It does all seem extremely unlikely, this moment, this conversation. And it's probably true that if Clark thought Superman could literally do it all, he'd have no need for Clark Kent at all. It's also true he died once. True he doesn't blame Bruce for that either.

He'd been sitting crossed legged on the smooth ground but now gets up, a human awkwardness to the motion despite everything. It's an increasingly common move, to step up behind where Bruce is stationed and sitting at the terminal, as if he were at his own work stations back home, and cup his shoulders in his hands and then bury a kiss in his hair, on the top of his head.

Sometimes an excuse just to smell the fancy hair whatever Bruce puts in there, but most times that's a happy bonus.

"He was hopeful," Clark says, after, looking at the screen over top of Bruce's head. "In a way I hadn't been before. Even if he was wrong, that's something."