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The warehouse roof was quiet except for the low hum of the city below and the occasional drip of water from Waterboy’s suit. It was past three in the morning, the hour when even SDN’s night shift dispatchers started nodding off at their desks. The two of them had just finished cleaning up after a three-alarm chemical fire in the industrial district. Golem still smelled faintly of scorched concrete and ozone; Waterboy’s suit slightly ripped from tripping in his own puddle.
They sat on the ledge like they always did after bad calls, legs dangling thirty stories above the street. Golem had his massive arms folded on the parapet, chin resting on them, the way a gargoyle might if gargoyles ever looked tired. Waterboy kept flexing his fingers, watching the last trickles of water slip between the segments of his hands and fall like slow rain.
Golem broke the silence first, voice like gravel sliding down a hill.
“You were reckless tonight, Herm.”
“I… I c-contained the runoff,”
Waterboy answered, too quickly.
“Nobody got h-hurt!”
“You threw yourself between the fire and the workers! You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”
Waterboy shrugged. The motion made the water on his shoulders trickle off.
“It’s my.. our j-job to protect everyone! I’m w-w-willing to do w-whatever it takes.”
Golem turned his head, just his head, the rest of him too heavy to shift casually, and fixed Waterboy with those pale, lantern-like eyes.
“You’ve been doing that a lot lately. Throwing yourself in first. Like you have something to prove.”
Waterboy’s laugh came out thin.
“I’ve always f-felt like I had something to prove. You’ve just n-never noticed what.”
Silence stretched again, thicker this time. Somewhere far below, a SDN patrol cruiser whooped once and faded.
Golem rumbled, low and patient.
“Then tell me, Herman.”
Herman took a deep breath, the cool night air hit his face, his wet hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and water. He looked at Bruno with an unreadable look, a lost, almost nervous look.
“I w-wasn’t.. I’m not.. Fuck.,”
he said, voice cracking on the last word despite his best effort.
“My Grammy, s-she helped me so much w-with it all, helped m-me with all the medicines.. She h-helped me feel like.. like myself.”
“Herman what are you on about? Are you unwell?”
Bruno was starting to get concerned. He watched as Herman started leaking more and more water from absolutely everywhere.
“I’m not.. I don’t..”
He took a deep breath, almost swallowing his water.
“I wasn’t always, like this. I’m n-not cis and and I should’ve told y-y-you before we, before you t-told me how you felt and and I’m so s-sorry fuck Bruno I’m so sorry.”
He waited for the flinch, the moment of recoil he’d rehearsed in his head a thousand times. It never came.
Golem didn’t move at all for a long second. Then he unfolded one massive hand and set it gently, absurdly gently, on the concrete between them, palm up. An invitation, not a cage.
“I know,”
Bruno said.
Herman’s head snapped toward him.
“You… what?”
“I’ve known for a while, Herm.”
Golem’s tone never changed, it never really could. But there was something softer in the way the words settled, like stones laid carefully instead of dropped.
“When you first came onto the team, when everyone was coming off quite harsh, after that shift I asked Robert myself if he knew more about you. He said he didn’t know a lot, told me to speak to Blazer.”
“You.. Wanted t-to learn? About me?”
Waterboy felt his face get hot.
“Blazer told me about you, who you were, a bit of your home life.”
Golem smiled at Waterboy.
said you’d mentioned your transition in your interview, said you asked if it would be a problem. I didn’t pry on that, that wasn’t my business to even know, don’t think she even realised she’d told me, she was rambling on, I could tell she was tired.”
Waterboy stared, mouth half open.
“You… you knew? And y-you never..”
“You never told me,”
Golem said simply.
“It wasn’t mine to bring up.”
Waterboy laughed again, but this time it sounded wet. “All th-this time I thought… I thought when you looked at me you saw some scrawny g-g-guy who got lucky with his p-powers. I was terrified you’d.. you’d know.. you’d figure it out and r-realize I was… I don’t know. A fraud or something.”
Golem shifted then, the whole roof creaking under his weight as he turned to face Waterboy fully.
“Look at me.”
Waterboy did. Even sitting, Golem towered over him.
“I am a sentient rock monster created by some magic bullshit.”
Golem said.
“My body is granite and mud. My heartbeat is seismic. I have never been what anyone expected a ‘man’ to be, either. You think I care?”
Waterboy swallowed.
“It’s n-not that simple Bruno..”
“It is to me.”
Golem’s hand hadn’t moved, the palm was still open between them.
“You are the man who drags me out of collapsing buildings when I’m too heavy to move. You are the man who makes terrible puns about hydration while carrying civilians on a disk of water through burning hallways. You are the man I..”
He stopped, the grinding in his chest louder for a moment, like tectonic plates arguing.
“You are the man I love. The rest is noise.”
Waterboy’s eyes filled so fast he didn’t have time to blink it away. He reached out and set his much smaller hand in Golem’s, fingers curling over stone knuckles big enough to crush cinder blocks.
“I thought if you knew,”
he whispered, trying the hardest he ever had to stop stuttering, even for a minute.
“You’d stop seeing me as… me.”
Golem closed his fingers carefully, enclosing Waterboy’s hand in a cage of living granite that somehow managed to feel warm.
“I see you as you, Herman. I always have.”
Waterboy let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob and leaned sideways until his head rested against the broad slab of Golem’s chest. The bigger hero didn’t hesitate, one arm came around him, settling with the weight of a falling wall but the gentleness of someone who had spent years learning exactly how fragile humans were.
Below them, the city kept moving, sirens, neon, the endless churn of a million lives that would never know how close they’d come to dying in a chemical fire tonight. Up here, there was just the low thrum of Golem’s core and the soft drip of water from Waterboy’s suit finally running dry.
“I was so s-s-scared..”
Waterboy mumbled into stone.
I’ve been on hormones for y-years th-thanks to my Gram.., got top surgery.. Changed e-every record I could… but there’s always that terror that someone will find out and it’ll erase e-e-everything I’ve built.”
Golem’s rumble vibrated through both of them.
“Let them try. They’ll have to go through me first.”
Waterboy huffed a laugh.
“Pretty sure y-you’re literally b-bulletproof, love.”
“And you are not. Which is why you’re going to stop throwing yourself at fire, understood?”
“Only if you s-stop catching entire burning high-rises on your b-back!”
“Deal.”
Golem said solemnly.
“We both try to die less.”
Waterboy tilted his head up. The city lights reflected in Golem’s eyes like distant stars trapped in quartz.
“I love y-you too, you know.”
“I know,”
Golem said again, softer.
“I was waiting for you to be ready to say it back. I don’t ever want to rush you Herman.”
Waterboy stood up and reached up with his free hand and touched the rough line of Golem’s jaw.
“I’m ready now.”
The kiss was awkward, stone lips weren’t made for this, and Waterboy had to stand on the ledge to reach, but it was theirs. When they parted, Waterboy rested his forehead against Golem’s.
“Still y-your Waterboy?”
He asked, voice small.
“Always,”
Golem answered.
“My Herman. My Waterboy. Nothing about you was ever a lie, and nothing about how I love you will ever change.”
Far below, the Dispatch alert system pinged faintly in both their earpieces another call, another crisis. They ignored it for one more minute, two heroes on a rooftop, holding on to the only thing stronger than the powers that had brought them here.
Then Waterboy brushed the water off his suit, Golem stood, the building groaning in protest, and offered his hand again.
“Ready?”
Waterboy asked, taking it.
“With you?”
Golem said.
“Always.”
They stepped off the roof together, water and stone, falling and catching each other the way they always had, the way they always would.