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Clark Kent’s first petal arrived on a Tuesday.
He was alone at the Daily Planet, working late as usual. The city outside was a blur of neon and rain, and he’s already received texts from Lois, all variations of “stop editing and go to sleep or I’ll stage an intervention.”
The tightness in his chest had been nagging all week. It wasn’t like anything he’d felt before: sharper, almost metallic, a little like heartburn but colder. He tried to ignore it. Kryptonian lungs rarely misbehaved — they’d survived smoke, freezing vacuum, even Green Lantern’s chili once — but tonight felt… different.
He leaned forward, trying to steady his breathing.
Then it happened.
A sudden cough ripped from him, jagged and violent. He doubled over his desk, clutching his ribs. When it ended, he noticed it.
A dark, velvet petal lay on his keyboard. Landing on the “B” key.
Clark’s stomach flipped. He picked it up carefully. Smooth, rigid, impossibly alive-looking. Blackish-purple, faintly bitter.
He froze.
Not that it mattered. He already knew.
From childhood, he’d read about it in old fantasy stories — Hanahaki disease, where unrequited love bloomed inside the chest, petals growing until they choked the heart. Just stories. Fantasies. Silly things.
And yet… here it was.
Clark inhaled, then coughed again. More petals emerged, soft, curling. They fell on his open article draft and desk, delicate but terrifying. He scrambled to stop them, heat vision flicking out to turn them to ash before more could land.
“Oh, Rao,” he whispered.
The thought hit him like a punch: it wasn’t just a story. It was real. Why the heck is it real?!
The question ran around his head. It made him… both terrified and morbidly fascinated.
He swallowed, trying to calm the panic threatening to overtake him. One cough. Two. A small cluster of petals escaped again, tumbling across the desk, smacking softly against papers.
Clark was frantic now.
He burned the rest. All of it. Heat vision, careful, precise. But it didn’t make the tightness go away.
Clark knew it wasn’t the best idea to be starting a fire in a workplace, but he panicked. What else was he supposed to do with random flower petals?
He jumped at the click of heels on the linoleum.
Lois Lane.
She walks in with purpose, stating that purpose to Clark. “Hey, I left my sweater here, I don’t know why your still here but I’m gonna drag you—“
Horrible timing really, she walks in right as he’s burning one of the last petals.
“Clark… what the hell are you doing?” she asked, voice sharp but tinged with confusion.
Clark coughed softly, fumbling for words. “It’s… it’s nothing. Just… uh… a mess. Burned something.”
He coughs, the petals growing in size it seems. He sighs and internally screams ”Not the time, weird flower petals!”
Lois’s gaze narrowed. She set her sweater down and picked up a remnant petal he’d missed. Black, curling.
“Clark. That’s… a flower. You’re—coughing—flowers.”
Clark’s throat closed. One hand went to his mouth instinctively. Another cough, softer this time, pushed a stem just out of reach of the trash can.
Lois blinked, caught between horror and disbelief.
“Okay. I’m officially freaking out. You’re telling me you are coughing up… plants?”
He nodded, pale. “I…I think it’s Hanahaki. From… old stories.”
Lois froze. “Wait. What? Hanahaki? That’s… that’s just a story, Clark. Everyone says that’s just—fiction.”
Clark swallowed. “I know. I thought that too. Until now.”
The room was silent except for the soft, uneven sound of his breathing.
Lois put the petal down carefully, staring at him. Her voice softened.
“Who… who doesn’t love you back?”
Clark’s jaw clenched. He couldn’t say it. Not out loud. Not to anyone.
She walks forward and crosses her arms, making an educated guess. “it’s Bruce, isn’t it.”
It isn’t a question, not exactly. Because she already knows the answer.
Clark visibly shrinks, blushing. “……no?”
“Clark.”
“I’m fine. I can handle it.” His voice cracked slightly.
“Bullshit.” Lois gestured at the scattered ash. “You are literally leaking your feelings onto your desk and trying to burn them away like that’ll fix it.”
Clark shook his head, weak. “I… I just… need… a minute.”
Lois sighed, exasperated but affectionate. “Yeah, okay. Sure. But we’re going to Bruce.”
Clark tried to protest. “No, I… Bruce—”
Lois rolled her eyes. “Absolutely not. Pack up, Smallville. You’re coming, and I’m dragging Gotham’s emotionally constipated billionaire into this whether he likes it or not. He’s the guy that will actually want to AND will be able to help.”
Clark coughed softly again, one petal landing softly on the corner of his notebook. His heart raced, nerves tight.
Inside, a quiet, guilty hope sparked. Maybe, just maybe, Bruce Wayne could help. If he even realized what was happening.
Because Clark didn’t know if he could handle this alone.
And Bruce didn’t even know he was the reason for the flowers.
“Let me just get rid of these before we leave.”
“Alright.” Lois says, looking at her phone. Seemingly texting someone.
Clark had managed to get the petals in a pile, and he was about to incinerate them — heat vision glowing faintly behind his glasses — when Lois slapped a hand over his face.
“Absolutely not.”
He blinked. “Lois—”
“Nope. Stop. Step away from the spontaneous flower barbecue.”
“I can’t let anyone see this!”
“That’s why we contain evidence, Smallville. We don’t just roast it like suspicious leftovers.” She grabbed the nearest thing on his desk — his pen and pencil jar — dumped its contents across the floor, and shoved the jar toward him. “In.”
Clark stared at her, still red-eyed and shaken. “Where did you learn to handle magical flower vomit?”
“I’m a journalist,” Lois said, sweeping petals off his keyboard. “I contain everything weird.”
Clark exhaled and started collecting. Once everything floral was jarred and sealed with three rubber bands (Lois’s insistence), they hurried down the hall.
“Wait, what about your car?” Clark asked as they left the building.
Lois popped a mint in her mouth, unlocking Clark’s sedan with his keys before he could protest. “Didn’t take one.”
“What?”
“My boyfriend dropped me off. I was planning on just coming in to get my sweater, but then I saw you coughing botanical horror and told him to leave.”
Clark’s world screeched to a halt.
“Boyfriend?!”
“Yup,” Lois said, sliding into the passenger seat. “You aren’t the only one with a love life, Kent.”
Clark’s mouth opened. Closed. “Since when?”
“Since none of your business. Drive.”
He did.
~~~
The drive to Gotham was quiet. Every few miles, Clark tightened his grip on the steering wheel and coughed stiffly into his elbow, the sound ragged — flowers but no petals this time — like his chest had turned to gravel.
Lois kept glancing at the jar between them on the console. It looked insane. Like potpourri someone had gotten emotionally attached to and rubber-banded shut to prevent aromatic escape.
“Question,” she said, an hour in. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I just found out, about the same time you walked in.”
“Hm. And…burning it was the option you chose?”
“I panicked! What would you do if you started coughing up—I don’t know—nails. What would you do.”
“You could’ve used the flower metaphor—Oh my god you’re such an idiot.”
Clark coughed again, winced. “You didn’t answer the question, and no I couldn’t have because that’s already in use by me.”
“Right,” she said. “Shut up and drive.
Clark snorted. “Feisty.”
They crossed into Gotham as the sun dipped behind buildings, the skyline jagged, purple, and already brooding.
~~~
Alfred opened the manor door before they knocked, because of course he did.
“Master Kent. Miss Lane.” He blinked at the jar. “I assume I don’t want to know.”
“We need to see Bruce,” Clark said, breathless, voice weirdly tight.
“Then don’t stand in the doorway,” Alfred sighed, stepping aside. “The cave. He’s in a mood.”
“Which one?” Lois asked.
“A bat one,” Alfred deadpanned, and led them down the stairs.
The Batcave was full screens and cold air and the smell of metal and oil. Bruce didn’t look up at first; he was hunched over a microscope like he’d been staring at something smaller than a flea for three straight hours.
“Bruce,” Clark said, holding the jar like a cursed trophy.
Bruce turned, saw Clark’s face — pale, sweating, nervous — and all the sharp, detective-impenetrable nothingness vanished. Concern flooded in, real and unguarded.
“What happened?” Bruce demanded. Then, narrowing his eyes: “Why is Lois Lane here?”
“I’m here,” Lois said, “because Clark wouldn’t have left his stupid office chair if I didn’t physically drag him out.”
Bruce paused. Then: “Reasonable.”
Clark set the jar on the table.
Bruce stared at it.
“…are those flowers?”
“From inside him,” Lois said, crossing her arms.
Bruce blinked once. Twice. Then immediately started pulling on gloves.
“Explain. Now.”
While Clark talked, Bruce’s hands were already moving — scalpel, slide, tweezers — every motion furious with purpose. He dissected a petal like it had personally offended him.
“Hanahaki,” Clark said quietly, ashamed to hear himself say a word that didn’t sound real. “It’s…a thing in stories. You cough flowers when you’re in love and it’s not returned. And if the person doesn’t love you back, you—”
“Die,” Lois finished, crossing her arms tight.
Bruce froze, eyes dark.
“No,” he said. Voice low. Absolute.
Clark swallowed. “Bruce—”
“No. We are not doing death by fairy-tale allergies.”
Lois pointed. “Thank you! That’s what I said.”
Bruce kept working. Pulled up multiple scanners, chemical readings, a Kryptonian database Clark didn’t even know he had access to.
After ten minutes:
“Not human,” Bruce said, voice flat but charged. “These cells — chlorophyll structure doesn’t match any Earth species. The xylem patterns are…Kryptonian.”
“So it is real?” Clark asked.
“It’s real for you,” Bruce corrected. “Probably something evolved on Krypton. Environmental triggers. Atmospheric conditions. Emotional stimuli affecting pulmonary tissue.” His brain was clearly doing somersaults. “It’s not magic. It’s biology.”
Lois whistled. “Space heartbreak lung plants. Great.”
Bruce stood and finally looked at Clark — really looked at him — and something vaulted across his expression, almost fear.
Clark was already looking at him of course, why would he not.
“How long?” Bruce asked.
Distracted, Clark snaps out of it and hums. “Hm? What?”
“How long have you known.”
Clark scratched the back of his neck, cheeks hot. “Oh! Um. Like… twenty minutes? I just found out. Lois walked in on me— it’s new.”
Lois raised a hand. “Yup. Confirmed. I got there right when he started coughing up the—” she waved vaguely at the jar, “Well that.”
Bruce stared at Clark for a full, heavy beat.
“Twenty minutes,” he repeated, voice unreadable.
“…yeah.”
“So this just started, it’s in—whatever the early stages of this disease are.” Bruce said, and somehow that sounded worse — like his brain had just gone from panic to planning.
Then his expression sharpened again, dangerous and protective.
“Who is it?” he demanded. “Who doesn’t love you back?”
Lois exhaled like someone watching a slow-motion car crash. “Here we go…”
Clark’s stomach dropped. “Bruce, no— I’m not—”
“Tell me their name,” Bruce said, stepping closer, equal parts fury and determination. “I’ll find them. I’ll make them reciprocate if I have to. This isn’t going to kill you.”
Lois puts her hands on her hips and smirks slightly. “Yeah, who is it?”
Clark backed up, coughing once — dry, thank God, no petals — and shook his head. “Bruce, I’m not telling you.”
“Clark—”
“No.”
That one word echoed around the cave.
A silence the size of a building collapse followed.
Bruce slowly inhaled through his nose, visibly planning seventeen different investigative routes at once inside his skull.
“Fine,” he said, low, controlled. “But I’m going to figure it out.”
Lois dragged a hand down her face. “Oh, sweet baby Jesus and the grown one too.”
Clark swallowed hard, staring at the floor. The jar of petals sat between them, silent and incriminating.
Everyone in the room already knew.
Everyone except Bruce.
And somewhere in Clark’s chest, that terrible blooming sensation pulsed again — bright, real, and unmistakably tied to him.
~~~
Lois had left an hour ago, whisked away by her boyfriend. She’d waved, shot him a quick smile, and been gone, leaving Clark alone with Bruce — and the rest of the cave crew.
Bruce was already in full detective mode. Charts sprawled across the holo-screen, sticky notes everywhere, patterns of human and Kryptonian interaction crisscrossing in neon lines. Dick, Duke, Jason, Tim, Damian, Cassandra, and even Stephanie were gathered around, watching the chaos unfold with varying degrees of amusement and restraint.
Clark leaned against a console, arms crossed, staring at the floor. He was exhausted, panicked, and increasingly aware of every fluttering heartbeat in his chest. Bruce didn’t notice his body was still producing the occasional small petal — he was too focused on finding the culprit.
On one of the screens, Lois’s face appears. Clark is appalled
“Bruce—she’s dating someone!”
“Exactly why she’s on it. Unrequited love, Clark. That’s the whole point,” Bruce said without looking at him.
“I promise you, she’s not the cause of this,” Clark mumbled.
Bruce’s jaw tightened. “Fine.”
Clark let out a long groan.
The room was silent. Everyone knew. Everyone knew who it was. But no one was going to tell Bruce. Which they find ridiculous. How does the Worlds Greatest Detective not know who Clark Kent, Kal-El, Superman, loves?
They were letting him enjoy the illusion of investigation, and some part of Clark knew it was cruel… but also kind of necessary.
After Bruce started scribbling hypothetical emotional maps, tracking potential unrequited loves, Clark felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Dick, leaning against a console with that calm, knowing expression he always wore when he was about to lecture someone who really, truly needed it.
“Hey,” Dick said quietly, tugging Clark toward a shadowed corner, far from Bruce’s ears.
“…Don’t.”
“You’re being a little stupid here, Clark.”
Clark pressed a hand to his face. “I—I can’t tell him.”
“Why the hell not?”
“If I tell him, it’ll ruin our friendship. Adding onto that, he would force himself to love me just so I live. I don’t want that.”
Dick stared at him like he’d just suggested waiting in traffic for fun. “Oh my god. You’re all idiots. Snap out of it, Clark. If you don’t tell him by the end of this week, I’m will.”
Clark groaned again, collapsing onto a chair. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would,” Dick said, voice calm but firm. “Bruce needs to know. You’re being dramatic, panicked, and ridiculous — all at once. You can survive telling him, Clark. He can handle it. You both can handle it.”
Clark slumped back, overwhelmed. He knew Dick was right. He just… wasn’t ready yet.
Meanwhile, Bruce continued his obsessive scribbling, oblivious to the whispered corner conversation, as Jason smirked, Duke rolled his eyes, and Damian muttered something under his breath about human stupidity being ineffable. Cassandra and Stephanie watched quietly, keeping the chaos in check as best they could.
And so Clark remained silent, caught between the fear of losing control and the hope that somehow, this mess of petals and panic could resolve itself without destroying what he had with Bruce — whatever that even was.
~~~
Three days in, Bruce Wayne was running on fumes.
Not metaphorical fumes — actual, measurable sleep deprivation. Alfred had forced exactly four hours of rest out of him across seventy-two hours, and Bruce had used every remaining moment to either patrol Gotham or work beside Clark in the cave.
There was no in-between.
If he wasn’t Batman, he was a scientist. If he wasn’t running diagnostics, he was staring at probability charts, emotional timelines, or footage of Clark interacting with literally everyone he had ever met.
And he was losing.
He also didn’t let Clark leave unless for work. Not to his apartment or out as Superman. He told Duke to temporarily patrol in Metropolis until Clark was cured.
Clark sat on the med bay cot, shoulders hunched, breathing carefully like every inhale was a negotiation. The jar of petals had been replaced by a sealed containment unit, because the situation had escalated.
Badly.
Bruce adjusted the scanner over Clark’s chest, jaw clenched.
“Tell me if it hurts.”
Clark gave a tired smile. “It always hurts.”
Bruce hated that answer.
The first day had been petals.
The second day, stems.
By the third day, they have no idea what would be next.
Bruce could still see it in his mind: dark petals unfurling in Clark’s palm, slick with saliva and bloodless but wrong. Too whole. Too complete. Like something that had finished growing exactly where it shouldn’t have.
Clark coughed now, sharp and wet, and had to brace himself against the cot. Bruce was there instantly, steadying him, one hand warm and grounding at Clark’s back.
“Easy,” Bruce murmured, voice betraying nothing, hands betraying everything.
Clark swallowed, breath shaky. “Sorry.”
“You don’t apologize for symptoms,” Bruce snapped automatically — then softened. “Just… breathe.”
Clark tried.
The scanner beeped.
Bruce stared at the readout.
The plant matter wasn’t just in the lungs anymore.
It was rooting.
His throat tightened.
“This doesn’t follow human pathology,” Bruce muttered, fingers flying across the console. “The oxygen exchange is compromised, but not failing. Your body is… adapting around it.”
“Great,” Clark wheezed. “My lungs are redecorating.”
Bruce didn’t smile.
Three days. And no name.
He had everyone mapped out — coworkers, friends, allies, exes, one unfortunate barista from three years ago that Clark had smiled at for exactly six seconds.
Nothing fit cleanly.
Except—
No. He cut the thought off immediately.
Bruce dragged a hand through his hair. “This doesn’t make sense. Whoever it is, the emotional feedback loop is intense. Long-term. Deep-rooted.”
Clark looked away.
Bruce caught it.
“You’re hiding something,” Bruce said quietly.
Clark shook his head. “No.”
That was a lie. A bad one. And Bruce knew it.
Still, Bruce pressed on, refusing to force the issue.
“I’ll find them,” he said. “I always do.”
Clark coughed again.
This time, something heavy hit the tray.
They both froze.
It wasn’t petals.
It was a full flower.
Dark, velvety petals curled outward, intact stem trailing like a vein. It looked… deliberate. Finished.
Clark stared at it in horror.
Bruce’s breath left him all at once.
“…Three days,” Bruce whispered. “Why is it progressing this fast?”
Clark’s hands shook. “Bruce—”
Bruce picked the flower up carefully, like it might detonate.
“This means the emotional trigger isn’t new,” Bruce said, voice dangerously calm. “The feelings have been there for a long time. Years, maybe.”
Clark squeezed his eyes shut.
Bruce turned back to him, eyes sharp, searching.
“You’ve loved them for a long time,” Bruce said. “Haven’t you.”
Clark didn’t answer.
Bruce’s chest ached with something unfamiliar — fear, sharp and cold.
“If I don’t find them soon—”
“I won’t let it kill me,” Clark said, too fast. “I promise.”
Bruce laughed once. It wasn’t kind.
“You don’t get to promise that.”
Clark’s breathing hitched. Another cough rattled his chest, weaker this time.
Bruce was there again, holding him upright, one arm solid around Clark’s shoulders.
“I’m running out of time,” Bruce admitted quietly, words meant for himself more than Clark. “And I don’t like that.”
Clark leaned into him, exhausted, forehead brushing Bruce’s shoulder for just a second longer than necessary.
The contact sent a sharp ache through Bruce’s chest.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Because standing this close, holding Clark while his body betrayed him, Bruce felt something shift — an awful, dawning weight.
Could it…
No. It couldn’t.
He shoved it down.
Not yet.
Not until he had proof.
Not until Clark told him.
Behind them, unseen by either of them, the containment unit registered a new data point.
Bloom frequency increased.
Time was slipping.
And Clark’s lungs were running out of space.
~~~
By day five, Clark couldn’t pretend anymore.
He hadn’t gone to work. Hadn’t even tried. The thought of standing upright for more than a few minutes made his chest seize, lungs protesting like they were packed with thorns instead of air. He’d called in sick with a voice so hoarse Lois had immediately known something was wrong.
She hadn’t stopped texting since.
Lois: You alive?
Lois: Clark.
Lois: If you’re dead I’m haunting you.
Lois: I SWEAR TO GOD.
Clark hadn’t answered. He didn’t know what to say. Still coughing flowers felt insufficient.
The med bay lights were dimmed, but even that didn’t help. Clark sat hunched forward on the cot, elbows on his knees, a hand pressed to his sternum like he could physically hold the blooms back. His breathing came in shallow, uneven pulls. Every few minutes, it hit him again — violent, wracking coughs that left his vision speckled with white.
Bruce hovered nearby, pretending not to hover.
He had gone through everyone. Every name. Every face. Every possible connection in Metropolis and beyond. Coworkers. Friends. Civilians. Heroes. Civilians-turned-heroes. Heroes-turned-civilians. Bruce had run probability matrices until the cave’s processors overheated.
None of them fit.
None of them explained this.
Clark doubled over suddenly, coughing hard enough that Bruce was at his side instantly, one hand gripping Clark’s shoulder, the other bracing his back.
A flower hit the metal tray with a soft, horrifying sound.
Then another.
Then another.
Full blooms now. Dark, elegant, intact. Clark gagged and spat the last one into his palm, shaking.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice barely there.
Bruce’s jaw tightened. “Stop apologizing.”
“I can’t—” Clark coughed again, breath tearing painfully out of him. “I can’t tell him.”
Bruce stilled. “Tell who?”
Clark shook his head, eyes glassy, denial settling deep and stubborn in his chest — deeper than the flowers. “He doesn’t like me back. I can’t— I won’t—”
“Clark,” Bruce said sharply. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Clark insisted, voice cracking. “I do. He flirts with everyone. He never says anything real. I don’t want him to feel forced. I don’t want him to— to pity me into loving me just so I don’t die.”
Bruce recoiled like the words had struck him physically.
“You think I would—” He stopped, breath uneven. “You think anyone would do that?”
Clark laughed weakly, bitter. “You don’t know him like I do.”
Bruce stared at him.
Across the cave, Dick Grayson watched the exchange with growing, simmering fury.
Five days.
Five days of this.
Of Clark breaking down piece by piece while Bruce ran himself into the ground chasing ghosts. Of denial stacked on denial. Of everyone knowing except the two people suffering the most.
Dick crossed the room in three long strides.
Before Bruce could react, Dick slapped him.
The sound echoed sharply through the cave.
Bruce turned slowly, eyes blazing. “What the hell—”
“Wake the fuck up, Bruce!” Dick shouted. “It’s YOU.”
Silence.
Clark froze.
Bruce didn’t speak.
“You are the person he likes,” Dick went on, voice shaking with frustration. “He’s been in love with you for years. And he thinks it’s not requited because you’re a dumbass who never says anything out loud!”
Bruce’s mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Clark’s denial snapped violently into something worse — panic.
“No,” Clark rasped. “No, no, no—”
Dick rounded on him immediately. “Don’t you start. You don’t get to deny this.”
“He doesn’t love me,” Clark insisted, tears streaking down his face now. “He doesn’t— he wouldn’t—”
Bruce finally found his voice.
“Clark.”
Clark shook his head, coughing again, a petal catching on his lip before falling away. “You don’t look at me like that. You don’t talk to me like that. You don’t say it. You never say it.”
Bruce took a step toward him, then another, like he was afraid Clark might disappear.
“I trusted you,” Clark whispered. “That’s all. I trusted you. And I thought that was all it was.”
Bruce’s chest felt hollow.
“I didn’t want to die,” Clark sobbed. “But I didn’t want to make you love me.”
Behind them, Dick turned away, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Congratulations,” he muttered. “You figured it out. Now fix it.”
Bruce saw red.
Not anger.
Fear.
Pure, animal terror.
“Get out,” Bruce snapped without looking back.
The cave emptied fast. Dick hesitated just long enough to meet Bruce’s eyes — a silent don’t mess this up — then everyone was gone. The doors slid shut, leaving only the low hum of machinery and the sound of Clark struggling for air.
Bruce turned back to him.
Clark wiped his mouth with shaking hands, eyes red, unfocused. “Bruce— I’m sorry—”
That did it.
Bruce grabbed the edge of the cot so hard it dented.
“You fucking idiot.”
Clark blinked. “…what?”
Bruce paced once, like a caged animal, then rounded on him again.
“You dumbass. You absolute— you—you— ugh!”
He surged forward and kissed him.
Hard. Desperate. Furious.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t pretty. It was teeth and breath and the sheer violence of relief. Bruce fisted a hand in Clark’s shirt like he was afraid Clark might vanish if he let go.
Clark froze.
For half a second, his brain short-circuited entirely.
Then—
Air.
Actual air.
His lungs stuttered, then filled. Not shallow. Not forced. Real. Deep. Clean.
Bruce pulled back just enough to breathe himself, forehead pressed to Clark’s.
“Why the fuck,” Bruce demanded, voice shaking, “would you think I don’t love you back?”
Clark stared at him, stunned, lips swollen, chest rising and falling like he’d just been pulled from underwater.
“I— I—” He swallowed. “W-well, it’s never been clear! I thought the flirting is just something you do with everybody and—”
Bruce stared at him like he’d just confessed to eating kryptonite for fun.
“Have you seen me,” Bruce snapped, “tell anyone else that I trust them in a fuck or die situation, Clark? Have I?”
Clark’s brain attempted to reboot.
“…well—”
“STOP SAYING WELL.”
Bruce kissed him again.
This one was slower, still intense, but steadier — like he was grounding them both. Clark made a small, broken sound into Bruce’s mouth, fingers clutching at the cape like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
When Bruce pulled back, his hands framed Clark’s face, thumbs brushing away tear tracks and a smear of petal dust.
“I don’t flirt,” Bruce said fiercely. “I don’t trust. I don’t let people close. And you—” His voice broke. “You’ve been at my side for years. You know everything. You know me.”
Clark’s throat worked. “I didn’t want you to feel forced. I thought if I told you, you’d… do it just to save me.”
Bruce let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh.
“Oh my god,” he muttered. “You really thought I’d fake love.”
Clark’s eyes filled again. “I didn’t want to die,” he whispered. “But I didn’t want to make you lie to yourself either.”
Bruce leaned in until their foreheads touched.
“I hate you,” he said quietly.
Clark flinched.
Bruce immediately added, voice wrecked, “But I love you. I love you so goddamn much it makes me stupid.”
Something shifted.
Clark inhaled.
No pain.
No scraping.
No thorns.
Just air.
He sucked in a breath so deep it made him dizzy, hands flying to his chest as if he didn’t quite believe it.
“I—” He laughed weakly. “I can breathe.”
Bruce closed his eyes, relief crashing through him so hard his knees almost gave out. He pulled Clark into his chest, holding him like he’d just been returned from the dead.
“Good,” Bruce murmured into his hair. “Because you scared the hell out of me.”
Clark laughed, hiccupping through tears, pressing his face into Bruce’s shoulder. “You scared me too.”
Bruce kissed his temple, softer now. “We are never doing this again.”
“Agreed,” Clark said fervently.
The scanner beeped.
Bruce glanced over automatically.
Plant matter: degrading.
Pulmonary obstruction: clearing.
Bruce let out a shaky breath.
“Looks like it’s working,” he said.
Clark smiled up at him, exhausted but glowing. “Guess honesty really is the best medicine.”
Bruce snorted. “Don’t get poetic.”
Clark leaned in anyway, brushing their noses together. “So… you love me?”
Bruce rolled his eyes and kissed him once more, slow and certain.
“Yes, Clark,” he said. “I love you.”
Clark breathed.
And for the first time in days — for the first time since the flowers bloomed — his lungs were empty of petals.
Only air.
Only Bruce.