “How long?”
Clark lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “Since Metropolis. The gala two years ago, WayneTech fundraiser. You disappeared ten minutes before Batman appeared in the Narrows. I heard your heartbeat both times.”
Bruce blinks. “You— you compared heartbeats.”
Clark shrugs, a sheepish smile ghosting at the corner of his mouth. “Journalist’s instinct.”
Silence. Then, unexpectedly, Bruce laughs. It’s low, hoarse, disbelieving, but real. The sound pulls something loose in Clark’s chest.
“You should’ve said something,” Bruce says finally, though the edge is gone from his voice.
“I wanted to,” Clark admits. “But I thought you’d stop trusting me.”
“I don’t trust easily.”
“I noticed.”
The medbay hums quietly around them. Clark takes a careful step closer, the space between them closing like the final pages of a long book.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he adds, softer now. “Not even Lois. I figured if you hadn’t told me, you had your reasons.”
Bruce studies him, eyes sharp but unreadable. The mask may be half gone, but the man underneath is still all walls and calculation, except, maybe, for the faint tremor in his fingers.
“You kept my secret,” Bruce says.
“I keep a lot of people’s secrets.” Clark smiles faintly. “Yours just mattered more.”
Something breaks quietly in the air. Not a sound, more like tension dissolving.
Bruce leans back, exhaling. “You’re infuriating.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He turns slightly, checking the scanner readouts. “You’ll heal fine. Some cracked ribs, mild concussion. Nothing the medbay can’t handle.”
Bruce watches him, and for once, doesn’t argue. “You could have left me to patch myself up.”
“Not a chance.”
The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitches, the closest he’ll get to a smile tonight.
Outside the viewport, Earth drifts in the dark like a lantern on water. The Watchtower is quiet; the rest of the League is planetside. It’s just the two of them, orbiting the world they never stop trying to save.
Clark sits beside him, cape pooling like a spill of red light. Bruce’s cowl, now resting on the table, looks almost small without him in it.
“You know,” Clark says softly, “I always thought the mask made you harder to read. But it doesn’t. Not really.”
Bruce’s eyes narrow. “What do you see?”
Clark hesitates, then answers honestly: “Someone who never lets himself rest. Someone who thinks carrying the weight alone makes it lighter.”
Bruce looks away. “And what do you see in yourself?”
Clark’s smile fades into something gentler. “Someone who wants to help, even when he doesn’t know how.”
For a long moment, neither speaks. Then Bruce shifts, wincing slightly, and says, “You shouldn’t blame yourself for caring.”
“Neither should you.”
Their gazes meet, unguarded, steady. Clark feels gravity pull at him in a way no planet ever could.
Bruce sighs quietly. “You really knew all this time.”
“I did.”
“And you never thought to tell me you’re—”
“Clark Kent?” He grins faintly. “Pretty sure you figured that out years ago.”
Bruce actually chuckles, shaking his head. “I had my suspicions.”
“Good detective work.”
The laughter fades, leaving something warmer in its wake. Clark reaches out, slow enough to let Bruce pull away if he wants to — but he doesn’t. Their hands meet, gloved and bare, one trembling slightly from adrenaline and exhaustion, the other impossibly steady.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Clark says quietly.
Bruce exhales, some of the fight leaving his shoulders. “You always say that.”
“And I’ll keep saying it until it stops being true.”
Outside, the curve of Earth catches the sunlight, flooding the room in pale gold. Bruce’s hand is still in his.
For a moment, the world feels still, two lives unmasked, two men who’ve spent years circling the truth, finally standing in it.
“You’ll tell the League?” Bruce asks, breaking the quiet.
“Not unless you want me to.”
“I don’t.”
“Then it’s safe with me.”
Bruce studies him again, eyes softer now, the sharpness dulled into something that looks almost like trust. “You really are impossible.”
Clark grins. “So I’ve been told.”
The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable. It’s the kind that fills rooms after storms, quiet, clean, alive.
When Bruce finally stands, Clark steadies him automatically, hand at his shoulder. Bruce doesn’t shake it off.
“I’ll need a new plane,” Bruce mutters.
“I’ll help you build it.”
“Don’t.”
Clark laughs. “You’re just afraid I’ll make it look too colorful.”
“Exactly.”
They pause at the doorway. Bruce glances back, his face half in shadow, half in light. “Clark.”
“Yeah?”
“…Thank you.”
Clark nods once. “Always.”
As Bruce leaves, the cape of his suit catches the gold light from the window, black turning briefly to silver, red still bright beside it. For a heartbeat, they’re side by side again, the world below turning endlessly, and the truth, finally, between them.