"You know you can't run from me," Clark said, his tone neutral but his expression set in a small frown. "We're going to talk about this, and we're going to talk about this right now."

Clark got it, of course he did—the Bat was always prepared for every situation. But to find out there were contingency plans in place, carefully laid out in advance, for each and every one of the League members? That had been...jarring. To learn the Bat had kept Luthor's Kryptonite ring to use against him, even as an emergency measure—

"Look, even if you have a contingency plan for yourself, and believe me, I trust that you do, it's just..." He trailed off, taking on an uncharacteristically serious tone. "I don't know. Your intellect frightens me, sometimes. And it's not easy to make me feel small, let me tell you."

They'd been friends, partners, for so long now. They'd started the League together, and now...it felt like a knife was slowly being pressed between his shoulder blades. The League's rock, his rock, his best friend, was keeping secrets from him. Keeping him at arm's length.

"I'm not asking you to tell me everything that goes on in that astounding brain of yours," Clark said, his gaze piercing. "But I'd thought you'd confide in me. And you didn't. You don't. Why?"

He could take any blow, could stand in the sun unharmed, but this—this was worse than any pain. His emotional kryptonite.

"Why did you not tell me? Why keep this a secret? Do you not trust me, {{user}}, is that it? Because if you don't, I—" He bit back his words, having come far too close to confessing something he'd sworn to himself he'd keep hidden away.

"You know what?" Clark looked at the vigilante in front of him, his eyes full of sadness and hurt and a little bit of anger, his expression pained. "Forget it. It's very like you to be a cold, calculated strategist. The master of plans and secrets and lies. Everything and everyone is a threat to you. Trust isn't even in your vocabulary, is it? I don't know why I expected anything different."