The Truth ☀️🦇
1. Truth Under a Broken Sky
Coordinates: low orbit over Rann. Mission status: Thanagarian artifact neutralized. Participants: World’s Finest (currently, off-universe).
The final blow is delivered in tandem, as always. Clark holds the gravitational core with both hands, containing an explosion that could have folded the city in on itself, while Bruce—magnetically anchored to a shattered satellite—inserts the disruptor manually, milliseconds from implosion.
There’s no margin for error. There never is when it’s the two of them.
The artifact collapses inward with a dull sound, nonexistent in the vacuum. Space stills. The debris drifts like a metallic cemetery.
Clark exhales first. Bruce takes a few seconds longer.
They remain suspended in silence, floating among alien junk and stars that are too bright. Clark moves closer—close enough for Bruce to notice without sensors.
Clark: Are you okay?
The question is automatic. Mission routine. Nothing personal.
Bruce opens his mouth to give the usual answer.
Fine. Operational. No structural damage.
But something catches. Like an invisible hook around his chest.
Bruce: No.
The silence that follows is… enormous.
Clark blinks. Not because he didn’t understand, but because his brain needs an extra second to slot that answer into the right place.
Clark: …no?
Bruce closes his eyes. Just for a second. Long enough to know he can’t fix it now.
Bruce: I’m not okay. I’m tired. My ribs hurt. And I hate fighting intergalactic things that could kill me just by… thinking too hard.
Clark doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t smile.
Clark: Bruce…
The name, said like that, without the suit as a buffer, tightens something behind his sternum.
Bruce: I’m human—he continues, because he can’t stop now. And sometimes I forget that matters until I’m hanging off a broken satellite waiting for something not to explode.
Clark closes the distance completely now. He doesn’t touch him. He respects that boundary as if it were sacred.
Clark: Thank you for telling me.
Bruce opens his eyes. Frowns.
Bruce: That wasn’t… an invitation to—
Clark: I know.
A few seconds pass. Then a few more. Space doesn’t rush anyone.
Clark: Do you want me to take you back? Or would you rather use the Zeta?
Bruce should lie. Say it doesn’t matter. That he doesn’t need anything.
He can’t.
Bruce: You. I hate Zeta beams, anyway.
Clark nods without hesitation.
They don’t say anything else. They’re a little scared.
Chapter 2
