Chapter Text
The Justice League had been together for six months, and already it felt like they’d been through decades. Six months of alien invasions, terrorist cells with technology that had no right existing on Earth, and magical artifacts that turned entire cities into something out of a fever dream. Six months of compromise, adaptation, and learning to trust one another — even the ones who didn’t seem particularly inclined to give trust easily.
Especially Batman.
The others had powers. Flash could cross continents before Bruce could cross a street. Diana could bring down tanks with her bare hands. Arthur commanded oceans. Clark — well, Clark was Superman. Bruce was the one who had to plan for when all of that still wasn’t enough. The one who arrived with contingency plans in triplicate, who mapped the battlefield before stepping onto it. It wasn’t that they didn’t respect him — they did. They just didn’t understand him.
Clark wasn’t sure anyone did.
That night, their meeting room at the Watchtower was quieter than usual. The crisis they’d just finished had been quick and clean — a rare thing, leaving them with time to debrief without still bleeding all over the floor. It started off the way these things always did: Wonder Woman taking point, summarizing the mission’s success, Flash chiming in with the running tally of how many civilians he’d saved (“Not that anyone’s counting, but it was forty-eight. Wait, forty-nine, the cat counts, right?”), Arthur grumbling about dry air.
And Batman, sitting near the far end of the table, making notes on a secure datapad like the conversation didn’t exist.
Eventually, the topic drifted. It always did. That was the strange thing about the League — save the world, and then try to pretend you were just coworkers having a normal meeting. Jokes slipped in between talk of strategy, little bits of personality poking through the armor.
“Still weird you don’t have powers,” Barry said, leaning back in his chair and pointing a finger across the table at Bruce. “Not a single one of us knows what you even look like under there.”
Bruce didn’t glance up. “That’s the point.”
“Come on,” Hal Jordan said, grinning like a man who had made trouble his hobby. “We all shared something. I told you guys my middle name, even though I swore I’d take it to my grave. Wonderwomen’s talked about Themyscira. Superman—” He waved in Superman’s direction. “—well, you know.”
Clark’s brows rose. “What about me?”
“You’re Superman. You fly around in broad daylight. You’re basically an open book. Batman’s like… the opposite.”
Diana folded her arms, a curious smile tugging at her mouth. “Perhaps that is his advantage. If he wishes to remain a mystery, why not allow him that?”
“Because,” Barry said, leaning forward like he was unveiling a great truth, “I need to know if under that mask is, like, a seventy-year-old dude with incredible posture or some kind of scarred-up mercenary who sleeps in a coffin.”
Finally, Bruce looked up. Not for long — just enough to make eye contact with Barry, the weight of his stare shutting the younger man up for a good three seconds before Flash recovered with an awkward laugh.
That’s when Hal’s grin widened. “I’ve got it. Superman, you’ve got those eyes, right? Can’t you just—” He tapped the side of his head. “You know. X-ray right through it?”
Clark sat back in his chair, caught between amusement and discomfort. “I could,” he admitted slowly, “but that’d be cheating.”
Hal smirked. “Cheating only counts if there are rules.”
“Then we’ll make it a bet,” Barry said instantly, grinning like a kid who’d just invented a game. “No powers, no tech, no magic. Just good old-fashioned detective work. First person to figure out who Batman really is wins… something. We’ll figure that part out later.”
Diana shook her head, though there was a glimmer of interest in her eyes. “You are aware that discovering the identity of someone who does not wish it to be known is an invasion of privacy?”
“Sure,” Barry said, “but it’s Batman. He’ll respect the hustle.”
Bruce’s voice cut through them, dry and final. “I won’t.”
They laughed anyway.
Clark didn’t. He watched Batman gather his things, clearly ready to leave the moment the discussion veered into this territory. But there was something in the way Bruce adjusted his gloves — slow, deliberate, the faintest pause before he stood — that lodged in Clark’s mind.
The conversation kept going after Batman left, half-serious, half-joking. But by the end of it, they’d made him the designated contender. No powers. No cheating. Just his own two eyes, his instincts, and the training that had made him one of the best investigative reporters in the country.
Clark Kent had solved murders and uncovered political corruption that spanned continents. Surely, finding out the man behind the cowl couldn’t be harder than that.
Right?