— when lex luthor sends superman tumbling into an alternate dimension, it's clark who's left reeling at the differences between his home and this universe. namely, you.
warnings: kinda canon compliant but also absolutely not, awful lot of food and drink mention in this one idk why, once again written with corensupes in mind but its open to interpretation tbh, mr terrific yay, wc 6.8k
note: wrote this so ridiculously long ago, im so sorry... i watched peacemaker way back when and you can see the influence <3
Superman doesn’t pretend to know what Lex Luthor is always going on and on and on about. He listens intently to the dramatic monologues, but it’s the same way he does when Mr Terrific goes off on a tangent about some sort of scientific development, or even when Lois gets caught up in the midst of a specialised investigation and is trying to untangle her thoughts—Superman’s focus doesn’t mean he understands all the fancy, technological jargon.
Clark has spent his existence learning about life on Earth, and what exactly makes it all so special - the sound of a child’s laughter, the tender toastiness of the sun on skin, the blunt teeth that bare into a happy smile. He’s a Kent with equal parts joy and pride. But humanity always manages to find new ways to amaze him.
This time it’s pocket universes, and timeline gateways, and everything in-between.
Clark only wishes he had dedicated more time to researching into… well, anything that Lex Luthor had been rambling about before the man sent him careening through a multi-dimensional portal. There was something about having the intent of trapping the superhero in a nightmare dimension. Whatever that means.
The portal is vast and overwhelming. Like a river left to its own devices. Clark tries desperately to fly back against the current, but a surging tide overpowers him. He doesn’t want to risk the chance of using his super breath or laser eyesight and disrupt the fabric of the world. Mr Terrific had made clear the dangers of that more than enough times.
So Clark lets the next wave of otherworldly matter take him, and trusts that he’ll find a way back home. If not by using his own powers, he has every faith in his friends, his family, his team.
No longer struggling, the swell is all-encompassing and almost relaxing as it cradles his body and takes him away. Clark feels his eyes grow heavy under the weight of interdimensional travel, and just before he succumbs to sleep, he briefly wonders if his journey to Earth was just as kind to him. Despite his circumstances, he knows that he was fortunate to have been sent to Earth, luckier still that he had crashed in Kansas. Clark only hopes that wherever it is that he ends up, he’s given the grace of a soft landing. No metal bars, or concrete towers, or ores of Kryptonite pressed cruelly against his skin.
The re-entry is so gentle, it almost deceives him.
When Clark comes to, he’s in bed. Pillow plush beneath his head, and blanket tucked up to his chin. This must be another one of Lex Luthor’s tricks.
Clark blinks rapidly, trying to gain a sense of where he is and why he’d been sent here, but he only feels dazed. As if waking up from a long and undisturbed sleep. There’s a weight on his chest, an arm holding him close. Heat envelops him, but it isn’t like a presence that he’s felt before. Clark hasn’t been with anyone since a brief six-date stint with Lois Lane sent him reeling, nearing half a year ago.
This tugging sensation feels like the ache from his failed endeavours with Lois hitting him all at once. He jolts upright like electricity is running through his veins, sparking at his core and searing all the way through each vessel.
Your eyes fly open, snapping to find Clark near immediately. He looks a mess - cheeks all flushed, sweat sticking his hair together, and fingers twitching to pull at the neck of his t-shirt.
The tenacity of your caring gaze only unsettles Clark more. He needs to get out of here, figure out where he is, figure out what Luthor has done, and—
Your fingers boldly bridge the stretch between the two of you, planting onto his shoulder. They’re warm and steady, if a little panicked. Your thumb traces a comforting line in the ridge of his collarbone. Clark feels his form ease ever so slightly, before alarm slams into him again and forces his spine to straighten. Danger, he forces the thought into his mind’s supply, body useless against your ministrations.
Clark’s brain is fixated on you—how he’s lying by your side, how you’re looking at him, how you’re aware that the spot between his clavicle and neck is exactly where he rubs at whenever he’s feeling all too much, how you know him. He leans away sharply, hand moving back behind him in a half crawl to reinstate the gap between you. Worry encircles him, making his blood beat a roaring rhythm in his ear and he misjudges the space. His hand slips on the edge of the mattress, and he tumbles onto the floor in a crumpled heap.
“Clark? Are you ok, what happened?” You move automatically, following him out of bed to kneel at his side and hold his cheeks. It’s a grounding technique you’ve long since learnt - the product of kind-hearted compassion and time well spent together.
He scrambles back, forcing distance between you once more as he pushes your hands away. His chest is heaving, eyes wide, and mouth dry. Still, he doesn’t miss the way your breath catches, an ugly mix of confusion and hurt encompassing your features.
“Clark?” you call out again, voice softer now. Muted.
He takes a moment to catch his breath, lungs taking in heavy gulps of air, and let his gaze trail over your face. His eyes follow the arch of your brow, the slope of your nose, the cushion of your lip. He swallows hard and nods stiffly, “I’m ok.”
You falter. But you don’t push.
“And my second question?” you ask after a minute of silence, putting in a clear effort to keep your voice even.
Clark tilts his head to one side.
“What happened?” you murmur.
Clark swallows again. He half wonders if he’ll swallow his tongue with all the trouble.
All of Clark’s awkward reassurances die in his throat. He doesn’t know what makes it so difficult to lie to you, to brush off your careful questions. “I’m ok,” he eventually settles on the echo, avoiding your ask and gaze all at once.
You scratch at the pad of your thumb tentatively, trying to decide what to do next. “Do you want some tea?”
Clark lets out a deep exhale. He nods.
The kettle rumbles through the flat, breaking the calm silence of the night. You’ve turned on a soft yellow lamp so that you can meander your way around the well-loved territory. The skies are still dark, the birds aren’t yet awake.
You’re facing the kitchen counter, watching the water boil as Clark settles at the table. He’s not sitting in the right spot.
Instead, he gazes slowly across the room, taking in every new addition. The soft cotton runner lining the wooden table, the pretty flowers decorating the window sill, the vanilla candle opposite him that’s just light enough not to disturb his astute sense of smell. Then his eyes fall on you - hair mussed from sleep, eyes still bleary, wearing an old t-shirt that he remembers his father buying him. His expression shutters.
He manages to look away a split second before you turn around, a cup in each hand. You walk slowly over to the table, half nervous about your trembling hands making the drinks spill and scald your skin and half anxious about whatever it is that Clark has to tell you this time.
You place the cups down with no big flourish, rolling your lips when Clark reaches out to take the wrong one. You say nothing, and push his one closer. His sweet tooth takes two and a half teaspoons of sugar and the cup is one that you bought him when you first moved in together. He’d picked out yours, too.
Clark takes a sip as you sit down. For a moment, he’s pleasantly surprised by the taste, then his stomach churns with the realisation that you had made it for him, known exactly how to. Your head is ducked, angled towards the steam rising from your cup, but you still watch him from through your lashes. You don’t miss the way his hands wrap tighter around the drink.
“Was it a nightmare?” You finally build up the courage to ask.
“I…I don’t know,” he answers truthfully, though unhelpfully.
“Something to do with Bloodsport? Or Lex Luthor, maybe?” You try to help jog his memory, offering potential avenues of thought.
Clark’s eyes snap from the cup to your face. “What?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to assume,” you stumble, unsure why this conversation is so stilted, so difficult, “I just thought that maybe…”
“You know about Lex Luthor?”
You shrug, brows creasing and lips beginning to twist into a subconscious scowl, “I mean, only what you told me. That he hired Bloodsport, that he’s been looking for the Fortress, that he’s been sourcing Kryptonite. It’s how he kept you trapped last time, too.”
Clark feels his heart pound in his chest, equal parts terrified and relieved. Because you know. You know Clark, and you know Superman, and you know all the trials and tribulations that come with the two.
“I don’t think that I’m meant to be here,” he spits out the words before he can stop them.
“What do you mean?”
“I think Luthor sent me here - to this world, I mean. Maybe on purpose, maybe by mistake, I don’t know. But this isn’t…this isn’t what it’s usually like.”
You stiffen, “But you’re still Clark?”
He nods, expression stern, “I’m still Clark.”
You let out a long exhale, apprehensive though glad. You’d like to think you know Clark enough to believe him across universes, like to think that he trusts you in return. So you accept his weird, confusing truth the best that you can. Just like you’ve accepted every other story he’s told you, every single part of him. “I need you to explain to me what’s happened, as much as you can.”
By the time Clark has finished recounting, the Sun has risen and your tea has gone cold, hardly drunken. The light filters through the curtains, exposing how shaky you’ve become. Your hands have fallen from your cup to your lap, wringing together beneath the table.
“So what now?” you murmur, voice low, “how do we fix this?”
“I need to figure out what Luthor was talking about, and try to find out how to contact Mr Terrific. I think he’ll understand this all better, and he might be able to figure out how I can get back home.”
You try to ignore the clenching in your centre as he shuts you out. This isn’t your Clark, you have to remember that. “Ok, well, let me know if you need any help.”
Clark sends you a tight-lipped smile and your chest binds further.
The both of you spend the next fortnight like two ghosts, haunting the same area in passing. You float around your flat, anguishing at the uncomfortableness of being in your own home. Clark’s taken to sleeping on the sofa, covering your coffee table in papers and books and scribbled notes as he spends every last minute catching up on research.
You stay out of the living room as much as possible, wanting to give Clark his own space. It must be awfully difficult having to navigate a whole new world alone, you think. So similar to what you’re used to, and yet entirely out of reach. So you do what you can. You call into work for him first thing in the morning with a convincing string of excuses, slip him a cup of tea when you feel your own need for a pick me up after a long day of work, and eat dinner together as a disjointed pair.
It’s always a little awkward - quieter than you’re used to. But this Clark is a guest, and you don’t want him to be completely alone.
One night, when you’ve hardly seen him—gone first thing in the morning and late for your usual meal, you locate him at the public library. He’s by himself, head hanging under the soft lamplight. A beacon for someone else to find. You ache at the sight of the alien, taken away from his home for the second time.
Clark looks up at the sound of footfall. He’s distantly aware that he hasn’t heard a stir in a good few hours, he’s closer in recognition that those are your steps.
He looks so much like your Clark that the words of dinner die on your lips. Instead you redirect your feet and sit down next to him, taking a book from the pile stacked on the table. “So, tell me, what are we looking for?”
You begin to take on more and more of his investigative work since then. Clark had always known you were someone to trust - from the way you keep his biggest secret to how kindly you say his name - but the change had been stark, and the adjustment had been rough. He’d only needed time, and you’d more than given him it.
As his assurance in you strengthens, your mealtimes shift from stilted small talk, to conversations about scientific theories, to something more.
“I don’t think the librarian likes me,” he blurts out one day over a nourishing soup and crusty bread.
You raise a brow, “Really? Why?”
“I think she thinks that I’m…suspicious,” his brow furrows and his lips twitch. Your breath hitches.
“Suspicious?”
“Up to no good, maybe. I go in everyday from open to close, reading specifically about wormholes and intergalactic travel and things I don’t even understand.”
Your lips twitch into an amused smile, “I’m sure there’s weirder things to be seen in Metropolis.”
“Like what?”
Your lips peel back to reveal your teeth, exposing your charming penchant to amuse yourself. “Like billionaire CEOs of mega-corporations creating rifts between dimensions to trap beloved superheroes.”
It becomes easier for you and Clark to live together after that moment. His slow blink and sudden bout of ridiculous laughter breaking a barrier between you. He realises you’ve been calling into work for him, and immediately takes over - going in a handful of times before convincing Lois to help him. It turns out she’d been looking into Luthor Corp behind the scenes anyway, it’s a huge step closer.
Clark also starts to pick up on your habits, your likes, and your wants - the same way you already know all of his. He’s the man that you know and love, and yet not at all. And when you mention the same movie for the third time since he crash-landed into your dimension, he finally asks you to watch it.
It’s a funny thing, being invited into a room in your own home, but you breathe a sigh of relief when you settle on the sofa. It feels like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders as you tuck your feet beneath your legs, and lean back into the cushions.
“Alright, you ready for your mind to be blown?” you smirk, waggling your fingers, and Clark finds his expression mirrors yours.
You both watch along to the film with unhidden awe, enraptured by the characters in all their lovely complexities. The shot ends with silence and a car driving off into the distance before the credits begin to roll, and Clark’s jaw drops a little.
“Right!” you laugh at his stunned expression, exactly as you’d hoped it would be. It’s the same reaction your Clark had when you’d first shown him, and you’re pleased to find that this one isn’t so different.
Clark only shakes his head and scrubs a hand over his face in an attempt to regain his senses. “That was good, really good,” he admits, still a little amazed, “it just might have to be a new favourite.”
You grin triumphantly, and it makes Clark want to share his personal joys with you, too. He asks before he can stop to think, “Hey, do you know The Mighty Crabjoys?”
As the night draws on and your conversation never once fades, Clark notices how the weariness in your eyes has begun to lessen in his presence, replaced with genuine joy as you watch him bop his head to his favourite song and later laugh along to his stories.
You’re nearly in tears as he tells you about his exhausting experience of looking after his cousin’s troublesome dog, Krypto. “I’m being honest!” he presses, voice pitching up in indignation through your amusement. “He beats me up all the time. Kara loves it.”
Your merriment builds. The persistent coil around his own heart loosens.
He feels lighter going into the next day, too. Even if it is a whirlwind. An agitated alien appears in the city, screeching loudly from the moment it arrives, and Clark takes it upon himself to protect everyone, regardless of whether or not this is his home. It’s an easy problem to deal with, at the very least. The creature’s already isolated itself in a park, and it doesn’t seem to be at any risk of growing in the next couple of minutes.
A few carefully positioned hits and the alien’s unconscious, lying on its back almost peacefully. Clark nods to himself as he dusts his hands off and scans the horizon line, everyone that’s watching remains a safe distance away.
Only a second after do the Justice Gang appear, a brief moment too late. Tardy as they were, they’ll be granted the pleasure of safely capturing and transporting the creature to the government’s barracks.
Superman doesn’t shy away from the ragtag group. He ignores both the media calling out to him and the judgemental look that the Green Lantern sends him as his gaze flits like a hummingbird, spinning to find Mr Terrific. He spots the stoic superhero slowly descending from the skies, and jumps at the chance.
“Hey, Mr Terrific! What can you tell me about pocket dimensions? And how easily cosmic expansion can be replicated to form them? And how red shift doesn’t immediately cause a rift in the fabric of the universe?” he spits out questions about the creation of the world and critical density that he now understands, mouth moving a mile a minute.
Superman’s sudden knowledge of cosmological theories sends the first alarm bell ringing—Mr Terrific sighs and gestures for the Kryptonian to follow him somewhere more private.
“What’s going on?” the hero demands as soon as the door shuts behind them. “Why do you want to know about parallel universes and the consequences of their existence?”
The explanation comes easier this time, after a tense talk with you and a better debrief with Lois. “And I’ve been trying to find a way back to my dimension,” Superman finishes, not as frantic as he had been before.
Mr Terrific’s face remains as stoic as ever, but it’s obvious his intrigue has been piqued. “So we need to find a way to access Luthor’s technology, and open up a portal for you.”
Superman nods.
“I’ll look into it. You keep on going with your research, it’ll be a benefit to understand your experience better. I assume your…new roommate has been assisting you, too.” The speculation comes out less a question and more a statement. He hadn’t realised that the Justice Gang knew you, too.
“Yeah,” Superman clears his throat, “yeah, she’s been a huge help. Looking into cosmological models and multiverse theories, and–and just making sure I’m ok.”
Mr Terrific lets out a low hum as the Kryptonian confirms his expectations. “That’s a start. She’s a good one, you’re lucky to have her.”
Clark’s not sure why his cheeks warm at the praise. He only knows that his chest feels like its thrumming, as if the compliment had gone straight to his heart instead of yours. “Yeah, I really am.”
When Clark returns home, he’s got a wealth of new information to tell you, cheeks half aching at how hard he’s smiling. Instead, he’s met with a steaming cup of tea on the table. Two and a half teaspoons of sugar.
He finds you on the roof, head tilted back to look at the emerging stars and hands wrapped around your own drink. You don’t turn at the sound of his footsteps, rather just lifting a blanket-covered arm. Clark sidles in close to you.
“Good day?” you whisper, stare fixed sternly on a single point in the sky. A distant light. A beacon, maybe.
Clark lets out a soft noise in confirmation. “Yeah, I had a good day. Did you?”
You only take another sip of your tea.
You wait until Clark follows your gaze - his attention no longer so concentrated on you - before you ask, “tell me about your home?”
Clark perks up, and you can feel his entire frame shift beside you. He’s standing taller.
“I love it there,” he muses, “Sometimes I watch the Earth just spin from outer space. With Kara and Krypto, or just by myself. It’s beautiful - the blues of the seas and the shine of city lights. But it’s not just the big picture, it’s the little things, too. Like the smell at my parent’s farm, and the sweetness of the corn they grow from nothing, and the dirt paths that cut through the fields because Pa lets too many people walk across there. And it’s in the city as well. The other day, this little girl gave me a drawing because I’d helped her grandfather get away from an attack. He has a bad leg but he could still pick her up and swing her around - I wish I could play you the sound of her laughter.”
Clark’s turned molten in his reminiscing, honeyed with fondness that never normally shows so obviously in this strange world. The very picture of love.
You wish you could mirror his feelings.
Instead, you sigh as if expelling all the air from your lungs, body slumping with the force. It’s then that you finally turn to face Clark, eyes soft and brows pinching at the starts, “do you think Clark is ok? My Clark, I mean?”
Clark feels guilt slam into him full force, a weapon of its own. It’s somehow already been a full month in this dimension and yet during that time, he’d never once asked about your alternative version of him, hadn’t even considered how he’d been faring over in his absence. Too busy trying to understand what Lex Luthor had done, and further preoccupied with adjusting to the changes of this new life, he hadn’t thought about the other Clark. Hadn’t thought about how you were missing someone, too.
It must be disconcerting, or distressing more like. Having someone so central in your life suddenly vanish. No, not disappear, but swap. Having a carbon copy take his place and not know who you are. Having the person you love be gone, just like that.
“I’m sure he is. He’s probably also trying to figure out how to get back home,” Clark tries his best to apologise through comfort, and you relax further into his side. The ‘to you’ goes unsaid, but it’s felt all the same.
“You really think so?” You ask, unashamedly seeking out more reassurances.
Clark nods, happy to give them to you. “I’m certain of it. I know Mr Terrific and Lois would be helping him work it out as well - the same way you’re helping me.”
You look back up at the sky, still seeking something far away.
Clark calls your name, so familiar and yet softer than you’ve heard it in the time that he’s been here. “Tell me about your Clark?” he asks.
“What do you want to know?” your voice quietens.
He mulls the question over. Now that he’s thought about it, there’s a million different questions he could ask, a million strings to pull. He decides to let himself be selfish—for both your sakes. “What about how you first met? How did it start?”
Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, mouth curving into a fond smile. “It was three years ago. He stormed into the place that I was working at the time, a complete rush, meaning business but still mild-mannered and polite. He had been chasing a local story, but got caught in the reeds as he focused on the little details. The who’s who and the why’s why - you know the business. He demanded to speak to me, because apparently someone else had suggested that I might be a lead. They were right, you know, but I could hardly get my words out. I just thought he was so handsome.”
Your face softens with affection, and Clark watches you glow.
You and Clark stop shielding the remaining truth from each other after that night, laying it all out in the open for one another to see. When he tells you about his conversation with Mr Terrific, you celebrate with equal enthusiasm. You beam at him, hands gripping at his shoulders as you shriek and cheer. And when he feels lost in his growing yearning to be home, you share that, too, trading stories of love and longing until you fall asleep, pressing closer into one another’s warmth.
You’ve woken up on the sofa for the last three days this way, blanket draped over your curled-up frame and the smell of sweetness in the air. When Clark re-enters, he’s brandishing two plates of breakfast with a proud grin and you can’t help but smile back in return. You wonder when he discovered where the flour was, and miss how he’s put an extra serving of fruit on your pancakes.
It becomes funny to you, thinking back about how you’d danced around Clark for so long. Oddly scared to risk trying and push him away over the short expanse of your clumsy dinners.
It makes Clark huff out a laugh, too, when you mention it one evening. His fingers fumble around a half-peeled potato as his eyes curve into amused crescents, and he shoots you a look in faux warning when he has to tighten his grip.
You only grin and bump his side with your hip. “What? I’m only telling the truth: you holed away and I worked myself up into a fit knocking on the door the first time I made dinner.”
He dumps the vegetable into a pot unceremoniously, still chuckling, and rinses his hands free of starch before he offers them to you.
You quirk a brow, acting as if you won’t take it for a split second.
Clark doesn’t believe your performance at all, but his smile is boyish and eager nonetheless. “C’mon, let me make it up to you.”
Your hand is soft - small and supple in his own. But he doesn’t let himself linger on the thought for too long, instead leading you back to the living room. His old hide-away.
The routine is remarkably domestic: Clark flicks on the radio, turns the old dial until something gentle and slow crackles through the speakers. Music playing lowly, your head finds his chest and his hand meets your waist. You sway from side to side in the quiet solace of your flat, feeling something click into place with each shuffle of your feet. Clark doesn’t stop to consider what that means, only hoping that the way his heart beats against your ear isn’t the same as his alternate. He chooses instead to focus on the here and the now, on him and on you.
Clark can still feel you, phantom fingertips on his skin while he’s back to spending his day in the library, breathing in the stale air and continuing his seemingly endless research.
It’s the fourth time he’s read the same paragraph - something about dark matter, or dark energy. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t care. The realisation slams into him full force and he freezes, eyes staring down at a diagram of a far off galaxy.
Because Clark wants to go home. Really, he does.
He misses the people, the view, the habits. His cornerstone and the love it brings. Everything he had mentioned to you before.
But Clark doesn’t want to have to miss you, too.
It’s an unfair want - he knows it is. Selfish and greedy and painfully true. You’ve become important to Clark, from your tender heart to your telling smile.
He aches at the thought of leaving you, nothing more than a memory when he returns home. The idea of you slipping away pains him even more, a placeholder until your Clark is back in place. The one you love, truly.
Clark swallows thickly, and slams his book shut. A nearby librarygoer looks up at the noise, shooting him a nasty glare. He stammers out a whispered apology - never one to shy away from the meaningful word - and picks up the stack of thick writings with ease. He needs a break. That’s all. The countless hours he’s spent cooped up in the dusty archives is messing with his head, giving him confusing ideas. The wrong ones.
He places the books back on the wooden trolley by the door, careful not to make another disruption as he heads to the exit. It’s only when they’re all lined up on the to-be-returned shelf that Clark notices a red spine and curly white text.
You’ve been meaning to read this book for a while. Before he arrived.
He shakes his head, trying to banish the thought out of his mind. The sooner he gets out of the library, the better - some fresh air and sunlight will do him good, it’s what his parents had always told him out on the farm.
But the image of your smile flashes behind his eyelids - only a split picture, a firework grin - and Clark finds himself checking out the book.
His premonition is unmistakably right. “Researching didn’t go so well today, but I did find this,” he chuckles and you light up at the thoughtful action, eyes bright and lips stretched wide.
You forego the book to bring Clark into a hug, enthusiastic touch returning. “I can’t believe you remembered!” you chirp into his ear.
“Like I would forget.” Clark rolls his eyes without thinking, and he’s glad you can’t see his expression.
You know what it is anyway - tongue darting out to wet his lips as his cheeks turn rosy. As you loosen your arms and settle back down off the balls of your feet, you let yourself study his face. It’s just as you expected.
Despite the movement, neither you nor Clark let go of one another fully. It’s a shared reluctance to separate, a shared want to stay.
Your glow doesn’t dim, but your voice does lower. “Is this weird? Wrong?”
And if that isn’t a billion dollar question. The one that’s been racking through Clark’s brain all day, and keeping him up at night. It haunts his every waking moment, near etched into the ceiling of your living room with how hard he’s thought about it.
“Weird, maybe. Wrong, I don’t think so.” He admits, voice low. “I’m still Clark, and I think I’d fall for you in every timeline, world, dimension.”
Your lashes flutter as he strokes his ring finger down from your temple to your jaw. He takes it as a sign to continue, “Mr Terrific thinks Lex Luthor’s technology malfunctioned - sent me somewhere soft and similar instead of savage. For what it's worth, I’m really glad I ended up here.”
“For what it’s worth, I am too.”
Your whispered reciprocation is all that Clark needs to move.
He presses his lips to yours, so delicate and tender. A swarm of butterflies erupt in your stomach as shy giddiness floods your senses, so strikingly familiar to your first kiss with Clark.
When you pull back, you’re beaming, unable to hide it. Clark is, too.
Clark’s always been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. It’s what makes his smile linger throughout the night and into the next day, even as yet another strange creature seeks to wreak havoc in Metropolis.
It’s a harder fight than he’s used to since being in this dimension. The creature is deft and agile, leaping across rooftops and canopies. Between chasing the alien, Superman sweeps up countless endangered citizens, redepositing them somewhere safe with a pleasant smile. The rescued people hardly have time to splutter out their shocked thanks to the hero before he’s flying away again, red cape fluttering in the wind.
Superman pursues the alien for a few more blocks, before he’s able to tackle it between buildings. The force sends them barrelling toward the ground, whistling through the air. The creature squirms in an attempt to escape, limber hands wailing and tearing at the hero’s tight hold. As the Earth draws closer, Superman lands a timely punch, hitting the alien before they can both form a deep crater.
The force sends the beast careening into the ground, but just before it can make contact, the creature slows. It hovers a mere few metres from the soil. Then, it begins to glow. It’s abnormal and concerning and awfully recognisable. As Superman is pulled into the bright light, he feels his very soul sink.
The portal is vast and overwhelming. Like a river left to its own devices. Clark tries desperately to fly back against the current, but a surging tide overpowers him. He doesn’t want to risk the chance of using his super breath or laser eyesight and disrupt the fabric of the world. Mr Terrific had made clear the dangers of that more than enough times.
Anguish fills his body as he attempts to prevent his heart from splitting into two, pouring out from his core to every fibre of his being. He can’t go home like this, not without saying goodbye.
But the swell is all-encompassing and almost relaxing as it cradles his body and takes him away. Clark feels his eyes grow heavy under the weight of interdimensional travel, and just before he succumbs to sleep, he knows that he was fortunate to have been sent to this dimension, luckier still that he had found you. Because all the way across time and space, Clark thinks of you.
The re-entry is so gentle, it almost deceives him.
When Clark comes to, he’s in bed. Pillow plush beneath his head, and blanket tucked up to his chin. This must be another one of Lex Luthor’s tricks.
Except, as his gaze darts frantically around the room, he recognises the tidy desk with the stack of well-kept notebooks, the dog-eared paperback on the bedside table, the cozy slippers resting on the floor. All things he had carefully placed to make the flat his own home. All things he had bought and collected himself. Alone.
Panic swells in Clark’s chest as he writhes in his bed, cold and empty. His sheets tangle around his frame as he twists and turns, encasing his limbs and holding him tight. It only makes Clark’s fright double. As he struggles against the fabrics, worry encircles him, making his blood beat a roaring rhythm in his ear and he misjudges the space. His hand slips on the edge of the mattress, and he tumbles onto the floor in a crumpled heap.
This time, as Clark catches his breath and aches on the ground, there’s no one there to kneel close and offer a loving hand. There’s no comfort at all.
Hot tears burn at Clark’s eyes and nose. He doesn’t bother to brush them away.
Without you to alleviate it, the ache remains like a vice around Clark’s very core. It’s confusing, confounding how he’d never known about your existence until a little more than two months ago, and now everything feels so off-kilter in your absence.
Clark throws his all into being Superman. The inevitable blows are a good release, and pure gold floods through his veins with the satisfaction of helping others. (The latter is what the media says at least, publications from all over noting how he’s been showing up here, there, everywhere - around the world and back home again in a matter of minutes. Superman nods along with a smile, trying to ignore how it’s nowhere near far enough. Because last time he had found the right creature, sparked the right powers, he’d been transported across universes.)
He’s back in Metropolis, supervising as the Green Lantern captures a particularly indignant creature with his powers when Mr Terrific sidles up next to him.
“I assume it worked, then,” the fellow hero says.
Superman stutters, “what?”
“I take it your our Superman again, you’re not hounding me about cosmology anymore,” Mr Terrific elaborates.
“Yeah,” Superman chokes out, “yeah, it’s me. It worked.”
Mr Terrific gives a pleased tilt of his head. “Must be nice to be home again. I imagine it’s the same for the other you, too.”
Superman’s first nod is curt and stiff. The second is softer, shoulders slumped in acceptance and long-waiting compliance. Because the alternate version of him is right where he should be—with you.
The thought of your happiness makes the transition back into his own regular life easier. All Clark has to do is imagine your smile as your own Clark had found you, no doubt the first thing he had done upon returning home. He’s sure you’d embrace him with those caring hands and that honeyed look. And the tears you’d shed during his absence would be nothing more than a bad dream. He’d be nothing more than a distant afterthought.
So Clark falls back into routine, waking up in the morning with the Sun and watching over the world until he has to get ready to head to the Daily Planet. The journey to the newsroom is unremarkable, allowing him to fall into a stupor as his body takes him to the door. Notably the daze brings Clark to arrive perfectly on time, a feat of its own. It makes the lift uncomfortably packed and disgustingly humid with shallow breaths, but Clark distracts himself with creating a mental to-do list. He’ll have to check over what work the other Clark had completed over the last few months - if any. He feels a smidgen of remorse for the lack of effort on his part.
He’s made a cup of coffee, thanked the stars above that he’d missed the sudden downpour of rain by mere minutes, and has started organising the new files on his computer when the lift dings again. Jimmy quirks a brow, usually this is the time that Clark arrives, hair dishevelled and apologies spilling out one after another, but he’s clearly sitting over at his desk.
Everyone watches as the doors peel open to reveal you, sodden and distressed and beautiful. Just how Clark remembers you.
Clark is on his feet in an instant. He rushes over to you without a second thought, ushering you into the warmth and the dry. He places his coat over your shoulders with a reverent touch, granting you the privilege of sitting at his desk.
You look over him as he draws back to lean on the edge of the table - inky black curls, striking blue eyes, a soft and sweet smile. “Clark,” you gasp out before you can think twice.
Clark feels that same old tug, finally loosening his chest once more.
You begin to flush and stammer at his tender expression, blurting out an apology as embarrassment fills you from the inside-out.
Because you don’t know Clark. This is only your first time meeting him and you’d blurted out his name without introduction like a creep, or maybe just a fool. And yet, something - something - tells you that you do. That you really know him.
The same something tells you that he knows you, too.
Clark shakes his head, dismissing your worries with ease. “Are you ok, what happened?” he asks instead, voice velvety and comforting in its low timbre.
“I’m ok,” you respond.
“And my second question?”
The strange sense of closeness - deja vu, perhaps - grows tenfold, but you only scrub a hand over your face to dispel the distracting thought, releasing a few heavy droplets as you do.
Instead of answering immediately, you pull out a newspaper from beneath your jacket. It’s wrinkled, with a few splodges of ink running where the rain had gotten past your makeshift defence, but legible all the same. You point at the picture of Superman on the front cover, printed just above the byline of his name. “I’m ok,” you repeat as you regain your courage, “I just have a story to tell you about Superman—he found me, he helped me.”
Clark nods, hoping that his excitement isn’t too obvious so as not to scare you off. He tries to dampen down his enthusiasm - shifting his weight from one leg to the other before forcing himself to stand still. He transfers the energy into biting the inside of his cheek. He should’ve known better than to think alternate dimensions, wicked megalomaniacs by the name of Lex Luthor, and unfamiliar aliens would keep you apart.
Finally, he lets out a deep exhale as he silently thanks his alternate version again, and settles on a starting question: “before we begin, do you want some tea?”
sorry i was actually making really good traction working on a clark fic but then i started watching the pitt yesterday as per my friend's request and i cant stop thinking about it
The guns break through the silence like a crack of thunder.
The soldiers had used them before, of course, taught to aim and shoot, but the noise still comes as a sudden shock. An unnatural alarm.
There’s hardly a second to call out in either order or warning; to raise a protective arm manned with a retaliating weapon; to catch the sound of bullets whistling through the air, before the men start dropping to the ground.
Projectiles find their targets. Blood wets the earth.
Each dull thud of a sunken soul creates another round of clamour. A gasp, a shout, a desperate wheeze of breath—all too terrified to stay quiet any longer.
What were they doing out here, so far away from their homes? The men begin to think, finally finding their voices. This is no place for a father, husband, or son. This is no place for humanity.
A shaky prayer passes through his lips. Each syllable tumbling out with a stammer, plummeting through the smoky air. But the gunpowder is thick, and the invocation fails. The plea goes unfinished.
The bullet tears through his proud uniform and sinks into his lung, breaking through the final defence of his ribcage. The deep blue fabric hides a list of lies, including the worst of the wound as it soaks in the blood, absorbing the sickening red.
The soldier falls. As does his brother beside him, each in opposite directions. The warzone will offer no comfort to the men, not even the illusion of company in their final moments.
The ground beneath him is frozen solid by the snow, and his blood only moistens the mud, both him and the earth choking on it. He’d curse and cry and criticise if he had the energy to. Instead, his last noise is a pitiful groan, and his last thought is a series of unanswered questions: where was God? Was He even listening?
Coldness emerges as the furnace of his heart slows. It replaces his core, and doesn’t leave. It is the last thing he feels, and it is also the first.
Even as he is reborn, it lingers. Knowing.
Lingers as he is chained in the damp darkness of the basement, and struggles to spit the words out from his mouth. A disconnect that simultaneously binds and frustrates, confining how he longs to beg for warmth.
Lingers even through flames and searing heat that somehow lead to a respite, chest heaving and skin burnt. His memories turn to ash but it is still there, still demanding to be felt. Not in the crevices of his brain, or the shadows of his throat, but in his every piece. Nagging and sewn.
Lingers as the old man succumbs to his wounds. Too far and too late in a regret that will sit heavy on his conscience for eternity. His last rasping draw of breath bringing a reminder of something untimely, something wrong.
The abnormality of it all draws forward rage, and they shoot him at the threshold of his friend’s land. He lies in the snow, body bleeding and lungs choking as he looks up at the flurries. It is the same snow that cloaks the mountains above and the soil below. Sent down in smatterings of crisp white, burying summer’s glow. Burying soldiers, and meagre belongings, and the remnants of half-burnt towers.
He refuses to let the coldness hide this truth, hide his unwanted existence. He travels to Geneva, and it is snowing there, too.
As he embarks on his journey, he passes men and women alike, adorning luxurious furs and draped in thick embroidered fabrics to keep warm. They cling to each other, hand in hand, skin to skin. He presses a clenched fist to his aching chest, but the want doesn’t dull. He begs again - this time to his God - to listen.
He wishes the cold was numb as the old man’s books had described. But it is terrible and bitter, painful in the way that it bites at his every fibre. Each sinew, each tissue.
It makes him desperate, pleading once again.
It makes his grip tighten and his cry roar, as his Creator rejects him over and over and over and over again. It lingers, and he flings Victor - that wicked, wicked God - through the bedposts and into a wretched lump of limbs and torso onto the floor as he seeks revenge. Retribution.
Then, there is a split second of reprieve. A second only and nothing more.
Something unknown sparks in his chest. A lightning bolt of new feeling, new life.
Fiery hair. A withering leaf. A gunshot wound. Slowly expanding, crimson blood draining and weakening.
He listens to her plea - all that he can do, and hopes that someone will one day hear his own.
Elizabeth grows paler as her dress darkens. The rich red stains her ivory fabric, his mismatched hands, the very earth, as she fades away and returns to the stars.
The world is crueller than he remembers, and even colder. It lingers as he is hunted, over and over and over and over again.
This time the bullets do not kill him. And neither does the snow.
Pushed all the way to the farthest lands north, his broken body freezes endlessly. It bleeds and breathes and is submerged in the depths of the icy waters. And still, the cold comes from within, from him.
It lingers. Through sorrow and forgiveness, it lingers. Coldness that manifests in his unnatural body as pain - harsh and heart-wrenching and human. Evidence of intelligence.
The sun is reliable in its radiance when he leaves the ship, decorating the sea and sky alike in hues of brilliant orange and yellow and blue and pink. It is the only time that he has been able to leave first, unharmed and unscathed. The daylight does not warm his body, but it touches his soul. The beauty of a world, simple and pure. Natural.
There's a growing trail across the castle, a history of lingering touches. The tower stairwell in the midst of the night when you had slipped out of bed and he had dutifully followed; the opposite wing to the endless diplomacy meetings of which your father rarely let you sit in despite your endless knowledge and steel disposition; behind the shroud of towering woven tapestries, bloodlines and legacies you could hardly care less about. You're good at your role - mostly standing pretty and upholding the reputation of the royal house - so the depiction of bloody, brutal victories do little to disturb you. They should.
Today, you simply pull Clark into your room with surprising force, unexpected from someone so sheltered as you. Quickly, in a moment's breath, you clash your lips to his, the sudden reduction of space between you making your teeth smack against his. Amusement curls in your navel at the rush of intensity, though you squash it down before it can cause the corner of your lips to twitch upwards, to pull away from his.
Instead, you take the chance to sink your teeth into his plush lower lip. A whine escapes Clark's throat, pushed up from somewhere deep below, thrumming from want. His body freezes in shock, blasphemy, as pleasure breaks his vow of silence. He needs to fall to your feet, knees and forehead pressed to the cold stone floor. He needs to beg for your forgiveness with the presentation of himself before you, closing his throat once more and ensuring his voice falls into disuse. He needs to swear on his life.
You distract Clark by pushing your tongue into his mouth, caressing the roof of his mouth as you seek more of those pretty, ungodly noises—consequences be damned. You seek to hold him closer, fingernails pinching into his skin as you cling onto the solid meat of his biceps. They've long since been earned, battered into shape. All for your sake, all to keep you safe.
Clark has spent a lifetime under your father's care. The sons of neighbouring provinces were taken as mere babes and taught to heed commands, taught to take a blow, taught to blindly obey. With no time for warmth to brew in his chest, for a gentle touch to stir up trampled desires, for anything other than the orders barked at him, your attention came as a shock.
Clark had waded through your advances, half dizzy as he struggled to navigate your piercing gaze and sharpened smirk. Even now, as you pull back, chest heaving and a string of spit still connecting you both - dangerous evidence of your tryst -, Clark feels his heart stutter. He pushes down the thought that it might just be loud enough to hear. He finds he doesn’t really care.
Because your expression is no longer the pointed look that you give idiotic members of the council before cutting them down with your sharp words, nor the seductive smile that would curve on your lips as you sought out a means to stave off your boredom once your father had dismissed you. Rather, there’s something warmer. A glint in your eye and a trickle of fondness tucked under your veins. You don’t when that happened - genuinity isn’t a trait that you’ve harboured, it isn’t something worth maintaining.
But as Clark’s thumb brushes over your spit-slick lips, replacing the thread of saliva with his firm touch, your breath catches in your throat for a split second. You try your best to recall your lifelong lessons: stoicism, resilience, poise. You force your lungs to work again, expelling hot air over his skin. It’s proof that you're not so cold, not to Clark anyway, and your knight finally lets the pleased hum rumble through his chest. He’s long since accepted his duty to die by the sword. He doesn’t care if it’s for protection or love—so long as it’s you.
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