Bruce took a bat to the chest a Wednesday night in February.

It wasn't even from someone special; it was just some punk who had a lot of friends and scored a lucky hit while Bruce was otherwise occupied. They guy had one hell of a swing, though, and Bruce's rib cracked.

It had meant he couldn't go home, not to Clark; the injury was too severe and would be discovered immediately.

He had called home and told Clark that he had to go to Chicago on business.

Of course, with his renown, this meant that he actually had to go to Chicago on business, to make sure that the media wouldn't expose him.

He ended up staying almost a whole week while he healed, and found some credible Wayne business to attend to while he did. On day six, though, he began to notice paparazzi skulking about. It wasn't to a degree that would have normally worried him, but he was explicitly away from home to avoid attention; he had to go back, or risk accidental exposure.

He arrived at the Manor late, later than had been planned. Him and Clark had been supposed to have dinner together, but he had been snared by some WE executives on the tarmac of the Gotham airport. He'd allowed them to keep him, wary of seeing Clark. Wary of what Clark would see.

But the wariness made him angry and irritable, and finally he hadn't been able to take it anymore; he had walked out.

Now he walked the blackened halls of the manor and wondered if he perhaps should have endured longer, postponed the inevitable further. And yet, something flared within him when he stepped through the door to the bedroom, where a light still stood on and Clark lay sleeping naked on his bed with his broad back uncovered. A tension that Bruce hadn't been aware off eased from his shoulders.

As he walked over to the bed, Clark's eyes fluttered open.

"Hi," he said, smiling sleepily up at him.

"Hi," Bruce replied, carding his hand through Clark's dark hair.

"Mmh…" Clark sighed, "I was supposed to wait up for you."

"I think this is acceptable," Bruce said.

Clark snorted and buried his face in the pillow.

"Sure you do," he said into it. "Why don't you join me?"

Bruce watched him, but Clark seemed disinclined to move his face from the pillow, so Bruce undressed, save his boxers, and crept beneath the covers.

"About time," Clark sighed, and smiled at him with his eyes still closed. "Now kiss me."

"Demanding," Bruce mumbled against his lips, but did as told.

"Deprived," Clark corrected when he pulled away.

"Depraved," Bruce retorted, forgot himself, and lay back against the pillows.

Clark became fully alert in an instant.

"Bruce, what the hell is that?"

Bruce only barely stopped himself from pulling the sheets up to cover his torso.

"It's just a bruise."

"A bruise?" Kent asked, voice uncharacteristically flat.

"Yes."

"And you have gone to a medical professional to confirm that?

"I have not because that would be wasting both-"

"Bruce."

"Clark. It's my body, and I know what I'm feeling. It's nothing."

"It's not nothing!" Clark erupted, beginning to sound properly angry. "It's the size of my fucking head, for god's sake! You need to have that checked out!"

Bruce paused for a moment, meeting Clark's eyes.

"I will do no such thing, because one does not seek medical attention for a b-"

"It's not just a bruise! I can see that's not just a-!" Clark snapped his mouth shut "I can tell it's not just a bruise. I know you. This is more than just that, please, you need to have it checked."

Their eyes met, and Clark held his gaze until Bruce had to look away. "Alfred can deal with it."

For a moment Clark looked like he was about to start screaming again, then he just… deflated. He threw off the blanket and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. Bruce watched him, watched the slope of his broad shoulders, the curve of his muscled back, and said nothing.

"Bruce…" Clark said, speaking into his hands, and then shook his head like he'd changed his mind.

He moved his hands, dragged them up and down over his face, then one hand went to the back of his neck while the other covered his eyes.

"Bruce," he said then, putting his palms to the mattress and twisting on the bed to face him, "can you look me in the eye and tell me it's nothing more than a bruise?"

Bruce looked him in the eye, and felt that there was a more to this question than what had actually been said.

"It's nothing more than a bruise," he lied.

Clarks mouth twisted slightly, quirked upwards into something of a smile. "Okay," he said, nodding. "Okay."

Bruce exhaled very carefully, but said nothing. Waited for Clark to take the lead in how to proceed.

"Okay," Clark said again. "Do you need to sleep, now?"

"I'm fine," Bruce said, moving back so he sat straighter against the pillows.

Was Clark implying that he wanted sex? Bruce had been gone for some time; it wouldn't be entirely out of the realm of possibility, despite the argument and the injury that had caused it. Certainly no fucking, but… perhaps oral? Shifting slightly, Bruce assessed the state of his ribs. Yes, he could probably handle giving some. An apology and a distraction wrapped as one; it would be appropriate.

He was just stretching out his arm to pull Clark into a kiss, when Clark said: "I think I need to leave."

Bruce's hand dropped to the sheets and he started at Clark. "What."

"I have to go."

Some essential circuitry seemed to have shorted within him; he couldn't seem to understand what Clark was saying, nothing in his body willing or able to parse the meaning of his words. Instead he kept staring, kept perfectly quiet and still.

Clark, as ever, took mercy on him. "This isn't working. Bruce. I know you can tell. I know this isn't a good time, and I'm sorry, but I… can't."

Bruce could only stare, for a very long while.

Finally, he managed to rasp: "Can't what?"

Clark closed his eyes and let out a heavy exhale. "Stay. We should… stop, Bruce."

"Stop."

"Seeing each other. Our relationship," Clark said. "We want different things. And I'm afraid I can't… compromise, not on that."

Bruce's eyes tracked Clark as he suddenly stood.

"I'm not…" Clark said, then frowned and seemed to hesitate.

He shook his head, and appeared to be stalling when he went over to the drawers where he kept his clothes and plucked up the pants draped over it.

Bruce watched him get dressed, in the jeans and one of his ugly flannels. Clark wore the frown all the while as he slowly slotted each button into its hole, but when he finally was done he seemed to have figured out what he wanted to say:

"I can't change who you are, Bruce. And I wouldn't want to, even if I could. But I can't change wh-" his voice suddenly broke and faltered, and he moved his hand to his face, pressing thumb and forefinger into his eyes.

He stayed like that a few moments, but when he removed his hand he met Bruce's eye and his voice was steady. "I can't change who I am either. I can't. You can keep your secrets – God knows I have my own – but it isn't fair, to either of us, to pretend that we want the same thing anymore. I think we've both known that I've always wanted this more than you did, and I could live with that, but… this is too big. I need someone who I can share my secrets with, who will share their secrets with me. And I think-… I had hoped it would be you, but I don't think it will be. And that's okay. I can… understand that, needing to keep secrets from people you lo-. From people in your life, and I'm sure you have your reasons. But I need something different."

Bruce stared.

"It was good, while it lasted," Clark said, "You made me happy, at least. So… thank you, for that."

"Thank you?"

Clark just smiled again. "Yes. I... guess I'd better go now. I'll tell Alfred about your injuries on the way out, so he knows."

Clark nodded his goodbye, and then walked softly over to the door, pulling it gently closed after himself.

"Clark," Bruce protested, staring unseeingly at the closed door.

His brain was at a standstill. Thoughts blocked and interrupted each other.

And Clark had left.

And he had always thought he would be able to manage, but he found that he wasn't.

"Clark!" he called, and suddenly Bruce was in the hallway, without recollection of how he got there. "Clark, wait!"

Clark, mercifully, did.

He had only gotten about twenty paces down the hallway, and he turned and looked, very patiently, at Bruce.

Bruce stared back.

"Just-... Just wait. I'll tell you."

Clark looked at him, careful and wary hopefulness blooming seemingly despite himself. "You don't have to, Bruce. That wasn't the point."

"I know," he answered immediately, "I know, but-"

He clamped his teeth down on deceivingly small words, and the enormity of it all seemed so impossible that he found he had to rest his palm against the wall for support. He refused to break eye contact with Clark, though, as if he could make him stay through sheer force of will. "Will you stay so I can show you?"

Clark hesitated.

Bruce only barely restrained himself from begging.

Then Clark said: "Yes. If you're sure, of course. I'll stay."

Bruce closed his eyes, nodded. "Okay. Would you get me my robe from the bathroom, please?"

Kent nodded and walked carefully around him and back into their bedroom.

Bruce's ribs throbbed but he resisted the temptation to slump against the wall while he was alone. That was fortunate, because Clark was back quicker than he had expected. He held the robe open for Bruce, and helped him put in on. Perhaps Bruce would have smiled at that – at the ever perfect gentleman that was Clark Kent – but not in a moment where he thought he would lose him. Never then.

He tied the robe about his waist and gestured for Clark to follow him.

They walked slowly through the dark hallways. They had to, since Bruce ribs hurt so much that his head was pounding and Clark didn't know the way. Perhaps it was also possible that Bruce was delaying slightly, hoping irrationally that Clark would change his mind or that Alfred would appear around the next corner and stop them.

They were uninterrupted all the way to the study, however, and Bruce approached the old and broken grandfather clock.

He couldn't bring himself to look at Clark as he dragged the minute hand around until the clock showed 10:47.

He did, however, hear Clark's soft intake of breath when the locking mechanism clicked and the hidden door swung softly open. He set off down the stairs without checking if Clark followed.

His footsteps echoed behind Bruce all the way down the spiraling steps, though, all the way until they suddenly were through the rock and the Cave sprawled before them.

"What the-…" Clark whispered and stopped.

Bruce felt like he'd been kicked in the chest, but kept slowly walking down the stairs. Across the floor. Up the steps to the raised area where his computer stood. There he turned, and looked back at Clark.

He still stood on the stairs, exactly where he had stopped earlier, and was staring around the Cave like he didn't quite know whether he should continue down or go back up. Bruce tried not to take that personally. Instead he swept his eyes across the area; took in what Clark was seeing for the first time.

This main area had been lit, automatically, while they descended. The hallways and stairs leading to the other rooms, however, were still dark and would remain so unless approached. Bruce found himself very grateful for this; what was visible already seemed like too much.

Then he suddenly realized that it wasn't. Wasn't too much. Wasn't hardly anything. The area was wide cold and bare. There lay some gadgets he had been working on a table by the wall – grappling hooks and grenades and a taser – but they were too far away for Clark to be able to see any details. The large, many-screened computer stood there behind him, but it was off and non-descript, and the windows to his display cases for the prototype suits were closed and the Batmobile was still in the garage below.

It could have been anything.

Gripped suddenly by the fear that he wouldn't even get the chance to explain, he barked: "Come here."

Clark startled, and turned to him with wide eyes. And Bruce saw him hesitate.

He came, though, if slowly. Bruce told himself that was what counted.

"… Bruce?" Clark asked when he reached him.

"Sit," Bruce said, gesturing to the chair in front of the giant screen that he normally occupied.

Clark did sit, grasping falteringly for the armrest when the chair almost swiveled away from him. Bruce lowered himself carefully onto the edge of the table. He wondered what Clark thought was happening, thought he was seeing. He was a reporter, after all; he had to have had some sort of hypothesis.

He neglected this inquiry, though, in favor of another: "Are you okay?"

This, strangely, seemed to settle Clack somewhat. He nodded and exhaled carefully. "Yes, I'm fine."

Bruce frowned and his eyes lingered on Clark for a few moments, judging the truth of the statement.

Finally, he nodded back. Then he turned and shifted his leg, so that he could pull out the top drawer of his desk. He was met by the gaping eyes of Batman, and could not help but to stare into the abyss.

This was it: his last chance to change his mind. His last chance to stop. The moment that could bring ruin to everything.

But Clark would leave if he did nothing – this was certainty, not possibility.

But for how long do I truly want to keep him?, he asked himself. Is he worth it?

The answer came to him with alarming immediacy, and Bruce could only marvel at his own hopeless idiocy as his fingers closed over the leather.

"Here," he said, holding out the mask.

Clark took it, staring at it with wide eyes.

"Bruce…" he said again, holding it with both hands, tracing the holes for the eyes gingerly with his thumbs. "… are you… what-"

Clark glanced up, but Bruce only crossed his arms over his chest and smiled a little. It was an attempt to appear non-threatening. He wasn't sure it worked.

"It's yours, then?" Clark asked finally.

"Yes," Bruce said.

A small huff of air escaped Clark then, and he hung his head. "Christ."

Still clenching the cowl in his one hand, he plucked the glasses off his face with the other and threw the spectacles rather carelessly over to the table. He buried his face in his free hand.

Bruce picked the glasses up, tracing the rims with his fingers for lack of anything better to do.

"You're…?" Clark asked the floor.

"Batman. Yes."

Bruce only heard Clark's small intake of breath because everything else seemed to have gone utterly silent.

"And I was wondering how I was going to tell you-…"

Clark's voice pitched strangely, and then suddenly his shoulders began shaking.

Bruce had sworn to himself that he would not apologize, never for this, but he found it hard now not to go back on that. The words seemed to stick in his throat when he would not let them out, and swallowing became difficult. "Clark-"

Then Clark leaned back in the chair, face tilted up towards the ceiling. And he was not crying, but laughing.

Quietly, at first, but soon it was loud and uninhibited with a faintly manic twinge.

Bruce let him, but it did not ease the worry knotted in his chest.

"Clark…" he said softly when the laughter was starting to die down into giggles.

"Bruce," Clark said, grinning. "Bruce."

Bruce watched Clark's face carefully, tracing his features for any and all tells of his thoughts.

Until he suddenly found that he couldn't. It was neither gradual, nor sudden; it just was. Bruce blinked, first once, twice, then furiously. Almost frightened. It was like- when he had been reading for a very long time, and then suddenly looked out through the window at something far away. It took time for his eyes, these days, to accommodate for the sudden and abrupt change of distance.

But not this long. And his eyes hadn't shifted even the slightest from Clark's face. Yet he could not seem to see it properly.

"Oh, it dropped then…" Clark was saying, but Bruce's heart was still thundering with the sudden fear of blindness.

Then Clark was finally coming back into focus, and Bruce couldn't help but let out a short breath of relief.

But then his brow furrowed as he studied Clark's face. It seemed… different. And yet perfectly recognizable as Clark. He just looked… very odd, for some reason. As though his head no longer quite matched up with his shoulders.

Bruce saw his hand come up to touch Clark's jaw, his lips.

They felt the same.

"Do you… recognize me?" Clark asked, voice cracking a bit over the words.

Bruce answered with a swipe of his thumb against his lips, first, as if he could erase the strange question. "Of course I do, I- fuck."

Superman caught his forearm when Bruce stumbled backwards, and Bruce attempted to snatch it back by reflex. It wasn't effective, he knew, but he was released nevertheless.

Clark's expression crumpled and he held up his hands in surrender, stepping back towards the chair he had risen from. "I'm sorry."

"You're-"

"Yes. There's-… a low-level telepathic field that-"

"Fucking shit." Bruce interrupted.

Superman laughed, but it was oddly flat and devoid of humor. "I am sorry I had to lie to you."

Bruce stared.

"I'm a fucking idiot."

"You're not." Clark said firmly. "It's technology. It's from my home planet, my species-"

"Your species," Bruce interrupted.

He knew, of course he fucking knew, but this was different and Clark was looking more and more like Superman.

"Yes," the alien said and sighed.

Bruce stared at him, in his ugly flannel and tousled hair.

"How much have you lied?"

Fury flashed in Clark's eyes. "How much have you lied?"

"Some. Not about my species."

"Oh, so you're only human then?" Clark asked angrily.

"Yes."

For a moment Superman still looked furious. Then he suddenly deflated, and his shoulders fell and he buried his face in his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I am aware that this is a bigger deal than I like to think that it is."

Bruce said nothing.

"It's true, what the press say, that I come from Krypton. I'm-… Kryptonian. But I came here as a child, an infant, not as an adult. My parents found me, and I grew up just the way I told you. I haven't lied about anything except what I do when I work late and my abilities. That's it. I promise you."

Bruce found the corner of the table with his hand and used the sensory information to sit back down. He couldn't bring himself to take his eyes off Clark.

"That's it?" Bruce said, in a tone of polite disbelief that Alfred would have been proud of.

Superman frowned. "It's not that different from what you have done, is it?"

"Isn't it?" Bruce asked, "With the powers you have, you could have decided to end me and I wouldn't have been able to do anything to stop you."

Clark collapsed back into the chair and closed his eyes. "Is that what you think of me?"

"Right now, I don't know what I think of you."

Clark opened his eyes and looked at him. He was silent for a moment and then his eyes turned toward the cowl on the table.

"Couldn't you?" he asked, and it seemed to be a genuine question, though Bruce didn't yet understand it, "If I were-… just Clark Kent. Just human. Couldn't you have killed me just as easily?"

"Yes," he said, "I could."

Superman nodded, and silence fell.

In the distance, the faint echoing hum of the air-conditioning whirred.

"You have no special abilities?" Clark finally asked.

"No," Bruce replied. "Only training and an inordinate amount of money."

Clark opened his mouth as if to reply, but then shut it again. Shook his head. "It's… one of the downsides of invulnerability. It doesn't help anyone but me."

Bruce's ribs twinged and for a moment the unpleasant image of the same wound on Clark flashed before his eyes. "I can see what you mean."

Clark looked up sharply, and his brows drew together in a frown.

"I have x-ray vision," he said. "That's why I wouldn't stop bothering you about it. You are aware that two of your ribs are cracked?"

Bruce nodded. "It happened a week ago. That's why I was in Chicago."

Clark scoffed but looked hurt. "I figured."

Bruce watched him, and thought of everything that he wanted to say. The obvious, empty, excuses.

"You know why I did it," he said finally. "The same reason you don't fly to work every morning."

"I do," Clark said, somewhat nonsensically.

Bruce frowned.

"I do fly to work every morning," Clark clarified. "It's how I have managed the commute."

Bruce stared.

Clark shrugged.

Then suddenly a laugh slipped past Bruce's lips. Clark's eyes went wide, and Bruce clapped a hand over his mouth, but he couldn't stop.

"You do realize-" he was interrupted by his own mirth, "the absurdity of your own statement?"

Clark, who had previously looked rather worried, broke down into quiet chuckles.

"You've flown?" Bruce asked, still unable to stop his laughter.

"Every day," Clark affirmed, tears in his eyes. "Sometimes several times. The train's always late."

The thought of it set Bruce off further, and when he spoke he could hardly get the words out. "Did you- in your suit?"

Clark shook his head, temporarily muted by laughter, but then managed: "I have my costume underneath it. Change before I go and when I get there."

Clark had always insisted on biking into town to get the train, saying that he enjoyed the exercise. He'd always blamed his windswept hair on the ride back.

Bruce thought of all the deception involved, the premeditation, and his laughter died out.

Clark seemed to have been struck by a similar thought, because he was no longer smiling either.

"Did you know?" Bruce had to ask.

"Know what?" Clark wondered.

"Who I am. About Batman."

Clark frowned.

"We have met," Bruce said. "And you just told me that you have x-ray vision."

Clark shook his head. "No. No. I wouldn't do something like that."

Bruce stared at him for a moment, and then conceded: "No, you wouldn't."

Clark shook his head, as if to emphasize how little such an action aligned with his values, but leaned back in his chair.

"It's all a coincidence, then?" Bruce asked.

"What is?"

"That you decided to interview me. That you found out about the money."

Clark nodded.

"I have... something like this," he gestured to the room at large, "In the arctic. It has technology from my home planet. That's how I uncovered the money trails."

"Why did you start looking in the first place?"

"You met with Luthor," Clark replied. "I'd known of you before, of course, but you'd never seemed very… relevant. But then you announced your plans to open the subsidiary and met with Luthor, and immediately after there was an uptick LexCorp activity. I thought it was worth investigating whether you were involved. When I found indications that you had hidden large sums of money, I became invested. My computer is more advanced than any from earth, I don't think you have to worry about anyone else figuring it out so quickly."

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "Superman was interested in me?"

"Yes," Clark said, nodding. His gaze fell to the floor. "And then, after what I found… Clark was. I was."

Bruce felt like his insides were being compressed, crushed slowly by the pressure of something inevitable. "Was?"

Clark looked up and met his eyes, but said nothing.

Bruce looked away.

"I'd been following you," he said to the darkness.

"Following me?" Clark asked, sounding both confused and wary.

"Superman," Bruce clarified. "As Batman. I felt that I needed to know more, that you might be a threat to the planet." Bruce turned back to Clark. "You hadn't noticed?"

Clark shook his head. "Nothing except the time I found you."

Bruce smiled slightly. "Alfred would be pleased."

Clark frowned. "He knows about you?"

Bruce nodded, wondering how Clark would feel about that treachery.

"Who else?" Clark asked.

Bruce shook his head. Shrugged. "You."

Clark frowned as though he didn't quite understand what the word meant. Then his mouth fell open, and he shook his head. "What? If it's that secret, why would you tell me?"

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "You were leaving."

Clark's mouth closed with a snap.

They watched each other for a long moment, before Clark said: "I didn't mean to pressure you."

"I know," Bruce replied. "I decided you were worth it."

Clark leaned back in the chair, looking vaguely like someone had punched him in the face. Except, of course, Superman could probably take just about any punch to the face without even flinching.

"Were," Clark finally said.

Bruce said nothing.

Clark looked away.

"My mother," Clark finally said, "My mother knows about me. No one else."

"Except me," Bruce said.

"Except you," Clark agreed.

Then he laughed mirthlessly and said, half to himself: "She was so excited to meet you."

They fell silent again, the soft noises of the night enveloping them. Bruce wondered how much more Clark could hear, what Bruce's own body betrayed.

"Bruce, what do we do now?" Clark suddenly asked.

Bruce looked up from the floor and met his eyes. They were very blue.

For as long as he could remember, there had always been a particular type of bravery that Bruce had lacked. It had made him avoid situations such as this; situations that could bring him to situations such as this. And yet here he was.

He swallowed, mouth dry, and gripped the edge of the table harder.

"Bruce…?"

Bruce addressed the floor. "I know what you think I felt about you. Or, perhaps better put, what you think I didn't feel."

He glanced up, and received a tight nod from Clark.

"I am aware why. I am aware that there are… deficits, in how I treated you. Some were deliberate. Others were… how I am. But you were wrong, when you said I didn't care as much about you as you did about me."

Clark gave a small chuckle.

"Yes, I-… I kind of figured," he gestured towards himself and the room. The cowl.

"I loved you."

Clark froze, and Bruce felt as though he had just stepped off a very large precipice. He forced his face to remain neutral, forced himself to meet Clark's eyes.

He found himself saying it again: "I loved you."

Clark swallowed and blinked rapidly as his eyes grew bright. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a croak came out. He closed his mouth again.

"I haven't stopped," Bruce said.

Clarks eyes widened. "You haven't stopped?"

Unfortunately not, Bruce thought, half-heartedly, and scrubbed a hand across his face. "It would be complicated, and dangerous, and we would increase the risk of being exposed, but… if you agree to it, I would like to keep going."

"Keep going?" Clark asked.

Bruce embraced lunacy and threw caution to the wind: "Keep loving you."

Slowly, a smile spread over Clark's face.

"Okay," he said. "Sounds good to me."

Notes:

This is kind of stupid, and a part of a very rough draft for the last part of this chapter. I did, however, write the rest of the story with it in mind and I can't quite bring myself to completely kill this darling. As you will probably be able to tell, it sets a completely different tone and now I imagine it happening later in the week or something, when the dust has settled and they are re-getting to know each other. If you enjoy it - nice. If you don't - just disregard it:

"How do you…?" Clark trailed off, and the uncertainty painted plain on his features made something in Bruce's gut twist.
"How do I what?" he asked.
"You- Batman." Clark sighed and dragged a hand across his face. "Do you use a voice modulator?"
Bruce shook his head. Adopting Batman's timbre, he replied: "Just change the way I speak."
Clark's eyes widened and a blush crept onto his cheeks.
"Oh my god," he said, sounding horrified. "That's your sex-voice."
Bruce blinked.
"Oh my god," Clark said again, before he started laughing. "Have you seen how tight my suit is? We will never be able to work together!"