The Gotham Girl and the Farm Golden Retriever - Part 2
The Burden of Love (with +18) - Part 1
What I Almost Lost - Part 2
Home Is You - Part 3
Smallville Summers (Part 1)
The Heart He Chooses (Part 2)
Under the Smallville Sky (Part 3)
Good Enough - Part 1
The Taste of Tomorrow - Part 2
Tailored Lies - Part 1
Echoes of Love Lost - Part 2
📝 Headcanons:
Clark Kent in Love
Clark Kent in Love PT. 2
Clark Kent loves you like this…
Clark Kent as a Husband
Angry Clark Kent Exists in the Shadows
Clark Kent with an Introverted Partner
✨ Protagonist with Powers or Destiny:
Among spider webs
Blooming Secrets
Destined Again
Between the Sun and Eternity
🤴 Dad!Clark Kent Collection
The Life He Always Dreamed Of
The Weight of Love
Between Us, a New Heart
Two Missions
Two Kents and One Heart
🤴 Dad!Clark Kent Collection (Son Ethan)
You Above All
Two Kents and One Heart
If you ever see my fics posted on another blog or app without my permission, please let me know. My work comes from my own imagination and is not to be copied or translated without my consent.
Sinopsis: After disappearing without a trace for thirty-one days, the woman Clark Kent loves becomes nothing more than a ghost haunting every corner of his life.
Thirty days since the last time he saw her. Thirty days since he was left alone.
Thirty sleepless nights. Or almost sleepless. Sometimes he closed his eyes out of exhaustion, out of pure physical fatigue, because the human body had limits and his, even if it was stronger than anyone else’s, had them too. But sleeping was not resting. Sleeping was dreaming of her again. Sleeping was waking up with her name on his lips and an emptiness in his chest. Sleeping was worse than being awake.
Thirty dawns in which Clark opened his eyes and, for one second, just one, he did not remember what had happened. He did not remember that she was gone. He did not remember the night at the restaurant. He did not remember the hours spent waiting. He did not remember the unanswered messages. For one second, just one, the world was still the same as before. The world where she existed. The world where she was going to arrive at the restaurant with that shy smile, as if she were not used to smiling. The world where he was going to give her the key to his apartment and say those words he had rehearsed so many times in the men’s bathroom.
And then everything came crashing down on him like a wave of cement. His chest caved in. His throat closed up. And he had to remember how to breathe again. Every morning. As if it were the first time he was learning. As if his lungs had forgotten how air worked. He inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. And again. And again. Until the knot in his throat loosened a little. Until he could get out of bed. Until he could look at himself in the mirror and see his red, swollen eyes, and not recognize himself.
Your memory was branded into him like a hot iron. In every corner of his apartment. In every street you had walked together. In every coffee you had shared. In every laugh, in every kiss. He could not get rid of you. And the worst part was that he did not want to. Because if he got rid of your memory, he would have nothing left. Because you were everything he had. Because without you, without the hope that you would come back, he did not know who he was.
It was strange. Clark thought about it many times, during those long hours before dawn when he could not sleep and simply stared at the ceiling, his empty hands resting over his chest. It was strange because when a person says goodbye to you, when they sit in front of you and say, “It’s over,” “I’m leaving,” “I don’t want to continue,” it hurts. It hurts a lot. But at least you understand. At least you know what happened. At least you have an explanation, even if it is a bad one. And then you slowly walk away, healing with time, learning to live without that person. It hurts, but it is possible. You can go on.
But what happens when someone leaves without saying anything? What happens when one day they are there and the next they are not? What happens when you never knew what you did wrong, or whether you did anything wrong at all, or whether she was okay, or whether something happened to her, or whether she simply decided she no longer wanted anything to do with you? How do you heal from that? How do you close a wound that has no shape? How do you bury someone when you do not know if they are dead or alive?
Clark went over everything he had lived with you, day and night. He could not help it. It was as if his brain were trapped in a circle he could not escape. The things you said to him. The things he said to you. The times you laughed. The times you looked sad and he did not know why. The times your eyes drifted into emptiness and he thought you were only tired. The times your smile faltered for one second and he did not ask anything because he did not want to make you uncomfortable.
Had something about him disappointed you? Had he said something wrong? Had he done something wrong? Had he failed you somehow without realizing it? Had he not given you enough attention? Had he not told you enough that he loved you? Why had you not told him? Why had you said nothing? Why had you left him like that, without a word, without an explanation, without a goodbye? Did he deserve that? Had he done something so terrible that it justified you disappearing without a trace?
Those were the questions circling his mind as he looked out the window of his apartment, watching the city lights, watching how people continued with their lives while his had stopped completely. Or while he remained suspended above the city, so high the cold sank into his bones, so high he could barely breathe, sharpening his hearing, his super hearing, the one that could hear a sigh from miles away, the one that could distinguish one heartbeat among millions. He listened for something, anything, something he recognized, something that belonged to you. Your laugh. Your voice. Your heart beating. Something. Anything.
But he heard nothing. Only the noise of the city. Only other people’s lives. Only the silence of not finding you.
He was waiting for you. Even though he knew nothing about you, even though he had not heard from you in a month, even though every day he woke up hoping that this would be the day and every day he went to bed with the same disappointment, he was waiting for you. He searched for you in every face, in every person as he walked to or from home. He looked at women who resembled you in the way they walked, in the way they wore their hair, in the way they lowered their gaze when someone looked at them. But it was not you. It was never you. You were not there. There was nothing of you. As if you had vanished. As if you had never existed.
At the Daily Planet, things continued as usual. That was the cruelest part of all. That the world kept turning when yours had shattered. People worked, laughed, published new articles, complained about the coffee, talked about politics, sports, the weather. Everything was the same. Everything kept going the same way. But to Clark, everything looked different. The colors were duller, as if someone had lowered the brightness of the world. The lights dimmer, as if it were always night. The voices crossing his ears, the ones that once seemed interesting or amusing or annoying, now sounded so distant, as if he were behind thick glass he could not break. As if he were inside a bubble and the rest of the world were outside, and he could not get out, and no one could come in.
His gaze never went farther than his desk and your desk. Empty. The things that belonged to you were no longer there. The company had removed them, stored them in an inventory box as if they were ownerless objects. Well, almost all of them. There was still a star-shaped coaster you had used so many times. You had left it there one afternoon, after he brought you coffee, and you never took it with you. Clark had it on his desk. It was yours. And that was the little that remained of you in that place where you had once worked together, where you used to look at each other over the screens, where you used to pass handwritten notes in secret, where he used to steal kisses from you when no one was watching.
Now only a coaster remained. A cardboard circle with a star drawn on it. And Clark looked at it sometimes, touched it, turned it between his fingers, as if he could still feel your warmth. As if he could find you in its worn edges.
Perry called him into his office a week after you disappeared without a trace. Clark entered with slumped shoulders, lost eyes, a little unkempt. He had not shaved that day. Nor the day before. Nor the day before that. His shirt was badly ironed, his hair messy, the dark circles beneath his eyes so marked they looked like bruises. Perry looked at him in silence for a moment, with those eyes of his that had seen everything in this newspaper, and something in his gaze softened. But he said nothing. It was not his style.
“Clark, sit down,” Perry said, pointing to the chair in front of him.
Clark sat. He said nothing. He could not. He felt that if he opened his mouth, a sound would come out that he did not want anyone to hear. A moan. A whimper. A contained sob he had been keeping to himself for days, for the lonely nights, for when no one could see him. So he only nodded and waited.
Perry took a white envelope from his desk and placed it in front of Clark. It was a normal envelope, the kind used in offices, with no decoration, no return name. Only the recipient: Daily Planet. Attention: Perry White.
“Kent, this arrived a few days ago,” Perry said, his voice grave, serious. “No return address. Nothing. Just the envelope and what was inside. It’s a resignation letter.”
Clark lifted his gaze. His eyes, which had not shone in days, opened a little wider. The resignation letter. Your resignation letter. So you had resigned. So you were not planning to come back. So it was official. It was not only that you had not arrived at the restaurant. It was that you had left. Forever.
“The problem is that I tried calling the number we had for her in her file,” Perry continued, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his tie, a nervous gesture Clark knew well. “No one answered. I tried several times. Different days, different hours. No one ever answered. As if that number didn’t exist. As if she had never existed.”
Clark stared at him without understanding. Or understanding too much. Because you did not answer him either. Because he had also tried calling you. Hundreds of times. Thousands. From his phone. From other phones, just in case you had blocked his. And never, not once, did you answer. Never. Not a message. Not a sign of life.
“She doesn’t answer you either?” Clark asked, and his voice sounded hoarse, as if he had not used it in days. Because yes, he had gone days without talking to anyone. Without wanting to talk to anyone. Without having anything to say.
Perry shook his head. “No. So we closed her file. It’s protocol. No return address, no way to contact her... there’s nothing else we can do. I’m sorry, Kent. I know you and she... well, I know you were close.”
Close. What a small word to describe what you felt for her. Close was nothing. Close was not staying awake all night thinking about her. Close was not searching for her in every face. Close was not crying in the shower so no one would hear you. Close was not feeling empty inside because someone had taken a part of you that you did not know how to recover.
Clark left Perry’s office slowly that day. His feet barely touched the floor. His mind was somewhere else. And as he passed by what used to be your desk, he saw Sarah, the intern, a young girl with brown hair and a frightened face, gathering your things. The last ones left. The pens. The paper clips. A spiral notebook. Some colored sticky notes. Sarah was placing them carefully into a cardboard box, as if handling something fragile. And when she looked up and saw Clark, she froze.
“Mr. Kent,” Sarah whispered. Her hands trembled a little. She did not know whether what she was about to do was right or wrong. “I... Miss Lane told me that before sending all of this to the inventory box, I should... I should stop by your desk.”
Clark looked at the box. A brown cardboard box, the kind they used for filing documents. Inside were the remains of your life at the Daily Planet. The little that was left of you in that building. He nodded with a lopsided smile. It was not his usual one. It was not that wide, warm smile he had once shown with pride, the one that revealed the two dimples in his cheeks and made everyone feel welcome. No. It was only a lopsided, sad, tired smile. The smile of someone who has lost something and does not know how to get it back.
Sarah stepped away a little, pretending to organize the empty desk, though in reality she was glancing over, worried. Everyone at the newspaper knew Clark was not okay. Everyone had noticed. But no one knew what to say to him. No one knew how to help him.
Clark took the box and carried it to his desk. He sat down slowly, as if it were hard for him to remain standing. And he began to empty it, object by object, like someone unearthing a memory.
First he found a small brown wallet. It was leather, worn at the corners, with a metal clasp that did not close all the way. He opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was your ID badge to enter the Planet. The photo was the one they had taken of you on your first day, when you arrived with that serious expression of someone who was not used to having their picture taken. You must have left it that night. That night he walked you to your apartment. That night that was the last time he saw you alive, though he did not know it.
Then he found small papers, interview notes you had both made together. He recognized his own handwriting on some of them. On others, yours. Tight, tiny handwriting, as if you wanted to take up as little space as possible. As if you were afraid of bothering anyone. There were lists of questions. There were badly written addresses. There were doodles in the margins, small drawings you made when you were bored. Stars. Many stars. Like the one on the coaster.
And then, at the bottom of the wallet, behind the Planet badge, he found a photo. Carefully kept, like a treasure. Like something you never wanted to lose.
He recognized it instantly.
It was your face. Not the badge photo, serious and formal. The real you. Smiling. But not at the camera. At him.
He remembered that time. He had invited you to the movies, one of your first dates, when you were still getting to know each other, when he still did not know he was going to fall in love with you down to the bone. As you left, you saw a photo booth, one of those in shopping malls, with the red curtain and the flash that blinded you.
“I don’t have pictures of myself,” you said, looking at the booth, and he noticed something in your voice. It was not just an observation. It was a confession. As if you were saying that no one had ever wanted to take a picture of you.
Clark smiled, that smile you liked so much. “Then let’s go,” he said, taking your hand. And you looked at him with those eyes that sometimes drifted into emptiness, but that at that moment were filled with something close to hope. “We should have pictures of us from now on,” he suggested. And you nodded, holding his hand. The hand you always held. The hand he believed you loved holding because it made you feel safe.
There was the photo. He was holding the popcorn with one hand, and with the other he had his arm around your waist, pulling you close to him. At first, you were looking at the camera, posing, serious. But the photographer, a young impatient girl, pressed the button too soon. Without giving you time to pose. Maybe Clark did have time. He was smiling at the camera, happy, carefree, with that enormous smile everyone liked so much. But you... you were not looking at the camera. You were looking at him. With a smile that remained captured in the photo forever. A smile he did not remember ever seeing on you before. A smile that said “I love you” without using words. A smile that now, one month later, broke his heart into a thousand pieces.
Then why? Why, if you seemed so happy, had you left him? Why was there no farewell voicemail from you, crying and telling him not to look for you anymore? Why had you not shown up at his apartment one night, knocked on the door, sat in front of him, and said, “I don’t want to continue,” “Don’t look for me anymore,” “This is over”? Why had you not given him that chance? Why had you not allowed him at least to say goodbye? Why had you left him with so many questions? Why was his last memory of you that smile in the photo, and not a farewell? Why was his last memory a happy one, and why did that make everything hurt even more?
Clark sighed. A long, deep sigh that rose from the very bottom of his chest. And he placed the little he had of you back into the box. The wallet. The notes. The photo. The badge. Everything. He stored it carefully, like someone guarding a treasure. Then he closed the box and placed it beneath his desk. He could not take it home. Not yet. Because if he took it home, it would be real. It would mean accepting that you would not come back. And he was not ready for that.
Maybe that was why he stopped searching. Not completely, never completely. But he did stop calling. He did stop going to your apartment every night. He did stop asking the neighbors, the doormen, the people on the street. Because he believed it was for the best. Because he thought you must be better off that way. Because he did not want to bother you. Because if you had left without saying anything, maybe it was because you did not want him to find you. Maybe it was because you had decided he was no longer part of your life. And even if it hurt more than anything, even if he felt like he was dying inside, he had to respect it. He had to let you go.
But even so, he could not stop looking for you. He could not stop sharpening his hearing at night, when the city fell asleep and the silence grew deeper, just in case he heard something of yours. He could not stop looking at blonde women on the street, just in case one of them was you. He could not stop dreaming of you and waking up with his heart broken.
How do you stop looking for the woman you love? How do you stop waiting for the person you long to have by your side? How do you tell your heart to be quiet, to stop crying, to stop hoping, to stop dreaming? How do you do that when the love you feel is so great it does not fit inside you?
He did not know. Maybe he would never know. Maybe he would spend the rest of his life looking for you. Maybe he would grow old with the hope of finding you on some corner, in some café, in some place where you had once been happy. Maybe he would never stop wondering why you left. Maybe he would never get an answer.
That day, he came home after work. The silence in his home was so vast he could hear it, as if the walls had learned not to make noise so they would not disturb him. He took off his jacket and let it fall over the back of a chair, without the strength to hang it where it belonged. He did not even turn on the lights. He preferred the gloom, that gray light coming through the windows that did not demand he see clearly. He preferred to sit on the sofa, in the same place where so many nights he had sat with you, with your head resting on his shoulder, with your legs tangled around his, with your soft breathing brushing against his neck. Now it was only him. Alone. Empty. Like a building from which all the furniture had been removed, leaving only bare walls.
He stayed there, staring at the wall in front of him without seeing it, for minutes that felt like hours. He did not know how much time passed. He had lost track of time weeks ago. The days blended into one another like wet paint, without edges, without differences. They were all the same. They were all gray.
Until the doorbell rang.
The sound struck him like a whip. He blinked, confused, as if he had been sleeping with his eyes open. He stood slowly, his legs numb from being still for so long, and walked toward the door. He opened it.
Lois and Jimmy were there.
They both looked at him with eyes full of something Clark already knew too well: concern. They had been so worried about him throughout that entire month. Lois had left him messages, brought him food he did not eat, sat beside him at work without saying anything, just to keep him company. Jimmy had tried to take him out for drinks, to see a movie, to do anything that might distract him. But Clark always said no. Always. Because going out meant facing a world where she was not there. Because distracting himself felt like betraying the memory. Because he did not want to forget even one second of what he had felt.
When his friends looked at him from the doorway, Clark said nothing. He only stepped away and returned to the sofa. He did not invite them in. He did not ask why they had come. He simply sat down again, in the same place, and went back to staring at the wall. As if they were not there. As if nothing mattered.
Lois and Jimmy exchanged glances. That kind of glance that says everything without words. The he’s worse than we thought. The we have to do something. The if we don’t help him now, he’ll never get out of this.
They entered without waiting for an invitation. Lois closed the door behind her. Jimmy remained standing, not knowing where to place himself, playing with the car keys in his pocket. Lois, on the other hand, went straight to him. She sat in front of Clark, on the coffee table, lowering herself to his level. She looked into his eyes, those eyes that once shone with a warm light and now looked like two stagnant pools of water.
“Clark,” Lois said carefully, with that soft voice she used very rarely, the one she saved for truly difficult moments. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about... her.”
Clark raised his gaze. Just a little. Just enough to meet Lois’s eyes, which watched him with a tenderness he felt ashamed to receive.
“We’re sorry to reopen your wound,” Lois continued, and her voice trembled slightly, because it hurt her too to see him like this. Lois Lane did not like watching the people she loved suffer. And Clark was one of the people she loved most. “But it’s just... it’s not normal, Clark. There’s... there’s nothing about her.”
Clark frowned. What did she mean, there was nothing about her?
Lois shifted on the coffee table, crossing her arms. “I asked Perry for her file. I wanted to see where she had worked before, what she had studied, where she came from. Jimmy got the numbers of the newsrooms where she supposedly worked. He called all of them.”
Jimmy nodded, taking a step forward. “We wanted you to at least have one final explanation so you could move on, Clark. Something. A clue. An address. A friend to call. Anything.”
“And every number,” Lois continued, “was either wrong, or no one answered, or they simply said no one with that name had ever worked there. We showed them the photo from her badge. The Planet one. The one they took on her first day. Do you know what happened? Nothing. There’s nothing. No one recognizes her. No one knows who she is. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
Clark blinked. Strange. Yes, it was strange. But until that moment, he had been so busy suffering, so busy wondering why you had left, that he had not stopped to think about those things. About the details. About the inconsistencies.
“Besides,” Jimmy added, moving a little closer, his hands in his pockets, “I also checked universities. Where she was supposed to have studied, according to her résumé. There’s nothing. No classmates who knew her from the year she supposedly graduated. It’s like... I don’t know, like she didn’t exist before coming to the Planet.”
Clark looked at them. First at Lois. Then at Jimmy. Then back into the emptiness. His lips moved, but at first no sound came out. He had to make an effort, gather the little strength he had left, to speak.
“I don’t know,” he said in a whisper. His voice came out hoarse, broken. Like someone who had been screaming in silence for a long time.
Lois leaned toward him, closing the distance. “I know you think she left you because she didn’t love you anymore,” she said, and Clark looked at her with wet eyes. “But I’m sure she loves you. Even now. Wherever she is.”
Jimmy nodded fervently. “You can tell when someone is in love, Clark. And she gave herself away with her eyes every time she looked at you. Leaving just like that, without a word, without a fight, without anything... doesn’t that seem odd to you? Doesn’t it seem like something was wrong?”
Lois gently placed a hand on Clark’s knee. “Clark, did she ever say anything strange to you? Did she ever mention being afraid of something? Of someone?”
Clark looked at them. And then, for the first time in a month, his mind began to work differently. It stopped repeating the same questions over and over, and started remembering. Truly remembering. Remembering the details he had let pass because, at the time, they had not seemed important.
He went over everything he had lived with you. There were so many things. The times you often looked out the window, as if expecting to see someone who should not be there. The times when, walking down the street, you turned your head to look behind you, as if afraid someone was following you. The times your smile faltered, only for one second, and then you smiled again as if nothing had happened. The times you suddenly went quiet, your eyes lost somewhere he could not see.
There were so many things. So many small moments that now, seen from another perspective, formed a pattern. A pattern he did not like.
Then he thought of you. He thought that maybe he had not searched enough. That he had given up too soon, carried away by sadness and self-pity. That he had never entered your apartment to look for some sign, some paper, some clue as to where you might be. He had to go in, didn’t he? Even if it was illegal. Even if it was not right. He had to know.
But the last time he went to your building, your apartment already had a “For Rent” sign taped to the door. The windows were empty. The curtains had disappeared. There was nothing. As if you had never lived there. As if everything had been a dream.
Then he thought of the neighbors. Where had your things gone? Who had taken them? Had someone kept them? Or had they simply... disappeared, like you?
Clark stood immediately. The movement was so abrupt that Lois had to move aside to keep from falling off the coffee table. Jimmy took a step back, startled.
“Clark?” Lois asked. “What is it?”
But Clark did not answer. He could not. The words crashed together in his throat. He only knew he had to go. He had to go now. He could not wait another minute.
He ran out of the apartment, leaving Lois and Jimmy in the middle of the living room, staring at each other without understanding what had happened. He heard Lois shout his name, heard Jimmy say, “Should we follow him?” but he no longer cared. He no longer listened. He only felt an enormous urgency, a fire in his chest he had not felt in weeks.
He ran to the roof of the building. The afternoon air struck his face, cold and sharp. He stopped for a second, looking at the horizon, searching among the buildings for the one that had been yours. He found it. He always found it. It was a gray, ordinary building, the kind there were hundreds of in the city. But he knew which one it was. He had stood in front of its door so many nights. He had waited there for so many hours.
And then he flew.
He rose between the buildings with a stealth only he could possess. He did not want anyone to see him. He did not want explanations. He did not want to be Superman. He only wanted to be Clark. The man who had loved you. The man who needed answers.
Landed on the rooftop of your building. They would no longer let him in through the main entrance. He had gone so many times, called the doorman so many times, asked the neighbors so many times, that in the end they had forbidden him from entering. “She doesn’t live here anymore, young man,” they would tell him. “Let it go. You’re going to get in trouble with the police.” And he would leave, with his tail between his legs, feeling like a stalker. But not now. Now he did not care. Now he needed to know.
He went down the stairs carefully, keeping close to the walls, moving through the shadows. He did not want anyone to see him. He did not want to have to explain why he had come back. He heard a neighbor’s television, a baby crying, someone’s footsteps moving down the hallway. He waited. Held his breath. And when the hallway was empty, he moved forward.
Then he stopped.
In front of your door.
The door where he had left you so many times. Where he had said goodbye to you so many times with a kiss on the lips and a “see you tomorrow.” Where he had seen you smile so many times before closing the door. Where he had stayed a few seconds longer so many times, only to listen as you walked inside, turned on the light, and began that nighttime life of yours he never saw.
He had left you there so many times. Why had he not done it that night? Why had he not insisted on staying a little longer? Why had he not gone upstairs with you? Why had he not made sure you were okay before leaving?
He stayed there for a moment with his hand against the wood, as if he could feel you on the other side. As if something of you still remained inside those empty walls. He tried to open it. It was locked. With his vision, he looked through the door and into the apartment. Empty. Just like the first week he had gone to see you, to see if you could talk, to see if you had come back, to see if there was any trace of you. Bare walls. Naked floor. Curtainless windows. But it was strange. Because if you had left of your own free will, if you had decided to disappear from his life, why was everything so clean? Why were there no old pieces of furniture, broken things, remnants proving someone had once lived there? It looked as if someone had erased your existence on purpose.
“She’s not in there.”
A woman’s voice sounded behind him. Clark turned quickly, his heart leaping in his chest. A neighbor. An older woman, the kind who sees everything from behind the curtains. She was peeking out from her doorway, wearing a floral robe and her hair tied in a messy bun. She looked at him with tired eyes, but also with fear. As if she were doing something she should not.
“Don’t look here,” she said, her voice a whisper. “You’re the boyfriend, aren’t you? The one who came so many times. The one who knocked on her door late at night.”
Clark kept staring at the door of your apartment, but his ears were attentive to every word the woman said.
“They’re watching me,” the neighbor said, her eyes moving toward the stairs, toward the windows, toward any place danger might come from. “I shouldn’t be talking to you. They told me to keep quiet. That if I spoke, something bad would happen. But... the girl was good. She never bothered anyone. She always said hello. And you...” She paused, looking at him. “You looked so desperate those nights. Knocking and knocking. Calling and calling. I felt sorry for you. So I’m going to tell you something, but after this, you don’t know me, understood?”
Clark nodded. He could barely breathe.
“A month ago,” the neighbor continued, lowering her voice until it was nothing more than a thread, “I heard noises. It was around ten at night, more or less. A loud crash. Like something had hit the wall. And then footsteps. A lot of footsteps. And when I looked through the peephole, I saw a man. A big man, very big, carrying a woman in his arms. The woman wasn’t moving. Her head was hanging down, her arms were hanging down. I don’t know if she was... I don’t know if...”
She fell silent. Swallowed.
Clark clenched his fists. So tightly that his nails dug into his palms. They had hurt you. Someone had hurt you. They had carried you like a sack. And he had not been there. He had not been able to protect you.
“Do you know where she is?” Clark asked in a whisper. His voice trembled. All of him trembled.
“No,” the neighbor said. “But I know who that man was. I’ve seen him in pictures, on the news. His face stayed with me. It was Lex Luthor. I’m sure. It was him. The one who came out of her door. The one giving orders. Then, the next day, they came to threaten me. Men in suits came and told me that if I said anything, I’d regret it. That they knew where my daughter lived. That they knew where my grandchildren lived. That’s why I said nothing. That’s why I kept quiet. That’s why, when you came asking, I told you I didn’t know anything. But... but you looked so desperate. So...”
The neighbor took one step closer. She looked from side to side, terrified, as if someone could appear at any moment.
“On the first floor,” she said, “there’s a locker for each resident. To keep valuables, documents, whatever. When the girl moved in, the woman who rented the apartment to her told me she had asked to use the locker. That if something happened to her, if one day she didn’t come back, someone should go there. That she had stored something inside. I don’t know what it is. I didn’t open the locker. I didn’t want to get involved. But you... you probably need it more than I do. The password is 2902. That’s what the landlady told me before leaving. She said the girl gave it to her like that, with those numbers. Good luck.”
And the neighbor slammed the door shut. Clark heard her lock it. Heard her walk away. Heard her disappear.
He stood in the hallway for one second, his heart beating so hard he could barely hear anything else. 2902. His birthday. February 29th. A day that only existed every four years. A day he hated as a child because the other kids made fun of him. A day only you had celebrated with him as if it were special. You remembered his birthday. You remembered it. If you remembered it that much, then you had not left because you wanted to. Then someone had forced you to leave. Someone had torn you away from his side.
He moved his feet. He went down the stairs quickly, no longer caring if he made noise. He passed by the doorman, who opened his mouth to say something, but Clark ignored him. He walked straight to the lockers. They were in a narrow hallway in the back, beside the mailboxes. Small gray metal lockers, numbered. He looked for yours. The one from your floor. The one that matched your apartment number. It was there. Closed with a combination lock.
With trembling fingers, Clark turned the wheels. 2. 9. 0. 2. The lock clicked. It opened.
His heart sped up even more. If you remembered him that much, if you had used his birthday as the password, then you had not left because you wanted to. Then something had happened to you. Someone had hurt you. And he had not been there. He had not been able to protect you.
He opened the locker. Inside, there were two things. An old laptop, one of those large, heavy ones, with a scratched casing and stickers on the lid. And envelopes. Several yellow manila envelopes, the kind used to store important documents. He took them out immediately, his hands shaking. He pressed them against his chest. Closed the locker. And without looking back, without greeting the doorman, without thinking of anything else, he went back up the stairs, reached the rooftop, and flew.
That was the sign. That was the precise moment when he arrived at his apartment and opened everything. When he looked at your file. When he realized your life had been spent surrounded by people who studied you, who looked at you as if you were some strange creature, who measured and weighed you and injected you and wrote everything down in cold notebooks, without names, only numbers. Everything you had gathered from Luthor while you went to see him to give him your “progress.” But you never gave him anything real. Clark saw it in your notes. In the reports you wrote for Luthor but never delivered. Page after page of carefully constructed lies. False dates. False locations. Invented conversations. You lied to Luthor. For months. You lied to protect him. So he would not know that Clark Kent was not just a journalist. So he would not know that the man you were supposed to spy on was the same man who kissed you in apartment doorways.
And there were also the recordings you had recovered from your training sessions. Clark played them on the laptop, one by one, with frozen fingers and a constricted heart. He saw images of you when you were little. So little. A girl with wide, frightened eyes, standing in the middle of a white room, surrounded by men in white coats who spoke to you as if you did not understand. They hit you. Injected you. Made you cry. And then, when you grew older, the recordings became darker. More violent. They put you against other people. Made you fight. Forced you to use your powers until your nose bled, until you fell to the floor, until you could not lift your arms. And always, at the end of each recording, the same voice. Luthor’s voice. Saying, “Again,” “Do better,” “You’re useless.”
Clark could not watch them all. He had to stop several times. He had to close the laptop, press his forehead against the table, breathe deeply, very deeply, so he would not break something. So he would not fly out at that very moment and kill Luthor with his own hands. Lois placed a hand on his shoulder. She said nothing. No words were necessary. Jimmy was pale, his fists clenched, biting his lips so he would not cry.
And then, at the bottom of one of the envelopes, he found the note. A sheet of paper folded in four, wrinkled at the edges, as if you had carried it with you for a long time. He opened it carefully, fearfully, as if there were something inside that could hurt him more than he was already hurt.
Your handwriting. Small. Tight. Trembling in some letters, as if you had cried while writing.
“If I am in the right hands, then I only want you to know that I know your secret. That is why I kept it as if it were my own. Thank you for teaching me what seemed impossible to live.”
That was all. There was nothing else. It did not say where you were going. It did not say why you were leaving. It did not say whether you planned to come back. Only that. A thank you. An I love you disguised in simple words. An “I know who you are, and I am protecting you.”
Clark trembled. His entire body trembled. They had done something to you. Someone had hurt you. You had not left of your own will. Someone had torn you from his side. And he had done nothing. He had spent a month crying, grieving, blaming himself, when what he should have done was search. Investigate. Fight. Find you.
He rose from the chair so quickly that it fell backward. Lois took a step back, startled. Jimmy opened his mouth to say something, but Clark was already gone. He had shot toward the window, toward the balcony, toward the sky. He flew with such force that the air whistled around him, that the windows of nearby buildings trembled in his wake. He did not think. He did not plan. He only flew. Straight to Luthor.
That was his mistake. Acting on impulse. Not thinking. Not waiting. Not gathering more evidence. Only allowing rage, fear, and desperation to guide him. Because when you love someone, when that person is everything to you, when you have lost them and finally have a clue as to where they might be, you do not think. You simply act. And Clark acted.
He put on the suit midair, with that movement he had done thousands of times. The cape billowing behind him. The red crest on his chest. But inside, he did not feel like Superman. Inside, he felt like a frightened man. A man who had failed the only person who truly mattered.
He reached Luthor’s tower in less than a minute. He did not knock on the door. He did not ask permission. He shattered the entrance window with his shoulders, feeling the glass burst into a thousand pieces around him, feeling the alarms begin to blare. He walked through the hallways with firm steps, his gaze fixed ahead, his fists clenched. The guards tried to stop him. He pushed them aside effortlessly, without even looking at them. He was not there for them. He was there for Luthor. To find out where you were. To bring you back.
Luthor received him in his office. He was sitting behind his enormous dark wooden desk, his hands clasped on the surface, a victorious smile on his lips. He did not stand when Superman entered. He did not flinch when the glass door shattered into pieces. He only looked at him, with those cold eyes, with that false calm Clark hated so much. The way inside was imposing, full of technology, blinking lights, screens showing graphics and maps and things Clark could not quite understand. But Lex was not afraid. That was the worst part. That he was not afraid. That he had been waiting. That all of this was part of his plan.
“So Clark Kent finally managed to get you to come,” Lex said, tilting his head as if admiring a work of art. “Surely it was because of the project he himself made me discard, wasn’t it? How ironic. She, who was my best creation, my masterpiece, ruined by a shitty journalist. By a man who did not even know what he had in his hands.”
Clark looked at him. If she knew his secret, if she knew he was Superman, then that meant she had revealed nothing to Luthor. Despite everything, despite the orders, despite the years of training, despite the punishments and the injections and the nights of pain, she had not betrayed him. She had protected him. The way you protect something fragile. The way you protect something worth more than your own life.
He kept staring at Luthor, saying nothing, waiting. The alarms were still blaring in the distance, but here, in this office, there was only silence and Lex’s ugly smile.
“What did you do to her?” Clark asked. His voice sounded deep, hoarse, as if it came from the bottom of a well. He took one step closer. Luthor did not move. “Where is she?”
Desperation trembled in his voice. He tried to hide it, tried to wear the face of a hero, of Superman, of someone who was not afraid.
“Where she always should have been,” Lex said, his voice calm, as if he were talking about the weather. “It was difficult, I won’t deny it. Getting rid of what I created with so much effort... it hurts, you know? Like losing a child. But sometimes it has to be done. Sometimes children become rebellious. They forget who they are. They forget who they owe everything to.”
Clark clenched his fists. “Where is she, Luthor?”
Lex lifted one hand, calm. “If you do anything to me, I won’t tell you. And you’ll gain nothing. You can kill me, Superman. You can break my bones one by one. You can do whatever you want to me. But if you do that, you’ll never know where she is. You’ll never know whether she’s alive or dead. And you’ll live with that for the rest of your life. Is it worth it?”
Clark stopped. Rage burned through his insides, but Luthor was right. He could not do anything to him. Not until he knew where you were.
Lex smiled, satisfied. He continued speaking as if he were telling a story. “She was the best. They raised her well. Obedient. Strong. She never asked questions. Never complained. She did what she was told and stayed silent. She was perfect. But her mistake was remembering she had a heart. She was not supposed to love. I designed her so she couldn’t. Love is a weakness, Superman. You know that better than anyone. Love makes you weak. It makes you make mistakes. It makes you forget who you are. And she fell in love. With him. With Clark Kent. With that useless friend of yours. She dared to love, and that is wrong, isn’t it? Isn’t it wrong when something that belongs to you forgets that it is yours?”
Lex stood slowly, walked around the desk, and approached Superman without fear. He knew he would not hurt him. Not until he spoke.
“In the end, she said nothing. She lied to me. She lied to the man who gave her a home. Who gave her a reason to exist. Do you know how much time I invested in her? How much money? How many resources? And she repaid me by lying to me. And I knew, Superman. I knew because she can read minds. Because it was easy to fool that idiot Kent, she could read him like an open book. But she did not want to. She preferred lying to me over hurting him. Is that love? Is that what you call love? Betraying the one who created you for someone you met five minutes ago?”
“Where is she, Luthor?” Superman asked again. His voice was louder now. More dangerous. The lights in the office flickered. The windowpanes trembled.
Lex smiled. And pointed to the side. Toward a corner of the office where Clark had not seen anything before. But now he saw it. A portal. A metal cube suspended in the air, surrounded by green and purple lights, with a surface that looked liquid and solid at the same time. Vibrant. Threatening.
“There,” Lex said, pointing with a long, pale finger. “Go ahead, Superman. You’re strong. If you go in there, no one will hurt you. Because you’re the strongest of all, aren’t you? The invincible hero. The one who never falls. The one who always wins. Go in. Go look for her. If she’s still alive, of course.”
Clark looked at him, doubtful. It was a trap. It had to be a trap. But you were there. Or you could be. And he could not just stand there with his arms crossed.
“Go ahead,” Lex repeated, arms open. “Don’t be afraid. Is Superman afraid? Does the Man of Steel hesitate? Go in. It’s only a portal. It will take you to her. Or maybe it won’t. Maybe it will take you somewhere else. You won’t know until you enter. Will you risk it? Or would you rather stay here with me, listening to me talk about her?”
Clark did not think any longer. He flew toward the portal. He could not help it. It was his only clue. His only chance. He had to find you. He had to know if you were all right. He had to bring you back.
“Honestly,” Lex said when Superman entered and the cube closed behind him with a deep, metallic, definitive sound. “A stupid alien. Just like all the rest. And do you know what the funniest part is?”
Lex stood in front of the cube, looking through the glass surrounding it, hands in his pockets, with a wide, happy smile, like a child who had just broken a toy he did not like.
“You know, she was excellent,” he said, speaking as if Superman could hear him. As if he were enjoying every word. “She had everything she needed to be the best. She had fought so much. So much. Since she was a child. I broke her bones, made her cry, lifted her back up, broke her again. I made her strong. I made her perfect. And your friend, that Clark Kent, that stupid shitty journalist, decided to turn her into a failure. He filled her head with foolish ideas. With love. With freedom. With things that do not exist. And she believed them. Like an idiot. Like all of you.”
Lex sighed, as if he were tired. Tired of having to explain the obvious.
“But don’t worry. This time no one died because of Superman. No, no. This time was different. This time it was because of his friend. Because of Clark Kent. That useless man who does not even know what he lost. Because of him, she died. Because if she had not fallen in love with him, if she had not tried to protect him, if she had not lied to her owner... she would still be here. Obeying. Being useful. Being my perfect project. But no. Your friend made her weak. And weak things break. And broken things get thrown in the trash.”
Lex moved closer to the glass. Superman was inside, on his knees, panting, struggling to breathe. The cube glowed. Something moved in the gloom.
“Do you know the best part?” Lex said, almost whispering. “She never told him who she was. Clark Kent never knew the truth. He never knew she was a weapon. He never knew they were spying on him. He never knew she could read his mind. He never knew anything. And now, she’s gone. And he was left with no answers. No goodbye. Nothing. Because that’s what happens when you fall in love with a monster, Superman. You end up empty. And you don’t even know why.”
Superman lifted his gaze. From inside the cube, he could see Lex on the other side of the glass, smiling. He wanted to strike it. Wanted to break it. But something was happening. His body felt weak. So weak. As if he had suddenly lost all his strength. His legs trembled. His arms felt heavy. He fell to his knees with a dull thud, panting, struggling to breathe, as if the air had suddenly become too thick to inhale. As if the power inside him had vanished. As if he were no longer Superman. Only a man on his knees, trembling, afraid.
Lex approached the glass, looking at him from the other side, with that blood-chilling smile.
“By the way,” he said, as if remembering something important, “meet Metamorpho. That hideous thing you see in there with you. A metahuman. He has the ability to transform his body into anything. Even kryptonite. So enjoy your stay, Superman. Because you are not getting out of there. And she... well, she didn’t get out either.”
Clark looked at the man. Metamorpho was sitting inside the cube too, in the corner, his gaze lost on the floor, as if he did not want to see what was in front of him. He did not look at him. He avoided him. As if he were ashamed. As if he knew what he was doing was wrong, but had no other choice. Lex Luthor watched from outside, arms crossed, that wide, ugly smile still plastered across his face. He was enjoying every second. Seeing Superman weak, trapped, unable to do anything, was his greatest pleasure.
Superman stared at him. At Metamorpho. At that being who could become anything, any weapon, any poison. And for a moment, for an instant, Metamorpho lifted his eyes. He looked at him. And there was no hatred in his eyes. No desire to fight. Only exhaustion.
“Even so, she fought,” Lex said from outside, in a singsong voice, as if narrating a film. “Really. She fought. I don’t know if it was to protect Kent or to protect you. Maybe both. Maybe she wanted to save everyone. How foolish. How stupid. Don’t you think? Giving your life for people who don’t even know you exist.”
Lex touched something on a floating panel beside him, and an enormous screen appeared in the air, inside the cube, in front of Superman. A floating screen that began to play a recording. The battle from that day. Superman watched weakly, his chest tight, his breath cut short by the kryptonite Metamorpho released unintentionally, or perhaps intentionally.
He saw you fight. He saw you fall. He saw you throw green balls of energy, raise walls from the ground, try to protect yourself. He saw that man whose face he could not make out, that monster called Ultraman, attack you again and again. He saw how you fell to the ground. How you bled. How you got back up, even though you could barely do it anymore. How you fell again. How you kept fighting. How you did not give up. How, even when you had no strength left, even when blood ran from your nose and mouth, you kept fighting.
Tears welled in his eyes. He could not stop them. They were hot, heavy, and rolled down his cheeks as he watched the screen. Maybe while he had been on his way to the restaurant, tulips in his hand and the velvet box in his pocket, rehearsing the words he was going to say to you, you had been there. Somewhere dark. In some cold laboratory. Fighting for your life. For his. To protect his secret. So he could keep being Superman. So Clark could keep being Clark.
He saw Ultraman drive the dagger into you. How your body shuddered. How your eyes widened in pain. How Luthor approached, caressed your cheek, whispered something in your ear. How he pulled out the dagger. How the blood spilled out. How you fell. How you went still. How you went silent. How you stayed...
And then Luthor stopped the recording. The screen went dark. The cube returned to gloom. Only Metamorpho’s green glow remained, Superman’s ragged breathing, and Lex’s smile on the other side of the glass.
“Dying was probably the best thing for her, don’t you think?” Lex said, tilting his head as if asking an honest question. “Clark Kent would have hated her if he had found out. If he knew she was a weapon. If he knew they were spying on him at first. If he knew she could read his mind. Do you think he would have forgiven her? Do you think he would have kept loving her after knowing everything was a lie? No. He would have hated her. He would have left her. He would have made her feel worse than she already did. So yes, death was the best thing. That way she spared herself all of that. That way she left without having to see the disgust on Kent’s face when he learned the truth.”
No.
Clark knew it. From inside the cube, with his body weak, with almost no strength left, he knew it. He would not have hated her. Never. Not even when she stood him up at the restaurant. Not even when he stopped receiving messages from her. Not even when his calls went unanswered. Not even when he found out everything she was. Her number. Her past. The recordings. The lies. Everything.
He did not hate her. He never hated her. The only person he hated was himself. For not having seen the signs. For not having asked. For not having stayed that night. For not having protected her. For being so blind. So stupid. So trusting.
If he could go back, if he could have her here, in front of him, he only wanted to tell her one thing. Just one. That it would be all right. That he could take care of her. That he could accept her. That he did not care where she came from, or what she had done, or what had been done to her. That only she mattered to him. That he wanted to heal every scar life had left on her. That he wanted to erase the number on her shoulder with kisses. That he wanted to give her a home. A real home. Not a laboratory. Not a cell. Not a cage. A home. With him. With his smile. With his arms. With his kisses on her forehead.
But he could not. Because she was no longer there. Because he had arrived too late. Because while he was going to the restaurant with tulips in his hand, she was dying. And he could not save her. He could not even say goodbye.
Superman lowered his gaze. He could no longer look at Lex. He could no longer look at Metamorpho. He could only look at the floor of the cube, cold and gray, and feel the tears continue to fall, silent, hot, endless.
Lex enjoyed it. It showed in his posture. In the way he leaned back in his chair, in the way he crossed his legs, in the way he placed his hands behind his head. He did not know Superman was Clark. He did not know that the man crying inside that cube was the same journalist you had kissed. To him, Superman was only an alien. A hero. Someone who always hated not being able to save someone. And seeing him suffer, seeing him cry, seeing him crumble... that was better than any victory.
“Metamorpho will watch over you while I decide what to do with you,” Lex said with a low, amused laugh. “Don’t get bored, all right? We have plenty of time. I can wait. So can you. After all, she’s in no hurry anymore. She has nothing anymore.”
He stood, adjusted his jacket, and walked toward the door of his office. Before leaving, he looked back one last time and smiled.
“Enjoy the company,” he said. “Metamorpho is very quiet, but he doesn’t bite. Well, sometimes he does. But don’t worry. The kryptonite he gives off isn’t enough to kill you. Only enough to make you feel... the way she felt. Weak. Alone. Afraid. You know? I think that’s fair.”
And he left. The door closed behind him. The office lights went out, one by one, until only the green glow of the cube and the breathing of two trapped men remained. Two projects. Two weapons. Two beings who never asked to be what they were.
The cube remained floating in the middle of the room, suspended in the air, turning slowly. Metamorpho did not move. He said nothing. He only stayed in his corner, his gaze lowered, his hands on his knees, like a domesticated animal that no longer remembers what it is to be free.
And Clark finally let the tears fall. He did not hold them back anymore. He did not pretend anymore. He let them all come out. One after another. Hot, fast, endless. He trembled slightly, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed, his hands shaking on his legs. He made no sound. He did not cry out loud. He did not scream. He only cried in silence, the way you had learned to cry when you were little. He only cried, because he had nothing else left.
He had finally realized he had arrived too late. That she had been alone. That she had been afraid. That she had tried to tell him, maybe, but had not been able to. Or had not wanted to. Or had not found the right moment. And he had not been there. He could not save her. He could not protect her. He could not do anything.
But she had protected him. Protected his secret. That was what hurt the most. That she, who had suffered so much, who had been used and beaten and discarded, who had every reason in the world to hate, to betray, to seek revenge... she had protected him. She had given her life for him. For Clark.
And he had not been able to do the same. He had not been able to protect her. He had not been able to save her. He had arrived too late.
Clark finally mourned your death. That was what hurt the most. That you were dead. That you would not come back. That you would never smile at him again, or take his hand, or say “see you tomorrow.” That he would never again feel your lips, your laughter, your gaze. That you were gone forever. And he had not been able to say goodbye.
Thinking about it sent chills through him. More than the kryptonite did. Because the kryptonite took away his strength, burned in his blood, hurt him. But thinking about you, about the fact that you would not return, that there was nothing he could do to bring you back... that was worse. That broke his soul. That made him want to stop existing.
It did not matter that someone else was there. It did not matter that Metamorpho watched him out of the corner of his eye, that he saw him crying and said nothing, that maybe he also wanted to cry but no longer remembered how. It did not matter that Lex might be watching from some camera, enjoying every tear. Nothing mattered. He cried because he could feel you. Because somewhere, in some corner of his heart, you were still there. He still felt you. He still loved you. And he wanted you back. He wanted to hold you. He wanted to tell you everything was going to be all right. He wanted to heal your wounds. He wanted to give you the key to his apartment. He wanted to tell you he loved you. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with you.
But he could not. Because you were gone. Because you had died. Because he had arrived too late. And now all he had left was to cry inside a floating cube, surrounded by kryptonite, with a killer beside him, while the man who had killed you went home calmly to have dinner.
“I’m sorry,” Clark whispered through his tears, even though he knew you could not hear him. Even though he knew you were dead. Even though he knew you would never hear his voice again. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go. I shouldn’t have left that night. I shouldn’t have... I shouldn’t have...”
The words drowned in his throat. He lowered his head. Closed his eyes. And kept crying. In silence. In the dark. In the center of that cube that was his own tomb, because without you, without your smile, without your hand, without your love... what was the point of still being Superman? What was the point of still being Clark?
Because there is nothing sadder than a hero who arrives too late. There is nothing sadder than a love that is not enough. There is nothing sadder than a life that goes out in silence, with no one to say goodbye to it, with no one to say “I love you” one last time.
Clark heard the voice. Weak, trembling, as if every word required an enormous effort. It came from the opposite corner of the cube, where Metamorpho was still sitting, his gaze lowered, his hands twisting over his knees. He was not looking at him. He was looking at the floor. As if speaking to him were already a crime. As if saying those words put him in danger.
“Was she your friend?” Metamorpho asked.
Clark was on the floor, his back against the wall of the cube, his legs stretched out and his arms hanging limply. He stared at nothing. At the gray emptiness before him. He was no longer crying. He had run out of tears. But inside, he was destroyed. Shattered. As if someone had taken his heart and squeezed it until it broke into pieces. He did not answer. He could not. Saying “yes” would have been too much. Saying “she was more than my friend” would have been worse. So he remained silent, his gaze lost, his breathing slow and heavy because of the kryptonite still floating in the air.
Metamorpho glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He saw his red eyes. Saw his wet cheeks. Saw how his hands trembled. And something inside him moved. Something Luthor had not been able to tear out completely.
“I heard about her,” Metamorpho continued, looking toward the door, toward the sides, as if someone could appear at any moment. “Everyone heard and... I shouldn’t talk about it. I shouldn’t. But... I... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. My son is here. He’s in this place. And I don’t want them to hurt him. That’s why I do what they tell me. That’s why I am this. That’s why I turn into... into this. So they won’t touch him.”
Clark lifted his gaze heavily. The kryptonite made even his eyelids hurt. But he listened. He listened to every word.
“They’re studying her,” Metamorpho whispered, his voice dropping even lower. Almost inaudible. “Her. The girl. I saw her. I saw her when they brought her in. She was so pale... so still... I thought she was dead. But no. That white light you can see from here, do you see it? That light glowing in the distance. That’s the laboratory. Luthor has laboratories inside the pocket universe. In there, everything floats, but it has real floors, real walls, everything is real. But no one knows it exists. No one knows it’s there. It’s like a secret. A secret Luthor keeps only for himself. So no one finds out what he does.”
Clark blinked. The white light. Yes, he had seen it. At the end of the corridor, beyond the walls of the cube, beyond the glass and the armored doors. A faint, constant light, like a beacon in the middle of the darkness. She was there. Somewhere inside that light. Somewhere inside that hidden laboratory.
“They say they healed her, but that isn’t true,” Metamorpho continued, and his voice trembled a little. “They say her heartbeat is strong. That her body doesn’t want to die. That it’s holding on. Luthor wants to reboot her. Like a machine. Like all his projects. He wants to erase everything she feels, everything she remembers, everything she learned. He wants to make her new again. With no humanity left. Without the love she felt for... for that journalist. Without fear. Without rage. Without anything. Only obedience. Only orders. Only an empty weapon.”
Clark felt a shiver run through him. Not from cold. From horror. From rage. From desperation.
“But they say she protected her memories well,” Metamorpho said, and for the first time, his eyes met Clark’s. There was something in them. Something almost like hope. “They’ve tried to wake her. Many times. Every time they try to open her up to operate on her, to experiment on her brain, to erase her memory... something happens. Something throws them back. As if she had put up a barrier. As if her own mind had protected itself without realizing it. They don’t know how she does it. But they can’t get in. They can’t touch her memories. It’s like she’s asleep, but fighting. Dreaming, but struggling.”
Clark’s hands trembled. Not because of the kryptonite. Because of the emotion. Because of the hope beginning to bloom in his chest, small, fragile, but alive.
“They say she’s regenerated,” Metamorpho continued, looking toward the door again, afraid. “That her body is healing on its own. That the dagger they stabbed her with... that poisoned kryptonite dagger... didn’t kill her completely. It left her on the edge, but it didn’t kill her. And now her body is healing. Little by little. Luthor knows that if she regenerates completely, she’ll be stronger than before. That’s why he’s in a hurry. That’s why he wants to erase her memory before she wakes up. Because if she wakes up and remembers everything... if she remembers who she is and who she loves... they won’t be able to control her. Never again.”
Metamorpho paused. Swallowed. He seemed to be making a decision. A decision that could cost him everything.
“If I help you,” he said, his voice barely a whisper now, “if I help you get out of here, if I help you reach her... will you get my son back? Will you help me get him out of this place? I don’t want them to put their hands on him. I just want him to be safe. Can you do that? Can you promise me?”
Clark looked at him. He saw the monster, yes. He saw the shining skin, the strange eyes, the shape that was not entirely human. But he also saw a father. A man who would do anything for his son. Just as he would do anything for her.
“Yes,” Clark whispered. His voice sounded weak, broken, but firm. “I promise you. Where is she? Where is she?”
Metamorpho nodded. And then, with a gesture that seemed to cost him an enormous effort, the kryptonite began to disappear from his hand. The green light started fading, retreating like an ebbing tide. Clark felt air enter his lungs again, felt his muscles stop burning, felt strength return to his veins. Not all of it. Not all. But enough. Enough to fight.
“She’s in the next room,” Metamorpho said, pointing toward the white light. “Where she is. My son is there too. In a cell. They haven’t done anything to him yet. They haven’t experimented on him. But Luthor threatened to. He told me that if I didn’t obey, if I didn’t become what he wanted, he would do the same thing to him that he did to her. That’s why I do this. That’s why I am this. I don’t have another choice.”
Clark stood. His legs trembled, but he remained upright.
“I’m sure she’s there,” Metamorpho said, and his voice sounded almost human. “Alive. Fighting. Like always. Like her whole life. She doesn’t give up. She never gives up. She learned that somewhere. Maybe from you. Maybe from your friend. I don’t know. But she doesn’t give up. And neither should you.”
Clark looked at the white light. If he still had a chance to get you back, to see you one last time, to tell you everything he had not told you... he was going to do it. He was going to fight. He was going to reach you. Even if it cost him his life.
Then Metamorpho did something. Something Clark did not expect. He raised his hand, the one that no longer glowed green, and concentrated his energy. Not into kryptonite. Into light. Into heat. Into something like the sun. A replica. Weak, small, but real. A miniature sun that shone inside the cube and bathed Clark in its glow. It was not enough. Not enough for him to fully recover. But it was something. A little strength. A little hope.
Clark breathed deeply. He felt the warmth enter through his skin, felt his cells awaken, felt his body respond. He was not at one hundred percent. Far from it. But he could move. He could fight. He could try.
He rose from the floor. Took a step toward the wall of the cube. The kryptonite was gone. Metamorpho had absorbed it, or dissolved it, or pushed it away. It did not matter how. What mattered was that it no longer burned him. What mattered was that he could.
Clark struck the glass, and the crystal shattered into a thousand pieces. No alarms sounded. Metamorpho had disabled something, or he knew how to move without being detected. It did not matter. Clark stepped out of the cube, staggering, his head spinning, his vision blurred. He landed on the floor of Luthor’s office, stumbled, and grabbed onto a table so he would not fall. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Trying to focus.
Metamorpho floated beside him, half of his body turned into something like a cloud, something translucent, something that did not seem solid. He looked at him with those sad eyes, waiting.
“My son is here,” Metamorpho said, pointing to a door at the end of the hallway. “In that room. Please. Get him out. Take him far away from here. Somewhere Luthor can’t find him.”
Clark nodded. He walked toward the door. Inside, there was only one guard, a large armed man, who turned when he saw him enter. He did not even manage to lift his weapon. Clark knocked him out with a single blow, quick, clean, silent. And there, in a small crib, wrapped in a blue blanket, was Metamorpho’s son. A baby barely a year old. Big-headed, with wide frightened eyes, his little arms trembling.
Clark picked him up carefully, his hands shaking, his heart tight. He pressed him against his chest, feeling his warmth, his fragility. He was so small. So defenseless. Just like you when you were little. Just like all of Luthor’s projects.
He left the room and handed the baby to Metamorpho. The man received him with open arms, tears in his eyes, a sob he could barely contain. He hugged him tightly, so tightly, as if he would never let him go.
“Wait for me here,” Clark said. “I’m going for her. When I come back, I’ll get all of you out. I promise.”
Metamorpho nodded, holding his son against his chest. Clark walked toward the other door. The one that led to the laboratory. The one separating your cold body from his arms.
It was restricted. Locked with codes, with bolts, with technology no ordinary human could open. But Clark was not an ordinary human. With one pull, he tore the door from its hinges. Threw it aside. Entered.
There were no alarms. It seemed like the people inside could not hear anything. Or maybe Luthor had disconnected everything out of his own arrogance. But Clark could hear. He heard the doctors’ voices through the walls. Heard their conversations. Heard their plans. Heard the machine marking your heartbeat. Slow, but firm.
“Prepared for the operation,” one of them said, the lead doctor, a bald man with round glasses and a white coat.
“Attempt number ten of the day,” a tired woman reminded him, with dark circles under her eyes and fingers stained with something Clark did not want to identify. “We haven’t been able to access her, not in the previous attempts either. I think the tools aren’t working. That’s what Mr. Luthor said.”
The lead doctor nodded, looking at the inert body on the operating table. Your body. Clark saw it from the entrance, and his heart stopped for a second. You were there. Pale. Still. With your arms at your sides, wearing a white gown that covered you down to your feet. Wires came out of your chest, your arms, your head, connected to machines that beeped and blinked. The heartbeat monitor marked something weak, almost imperceptible, but there. Still there.
“I’ve been thinking,” the doctor said, touching his chin, “and maybe they’re right. Maybe what she needs is a powerful laser. Like Ultraman’s. To get inside her. To break that barrier she has. To reach her brain and erase everything.”
The woman smiled. An ugly, tired smile, without joy. “Good idea. That way we can get in and eliminate everything to leave her like new. She won’t cause any more trouble. She’ll be useful again. Like before. Like when she was good.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Clark said.
Everyone turned. Their faces filled with fear. The doctor took a step back. The woman dropped the tool in her hand. The others, the assistants, the nurses, pressed themselves against the walls as if they wanted to disappear.
“It’s Superman,” one whispered.
“How did he get in?” another asked.
But before they could do anything, green energy burst from your body. A bright, intense layer that covered you completely and expanded outward like ripples in water. The energy seized all the doctors. Lifted them into the air, shook them, made them scream. The woman pressed a panic button, but it was too late. The alarm sounded, yes, but the energy already had them. The doctors twisted, kicked, begged for help no one was going to give them. And at the same time, Clark saw it. Your heartbeat on the machine grew stronger. Faster. Your color improved. Your cheeks, once pale as wax, now had a faint rosy tone. The green energy was giving you life. It was draining their strength to give it to you.
The doctors fell to the floor, unconscious, trembling. The green energy retreated back into your body, like a tide returning to the sea. And then, a blow. Hard. Brutal. Clark felt something hit him in the back and send him flying, crashing into the opposite wall. The infamous Ultraman had appeared.
Clark had not fully recovered from the kryptonite. He could barely stay on his feet. His muscles trembled, his breathing was short and ragged, and every movement required an enormous effort. But he saw you there, on the table, pale and still, and that gave him strength. He had to reach you. He had to get you out of there.
Ultraman launched himself at him again. Blow after blow. Direct, merciless, relentless. Clark dodged the first ones, but the third hit him in the stomach and folded him in two. The fourth grazed his jaw. The fifth struck his chest and sent him into the wall. The impact was so strong that the glass on the medical equipment shattered, and the pieces flew through the air like blades.
Clark fell to the floor, panting, his head spinning. He spat blood. He got up again, bracing himself on his knees, his arms shaking. He tried to move toward you, but Ultraman was already on him. He grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air. Clark struggled, kicked, but his strength was not enough. Ultraman threw him against a stone column, and the impact echoed throughout the laboratory. Debris fell over him. The column cracked. Clark felt something crunch in his back, felt pain run down his spine like a lash. He gasped, coughed, spat more blood.
He tried to stand. Again. Always again. But Ultraman gave him no time. He grabbed him by the hair and lifted him from the floor, then began to hit him. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Each blow drove Clark deeper into the ground, each blow stole a little more air from him, each blow blurred his vision more. Ultraman’s fists were like hammers, hard, cold, relentless. And Clark could not defend himself. Could not fight back. Only take it. Only endure. Only stay alive.
Ultraman let him fall to the floor. Clark lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, his arms spread open, blood running down his forehead and along his temples. He could not even lift his arms to protect himself. Ultraman raised his fist. One more. One more and maybe he would not get up again. One more and maybe everything would end there.
But something stopped him.
Green energy. Bright. Intense. It wrapped around Ultraman’s fist and froze it in the air. Ultraman struggled, but he could not move. The energy surrounded him, squeezed him, suspended him like a fly in a web.
“We have an unfinished fight, don’t we?” a voice asked behind Ultraman. Your voice. Clark recognized it instantly. He had heard it in dreams, in memories, during sleepless nights where he repeated over and over the things he had said to you and the things he never got to say. It was your voice. You were alive. You were speaking. You sounded tired, yes, but firm. Like someone who had returned from death and was not willing to leave again.
Ultraman flew backward. Your energy had thrown him as if he were a rag doll. Clark lifted his head with effort, looking toward the room you had come out of. The wall was broken, shattered into pieces, and through the opening he saw you. There you were. Standing. In the white hospital gown, barefoot, your hair loose and disheveled. Your gaze moved around the place, confused, as if you did not fully understand what was happening. As if you had just awakened from a very long dream and the world looked blurry, strange, out of focus.
But then you looked at Ultraman. You saw him heading straight toward you, fists clenched, with the clear intention of hurting you. And something changed in your face. Your eyes hardened. You pushed yourself forward, flying, and your fist, covered in green energy, met Ultraman’s chest. The impact was so strong that he fell to the floor, dragging across it, coughing. He had not expected you to have so much strength. No one had.
Your hands moved toward him. Green energy poured from your palms like rivers of light, wrapping around him, draining his strength. The same thing you had done to the doctors. You were absorbing his energy, Ultraman’s energy, the energy of everyone who had hurt you. And as you did, your eyes grew brighter, more luminous, like two small suns. The white gown billowed around you. You looked like an avenging angel. Or something else. Something Luthor had never anticipated.
“Clark, we have to go.”
Metamorpho’s voice sounded behind Clark, who was still on the floor, barely conscious. Metamorpho stood at the door with his son in his arms, looking everywhere, frightened. His son cried softly, clinging to his neck. “More guards are coming. I can hear their footsteps. If we don’t leave now, we’ll never get out.”
You stopped. The green energy went out in your hands. You lowered your trembling arms and looked at Metamorpho. Then at Clark. And then, in the middle of the chaos, the rubble, the alarms ringing in the distance, your eyes found his.
Clark was leaning against the wall, barely holding himself up. Blood ran down his forehead, from the corner of his lips. The red suit was torn, dirty, covered in dust. But he was looking at you. Only at you. And in his eyes, there was a question he did not dare ask out loud.
Did you remember him?
You had protected your mind and your body. For him. For Clark. For the man who had taught you what love was. That was why, even after death, you protected him. Your body had created a barrier, a shield, something neither Luthor nor his scientists had been able to break. But what if that protection had done something else? What if it had pushed you out of your own mind? What if you had lost your memories in order to protect them? What if you did not even remember his name?
Clark swallowed. His heart beat hard, not because of fear, but because of hope. Fear that you would look at him like a stranger. Fear that you would ask who he was. Fear that everything you had lived together had been erased from you forever.
You approached him. You walked slowly, staggering a little, as if your legs were not responding well. The white gown was too big on you. Your bare feet left prints on the dust-covered floor. You stopped in front of him. Looked at him.
And then, something happened. Something Clark felt in the deepest part of his being. His mind opened. Like that first time you kissed him in the office, when his memories flowed toward you without him being able to stop them. But now you were the one opening the door for him. Now you were the one who wanted him to see. Not only your heart. Your entire soul.
“Of course I remember you, Clark,” you said.
Your voice was a whisper. But to him, it was like a scream. Like thunder. Like the most beautiful thing he had ever heard in his life. Because there was no confusion in your eyes. No emptiness. There was memory. There was love. There were all the days you had spent together, all the laughter, all the silences, all the kisses at apartment doors. It was all there. You had forgotten nothing. Your mind had clung to him the way a castaway clings to a life preserver. Even when your body was dying, even when your blood was slipping away, even when the darkness wanted to swallow you, your mind had kept him. Him. Clark. His name. His face. His smile.
Clark smiled. His lips were split, his face covered in blood, his eyes swollen from crying so much. But he smiled. A trembling, fragile smile, like someone who had recovered something he believed lost forever. He smiled because you remembered him. Because you tilted your head as you looked at him, the way you always did, as if you were trying to understand something that did not quite make sense, as if you thought this was a dream you would wake up from at any moment.
But it was not a dream. It was real. You were there. Alive. In front of him.
And he smiled too because he felt your heart beat when you saw him. He heard it. That heartbeat the machine had marked as weak, almost extinguished, was now strong, fast, full of life. Your heart beat for him. Even after everything. Even after death. Even after they drove a poisoned dagger into you and left you lying on the cold floor. Your heart was still beating for him. Because you loved him. Because despite everything, despite him thinking that you had left him, that you no longer loved him, that you did not care... your body and your heart said otherwise.
And after a month of being unable to breathe, after entire nights without sleeping, after gray and empty days, Clark was finally able to breathe. He inhaled deeply. Air filled his lungs. He did not care about the dust, the blood, the smell of burning. He breathed because you were there. Because you were in front of him. Because you had not left.
He moved closer to you. Or rather, he let himself fall toward you. His arms wrapped around you and pressed you against his chest. It was an awkward hug, trembling, messy. He was not the invincible hero. He was not Superman. He was only a man who had spent an entire month mourning the woman he loved and suddenly had her in his arms again. He held you without hurting you, but tightly, as if he were afraid you would disappear. As if you were made of smoke and one wrong movement could make you vanish.
Your face rested against his chest. Right where you could hear his heart. And you hugged him too. Your arms wrapped around his waist and held him. You closed your eyes. Felt his pulse. Felt his warmth. Felt life returning to you, not because of the energy you had absorbed from the doctors, but because of him. Because he was your energy. He always had been.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the restaurant on time,” you whispered.
Your voice sounded distant, as if your consciousness had remained trapped in that day. The day you left. The day Luthor took you. The day you locked yourself inside your mind to protect yourself. The day you begged to live a little longer, just a little longer, to see him again. The day your powers yielded to you, covered you like a blanket, and protected you from the cold of death. The day Luthor left you lying on the floor as your blood slipped away, but your blood returned to you, as if it had mercy, as if it also knew you could not die without saying goodbye.
You had thought only a few days had passed. A handful of days. That time had stopped while your body healed. You did not know a month had gone by. You did not know Clark had cried for you for thirty nights. You did not know he had stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped living. The first thing you saw when you woke up was him. The first thing you remembered was your date. The date you thought about until your last breath. The date when you were going to tell him you loved him. And your first thought, the first one after coming back from death, was him. Always him.
Clark held you tighter. But without hurting you. Always carefully. Always afraid of breaking you.
“No, no, it’s okay,” he said. His voice broke. He was choking on his own tears. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. The restaurant doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. The only thing that matters is that you’re here. That you’re alive.”
He pulled back a little to look into your eyes. He was afraid. Afraid of what you were going to say. Afraid that you would blame him. Afraid that you would hate him for not being there.
“You don’t hate me, do you?” he asked. His voice was small, fragile. Like a child asking for forgiveness without knowing what he had done wrong.
You tilted your head. You smiled. That smile of yours, the one he loved so much. The one that appeared suddenly, without warning, and brightened his entire day. There it was. It had not gone away. It was still with you, on your face, in your eyes.
“Hate you?” you asked, as if the idea were ridiculous. You raised your hand and caressed his cheek. Your hand was cold, trembling, but it was your hand. Your touch. After a month of emptiness, after a month of feeling nothing, you were finally touching him again. “How could I hate you when I wanted so badly to see you just to tell you how much I love you?”
Clark smiled. Cried. Both at the same time. And he leaned toward you. He kissed you.
The kiss was soft at first, almost shy, as if you were both afraid of breaking something fragile. As if you were not sure it was real. As if at any moment you would wake up in your beds, alone, with emptiness in your chests. But then it became firmer. More certain. Because it was real. Because you were there. Because after a month of thinking you would never see each other again, you had each other. And nothing else mattered.
“I know I shouldn’t interrupt because you’re having your moment,” Metamorpho said from the doorway, his son in his arms, his eyes shining with hope. “But we have to leave or they’re going to catch us.”
Clark nodded. He reluctantly pulled his lips away from yours. But when he tried to take a step, his body failed him. His legs trembled. He staggered. He would have almost fallen to the floor if you had not held him.
You looked at him, not understanding. Then you looked at Metamorpho. Then back at Clark.
“The kryptonite affected him,” Metamorpho said, lowering his head. “I’m sorry. I... I didn’t want to. They forced me. But he helped me with my son. He gave me a chance. And now... now I want to help him. But he’s weak. Very weak. He can’t fly properly. He can’t fight. He needs to get out of here before...”
He did not finish the sentence. He did not need to.
You pressed your lips together. Your eyes traveled over Clark’s body. You saw everything. The wounds. The blood. The dark circles beneath his eyes. The way he could barely stand. Something ignited inside you. Something that was not only love. It was protection. It was rage. It was the same force that had made your body heal itself, that had created a shield around your mind, that had thrown Ultraman through the air.
Leaving was easy. Your powers, though weakened by everything you had endured, still answered your call. You opened every door with a movement of your hand, making the locks burst, bending metal as if it were paper. Even the door separating the world from the pocket universe, that invisible border Luthor had created to hide his nightmares, opened before you as if it recognized you, as if it knew you no longer belonged in that place. You stepped out unharmed. The fresh night air struck your face and, for a moment, you closed your eyes, breathing deeply, feeling that you were finally outside. Metamorpho came out with you, his son pressed to his chest, his eyes wide, looking at the sky for the first time without knowing that this was freedom. He said goodbye with a gesture, a nod, and ran off between the shadows, disappearing into the empty streets of Metropolis. You did not know if you would ever see him again. But you had given him a chance. And that was more than he had ever had.
You left with Clark. You carried him in your arms, flying low, close to the rooftops, hiding from the lights, from the cameras, from any eyes that might see you. He was heavy. Not because of his body, but because he was weak, because the kryptonite was still running through his veins, because he could barely stay conscious. But you held him. You did not let him go. You were never going to let him go again.
Luthor would look for you. You knew that. His best project had come back to life. The one he had discarded, the one he had given up for dead, the one he had left lying on the cold floor of his laboratory like a dirty rag, had returned. And worse, you would join the battle. He knew you had already chosen a side. And that side was not his. That side was Superman. It was Clark. It was everything Luthor hated. And that would make him more dangerous. But you no longer cared. You were no longer afraid. Because now you had something worth being afraid for, and at the same time, something worth being brave for.
You arrived at Clark’s apartment. Your body trembled, not from cold, but from exhaustion, from the energy you had spent, from everything you had absorbed to heal and escape. But you laid him carefully on the sofa, as if he were made of glass, as if any sudden movement could break him. You sat him down, adjusted his head on a cushion, and then looked around.
You saw the sheets. The papers. The videos. Your laptop was open on the table, with the recordings you had saved, with the files you had stolen, with all the evidence you thought no one would ever see. Clark had found everything. He had seen your past. He had seen the recordings from when you were little, the training sessions, the blows, the injections. He had read your false reports, the lies you wrote to Luthor to protect him. He had seen the photo booth picture, the one you kept in your wallet, the one you looked at every night before sleeping. He had seen everything. And still, even after knowing who you truly were, even after discovering that you had been a weapon, that you had been created to destroy, that at first you had been spying on him... he had looked for you. He had not hated you. He had looked for you.
Then you knew. You knew he had searched for you. For days. While you were there, unconscious, floating between life and death, he had been out there, knocking on your door, calling your phone, asking everyone, losing his mind with worry. And a question formed on your lips before you could stop it.
“Don’t leave,” Clark said. His voice was a whisper, fragile, like someone who had cried until he had no tears left. “I’ve already spent thirty-one days without you. One more day... I couldn’t bear one more day.”
You looked at him. Thirty-one days. An entire month. You had been dead to him for an entire month. Or not dead, but gone. He had lived a month without knowing anything about you. A month thinking you had left him. A month blaming himself, wondering what he had done wrong. And still, he had not stopped looking for you. He had not stopped loving you.
“Thirty-one,” you whispered, lowering your gaze. Guilt weighed on your shoulders. It was not your fault, you knew that. It had been Luthor. It had been Ultraman. It had been that damned laboratory. But he had suffered. He had suffered because of you. And that broke your heart.
You raised your hand and placed it on his cheek. His skin was cold, dirty, stained with dried blood. But it was him. It was Clark. It was your home.
“I’m not going to leave, Clark,” you said, and your voice trembled a little, but not from fear. From emotion. From something you did not know how to name but that filled your chest until it nearly burst. “Never again. I don’t want to be away from you again. I don’t want to wake up without knowing if you’re okay. I don’t want to spend a single day without seeing you again. Never again, Clark. Never again.”
Clark hugged you. He did not have the strength to hold you tightly, but he hugged you. He buried his face in your neck, and you felt his lips tremble, felt his wet lashes against your skin, felt his whole body relax, as if he had been tense for thirty-one days and only now, only in your arms, could he finally release all the air he had been holding.
He settled you onto the sofa, the two of you together, wrapped around each other. He did not want to let you go. Not even to look at your face. He held you as if you were a dream, as if he were afraid that if he opened his eyes, you would disappear. And you held him because it felt as if life had given you what you had begged for so desperately. For years. For your entire existence. You had pleaded in silence, in the cold nights of the laboratory, in the moments when the blows would not stop and the pain would not let you sleep. You had begged for someone to see you. For someone to love you. For someone to save you. And now, here, in Clark’s arms, you understood that your plea had been heard. Not by a god. Not by fate. By him. By Clark. By the man who had taught you that you were not a project, that you were a person, that you deserved to be loved.
Luthor no longer mattered. You would defeat him. You knew you would. It would take time, but you would. Because now you were not alone. Because now you had Clark. Because now there were no secrets between you. He knew everything. He knew where you came from, knew what you had done, knew the lies you had told, knew the number on your shoulder, knew you could read minds, knew that at first you had been a weapon. And still, he had searched for you. And still, he had waited for you. And still, he loved you.
You could be free. For the first time in your life, you could be free. You did not have to hide. You did not have to pretend. You did not have to be afraid of someone discovering your past, because he already knew it and did not care. You could defeat them all with Clark by your side. You could fight. You could win. You could live.
At last, you could have a happy ending. That ending you had never believed you deserved. That ending you thought was only for real people, for those who had families, for those who did not have numbers tattooed on their shoulders. That ending was yours now. And you were not going to let it slip away.
Clark knew it. He confirmed it as he held you tighter, as he felt your heart beating against his, as he breathed in your scent and convinced himself it was not a dream. He knew it because he felt it. Because in that embrace, in that shared silence, the two of you understood that everything was going to be all right. That it had been difficult, that it had hurt, that it had almost destroyed you both, but in the end, you were together. And that was all that mattered.
Of course, you defeated Luthor. It was not easy. It took months. There were fights, entire sleepless nights, moments when you thought you would not make it. Luthor was cunning, he had resources, allies, other creations like Ultraman and Metamorpho. But you were no longer the same. You were no longer afraid. You no longer hesitated. And Clark was no longer alone. You fought together. Superman and you. You flew together, fought together, fell together, and rose together. And in the end, Luthor fell. His laboratories were discovered. His crimes came to light. And he, the man who believed himself owner of the world, ended up in a cell. A real cell. Not the kind he built for others. A cell he could not escape. And for the first time in his life, he learned what it felt like to be locked away. For the first time, he learned what it felt like to be a project. And you, from the outside, looked at him one last time. And you felt nothing. No hatred. No rage. Not even pity. Only peace. Because you no longer belonged to him. Because you were already free.
You returned to your name. Not to the number they had tattooed on your shoulder, not to the false name you used at the Daily Planet. You returned to yourself. To the story you already had, but with one difference. The difference was that now Clark walked beside you. That now your work was real. That you were no longer pretending to be a writer, you were one. You had learned it, lived it, worked for it. You earned that position. You earned that name. You earned that life.
Your loneliness had been replaced. In the morning, when you woke up, you were no longer alone. Clark was there, sleeping beside you, with messy hair, his mouth slightly open, one hand stretched out searching for you even while he slept. There were no longer two apartments. There was one. His. Yours. You had brought your things, which were not many, and placed them beside his. The books on the same shelves. The plates in the same cabinets. The laughter on the same walls.
There were no secrets. You did not have to hide anything. If a nightmare woke you in the night, Clark was there to hold you. If he had to leave as Superman, you knew, and you waited, and when he came back, you asked him how it had gone, and he told you everything. Because there were no more lies. Because there was no more fear. Because finally, after so long, you could both be yourselves.
There were shared mugs. Two mugs in the sink every morning, one red and one blue, side by side, like two people who had found each other after being lost. There were two scarves on the coat rack by the entrance, yours and his, sometimes tangled together as if they were embracing. There were two coats hanging by the door, the large one and the small one, the one that kept you warm and the one that kept him warm. There were two keys. One in his pocket, one in yours. The same door. The same home.
At last, you had everything you never believed you deserved. At last, you had a family. At last, you had a place where you belonged. At last, you had love. Real love. The kind that does not hurt. The kind that is not paid for with blows. The kind that makes you stronger, not weaker.
And one night, while you were having dinner together on the sofa, watching a movie neither of you was really watching, Clark rested his head on your shoulder and whispered something you could barely hear.
“Thank you for coming back.”
Your eyes filled with tears. But they were not sad tears. They were the kind you wipe away while smiling.
“Thank you for waiting for me,” you answered.
Because in the end, after everything, broken souls can heal too. Those born in hell can also walk out of the fire. And villains, those who never had a chance, those who were created to be bad... can also have a happy ending.
You deserved it. You always deserved it.
And Clark, your Clark, the man who found you among the shadows and taught you there was light, proved it to you every day. With every hug. With every kiss. With every morning you woke up beside him and he smiled at you as if it were the first day.
At last, after so long... at last, you were alive. Truly alive. And there was nothing, and no one, that could change that.
Sinopsis: After disappearing without a trace for thirty-one days, the woman Clark Kent loves becomes nothing more than a ghost haunting every corner of his life.
Thirty days since the last time he saw her. Thirty days since he was left alone.
Thirty sleepless nights. Or almost sleepless. Sometimes he closed his eyes out of exhaustion, out of pure physical fatigue, because the human body had limits and his, even if it was stronger than anyone else’s, had them too. But sleeping was not resting. Sleeping was dreaming of her again. Sleeping was waking up with her name on his lips and an emptiness in his chest. Sleeping was worse than being awake.
Thirty dawns in which Clark opened his eyes and, for one second, just one, he did not remember what had happened. He did not remember that she was gone. He did not remember the night at the restaurant. He did not remember the hours spent waiting. He did not remember the unanswered messages. For one second, just one, the world was still the same as before. The world where she existed. The world where she was going to arrive at the restaurant with that shy smile, as if she were not used to smiling. The world where he was going to give her the key to his apartment and say those words he had rehearsed so many times in the men’s bathroom.
And then everything came crashing down on him like a wave of cement. His chest caved in. His throat closed up. And he had to remember how to breathe again. Every morning. As if it were the first time he was learning. As if his lungs had forgotten how air worked. He inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. And again. And again. Until the knot in his throat loosened a little. Until he could get out of bed. Until he could look at himself in the mirror and see his red, swollen eyes, and not recognize himself.
Your memory was branded into him like a hot iron. In every corner of his apartment. In every street you had walked together. In every coffee you had shared. In every laugh, in every kiss. He could not get rid of you. And the worst part was that he did not want to. Because if he got rid of your memory, he would have nothing left. Because you were everything he had. Because without you, without the hope that you would come back, he did not know who he was.
It was strange. Clark thought about it many times, during those long hours before dawn when he could not sleep and simply stared at the ceiling, his empty hands resting over his chest. It was strange because when a person says goodbye to you, when they sit in front of you and say, “It’s over,” “I’m leaving,” “I don’t want to continue,” it hurts. It hurts a lot. But at least you understand. At least you know what happened. At least you have an explanation, even if it is a bad one. And then you slowly walk away, healing with time, learning to live without that person. It hurts, but it is possible. You can go on.
But what happens when someone leaves without saying anything? What happens when one day they are there and the next they are not? What happens when you never knew what you did wrong, or whether you did anything wrong at all, or whether she was okay, or whether something happened to her, or whether she simply decided she no longer wanted anything to do with you? How do you heal from that? How do you close a wound that has no shape? How do you bury someone when you do not know if they are dead or alive?
Clark went over everything he had lived with you, day and night. He could not help it. It was as if his brain were trapped in a circle he could not escape. The things you said to him. The things he said to you. The times you laughed. The times you looked sad and he did not know why. The times your eyes drifted into emptiness and he thought you were only tired. The times your smile faltered for one second and he did not ask anything because he did not want to make you uncomfortable.
Had something about him disappointed you? Had he said something wrong? Had he done something wrong? Had he failed you somehow without realizing it? Had he not given you enough attention? Had he not told you enough that he loved you? Why had you not told him? Why had you said nothing? Why had you left him like that, without a word, without an explanation, without a goodbye? Did he deserve that? Had he done something so terrible that it justified you disappearing without a trace?
Those were the questions circling his mind as he looked out the window of his apartment, watching the city lights, watching how people continued with their lives while his had stopped completely. Or while he remained suspended above the city, so high the cold sank into his bones, so high he could barely breathe, sharpening his hearing, his super hearing, the one that could hear a sigh from miles away, the one that could distinguish one heartbeat among millions. He listened for something, anything, something he recognized, something that belonged to you. Your laugh. Your voice. Your heart beating. Something. Anything.
But he heard nothing. Only the noise of the city. Only other people’s lives. Only the silence of not finding you.
He was waiting for you. Even though he knew nothing about you, even though he had not heard from you in a month, even though every day he woke up hoping that this would be the day and every day he went to bed with the same disappointment, he was waiting for you. He searched for you in every face, in every person as he walked to or from home. He looked at women who resembled you in the way they walked, in the way they wore their hair, in the way they lowered their gaze when someone looked at them. But it was not you. It was never you. You were not there. There was nothing of you. As if you had vanished. As if you had never existed.
At the Daily Planet, things continued as usual. That was the cruelest part of all. That the world kept turning when yours had shattered. People worked, laughed, published new articles, complained about the coffee, talked about politics, sports, the weather. Everything was the same. Everything kept going the same way. But to Clark, everything looked different. The colors were duller, as if someone had lowered the brightness of the world. The lights dimmer, as if it were always night. The voices crossing his ears, the ones that once seemed interesting or amusing or annoying, now sounded so distant, as if he were behind thick glass he could not break. As if he were inside a bubble and the rest of the world were outside, and he could not get out, and no one could come in.
His gaze never went farther than his desk and your desk. Empty. The things that belonged to you were no longer there. The company had removed them, stored them in an inventory box as if they were ownerless objects. Well, almost all of them. There was still a star-shaped coaster you had used so many times. You had left it there one afternoon, after he brought you coffee, and you never took it with you. Clark had it on his desk. It was yours. And that was the little that remained of you in that place where you had once worked together, where you used to look at each other over the screens, where you used to pass handwritten notes in secret, where he used to steal kisses from you when no one was watching.
Now only a coaster remained. A cardboard circle with a star drawn on it. And Clark looked at it sometimes, touched it, turned it between his fingers, as if he could still feel your warmth. As if he could find you in its worn edges.
Perry called him into his office a week after you disappeared without a trace. Clark entered with slumped shoulders, lost eyes, a little unkempt. He had not shaved that day. Nor the day before. Nor the day before that. His shirt was badly ironed, his hair messy, the dark circles beneath his eyes so marked they looked like bruises. Perry looked at him in silence for a moment, with those eyes of his that had seen everything in this newspaper, and something in his gaze softened. But he said nothing. It was not his style.
“Clark, sit down,” Perry said, pointing to the chair in front of him.
Clark sat. He said nothing. He could not. He felt that if he opened his mouth, a sound would come out that he did not want anyone to hear. A moan. A whimper. A contained sob he had been keeping to himself for days, for the lonely nights, for when no one could see him. So he only nodded and waited.
Perry took a white envelope from his desk and placed it in front of Clark. It was a normal envelope, the kind used in offices, with no decoration, no return name. Only the recipient: Daily Planet. Attention: Perry White.
“Kent, this arrived a few days ago,” Perry said, his voice grave, serious. “No return address. Nothing. Just the envelope and what was inside. It’s a resignation letter.”
Clark lifted his gaze. His eyes, which had not shone in days, opened a little wider. The resignation letter. Your resignation letter. So you had resigned. So you were not planning to come back. So it was official. It was not only that you had not arrived at the restaurant. It was that you had left. Forever.
“The problem is that I tried calling the number we had for her in her file,” Perry continued, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his tie, a nervous gesture Clark knew well. “No one answered. I tried several times. Different days, different hours. No one ever answered. As if that number didn’t exist. As if she had never existed.”
Clark stared at him without understanding. Or understanding too much. Because you did not answer him either. Because he had also tried calling you. Hundreds of times. Thousands. From his phone. From other phones, just in case you had blocked his. And never, not once, did you answer. Never. Not a message. Not a sign of life.
“She doesn’t answer you either?” Clark asked, and his voice sounded hoarse, as if he had not used it in days. Because yes, he had gone days without talking to anyone. Without wanting to talk to anyone. Without having anything to say.
Perry shook his head. “No. So we closed her file. It’s protocol. No return address, no way to contact her... there’s nothing else we can do. I’m sorry, Kent. I know you and she... well, I know you were close.”
Close. What a small word to describe what you felt for her. Close was nothing. Close was not staying awake all night thinking about her. Close was not searching for her in every face. Close was not crying in the shower so no one would hear you. Close was not feeling empty inside because someone had taken a part of you that you did not know how to recover.
Clark left Perry’s office slowly that day. His feet barely touched the floor. His mind was somewhere else. And as he passed by what used to be your desk, he saw Sarah, the intern, a young girl with brown hair and a frightened face, gathering your things. The last ones left. The pens. The paper clips. A spiral notebook. Some colored sticky notes. Sarah was placing them carefully into a cardboard box, as if handling something fragile. And when she looked up and saw Clark, she froze.
“Mr. Kent,” Sarah whispered. Her hands trembled a little. She did not know whether what she was about to do was right or wrong. “I... Miss Lane told me that before sending all of this to the inventory box, I should... I should stop by your desk.”
Clark looked at the box. A brown cardboard box, the kind they used for filing documents. Inside were the remains of your life at the Daily Planet. The little that was left of you in that building. He nodded with a lopsided smile. It was not his usual one. It was not that wide, warm smile he had once shown with pride, the one that revealed the two dimples in his cheeks and made everyone feel welcome. No. It was only a lopsided, sad, tired smile. The smile of someone who has lost something and does not know how to get it back.
Sarah stepped away a little, pretending to organize the empty desk, though in reality she was glancing over, worried. Everyone at the newspaper knew Clark was not okay. Everyone had noticed. But no one knew what to say to him. No one knew how to help him.
Clark took the box and carried it to his desk. He sat down slowly, as if it were hard for him to remain standing. And he began to empty it, object by object, like someone unearthing a memory.
First he found a small brown wallet. It was leather, worn at the corners, with a metal clasp that did not close all the way. He opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was your ID badge to enter the Planet. The photo was the one they had taken of you on your first day, when you arrived with that serious expression of someone who was not used to having their picture taken. You must have left it that night. That night he walked you to your apartment. That night that was the last time he saw you alive, though he did not know it.
Then he found small papers, interview notes you had both made together. He recognized his own handwriting on some of them. On others, yours. Tight, tiny handwriting, as if you wanted to take up as little space as possible. As if you were afraid of bothering anyone. There were lists of questions. There were badly written addresses. There were doodles in the margins, small drawings you made when you were bored. Stars. Many stars. Like the one on the coaster.
And then, at the bottom of the wallet, behind the Planet badge, he found a photo. Carefully kept, like a treasure. Like something you never wanted to lose.
He recognized it instantly.
It was your face. Not the badge photo, serious and formal. The real you. Smiling. But not at the camera. At him.
He remembered that time. He had invited you to the movies, one of your first dates, when you were still getting to know each other, when he still did not know he was going to fall in love with you down to the bone. As you left, you saw a photo booth, one of those in shopping malls, with the red curtain and the flash that blinded you.
“I don’t have pictures of myself,” you said, looking at the booth, and he noticed something in your voice. It was not just an observation. It was a confession. As if you were saying that no one had ever wanted to take a picture of you.
Clark smiled, that smile you liked so much. “Then let’s go,” he said, taking your hand. And you looked at him with those eyes that sometimes drifted into emptiness, but that at that moment were filled with something close to hope. “We should have pictures of us from now on,” he suggested. And you nodded, holding his hand. The hand you always held. The hand he believed you loved holding because it made you feel safe.
There was the photo. He was holding the popcorn with one hand, and with the other he had his arm around your waist, pulling you close to him. At first, you were looking at the camera, posing, serious. But the photographer, a young impatient girl, pressed the button too soon. Without giving you time to pose. Maybe Clark did have time. He was smiling at the camera, happy, carefree, with that enormous smile everyone liked so much. But you... you were not looking at the camera. You were looking at him. With a smile that remained captured in the photo forever. A smile he did not remember ever seeing on you before. A smile that said “I love you” without using words. A smile that now, one month later, broke his heart into a thousand pieces.
Then why? Why, if you seemed so happy, had you left him? Why was there no farewell voicemail from you, crying and telling him not to look for you anymore? Why had you not shown up at his apartment one night, knocked on the door, sat in front of him, and said, “I don’t want to continue,” “Don’t look for me anymore,” “This is over”? Why had you not given him that chance? Why had you not allowed him at least to say goodbye? Why had you left him with so many questions? Why was his last memory of you that smile in the photo, and not a farewell? Why was his last memory a happy one, and why did that make everything hurt even more?
Clark sighed. A long, deep sigh that rose from the very bottom of his chest. And he placed the little he had of you back into the box. The wallet. The notes. The photo. The badge. Everything. He stored it carefully, like someone guarding a treasure. Then he closed the box and placed it beneath his desk. He could not take it home. Not yet. Because if he took it home, it would be real. It would mean accepting that you would not come back. And he was not ready for that.
Maybe that was why he stopped searching. Not completely, never completely. But he did stop calling. He did stop going to your apartment every night. He did stop asking the neighbors, the doormen, the people on the street. Because he believed it was for the best. Because he thought you must be better off that way. Because he did not want to bother you. Because if you had left without saying anything, maybe it was because you did not want him to find you. Maybe it was because you had decided he was no longer part of your life. And even if it hurt more than anything, even if he felt like he was dying inside, he had to respect it. He had to let you go.
But even so, he could not stop looking for you. He could not stop sharpening his hearing at night, when the city fell asleep and the silence grew deeper, just in case he heard something of yours. He could not stop looking at blonde women on the street, just in case one of them was you. He could not stop dreaming of you and waking up with his heart broken.
How do you stop looking for the woman you love? How do you stop waiting for the person you long to have by your side? How do you tell your heart to be quiet, to stop crying, to stop hoping, to stop dreaming? How do you do that when the love you feel is so great it does not fit inside you?
He did not know. Maybe he would never know. Maybe he would spend the rest of his life looking for you. Maybe he would grow old with the hope of finding you on some corner, in some café, in some place where you had once been happy. Maybe he would never stop wondering why you left. Maybe he would never get an answer.
That day, he came home after work. The silence in his home was so vast he could hear it, as if the walls had learned not to make noise so they would not disturb him. He took off his jacket and let it fall over the back of a chair, without the strength to hang it where it belonged. He did not even turn on the lights. He preferred the gloom, that gray light coming through the windows that did not demand he see clearly. He preferred to sit on the sofa, in the same place where so many nights he had sat with you, with your head resting on his shoulder, with your legs tangled around his, with your soft breathing brushing against his neck. Now it was only him. Alone. Empty. Like a building from which all the furniture had been removed, leaving only bare walls.
He stayed there, staring at the wall in front of him without seeing it, for minutes that felt like hours. He did not know how much time passed. He had lost track of time weeks ago. The days blended into one another like wet paint, without edges, without differences. They were all the same. They were all gray.
Until the doorbell rang.
The sound struck him like a whip. He blinked, confused, as if he had been sleeping with his eyes open. He stood slowly, his legs numb from being still for so long, and walked toward the door. He opened it.
Lois and Jimmy were there.
They both looked at him with eyes full of something Clark already knew too well: concern. They had been so worried about him throughout that entire month. Lois had left him messages, brought him food he did not eat, sat beside him at work without saying anything, just to keep him company. Jimmy had tried to take him out for drinks, to see a movie, to do anything that might distract him. But Clark always said no. Always. Because going out meant facing a world where she was not there. Because distracting himself felt like betraying the memory. Because he did not want to forget even one second of what he had felt.
When his friends looked at him from the doorway, Clark said nothing. He only stepped away and returned to the sofa. He did not invite them in. He did not ask why they had come. He simply sat down again, in the same place, and went back to staring at the wall. As if they were not there. As if nothing mattered.
Lois and Jimmy exchanged glances. That kind of glance that says everything without words. The he’s worse than we thought. The we have to do something. The if we don’t help him now, he’ll never get out of this.
They entered without waiting for an invitation. Lois closed the door behind her. Jimmy remained standing, not knowing where to place himself, playing with the car keys in his pocket. Lois, on the other hand, went straight to him. She sat in front of Clark, on the coffee table, lowering herself to his level. She looked into his eyes, those eyes that once shone with a warm light and now looked like two stagnant pools of water.
“Clark,” Lois said carefully, with that soft voice she used very rarely, the one she saved for truly difficult moments. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about... her.”
Clark raised his gaze. Just a little. Just enough to meet Lois’s eyes, which watched him with a tenderness he felt ashamed to receive.
“We’re sorry to reopen your wound,” Lois continued, and her voice trembled slightly, because it hurt her too to see him like this. Lois Lane did not like watching the people she loved suffer. And Clark was one of the people she loved most. “But it’s just... it’s not normal, Clark. There’s... there’s nothing about her.”
Clark frowned. What did she mean, there was nothing about her?
Lois shifted on the coffee table, crossing her arms. “I asked Perry for her file. I wanted to see where she had worked before, what she had studied, where she came from. Jimmy got the numbers of the newsrooms where she supposedly worked. He called all of them.”
Jimmy nodded, taking a step forward. “We wanted you to at least have one final explanation so you could move on, Clark. Something. A clue. An address. A friend to call. Anything.”
“And every number,” Lois continued, “was either wrong, or no one answered, or they simply said no one with that name had ever worked there. We showed them the photo from her badge. The Planet one. The one they took on her first day. Do you know what happened? Nothing. There’s nothing. No one recognizes her. No one knows who she is. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
Clark blinked. Strange. Yes, it was strange. But until that moment, he had been so busy suffering, so busy wondering why you had left, that he had not stopped to think about those things. About the details. About the inconsistencies.
“Besides,” Jimmy added, moving a little closer, his hands in his pockets, “I also checked universities. Where she was supposed to have studied, according to her résumé. There’s nothing. No classmates who knew her from the year she supposedly graduated. It’s like... I don’t know, like she didn’t exist before coming to the Planet.”
Clark looked at them. First at Lois. Then at Jimmy. Then back into the emptiness. His lips moved, but at first no sound came out. He had to make an effort, gather the little strength he had left, to speak.
“I don’t know,” he said in a whisper. His voice came out hoarse, broken. Like someone who had been screaming in silence for a long time.
Lois leaned toward him, closing the distance. “I know you think she left you because she didn’t love you anymore,” she said, and Clark looked at her with wet eyes. “But I’m sure she loves you. Even now. Wherever she is.”
Jimmy nodded fervently. “You can tell when someone is in love, Clark. And she gave herself away with her eyes every time she looked at you. Leaving just like that, without a word, without a fight, without anything... doesn’t that seem odd to you? Doesn’t it seem like something was wrong?”
Lois gently placed a hand on Clark’s knee. “Clark, did she ever say anything strange to you? Did she ever mention being afraid of something? Of someone?”
Clark looked at them. And then, for the first time in a month, his mind began to work differently. It stopped repeating the same questions over and over, and started remembering. Truly remembering. Remembering the details he had let pass because, at the time, they had not seemed important.
He went over everything he had lived with you. There were so many things. The times you often looked out the window, as if expecting to see someone who should not be there. The times when, walking down the street, you turned your head to look behind you, as if afraid someone was following you. The times your smile faltered, only for one second, and then you smiled again as if nothing had happened. The times you suddenly went quiet, your eyes lost somewhere he could not see.
There were so many things. So many small moments that now, seen from another perspective, formed a pattern. A pattern he did not like.
Then he thought of you. He thought that maybe he had not searched enough. That he had given up too soon, carried away by sadness and self-pity. That he had never entered your apartment to look for some sign, some paper, some clue as to where you might be. He had to go in, didn’t he? Even if it was illegal. Even if it was not right. He had to know.
But the last time he went to your building, your apartment already had a “For Rent” sign taped to the door. The windows were empty. The curtains had disappeared. There was nothing. As if you had never lived there. As if everything had been a dream.
Then he thought of the neighbors. Where had your things gone? Who had taken them? Had someone kept them? Or had they simply... disappeared, like you?
Clark stood immediately. The movement was so abrupt that Lois had to move aside to keep from falling off the coffee table. Jimmy took a step back, startled.
“Clark?” Lois asked. “What is it?”
But Clark did not answer. He could not. The words crashed together in his throat. He only knew he had to go. He had to go now. He could not wait another minute.
He ran out of the apartment, leaving Lois and Jimmy in the middle of the living room, staring at each other without understanding what had happened. He heard Lois shout his name, heard Jimmy say, “Should we follow him?” but he no longer cared. He no longer listened. He only felt an enormous urgency, a fire in his chest he had not felt in weeks.
He ran to the roof of the building. The afternoon air struck his face, cold and sharp. He stopped for a second, looking at the horizon, searching among the buildings for the one that had been yours. He found it. He always found it. It was a gray, ordinary building, the kind there were hundreds of in the city. But he knew which one it was. He had stood in front of its door so many nights. He had waited there for so many hours.
And then he flew.
He rose between the buildings with a stealth only he could possess. He did not want anyone to see him. He did not want explanations. He did not want to be Superman. He only wanted to be Clark. The man who had loved you. The man who needed answers.
Landed on the rooftop of your building. They would no longer let him in through the main entrance. He had gone so many times, called the doorman so many times, asked the neighbors so many times, that in the end they had forbidden him from entering. “She doesn’t live here anymore, young man,” they would tell him. “Let it go. You’re going to get in trouble with the police.” And he would leave, with his tail between his legs, feeling like a stalker. But not now. Now he did not care. Now he needed to know.
He went down the stairs carefully, keeping close to the walls, moving through the shadows. He did not want anyone to see him. He did not want to have to explain why he had come back. He heard a neighbor’s television, a baby crying, someone’s footsteps moving down the hallway. He waited. Held his breath. And when the hallway was empty, he moved forward.
Then he stopped.
In front of your door.
The door where he had left you so many times. Where he had said goodbye to you so many times with a kiss on the lips and a “see you tomorrow.” Where he had seen you smile so many times before closing the door. Where he had stayed a few seconds longer so many times, only to listen as you walked inside, turned on the light, and began that nighttime life of yours he never saw.
He had left you there so many times. Why had he not done it that night? Why had he not insisted on staying a little longer? Why had he not gone upstairs with you? Why had he not made sure you were okay before leaving?
He stayed there for a moment with his hand against the wood, as if he could feel you on the other side. As if something of you still remained inside those empty walls. He tried to open it. It was locked. With his vision, he looked through the door and into the apartment. Empty. Just like the first week he had gone to see you, to see if you could talk, to see if you had come back, to see if there was any trace of you. Bare walls. Naked floor. Curtainless windows. But it was strange. Because if you had left of your own free will, if you had decided to disappear from his life, why was everything so clean? Why were there no old pieces of furniture, broken things, remnants proving someone had once lived there? It looked as if someone had erased your existence on purpose.
“She’s not in there.”
A woman’s voice sounded behind him. Clark turned quickly, his heart leaping in his chest. A neighbor. An older woman, the kind who sees everything from behind the curtains. She was peeking out from her doorway, wearing a floral robe and her hair tied in a messy bun. She looked at him with tired eyes, but also with fear. As if she were doing something she should not.
“Don’t look here,” she said, her voice a whisper. “You’re the boyfriend, aren’t you? The one who came so many times. The one who knocked on her door late at night.”
Clark kept staring at the door of your apartment, but his ears were attentive to every word the woman said.
“They’re watching me,” the neighbor said, her eyes moving toward the stairs, toward the windows, toward any place danger might come from. “I shouldn’t be talking to you. They told me to keep quiet. That if I spoke, something bad would happen. But... the girl was good. She never bothered anyone. She always said hello. And you...” She paused, looking at him. “You looked so desperate those nights. Knocking and knocking. Calling and calling. I felt sorry for you. So I’m going to tell you something, but after this, you don’t know me, understood?”
Clark nodded. He could barely breathe.
“A month ago,” the neighbor continued, lowering her voice until it was nothing more than a thread, “I heard noises. It was around ten at night, more or less. A loud crash. Like something had hit the wall. And then footsteps. A lot of footsteps. And when I looked through the peephole, I saw a man. A big man, very big, carrying a woman in his arms. The woman wasn’t moving. Her head was hanging down, her arms were hanging down. I don’t know if she was... I don’t know if...”
She fell silent. Swallowed.
Clark clenched his fists. So tightly that his nails dug into his palms. They had hurt you. Someone had hurt you. They had carried you like a sack. And he had not been there. He had not been able to protect you.
“Do you know where she is?” Clark asked in a whisper. His voice trembled. All of him trembled.
“No,” the neighbor said. “But I know who that man was. I’ve seen him in pictures, on the news. His face stayed with me. It was Lex Luthor. I’m sure. It was him. The one who came out of her door. The one giving orders. Then, the next day, they came to threaten me. Men in suits came and told me that if I said anything, I’d regret it. That they knew where my daughter lived. That they knew where my grandchildren lived. That’s why I said nothing. That’s why I kept quiet. That’s why, when you came asking, I told you I didn’t know anything. But... but you looked so desperate. So...”
The neighbor took one step closer. She looked from side to side, terrified, as if someone could appear at any moment.
“On the first floor,” she said, “there’s a locker for each resident. To keep valuables, documents, whatever. When the girl moved in, the woman who rented the apartment to her told me she had asked to use the locker. That if something happened to her, if one day she didn’t come back, someone should go there. That she had stored something inside. I don’t know what it is. I didn’t open the locker. I didn’t want to get involved. But you... you probably need it more than I do. The password is 2902. That’s what the landlady told me before leaving. She said the girl gave it to her like that, with those numbers. Good luck.”
And the neighbor slammed the door shut. Clark heard her lock it. Heard her walk away. Heard her disappear.
He stood in the hallway for one second, his heart beating so hard he could barely hear anything else. 2902. His birthday. February 29th. A day that only existed every four years. A day he hated as a child because the other kids made fun of him. A day only you had celebrated with him as if it were special. You remembered his birthday. You remembered it. If you remembered it that much, then you had not left because you wanted to. Then someone had forced you to leave. Someone had torn you away from his side.
He moved his feet. He went down the stairs quickly, no longer caring if he made noise. He passed by the doorman, who opened his mouth to say something, but Clark ignored him. He walked straight to the lockers. They were in a narrow hallway in the back, beside the mailboxes. Small gray metal lockers, numbered. He looked for yours. The one from your floor. The one that matched your apartment number. It was there. Closed with a combination lock.
With trembling fingers, Clark turned the wheels. 2. 9. 0. 2. The lock clicked. It opened.
His heart sped up even more. If you remembered him that much, if you had used his birthday as the password, then you had not left because you wanted to. Then something had happened to you. Someone had hurt you. And he had not been there. He had not been able to protect you.
He opened the locker. Inside, there were two things. An old laptop, one of those large, heavy ones, with a scratched casing and stickers on the lid. And envelopes. Several yellow manila envelopes, the kind used to store important documents. He took them out immediately, his hands shaking. He pressed them against his chest. Closed the locker. And without looking back, without greeting the doorman, without thinking of anything else, he went back up the stairs, reached the rooftop, and flew.
That was the sign. That was the precise moment when he arrived at his apartment and opened everything. When he looked at your file. When he realized your life had been spent surrounded by people who studied you, who looked at you as if you were some strange creature, who measured and weighed you and injected you and wrote everything down in cold notebooks, without names, only numbers. Everything you had gathered from Luthor while you went to see him to give him your “progress.” But you never gave him anything real. Clark saw it in your notes. In the reports you wrote for Luthor but never delivered. Page after page of carefully constructed lies. False dates. False locations. Invented conversations. You lied to Luthor. For months. You lied to protect him. So he would not know that Clark Kent was not just a journalist. So he would not know that the man you were supposed to spy on was the same man who kissed you in apartment doorways.
And there were also the recordings you had recovered from your training sessions. Clark played them on the laptop, one by one, with frozen fingers and a constricted heart. He saw images of you when you were little. So little. A girl with wide, frightened eyes, standing in the middle of a white room, surrounded by men in white coats who spoke to you as if you did not understand. They hit you. Injected you. Made you cry. And then, when you grew older, the recordings became darker. More violent. They put you against other people. Made you fight. Forced you to use your powers until your nose bled, until you fell to the floor, until you could not lift your arms. And always, at the end of each recording, the same voice. Luthor’s voice. Saying, “Again,” “Do better,” “You’re useless.”
Clark could not watch them all. He had to stop several times. He had to close the laptop, press his forehead against the table, breathe deeply, very deeply, so he would not break something. So he would not fly out at that very moment and kill Luthor with his own hands. Lois placed a hand on his shoulder. She said nothing. No words were necessary. Jimmy was pale, his fists clenched, biting his lips so he would not cry.
And then, at the bottom of one of the envelopes, he found the note. A sheet of paper folded in four, wrinkled at the edges, as if you had carried it with you for a long time. He opened it carefully, fearfully, as if there were something inside that could hurt him more than he was already hurt.
Your handwriting. Small. Tight. Trembling in some letters, as if you had cried while writing.
“If I am in the right hands, then I only want you to know that I know your secret. That is why I kept it as if it were my own. Thank you for teaching me what seemed impossible to live.”
That was all. There was nothing else. It did not say where you were going. It did not say why you were leaving. It did not say whether you planned to come back. Only that. A thank you. An I love you disguised in simple words. An “I know who you are, and I am protecting you.”
Clark trembled. His entire body trembled. They had done something to you. Someone had hurt you. You had not left of your own will. Someone had torn you from his side. And he had done nothing. He had spent a month crying, grieving, blaming himself, when what he should have done was search. Investigate. Fight. Find you.
He rose from the chair so quickly that it fell backward. Lois took a step back, startled. Jimmy opened his mouth to say something, but Clark was already gone. He had shot toward the window, toward the balcony, toward the sky. He flew with such force that the air whistled around him, that the windows of nearby buildings trembled in his wake. He did not think. He did not plan. He only flew. Straight to Luthor.
That was his mistake. Acting on impulse. Not thinking. Not waiting. Not gathering more evidence. Only allowing rage, fear, and desperation to guide him. Because when you love someone, when that person is everything to you, when you have lost them and finally have a clue as to where they might be, you do not think. You simply act. And Clark acted.
He put on the suit midair, with that movement he had done thousands of times. The cape billowing behind him. The red crest on his chest. But inside, he did not feel like Superman. Inside, he felt like a frightened man. A man who had failed the only person who truly mattered.
He reached Luthor’s tower in less than a minute. He did not knock on the door. He did not ask permission. He shattered the entrance window with his shoulders, feeling the glass burst into a thousand pieces around him, feeling the alarms begin to blare. He walked through the hallways with firm steps, his gaze fixed ahead, his fists clenched. The guards tried to stop him. He pushed them aside effortlessly, without even looking at them. He was not there for them. He was there for Luthor. To find out where you were. To bring you back.
Luthor received him in his office. He was sitting behind his enormous dark wooden desk, his hands clasped on the surface, a victorious smile on his lips. He did not stand when Superman entered. He did not flinch when the glass door shattered into pieces. He only looked at him, with those cold eyes, with that false calm Clark hated so much. The way inside was imposing, full of technology, blinking lights, screens showing graphics and maps and things Clark could not quite understand. But Lex was not afraid. That was the worst part. That he was not afraid. That he had been waiting. That all of this was part of his plan.
“So Clark Kent finally managed to get you to come,” Lex said, tilting his head as if admiring a work of art. “Surely it was because of the project he himself made me discard, wasn’t it? How ironic. She, who was my best creation, my masterpiece, ruined by a shitty journalist. By a man who did not even know what he had in his hands.”
Clark looked at him. If she knew his secret, if she knew he was Superman, then that meant she had revealed nothing to Luthor. Despite everything, despite the orders, despite the years of training, despite the punishments and the injections and the nights of pain, she had not betrayed him. She had protected him. The way you protect something fragile. The way you protect something worth more than your own life.
He kept staring at Luthor, saying nothing, waiting. The alarms were still blaring in the distance, but here, in this office, there was only silence and Lex’s ugly smile.
“What did you do to her?” Clark asked. His voice sounded deep, hoarse, as if it came from the bottom of a well. He took one step closer. Luthor did not move. “Where is she?”
Desperation trembled in his voice. He tried to hide it, tried to wear the face of a hero, of Superman, of someone who was not afraid.
“Where she always should have been,” Lex said, his voice calm, as if he were talking about the weather. “It was difficult, I won’t deny it. Getting rid of what I created with so much effort... it hurts, you know? Like losing a child. But sometimes it has to be done. Sometimes children become rebellious. They forget who they are. They forget who they owe everything to.”
Clark clenched his fists. “Where is she, Luthor?”
Lex lifted one hand, calm. “If you do anything to me, I won’t tell you. And you’ll gain nothing. You can kill me, Superman. You can break my bones one by one. You can do whatever you want to me. But if you do that, you’ll never know where she is. You’ll never know whether she’s alive or dead. And you’ll live with that for the rest of your life. Is it worth it?”
Clark stopped. Rage burned through his insides, but Luthor was right. He could not do anything to him. Not until he knew where you were.
Lex smiled, satisfied. He continued speaking as if he were telling a story. “She was the best. They raised her well. Obedient. Strong. She never asked questions. Never complained. She did what she was told and stayed silent. She was perfect. But her mistake was remembering she had a heart. She was not supposed to love. I designed her so she couldn’t. Love is a weakness, Superman. You know that better than anyone. Love makes you weak. It makes you make mistakes. It makes you forget who you are. And she fell in love. With him. With Clark Kent. With that useless friend of yours. She dared to love, and that is wrong, isn’t it? Isn’t it wrong when something that belongs to you forgets that it is yours?”
Lex stood slowly, walked around the desk, and approached Superman without fear. He knew he would not hurt him. Not until he spoke.
“In the end, she said nothing. She lied to me. She lied to the man who gave her a home. Who gave her a reason to exist. Do you know how much time I invested in her? How much money? How many resources? And she repaid me by lying to me. And I knew, Superman. I knew because she can read minds. Because it was easy to fool that idiot Kent, she could read him like an open book. But she did not want to. She preferred lying to me over hurting him. Is that love? Is that what you call love? Betraying the one who created you for someone you met five minutes ago?”
“Where is she, Luthor?” Superman asked again. His voice was louder now. More dangerous. The lights in the office flickered. The windowpanes trembled.
Lex smiled. And pointed to the side. Toward a corner of the office where Clark had not seen anything before. But now he saw it. A portal. A metal cube suspended in the air, surrounded by green and purple lights, with a surface that looked liquid and solid at the same time. Vibrant. Threatening.
“There,” Lex said, pointing with a long, pale finger. “Go ahead, Superman. You’re strong. If you go in there, no one will hurt you. Because you’re the strongest of all, aren’t you? The invincible hero. The one who never falls. The one who always wins. Go in. Go look for her. If she’s still alive, of course.”
Clark looked at him, doubtful. It was a trap. It had to be a trap. But you were there. Or you could be. And he could not just stand there with his arms crossed.
“Go ahead,” Lex repeated, arms open. “Don’t be afraid. Is Superman afraid? Does the Man of Steel hesitate? Go in. It’s only a portal. It will take you to her. Or maybe it won’t. Maybe it will take you somewhere else. You won’t know until you enter. Will you risk it? Or would you rather stay here with me, listening to me talk about her?”
Clark did not think any longer. He flew toward the portal. He could not help it. It was his only clue. His only chance. He had to find you. He had to know if you were all right. He had to bring you back.
“Honestly,” Lex said when Superman entered and the cube closed behind him with a deep, metallic, definitive sound. “A stupid alien. Just like all the rest. And do you know what the funniest part is?”
Lex stood in front of the cube, looking through the glass surrounding it, hands in his pockets, with a wide, happy smile, like a child who had just broken a toy he did not like.
“You know, she was excellent,” he said, speaking as if Superman could hear him. As if he were enjoying every word. “She had everything she needed to be the best. She had fought so much. So much. Since she was a child. I broke her bones, made her cry, lifted her back up, broke her again. I made her strong. I made her perfect. And your friend, that Clark Kent, that stupid shitty journalist, decided to turn her into a failure. He filled her head with foolish ideas. With love. With freedom. With things that do not exist. And she believed them. Like an idiot. Like all of you.”
Lex sighed, as if he were tired. Tired of having to explain the obvious.
“But don’t worry. This time no one died because of Superman. No, no. This time was different. This time it was because of his friend. Because of Clark Kent. That useless man who does not even know what he lost. Because of him, she died. Because if she had not fallen in love with him, if she had not tried to protect him, if she had not lied to her owner... she would still be here. Obeying. Being useful. Being my perfect project. But no. Your friend made her weak. And weak things break. And broken things get thrown in the trash.”
Lex moved closer to the glass. Superman was inside, on his knees, panting, struggling to breathe. The cube glowed. Something moved in the gloom.
“Do you know the best part?” Lex said, almost whispering. “She never told him who she was. Clark Kent never knew the truth. He never knew she was a weapon. He never knew they were spying on him. He never knew she could read his mind. He never knew anything. And now, she’s gone. And he was left with no answers. No goodbye. Nothing. Because that’s what happens when you fall in love with a monster, Superman. You end up empty. And you don’t even know why.”
Superman lifted his gaze. From inside the cube, he could see Lex on the other side of the glass, smiling. He wanted to strike it. Wanted to break it. But something was happening. His body felt weak. So weak. As if he had suddenly lost all his strength. His legs trembled. His arms felt heavy. He fell to his knees with a dull thud, panting, struggling to breathe, as if the air had suddenly become too thick to inhale. As if the power inside him had vanished. As if he were no longer Superman. Only a man on his knees, trembling, afraid.
Lex approached the glass, looking at him from the other side, with that blood-chilling smile.
“By the way,” he said, as if remembering something important, “meet Metamorpho. That hideous thing you see in there with you. A metahuman. He has the ability to transform his body into anything. Even kryptonite. So enjoy your stay, Superman. Because you are not getting out of there. And she... well, she didn’t get out either.”
Clark looked at the man. Metamorpho was sitting inside the cube too, in the corner, his gaze lost on the floor, as if he did not want to see what was in front of him. He did not look at him. He avoided him. As if he were ashamed. As if he knew what he was doing was wrong, but had no other choice. Lex Luthor watched from outside, arms crossed, that wide, ugly smile still plastered across his face. He was enjoying every second. Seeing Superman weak, trapped, unable to do anything, was his greatest pleasure.
Superman stared at him. At Metamorpho. At that being who could become anything, any weapon, any poison. And for a moment, for an instant, Metamorpho lifted his eyes. He looked at him. And there was no hatred in his eyes. No desire to fight. Only exhaustion.
“Even so, she fought,” Lex said from outside, in a singsong voice, as if narrating a film. “Really. She fought. I don’t know if it was to protect Kent or to protect you. Maybe both. Maybe she wanted to save everyone. How foolish. How stupid. Don’t you think? Giving your life for people who don’t even know you exist.”
Lex touched something on a floating panel beside him, and an enormous screen appeared in the air, inside the cube, in front of Superman. A floating screen that began to play a recording. The battle from that day. Superman watched weakly, his chest tight, his breath cut short by the kryptonite Metamorpho released unintentionally, or perhaps intentionally.
He saw you fight. He saw you fall. He saw you throw green balls of energy, raise walls from the ground, try to protect yourself. He saw that man whose face he could not make out, that monster called Ultraman, attack you again and again. He saw how you fell to the ground. How you bled. How you got back up, even though you could barely do it anymore. How you fell again. How you kept fighting. How you did not give up. How, even when you had no strength left, even when blood ran from your nose and mouth, you kept fighting.
Tears welled in his eyes. He could not stop them. They were hot, heavy, and rolled down his cheeks as he watched the screen. Maybe while he had been on his way to the restaurant, tulips in his hand and the velvet box in his pocket, rehearsing the words he was going to say to you, you had been there. Somewhere dark. In some cold laboratory. Fighting for your life. For his. To protect his secret. So he could keep being Superman. So Clark could keep being Clark.
He saw Ultraman drive the dagger into you. How your body shuddered. How your eyes widened in pain. How Luthor approached, caressed your cheek, whispered something in your ear. How he pulled out the dagger. How the blood spilled out. How you fell. How you went still. How you went silent. How you stayed...
And then Luthor stopped the recording. The screen went dark. The cube returned to gloom. Only Metamorpho’s green glow remained, Superman’s ragged breathing, and Lex’s smile on the other side of the glass.
“Dying was probably the best thing for her, don’t you think?” Lex said, tilting his head as if asking an honest question. “Clark Kent would have hated her if he had found out. If he knew she was a weapon. If he knew they were spying on him at first. If he knew she could read his mind. Do you think he would have forgiven her? Do you think he would have kept loving her after knowing everything was a lie? No. He would have hated her. He would have left her. He would have made her feel worse than she already did. So yes, death was the best thing. That way she spared herself all of that. That way she left without having to see the disgust on Kent’s face when he learned the truth.”
No.
Clark knew it. From inside the cube, with his body weak, with almost no strength left, he knew it. He would not have hated her. Never. Not even when she stood him up at the restaurant. Not even when he stopped receiving messages from her. Not even when his calls went unanswered. Not even when he found out everything she was. Her number. Her past. The recordings. The lies. Everything.
He did not hate her. He never hated her. The only person he hated was himself. For not having seen the signs. For not having asked. For not having stayed that night. For not having protected her. For being so blind. So stupid. So trusting.
If he could go back, if he could have her here, in front of him, he only wanted to tell her one thing. Just one. That it would be all right. That he could take care of her. That he could accept her. That he did not care where she came from, or what she had done, or what had been done to her. That only she mattered to him. That he wanted to heal every scar life had left on her. That he wanted to erase the number on her shoulder with kisses. That he wanted to give her a home. A real home. Not a laboratory. Not a cell. Not a cage. A home. With him. With his smile. With his arms. With his kisses on her forehead.
But he could not. Because she was no longer there. Because he had arrived too late. Because while he was going to the restaurant with tulips in his hand, she was dying. And he could not save her. He could not even say goodbye.
Superman lowered his gaze. He could no longer look at Lex. He could no longer look at Metamorpho. He could only look at the floor of the cube, cold and gray, and feel the tears continue to fall, silent, hot, endless.
Lex enjoyed it. It showed in his posture. In the way he leaned back in his chair, in the way he crossed his legs, in the way he placed his hands behind his head. He did not know Superman was Clark. He did not know that the man crying inside that cube was the same journalist you had kissed. To him, Superman was only an alien. A hero. Someone who always hated not being able to save someone. And seeing him suffer, seeing him cry, seeing him crumble... that was better than any victory.
“Metamorpho will watch over you while I decide what to do with you,” Lex said with a low, amused laugh. “Don’t get bored, all right? We have plenty of time. I can wait. So can you. After all, she’s in no hurry anymore. She has nothing anymore.”
He stood, adjusted his jacket, and walked toward the door of his office. Before leaving, he looked back one last time and smiled.
“Enjoy the company,” he said. “Metamorpho is very quiet, but he doesn’t bite. Well, sometimes he does. But don’t worry. The kryptonite he gives off isn’t enough to kill you. Only enough to make you feel... the way she felt. Weak. Alone. Afraid. You know? I think that’s fair.”
And he left. The door closed behind him. The office lights went out, one by one, until only the green glow of the cube and the breathing of two trapped men remained. Two projects. Two weapons. Two beings who never asked to be what they were.
The cube remained floating in the middle of the room, suspended in the air, turning slowly. Metamorpho did not move. He said nothing. He only stayed in his corner, his gaze lowered, his hands on his knees, like a domesticated animal that no longer remembers what it is to be free.
And Clark finally let the tears fall. He did not hold them back anymore. He did not pretend anymore. He let them all come out. One after another. Hot, fast, endless. He trembled slightly, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed, his hands shaking on his legs. He made no sound. He did not cry out loud. He did not scream. He only cried in silence, the way you had learned to cry when you were little. He only cried, because he had nothing else left.
He had finally realized he had arrived too late. That she had been alone. That she had been afraid. That she had tried to tell him, maybe, but had not been able to. Or had not wanted to. Or had not found the right moment. And he had not been there. He could not save her. He could not protect her. He could not do anything.
But she had protected him. Protected his secret. That was what hurt the most. That she, who had suffered so much, who had been used and beaten and discarded, who had every reason in the world to hate, to betray, to seek revenge... she had protected him. She had given her life for him. For Clark.
And he had not been able to do the same. He had not been able to protect her. He had not been able to save her. He had arrived too late.
Clark finally mourned your death. That was what hurt the most. That you were dead. That you would not come back. That you would never smile at him again, or take his hand, or say “see you tomorrow.” That he would never again feel your lips, your laughter, your gaze. That you were gone forever. And he had not been able to say goodbye.
Thinking about it sent chills through him. More than the kryptonite did. Because the kryptonite took away his strength, burned in his blood, hurt him. But thinking about you, about the fact that you would not return, that there was nothing he could do to bring you back... that was worse. That broke his soul. That made him want to stop existing.
It did not matter that someone else was there. It did not matter that Metamorpho watched him out of the corner of his eye, that he saw him crying and said nothing, that maybe he also wanted to cry but no longer remembered how. It did not matter that Lex might be watching from some camera, enjoying every tear. Nothing mattered. He cried because he could feel you. Because somewhere, in some corner of his heart, you were still there. He still felt you. He still loved you. And he wanted you back. He wanted to hold you. He wanted to tell you everything was going to be all right. He wanted to heal your wounds. He wanted to give you the key to his apartment. He wanted to tell you he loved you. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with you.
But he could not. Because you were gone. Because you had died. Because he had arrived too late. And now all he had left was to cry inside a floating cube, surrounded by kryptonite, with a killer beside him, while the man who had killed you went home calmly to have dinner.
“I’m sorry,” Clark whispered through his tears, even though he knew you could not hear him. Even though he knew you were dead. Even though he knew you would never hear his voice again. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go. I shouldn’t have left that night. I shouldn’t have... I shouldn’t have...”
The words drowned in his throat. He lowered his head. Closed his eyes. And kept crying. In silence. In the dark. In the center of that cube that was his own tomb, because without you, without your smile, without your hand, without your love... what was the point of still being Superman? What was the point of still being Clark?
Because there is nothing sadder than a hero who arrives too late. There is nothing sadder than a love that is not enough. There is nothing sadder than a life that goes out in silence, with no one to say goodbye to it, with no one to say “I love you” one last time.
Clark heard the voice. Weak, trembling, as if every word required an enormous effort. It came from the opposite corner of the cube, where Metamorpho was still sitting, his gaze lowered, his hands twisting over his knees. He was not looking at him. He was looking at the floor. As if speaking to him were already a crime. As if saying those words put him in danger.
“Was she your friend?” Metamorpho asked.
Clark was on the floor, his back against the wall of the cube, his legs stretched out and his arms hanging limply. He stared at nothing. At the gray emptiness before him. He was no longer crying. He had run out of tears. But inside, he was destroyed. Shattered. As if someone had taken his heart and squeezed it until it broke into pieces. He did not answer. He could not. Saying “yes” would have been too much. Saying “she was more than my friend” would have been worse. So he remained silent, his gaze lost, his breathing slow and heavy because of the kryptonite still floating in the air.
Metamorpho glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He saw his red eyes. Saw his wet cheeks. Saw how his hands trembled. And something inside him moved. Something Luthor had not been able to tear out completely.
“I heard about her,” Metamorpho continued, looking toward the door, toward the sides, as if someone could appear at any moment. “Everyone heard and... I shouldn’t talk about it. I shouldn’t. But... I... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. My son is here. He’s in this place. And I don’t want them to hurt him. That’s why I do what they tell me. That’s why I am this. That’s why I turn into... into this. So they won’t touch him.”
Clark lifted his gaze heavily. The kryptonite made even his eyelids hurt. But he listened. He listened to every word.
“They’re studying her,” Metamorpho whispered, his voice dropping even lower. Almost inaudible. “Her. The girl. I saw her. I saw her when they brought her in. She was so pale... so still... I thought she was dead. But no. That white light you can see from here, do you see it? That light glowing in the distance. That’s the laboratory. Luthor has laboratories inside the pocket universe. In there, everything floats, but it has real floors, real walls, everything is real. But no one knows it exists. No one knows it’s there. It’s like a secret. A secret Luthor keeps only for himself. So no one finds out what he does.”
Clark blinked. The white light. Yes, he had seen it. At the end of the corridor, beyond the walls of the cube, beyond the glass and the armored doors. A faint, constant light, like a beacon in the middle of the darkness. She was there. Somewhere inside that light. Somewhere inside that hidden laboratory.
“They say they healed her, but that isn’t true,” Metamorpho continued, and his voice trembled a little. “They say her heartbeat is strong. That her body doesn’t want to die. That it’s holding on. Luthor wants to reboot her. Like a machine. Like all his projects. He wants to erase everything she feels, everything she remembers, everything she learned. He wants to make her new again. With no humanity left. Without the love she felt for... for that journalist. Without fear. Without rage. Without anything. Only obedience. Only orders. Only an empty weapon.”
Clark felt a shiver run through him. Not from cold. From horror. From rage. From desperation.
“But they say she protected her memories well,” Metamorpho said, and for the first time, his eyes met Clark’s. There was something in them. Something almost like hope. “They’ve tried to wake her. Many times. Every time they try to open her up to operate on her, to experiment on her brain, to erase her memory... something happens. Something throws them back. As if she had put up a barrier. As if her own mind had protected itself without realizing it. They don’t know how she does it. But they can’t get in. They can’t touch her memories. It’s like she’s asleep, but fighting. Dreaming, but struggling.”
Clark’s hands trembled. Not because of the kryptonite. Because of the emotion. Because of the hope beginning to bloom in his chest, small, fragile, but alive.
“They say she’s regenerated,” Metamorpho continued, looking toward the door again, afraid. “That her body is healing on its own. That the dagger they stabbed her with... that poisoned kryptonite dagger... didn’t kill her completely. It left her on the edge, but it didn’t kill her. And now her body is healing. Little by little. Luthor knows that if she regenerates completely, she’ll be stronger than before. That’s why he’s in a hurry. That’s why he wants to erase her memory before she wakes up. Because if she wakes up and remembers everything... if she remembers who she is and who she loves... they won’t be able to control her. Never again.”
Metamorpho paused. Swallowed. He seemed to be making a decision. A decision that could cost him everything.
“If I help you,” he said, his voice barely a whisper now, “if I help you get out of here, if I help you reach her... will you get my son back? Will you help me get him out of this place? I don’t want them to put their hands on him. I just want him to be safe. Can you do that? Can you promise me?”
Clark looked at him. He saw the monster, yes. He saw the shining skin, the strange eyes, the shape that was not entirely human. But he also saw a father. A man who would do anything for his son. Just as he would do anything for her.
“Yes,” Clark whispered. His voice sounded weak, broken, but firm. “I promise you. Where is she? Where is she?”
Metamorpho nodded. And then, with a gesture that seemed to cost him an enormous effort, the kryptonite began to disappear from his hand. The green light started fading, retreating like an ebbing tide. Clark felt air enter his lungs again, felt his muscles stop burning, felt strength return to his veins. Not all of it. Not all. But enough. Enough to fight.
“She’s in the next room,” Metamorpho said, pointing toward the white light. “Where she is. My son is there too. In a cell. They haven’t done anything to him yet. They haven’t experimented on him. But Luthor threatened to. He told me that if I didn’t obey, if I didn’t become what he wanted, he would do the same thing to him that he did to her. That’s why I do this. That’s why I am this. I don’t have another choice.”
Clark stood. His legs trembled, but he remained upright.
“I’m sure she’s there,” Metamorpho said, and his voice sounded almost human. “Alive. Fighting. Like always. Like her whole life. She doesn’t give up. She never gives up. She learned that somewhere. Maybe from you. Maybe from your friend. I don’t know. But she doesn’t give up. And neither should you.”
Clark looked at the white light. If he still had a chance to get you back, to see you one last time, to tell you everything he had not told you... he was going to do it. He was going to fight. He was going to reach you. Even if it cost him his life.
Then Metamorpho did something. Something Clark did not expect. He raised his hand, the one that no longer glowed green, and concentrated his energy. Not into kryptonite. Into light. Into heat. Into something like the sun. A replica. Weak, small, but real. A miniature sun that shone inside the cube and bathed Clark in its glow. It was not enough. Not enough for him to fully recover. But it was something. A little strength. A little hope.
Clark breathed deeply. He felt the warmth enter through his skin, felt his cells awaken, felt his body respond. He was not at one hundred percent. Far from it. But he could move. He could fight. He could try.
He rose from the floor. Took a step toward the wall of the cube. The kryptonite was gone. Metamorpho had absorbed it, or dissolved it, or pushed it away. It did not matter how. What mattered was that it no longer burned him. What mattered was that he could.
Clark struck the glass, and the crystal shattered into a thousand pieces. No alarms sounded. Metamorpho had disabled something, or he knew how to move without being detected. It did not matter. Clark stepped out of the cube, staggering, his head spinning, his vision blurred. He landed on the floor of Luthor’s office, stumbled, and grabbed onto a table so he would not fall. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Trying to focus.
Metamorpho floated beside him, half of his body turned into something like a cloud, something translucent, something that did not seem solid. He looked at him with those sad eyes, waiting.
“My son is here,” Metamorpho said, pointing to a door at the end of the hallway. “In that room. Please. Get him out. Take him far away from here. Somewhere Luthor can’t find him.”
Clark nodded. He walked toward the door. Inside, there was only one guard, a large armed man, who turned when he saw him enter. He did not even manage to lift his weapon. Clark knocked him out with a single blow, quick, clean, silent. And there, in a small crib, wrapped in a blue blanket, was Metamorpho’s son. A baby barely a year old. Big-headed, with wide frightened eyes, his little arms trembling.
Clark picked him up carefully, his hands shaking, his heart tight. He pressed him against his chest, feeling his warmth, his fragility. He was so small. So defenseless. Just like you when you were little. Just like all of Luthor’s projects.
He left the room and handed the baby to Metamorpho. The man received him with open arms, tears in his eyes, a sob he could barely contain. He hugged him tightly, so tightly, as if he would never let him go.
“Wait for me here,” Clark said. “I’m going for her. When I come back, I’ll get all of you out. I promise.”
Metamorpho nodded, holding his son against his chest. Clark walked toward the other door. The one that led to the laboratory. The one separating your cold body from his arms.
It was restricted. Locked with codes, with bolts, with technology no ordinary human could open. But Clark was not an ordinary human. With one pull, he tore the door from its hinges. Threw it aside. Entered.
There were no alarms. It seemed like the people inside could not hear anything. Or maybe Luthor had disconnected everything out of his own arrogance. But Clark could hear. He heard the doctors’ voices through the walls. Heard their conversations. Heard their plans. Heard the machine marking your heartbeat. Slow, but firm.
“Prepared for the operation,” one of them said, the lead doctor, a bald man with round glasses and a white coat.
“Attempt number ten of the day,” a tired woman reminded him, with dark circles under her eyes and fingers stained with something Clark did not want to identify. “We haven’t been able to access her, not in the previous attempts either. I think the tools aren’t working. That’s what Mr. Luthor said.”
The lead doctor nodded, looking at the inert body on the operating table. Your body. Clark saw it from the entrance, and his heart stopped for a second. You were there. Pale. Still. With your arms at your sides, wearing a white gown that covered you down to your feet. Wires came out of your chest, your arms, your head, connected to machines that beeped and blinked. The heartbeat monitor marked something weak, almost imperceptible, but there. Still there.
“I’ve been thinking,” the doctor said, touching his chin, “and maybe they’re right. Maybe what she needs is a powerful laser. Like Ultraman’s. To get inside her. To break that barrier she has. To reach her brain and erase everything.”
The woman smiled. An ugly, tired smile, without joy. “Good idea. That way we can get in and eliminate everything to leave her like new. She won’t cause any more trouble. She’ll be useful again. Like before. Like when she was good.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Clark said.
Everyone turned. Their faces filled with fear. The doctor took a step back. The woman dropped the tool in her hand. The others, the assistants, the nurses, pressed themselves against the walls as if they wanted to disappear.
“It’s Superman,” one whispered.
“How did he get in?” another asked.
But before they could do anything, green energy burst from your body. A bright, intense layer that covered you completely and expanded outward like ripples in water. The energy seized all the doctors. Lifted them into the air, shook them, made them scream. The woman pressed a panic button, but it was too late. The alarm sounded, yes, but the energy already had them. The doctors twisted, kicked, begged for help no one was going to give them. And at the same time, Clark saw it. Your heartbeat on the machine grew stronger. Faster. Your color improved. Your cheeks, once pale as wax, now had a faint rosy tone. The green energy was giving you life. It was draining their strength to give it to you.
The doctors fell to the floor, unconscious, trembling. The green energy retreated back into your body, like a tide returning to the sea. And then, a blow. Hard. Brutal. Clark felt something hit him in the back and send him flying, crashing into the opposite wall. The infamous Ultraman had appeared.
Clark had not fully recovered from the kryptonite. He could barely stay on his feet. His muscles trembled, his breathing was short and ragged, and every movement required an enormous effort. But he saw you there, on the table, pale and still, and that gave him strength. He had to reach you. He had to get you out of there.
Ultraman launched himself at him again. Blow after blow. Direct, merciless, relentless. Clark dodged the first ones, but the third hit him in the stomach and folded him in two. The fourth grazed his jaw. The fifth struck his chest and sent him into the wall. The impact was so strong that the glass on the medical equipment shattered, and the pieces flew through the air like blades.
Clark fell to the floor, panting, his head spinning. He spat blood. He got up again, bracing himself on his knees, his arms shaking. He tried to move toward you, but Ultraman was already on him. He grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air. Clark struggled, kicked, but his strength was not enough. Ultraman threw him against a stone column, and the impact echoed throughout the laboratory. Debris fell over him. The column cracked. Clark felt something crunch in his back, felt pain run down his spine like a lash. He gasped, coughed, spat more blood.
He tried to stand. Again. Always again. But Ultraman gave him no time. He grabbed him by the hair and lifted him from the floor, then began to hit him. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Each blow drove Clark deeper into the ground, each blow stole a little more air from him, each blow blurred his vision more. Ultraman’s fists were like hammers, hard, cold, relentless. And Clark could not defend himself. Could not fight back. Only take it. Only endure. Only stay alive.
Ultraman let him fall to the floor. Clark lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, his arms spread open, blood running down his forehead and along his temples. He could not even lift his arms to protect himself. Ultraman raised his fist. One more. One more and maybe he would not get up again. One more and maybe everything would end there.
But something stopped him.
Green energy. Bright. Intense. It wrapped around Ultraman’s fist and froze it in the air. Ultraman struggled, but he could not move. The energy surrounded him, squeezed him, suspended him like a fly in a web.
“We have an unfinished fight, don’t we?” a voice asked behind Ultraman. Your voice. Clark recognized it instantly. He had heard it in dreams, in memories, during sleepless nights where he repeated over and over the things he had said to you and the things he never got to say. It was your voice. You were alive. You were speaking. You sounded tired, yes, but firm. Like someone who had returned from death and was not willing to leave again.
Ultraman flew backward. Your energy had thrown him as if he were a rag doll. Clark lifted his head with effort, looking toward the room you had come out of. The wall was broken, shattered into pieces, and through the opening he saw you. There you were. Standing. In the white hospital gown, barefoot, your hair loose and disheveled. Your gaze moved around the place, confused, as if you did not fully understand what was happening. As if you had just awakened from a very long dream and the world looked blurry, strange, out of focus.
But then you looked at Ultraman. You saw him heading straight toward you, fists clenched, with the clear intention of hurting you. And something changed in your face. Your eyes hardened. You pushed yourself forward, flying, and your fist, covered in green energy, met Ultraman’s chest. The impact was so strong that he fell to the floor, dragging across it, coughing. He had not expected you to have so much strength. No one had.
Your hands moved toward him. Green energy poured from your palms like rivers of light, wrapping around him, draining his strength. The same thing you had done to the doctors. You were absorbing his energy, Ultraman’s energy, the energy of everyone who had hurt you. And as you did, your eyes grew brighter, more luminous, like two small suns. The white gown billowed around you. You looked like an avenging angel. Or something else. Something Luthor had never anticipated.
“Clark, we have to go.”
Metamorpho’s voice sounded behind Clark, who was still on the floor, barely conscious. Metamorpho stood at the door with his son in his arms, looking everywhere, frightened. His son cried softly, clinging to his neck. “More guards are coming. I can hear their footsteps. If we don’t leave now, we’ll never get out.”
You stopped. The green energy went out in your hands. You lowered your trembling arms and looked at Metamorpho. Then at Clark. And then, in the middle of the chaos, the rubble, the alarms ringing in the distance, your eyes found his.
Clark was leaning against the wall, barely holding himself up. Blood ran down his forehead, from the corner of his lips. The red suit was torn, dirty, covered in dust. But he was looking at you. Only at you. And in his eyes, there was a question he did not dare ask out loud.
Did you remember him?
You had protected your mind and your body. For him. For Clark. For the man who had taught you what love was. That was why, even after death, you protected him. Your body had created a barrier, a shield, something neither Luthor nor his scientists had been able to break. But what if that protection had done something else? What if it had pushed you out of your own mind? What if you had lost your memories in order to protect them? What if you did not even remember his name?
Clark swallowed. His heart beat hard, not because of fear, but because of hope. Fear that you would look at him like a stranger. Fear that you would ask who he was. Fear that everything you had lived together had been erased from you forever.
You approached him. You walked slowly, staggering a little, as if your legs were not responding well. The white gown was too big on you. Your bare feet left prints on the dust-covered floor. You stopped in front of him. Looked at him.
And then, something happened. Something Clark felt in the deepest part of his being. His mind opened. Like that first time you kissed him in the office, when his memories flowed toward you without him being able to stop them. But now you were the one opening the door for him. Now you were the one who wanted him to see. Not only your heart. Your entire soul.
“Of course I remember you, Clark,” you said.
Your voice was a whisper. But to him, it was like a scream. Like thunder. Like the most beautiful thing he had ever heard in his life. Because there was no confusion in your eyes. No emptiness. There was memory. There was love. There were all the days you had spent together, all the laughter, all the silences, all the kisses at apartment doors. It was all there. You had forgotten nothing. Your mind had clung to him the way a castaway clings to a life preserver. Even when your body was dying, even when your blood was slipping away, even when the darkness wanted to swallow you, your mind had kept him. Him. Clark. His name. His face. His smile.
Clark smiled. His lips were split, his face covered in blood, his eyes swollen from crying so much. But he smiled. A trembling, fragile smile, like someone who had recovered something he believed lost forever. He smiled because you remembered him. Because you tilted your head as you looked at him, the way you always did, as if you were trying to understand something that did not quite make sense, as if you thought this was a dream you would wake up from at any moment.
But it was not a dream. It was real. You were there. Alive. In front of him.
And he smiled too because he felt your heart beat when you saw him. He heard it. That heartbeat the machine had marked as weak, almost extinguished, was now strong, fast, full of life. Your heart beat for him. Even after everything. Even after death. Even after they drove a poisoned dagger into you and left you lying on the cold floor. Your heart was still beating for him. Because you loved him. Because despite everything, despite him thinking that you had left him, that you no longer loved him, that you did not care... your body and your heart said otherwise.
And after a month of being unable to breathe, after entire nights without sleeping, after gray and empty days, Clark was finally able to breathe. He inhaled deeply. Air filled his lungs. He did not care about the dust, the blood, the smell of burning. He breathed because you were there. Because you were in front of him. Because you had not left.
He moved closer to you. Or rather, he let himself fall toward you. His arms wrapped around you and pressed you against his chest. It was an awkward hug, trembling, messy. He was not the invincible hero. He was not Superman. He was only a man who had spent an entire month mourning the woman he loved and suddenly had her in his arms again. He held you without hurting you, but tightly, as if he were afraid you would disappear. As if you were made of smoke and one wrong movement could make you vanish.
Your face rested against his chest. Right where you could hear his heart. And you hugged him too. Your arms wrapped around his waist and held him. You closed your eyes. Felt his pulse. Felt his warmth. Felt life returning to you, not because of the energy you had absorbed from the doctors, but because of him. Because he was your energy. He always had been.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the restaurant on time,” you whispered.
Your voice sounded distant, as if your consciousness had remained trapped in that day. The day you left. The day Luthor took you. The day you locked yourself inside your mind to protect yourself. The day you begged to live a little longer, just a little longer, to see him again. The day your powers yielded to you, covered you like a blanket, and protected you from the cold of death. The day Luthor left you lying on the floor as your blood slipped away, but your blood returned to you, as if it had mercy, as if it also knew you could not die without saying goodbye.
You had thought only a few days had passed. A handful of days. That time had stopped while your body healed. You did not know a month had gone by. You did not know Clark had cried for you for thirty nights. You did not know he had stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped living. The first thing you saw when you woke up was him. The first thing you remembered was your date. The date you thought about until your last breath. The date when you were going to tell him you loved him. And your first thought, the first one after coming back from death, was him. Always him.
Clark held you tighter. But without hurting you. Always carefully. Always afraid of breaking you.
“No, no, it’s okay,” he said. His voice broke. He was choking on his own tears. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. The restaurant doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. The only thing that matters is that you’re here. That you’re alive.”
He pulled back a little to look into your eyes. He was afraid. Afraid of what you were going to say. Afraid that you would blame him. Afraid that you would hate him for not being there.
“You don’t hate me, do you?” he asked. His voice was small, fragile. Like a child asking for forgiveness without knowing what he had done wrong.
You tilted your head. You smiled. That smile of yours, the one he loved so much. The one that appeared suddenly, without warning, and brightened his entire day. There it was. It had not gone away. It was still with you, on your face, in your eyes.
“Hate you?” you asked, as if the idea were ridiculous. You raised your hand and caressed his cheek. Your hand was cold, trembling, but it was your hand. Your touch. After a month of emptiness, after a month of feeling nothing, you were finally touching him again. “How could I hate you when I wanted so badly to see you just to tell you how much I love you?”
Clark smiled. Cried. Both at the same time. And he leaned toward you. He kissed you.
The kiss was soft at first, almost shy, as if you were both afraid of breaking something fragile. As if you were not sure it was real. As if at any moment you would wake up in your beds, alone, with emptiness in your chests. But then it became firmer. More certain. Because it was real. Because you were there. Because after a month of thinking you would never see each other again, you had each other. And nothing else mattered.
“I know I shouldn’t interrupt because you’re having your moment,” Metamorpho said from the doorway, his son in his arms, his eyes shining with hope. “But we have to leave or they’re going to catch us.”
Clark nodded. He reluctantly pulled his lips away from yours. But when he tried to take a step, his body failed him. His legs trembled. He staggered. He would have almost fallen to the floor if you had not held him.
You looked at him, not understanding. Then you looked at Metamorpho. Then back at Clark.
“The kryptonite affected him,” Metamorpho said, lowering his head. “I’m sorry. I... I didn’t want to. They forced me. But he helped me with my son. He gave me a chance. And now... now I want to help him. But he’s weak. Very weak. He can’t fly properly. He can’t fight. He needs to get out of here before...”
He did not finish the sentence. He did not need to.
You pressed your lips together. Your eyes traveled over Clark’s body. You saw everything. The wounds. The blood. The dark circles beneath his eyes. The way he could barely stand. Something ignited inside you. Something that was not only love. It was protection. It was rage. It was the same force that had made your body heal itself, that had created a shield around your mind, that had thrown Ultraman through the air.
Leaving was easy. Your powers, though weakened by everything you had endured, still answered your call. You opened every door with a movement of your hand, making the locks burst, bending metal as if it were paper. Even the door separating the world from the pocket universe, that invisible border Luthor had created to hide his nightmares, opened before you as if it recognized you, as if it knew you no longer belonged in that place. You stepped out unharmed. The fresh night air struck your face and, for a moment, you closed your eyes, breathing deeply, feeling that you were finally outside. Metamorpho came out with you, his son pressed to his chest, his eyes wide, looking at the sky for the first time without knowing that this was freedom. He said goodbye with a gesture, a nod, and ran off between the shadows, disappearing into the empty streets of Metropolis. You did not know if you would ever see him again. But you had given him a chance. And that was more than he had ever had.
You left with Clark. You carried him in your arms, flying low, close to the rooftops, hiding from the lights, from the cameras, from any eyes that might see you. He was heavy. Not because of his body, but because he was weak, because the kryptonite was still running through his veins, because he could barely stay conscious. But you held him. You did not let him go. You were never going to let him go again.
Luthor would look for you. You knew that. His best project had come back to life. The one he had discarded, the one he had given up for dead, the one he had left lying on the cold floor of his laboratory like a dirty rag, had returned. And worse, you would join the battle. He knew you had already chosen a side. And that side was not his. That side was Superman. It was Clark. It was everything Luthor hated. And that would make him more dangerous. But you no longer cared. You were no longer afraid. Because now you had something worth being afraid for, and at the same time, something worth being brave for.
You arrived at Clark’s apartment. Your body trembled, not from cold, but from exhaustion, from the energy you had spent, from everything you had absorbed to heal and escape. But you laid him carefully on the sofa, as if he were made of glass, as if any sudden movement could break him. You sat him down, adjusted his head on a cushion, and then looked around.
You saw the sheets. The papers. The videos. Your laptop was open on the table, with the recordings you had saved, with the files you had stolen, with all the evidence you thought no one would ever see. Clark had found everything. He had seen your past. He had seen the recordings from when you were little, the training sessions, the blows, the injections. He had read your false reports, the lies you wrote to Luthor to protect him. He had seen the photo booth picture, the one you kept in your wallet, the one you looked at every night before sleeping. He had seen everything. And still, even after knowing who you truly were, even after discovering that you had been a weapon, that you had been created to destroy, that at first you had been spying on him... he had looked for you. He had not hated you. He had looked for you.
Then you knew. You knew he had searched for you. For days. While you were there, unconscious, floating between life and death, he had been out there, knocking on your door, calling your phone, asking everyone, losing his mind with worry. And a question formed on your lips before you could stop it.
“Don’t leave,” Clark said. His voice was a whisper, fragile, like someone who had cried until he had no tears left. “I’ve already spent thirty-one days without you. One more day... I couldn’t bear one more day.”
You looked at him. Thirty-one days. An entire month. You had been dead to him for an entire month. Or not dead, but gone. He had lived a month without knowing anything about you. A month thinking you had left him. A month blaming himself, wondering what he had done wrong. And still, he had not stopped looking for you. He had not stopped loving you.
“Thirty-one,” you whispered, lowering your gaze. Guilt weighed on your shoulders. It was not your fault, you knew that. It had been Luthor. It had been Ultraman. It had been that damned laboratory. But he had suffered. He had suffered because of you. And that broke your heart.
You raised your hand and placed it on his cheek. His skin was cold, dirty, stained with dried blood. But it was him. It was Clark. It was your home.
“I’m not going to leave, Clark,” you said, and your voice trembled a little, but not from fear. From emotion. From something you did not know how to name but that filled your chest until it nearly burst. “Never again. I don’t want to be away from you again. I don’t want to wake up without knowing if you’re okay. I don’t want to spend a single day without seeing you again. Never again, Clark. Never again.”
Clark hugged you. He did not have the strength to hold you tightly, but he hugged you. He buried his face in your neck, and you felt his lips tremble, felt his wet lashes against your skin, felt his whole body relax, as if he had been tense for thirty-one days and only now, only in your arms, could he finally release all the air he had been holding.
He settled you onto the sofa, the two of you together, wrapped around each other. He did not want to let you go. Not even to look at your face. He held you as if you were a dream, as if he were afraid that if he opened his eyes, you would disappear. And you held him because it felt as if life had given you what you had begged for so desperately. For years. For your entire existence. You had pleaded in silence, in the cold nights of the laboratory, in the moments when the blows would not stop and the pain would not let you sleep. You had begged for someone to see you. For someone to love you. For someone to save you. And now, here, in Clark’s arms, you understood that your plea had been heard. Not by a god. Not by fate. By him. By Clark. By the man who had taught you that you were not a project, that you were a person, that you deserved to be loved.
Luthor no longer mattered. You would defeat him. You knew you would. It would take time, but you would. Because now you were not alone. Because now you had Clark. Because now there were no secrets between you. He knew everything. He knew where you came from, knew what you had done, knew the lies you had told, knew the number on your shoulder, knew you could read minds, knew that at first you had been a weapon. And still, he had searched for you. And still, he had waited for you. And still, he loved you.
You could be free. For the first time in your life, you could be free. You did not have to hide. You did not have to pretend. You did not have to be afraid of someone discovering your past, because he already knew it and did not care. You could defeat them all with Clark by your side. You could fight. You could win. You could live.
At last, you could have a happy ending. That ending you had never believed you deserved. That ending you thought was only for real people, for those who had families, for those who did not have numbers tattooed on their shoulders. That ending was yours now. And you were not going to let it slip away.
Clark knew it. He confirmed it as he held you tighter, as he felt your heart beating against his, as he breathed in your scent and convinced himself it was not a dream. He knew it because he felt it. Because in that embrace, in that shared silence, the two of you understood that everything was going to be all right. That it had been difficult, that it had hurt, that it had almost destroyed you both, but in the end, you were together. And that was all that mattered.
Of course, you defeated Luthor. It was not easy. It took months. There were fights, entire sleepless nights, moments when you thought you would not make it. Luthor was cunning, he had resources, allies, other creations like Ultraman and Metamorpho. But you were no longer the same. You were no longer afraid. You no longer hesitated. And Clark was no longer alone. You fought together. Superman and you. You flew together, fought together, fell together, and rose together. And in the end, Luthor fell. His laboratories were discovered. His crimes came to light. And he, the man who believed himself owner of the world, ended up in a cell. A real cell. Not the kind he built for others. A cell he could not escape. And for the first time in his life, he learned what it felt like to be locked away. For the first time, he learned what it felt like to be a project. And you, from the outside, looked at him one last time. And you felt nothing. No hatred. No rage. Not even pity. Only peace. Because you no longer belonged to him. Because you were already free.
You returned to your name. Not to the number they had tattooed on your shoulder, not to the false name you used at the Daily Planet. You returned to yourself. To the story you already had, but with one difference. The difference was that now Clark walked beside you. That now your work was real. That you were no longer pretending to be a writer, you were one. You had learned it, lived it, worked for it. You earned that position. You earned that name. You earned that life.
Your loneliness had been replaced. In the morning, when you woke up, you were no longer alone. Clark was there, sleeping beside you, with messy hair, his mouth slightly open, one hand stretched out searching for you even while he slept. There were no longer two apartments. There was one. His. Yours. You had brought your things, which were not many, and placed them beside his. The books on the same shelves. The plates in the same cabinets. The laughter on the same walls.
There were no secrets. You did not have to hide anything. If a nightmare woke you in the night, Clark was there to hold you. If he had to leave as Superman, you knew, and you waited, and when he came back, you asked him how it had gone, and he told you everything. Because there were no more lies. Because there was no more fear. Because finally, after so long, you could both be yourselves.
There were shared mugs. Two mugs in the sink every morning, one red and one blue, side by side, like two people who had found each other after being lost. There were two scarves on the coat rack by the entrance, yours and his, sometimes tangled together as if they were embracing. There were two coats hanging by the door, the large one and the small one, the one that kept you warm and the one that kept him warm. There were two keys. One in his pocket, one in yours. The same door. The same home.
At last, you had everything you never believed you deserved. At last, you had a family. At last, you had a place where you belonged. At last, you had love. Real love. The kind that does not hurt. The kind that is not paid for with blows. The kind that makes you stronger, not weaker.
And one night, while you were having dinner together on the sofa, watching a movie neither of you was really watching, Clark rested his head on your shoulder and whispered something you could barely hear.
“Thank you for coming back.”
Your eyes filled with tears. But they were not sad tears. They were the kind you wipe away while smiling.
“Thank you for waiting for me,” you answered.
Because in the end, after everything, broken souls can heal too. Those born in hell can also walk out of the fire. And villains, those who never had a chance, those who were created to be bad... can also have a happy ending.
You deserved it. You always deserved it.
And Clark, your Clark, the man who found you among the shadows and taught you there was light, proved it to you every day. With every hug. With every kiss. With every morning you woke up beside him and he smiled at you as if it were the first day.
At last, after so long... at last, you were alive. Truly alive. And there was nothing, and no one, that could change that.
I'm pretty sure someone asked me for such a sad story, but I can't find their request. If you're reading this, here it is. I ended up crying, so I don't know if I should thank you, haha. A part two?
Parte 2
Clark Kent x female reader
Sinopsis: She was created to destroy Superman, but meeting Clark Kent changes everything. What begins as a mission inside the Daily Planet slowly turns into something dangerously human—something she was never meant to feel.
Warnings: Emotional abuse, physical abuse, manipulation, conditioning, human experimentation, violence, blood, trauma, torture mentions, toxic power dynamics, captivity, identity issues, heavy angst
WC: 14,000 words approx.
They say broken souls are born broken.
That there is no way to fix them, no matter how hard you try.
That villains are villains forever, that they can never change, that the evil inside them is like a stain nothing can wash away.
They also say that those born in hell are consumed by the same fire, that there is no escape, that pain is the only thing they know and the only thing they will ever have until the very end.
And you heard those words so many times that eventually, you believed them. You carried them carved into your bones, into the way you learned to stay quiet, into the way you lowered your gaze whenever someone spoke to you. Because for you, kind words never existed. There were only orders, blows, experiments, and the cold silence of the laboratories where you spent almost your entire life.
You should have known your life would be like this. From the very beginning. From before you opened your eyes for the first time. You should have known your destiny was to be called nothing more than a project, a thing, a number. Labeled as a machine created to obey, to do what it was told, to bow its head and never ask questions.
But the saddest part, the part that hurts the most, is that your first cry had been more human than any other baby's. Your first breath was just as fragile, just as small. Your wounds were as visible as anyone else's. The blood running across your skin was red, just like everybody else's. But the only difference, the only damned difference, was that you had not been born from a family. You had been born from studies, from numbers, from a project no one asked if you wanted.
No one asked for your permission to bring you into the world.
No one asked if you wanted to feel pain.
They just used you.
They injected things into you ever since you were so small that you cannot even remember a single day without needles. They pierced your skin over and over again, until the memories from when you were tiny disappeared completely.
The pain was so overwhelming that your mind chose to forget. Only the scars remained. Those pale marks on your skin that follow you everywhere. And the number on your shoulder. As if you were an animal. As if you were something that could be branded and locked inside a cage. “L008L.” That was what they called you. That was how they knew you. A code. A label.
Maybe you once had a family. Maybe someone loved you before you were ripped away from their arms. But you do not know. You cannot know. Because you had no father or mother. You only had an owner. Someone who created you, designed you, decided that you would exist only to serve him.
Your oldest memory, the only one that survived all that pain, was when you arrived at the laboratories. You were nine years old. Luthor was not in charge yet. But years later, he arrived. He was the one who, once you grew older, made you his. One day, he placed a hand on your shoulder and told you, “You are my project.” And he named you that way. As if you were a brand-new car or a weapon he had just purchased.
The other scientists used to say they had never managed to get anything useful out of you, that they had wasted years without using you properly, that you were a failure. But Lex Luthor looked at you differently. He gave you something that, in your ignorance, you called affection. Because you did not even know what that word meant. No one had ever taught you. No one had ever shown you what it felt like to truly be loved.
So when Luthor’s hand brushed through your hair after they broke your nose during a fight, after you collapsed onto the floor with blood dripping down your face, you felt it as if it were praise. Like a caress. Like something good.
“You passed the test,” he would say in that serious voice of his while wiping the blood from your lip with a white handkerchief. “You are strong. You are the best. But you are still lacking.”
And you would look at him with swollen eyes from crying so much, even though by then you could barely cry anymore. And you felt proud. Proud that he approved of you. Proud that he had not thrown you aside like garbage.
During those tests, they would pit you against two gifted subjects at the same time. They had families, real names, people waiting for them outside. You only had the cold laboratory floor and Luthor’s gaze watching from the other side of the glass.
The tears disappeared when you turned sixteen. You could no longer cry. Something inside you had broken completely, or perhaps it had simply dried out. You were only a project. They had told you that so many times that it no longer hurt. Or at least, that was what you wanted to believe.
They had carved it so deeply into you that nobody even had to deny you anything anymore, because you accepted it yourself. You never intended to resist what Luthor did to you. The thought of saying “no” never even crossed your mind. You were never taught that you could say that word.
At first, you were just another project. One among many. A strange little girl in a white room. But when Superman appeared in the world, when that flying man started saving people and being loved by everyone, then you stopped being “just another project.”
You became the one.
The one who needed to improve. The one with the power to manipulate things with her hands, to release energy like green rays of sunlight, to read minds. Necessary things. Useful things. Things meant to defeat Superman.
Luthor wanted you strong. Even when your hands burned from moving objects with your mind. Even when your head felt like it would explode from hearing other people’s thoughts. Even when it felt like your skull was splitting in half. He would only glance at the clock and write numbers into a notebook.
“Again,” he would say. “Do it again.”
And you obeyed.
You always obeyed.
One time, when you failed, when you could not raise the energy barrier quickly enough and they hit you so hard you collapsed onto the floor gasping for air, Luthor approached you with fury in his eyes. Not the fury of concern.
The fury of disappointment.
He grabbed your arm and yanked you upright before snarling through clenched teeth:
“If you are not stronger than Superman, then you are nothing. NOTHING. Do you understand me? You are worthless if he is stronger than you.”
He did not ask if you were okay. He did not take you to get treated. He simply let go of you and walked away, leaving you there on the floor, coughing up blood and feeling like you were dying from the inside out.
Luthor shaped you as if you were a sword. He sharpened you with pain. Hardened you with blows. And you let him do it because you knew no other way to live.
Maybe the flaw in Luthor’s plan was not assigning you to fight Superman directly. Maybe the real mistake was assigning you to go after Clark Kent. That clumsy journalist with thick glasses and wrinkled suits who always seemed to stick his nose where it did not belong. The one who looked so ordinary, so normal, so weak.
But Luthor knew something many others did not.
And one night, inside his office, with the lights turned off and only the city glow behind him, he called you in and said:
“Clark Kent is the idiot who knows everything about Superman. Everything. If we have him, we have that alien. You capture him, bring him to me, and put him on his knees in front of me.”
You nodded, just like always. You did not ask why. You did not ask how.
You only said:
“Alright.”
And he smiled. That cold smile he gave you whenever he was pleased with you. And for one second, just one second, you felt something close to happiness. Because he had looked at you. Because he had spoken to you. Because he had chosen you for that mission.
Of course he would send you. You had turned twenty-six a few days ago. An age where other women think about marriage, children, careers they enjoy. An age where people celebrate with cake and candles.
You had none of that.
Only a new number added to your file and another order.
Infiltrate the Daily Planet, that enormous newspaper where Clark Kent worked. Pull strings, forge documents, create an entire fake identity. For a man with the kind of money that swarmed around Luthor like ants, it was effortless. One check here, one phone call there, and suddenly you had a false name, a false story, a false life.
That was all.
You never intended to know Clark Kent. Your objective was something else. Your objective was to kill him once he told you where Superman was hiding. That was what you were supposed to do. What you had been ordered to do.
But that was the thing.
No.
You never truly had the intention.
Because to have intention, to want to do something, you first have to desire it. And you desired nothing. You only complied. You only obeyed. You only did what you were told, like a machine, like a trained dog, like a weapon someone loads and fires without asking.
You had an order. That was all.
The order of your owner.
That man who waited for you every single day with questions, demands, and that cold stare asking for results.
“What did you find out?”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Did you get information out of him?”
“Do you already know where the alien is hiding?”
And you had to answer. You always had to answer. You always needed to have something to say, something to show, something to prove that you were not wasting time, that you were not a failure, that you were worth something.
That pressure crushed your shoulders as though you carried a massive stone all day long.
And at the same time, you had to pretend you were a normal employee at the Daily Planet. You had to smile, greet people, learn names, remember birthdays, laugh at jokes that were not funny to you. You had to act like you were a real person, like you had a life, like you had gone to school, like you had friends.
Pretending exhausted you more than any fight ever had.
Pretending hollowed you out in a way you did not know how to explain.
And all of it together—the pressure from Luthor and the pressure of pretending—squeezed you tighter than ever before. You felt trapped. Suffocated. As if your chest were collapsing inward and you could no longer breathe.
Maybe that was why you never saw it coming. Maybe that was why Clark Kent took advantage of that gap. That small space between the pressure of work and the pressure of Luthor, that moment when you were so exhausted you could no longer keep your defenses up. And he slipped straight into your soul.
No blows. No orders. No violence.
Just by being himself.
That clumsy man who wore suits too big for him, who tripped over chairs, who blushed whenever someone spoke too loudly to him. That man who stopped being just “the target” and became “the one teaching you.” Because at first, when you arrived at the Daily Planet with your false identity and your invented name, Perry White, the boss, looked at you over his glasses and said:
“She’s new. Clark, help her settle in. Make sure she learns how everything works around here.”
And Clark smiled at you. A shy smile, with his cheeks slightly flushed, and said:
“Of course, Perry. Don’t worry.”
It was simple at first.
You hated him.
Of course you hated him. And not because you wanted to hate him. Not because he had done anything wrong to you. You hated him because that was what you were supposed to do. It was the order. It was the plan. You had to keep your distance, keep the hatred, keep your mind cold.
But when you realized that hating him was not working, it was because of something so small, so simple, that you were almost ashamed to admit it. It happened a month after you started working there. An entire month of watching him arrive every morning with his coffee thermos, of hearing him murmur to himself while he wrote, of seeing how he laughed at the jokes from the other employees.
A month of trying to read his mind and finding yourself met with a wall. A month of failing your mission because you could not get close enough, because something about him made you lower your guard without meaning to.
That morning, the coffee burned your hand.
You had been distracted. You filled your cup too much, and the hot liquid splashed over your fingers. It was a small pain. Nothing compared to what you had felt before. A simple sting in your body. One among the thousands you had already endured.
But Clark’s eyes widened as if you had screamed, and quickly, very quickly, he took the cup from your hands. Carefully. Without roughness. As if he were afraid of hurting you even more.
You looked at him. You had been hurt before. Many times. For much less. You had been hit for spilling things, for breaking things, for simply existing. But he only looked at you with concern, those clear eyes behind his glasses, while he held the steaming cup away from you.
“I can do it, Clark,” you said.
And your voice sounded different. Softer. More human. The voice you had been using there, in that place full of normal people, had stuck to you without you realizing it. You no longer sounded like a weapon. You sounded like a person.
Clark did not give the cup back to you. Instead, he took your hand very gently and looked at the burn. A red mark on your skin. Nothing serious. But he frowned as if it were something terrible.
“I know,” he told you, without letting go of your hand. “I know you can do it. But I’m supposed to take care of you. You’re assigned to me. Besides...” He paused and looked at you with those eyes that seemed to understand things you had never told him. “You’ve been working very hard. Really hard. Let me do it. I don’t mind.”
He said it and looked at you with a smile. His cheeks were red. You looked away.
You looked at your hand, the one he had carefully released, and felt something strange inside your chest. You had never looked away from anyone. Never. Not even when Luthor yelled at you. Not even when they hit you. You always stared straight ahead, like an animal that could not show fear.
But with Clark, you couldn’t.
You could not hold his gaze when he smiled at you like that. And the worst part, the strangest thing of all, was that you had never been able to read his mind. It was as if a simple human had a strong mind. And Clark did. But not a hard kind of strength, like a wall. It was a soft strength, like a deep current you could not cross.
And that confused you.
It scared you.
Because if you could not read him, you could not control him. And if you could not control him, you could not hate him. And if you could not hate him, what did you have left?
It was the strange things he did.
Strange to you, of course. Because you had never been treated that way. Never. Not once in your entire life. You had never felt what it was like for someone to buy you coffee without you asking. Because you were used to begging. Begging for food when they punished you. Spending entire days with your stomach empty, hearing it growl inside you, while the scientists ate in front of you as if you did not exist.
And of course, despite being named a project, despite being called L008L as if you were a box, your powers did not take away your hunger. Because despite everything, despite the way they had discarded you like trash, despite the fact that you never had a family who loved you, despite the way they treated you like a thing... you were human.
You had a human body.
You needed to eat. You needed to sleep. You needed someone to see you for what you were.
And Clark gave you coffee. Sometimes a pastry. He always said the same thing, with that silly smile and those red cheeks:
“Oh, I stopped by the bakery on my way to work. Bought too much. Want one?”
And you accepted it.
Because you were hungry. Because the hot coffee warmed your hands and your chest. Because the pastry tasted like something you did not remember ever tasting before. Something like... affection? You did not know. You did not know what that was called.
But you liked it.
And it scared you that you liked it.
Clark carried the papers for you. When you came back from an interview and had piles of documents with you, he took half of them or more, just so you would not have to carry so much. Sometimes, when they received small gifts at events or press conferences, bags with notebooks, pens, brochures, he took those too.
“So you don’t have to carry them,” he would say.
As if it were the most normal thing in the world. As if taking care of you were not an effort.
And he smiled. Every chance he got. When he saw you arrive in the morning, he smiled. When you finished a difficult article, he smiled. When you made a mistake while writing something and he corrected you in a low voice so no one else would hear, he smiled.
And he got so nervous.
So much that sometimes he stuttered. So much that things fell from his hands.
And you had never felt it until that day in the elevator. Never in your whole life. Not when they treated your wounds. Not when they said “good job.” Not when Luthor ran his hand through your hair after a fight. None of that had made your heart beat.
You thought you did not have a heart. Or that you had forgotten you had one. Because after so many years of pain, something inside you had fallen asleep. Or died. You did not know which one.
But that day, in the elevator, something woke up.
It happened so soon. So quickly that you almost did not notice it. The two of you were alone, going up to the office after coming back from an interview outside. The elevator was small, one of those old ones that made noise and moved slowly.
You were looking at the floor, as always, thinking about nothing and everything at once. Clark’s hand brushed yours by accident. A small touch. Nothing. Almost nothing.
But he looked at you. And he pointed at your face with a trembling finger.
“You have a... paper,” he whispered.
His voice sounded low, soft, as if he did not want to scare you. As if speaking too loudly would break something fragile.
You looked at him without understanding. You did not feel anything on your face. You did not know what paper he was talking about. You had worn your hair loose all day, and sometimes things stuck to it without you noticing.
But when you were about to raise your hand to your face to find it, he stopped. Clark lifted his hand, but froze in the air, halfway between you and him.
“May I?” he asked.
And that question went through you like a knife.
Because no one had ever asked you “may I?” No one. Not to touch you. Not to treat your wounds. Not for anything. They simply grabbed you, moved you, put needles in you, hit you, lifted you from the floor when you fell.
Never, never had anyone asked for your permission to come close to you.
That was when you felt it for the first time.
Your heart.
It was there. Waiting. And it began to beat hard, fast, like a bird trapped between your ribs. You had spent days wanting to feel him. Not just see him, not just observe him from a distance the way you did with everyone else. You wanted to feel Clark. You wanted to know what it was like for someone to touch you without it hurting.
And you nodded. You moved your head up and down, only slightly, because your throat had closed and you could not speak.
He came closer. Very slowly. Very carefully. His hand rose to your head and removed a small piece of paper hanging from your hair, the kind that comes from notebooks when you tear out a page.
But along the way, his fingers brushed your cheek.
A small touch.
Perfect.
So soft you almost did not feel it.
But you did.
You felt it down to your bones. It was as if that touch had lit something inside you, something that had been turned off for as long as you could remember.
Clark looked at the paper in his hand and then looked at you. His eyes were bright behind his glasses. And he smiled. That smile you were beginning to recognize, the one that made you feel less alone.
“That makes you officially a full-time newsroom employee,” he joked gently.
He tried to make a joke. He tried to say you had passed the test of having papers stuck in your hair. And something happened inside your chest. Something you could not control.
You smiled for real.
Not like the rehearsals you did to behave human, even though you were. Not like those fake smiles you practiced in front of the Daily Planet bathroom mirror so no one would suspect anything.
No.
This smile came out on its own. Without permission. Without an order. Without practice. Because Clark’s smile reached you, touched you, and you could do nothing but return it.
You lowered your gaze with red cheeks. They burned. They stung. But it was not a bad pain. It was a pain you wanted to keep feeling. You felt so much that you never wanted to stop feeling it.
Never again.
But outside, in the real world, in the cold world that waited for you every night, Luthor wanted proof. He wanted something. Anything. You had been at the Daily Planet for weeks and you had given him nothing useful.
Only silly things, things from Clark’s daily life, things that were useless for capturing Superman. Luthor was giving you time. Of course he was. He knew it was not an easy job. He knew you had to earn people’s trust, that you had to pretend, that you had to wait.
But time was running out.
And every day you spent beside Clark, Luthor’s orders weighed more heavily on you. Because what you had were not secrets or plans or Superman’s weaknesses. What you had were irrelevant things. Things about Clark’s parents. Stories from his childhood in Kansas. Names of his friends. Places he visited.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing about Superman.
And maybe, deep inside, you already knew. You were already beginning to understand why Clark never mentioned Superman. Why, whenever people in the office talked about the hero, Clark stayed quiet or changed the subject. Why he never, not once, said anything bad about him, but never anything good either.
It was as if he avoided the topic carefully, like someone walking over thin ice.
And that made you afraid.
Because if your theory was right, if what you were starting to suspect was true, then your mission became impossible. Then you had to choose.
And you had never chosen anything in your life.
One night, after a long day of pretending, you returned to the laboratory. Luthor was waiting in his office, the lights turned off, illuminated only by the reflections of the city outside. He did not greet you. He did not ask how you were.
He only said:
“What do you have?”
“There’s nothing related to Superman and Clark,” you replied without expression. Your voice sounded flat, empty. Maybe because you wanted to hide what was already beginning to fall into place deep inside your mind. Maybe because you were afraid he would see in your eyes what you could barely believe yourself.
Luthor nodded. Slowly, he rose from his chair and walked toward you. You did not run. You did not step away. You knew what was coming. It was part of life. Part of being a project.
A harsh slap struck across your face, so violent it forced your gaze down to the floor. Your cheek burned. The same cheek Clark’s fingers had brushed days before. And that contrast hurt more than the blow itself.
“I need that stupid flying man in the grave,” Luthor hissed, his voice dripping with venom as he stood so close you could feel his breath against your forehead. “Do you understand me? In the grave. And if that doesn’t happen, you’ll kill Clark Kent. Maybe then Superman will come to claim him. Maybe then he’ll crawl out of hiding to save his little journalist friend.”
You nodded.
You were used to it. The blows were part of you. The orders too. But something twisted painfully inside your chest when you heard his name.
Clark.
Kill Clark.
The words sounded different when you repeated them inside your head. It was not like killing a target. It felt like killing something you were beginning to love.
And no one had taught you how to survive that.
That was not part of the project.
You wanted to push him away. To tell Clark to leave. To run. To leave the country. To never come near you again.
So, in the following days, you started giving him options without him realizing it. You left papers on his desk. Job offers in other countries.
A job in Germany, you thought. He would be perfect there.
Clark would read them and look at you with a smile, not understanding what you were truly trying to tell him.
“Are you thinking about changing jobs?” he would ask with that innocent tone of his, with that way he had of looking at the world as if everyone in it were good.
You would smile and shake your head. Then you would leave more offers. New Zealand. A journalism exchange program in London. Good opportunities, the kind any reporter would accept without hesitation.
But he did nothing.
He read the papers, stared at them for a moment, and then set them aside. As if they did not matter. As if where he already was had become enough for him.
One night, while you were gathering your things to leave, being among the last people left in the office alongside Clark, he finally spoke. His voice sounded different. More serious. As if he had been thinking about it all day.
“I don’t want to change jobs,” he said suddenly.
Clark stood near the door, his jacket hanging from one hand.
“Did I make you think that?”
You shook your head quickly, maybe too quickly.
“No, I just... think you’re very good at what you do. That you could become a great international journalist.”
You played with your bag strap without looking him in the eyes. Your fingers trembled slightly.
Clark stayed silent for a moment. Then he nodded.
“That would be a big step, I admit.”
You nodded too, your head lowered. But he kept speaking.
“But I think I’m happy here. I have a good job. Good friends.” He paused, and when you finally looked up at him, his cheeks were red again. “And this job gave me the chance to meet you.”
Your eyes widened slightly.
Clark swallowed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I think you’re... a great journalist,” he corrected awkwardly, as if he had realized he had already said too much.
But it was too late.
You had already heard him.
You swallowed hard. Your heart was beating again, just like it had that day in the elevator. And for the first time, for the first time in your entire life, you decided to be honest.
Not because someone ordered you to.
Not because you had to pretend.
But because you wanted to.
Because you needed him to know.
“I’m happy here too,” you admitted softly, your voice barely above a whisper. “The difference between you and me is that... I don’t care whether I have friends or a good job. Working beside you somehow feels like enough.”
The words lingered in the air.
Silence followed. A deep, endless silence that filled the empty office. Through his glasses, you could see something shining in Clark’s eyes. Something you had never seen there before.
And then, without either of you planning it, you stepped closer.
He did too.
As if your bodies already understood what words could not say. As if both of you had realized that somehow, impossibly, you seemed to need each other. Ever since the moment you met, something in the world had changed for both of you.
Clark kissed you.
And you rose onto your tiptoes just to reach him.
His lips were soft. Warm.
You did not know how to kiss. No one had ever taught you. You had never kissed anyone before. But your body knew what to do. As if it had been waiting for this moment your entire life.
As if every blow, every wound, every night filled with pain had only been the path leading you here.
To this kiss.
To Clark.
And that was enough for you to realize that another life existed. A different kind of life. One where nobody demanded that you be the best. One where you did not have to beg for food. One where affection was not something you earned only after winning a fight.
A life without humiliation. Without blows. Without numbers tattooed into skin. Without laboratories, owners, or orders.
There was only Clark.
Clark with his glasses.
Clark with his flushed cheeks.
Clark with his gentle hands and tender voice.
Clark, who had unknowingly taught you that you were not a project.
That you never had been.
Clark was strangely adorable.
You did not say it lightly. It was not a word you used carelessly. But he truly was. Everything he did felt sweet in a way you could not explain.
The good morning hugs, when he arrived at the office and saw you sitting at your desk, and he would walk toward you slowly as if he did not want to bother you, only to wrap his arms around you and squeeze you just a little, whispering “good morning” against your hair.
The goodnight hugs, when he walked you to your apartment building after the two of you wandered through the dark streets together, and he stayed standing outside until you went inside, just to make sure you were safe.
Holding your hand while walking, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if his fingers needed yours to feel complete.
Kissing your forehead. Your cheek. Sometimes your nose, whenever he was being silly and trying to make you laugh.
Kissing you.
That.
The kisses he pressed against your lips, soft and slow, as if he had all the time in the world and nowhere else he would rather be except there, with you.
And that life, the one you had created with a name that was not a number, with someone who did not scream at you that you belonged to him as if you were an object... that was the life you wanted to live.
For the first time in your life, you wanted to wake up the next morning.
For the first time, you were not afraid of what would happen next. You wanted to get up just to see him, to hear his voice, to feel his hands. You wanted to keep pretending to be a normal employee, but not because you had been ordered to. Because that disguise allowed you to stay by his side.
That life was a dream.
A dream you never wanted to wake up from.
But the code carved into your shoulder, those letters and numbers you had carried for as long as you could remember—L008L—always reminded you of reality. They burned against your skin like a brand. Whispering into your ear that you were not real, that you were not a person, that you were only a project.
Reality waited for you outside.
Outside of Clark’s arms. Outside of his kisses. Outside of that bubble of affection that had wrapped itself around you without you even noticing.
One night, Clark invited you to his apartment for dinner. He said he was tired of restaurants, that he wanted to be alone with you, without people around, without noise, without anything except the two of you.
You accepted.
Of course you did.
You would have accepted anything he offered you.
When you arrived at his apartment, it felt so... him. Cozy. Messy but clean. With books stacked on tables and plants resting by the windows. It smelled like homemade food, like something cooked slowly and lovingly.
Clark was chopping tomatoes in the kitchen, wearing an apron that was slightly too small for him. You laughed seeing him so focused, his tongue peeking out a little while he cut them.
And suddenly, without stopping, he said:
“I think shaving your head during hot weather is actually a pretty smart strategy. I wouldn’t do it myself, but it’s a good strategy.”
You laughed. A genuine laugh, the kind that came more easily every time you were with him.
“But if you lost all your hair, you’d end up...” You gestured toward your head playfully. “That would hurt more, wouldn’t it?”
Then you handed him the onion you had chopped. He took it carefully and dropped it into the pot where something bubbled softly, releasing steam that smelled incredible.
“Well, that is an excellent point,” Clark admitted, turning to look at you with that smile of his. The one that completely unraveled you.
You smiled back.
But maybe your smile wavered a little. Just slightly.
Because deep inside your mind, in that dark corner you kept trying to ignore, you knew you had spent days ignoring Lex. You were not answering his calls the way you were supposed to. You were not giving him full reports. You kept telling him there were no updates, that Clark knew nothing, that you were still investigating.
You lied.
You lied every single time you opened your mouth in front of him.
And that lie sat inside your chest like a stone. But you could not stop. You did not want to stop. Because every time Clark looked at you, every time he touched you, you forgot Luthor existed. You forgot you had a mission. You forgot you were a project.
There was only him.
Only this moment, in this kitchen, with the steam rising from the pot and the smell of tomatoes and onions filling the air.
His hands were skilled and steady, even though he always pretended to be clumsy at the office. And you only helped when necessary, because he kept telling you to sit down, to rest, that you already did enough during the day.
“All I need is for you to kiss me every once in a while,” Clark would say whenever you complained about not helping enough.
He always said it with a mischievous smile, those flushed cheeks you loved so much coloring pink again.
And you would laugh.
And kiss him.
And he would continue cooking as if nothing had happened, though you could see the foolish smile spreading across his face every single time you did it.
At some point, your gaze drifted away.
You did not know how long you stayed like that, staring into nothing while thinking about everything. About Luthor. About the mission. About what would happen once all of this ended. About what would happen if he discovered you no longer wanted to obey him.
Clark noticed.
He always noticed everything about you.
Slowly, he walked closer, his hands still slightly damp from washing vegetables, and carefully tucked your hair behind your ear. His fingers brushed your skin, and you felt that familiar shiver running through your body every time he touched you.
“Everything okay?” he asked softly, concern filling his voice.
You nodded, even though it was not entirely true.
But you could not tell him the truth. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
He smiled, as if he had decided to believe you, and said:
“You’re my main assistant. Without your kisses, I can’t continue. Dinner will burn if you don’t give me one right now.”
“So dramatic,” you whispered.
But you stepped closer and kissed him anyway. Short. Quick. But filled with everything you did not know how to put into words.
Clark nodded in satisfaction.
“That’s better,” he said, continuing to cook as if nothing had happened.
If only he could hear you.
If only he were the one reading your mind and knew the guilt you carried.
That heavy, dark guilt crushing your shoulders every night when you were alone. The guilt of knowing you were supposed to obey, that Luthor was waiting for you, that the mission still existed even if you no longer wanted to complete it.
Because you did not want to anymore.
You did not want to obey.
You did not want to hurt anyone.
You did not want to return to that cold laboratory, to those needles, to those beatings, to those sleepless nights listening to the scientists’ footsteps echoing down the hallway.
You only wanted to stay with him.
You only wanted this forever.
This kitchen. This smell of homemade food. Clark’s hands holding yours.
But you were certain the world would still point at you and call you the villain.
Because that was what you were, wasn’t it?
That was what you had always been. A project built to hurt people. A weapon. A thing.
People never understand that sometimes villains do not choose to become villains. Sometimes they are placed on that road from the moment they are born and never given another choice.
And you had never been given a choice.
Not until Clark arrived.
You watched him smile while stirring the pot.
And then you remembered.
You remembered that night after the kiss in the office. The night he walked you home and stayed by your door because neither of you wanted to say goodbye. You remembered how he kissed you again, slower this time, deeper, as if he were trying to tell you something he could not put into words.
And during that kiss, in that moment when his lips touched yours and the world stopped moving, his mind opened to you.
Not intentionally.
Not because you searched for it.
It was as if the kiss had broken down a wall. Or as if, for the first time, he had lowered his guard completely.
That was how you found out he was Superman.
You discovered the truth you had spent months suspecting, the one spinning around inside your head like a knife that refused to sink all the way in.
Clark was Superman.
The man who flew. The hero Luthor wanted dead. The alien your owner claimed needed to be destroyed.
And you held him there in your arms while he kissed you as if you were the most important thing in the world.
Your suspicions were confirmed.
But not because you used your powers.
Because he revealed himself without meaning to.
Inside his mind, in that moment of tenderness, you saw everything. You saw the child arriving in a spaceship. You saw the parents who raised him in Kansas. You saw the first time he flew. You saw the symbol on his chest.
You saw Superman.
And you saw him smile, and cry, and love.
You saw him be more human than anyone who called him an “alien.”
Your mission was complete.
That moment should have been the end of everything. You had what Luthor wanted. The final proof. The connection between Clark Kent and Superman. You could have gone back that same night and told him everything.
And he would have smiled at you. Congratulated you. Given you that twisted version of affection you once mistook for love.
But you did not do it.
You could not.
You did not want to.
So you kept it to yourself.
Like a secret.
Like a treasure.
Because you wanted it to last a little longer. You wanted that night to never end. You wanted to keep feeling his lips, his hands, his warmth. You wanted to keep being the girl from the Daily Planet, the one with the fake name and the invented life who, for the first time, finally felt real.
You were afraid Luthor would grow tired of waiting. Afraid he would train you until you were capable of fighting Superman yourself.
And not only him.
You knew Luthor had other creations. Other projects. Other weapons. You knew that if you failed, he would use someone else.
And that terrified you.
Terrified for Clark.
Terrified for yourself.
Terrified for everything you had started to build.
But good things always come to an end.
You knew that. You had known it from the beginning, even if you had tried to cover it up with kisses and dinners at his apartment. Because a villain never got a happy ending.
Villains did not deserve one.
And at the end of the day, no matter how Clark looked at you as if you were a person, no matter how his hands treated you as if you were made of porcelain, you were still a project.
And projects were only carried out.
Or, if they did not work, they were discarded. Sometimes, they were useful until they fulfilled their purpose, and then the same thing happened.
They were discarded anyway.
Like trash. Like something useless. Like a broken toy no one wanted to fix.
You looked at Clark that day.
It was a night like many others, one of those nights you had started treasuring like someone saving coins in a jar, knowing that sooner or later, they would run out. You were standing at the door of your apartment after walking together through streets lit by lampposts.
He was saying goodbye with a kiss on your lips, one of those slow kisses that left you breathless. Your hands were on his shirt, tucked beneath his jacket, feeling the warmth of his chest through the fabric.
You were smiling.
You could not help it.
And your eyes shone like they had never shone before. As if, somewhere inside you, tiny lights had been switched on and no one had managed to put them out yet.
“We should go out tomorrow,” Clark whispered close to your lips, with that voice that made you shiver.
It was not an order.
It was never an order with him.
It was an invitation. An I want to be with you disguised as simple words.
“We’ve been dating for three months. I think I want to surprise you for the fourth.”
You smiled. But inside, something shifted. Something uncomfortable.
Because surprises were not meant for you. Gifts were not meant for you. Beautiful things had never reached your hands without you having to pay a price first.
“A surprise?” You looked at him, searching for his eyes behind his glasses. You swallowed before speaking. “I don’t think I deserve a surprise.”
The truth escaped your mouth before you could stop it. Because deep down, in that dark place Clark could not see, you believed it.
You did not deserve anything good.
Projects did not deserve.
Projects only received orders and punishments.
But Clark did not understand the depth of your words. He couldn’t. Because he did not know what you were. He did not know where you came from. He did not know what you had done, what had been done to you, what you still had to do.
He only saw you.
The girl from the Daily Planet. The shy reporter who blushed whenever he held her hand.
And he smiled at you with that wide, sincere smile of his, the one that broke something inside you every time you saw it.
“You deserve it more than anyone,” he whispered.
His hand rose to your face, and he tucked that same rebellious strand of hair behind your ear. The same gesture as always.
The one you loved so much.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at that Italian restaurant you like so much. Eight o’clock, after work.”
“Alright, then I’ll see you tomorrow... even though we’ll see each other at work,” you said, and your voice sounded happier than you felt inside.
Clark laughed again. That laugh that soothed your soul.
“Well, I’ve realized that seeing you at work isn’t enough.” He smiled, soft and impossibly fond. “I want to have you for my whole life.”
You looked at him with flushed cheeks. They burned. They stung. But it was a beautiful warmth, the kind you wanted to last forever.
You hugged him. Pressed your body against his and felt the way he wrapped his arms around you, holding you as if you were fragile, as if he were afraid of breaking you.
He had no idea.
No idea that you wanted to leave your real secret behind too.
No idea that while he was planning a surprise for your fourth month together, you were planning something much bigger.
Something that terrified you and gave you hope at the same time.
You looked into his eyes. Took a breath. And spoke from the deepest part of your heart, from that place you had believed empty until he filled it without asking permission.
“I want to have you for my whole life too, Clark,” you whispered.
The words came out trembling, but firm. It was the first time you had ever said something like that. The first time you had wanted something for yourself.
Not for Luthor.
Not for the mission.
For you.
And in that moment, you decided.
You would tell him.
Everything.
The laboratory. The experiments. The number on your shoulder. Luthor. The mission. Superman.
Everything.
If he could help you, if he could love every part of you, even with your past, with your scars, with the terrible things you had done and the terrible things that had been done to you, then you would help him defeat Lex.
Together.
Because you no longer wanted to be a weapon. You no longer wanted to be a project. You no longer wanted to be L008L.
You only wanted to be the girl Clark kissed in apartment doorways.
Clark kissed you one last time that night.
A long, soft kiss, filled with promises neither of you knew if you could keep. His lips parted from yours slowly, as if leaving was difficult for him, as if he knew something terrible was going to happen.
But he did not know.
He could not know.
“Tomorrow,” he said with a smile.
“Tomorrow,” you replied.
And he walked away down the sidewalk, looking back every few steps, smiling each time he saw you still standing in the doorway.
Until he turned the corner and disappeared.
You remained there, alone on the threshold, your heart beating so hard you could feel it in your ears.
Could you have a dignified life?
Was it possible?
Could someone like you, born in a laboratory, raised among needles and blows, trained to kill, have a happy ending?
You wondered that while climbing the stairs to your apartment. The building was old, the hallway lights flickered, and your steps sounded hollow against the concrete.
Maybe it was your illusion that blinded you.
Maybe it was hope, that new thing Clark had planted in your chest without you realizing it, that made you lower your guard.
Because as you climbed, you did not think to check the door. You did not think to listen before going inside. You did not think about anything except him, his smile, his I want to have you for my whole life.
You climbed the steps with a foolish smile on your face, your hands tucked inside the pockets of your jacket, feeling almost normal.
Almost happy.
You opened the door to your apartment.
The one you rented.
Or rather, the one Luthor rented.
Because nothing was truly yours. Not the walls, not the furniture, not the name you used, not even the clothes on your body. He had given you everything.
And everything had a price.
When you opened the door, your heart froze.
Lex Luthor was standing there, staring out the window as if nothing were wrong. As if it were his apartment. As if you belonged to him. As if nothing had happened.
His hands were clasped behind his back, shoulders straight, head slightly tilted. The streetlight filtered through the glass and painted his long, slender silhouette across the floor.
You walked forward slowly.
Every step took enormous effort, as if your legs had been filled with lead. The door behind you closed by itself.
Or not by itself.
You barely turned your head and saw one of his projects. One you had heard of, though you knew very little about him. Only that he was strong.
Very strong.
He was covered entirely in black, from head to toe, like a breathing shadow. He did not move. Did not speak.
He only watched.
Waited.
You looked at Luthor.
At last, he slowly turned around, wearing that false calm he always used when he was truly furious. His eyes traveled over you from head to toe, as if he were inspecting a defective product.
As if he had already decided you were useless.
“I don’t know what bothers me more,” he said, his voice low and dangerously calm. “That Clark Kent took advantage of my project, or that my project, the one that took me the longest to build, now has to be discarded.”
He stepped closer to you.
You stepped back.
One step.
Then another.
Your back hit the wall, but there was no way out. The man in black stood by the door. You could not escape.
“It’s part of the plan,” you said.
But this time, you did not manage to stay calm. Your voice trembled. Your hands trembled. You could not hold his gaze.
You lowered your eyes.
And that was the sign.
He knew that gesture perfectly.
He knew what it meant.
It meant you were lying.
It meant you were afraid.
It meant you were no longer his.
Luthor seized your chin harshly, his fingers cold as ice, and forced your face closer until his breath struck your skin.
You looked at him.
His eyes were full of rage. Disappointment.
Something worse.
“Part of the plan?” he spat the words like poison. “What the fuck is your plan?”
You trembled.
Your whole body trembled.
But you had to keep going.
You had to protect Clark.
Even if they killed you.
Even if they discarded you.
Even if they dragged you back to the laboratory and injected you until you forgot his name.
“Mr. Lex,” you said, your voice barely more than a thread.
He released your chin abruptly, as if you disgusted him. You stayed pressed against the wall, breathing fast, feeling as if your heart were trying to claw its way out of your chest.
“Clark Kent knows nothing about Superman,” you lied.
You wished it were true.
Wished he were not the flying man.
Wished he were only a clumsy, loving reporter who had nothing to do with the hero Luthor wanted to destroy.
“He doesn’t actually know where he is or where he lives. He thinks he comes to the planet whenever he wants.” Another lie. Your throat dried. “Clark Kent is just a... puppet. He is.”
Luthor stared at you in silence.
A long, heavy silence that crushed your shoulders.
He knew.
He knew something.
You could see it in his eyes. He did not believe you. He had never fully believed you. But he needed to hear you say it.
He needed you to condemn yourself.
“And what was my order if Clark Kent got in the way?” Luthor asked, his voice so cold it seemed to come from somewhere else.
You stayed silent.
The words stuck in your throat like thorns.
“What was it?” he shouted suddenly, and the sound bounced off the empty apartment walls.
You flinched.
The man in black did not move.
“To kill him and bring Superman down to earth,” you whispered.
The words tasted like blood. Like betrayal. Like everything you did not want to be.
Luthor nodded slowly, as if savoring your confession.
“Kill him,” he said.
It was not a suggestion.
It was an order.
Perhaps the last one he would ever give you.
“I want Clark Kent dead. Tonight.”
“I can’t,” you said.
And this time, you did not tremble.
This time, your voice came out firm, even as you were falling apart inside.
Luthor looked at you with a smile.
A small, ugly smile that did not reach his eyes.
And then came the slap.
Hard.
So hard it snapped your face to the side and made stars burst across your vision.
Before you could react, before you could raise your arms to protect yourself, the man in black grabbed you. He lifted you without any effort at all, as if you were a feather, as if you weighed nothing.
And hurled you against the wall.
The impact was brutal. The wall split open slightly, a long, ugly crack running through the plaster from top to bottom. The framed pictures hanging there crashed down over you, their frames breaking, glass exploding into shards that cut your face and arms.
You fell to the floor among the debris, your head spinning, blood running down your cheek, your ear ringing as if a bee were trapped inside it.
Luthor wiped his hand with a handkerchief, as if touching you had dirtied him.
He looked down at you from above, from that godlike height he had always held over you. And there was nothing in his eyes.
No rage.
No disappointment.
Not even hatred.
Only indifference.
As if you no longer existed.
As if he had already thrown you in the trash.
“Another damned failed project,” he said, sounding tired, as if even despising you bored him. “Take her.”
That was the last thing you heard.
The man in black approached you.
You felt a sharp sting in your neck, something cold, something metallic.
An injection.
The liquid entered your veins like liquid fire. Your body went numb. Your head filled with cotton. Your eyes closed without you being able to stop them.
And as you fell asleep, as the darkness wrapped itself around you like a cold blanket, you thought of only one thing.
Him.
Clark.
His smile.
His "You deserve it more than anyone".
The Italian restaurant.
The surprise you would never get to see.
His arms.
His warmth.
Everything you had wanted to have, now falling apart between your fingers like wet sand.
You did not need to open your eyes. The smell told you everything.
That cold, clean scent, like a hospital but worse, like something that had never seen the sun. That smell of disinfectant and metal and fear. The sound told you too. That low hum of machines, that heavy silence of empty hallways, that echo of your own heartbeat bouncing off white walls. You were in your cell. The one you used to call a room because you had not known it could be called anything else. Because they told you it was your room, and you believed them.
But now you knew. Now you knew it was a cage. It always had been.
You opened your eyes slowly. Your gaze scanned everything, just as they had taught you to do, like a weapon activating after being shut down. The narrow bed. The padded walls. The metal door with no handle on the inside. The large mirror on the far wall, behind which you knew someone was always watching. And the clock.
You looked at the time. Twelve noon.
They had sedated you. Most likely so you would sleep as long as possible, so you would be weak when you woke, so you would not be able to fight. But you had to get out of there. You had to see Clark. You had promised yourself. You were going to tell him the truth. You were going to ask for his help. You were going to start a new life. A real life.
You stood. Your legs trembled slightly, but you managed to stay upright. You ran to the door with your hand outstretched, hoping it might be open, hoping it had all been a mistake, hoping they had not locked you in again.
But the moment you touched it, an alarm went off. A sharp, violent beeping pierced your ears like a needle, and before you could pull your hand away, an electric current shot through your arm, your shoulder, your chest.
You gasped. The pain forced you back, stumbling until you fell to your knees on the cold floor. Your fingers still trembled from the shock.
“I thought I could trust you.”
Luthor’s voice echoed through the room, coming from speakers you could not see. You looked at him through the large mirror. He was on the other side, as always, arms crossed, wearing that godlike posture of a man who believed he owned the world.
“And my most... valued project,” he said, pausing dramatically as if saying it wounded him, “betrayed me for one of Superman’s friends.” He nodded slowly, as though processing something tragic. “How painful.”
But all you saw in his eyes was irritation. Not pain. Not sadness. Irritation. Like when a favorite toy breaks. Like when something that belongs to him stops working the way he wants it to.
You stared at the mirror and frowned. Your mind focused on the glass. You could break it. You could tear through it with your energy. You could reach him.
The glass trembled a little, barely at all, but Luthor noticed.
And he smiled.
“No scenes,” he said calmly, dangerously. “Or I’ll be forced to sedate you again. And this time, you won’t wake up in twelve hours. Do you understand?”
You stopped. Lowered your hand.
Rage burned inside you, but fear was stronger. Not fear of being hurt. You already knew that one. Fear of never seeing Clark again. That was new. That paralyzed you.
Luthor left. The screen went dark.
You stayed alone in the white room, sitting on the floor, your arm still tingling from the shock. You looked at the clock again. One in the afternoon. You had to get out. You had to see Clark.
The restaurant. Eight o’clock.
You had seven hours.
Seven hours to find a way to escape, to slip past the guards, to reach him. But you needed to be patient. You could not throw yourself against the door again. You could not hurt yourself. You had to think.
And then it happened.
Five in the afternoon.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Doors opening. Low voices. A man entered, deactivating the electric lasers with a remote control. You knew him. You had seen him before. One of the usual guards, the kind who looked without seeing, who spoke to you as if you were an animal.
Behind him came a woman you also recognized, holding a metal tray. On the tray was a syringe filled with a transparent liquid you knew very well.
Punishment.
The reward for misbehaving. For disobeying. For thinking for yourself.
“Hello, pretty thing,” the guard said with an ugly smile that turned your stomach. “We were told you behaved badly.”
You looked away. You did not want to see him. You did not want to give them the satisfaction of watching you tremble.
The guard stepped closer, confident, as if you were the same as before. The one who stayed still. The one who endured.
“You decide,” he said, his voice almost amused. “Do you want to do this sedated or conscious?”
The woman stepped forward too, the syringe ready.
You knew what “conscious” meant. It meant feeling everything. It meant they would not put you fully to sleep, only weaken you, only strip away enough of your strength so you could not fight, but you would feel every needle, every blow, every humiliation.
And Luthor always punished that way.
It was not enough to hurt you. You had to know you deserved it. You had to feel it.
But something had changed.
Something inside you was no longer the same.
You stood slowly. Both guards froze, surprised. You never stood. Never defended yourself. Never spoke. You only knelt and waited.
“I decide,” you said, and a smile spread across your face. A smile they had never seen before. “That I want to kill you.”
Your hand moved so lightly they did not even see it. A quick, precise movement, one they had drilled into you through years of training. The needle on the tray flew through the air, and before the guard could blink, it buried itself in his neck. His eyes went wide. His mouth opened to scream, but only a choked sound came out.
He dropped to the floor like a stone.
The woman screamed and stepped back, but you were already on her. You struck her in the head with the metal tray, and she collapsed too. Both of them fell to the floor.
It had all lasted only a few seconds.
Before, you had done nothing. Of course you had the strength. Of course you could. But it had been carved into your mind that it was your fault. That you had to endure everything, even if you hated it, even if you had nightmares.
Because Lex said it was your punishment.
Because Lex said you deserved it.
And you believed him. You believed him for so long that you forgot you could say no.
But not anymore.
Now you had Clark.
Now you had a reason to fight.
You stepped over the guards’ bodies and left the cell. The hallway was long and white, just as it had always been. The alarm activated immediately. Red lights flashing. A loud, irritating sound filling the entire place.
You ran.
Most of the doors were locked, sealed by security. So you used your powers. You pushed with your mind, with the energy flowing from your hands, and the doors burst open by force, shattering locks, ripping metal frames apart.
Corridors. More corridors.
Then came the guards. They fired. Bullets flew toward you. You deflected them effortlessly with a movement of your hand, sending them ricocheting into the walls.
You kept running.
And then, as you were deflecting those bullets, a blow slammed into your body. Something enormous, something unstoppable, lifted you off the ground and smashed you against the wall. The impact was so brutal you felt the air leave your lungs.
You fell to the floor, coughing, your vision blurred.
“Bad, bad, bad.”
Luthor’s voice came from speakers mounted in the corners of every hallway. Your head hurt. Your ribs hurt. You lifted your eyes and saw the man standing before you, the same one who had knocked you unconscious in the apartment.
He did not move.
He only stared at you, waiting.
“Did you think it would be easy?” Luthor continued, his voice almost cheerful, as if he were enjoying the spectacle. “No one betrays Luthor, my dear project. Never.” A pause followed. A silence that froze your blood. “Besides, you couldn’t leave without being properly introduced to my newest creation. The one who is going to replace you.”
The man in front of you slowly lifted his hands, calm, as if he were in no hurry.
Then he removed his mask.
Your pulse stopped for a second.
Maybe longer.
Your lips trembled. Your heart stopped beating, then began again harder, faster, more afraid. Because it was like looking at Superman. A corrupted version of him, yes, but still. The same strong face. The same jaw. The same dark hair, though longer, more unkempt.
But no.
It was not Superman.
It was worse.
It was like looking at Clark.
Clark without the glasses. Clark with dark, empty eyes, without a soul, without love. Clark the way you had once been. The way they had raised you to be.
A project.
A weapon.
A thing without feelings.
“Meet Ultraman,” Luthor said, pride overflowing in his voice. “Isn’t he nearly perfect? A few small defects, perhaps, but better than you. Much better.”
You shook your head. It could not be. There could not be another like him. There could not be another like you.
“I’m certain he would kill Clark Kent,” Luthor continued, as if thinking out loud. “But first, he has to kill you. A little training exercise, don’t you think? A warm-up.”
And then Ultraman attacked.
You had no time to react. His enormous hand closed around your throat and lifted you off the ground. He flew with you, squeezing your airway, crashing you through the hallway walls.
Wall after wall.
Your back hit concrete. Your head struck hard. The pain was immense.
Then he released you.
You dropped to the floor like a rag, groaning, blood running down your forehead. Before you could stand, he lunged again.
But this time, you flew upward, covering your body in green energy to escape. The energy shielded you, strengthened you. You shot through the hallway, but he followed.
He was fast.
Too fast.
He caught you, seized your wrist, and when he lifted his other arm to strike you, your energy stopped him for one second.
Only one.
He shoved you back, and before you could see it coming, he hurled you downward. You gasped as you hit the floor. Something cracked inside you.
A rib, maybe.
Or something worse.
“And one more thing,” Luthor said through the speakers, like a narrator enjoying his own show. “He knows Superman’s movements as well as yours. He studied you just as much as he studied Superman. There are no secrets from him. No tricks.”
You swallowed, staring up.
Ultraman watched you from above, floating in the air with his arms crossed. He was in no hurry.
He knew he was going to win.
You began to attack him. Green spheres of energy shot from your hands straight toward him. Entire walls wrapped in your energy rose from the floor to trap him. But he was strong. Too strong. He broke through everything with his laser vision, like Superman. Like Clark. You fell once. Then again. Then again. Blood dripped from your nose. Your entire body hurt. There were only minutes left before eight. Clark had to be at the restaurant by now. Because whenever you had dates, he always arrived early. Always. It was his way of saying he did not want to lose a single second with you. But this time, you did not even know if you would ever see him again. If you were going to get out of there. If you were going to stay alive.
He threw another massive wall at you. He lifted it from the ground and hurled it in your direction. You stopped it before it could crush you, your hands trembling, your arms on the verge of breaking. The effort was titanic.
You shoved the wall off you with a cry of effort. You stood. You were going to attack him. You were going to give everything you had. But he moved with a speed your eyes could not follow. Everything happened too fast. His hand appeared at your back. He was close to you. For one second, only one second, you looked into his eyes. And you saw Clark’s eyes. The same ones. The same color. The same shape. But empty. Like a broken mirror.
You gasped. He held you still without expression, watching your reaction as if he were barely learning what it meant. As if he did not know what tears were.
You placed your hand over Ultraman’s other one. The same hand where he had buried a dagger. A strange dagger, glowing green and purple at the same time. You looked at him with tears in your eyes. You did not want to cry. But you could not stop it. He drove it in deeper. You trembled. Gasped. You felt the poison entering your blood, spreading through your body like frozen fire.
And then you felt your body move. The dagger was no longer in his hand. It was Lex. Lex Luthor had arrived, had stepped close without you seeing him, and now he held your body and the dagger’s handle in his hand. You looked at him without understanding. Your vision blurred. Everything became hazy.
“I’m sorry, Clark,” you thought. The words formed inside your head like a prayer, like a whisper he would never hear. “I’m sorry I won’t make it to the restaurant. I’m sorry I never told you how much I love you. Not even my first ‘I love you.’ I’m sorry I wasn’t honest. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything from the beginning. I’m sorry I lied to you, even if it was through silence. I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you one more time before leaving. I’m sorry I didn’t stay that night. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for everything, Clark. Everything.”
“My sweet, sweet project,” you heard Luthor’s voice pull you back to the present. He caressed your cheek with his cold hand, with a softness that disgusted you more than any blow ever could. His fingers traced your skin as if you were a pet, as if you were something pretty that belonged to him. “Do you know the best part?” he said, leaning close to your ear. His voice was a poisonous whisper, so close you could feel his warm breath against your skin. “How were you supposed to tell the man who was in love with you that sooner or later, you were going to betray him so I could stand face-to-face with Superman? How were you going to look him in the eyes and say, ‘I love you, but I was going to hand you over too’? See? This was better. I did you a favor. I spared you the shame. I spared you from having to see his face when he learned the truth.”
You looked at him in desperation. Your eyes, already fading, tried to throw hatred at him, but only sadness came out. You did not want his words to be true. But something inside you knew he was right. Not because of what you wanted. Because of what you were. Because of what they had made you into. Because you had been created to betray. Created to hurt. And even if you had wanted to change, even if you had wanted to be different, your fate had been written before you were even born.
“Don’t worry,” Luthor continued, straightening up and wiping his hand on his jacket as if he had touched something filthy. “Ultraman can finish your work for you. That dagger was necessary. Created from flowing energy and poisoned kryptonite. I just want you to know...” He paused. He looked at you with his cold eyes, without mercy, without a single trace of humanity. “Just as I created you, I can discard you. You are not the first. You will not be the last. You are only another number, L008L. That is all. You were never anything more.”
Those were his last words. He pulled the dagger out in one brutal motion. Blood spilled from your body, hot, too hot, and yet you felt cold. So cold. Your eyes slowly dimmed. The white ceiling blurred above you. The edges of your vision darkened. You could barely feel the pain anymore. Only an immense exhaustion. A deep sleep calling to you from the very core of your being. Your body fell to the floor with a dull thud. Blood spread beneath you like red wings. Your lips tried to form one word. Just one. The most important one.
Maybe it was not the life I wanted, you thought as the light went out forever. But I will never regret meeting you, Clark. Never. Not one day. Not one second. In the end, you freed me. You made me feel human. You gave me something no one had ever given me before: a reason to want to live. And even though I couldn’t stay... I leave peacefully. Because I had you. Because I felt you. Because for a few months, I was yours. And you were mine.
Maybe in another life, Clark. Maybe in another life I can have a better life. Maybe in another life I can be a real person. Someone who deserves you. Someone who can stay by your side forever. Maybe in another life, when you arrive at the restaurant, I will already be waiting for you with a smile. Maybe in another life I can tell you ‘I love you’ every morning. Maybe in another life, Clark... maybe in another life.
I love you, I love you, Clark...
And then, nothing. Silence. Darkness. Cold. Your heart, the one you believed you did not have, the one Clark had awakened with a touch inside an elevator, stopped. The heartbeats that had leapt with happiness when he kissed you, that had trembled with fear when Luthor caught you, that had cried with sorrow when you thought of never seeing him again... faded. One after another. Until none were left.
You never found out that Clark waited for you with a bouquet of purple and yellow tulips, the ones you liked because you said they looked like little suns. He had chosen them one by one at the flower shop, asking which were the prettiest, which would last the longest. The florist had laughed at him because he kept changing his mind. “They’re for someone special,” Clark had said with flushed cheeks. “For someone very special.”
You never knew that inside a small box lined with blue velvet was the key to his apartment. The one he was going to give you so you could spend more time with him. So you could stay. So you would know his home was yours too. He had gone to the hardware store that very morning, made a copy of his key, and placed it inside the little box as if it were a treasure. “I hope she likes it,” he had told the locksmith, who looked at him strangely. “I’m sure she will,” Clark replied, though he was not sure of anything.
You never knew he had rehearsed again and again in the men’s bathroom at work, standing in front of the mirror with a crumpled paper in his hand. That he had repeated the words until he memorized them, though he had written them down too, just in case. He had locked himself in the bathroom five times that day. His coworkers wondered what was wrong with him. Lois asked if he was sick. “No, no,” Clark said, “I’m just nervous.” “Nervous about what?” Lois asked. “Nothing,” Clark lied. And then he went back to rehearsing.
“I thought I would never meet the love of my life,” he whispered in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror, holding the crumpled paper he could barely read anymore after folding and unfolding it so many times. “And then you appeared as if it were nothing. And I thought it was a dream. But I love you. I love you so much that keeping it to myself any longer would be bad for my heart, because I don’t like lying, and lying to you would be not telling you this. So here I am. Here I am, telling you that I love you. That I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you want that, of course. I don’t want to pressure you. But if you want to... I do.”
You never knew that he kept watching every time the restaurant door opened. That his heart jumped at every sound. That he ordered a glass of water just to have something in his hands, because he did not know what to do with his nerves. That he checked the clock every two minutes. That the tulips began to wilt on the table, their yellow and purple petals losing color, falling one by one like silent tears. That the waiter asked if he wanted to order something and he said, “No, not yet. She’s about to arrive.” That the waiter came back half an hour later and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to order something while you wait?” And Clark said, “No, thank you. She’ll be here any minute.” That the waiter walked away with a pitying smile, looking at him with sadness.
You never knew that the hours passed. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. The restaurant slowly emptied. Couples left hand in hand. Groups of friends said goodbye while laughing. The lights were turned off one by one. And Clark stayed there, sitting in the same chair, with the wilted tulips and the velvet box in his pocket, warm against his leg because he had touched it a thousand times to make sure it was still there.
You never knew he was the last customer in the restaurant. That the waiter had to tell him, regretfully, that they were closing. That Clark lifted his face, and for one second, the waiter saw something in his eyes he could not explain. An enormous sadness. An emptiness too vast to fit inside one person.
“Sir,” the waiter said gently, “I’m very sorry, but we’re closing now. We’ve actually been closed for an hour. We didn’t want to bother you, but...”
Clark blinked. He looked around. The restaurant was empty. Chairs were stacked on top of tables. The floor had been swept. Almost all the lights were off, except the one above his table. He had been waiting so long that he had not noticed everything slowly going dark around him.
“I’m sorry,” Clark said, his voice hoarse. He stood slowly, as if moving hurt. He took money from his pocket and left it on the table. Much more than necessary. He took the tulips and walked out slowly, aimlessly, with his heart heavier than ever. The streets were empty. The wind blew cold. Clark walked without knowing where he was going. He just walked. And walked. Until he reached the door of your apartment without knowing how.
You never knew that he did not sleep that night. That he called your phone again and again. Once. Ten times. Thirty. A hundred. That the phone rang and rang and no one answered. That he left messages at first, nervous, worried messages. “Hi, it’s me. Are you okay? I got to the restaurant. I waited for you. Did something happen? Please call me.” Then sadder messages. “Hey, it’s already eleven. Where are you? I’m worried because you’re not answering. Please call me when you get this.” Then more desperate ones. “It’s two in the morning. I called everywhere. No one knows where you are. Please, please answer me. Don’t do this to me. Don’t disappear like this. I’m begging you.” And then, near dawn, there was only one blank message. Thirty seconds of silence. Because he no longer had any words left.
You never knew that he went to your apartment and knocked on the door until his hand hurt. That he called the neighbors. That he asked people on the street. That no one had seen anything. That no one knew anything. That he sat on the hallway floor with his back against your door and waited until the sun came up. And when the sun rose, he was still there. With dead tulips in his pocket and the key he never got to give you. And he stayed there for much longer, until the building doorman had to ask him to leave because the neighbors were complaining.
You never knew that Clark returned the next day. And the next. And the next. That he searched hospitals, police stations, everywhere. That he used his powers, his superhero hearing, to listen for your voice somewhere. But he did not hear you. Because you could no longer speak. Because your voice had gone with your blood, with your heart, with your final breath. And Clark, no matter how hard he listened, no matter how much he flew across the city, no matter how many numbers he called... never found you. Because Luthor had erased you. Because the laboratories were hidden. Because the walls were thick and shielded. And because you were no longer anywhere.
You never knew that Clark never found out what happened. He never knew you had a number on your shoulder. He never knew you were a project. He never knew Luthor had created you. He never knew you had been sent to kill him. He never knew you protected him until the end. He never knew you died without telling him the truth. He never knew your final thought was him. He never knew you loved him. Because you never told him. Because you never had time. Because death arrived before your words could.
You never knew that you protected his secret with your soul. That not once, not even when the dagger was inside you, not even when you could feel death so close you could almost touch it, did his name escape your lips. You did not say that Clark was Superman. You did not betray him. You protected him. With your final breath. With your final thought. With the last beat of your heart. You protected him. And he never knew. He never knew that the girl who arrived at the Daily Planet with a false name and a rehearsed smile, the girl who blushed when he held her hand, the girl who kissed as if every kiss might be the last... had saved him. Without him doing anything. Alone. With her silence. With her death.
Maybe in another life, Clark would not have let you go that night. Maybe he would have stayed one more minute. Maybe he would have held you tighter, longer, as if something inside him told him it was the last time. Maybe he would have said, “Don’t go alone,” and walked you to your door. Maybe he would have gone upstairs with you. Maybe he would have been there. Maybe he would have heard Luthor. Maybe he would have seen Ultraman. Maybe he could have done something. Maybe he would have saved you. Maybe everything would have been different.
But this life was not made of maybes. This life was made of pain. Of projects. Of numbers on shoulders. Of owners who create you and discard you as if you were trash. And sometimes, only sometimes, it was made of loves that arrive too late. Loves that arrive right when there is no time left. Loves that teach you what it means to be human just before you stop being one.
And maybe that, even if it hurts more than any dagger, is enough. Maybe for Clark, it will not be. Maybe he will spend the rest of his life wondering what happened, why you left, why you disappeared without saying anything, why you did not answer the phone, why you never arrived at the restaurant, why the tulips wilted alone on the table while he waited for you with a velvet box in his pocket. Maybe he will never find answers. Maybe he will always wonder. Maybe he will always look for you without knowing there is nothing left to find.
Because you are no longer here. Because you left the same way you arrived: in silence, without anyone seeing it, without anyone knowing. Alone. Like a project that stopped working one day. Like a light going out, and no one noticing it was gone.
A nice fanfic because the next one might be a bit too much…
Clark Kent x female reader
Sinopsis: Clark Kent never gets sick. At least, that’s what he always tells you. But after a brutal battle leaves Superman weakened in ways no one expected, you’re suddenly forced to take care of the strongest man in the world through a fever that shakes buildings, freezes floors, and leaves him trembling in your arms.
Warnings: Fluff and romance
WC: 2,900 words approx.
The work trip had only one goal: It was normal that when people transitioned from the spring to the autumn season, they got sick. You, more than anyone, knew that very well. That was why you took care of yourself as best you could, because you hated injections. It was a trauma you'd had since you were a child, due to your weak immune system. They had to give you shots for almost two full weeks, and for a twelve-year-old girl, you had to admit it was a real trauma. So, to avoid going through the same thing again, you took a packet of vitamin C every morning. And there was no problem with that, because that way you managed not to get sick.
Now that you had a boyfriend like Clark, it was clear that you always sought to take care of both of you. Ever since you moved in with him, you kept up your morning vitamin routine. And even before you found out his big secret—that he was Superman and led a double life—Clark took his vitamin with you. So you would prepare two glasses with the dissolved vitamin powder, and he would drink it without complaint. He never said anything, never grumbled. He just smiled and drank it while looking at you affectionately.
That lasted until he told you his secret, in the middle of the living room, sitting together on the sofa. He looked at you with fear, having revealed something so monumental, as if he thought you might get scared or angry. But you just stayed silent for a moment, thinking.
"So you can't get sick?" you asked, staring at him.
Clark smiled, feeling very relieved to be able to tell his secret to the most special person in his life. "No," he said, and very carefully tucked your stray hair behind your ear.
You frowned, a little confused. "And if you can't get sick, why do you take the vitamin I give you to prevent getting sick?" you asked, looking at him curiously.
His cheeks flushed deeply, so much so that he hesitated a bit before answering. "Well… it's a routine I enjoy sharing with you," he admitted with a slightly shy smile.
You smiled too, because you found it very endearing. From that moment on, Clark stopped taking the vitamin, since he truly didn't need it. But that didn't stop you from still taking care of him just the same. If you went out and it started to rain, you would take off your coat and give him his to put on.
"Beautiful, I don't get sick," he would say, laughing a little.
But you would look at him with those eyes he could never refuse. "But we match," you would tell him. And it was true, because you both had blue coats, so he would put it on just to keep you at ease.
In winter, when the cold was too harsh, you would wrap his scarf around his neck before going out. And on sunny days, you would put on your cap and he would do the same, because you had bought an identical one for him. He always told you the same thing: "I can't get sick. I'm strong." But you still weren't entirely sure. To you, he was still Clark, your boyfriend, and you wanted to protect him just as he protected you.
Even so, for several days you had known that the Justice League was facing a very powerful enemy. The news said Superman was having difficulties, and that left you on edge, very nervous. You worked in a call center office, and whenever you could, you checked your phone. But there was no message from Clark. He had gone three days without rest, and you were very worried about his health. When you got home that night, you realized it would be your fourth night without sleeping beside him. You missed him terribly.
You sighed and paced back and forth across the living room, not knowing what to do. The sun set completely and everything went dark. Then you heard a thud at the window. You saw Green Lantern helping Clark inside, stumbling, almost falling.
"Here's your woman, Clark," said Guy Gardner, the Green Lantern, and then he looked at you.
"Guy? What happened?" you asked, running toward Clark, who was moving very slowly, as if struggling to put one foot in front of the other.
"I'm fine," Clark said, but you heard something off in his voice. You noticed he didn't pronounce the letter 'e' correctly.
"You're not fine," Guy said. "His exposure to the enemy—by the way, we already defeated him—weakened him a lot." Guy placed him on the sofa you pointed to. "And you could say, in human terms, he has a fever."
You looked at Clark, who was pale and shaking slightly. You were about to touch him, but Gardner stopped you with his hand. "He's boiling. He can't cool down on his own until the sun rises in about eight hours," he explained.
You nodded, looking at Clark with concern. "I suppose it's like a human cold, right?" you said.
Gardner nodded. Just then, Clark sneezed. It was such a powerful sneeze that the whole apartment shook, and even your crystal vase fell to the floor and shattered.
"Sorry," Clark said, sniffling hard.
"I'll handle it," you told the Green Lantern, your voice firm.
"You sure?" Guy asked. You nodded again. "Anything happens, you know how to contact us. Good luck with your man and his sudden changes," he said, and flew off swiftly through the window.
You closed the window and started thinking. "First, we'll bring your temperature down," you announced, moving quickly. "I'll get the blankets out here, and we'll change your clothes."
"I'm fine," Clark said again, but his voice sounded weak. Then another sneeze shook the air, and this time a picture hanging on the wall fell down, making you jump. "Sorry," he whispered, sniffling again, a small pout on his lips. He looked like a big child who didn't want to cause trouble.
You ran to the bedroom and brought everything to the living room: blankets, a pillow, his pajamas. First, Clark lay down on the sofa with a pillow, with nothing covering him. You placed a large bucket with water and a lot of ice, too much ice. You reached out to touch his forehead, and barely grazing his skin, you had to pull away immediately. It burned as if you had touched a lit stove.
"Oh, Clark," you said, your eyes wide. "You're super hot. I can't even touch you."
He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "I know… it hurts," he whispered, and another sneeze made the windows rattle. This time, a glass on the table fell and rolled across the floor, but luckily it didn't break.
You carefully took the cloth, dipped it in the ice water, and brought it close to his skin. The moment the cold cloth touched his forehead, it started to steam slightly. The ice melted instantly. You had to wet the cloth again and again, nonstop. Every time you placed it, he sighed in relief for a second, but then groaned again as the heat returned.
"Again," he asked, his voice broken. "Put it on again, please." And you did, over and over, without tiring. Your hands were already red from constantly plunging them into the icy water, but you didn't care.
Nearly an hour passed like this. Clark sneezed every few minutes, and each sneeze made the furniture shift slightly or caused something to fall. At one point, he sneezed so hard that the ceiling lamp swayed as if an earthquake had hit.
"Sorry, I'm sorry," he said, his eyes teary, pouting again. His lower lip trembled. "I don't want to break anything, love. I don't want to…"
"It's okay," you told him, gently wiping the cloth across his face. "The things don't matter. You're the one who matters."
When the cloth finally started to stay cold on his skin for longer, you felt brave enough to remove his suit. Very carefully, you began taking it off him. He could barely move, so you had to help him by lifting his arms little by little. You left him in just his underwear, and at that moment, his skin changed completely. Suddenly, the heat vanished as if someone had extinguished a fire.
"I'm cold," Clark whispered, and his voice sounded so small it broke your heart. "So cold, love."
He began to tremble uncontrollably. His teeth chattered together, making a tiny sound. His lips turned purple, and his face became as pale as snow. You touched him, and this time it was like touching a block of ice. You were a little frightened, but you remembered what Guy had told you: sudden changes.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," you said, rushing to get more blankets. You grabbed every single one you had in the closet, even the oldest and thinnest. You piled them on him one by one. First one, then another, then another. Clark was still shivering, so you added two more. You lay down beside him on the sofa and held him tight, rubbing his arms and back to warm him up.
"Don't let go," he said, his voice breaking. "Please, don't let me go."
"I won't let you go," you promised, squeezing him tighter.
Several minutes passed until he finally stopped trembling. He sighed deeply and buried his face in your neck. "Stay with me," he whispered. And you stroked his hair, kissing his head every so often.
Suddenly, Clark coughed. It was a dry, harsh cough, and as he coughed, a blast of icy wind came from his mouth, freezing a patch of the floor. You looked at the ice, then at him. His eyes were wide, frightened.
"I'm so sorry," he said, and again he made that pout with his lips, like a child who has just accidentally broken something. "I don't want to hurt anything."
"It's nothing, Clark," you told him with a calm smile. "I'm going to make you soup and tea for the cough. But first, I need you to blow your nose."
You handed him a clean cloth, and he blew his nose. It was a very loud sound, like a trumpet, and as he did, another sneeze shook the living room. This time, the vase on the shelf fell and shattered into a thousand pieces.
"Oh no," Clark moaned, and a tear escaped down his cheek. "Everything breaks. I'm a wreck when I'm sick, and the neighbors are going to come and complain to you."
You knelt in front of him and wiped the tear away with your finger. "Hey, look at me," you said, affectionate but firm. "You take care of everyone, all the time. Now it's my turn to take care of you. If things break, that's fine. If the neighbors complain, I'll find an excuse. Do you understand?"
Clark nodded, but he was still pouting. "Do you still love me even if I break all your things?"
"I love you even if you break the whole building," you told him, and he let out a weak laugh that ended in another cough.
You went to the kitchen and prepared a hot soup and some tea. When you returned with the bowl and the cup on the small table, Clark was calmer, but still very weak. You helped him sit up a little, placing a pillow behind his back.
"Here, eat slowly," you told him, bringing the spoon closer.
He ate very slowly. Every other spoonful, he would sneeze or cough, and you already had the cloth ready to cover his mouth or wipe his nose. At one point, while eating, he started talking to himself, his eyes half-closed.
"My mom… my mom makes soup like this," he murmured, and then smiled goofily. "But you make it better… don't tell her."
You smiled, knowing he was delirious again. "I won't tell her," you whispered.
"And flowers… you like yellow flowers," he continued, moving his head from side to side. "I'm going to buy you a whole field of them. An entire field just for you. Would you like that?"
"I would love that," you replied, giving him another spoonful of soup.
"And peaches," he added, his eyes glossy and unfocused. "You like peaches. I'm going to bring you peaches from space. The peaches from Krypton are the best… though I don't know if there are peaches on Krypton." He paused, confused. "I don't think there are. But I'll get you some anyway."
You couldn't help but laugh softly. He was so adorable, talking in his sleep. He finished the soup and drank all the tea. Then you used your last remedy: two packets of vitamin C. He took them whole, and as he swallowed them, he made a face like a child given bad-tasting medicine.
"Disgusting," he protested, frowning. "Why do I have to take this if I'm already getting better?"
"Because I said so," you answered, and he made another pout, but this time softer, more like a pretend one.
Finally, he managed to half-open his eyes. They were teary and blue, and they looked at you weakly. He was very depleted. You had never seen him like this, so sick.
"I never get sick because I'm strong," you repeated what he always said, but this time with tenderness.
He sniffled, and that made you smile. "When the sun rises, you'll get better," you whispered, stroking his cheek again.
"I hate being like this," he said in a small voice. "I hate not being able to hug you tight because my arms are shaking. I hate sneezing and breaking things. I hate you seeing me so weak."
"You're not weak," you told him, taking his hand in yours. "You're sick. It's different. And I don't mind seeing you like this, because I've looked like this many times myself, and you never left me alone."
Clark looked at you with his big, wet eyes. "Will you stay with me until the sun comes out?"
"I'll stay," you said without hesitation.
"And do you still love me even when I pout?"
You smiled and touched his nose with your finger. "I love you more when you pout."
He smiled weakly and then yawned. "Take the vitamins again," you said confidently, leaving no room for doubt.
"I just need a little sunlight," he replied, shaking his head slightly, but without letting go of your hand.
"And vitamins," you said, and then yawned without being able to stop it.
"Go to sleep, you're tired," he said, his tone a little ashamed.
You shook your head. "You're here. I've spent three days alone in the bedroom. I want to be with you," you admitted, looking into his eyes.
He nodded, understanding. Then you stayed by his side, curled up next to him on the sofa, one hand on his chest to feel his breathing. Clark sneezed two more times, but they were softer now, and you wiped the cloth without saying anything, just kissing his shoulder. He made a small pout each time, as if apologizing, and you just smiled at him.
The hours passed like that, until four-thirty in the morning, when he finally managed to fall asleep. You fell asleep on the small sofa, with a blanket over you, but without letting go of his hand.
When you woke up, you turned over and felt that you were in your bed. You opened your eyes and sat up immediately, so fast that you felt a little dizzy. You looked at the clock: it was eight-thirty in the morning. You had barely slept four hours. You blinked, trying to wake up properly, and walked to the kitchen. Things were already prepared: bread, juice, everything tidy. Then you turned and saw Clark sitting on a chair, looking out the window. The sun was shining directly on his face, and he looked rested.
You smiled and approached without making a sound. You placed yourself behind him, without moving him. He tilted his head back to see you, and you kissed his forehead. It was normal, no fever.
"Did I wake you?" he whispered, his voice calm.
"No, I just got up and you weren't in the living room anymore," you said, wrapping your arms around him.
"As soon as the sun came up, I carried you to bed and came here to recharge. I didn't want you to sleep badly," he explained. He pulled back slightly and stood up to come closer to you. "Let's go sleep. Yesterday was a very long night for you," he said as his thumb gently traced the dark circles under your eyes. "Thank you for taking care of me," he added, holding your cheeks in his large, warm hands.
You smiled, your cheeks squished by his hands. "I would do it my whole life," you admitted without hesitation.
He smiled and kissed you softly. "Now you have to listen to me when it rains or gets cold, and always take your vitamins," you said, pointing to the spot where the vase and the pictures used to be, which were gone now because they had broken. "Otherwise, next time you'll end up destroying the whole apartment."
"Yes, sorry," he said, laughing softly as he took your hand and led you toward the bedroom.
They lay down together, and he hugged you tightly. You closed your eyes, feeling at peace, and the two of you slept again, finally resting.
Could we have like a ‘at work’ nsfw thing, or a drunk reader or maybe like a work trip? not sure but im so glad requests at open!
Heatwave in Montana (+18)
Clark Kent x female reader
Sinopsis: A work trip to Montana was supposed to be simple: secure an impossible interview for the Daily Planet. But after too much wine, one hotel room, and months of unresolved tension, you realize Clark Kent has become far more dangerous to your heart than any assignment ever could.
Warnings: 18+ Explicit Sexual Content, Unprotected Sex, Explicit Language, Multiple Orgasms, Heavy Sexual Tension
WC: 11,100 words approx.
The work trip had only one objective: to get businessman Jonathan Hitman to grant an interview to discuss the massive investment he had made for technological advancement in Metropolis. This was no ordinary investment—we're talking about millions of dollars allocated to improving communication networks, smart transportation systems, and even clean energy for the entire city. That was why Perry White, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet, had placed all his bets on this mission. Hitman was a difficult man, the kind who rarely agreed to speak with the press, and when he did, it was because he himself chose the journalist. So the only way to get close to him was to travel to Montana, where an extremely exclusive conference of businessmen was taking place—the kind that not just anyone could attend. And there you would be, waiting for the right moment to ask him for a few minutes.
Perry was very direct, as he always was. He didn't beat around the bush or use pretty words; he got straight to the point because time at the newspaper was gold. He called you into his office, with that desk always littered with papers and half-empty coffee cups, and said without even fully looking up:
"An interview—that will put it on the front page, and it needs to be there," he said before sending you off, in that tone that left no room for a "no" in response.
You accepted, because after all, it was work. And work paid the bills, the rent on your apartment, the food, and those little indulgences you treated yourself to from time to time. Besides, it wasn't the first time they had sent you on a complicated mission. You had already done harder things, like interviewing furious politicians or covering protests where people threw things at you. So you steeled yourself with patience, packed your suitcase, and flew to Montana. Somehow, after hours of travel, boring conferences, and handshakes with people you would forget by the next minute, you ended up in an elegant restaurant after dinner. It was one of those places with dim lighting, white tablecloths, and crystal glasses so thin they looked like they would shatter with just a breath. There were many people there, all of them major businessmen, company owners, men and women in expensive suits with measured smiles. And of course, Jonathan Hitman was there, at the center of it all, surrounded by people who wanted to sell him something or ask for a favor. You had also been invited, like all the conference attendees, but you had the luck to be seated at that table, right next to the man you needed to convince. It was pure chance, or perhaps a sign that things might go well.
But that wasn't the real problem. Oh no, of course not. The real problem had arrived much earlier, and it had nothing to do with interviews or important businessmen. Your problem had arrived yesterday—well, actually a few days ago, when you had your period. And now, to your misfortune, your phase was ovulation. You knew that phase wasn't good for you; it never had been. You were single, you lived alone, you had a huge king-size bed all to yourself, and normally you could take advantage of those days to come home, take off your clothes as soon as you walked in, put on something comfortable, and "relieve stress" without anyone seeing you. But you hadn't been able to do that because of the work trip. You had been in hotels, on planes, in conference rooms, sharing a room with a colleague or sleeping poorly due to the time change. And somehow, you hated that stage of the month with all your soul. You believed that women found men attractive even when they really weren't. You had read piles of articles on evolutionary psychology, like the ovulatory shift hypothesis, which said that during those days, women felt more attracted to men with pronounced masculine traits—strong jaws, broad shoulders, and deep voices. Even men who had previously seemed plain to you, with nothing special, now had marked features, as if someone had passed a beauty filter over them. But to your bad luck, only one woman shared the table with you in that restaurant. The other six were men, pure businessmen in elegant suits and expensive wedding rings, including the big one, the important one, the one you had to convince for the interview. And despite that, despite there being so many men around, your gaze was only on the man beside you. The man who adjusted his glasses from time to time, pushing them up with a finger. The man whose arm brushed against yours when he leaned over to get wine, or when he laughed at some bad joke. The man who smiled and quickly lowered his gaze, as if embarrassed to be seen smiling.
Your gaze was on Clark. And that made things worse.
It was your second year at the Daily Planet. You had been there a while now, long enough to know almost everyone in the newsroom. And in fact, it wasn't the first time something like this had happened with him. Before working at the Planet, you had a clear rule: no getting involved with people from work. It was a rule you had set for yourself after a bad experience at a previous newspaper, where things got complicated and you ended up changing jobs. So when you arrived at the Planet, you decided you would just ignore everyone in that sense, that they would be only colleagues, nothing more. But then a month passed, and one day Clark approached you. He told you that Perry had asked for you both to collaborate on a series of articles about scientific topics. You looked at him, looked at his features, his square jaw, his eyes so clear a blue that they seemed to shine under the fluorescent light of the office, and you swore your own eyes lit up when you saw him. You don't know if it was real or just your imagination, but something happened. You didn't stop thinking about him for days. You smiled for no reason, got distracted staring at the ceiling, remembering how he had said your name. Until your ovulation passed, and then everything went back to normal. You looked at him, and he was just Clark, the kind colleague, the shy guy with glasses. But the assignments kept bringing you together. Perry paired you up often because, according to him, you made a good team. You stayed late at the office, drinking coffee while editing notes. He helped you with the science topics that sometimes got complicated for you, and you helped him with writing interviews, which he wasn't as good at. And then another month came, and another, and Clark owned your thoughts during those days. Only during those days. But it felt so real, so intense, that it seemed like it would last forever.
So that day was the same. It started from the moment you took the flight to Montana. Clark sat next to you, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. You watched his profile as he read a document—his defined jaw, that little dimple that formed on his cheek when he smiled. Then, when he crossed glances with you, you noticed a slight blush on his cheeks, a rosy color that was barely visible but that you caught instantly. That always happened; you noticed the little things about Clark. No one else saw them, surely, but you did. Now, seated beside you after the conference, in that luxurious restaurant, he brushed his shoulder against yours again, and a shiver ran down your spine. You took your wine glass with a trembling hand, trying to hide it, and saw how he also took his with his large hand, veins visible under the skin, long and careful fingers. He was a man with such an innocent face, with that way of adjusting his glasses and laughing softly, but with a body so... perfect, so broad-shouldered, that you couldn't think only good things about him. Your mind wandered to other places, to other things, to images that made you press your legs together under the table.
He was smiling, laughing, even though you yourself knew the jokes at that table weren't really that funny. They were rich men's jokes—about money, about yacht trips, about things you couldn't care less about. But you had to laugh if you wanted that interview, so you put on a fake smile and nodded along, while inside you could only think about Clark, about his leg so close to yours, about his elbow brushing your arm.
"So you both work for the Daily Planet," said businessman Hitman, looking intently at the two of you. He had a well-trimmed beard and a gold ring on his pinky finger. His gaze was intense, the kind that makes you feel like he's reading your mind.
You inwardly lamented. You had drunk nearly six glasses of wine to control your thoughts about Clark, but it hadn't worked. If anything, the alcohol had only made you hotter, made your skin more sensitive, made every brush from Clark feel like a small explosion. Even so, you made an effort. You looked professional—after all, you worked at the newsroom and they spoke your name with recognition because you had built a career before arriving at the Planet. You had worked at small newspapers, at local magazines, until a year after joining the Planet, you had already made a name for yourself in journalism.
"Yes, of course," you answered with a polite smile, trying to keep your voice from trembling. Beside you, Clark also nodded, adjusting his glasses with that characteristic gesture of his.
"I remember you now," a man on the other side of the table suddenly said. He was a gray-haired gentleman with two days' worth of stubble and a curious look. He stared at you, and you looked back without understanding at first, raising an eyebrow. The man smiled, as if he had found a piece of a puzzle. "You're the woman who interviewed the president of Wayne Industries, Bruce Wayne, two years ago. Right after he announced that multimillion-dollar investment in renewable energy. It was a very long interview; it came out in all the international newspapers."
Jonathan Hitman, who until that moment had been looking at his wine glass with boredom, lifted his head and looked at you with interest. His eyes settled on you in a new way, as if he were only now truly seeing you.
"Wayne Industries?" Hitman asked, leaning forward slightly. "That man never gives interviews. How did you get him to agree?"
You took a sip of wine to buy time, to calm your nerves. You could feel Clark's gaze beside you, also attentive, also curious. You nodded gently, trying to seem modest but confident.
"That was me," you said, and your voice came out firmer than you expected. "I did that interview when I was working in Italy, at a newsroom there. It took me three months to get it, but in the end Bruce Wayne agreed because he was interested in the angle I wanted to take—no scandals, no talk about his personal life, just the technological side and social investment."
"Incredible," said another businessman, a young one in a blue suit. "I read that interview too. It was very well written, very detailed. You asked questions no one else had dared to ask."
"And with very few words, you got him to explain complicated things in a simple way," added a woman at the far end, the only other woman at the table. She smiled at you with respect.
Hitman nodded slowly, as if he were evaluating you. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and his gaze was no longer bored but curious. You were achieving something; you could feel it.
Then the woman who had spoken earlier, the only other woman besides you at the table, pointed at Clark with a nod of her head. She wore an elegant black dress and a pearl necklace that reflected the candlelight.
"And you," she said, looking at Clark, "you're the one who interviews Superman, right? The Daily Planet journalist who always gets the exclusive stories about the man of steel. I've seen your byline on several articles."
There was a silence at the table. Hitman looked at both of you, first at you, then at Clark, with an expression that mixed surprise and skepticism. He raised an eyebrow, as if he didn't quite believe it.
"Really?" Hitman asked, and his tone was questioning, as if he were testing your word. "You interview Superman? The one who flies through the skies of Metropolis that no one can pin down for more than five minutes?"
Clark adjusted his glasses with a quick motion, and for a second you thought you saw something strange in his eyes, like an odd glimmer that vanished instantly. He nodded calmly, with that tranquil way he had of doing things.
"Yes, I've been fortunate enough to interview him several times," Clark said, in his soft, measured voice. "He's someone who… trusts me, for some reason. I suppose he likes the way I tell the stories."
You nodded as well, without hesitation. It was true; Clark was the only journalist who could get Superman to speak. No one knew how he did it, but he did it. And that had earned him considerable fame within the newspaper, though he never boasted about it.
Hitman looked at both of you in silence for a moment. The noise of the restaurant continued around you—the clinking of glasses, the laughter from other tables—but in that moment, all of it seemed to disappear. The businessman had his fingers interlaced on the table, and his expression shifted from skepticism to something resembling decision.
"Then you have your interview," he said finally, in a firm voice. "Tomorrow, my assistant will send you the address of my hotel. We need to meet and get this interview done. But I want it to be long, I want it to be detailed—none of those half-page pieces other newspapers run."
He said all of this while looking at both of you, but his gaze lingered on you a couple of seconds longer than on Clark. Especially on you. As if you were the one who had truly convinced him. Maybe it was the Bruce Wayne thing, maybe it was your way of speaking—you didn't know. But you smiled, professionally, nothing more. Without showing the immense relief you felt inside, nor the way your heart was beating fast, nor the heat you still felt in your chest from having Clark so close.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Hitman," you said, and your smile was perfect, trained by years of dealing with difficult people. "We won't let you down."
Hitman nodded one last time, stood up, and the other businessmen did the same. They said goodbye with handshakes and polite phrases, and then he left, accompanied by an assistant carrying a black briefcase. The others at the table started talking among themselves, complimenting you because Hitman never granted interviews, telling you it was the first time in years he had agreed to speak with the press. Someone said you must be very talented; another said it was a matter of luck. But you only nodded without really listening. Because Clark had brushed your arm again, this time unintentionally, as he stood up from his chair, and all your attention was on that small point of contact, on that spark you felt on your skin, and you knew the night was not yet over.
Clark rose from his chair with a smooth motion, stretching his legs a bit after so many hours of sitting. He adjusted his glasses with that familiar gesture, running a finger over the bridge of his nose, and then leaned slightly toward you. His mouth drew close to your ear, so close that you felt his warm breath graze your skin, and when he spoke, it was in a whisper, low, only for you, as if what he was about to say were a secret he couldn't share with anyone else at that table full of people.
"I think it's late; we should get some rest, don't you think? We'll get what Perry wants," Clark said, and his voice sounded so near that it sent a shiver down your entire spine, from the nape of your neck to the base of your back.
He was already standing, looking down at you with those blue eyes that seemed to shine even in the restaurant's dim light. You looked up to see him, and his closeness made you blush instantly. You felt the heat rise up your neck, up your cheeks, to the tips of your ears. You nodded, quickly—perhaps too quickly—because you didn't trust your voice at that moment. You knew that if you opened your mouth, what would come out would be a nervous stammer or something worse, something that would betray everything running through your mind.
When Clark turned to retrieve his jacket from the back of his chair, you saw your opportunity. You took advantage of the fact that no one was watching you. The others at the table were too busy talking among themselves, laughing at something a bald businessman had said, exchanging business cards. So you downed the wine glass still in front of you in one gulp, feeling the cool liquid go down your throat. But it wasn't enough. Next to it was another glass, the one you had ordered for a toast at the beginning of dinner and had barely touched. Without thinking twice, you drank that one entirely as well. Bad idea. Very bad idea. The wine hit you all at once, like a hot wave that blurred your vision slightly and made your legs feel a bit weaker than usual.
You stood up from your chair and felt even more nervous. The alcohol hadn't calmed you; it had only made everything more intense: the restaurant lights seemed brighter, the sounds of conversations louder, and Clark's presence—waiting for you a couple of steps away—more overwhelming. You wobbled for just a second as you got to your feet, but long enough for Clark to look at you with a small smile, as if he had noticed your two extra glasses. He didn't say anything; he just waited for you patiently, with that tranquil way he had of being in the world, as if nothing ever rushed him.
You left the restaurant and the Montana night enveloped you. The air was cool, much cooler than inside, and it helped clear your head a little. But only a little. You began walking down the sidewalk toward the hotel, and you saw some people ahead and others behind. All the guests would be going to the same hotel, of course. That hotel was close to where the conference was held and also close to where businessman Hitman was staying. Hitman was staying at a luxury hotel, one of those exclusive places not just anyone could enter, with a private entrance and black cars parked outside. Unlike where you were staying. As you walked, with the sound of footsteps on the pavement and the occasional laughter from the people around you, you remembered the hotel Perry had booked for you. It wasn't the best, that was for sure. It was expensive—yes, because Montana during conference season wasn't cheap—but it had few amenities: small rooms, thin walls, and worst of all, you only had one room with two beds, not two rooms with each person having their own space. At first, it hadn't bothered you. When Perry told you that you would be sharing a room, you were more focused on getting the interview, on impressing Hitman, on doing your job well. You had nodded without giving it much thought, thinking that after all, you were coworkers, two adults, nothing out of this world. But that was before. Before your ovulation became this monster you felt inside you, before every brush from Clark burned your skin, before you couldn't stop looking at his hands, his neck, the way he moved.
Your sensitivity had sharpened so much that you blushed again just thinking about it. You walked beside Clark, a step apart, but that step felt like an eternity. He glanced at you from the corner of his eye; he surely noticed your red face, but he didn't say anything about it. Instead, he smiled that wide, genuine smile that appeared on his face so rarely, the one that brought out that little dimple on his left cheek.
"We did it," Clark said, and his voice sounded proud, happy, as if he truly valued what they had accomplished together at that dinner.
You smiled, nothing more, nodding as you continued walking. The cool air moved your hair, and for a second you managed to think clearly.
"Yes, I think… now we just need to focus on doing it well," you added, and your voice came out a little shaky, but not as much as you expected. You were proud of yourself for having maintained your composure during dinner, for having said the right things, for having gotten Hitman to agree. That was what mattered, that was what you would remember tomorrow. Or so you tried to tell yourself.
Clark nodded, and for the rest of the walk, he talked about unimportant things. The weather, how the cold in Montana felt different than in Metropolis. The conference, some speaker who had said something funny. You listened without really hearing, because your mind was elsewhere. You watched his profile as he walked, the way the streetlights illuminated his face, and you realized he had no idea how you felt. He spoke so calmly, so unaware of the storm inside you, that you felt guilty. Guilty for thinking of him that way, for wishing his arm would brush yours again, for imagining things you shouldn't imagine about a coworker. He was just being kind, just doing his job, and there you were, cheeks burning and heart pounding as if you had run a marathon.
You arrived at the hotel. It wasn't the luxury of where Hitman was staying, but it wasn't bad either. It had a wide entrance with a slightly worn red carpet and a neon sign that flickered softly. You entered and looked around. In the lobby there were several people; most had attended the conference. You recognized them by their suits and the credentials some still wore around their necks. There was a group of older men laughing near a small fountain, and a woman in a shiny dress talking on the phone in a corner. The noise of conversations bounced off the faux marble walls, creating a soft echo.
You entered with Clark, and he walked toward the elevators. He pressed the button with one long finger, and they waited in silence. The lobby hallway felt warm after the cold outside, and the heat made the wine feel stronger in your head. When the elevator door opened with a chime, you stepped inside with him, and more people started getting in behind you. There were many, too many for the size of the cab. Hurried people, tired people, people who just wanted to get to their rooms and sleep. They piled in, crowding together, and you felt the space grow smaller by the second.
Then Clark acted. Without saying a word, without making any fuss, he took your waist with one hand. But it wasn't just any touch. His fingers settled on your hip with a gentle firmness, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and he positioned you in front of him, carefully turning you so that the people still entering wouldn't hurt you. You ended up facing his chest. So close that you could see the fabric of his shirt—a dark blue that fit him perfectly—and beneath the fabric you could guess the shape of his muscles. Your heart beat so hard, so fast, that you couldn't even hear the sounds of the elevator. Everything was a dull throb in your ears.
His perfume flooded your nostrils. It wasn't a strong scent, the kind you could smell from yards away. It was something softer—like real soap, clean, fresh. But mixed with something that could only be him, something that made you close your eyes for a second to breathe deeper. It got worse when he tilted his head down, close to your ear again, and whispered:
"Carefully."
Two words. Just two. But your senses got lost there. In his low voice, in his warm breath, in the way his hand still rested on your waist as if it were the most natural place in the world. You kept your eyes open by sheer force of will, but you saw nothing other than his chest, the rhythm of his breathing, the way it rose and fell gently. You were supposed to be thinking about the interview, about Hitman, about Perry, about everything you had accomplished. But you couldn't. The only thing that existed was Clark, his hand on your hip, the heat seeping through the fabric of your dress.
You were on the eighth floor of the hotel. The elevator climbed slowly, stopping at each floor to let someone off. At every stop, the little jolt of the elevator made Clark squeeze your waist a bit tighter, as if to steady you, to keep you from moving. And you wished that ride would last forever, while at the same time wanting to run away so your heart would stop beating so wildly.
When the elevator reached the fourth floor, where several people were getting off, there was a sudden jolt. Nothing dangerous, nothing serious—just that little jerk that old elevators sometimes make when braking. But that movement made Clark squeeze your waist harder, pulling you a little closer against him. You closed your eyes. You closed them tightly, biting your lower lip to keep from making any noise, to keep from gasping, to keep from betraying what was happening inside you. The heat of his body enveloped yours, and you felt every inch where he touched you as if it were a brand of fire.
Then the woman standing next to you—an older woman in a fur coat with dyed blonde hair—started moving to get out. She was getting off on that same floor, seeming to be in a hurry. She pushed her way through the crowd without much courtesy, and to get out quickly, she bumped Clark with her shoulder. Clark, who was holding you, shifted slightly from the shove, and in that movement, his hand slipped down. It wasn't intentional. You knew that. It was the woman's push, the jostling, the lack of space. But his hand slid from your waist downward, grazing your backside for barely a second. One second. That was all. But that second felt like an hour.
You opened your eyes and felt them fill with tears. Not from sadness, but from everything. From the shame, the guilt, the longing, the wine in your head, the exhaustion—everything you had been holding in for hours. Your eyes were glassy, bright, and you felt a lump in your throat. You gasped involuntarily, a small sound that escaped your mouth before you could stop it. Quickly, very quickly, you pretended to cough. You brought a fist to your mouth and coughed twice, hard, to cover the gasp, so that no one would notice, so that Clark would think it was just a tickle in your throat.
Clark didn't say anything at first. His hand returned to your waist, but this time with less firmness, as if he weren't sure whether he should keep touching you. His fingers trembled slightly—or maybe that was your imagination. Then he lowered his head to your ear again, and his voice came out in a whisper so low you could barely hear it over the noise of the elevator.
"Sorry," he whispered, and his voice sounded strange. It wasn't the calm Clark of always. There was something in his tone, something tense, something restrained. As if he, too, were feeling things he didn't know how to name.
The elevator kept climbing. On the fifth floor, two men got off. On the sixth, no one. On the seventh, a young couple pecking each other on the cheek. And you were still there, pressed against Clark, with his hand on your waist, with his apology floating in the air between you.
The elevator doors opened with a soft chime on the eighth floor. The metallic sound traveled down the empty hallway as the white ceiling lights flickered faintly, as if the hotel were also tired at this hour of the night. You stepped out first, with quick but slightly unsteady steps, because the wine was still doing its work in your system. You walked down the carpeted hallway, feeling the soft texture under your shoes, and reached the room you had been assigned. You inserted the key—that plastic card that sometimes failed—and had to try twice until the little light turned green and you heard the click of the lock.
You walked in and brought your hands to your head for a second, just to organize your thoughts, just to remember that you had to breathe. You left your things on the bed—your bag fell onto the white bedspread with a dull thud—and you wobbled slightly as you released the weight. But you were perfectly sober, you knew that well. The wine hadn't clouded your judgment, not entirely. What was happening was that your senses were running at a thousand miles an hour, as if someone had turned up the volume on everything you felt. Every noise, every light, every brush of your clothes against your skin felt amplified, more real than it should have been. You sighed deeply, bringing a hand to your chest, and out of the corner of your eye, you looked at Clark.
He was behind you, closing the door carefully so it wouldn't make noise. He was taking off his jacket—that dark blue suit that fit him so well—and hung it on the coat rack by the entrance. His shoulders looked so broad without the jacket on, and the long-sleeved shirt he wore underneath clung to his arms in a way that made you have to look away. You couldn't look. You couldn't. You approached the mirror that was above the room's desk—a large mirror with a dark wooden frame—and looked at your face. Nothing out of place. Your cheeks were flushed, yes, but that could be the wine or the heat of dinner. Your hair was a little messy, but nothing serious. You bit your lip, something you did when you were nervous, and told yourself that you had to get control of yourself. That you were a professional. That the next day you had a very important interview with Hitman. That you couldn't let a simple phase of the month ruin everything you had built.
You turned to say something to him, to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled between you, and then you saw him. Clark was standing a few steps away, staring at you. But it wasn't just any look. His cheeks were red, very red, as if he too had drunk too much wine, even though you knew he had only had two glasses. His blue eyes shone behind his glasses, and his hands were still at his sides, as if he didn't know what to do with them. You didn't understand why he was looking at you like that, with such intensity, as if he were studying every one of your movements, every little gesture you made.
You smiled, trying to show him that everything was fine. That nothing was wrong. That the thing in the elevator had been an accident and was already forgotten. A wide smile, the best you could muster at that moment, even though inside you felt like the butterflies in your stomach were about to fly right out of your mouth.
"I'll put on my pajamas," you said, pointing toward the bathroom with your finger. The finger was trembling. You saw it tremble, and you hoped Clark hadn't noticed, but of course he noticed. He noticed everything. He always noticed everything.
You took a step toward the bathroom, intending to lock yourself in there for a few minutes, breathe deeply, splash water on your face, remember who you were and what you were doing there. But you didn't get far. Clark reached out his arm and gently took your arm. He didn't hold you tightly, it wasn't a rough grip, it was just a touch, but that touch stopped you cold. His fingers encircled your wrist, and you could feel the warmth of his skin even through the fabric of your blouse. You looked at him without understanding, raising an eyebrow.
"Are you drunk?" Clark asked. His voice sounded strange, deeper than usual, as if the words had difficulty coming out. His eyes didn't leave yours.
You looked at him without understanding at first. The question seemed odd, out of place. You had drunk, yes, but you weren't drunk. You were perfectly aware of everything: the beating of your heart, the way his hand was still on your arm, the silence that had become so heavy you could almost touch it.
"What?" you asked, and your voice came out higher than usual, like a squeak.
Clark took a deep breath, as if he were preparing to say something important. His chest inflated and deflated slowly, and when he spoke again, he did so carefully, measuring every word.
"I need to know if you're drunk," he said again. His tone was strange, tense, and you looked at him more closely. Then you saw him blush. Not just his cheeks—his ears too, even a little of his neck. He smiled, but it was a nervous, trembling smile, nothing like the calm smile he usually had. "No… don't misunderstand. I want to make sure that… I don't… confuse things," he said, as if it cost him effort, as if he were building the sentence brick by brick in his head before releasing it.
"Confuse the…? I'm not drunk," you answered, and you looked at him with wide eyes. You could feel your pulse in your wrist, where he was still touching you, and you knew he could feel it too. It was impossible that he couldn't.
Clark nodded, but he didn't let go of your arm. Instead, his thumb traced a small circle on your skin, almost unintentionally, as if it were an automatic gesture. Then he lowered his gaze for a moment, as if gathering courage, and when he looked up again, his eyes had a different gleam.
"No… I'm sorry about what happened in the elevator… don't think that… I… the woman bumped me and my hand slipped," Clark assured you, and his voice sounded hurried, as if he were afraid you might think badly of him. He brought his free hand to the back of his neck, a gesture he made when he was nervous, and ran his fingers through his hair.
You shook your head. A quick, almost abrupt motion.
"I know, Clark. You don't have to… even if it had been… I… that's the least of it," you said, and you felt the words tripping over each other, all wanting to come out at once. You swallowed and continued, without thinking, because if you thought too much you would regret it. "What you did, I mean, I'm worse because I've been thinking about other versions of you."
The silence that followed was so deep that you could hear the hum of the minibar under the desk. You realized in the very second the words left your mouth that you shouldn't have mentioned that. Your eyes opened wide as saucers, and you felt the blood rush to your face all at once, from your chest to the roots of your hair.
"Maybe I am a little drunk," you corrected quickly, raising your free hand as if you were defending yourself from something, "but I'm of sound mind, and I know you're a good person, and… don't make me talk… God, I'm talking too much," you said, and your voice sounded nervous, almost on the verge of hysterical laughter.
Clark didn't smile. On the contrary, his expression became more serious, more intense. He took a step toward you, and without realizing it, you took one step back. He didn't let go of your arm, and his other hand also lifted, as if he wanted to hold you but didn't dare.
"What are you talking about?" Clark asked, and his voice was now a deep whisper. He interrogated you with his gaze, with those blue eyes that seemed to look inside you, that seemed to want to pull the truth out of you by force but with tenderness. "What other versions… of me? What have you been thinking?"
You stepped back again, and another step, as he advanced slowly, as if he were following a trail. You didn't realize where you were going because you were too focused on his eyes, on his mouth, on the way he moved toward you. Your back hit something cold and hard. The wall. You had backed up to the far wall of the room, right next to the bed that had been assigned to you. You were trapped between the beige wallpaper and Clark's body, which was now so close you could feel the heat radiating off him.
You looked at him. You couldn't help looking at his lips, parted, moist, so close that if you tilted your head a little you could…
No.
You couldn't.
You shouldn't.
"I… it's work… it's work," you repeated, as if it were a mantra, as if you didn't want to forget it. The words came out on their own, mechanical, while your mind filled with images you shouldn't have. Your voice trembled. "It's work and…"
You didn't finish the sentence. You couldn't. Because Clark did something you had never seen him do. He brought his hands to his face, slowly, as if he were making an important decision, and took off his glasses. He folded them carefully, with those long, firm fingers, and set them on the nightstand a step away. Without his glasses, his eyes looked bigger, brighter, and his face seemed more open, more vulnerable. He looked at you intently, without filters, without the little glass shield he always wore. And in that gaze, there was something that chilled your blood and boiled it at the same time.
You didn't think. You couldn't think. Your body moved before your head. You clasped your trembling hands together and took hold of the fabric of his shirt. You grabbed it tightly, making a fist against his chest, and pulled him toward you. There was no time to hesitate, to ask, for anything. Your lips found his, and you kissed him.
It was a messy, clumsy kiss, full of an urgency you didn't know you had. Your teeth clashed with his at first, because neither of you had calculated the angle well, but quickly you found a rhythm. His lips were soft, softer than you had imagined, and they tasted slightly of wine and something else, something that could only be him. You slipped your tongue in without thinking, and he responded immediately, as if he had been waiting for that signal all night. The kiss became wet, hot, full of little gasps that escaped your throat without you being able to control them. His hands found your waist again, but this time it wasn't an accidental brush. He held you firmly, pressing you against the wall, and you felt his entire body against yours: his firm chest, his legs against yours, the way his heart beat as fast as yours.
Suddenly, Clark separated his lips from yours. The cold air of the room hit your wet mouth and made you shiver. He was agitated, breathing heavily, and his eyes were half-closed, lost, as if he had just woken from a dream. His cheeks were burning, and his lips were red, shiny.
"I think you're drunk," Clark said, his voice broken, barely a thread of sound. It didn't sound like an accusation; it sounded like a desperate attempt to find an excuse, to put on the brakes, to remind himself that he couldn't do what he so badly wanted to do.
You didn't let go of him. Your hands were still clutching his shirt, and you could feel the fabric wrinkling under your fingers. You kissed him again, shorter this time, just a quick brush, but with the same intensity. When you separated your lips, you spoke quickly, before fear could get the better of you, before you could regret it.
"Clark, it was because of you," you said, and your voice was a hoarse whisper, different from how you had sounded before. Your eyes filled with an honesty that hurt. "I haven't stopped thinking about you since we arrived, and I decided to drink, but the alcohol just messed me up and…"
You were trembling. Your whole body was trembling. You couldn't finish the sentence because you didn't know how to explain what you were feeling—that mix of shame and desire, of wanting to run and wanting to stay glued to him forever. You looked at him, and there was a strand of saliva between you, a little shiny bridge that broke when he moved his face slightly further away. It was intimate, too intimate, and you felt like you were dying of embarrassment, but you also felt like there was nowhere else in the world you wanted to be.
Clark looked at you. He truly looked at you, with those blue eyes that were now dark, dilated, full of something you had never seen in him. Something that was not the kind coworker, the shy boy, the serious journalist. It was something else. It was hunger. It was desire held back for too long. Without saying a word, he brought his face close to yours again, but this time slowly, giving you time to pull away if you wanted. You didn't pull away. His lips brushed yours once, softly, like a question. You answered by pressing against him, and then the kiss changed.
It wasn't messy this time. It was deep, confident, full of something you had both been keeping inside. His hands traveled up your back; one tangled in your hair, and the other settled on your hip, squeezing. The kiss proved that his desire was mutual, that it wasn't just in your head, that all those times you had thought that maybe he felt something too, it wasn't your imagination. Clark kissed you as if he had been waiting for you, as if he had wanted to do it for months, since that first time Perry had put you both together on a project. His tongue found yours, and the kiss grew deeper, wetter, and you let out a low moan that was lost between his lips. It was real. It was all real.
Clark kissed your neck. It wasn't a shy or quick kiss; it was something slow, deep, as if he wanted to savor every little piece of your skin. His lips settled right where your neck meets your shoulder—that sensitive area you didn't even know you liked so much—and he sucked gently. Your body reacted before your mind could process it: a shiver ran from the nape of your neck to the tips of your toes, and your hands rose on their own, searching for something to hold onto. They found his hair. Your fingers tangled in his dark curls—those curls you had so often glanced at sideways in the office, wondering how they would feel to the touch. They were soft, much softer than you had imagined, and they had a texture that made you want to squeeze them, mess them up, lose yourself in them.
You enjoyed everything. Every caress, every brush, the way his mouth moved across your neck, leaving a wet, hot trail. You gasped near his ear, unable to contain yourself, and felt him tremble at the sound. Your breath hit his skin, and every little moan that escaped your mouth made Clark hold you tighter, as if he were afraid you would disappear.
Clark wasn't just in love with you. You knew that somehow; you felt it in the way he looked at you, in how his hands trembled when he touched you. But there was something else—something he knew and you didn't. Clark could smell your ovulation. He had done so from the first moment you met at the airport, before taking the flight to Montana. His sense of smell was a thousand times better than a human's, thanks to his Kryptonian origin—something you had no idea about.
Ever since you arrived at the Daily Planet, he had noticed that there were certain days when you looked prettier. Your hair looked neater, shinier, as if it had its own light. Your eyes sparkled differently, and there was something about your skin, your scent, that drew him like a magnet. He couldn't explain it, but he knew it. Your body spoke a language that only he could hear, and that language told him you were in your fertile days, that something inside you was calling to his most primal instinct.
It must have been his Kryptonian gene, the one that made him different from all humans, the one that sharpened his senses to impossible levels. You had cast a spell on him just by standing there in front of him, with your suitcase in one hand and your ticket in the other, smiling nervously because the flight had been delayed. That night, when he saw you in that red dress—that dark wine red that clung to your skin as if it had been made for you—he couldn't help but see you as so beautiful. His eyes involuntarily dropped to the curve of your breasts, to the way the fabric marked every one of your movements, and he felt guilty. He felt bad for looking at you like that, for thinking of you that way when you were only coworkers. But now, with his hand beneath your breasts as he sighed, with you so close he could feel every beat of your heart, he didn't care about anything. Nothing he had thought before, none of the rules, none of the warnings he had given himself.
"Oh, Clark," you said, and your voice was a hoarse whisper, full of a need you barely recognized. "How much I've needed you."
The words came out on their own, unfiltered, without thinking. You didn't care how they sounded, didn't care if it was too soon or if you should hold something back. Because in that moment, with his arms around you and his mouth on your skin, everything you hadn't said for months collapsed like a house of cards. You had needed him. On every one of those ovulation days when you couldn't stop thinking about him, on every night when you were alone in your king-size bed imagining what it would feel like to have him beside you. You had needed him and hadn't known how to tell him.
Clark pulled his mouth away from your neck just enough to look at you. His eyes were dark, bright, and his cheeks were still red. He brought one hand to your back, sliding his fingers until he found the zipper of your dress. The little metal clasp—the one you had pulled up so carefully before dinner—now gave way under his fingers. He pulled back a little more to look at you, to ask you without words if what he was about to do was okay. You nodded. You didn't hesitate for a second. There was nothing in the world you wanted more than that.
You felt the zipper go down your back. The metallic sound was small, but in the silence of the room it sounded enormous. His fingers traced your spine as the zipper opened, and you felt each one of his knuckles brush your skin. The dress began to loosen, to lose its shape, and then Clark ran his hands over your shoulders, sliding the fabric down with a slowness that drove you crazy. The curve of your back was exposed first, feeling the cool air of the room on your hot skin. Then the dress fell, sliding over your shoulders, and your breasts were revealed. The red fabric bunched at your waist, and you stood there, in front of him, torso bare and heart beating so hard that surely he could hear it.
Clark nearly lost his breath. His eyes traveled over your body as if it were the first time he had ever seen a woman, as if he had never seen anything so perfect. His mouth opened slightly, and he had to swallow before he could do anything. The dress fell completely, forming a red circle at your feet, and Clark kissed you again, but this time it was different. He kissed you while lifting you, picking you up off the floor as if you weighed nothing, as if you were made of feathers. You wrapped your legs around his waist without thinking, as if your body knew exactly what to do. And then you felt it. The bulge in his pants, pressed against your intimate area, so close you could feel his warmth even through the fabric. You moaned at the feeling—a low moan lost in the kiss—and squeezed him tighter with your legs, pulling him even closer, seeking more contact, more pressure.
Clark walked toward the bed without letting you go, without stopping kissing you. You felt his chest against yours, the warm skin of his arms around you, and when he felt the edge of the mattress against his legs, he let you fall gently onto the bed. The white bedspread wrinkled beneath your back, and Clark stood in front of you for only a second—long enough to bring his hands to the collar of his shirt and undo the buttons. He did it quickly, almost desperately, and when the fabric fell away to reveal his chest, you lost your breath. It wasn't just that he had muscles; it was the way they were shaped, the perfection of every line, every curve.
He leaned over you, and his mouth found yours again, but only for a moment. Then he began to move lower, kissing your chin, your jaw, the base of your neck. He kept going down until he reached your breasts, and when his mouth enveloped one of them, you closed your eyes tightly. His tongue made slow circles around your nipple, and his lips sucked gently, sending waves of pleasure from your chest to the rest of your body. While his mouth worked on your breast, you felt his fingers. They traveled down your stomach, brushed the waistband of your underwear, and then kept going down until they found your entrance. You were so wet that you felt your vaginal lips parting easily, welcoming his fingers. He didn't insert one, didn't insert two. He ran three fingers over your entrance, brushing it, playing with it, feeling how wet you were without actually entering. The mere brush of his fingers against your sensitive skin made you arch your back, spread your legs a little more, seek more. You gasped. A hoarse gasp that filled the room.
Then Clark inserted his fingers. One first, slowly, feeling how he opened you up. You were so wet that he entered without resistance, and you felt every centimeter of his finger inside you. Then a second, and the stretch was delicious, exactly what you needed. He moved them slowly at first, preparing you, getting you used to the sensation. His mouth was still on your breast, sucking, gently biting, and his fingers moved inside you in small circles, searching for that spot that would make you tremble. He found it quickly. When his fingers touched that place, your entire body tensed, and a long, sharp moan escaped your mouth.
He kept moving, faster now, in and out, and you felt your whole body tighten like a string about to snap. The pressure grew and grew, and you couldn't think, you could only feel.
"So wet for me," you heard him whisper.
His fingers inside you, his mouth returning to your breast, his other hand on your hip holding you tight. Then it came. Your climax exploded like a giant wave that swept you away, shaking you entirely. You gasped so much you ran out of air, your back arched off the bed, and your legs trembled around Clark's waist. You lost track of time, of space, of everything. There was only that immense pleasure that traveled from the tips of your toes to the crown of your head, making you vibrate from within.
Clark left your breast, pulled his fingers slowly out of you, and you watched as he looked at them, shiny with your juices. Your body was still trembling, shaken by small contractions, lost in ecstasy, when you saw his mouth go lower. You didn't think he would do that. But Clark went lower, and lower, until his face was between your legs. His mouth went straight to your entrance, and the sensation of his hot, wet tongue touching that sensitive area made you moan so loudly that you had to put your trembling hand over your mouth. You bit the palm of your hand to keep from screaming, because the walls of that hotel were very thin, very simple, and the last thing you wanted was for someone to come interrupt you. Not now. Please, not now.
His tongue licked from your entrance to your center, slowly, as if he were tasting something delicious. He closed his eyes as he did it, as if he wanted to concentrate on the flavor, on the sensation, on you.
"You taste so good, better than I imagined," Clark said.
You put your free hand in his hair, tangling your fingers in his curls again, and squeezed when his tongue entered. He sucked your juices, drank from you as if he were thirsty, and he didn't stop. You were still trembling from the previous climax, but you felt another one approaching. Another one. Your hips trembled uncontrollably, moving on their own against his mouth, seeking more.
His tongue made circles, sometimes entering, sometimes licking, and his lips sucked that small part that made you see stars. You trembled when his tongue entered again, deeper, sucking everything you could give him, and the second climax came faster than you expected. Your thighs closed around his head involuntarily, and you felt your body shake again—another wave of pleasure that left you breathless, thoughtless, with nothing but his name on your lips.
"Clark," you said against your hand, just a whisper, but he heard you. He always heard you. And he kept sucking, kept licking, until you felt the third one approaching, and you couldn't take any more, but you also didn't want him to stop.
You didn't realize when Clark took off his pants and his underwear. You were too lost in the pleasure, in the way his tongue kept moving between your legs, in how your hips trembled on their own against his mouth. The third climax came like a wave that completely swept you away, shaking your entire body, making you squeeze your thighs around his head while you bit your hand to keep from screaming. Your eyes squeezed shut and stars exploded behind your eyelids. When you managed to open them again, Clark was above you, and you didn't remember seeing him move.
But you felt him. You felt him very clearly.
His member was hard, brushing your entrance. The tip was red, shiny, dripping, needy. Every time he moved slightly, the head of his penis brushed your vaginal lips and made you shudder. He was so hot, so close, that you could feel every beat of his blood against your skin. Clark gasped, and that gasp mixed with yours as he leaned in to kiss you. His lips found yours in a deep, messy kiss, and you moaned as you felt his member move again, brushing your entrance, teasing you, making you want more. But you kept kissing him, your tongue intertwined with his, tasting the trace of you that still lingered on his lips.
You reached your hand down without thinking, without hesitating. You slid it between his body and yours, and your fingers found his member. It was thick, thicker than you had imagined. Hot, hard, and so wet at the tip that your hand slipped easily. Clark felt your hand around him and moaned against your lips. It was a low, hoarse moan that you felt vibrate from his chest to your mouth. His hands, which were braced on the sheet on either side of your head to keep his body from falling completely onto you, gripped the fabric so hard his knuckles turned white. He was holding back; you could feel it. He was making an enormous effort not to let go completely, not to crush you against the mattress and take what he wanted.
But you didn't want him to hold back.
You moved your hand up and down slowly, feeling every centimeter of him, the texture of his skin, the veins that stood out under your fingers. You caressed him slowly, enjoying how he trembled every time you reached the tip, the little sounds that came from his throat. Then you brought his member to your entrance. You didn't insert it; you just played with it. You ran the hot red tip between your vaginal lips, up and down, feeling how it got wet with your juices, how it slipped easily. You had it right there, at the door, and every time it brushed your clitoris, you trembled all over. You were the desperate one. You were the one who couldn't wait a second longer.
You positioned his member at your entrance. The head barely pressed, and you already felt your body welcoming it, your muscles opening to receive him. Clark looked at you. His eyes were dark, bright, and in them was something you had never seen before. Fear, perhaps. Or concern. Or both.
"I don't have a condom," he said in a whisper. His voice trembled, and it wasn't from cold.
You looked at him. You didn't hesitate. There were no doubts in your body, no doubts in your mind. You had waited for this moment without knowing it; you had desired it for so long, and now that you had it there, brushing against you, hot, needy, you weren't going to let a piece of plastic get in the way. Not tonight. Not with him.
"Fuck me, Clark," you begged, and your voice sounded so needy you barely recognized yourself. You brushed his member against your entrance again, soaking it even more, feeling the tip sink in barely a centimeter. "Fill me tonight, please. I need it. I've needed you so much."
You guided him. You took his member in your hand and directed it toward your entrance, squeezing gently to let him in. The head pressed, and your body opened for him. When he entered you, both of you gasped at the same time. You felt him fill you, how every centimeter entered slowly, opening you, getting used to you. He felt how you squeezed him, how your walls enveloped him, hot and wet. And in that moment, Clark kissed you. His lips found yours in a deep, slow kiss, as if time had stopped. Both of you kissed while he sank completely into you, while you felt him reach the deepest part, unable to go further. You ran out of air, but you didn't want to separate your mouth from his.
He began to move. At first it was slow, unhurried, giving you time to adjust to his size, to get used to how he filled you. Each thrust was gentle, measured, as if he feared breaking you. But you didn't want gentle. You didn't want slow. You wanted everything. You wanted to feel sore the next day, you wanted bruises on your hips from how tightly he had held you.
"That's it, you can take it," Clark said in your ear, and his voice was a deep whisper that ran through your entire body. His hot breath hit your skin, and every word he said made you squeeze him tighter.
"Oh, Clark," you moaned, and your hands went up to his back, scratching him gently, feeling the muscles moving under his skin. "Give me everything. I've wanted it so much. So much."
Then he started. It wasn't slow, it wasn't gentle. Clark began to thrust harder, faster, deeper. Each slap of his hips against yours made the bed creak, the headboard hit the wall, your body move upward with each thrust. He took your jaw with one hand, squeezing gently so you would look at him, and kissed you again. It was a messy kiss, full of teeth and tongue, while he kept moving inside you. Then he lowered his face to your neck and kissed you there, right where you had dreamed of him kissing you, and the pleasure was so much that you didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
One of your legs was stretched out to the side, foot planted on the bed, and the other leg Clark had. His hand circled your thigh, squeezing, lifting it a little higher so he could bury himself deeper, reach that spot that made you see stars. The scene was exquisite. You looked up at him from below, his body covering yours, his face buried in your neck, his hips moving in a rhythm that drove you crazy. You moaned so much you went hoarse, each moan mixing with the sound of bodies colliding, with the wetness trickling down your thighs, with the smell of sweat and sex that filled the room.
You had an orgasm in the middle of that fierce onslaught. It came without warning, like a lightning bolt that split you in two. Your walls tightened around him, your legs trembled, and a muffled cry escaped your mouth before you could cover it. Clark felt you squeeze him, felt you come around him, and he slowed down. His thrusts became slower, gentler, just to let you tremble, to let you enjoy every second of your orgasm without it being too much. His lips kissed your forehead, your nose, your cheeks, while your body shook in small spasms.
When you were ready, when the tremors calmed and you were breathing normally again, Clark began to move again. He started over, first slow and then faster and faster. His hips slapped against yours in a rhythm that hypnotized you. He hid his face in your breasts or your neck—you weren't sure—you only felt his hot breath against your skin, his muffled moans vibrating in your chest. You felt him tense. His body went rigid on top of yours, his muscles hardened, and his thrusts became shorter, faster, more desperate. He moaned your name. It wasn't a normal moan; it was deeper, hoarser, as if he were using the last drop of air left in his lungs. That sound, that way of saying your name, made you feel another orgasm. The fourth, the fifth—you had lost count. But you felt it approaching, growing from the deepest part of your belly.
Then it happened. Clark held you so tightly you could barely breathe. His arms wrapped around you and pressed you against him as if he wanted you to be one person. He sped up so much that his movements became blurry, fast, chaotic. And at the last moment, when you felt you couldn't take any more, that the orgasm was about to explode, Clark buried himself in you to the deepest point. He stayed there, pressed against you, not moving, and you felt him fill inside you. Warm, liquid, abundant. His body trembled on top of yours, and that tremor triggered yours. You shared the orgasm. You came around him while he came inside you, and it was so intense, so perfect, that for a second the entire world disappeared. Only the two of you existed—your bodies pressed together, your ragged breathing, and the sensation of having arrived somewhere neither of you had ever been before.
The orgasm slowly dissolved, like a wave that reaches the shore and recedes, leaving only a deep calm. Your body was still trembling with small spasms—those you can't control—and you felt everything: Clark's heat on top of you, the weight of his body pressing you gently against the mattress, the way his ragged breath hit your neck. Little by little, his chest rose and fell more slowly, and his arms, which had held you so tightly before, gradually relaxed.
Clark didn't move. He didn't want to separate from you. Instead, he held you as if you really were a couple, as if you had been sleeping together for years and not just hours earlier being coworkers who exchanged awkward glances in the office. He buried his head in your neck, right in that hollow where your shoulder meets your neck, and stayed there. His nose brushed your skin, and you felt his warm, calm breath. He didn't say anything. There was no need. His arms wrapped around you completely; one of his arms went under your neck like an improvised pillow, while the other hand rested on your hip, caressing you with slow, gentle thumb strokes.
You were tired. Very tired. Your legs were still trembling a little, and you felt the muscles in your belly slightly sore from all the squeezing, from moving in rhythm with him. But it was a good pain—the kind that reminds you that you've done something you've wanted to do for a long time. You closed your eyes and curled up against Clark, feeling his arms around you, feeling his warmth envelop you like a blanket. Your head rested against his chest, and you could hear the beats of his heart—slow and strong, like a drum lulling you.
Your mind began to wander, as it does when you are about to fall asleep. You thought about the work trip, about the interview with Hitman the next day, about everything you had accomplished that night. And you thought about what had just happened. Maybe it wasn't so bad, you told yourself. Maybe that was also part of the trip—a way to relieve stress amid all the pressure. Perry always said you had to relax to perform better, and you had certainly relaxed. A small smile formed on your lips as you thought that. It wasn't an excuse, not really, but in that moment, with the heaviness of sleep on your eyelids, it seemed like a reasonable way to look at things. It wasn't love, it wasn't anything complicated. Just two people who needed each other at a given moment, who found each other and gave each other what the other was asking for without words. That was all. Or that's what you tried to believe so you wouldn't be scared by how intense everything had been.
Clark kissed your shoulder. It was a soft kiss, barely a brush of lips on your skin, and then another, and another, on the same spot. His kisses were slow, lazy, as if he were savoring the moment without hurry. After a few seconds, his mouth went still on your skin, and you felt his breathing become deeper, more regular. He had fallen asleep. He had fallen asleep on top of you, with his head buried in your neck and his arms around you as if he never wanted to let you go.
You didn't move. You didn't want to wake him. Besides, you were too comfortable to think about moving. The heat of his body kept you warm, and the darkness of the room enveloped you like a caress. Exhaustion won, and as you listened to his calm breathing, you felt your own eyes closing on their own. You no longer thought about anything. Not about the interview, not about Perry, not about Hitman. Only about the weight of Clark on your body, his arms around you, the scent of his skin, the softness of his breathing. And so, little by little, you let yourself be carried off to sleep, curled up against him, feeling safer than you had felt in a long time.
I just wrote the saddest fanfic I've ever written, and it's going in the drafts because today there's going to be an “18+” one, hahaha
Here's how I'm feeling:
Sinopsis: When the world discovers that Superman wears a wedding ring hidden around his neck, Metropolis becomes obsessed with uncovering the identity of the mysterious woman who captured the Man of Steel’s heart. Meanwhile, you only want to survive another normal workday while hiding the truth: Superman’s wife has been sitting behind a bank desk this entire time.
Warnings: Mentions of media invasion/privacy concerns, Anxiety over secret identity
WC: 2,600 words approx.
The news broke the internet. Not slowly, not like those stories that start small and then grow over time. This was like someone had pressed a button, and suddenly the entire world was talking about the same thing. The Daily Planet had the first image, and that was no small matter, because thanks to Jimmy capturing Superman in the photograph, it wasn’t just some blurry pixels that said nothing. No, it was the photograph everyone needed to explode with speculation. In the picture was Superman, the Man of Steel, the most powerful hero on the planet, smiling while carrying a little girl in his arms. But what made the image special was a tiny detail that Jimmy, with his camera always ready, had managed to catch: a thin necklace hanging around the hero’s neck, and from that necklace hung a ring. An engagement ring. At first glance, anyone could think it was just a normal piece of jewelry, but the people who truly knew Superman knew he never wore accessories. Never. So why was he carrying that ring so close to his chest, right above his heart? The question spread faster than Superman himself.
“That can’t be real,” you heard one of your coworkers shout. You looked over curiously toward where he was standing, because his voice sounded genuinely shocked, as if he had seen a ghost or something equally unbelievable. He had his phone in hand and couldn’t stop darting his eyes back and forth, reading something that had him completely captivated.
“This is impossible,” said another woman who was being helped by one of your coworkers. She also had her phone out, and even though she was in the middle of paperwork, she couldn’t take her eyes off the screen. Her voice trembled slightly, as if whatever she was seeing had stolen the air from her lungs for a second.
“Oh my God, I knew that man had a woman,” your coworker said, and you almost blushed without really understanding why. It wasn’t that serious, you thought, but something about the way she said it—with that certainty and poorly hidden envy—made a strange warmth curl in your stomach.
At the bank where you worked, your job was to assist people who came in looking to sign up for the bank’s benefits, like credit cards or medical insurance. Most of the time it was a calm job, although sometimes the place got crowded and everyone had to rush around. Luckily, that day there still weren’t many customers to attend to. In fact, you had been filling out information for an insurance case that required endless paperwork and documents, and that had kept you busy all morning. You were about to stretch out your arm to grab your hot chocolate—the one you always made yourself halfway through the day to recharge your energy—when suddenly you froze. Something in the atmosphere had changed. It wasn’t noise, it wasn’t movement, it was more like a wave of excitement coming from all your coworkers at once. Everyone was glued to their phones, and some had even stood up from their chairs to gather around others and show them something.
“I’m so jealous, Superman has a wife,” said Thaeli, your coworker on your left. She was always dramatic, you knew that, but this time she took it further than ever: she stretched her hands toward the ceiling as if begging for a miracle and made an exaggerated expression that usually would have made you laugh. But this time it didn’t. You stared at her, feeling something tighten inside your chest.
“What?” you asked, almost nervously, though you tried to keep your voice sounding normal. You didn’t want Thaeli noticing anything strange about you, because she could be very observant when she wanted to.
“It’s everywhere, look,” Thaeli said, handing you her phone. The screen was already on, showing the exact picture everyone was talking about.
You looked at the image. There was Superman, smiling the way he always did in photographs, with that confidence that made people trust him so easily. He was carrying a little girl in his arms, a dark-haired child laughing while he lifted her as if she weighed nothing. But what truly mattered was what hung against his chest. A red circle on the photo pointed directly at it: a thin necklace with a ring dangling from it. You recognized it instantly. You knew Clark carried it with him when he worked at the Daily Planet. He had told you he needed to keep it with him while he worked because he couldn’t stand the idea of leaving it at home.
“It’s a necklace made from a strange material, it won’t let the ring fall off even if there’s a bomb,” he had explained the first time he showed it to you. “I don’t think anyone will notice it, I move too fast.”
Well, apparently not, Clark. Jimmy moves faster than you thought. And now the entire world was seeing what was only supposed to belong to you.
You handed Thaeli’s phone back carefully, trying not to let your hand shake. Barely managing it. Thaeli took it without taking her eyes off the picture, and you took the opportunity to breathe deeply once.
“Lucky woman, huh?” Thaeli said, shaking her head from side to side as if she still couldn’t believe it. You nodded, though inside you felt something very different from luck.
“Definitely,” you agreed, and without meaning to, you glanced at your ring. Yours. The one Clark had slipped onto your finger the day he knelt in front of you in the tiny kitchen of his apartment, his hands trembling and his smile bigger than the entire city.
No… no one would figure it out, you thought quickly. There were thousands of women in the world wearing wedding rings. Millions, probably. Your ring wasn’t special, it wasn’t unique. Even so, you lowered your hand and hid it beneath the desk, as if that small piece of jewelry could somehow betray you.
You picked up your own phone. There were even more images now, different angles, all taken by people who had happened to be in the right place at the right time. Every photograph showed Superman from a different perspective, but in all of them the ring hanging from the strange necklace was visible. The headlines were getting crazier by the minute.
“Superman: who is his superwoman?” one article read.
And underneath it, another one asked, “Is the woman even from this planet?”
You smiled despite yourself. Of course she was from this planet, you thought. She was from Metropolis, actually. But they didn’t know that.
Even so, nerves floated inside you like untied balloons. You knew Clark was extremely careful with you and with your marriage. Both of you were. His friends knew about his marriage to you, just as your friends knew about your marriage to the Daily Planet reporter. But the world didn’t know. The world saw Superman as a hero without attachments, someone who belonged to everyone and no one at the same time. And now, suddenly, that ring said otherwise. It said Superman belonged to someone. It said someone had won his heart. And that someone was you.
The day at the bank felt endless. Every minute dragged on like an hour, and every time someone mentioned the word “Superman,” you felt a small twist in your chest. Your coworkers couldn’t stop talking about the ring, about the lucky woman, about how she could have possibly captured the Man of Steel’s heart. Thaeli had even started making bets on whether the mysterious wife was a superhero or just a normal person.
You only nodded, smiled whenever you were supposed to, and kept your left hand hidden beneath the desk most of the time. You hadn’t taken the ring off—not once. Never. Clark loved seeing it on your hand, and you loved feeling it there, warm against your skin, like a beautiful secret shared only between the two of you. He never took his off either, you knew that well. When he was at the Daily Planet, he wore it on his finger like any normal reporter. And when he put on the cape to become Superman, he slipped it onto that necklace he insisted was invisible.
“No one’s going to notice it,” he had told you more than once, with that confidence of his that sometimes made you laugh and sometimes worried you.
Well, now it was everywhere. On the televisions inside the bank, on everyone’s phones, on the giant screens out on the street when you stepped outside for lunch. There wasn’t a single place where people weren’t talking about it.
When it was finally time to leave, you let out a deep breath. The evening air hit your face, and you felt your shoulders relax slightly. You walked home with slow but steady steps when you suddenly felt the soft buzz of your phone.
It was a message from Clark.
“See you at home,” the first one read.
Then another message appeared:
“I’ll keep pace with you until I know you’ve made it safely.”
You smiled. You knew he followed your heartbeat, that no matter where he was, he could hear the rhythm of your heart among the millions of people in Metropolis. It made you feel protected, as if he were holding your hand even from far away. So you kept walking calmly, without rushing, letting the cool evening air clear your mind a little. The streets were full of people staring at screens and discussing the news, but you simply kept going until you reached your building.
You climbed the stairs the way you always did, step by step, and when you reached the apartment, you pulled out your keys. You opened the door and stepped inside. The first thing you saw was Clark. He was standing by the window, looking outside, though not at the city skyline. He was staring at the glass, or maybe at his own reflection, or maybe at none of those things at all. His shoulders were slightly slumped, something rarely seen on him. The moment he heard your first step inside the apartment, just the sound of your shoe against the floor, he turned around quickly. His eyes met yours for a second before dropping to the floor, as if he felt embarrassed or didn’t know how to look at you after what had happened.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said. His voice sounded tired, more tired than when he came back from stopping a fire or holding back an earthquake.
You closed the door carefully, without making much noise. You left your bag on the living room chair, hung your coat on the rack the way you always did, and walked toward him with soft steps. You nodded once and said, in the calmest voice you could manage,
“Come here.”
Clark didn’t need to be told twice. He took one long step and wrapped you in a tight embrace, though not in the way he sometimes did when he wanted to lift you into the air. No. This was a tired hug, one where he leaned on you more than you leaned on him. He buried his face in your neck, right where your shoulder met your throat, the place he always said smelled like home. And before going still, he pressed a quick kiss to your cheek.
“Hi,” he greeted softly, before hiding in your neck again like an oversized child.
You smiled at his behavior. Despite everything, despite the chaos outside, he was still that huge man who curled up against your shoulder whenever something worried him. You ran a hand along his back, feeling the fabric of his shirt beneath your fingertips, then whispered close to his ear,
“What happened, big guy?”
He sighed against your skin, his voice coming out muffled.
“You told me. They were going to see it.”
You nodded even though he couldn’t see you from where he was.
“I told you,” you said, not as a reproach, only as a gentle reminder.
Clark lifted his head slightly to look at you, just enough for you to see his blue eyes behind the glasses he wore as a disguise.
“You’re developing that mother ability to say ‘I told you so,’” he said, and a small smile appeared on his lips, the kind that only came out when he was nervous or emotional.
And then, suddenly, as if the thought had been floating around in his head and he had only just gathered the courage to say it out loud, he added,
“Maybe it’s a sign for us to have a baby.”
You stared at him. Your heart jumped in a way you couldn’t control, and Clark tilted his head slightly, like a large dog waiting for your reaction. He didn’t say anything else. He only looked at you with those eyes that sometimes seemed to ask permission for everything.
A few seconds passed. You still had one hand resting on his back, and he still had his long arms wrapped around you. Then you spoke carefully, the way someone touches something fragile.
“Have you thought about the fact that maybe the best option would be not wearing the ring?”
Clark’s eyes widened slightly. He shook his head immediately, not slowly but firmly, like he had thought about that possibility many times already and had his answer prepared.
“What?” he said, and his voice sounded almost offended, as though you had suggested something impossible.
He loosened his hold on you just enough to raise his right hand. There it was. The ring. On his finger. Just like always. You looked at it for a moment, the metal gleaming softly under the afternoon light spilling through the window. Clark kept talking, and his voice filled with something softer than tenderness but somehow stronger.
“It’s my treasure. The greatest one of all.”
You smiled. You couldn’t help it. He always found a way to make you smile even when the world outside was losing its mind.
“I’ll wear it here, on my finger, or on my necklace,” he said, curling his hand slightly where the ring rested. “I’m not taking it off.”
You nodded. You knew. You had known from the very beginning, even before asking. Clark wasn’t the kind of person who hid the things he loved, even if it caused him trouble. That was why you loved him. That was why you had married him.
“So what are you going to do about people?” you asked while lifting your hand to gently caress his cheek.
He leaned slightly into your touch, closing his eyes for a second as though something as simple as that gave him strength. When he opened them again, that mischievous smile you loved so much had already appeared.
“People love Superman,” he said slowly, “not Superman’s life.”
You raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to finish.
“If I don’t talk, they’ll never know anything. I’ll never tell them.”
You laughed softly at his words. Because it was so him, so incredibly Clark, to say something like that with the calm confidence he always had when it came to impossible things. As if it were easy. As if the entire world wasn’t desperately searching for answers right now.
“Okay,” you said, leaning in to kiss his cheek, right where a small dimple sometimes appeared when he smiled for real.
And there, in the living room of his apartment, with the news screaming outside and the ring shining on Superman’s hand, everything felt just a little more peaceful.
Note: I’d like to give a shout-out to @smilereads because it was her idea, and I decided to write a sequel. Please enjoy it—though I know you already will, haha.
Part 1
Clark Kent x female reader
Sinopsis: After accidentally discovering that her awkward coworker Clark Kent is actually Superman, everything she thought she knew about desire, admiration, and love begins to unravel. But the real shock comes when Clark admits he already saw the drawings she tried so hard to hide — and that he’s spent just as much time imagining her too.
Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content • Mutual Obsession • Voyeuristic Themes • Explicit Language • Masturbation Mention • Oral Sex • Multiple Orgasms • Unprotected Sex • Possessive Language • Emotional Vulnerability
WC: 9,700 words approx.
You walked quickly toward your apartment, not looking back, not stopping at any traffic light longer than necessary. You climbed the stairs because you didn’t want to wait for the elevator, and when you finally closed the door of your home behind you, you pressed your forehead against the cold wood and stayed there for a long while, just breathing. All the pieces were coming together in your head like a puzzle you never asked to solve. Clark. Superman. The same man. The same broad, strong body. The same way of tilting his head when he listened carefully to something. The same soft smile he gave before leaving. Did Clark want you to know his secret? Or was it just an accident that his glasses fell off right when you looked at him? Or did he know what you had drawn and was playing with you? No… or yes. You couldn’t be sure of anything.
You left your bag on the floor, right by the door, and walked without turning on the lights to your room. The darkness helped you think, or at least you wanted to believe that. You sat on the edge of the bed and reached your hand under the mattress, where you had hidden the envelope with the drawings. You took it out carefully, as if it were something sacred, and opened it with trembling fingers. You took out the drawings one by one, spreading them on the bed to see them clearly in the moonlight streaming through the window. The first was a half-body drawing of Superman, in the blue suit and red cape, but with his hair messier than usual. The second was Superman without his shirt, the one you had made the other night, with drops of sweat and defined muscles. You stared at it for a long time, and your mind began changing the details: if you put glasses on him, if you lowered that curl you liked so much, if you took away the cape. And then he stopped being Superman and became Clark. Your coworker. The man who brought you coffee every morning.
You took a pencil from your nightstand, the same one you used to draw when you couldn't sleep, and on a blank sheet, you began to draw quickly, with confident strokes. You drew Superman but with his glasses halfway down his nose, just as you had seen him a while ago in Jimmy's apartment. You drew the messy hair, the strong jaw, the broad shoulders. And when you finished, you held the drawing in front of you and compared the similarities. Everything fit. The height was the same. The shoulders had the same width. The shape of his hands, the position of his feet, the curve of his smile. Everything. Every detail you had spent months drawing without knowing it was exactly the same as Clark.
As you changed into your pajamas to keep comparing your drawings, you sighed. Finally, you returned to the bed. Your heart beat so hard you thought it would burst from your chest; you didn’t even notice a noise that appeared—or maybe you did, but you thought, It’s just something hitting something somewhere. All those drawings you made of Superman, all those nights you spent imagining what it would be like to have him close, what it would be like to feel his hands on your waist, what it would be like to kiss those lips… all that time, it was Clark. Clark, the shy one, the one who always blushed when you looked at him. Clark, the same man you’d asked for his height in the elevator, unaware that you were measuring Superman.
You went completely still. The noise repeated, clearer this time. Someone was tapping at your window.
But you lived on the fifth floor. There was no balcony, no ledge—just a window facing the empty street behind the building. Your whole body tensed. You set the drawing down on the bed carefully, without a sound, and rose slowly, your bare feet sinking into the carpet. The only light in the room was the glow from the city, that orange-and-gray haze that never fully goes out in Metropolis.
You walked toward the window with your heart in your throat, feeling as though at any moment it would leap out of your chest. You grabbed the curtain with your fingertips and pulled it aside just a few centimeters.
And then you saw him.
Clark was there. On the other side of the glass. His hair was messier than ever, as if he had flown at full speed to get here. He still had his glasses on, but they were crooked, like he had put them on in a hurry. His chest rose and fell quickly, breathing hard, and his hands were resting on the window frame. He saw you through the glass and didn’t smile. He just looked at you. With those eyes that you now knew were the same as Superman’s. Without thinking, without asking yourself how he had gotten there, without asking yourself why you weren’t afraid, you opened the window.
The cold night air rushed in, blowing your hair and making the curtain fly back. Clark didn’t wait for an invitation. He swung one leg over, then the other, and in less than a second, he was inside your room, standing in front of you, so close you could feel the heat radiating from his body.
"Clark?" you whispered, your voice barely a breath. It sounded like a question, but in truth it was a statement. You already knew it was him. You’d already figured it out. But saying it out loud, looking into his eyes, with him standing inside your room after coming in through a fifth-floor window—it made everything real in a way that left you breathless. Your lungs filled with held-in air, as if your body had forgotten how to let it go.
You looked him up and down. Him. Clark. The man you’d thought until hours ago was shy and clumsy, and now you saw him climb through a window as if it were nothing. As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"I thought… you wouldn’t notice," Clark said, and his voice sounded different. It wasn’t the nervous voice he always used in the office when apologizing for bumping into your chair. It was deeper, steadier, more confident. But his posture was the same: shoulders slightly hunched, head a little bowed, as if he wanted to take up less space than he actually occupied. You couldn’t see his face clearly in the dim light—only his blue eyes shining in the dusk, reflecting the city’s glow.
But his steps brought him toward you, slow, careful, as if he were afraid of scaring you.
"I would have gone crazy if you hadn’t…" He paused, and you heard him swallow. "…if you hadn’t figured it out. That’s… what I… wanted."
He admitted it. Said it plainly. No turning back. No excuses. Clark had wanted you to know the truth.
Your mind did another backflip. Your ears began to ring, that ringing that appears when you’re so nervous you might faint. You looked at him without fully understanding, though deep in your heart, you knew exactly what his words meant.
“Why?” you asked, your voice so low you barely heard it yourself.
Clark did not answer immediately. He stood in silence, staring at you, and in that silence your head filled with images. The drawings. All the drawings. Superman without a shirt. Superman with droplets of sweat. Superman holding a waist. Superman kissing you on the page. Your face next to his. Your hands on his chest. Everything. He’d had your sketchbook. He’d held it in his hands for hours before you came to retrieve it.
"You… saw them?" you asked in a low voice, so low that you trembled saying it. Your hands pressed together, fingers intertwining as if they could protect you from the answer you already knew was coming.
But before he could reply, shame crept up your neck, into your cheeks, to your ears. The drawings. He had seen the drawings. Those intimate, personal sketches where you’d poured out everything you imagined, everything you desired, everything you’d never dared say aloud. Your whole body flushed with embarrassment. Your hands shook. Your eyes filled with tears—not from sadness, but from sheer nerves.
"Clark, I…" you tried to say, but your voice broke in your throat. You swallowed hard. Your fingers played with the hem of your shirt, twisting it endlessly. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Those drawings… you shouldn’t have seen them. I shouldn’t have made them. They’re so inappropriate, so… I never wanted anyone to see them, least of all you, least of all now knowing that you’re… that you are…"
You couldn’t finish the sentence. Each word came out more twisted than the last. You felt like you were sinking, like the floor was opening beneath your feet. He was standing there in front of you, and everything you’d drawn in the privacy of your room was now in his head. He knew how you imagined him. He knew you’d drawn him shirtless, knew you’d drawn him touching you, holding you, kissing you. He knew that in your dreams, he was yours.
"I’m a bad person," you whispered, more to yourself than to him, and you squeezed your eyes shut, as if you could erase everything just by closing them. "You’re going to think I’m sick, that I’m unprofessional, that I’m a…"
You didn’t finish the sentence. Because Clark moved.
It wasn’t a large step. Just a tilt of his head, a lean closer, but it was enough for you to feel his warmth on your skin, for the air between you to become dense and hot. When you opened your eyes, he was centimeters from your face. His expression wasn’t angry. It wasn’t disgust. It was something else. Something that traced down your spine like a shiver and ignited your skin from within.
"Actually, I did more than just look at them," Clark said again, but this time his voice was deeper, rougher, as if the words cost him effort to speak.
Your heart lurched. Your lips parted to ask what he meant, but no sound came out. You could only stare at him, eyes wide, as he moved even closer, until his chest nearly brushed yours. His hands—those hands you’d drawn so many times holding your waist—rose slowly to your shoulders, and you felt each finger like a live coal.
"I came to apologize," Clark said, his voice barely a thread. "For using you in my imagination inappropriately."
Your legs went weak. You had to grab his arms to keep from falling, and when you touched him, you felt his tense muscles beneath the fabric of his shirt. He didn’t pull away. On the contrary, his hands closed gently around your shoulders, squeezing just barely, as if he were afraid of breaking you but also as if he couldn’t let you go.
"Using me inappropriately…" you repeated, not quite understanding, yet understanding everything at the same time.
"Every day," Clark whispered, and his warm breath brushed your lips. "In the office, when I see you draw with your head tilted. In the elevator, when you stare at me without saying a word. In my bed at night, when I close my eyes and can only think of you."
A small, barely audible whimper escaped your throat. You couldn’t help it. His voice, his closeness, the weight of his words—they were unraveling you completely. You could feel every one of his fingers on your shoulders, the heat of his body enveloping you, his breathing growing faster, heavier.
"I’ve been so desperate for you," Clark said, and this time his voice trembled. "For so long I’ve lost count. And when I saw your drawings… when I saw what you imagined, what you wanted… I nearly lost my mind."
His hands moved from your shoulders to your arms, from your arms to your ribs, from your ribs to your waist. His fingers pressed into the curve of your hip with a gentleness that contrasted with the tension thrumming through his whole body. He was holding you as if you were the most fragile thing in the world, but there was something in his gaze—something dark and hungry—that told you that gentleness might shatter at any moment.
"Do you know what I did?" he asked, and the question wasn’t really a question. It was a confession. His forehead rested against yours, his lips grazing yours with every word. "I locked the door. I closed the windows. I sat on the bed with your sketchbook open in my hands, looking at those drawings you made of me. Of you. Of us."
Your breath caught. Your hands, still gripping his arms, clenched tighter. You could feel his veins pulsing beneath your palm, his heart pumping as fast as yours.
"I touched myself thinking of you," Clark said, his voice breaking on the last syllable. "While I looked at those drawings where you have me like that—so close, so deep inside you… I touched myself until I couldn’t anymore. And I… I’m sorry."
An immense heat flooded from your chest to your belly, and you felt your legs tremble and your core clench with every word from his mouth. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. Clark. Shy Clark. The one who always looked down when you spoke to him. He was here, in your room, confessing that he’d been so desperate for you he couldn’t restrain himself with your drawings.
"I didn’t come just to apologize," Clark continued, his hands sliding a little higher up your back, drawing you toward him until there was no space left between you. His chest pressed against yours, and you could feel everything: the hard muscles, the heat, the racing rhythm of his heart. "I came because I can’t take it anymore. I came because you need to know that what you drew is nothing compared to what I’ve imagined. What I’ve dreamed. What I’ve wanted."
His nose brushed your cheek, then your jaw, then trailed down to your neck. You felt his open lips on your skin—hot, damp—and a moan escaped your lips before you could stop it. His fingers tightened against your lower back, pressing you into him, and then you felt it. Hard. Throbbing. Pressed against your belly through the thin fabric of his trousers and your pajamas. There was no mistaking it. No room for doubt.
"You see what you do to me?" Clark murmured against your neck, and his voice was so rough, so needy, it made you shudder entirely. "Just by looking at you. Just by having you close. I’ve been like this for days, weeks, months. And when I saw those drawings… when I saw how you wanted me…"
He lifted his head and looked into your eyes. His were dark, nearly black, pupils so dilated you could barely see the blue. His chest rose and fell with every heavy breath. His lips were parted, red, wet, and his gaze roamed your face as if he wanted to devour you with his eyes before doing so with his mouth.
"I need you to know it wasn’t just once," he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl. "I’ve thought about you every night since I met you. But since I saw those drawings… since I knew you imagined me like that too…"
His hand rose to your chin and lifted it gently, forcing you to meet his gaze directly. His thumb brushed your lower lip and pressed it just slightly, as if he were caressing something he’d wanted to touch forever.
"Clark…" you whispered, your voice as broken, as needy, as his.
"Tell me I’m not the only one," he said, and there was a plea in his words, something fragile behind all that strength. "Tell me that what you drew is what you want. Tell me I do this to you too. Tell me you’ve thought about me as much as I’ve thought about you."
His blue eyes gleamed in the half-dark, waiting for your answer as if his life depended on it. His hands still rested on your hips, his fingers barely trembling against the fabric of your pajamas. You could feel his heart beating hard, as hard as yours, and his breath mingling with yours in the small space between his lips and yours.
And in that moment, as you stared straight into his eyes, something clicked inside your head. Something you’d been denying yourself for months, maybe years.
You’d always thought you drew Superman so often because he was a hero, because he was famous, because he was the most important man in Metropolis. But now, with Clark in front of you—with his messy hair falling over his forehead exactly as in your drawings, with his broad shoulders you’d recognize anywhere—you realized the truth.
A truth you’d been hiding from yourself for a very long time.
You drew Superman because he looked like Clark. But it wasn’t just that. It was worse. It was that you refused to admit you were thinking indecently about your shy coworker. About Clark, who was only ever kind, who brought you coffee without being asked, who smiled at you with that shyness that melted you inside. You couldn’t allow yourself to desire Clark. Clark was your friend, your colleague, the man everyone said would end up with Lois. So you turned to Superman. You drew Superman so you wouldn’t have to admit that really, for months, the one you’d wanted to draw was Clark.
Maybe that was why you loved saying goodbye to him in the elevator. It wasn’t by chance that you always stood next to him. It wasn’t chance that your shoulder brushed his when the elevator moved, and you felt that tingle run over your skin every time it happened. Maybe that was why you loved receiving coffee from him. Because you took the chance to look at his enormous hand holding your cup, and then you compared yours to his, measuring the size of his fingers, imagining how they would feel on your skin.
All those small things you’d ignored, all those times you’d looked away when he got too close, all those nights you drew Superman but thought of Clark without daring to admit it even to yourself… it all made sense now.
"You have no idea," you said, and your voice came out rough, needy, as if you’d been holding those words in for years.
Clark’s eyes widened a little, surprised by the intensity of your response. But you didn’t have time to see more, because you were already moving.
You rose on your tiptoes, grabbed the fabric of his shirt with both hands, and kissed him.
It wasn’t a soft kiss. It wasn’t an exploratory kiss. It was a kiss of "I’ve waited too long and I can’t anymore." Your fingers tangled in the cloth, wrinkling it, gripping it, as if you were afraid that if you let go, he would disappear.
Clark made a muffled sound against your mouth, a low groan that vibrated on your lips and ran through your entire body. His hands, which had been still on your hips, suddenly clenched tighter, as if he were only just reacting, as if your kiss had caught him off guard. But you didn’t give him time to think. Your need to feel him, to touch him, to confirm he was real and there—it was greater than any shame or doubt. Clark had said enough. He’d confessed that he’d seen you, imagined you, touched himself thinking of you while looking at your drawings. There was nothing left to hide. Nothing left to pretend.
You would show him.
Clark returned the kiss with the same urgency, the same desperation. His tongue found yours, and the kiss grew deeper, wetter, messier. His hands released your hips and ran up your back, grabbing the fabric of your pajamas as if he wanted to tear it. You took that moment to pull at his shirt, tugging it upward, and he understood.
He pulled back from your lips just enough to grab the hem himself and rip the shirt over his head, tossing it into some corner of the room without caring where it landed.
And then you saw him.
His bare chest in front of you. The same muscles you had drawn so many times, the same defined pectorals, the same broad shoulders, the same tanned skin that gleamed in the faint light coming through the window. But it wasn't a drawing. It was real. He was there, centimeters from you, hot and trembling and breathing as fast as you were.
Your hands rose to his shoulders, just as you had imagined so many times. Your fingers traced the curve of his muscles, the hardness of his skin, the warmth radiating from him. It was exactly as you had drawn him. Exactly. But a thousand times better because it was true, because it was now, because it was him.
Clark looked at you with dark eyes, nearly black, and his hands slid down to your thighs. He grabbed you behind your knees, and with a gentle but firm movement, lifted you off the floor. You wrapped your legs around his waist without thinking, clinging to him as if you had always been meant to fit together like this. Your pajama top rode up a little, and the skin of your thighs pressed against his bare ribs, hot against hot.
Clark held you as if you weighed nothing, with an ease that reminded you who he really was. His hands settled on your lower back, right where your pajama top ended and your bare skin began, and his fingers pressed gently into that curve you had drawn so many times.
As you kissed him again—slower this time, deeper—your hands moved up to his head. Your fingers tangled in his curls, the same curls you had drawn over and over without knowing they were his. Clark's hair was soft between your fingers, softer than you had imagined, and when you tugged gently, he groaned into your mouth.
"Just like that," Clark murmured against your lips, his voice breaking. "That's how I imagined you. Your hands in my hair. Your legs around me."
You gasped at his words. Your chest rose and fell rapidly, almost as fast as his. You could feel his hard erection between your legs, pressed against your most intimate place through the fabric of your pajama bottoms and his trousers. There was no way to ignore it. No way not to move against it, seeking more pressure, more heat, more of him.
"Clark," you whispered his name, and it sounded like a prayer.
He carried you to the bed without letting you go, without separating his mouth from yours. When your back touched the sheets again, he stayed above you, braced on his forearms, his hips nestled between your open legs. His weight on you was perfect. Not crushing, not suffocating. It enveloped you. It filled you.
His lips left yours and traveled down to your jaw, to your neck, to the curve of your shoulder. He kissed and nibbled gently, alternating between wet caresses and small bites that made you arch your back. Your hands remained tangled in his hair, tugging just slightly whenever he found a spot that made you shudder.
"I've dreamed of this," Clark murmured against your skin, his voice vibrating through you. "Every night. Every damn night."
You closed your eyes and let his words, his kisses, his hands carry you away. Because you had dreamed too. You had imagined too. You had drawn every centimeter of his body without knowing it was him, without knowing it had always been him. And now you had him. You had him for real.
His lips continued their path down your neck, biting softly, licking after, leaving a hot, wet trail that made you tremble all over. His hands, enormous and firm, slid under your pajama top, grazing your bare skin with rough palms. Every centimeter he touched ignited as if you had a fever. You arched your back against him, seeking more contact, more skin, more of everything.
"I want to see you," Clark murmured against your collarbone, his voice so rough it barely sounded human. "All of you. I want to see all of you."
He didn't need to ask twice. Your hands went to the hem of your pajama top and you pulled it up slowly, feeling his eyes fixed on every piece of skin you revealed. When the fabric passed over your head and you tossed it aside, you were left in just your bra in front of him.
Clark stared at you for a moment, his lips parted, his breath halted, as if he were seeing something he had waited for his entire life.
"You're more beautiful than in my dreams," he said, and it didn't sound like a compliment. It sounded like a confession. Like an undeniable fact.
His hands rose to your ribs and traveled down slowly, caressing every curve, every bone, every empty space now filled by his fingers. He reached the waistband of your pajama bottoms—the loose ones you wore to sleep—and hooked his thumbs under them. He looked at you in silent question, and you nodded, lifting your hips just slightly to help him.
Clark slid the bottoms down, slowly, so slowly that you felt the fabric graze your thighs, your knees, your calves, until you were left in only your bra and the small scrap of fabric beneath. He tossed the pants to the floor and stared at you again, this time with eyes so dark they seemed black. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and his gaze traveled over your body as if he wanted to memorize every detail before touching it.
"God," he whispered, the word coming out like a moan.
You didn't want to be outdone. You pushed yourself up a little and brought your hands to his chest, caressing his pectorals, his shoulders, his enormous arms that you had drawn so many times. It was the first time you touched them for real, with no paper in between, and the sensation was so intense you felt almost dizzy. His muscles moved beneath his skin with every breath, hard and hot and perfect.
As your hands explored, Clark lowered his head to the center of your chest. His lips kissed the top edge of your bra, the exposed skin there, and his fingers found the clasp behind your back. He opened it with an ease that surprised you, and when the fabric fell away, when your breasts were bare before him, Clark let out a muffled groan that vibrated against your skin.
His mouth found one of your breasts, and you threw your head back, your hands gripping his shoulders, your fingers digging into his muscles. His tongue circled your nipple in slow, deliberate movements, while one of his hands traveled down your stomach until it reached the edge of your underwear. His fingers brushed against the damp fabric—because you were already wet, had been for a while, since he said your name—and Clark groaned at the feel of you.
"So wet," he murmured, and it wasn't a question. It was an observation. A marvel. Proof that he wasn't the only one, that you desired him too.
His fingers pushed the fabric aside and found your center, wet and hot and trembling. When he touched you, when he pressed just slightly, a moan escaped your throat and your whole body tensed. Clark lifted his head to watch you as his finger began to move—slowly at first, then faster, tracing circles that made you grip the sheet with one hand and his shoulder with the other.
"That's it," he whispered, watching your face transform, your eyes close, your mouth fall open beyond your control.
His name fell from your lips like a gasp, like a prayer. Clark, Clark, Clark. And as his finger kept moving, as his other hand rose to one of your breasts and squeezed gently, you felt something begin to grow inside you. Something hot, something enormous, something rising from your belly to your throat.
"I'm going to…" you tried to say, but couldn't finish the sentence.
"Let go," Clark said, and his voice was a soft command, a caress. "I want to see you. I want to feel you."
And you let go.
Your body arched completely, your legs trembled around him, your hands squeezed so hard they left marks on his skin. A long, broken moan escaped your lips as the first climax washed over you like a wave, shaking you from head to toe, leaving you trembling and breathless on the sheets.
Clark watched you come undone, and there was something hungry in his eyes. Something not yet finished. Something just beginning.
He didn't give you time to recover. He pushed himself up over you and brought his hands to his own trousers. His fingers trembled as he unbuttoned them, as he lowered the zipper, as he removed his pants and underwear in one go, without shame, without care.
And then you saw him.
He was large. Larger than you had drawn, larger than you had imagined. Hard and throbbing, the tip glistening with pre-cum that already wet his stomach. Your mouth fell open involuntarily, and your legs spread wider, inviting him without words.
Clark lay back on top of you, this time with nothing in between. His skin against your skin, his chest against your breasts, his stomach against your belly. His weight was perfect, warm, real. He kissed you slowly, deeply, while his hips moved against yours and his erection slid between your folds, growing wet with your desire, mingling with it.
His tongue played with yours as you, without shame anymore, without fear anymore, ran your hands up his arms. You felt every muscle, every vein, every tremor. Your fingers traced his broad back, the curves of his shoulder blades, the spine that dipped down to his waist. Then you traveled down to his torso, his pectorals, his defined abs that you had drawn so many times. It was all real. It was all him.
Clark moaned against your neck as your hands caressed him, as your legs spread wider for him, as your hips began to move on their own, seeking his length, rubbing against it, feeling the pre-cum slicking everything.
"Please," you whispered, the first time you had ever asked for something like this in your life. "Clark, please."
He pulled his mouth from your neck and looked into your eyes. His face was flushed, his lips swollen, his hair plastered to his forehead. His hand rose to your jaw and held it with tenderness, with firmness, while his thumb caressed your lower lip.
"Look at me," he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl. "I want you to watch me when I have you."
His other hand went down between you and took hold of his length. He guided it to your entrance, brushing it just slightly, wetting the tip with your desire. The simple contact made you tremble all over, made your hips lift seeking more, made a moan escape your lips and get trapped against his thumb.
"Say my name again," Clark asked, moving his hips just enough for his tip to enter a centimeter, nothing more.
"Clark," you gasped, and your voice trembled, and your body trembled, and suddenly everything trembled.
That small movement, that small touch, was enough. The second climax hit you without warning, faster than the first, more intense. Your walls clenched around just the tip of him, and your whole body shook, your legs squeezed his hips, your hands grabbed his back, and Clark held you as you came undone again, his thumb on your lip and his eyes locked on yours.
"Just like that," he murmured, watching you shudder beneath him. "That's how I want you. Only for me."
When the tremor passed, when your breathing returned somewhat, Clark pushed. But not forcefully. He pushed slowly, carefully, entering centimeter by centimeter while he stared fixedly into your eyes. He was large, very large, and you could feel him filling you, stretching you, fitting himself to you. You threw your head back into the pillow as his hand remained on your jaw and his thumb continued stroking your lips. His eyes didn't leave yours for a single second. He looked at you with a mixture of tenderness and lust that melted you from the inside.
"You're perfect," Clark said, his voice broken, as he continued entering—slowly, very slowly, giving you time to adjust to him. "So tight. So hot. I've waited for you so long."
His hips pressed against yours when he was finally fully inside. Full. Complete. You could feel him pulsing within you, could feel every centimeter, every heartbeat. Clark stayed still for a moment, resting his forehead against yours, breathing as heavily as you, while his fingers caressed your cheek and his thumb never stopped brushing your lips.
"Are you okay?" he asked in a whisper, and there was so much care in his voice that your eyes filled with tears.
You nodded, unable to speak, and your arms wrapped around his neck to pull him closer to you. Clark smiled, just barely, and began to move.
At first it was slow, gentle, as if he were still savoring the moment, as if he never wanted it to end. His hips pushed against yours at a leisurely rhythm, entering and exiting slowly, making you feel every centimeter of him inside you.
"Oh, Clark," you moaned, lifting yourself so he could sink deeper into you.
Little by little, push after push, Clark increased his speed. His hips moved faster, harder, and the sound of his skin against yours filled the room along with the moans you could no longer—and didn't want to—hold back. His fingers gripped your hip firmly, leaving marks, and his other hand moved from your jaw to intertwine with yours on the pillow.
"You feel so good," Clark said, his voice broken by pleasure. "So tight, so hot. You're going to make me…"
He didn't finish the sentence. His body tensed completely, his movements growing more erratic, more desperate. You could feel his member throbbing inside you, each thrust going deeper, and you knew he was close. So were you. That heat was growing in your belly again, more intense than before, deeper.
"With me," Clark asked, his voice fractured. "Come with me."
And you did. At the same time. His body arched over you, a hoarse, long groan escaping his throat, and you felt him fill you, hot and thick, as your own orgasm shook you entirely, clenching around him, trapping him, making everything more intense.
Clark stayed over you for a moment, trembling, breathing raggedly against your neck. His weight was warm and comforting, and for an instant you thought it was all over.
But then he moved his hips again. A gentle, slow push, while he was still inside you.
"Clark," you whispered, your voice surprised.
He didn't answer with words. He just kept moving—slowly at first, then faster again. But you could no longer think. Your eyes grew hazy, tears welling from sheer pleasure, and your hands rose on their own to his head. Your fingers tangled in his soft curls, stroking them over and over as he continued moving inside you, as his still-warm seed mixed with your own desire and made each thrust wetter, easier, deeper.
"Again," Clark asked against your skin, and it wasn't a question.
He didn't need to ask twice. The third orgasm arrived like an unstoppable wave, gentler than the previous ones but longer, deeper, making you tremble all over as your fingers tangled in his hair and your legs squeezed his hips and your mouth opened in a silent moan.
Clark didn't stop. He turned you carefully, laying you on your side and then on your stomach, without pulling out of you, without stopping his movements. He lifted your hips just slightly and kept pushing, deeper from behind, and you buried your face in the pillow to muffle the moans you could no longer control. Your hands gripped the sheet so hard your knuckles turned white, and each of Clark's thrusts forced a muffled sound from your lips against the fabric.
"Just like that," he murmured behind you, his voice hoarse, broken. "That's how I want you. All for me."
The fourth orgasm caught you by surprise. It was shorter, sharper, a muffled cry into the pillow as your body tensed like a bow and Clark kept moving, thrusting, filling you. And then he came again too, with a long, deep groan, and you felt his seed fill you once more, hot and abundant, mingling with everything already inside you.
When he pulled out, you felt the liquid trickle down your thighs, warm and sticky, as you both trembled without being able to stop.
Clark collapsed beside you on the bed, his chest rising and falling rapidly, hair plastered to his forehead, eyes closed and lips parted. You looked at him for a moment, your body still trembling and your skin burning. Then you curled up against his chest, hiding your face in the hollow of his neck, feeling his heart beat as hard as yours. Your cheek brushed his hot skin, and your hands sought his side to cling to him as if he were the only solid thing in the world.
"Don't ever remind me of those drawings I made," you said in a murmur, pressing your face against his chest so he wouldn't see how red your cheeks were. "Ever again. I'm warning you."
Clark let out a low, tired laugh that vibrated in his chest and you felt against your lips. His hands moved up your back and began to caress you slowly, with a gentleness that contrasted with everything that had just happened. His fingers traced your spine over and over, calming you, enveloping you.
"I'm embarrassed," you said, your voice small, almost childlike, as you hid further against him.
Clark hugged you tighter, pressing you to his side, and rested his chin on the top of your head. You felt him nod, felt his breathing grow slower, calmer.
"I will," he whispered. "If you promise that every drawing you make, you'll show to me. Only to me."
You lifted your head so fast you nearly hit his chin. You looked at him with wide eyes, unable to believe what you had just heard. Clark returned your gaze with a small, shy smile—that same smile he always wore in the office, which you now knew concealed Superman.
"Clark, you're a pervert," you said, and though the words sounded harsh, your voice was soft, almost affectionate.
Clark smiled wider, and for the first time since he had climbed through your window, you saw him fully relax. His blue eyes gleamed in the dim light, and his hand rose to your cheek to caress it with the back of his fingers.
"We're on the same level of perversion," he admitted, his cheeks turning red—as red as they always got in the office. "You drew all of that. I saw it and couldn't control myself. I think we're tied."
You laughed—a nervous, liberating laugh—and pushed yourself up just enough to kiss him. It was a soft, short kiss, different from the others. A kiss that said, "It's okay, I forgive you," and "I'm like that too," and "I like that you're like that."
When you parted your lips, you stayed looking at him for a moment, your hand resting on his cheek, feeling the roughness of his stubble beneath your fingers.
"You should have told me sooner," you said, looking into his eyes.
Clark tilted his head, confused, those thick brows drawing together in the middle when he didn't understand something.
"Told you what?"
"To ask me out," you said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It wasn't hard, Clark. You just had to come to my desk and say, 'Do you want to get coffee?' or 'Do you want to have dinner with me?' Normal things. Things people do."
Clark let out a low laugh and shook his head. His fingers continued caressing your cheek, your jaw, your earlobe.
"It was," he said finally, and his voice sounded so sincere it made you feel tender. "It was hard. Your friends are always with you—Cat and Sam and Leslie never leave you alone, day or night. Besides, every time I planned to, every time I wanted to come close and say something, you ran away. Literally. You'd see me approaching and you'd get up from your chair and go to the bathroom or the coffee machine or somewhere else."
You looked at him and knew he was right. Because yes, you had been running from him. Without knowing why. Without understanding why you got so nervous whenever Clark got too close. Why your heart raced when he smiled at you. Why you hid to avoid having to speak to him alone.
"Well," you said, shrugging and hiding your face in his chest again. "It was because I liked you. And I didn't know how to handle it."
Clark was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer than ever.
"I liked you too. From the first day I saw you drawing in that old notebook."
You closed your eyes and smiled against his skin. His arms wrapped around you tighter, and for a while, you just stayed there, listening to his heart beat beneath your ear, feeling his chest rise and fall with every breath.
They lay in silence for a long time, embraced, tangled, with the sheets in disarray and the city glowing outside, unaware that inside this small room, two people had truly found each other.
But the silence wasn't awkward. It was the kind of silence filled with everything that didn't need to be said, because their bodies had already said it for them.
At some point, without quite knowing how, you ended up leaning against the headboard of the bed. You were resting against his shoulder, legs stretched out, his tangled with yours. Clark had one arm around your shoulders and his other hand resting on your thigh, stroking your skin with his fingertips, as if he couldn't stop touching you for even a second.
You laughed for no reason, just because, just because you felt light and silly and happy. It was a soft little laugh that vibrated against his skin, and Clark looked at you with a furrowed brow but with a smile on his lips.
"What are you laughing at?" he asked, and his voice had that rough tone that came out after he'd been so close to you.
"Nothing," you said, laughing again, hiding your face in his shoulder. "Everything. That I'm here leaning against Superman, after having drawn him a thousand times without knowing he was my clumsy coworker."
Clark made a fake pout, offended, and his hand squeezed your thigh affectionately.
"Clumsy?"
"Clumsy," you repeated, lifting your head to look him in the eyes. "You trip over tables, Clark. Over chairs. Over your own feet. I once saw you fall off the escalator."
"That was one time," he defended himself, his cheeks turning pink again. "And someone had left a banana peel on the step."
You laughed harder, and he ended up laughing with you, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe you were there, with him, laughing at his misfortunes. His arm pulled you tighter against his side, and he rested his cheek on the top of your head.
"Tell me," you said after a while, your voice more serious but still soft. Your finger began tracing lines over his chest, following the curve of his muscles, drawing circles around his pectorals. "What it's like. The double life. How you manage to be Clark and Superman at the same time."
Clark sighed, the warm air brushing your hair. He was silent for a moment, as if arranging the words in his head before letting them out.
"It's not easy," he said finally, and his voice sounded deeper, more honest. "Sometimes I lose myself. I don't know who I'm supposed to be at any given moment. Clark is… Clark is who I want to be. The clumsy one, like you said. The one who blushes. The one who can have friends and drink coffee and laugh without the world expecting something from him. Superman is… a responsibility. Something I have to do because I can do it. But it's not who I am. Not entirely."
You listened in silence, feeling how each of his words vibrated in his chest and reached your cheek. Your hand kept stroking him, moving down to his abs, back up to his shoulder, unhurried, just to remind yourself that he was real.
"And Lois?" you asked, with no jealousy in your voice, only curiosity. Or maybe just a little jealousy, but well hidden. "She knows, doesn't she?"
Clark nodded. His jaw tensed slightly.
"Lois knows. But it's hard… she sees Superman. Not Clark. And I need people to see Clark." His hand rose to your chin and lifted it gently, making you meet his eyes. He had that expression again, that mix of tenderness and desire that melted you inside. "You see Clark," he said, and it was a statement, not a question. "You always did. That's why I liked you before you knew the other thing."
You changed the subject after a while. You talked about unimportant things: Jimmy and his jokes, Cat and her gossip, Perry and his shouting in the newsroom. Work stuff, life stuff, nothing stuff. But as he spoke, you watched him. Truly watched him. Clark. The man beside you, naked and disheveled and with bright eyes as he told you an anecdote about the time he broke his glasses in the middle of an interview.
And in the middle of that silly story, you suddenly realized something. Something that filled your chest with immense warmth.
You had spent so long working, so long running from one place to another, so long thinking about deadlines and drawings and editions and impressing Perry and increasing viewership and making sure the printer didn't make mistakes. So long living for work that you'd forgotten to live for yourself.
But now, there, with Clark leaning beside you and his laughter filling the room, you felt that maybe, just maybe, you deserved this. You deserved to be happy. You deserved a chance to be happy in a life full of work.
Clark must have noticed something in your gaze, because he stopped mid-sentence and stared at you with narrowed eyes.
"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice soft, concerned.
You didn't answer with words. You sat up slightly and kissed him. It was a slow, deep, unhurried kiss. A kiss to tell him that you saw him. That you wanted him. That you were there and you weren't going anywhere.
When you parted your lips, you moved without thinking. You climbed into his lap, one leg on each side of his hips, sitting on top of him. Your bare center rested against his member, and though he wasn't hard yet, the warm skin of both of you brushed together in a way that made you close your eyes for a moment.
Clark let out a trembling sigh. His hands rose to your hips almost by instinct, as if they couldn't help grabbing you, as if his fingers needed to sink into your skin to believe you were there.
You wrapped your arms around his neck, tangling your fingers in his curls again, and kissed him more. There was no rush. No desperate hunger like before. There was something calmer, more certain.
Your hips began to move slowly, grinding against him, feeling how below, very deep down, his member began to react to the heat of your core. Each movement you made caused his skin to brush yours, the tip of his penis sliding between your folds, getting wet with your desire, which hadn't entirely faded yet.
Clark groaned against your mouth, and his hands gripped your hips tighter, guiding your movements, wordlessly asking you not to stop. His erection grew between you, hard and hot, pressing right where you needed him most. But he didn't enter. He just rubbed, just slid, just reminded you how much you wanted him inside again.
You gasped with your mouth pressed to his, your hot breath mingling with his. Your breasts brushed his chest with every movement, and your hands moved from his hair to his cheeks, caressing him with a tenderness that contrasted with what you were doing below.
You parted your lips just enough to look into his eyes. His were half-closed, dark with desire, pupils so large you could barely see the blue. His mouth was red, swollen from so much kissing, and his chest rose and fell rapidly beneath your hands.
"You promised to fulfill all my drawings," you whispered, stroking his cheek with your thumb. Your voice was low, husky, barely a thread of air leaving your lips.
Clark looked at you and his eyes lit up. Not with lust, not with hunger. With something prettier. With charm. With a happiness so pure that for a moment he looked like he might cry.
"Just as I promised to fulfill everything you imagined," you completed your own sentence. You kissed him again. Your hips didn't stop moving while you kissed him—slow, circular, feeling how his member grew harder and harder between your legs, how the precum wet everything and made every rub smoother, wetter, more intense.
Clark moaned inside your mouth, and his fingers pressed into your lower back, pulling you against him, asking you for more. And you gave it to him.
You didn't do anything special. You just kept moving on top of him, rubbing against his hard, hot member, feeling how the tip pressed right at your entrance over and over without quite going in. It was a game, a question neither of you wanted to answer with words.
But at some point, during one of your circular movements, Clark thrust his hips upward at the same time you came down, and this time it happened. This time he entered.
It wasn't slow like the first time. It was all at once, in one go, as if he couldn't wait another second. Your body received him with the same urgency—wet and hot and ready for him for a while now. The air caught in your throat, and what came out was a rough moan, almost a strangled cry.
"Holy shit," you said, the phrase coming out through clenched teeth, eyes closed, head thrown back.
Clark didn't respond with words. He was looking down, to where your bodies joined, but then his gaze rose to your chest and stayed there. Your breasts bounced softly with every movement, with every small rise and fall you made as you adjusted to him again.
His hands left your back and went up to them, grabbing them with a mix of tenderness and hunger. His fingers squeezed softly, then harder, and when he lowered his head to take one in his mouth, a moan escaped your lips.
He sucked and licked as if he were thirsty for you, as if he had never tasted anything like it in his life. His tongue circled your nipple over and over while his hips began moving below, thrusting upward, finding a rhythm that made you grab his shoulders to keep from falling backward.
The sound of their bodies colliding filled the room. A wet, soft thud that mixed with your moans and his ragged breaths. You moved on top of him without thinking, letting your body do what his asked of it. Each thrust filled you completely; each time he pulled out almost entirely and came back in, you felt him dismantle you from the inside.
You sighed with such ardor that it burned in your chest. The heat rose from your belly to your throat, and your hands gripped Clark's shoulders so hard your nails dug into his skin. He didn't even flinch. On the contrary, he seemed to like it, because his mouth left your chest and he looked at you with dark, hungry eyes, and his hips pushed harder.
That was the sign. The orgasm arrived like a wave you'd felt building for a while, and when it broke, your whole body trembled. Your legs tightened around his hips, your fingers tangled in his hair, your mouth opened in a long moan you couldn't control. You came on him, soaking him, squeezing him so hard that Clark groaned your name with a broken voice.
You stayed trembling on top of him, strengthless, your breath in pieces. You leaned into his shoulder, your forehead resting on his neck, your nose brushing his sweaty skin. The tremor began to subside slowly, like the sea calming after a storm. You closed your eyes and just wanted to stay there, pressed against him, feeling his heart beat as fast as yours.
But Clark wasn't finished. His hand released your hip and rose to your chin. With two fingers, gently, he lifted your face to look at you. His blue eyes gleamed in the twilight, fixed on yours, and before you could ask anything, he kissed you.
It was a wet, messy kiss, full of saliva and need. His tongue found yours and caressed it while his hand moved to your nape and pressed you against him, pressing his forehead to yours, not stopping the kiss for a second. And at the same time, his other hand took your waist and began to move you.
He wasn't moving. Only his fingers guided your hips up and down—slowly at first, then faster—forcing you to keep riding him even though you had just come and your whole body was sensitive, too sensitive.
A moan caught in your throat and came out as a lament against his mouth. The past orgasm had left you so sensitive that every rub, every movement, every centimeter of him moving inside you was almost too much. The moans barely escaped, trapped in your throat and slipping out as languid, wet sounds while the saliva from both of you mixed on his lips and yours.
Clark wouldn't let you stop. You knew it. You felt it in the way he held you, in the way he didn't separate his mouth from yours except to breathe, in the way his hand on your nape didn't loosen at all.
You grabbed his shoulders again, clinging to him as if he were the only solid thing in a world moving too fast. You felt how his fingers on your waist guided you, how his hips began to push as well, how the rhythm became more intense, deeper.
"Clark," you managed to say, or rather moan; his name left your lips like a plea, like a prayer. He kissed you again to silence you, or maybe to hear you better—you didn't know. His lips crushed yours as his hand left your nape and went to your waist as well. Now he held you with both hands, and he began to fuck you harder. Faster. Deeper. His hips lifted from the mattress to meet yours, and each thrust made your hips come down harder on him. The sound of the impacts grew faster, wetter, more obscene.
You moaned uncontrollably, and your hands left his shoulders to go to your own breasts, which bounced wildly with every movement. You grabbed them, squeezed them, and Clark leaned toward them again, lowering his head to kiss the skin between them, to lick the hollow of your collarbones, to bite softly where his mouth could reach.
That was how they came together.
You felt Clark tense beneath you, his body going rigid a second before a rough, almost animal groan left his throat. And at the same time, the heat of him filling you from inside unleashed another orgasm in you—smaller than the previous ones but just as intense, a tremor that ran from your head to your feet as you clung to him without letting go.
You were spent. Your breathing was so heavy, so ragged, that it sounded like you'd just run a marathon. The same was true for him: his chest rose and fell against yours, and you could feel his heart beating so fast it seemed about to leap out of his chest.
You slumped onto his chest, too weak to do anything else. Your cheek rested on his shoulder, your arms hanging at your sides, your trembling legs on either side of his hips. He didn't say anything. He just held you with one hand on your back and the other on your nape again, stroking your hair with a gentleness that contrasted with everything you'd just done.
For a moment, you thought he wanted more. You felt him lift you slightly, his fingers tightening on your nape as if he were about to kiss you again. Your body tensed, ready to continue, to give him whatever he asked for.
But Clark didn't ask for anything. He just lifted you a little, just shifted you to the side with infinite delicacy, and then lay on his side, taking you with him.
You ended up face to face, your legs tangled with his, his forehead resting against yours. There was no more. No other thrust, no other surge, no other search. Just him, holding you, eyes closed, breathing slowly returning to normal.
And in that moment, with the sweat drying on your skin and your heart still beating hard, you knew. You knew that you had just seen the part of Clark that no one knew. The part that wasn't the clumsy journalist or the invincible hero. The part that moaned your name and blushed and looked at you as if you were the only person in the world.
Note: This is a request from @smilereads. As soon as I read this idea, I started picturing it all, and now I'm wondering: would it be a good idea to make a second part? I hope you like it and that I've done a good job—or at least created something you enjoy.
Part 2
Clark Kent x female reader
Sinopsis: Working as an illustrator and editor at the Daily Planet, you spend your days drawing Superman so often that his face feels more familiar than it should. What begins as harmless admiration slowly turns into secret late-night sketches hidden inside a private notebook—drawings no one was ever meant to see. But after accidentally losing that notebook to Clark Kent, your shy coworker starts acting strangely around you.
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, Masturbation, Suggestive fantasies, Strong sexual tension, Adult language, Obsessive thoughts
WC: 11,400 words approx.
Your arrival at the Daily Planet had become a little strange. Honestly, if you were being truthful with yourself, your position as an “artist” had changed over time without you fully noticing it. Now you were an “editor,” though not the kind of editor who corrected articles line by line, making sure every comma was perfectly in place. That was never your thing. You were more like the person who had boosted the Daily Planet’s traffic after presenting that incredibly well-made report suggesting the newspaper redesign its website structure. You proposed making it more eye-catching, easier to navigate, and more adapted to the technology that advanced day after day. You talked about adding infographics, more interactive options for readers, and you even met with a college friend who knew programming to pitch the idea of creating a Planet news app for phones. Even so, Perry White, the boss, believed that when there wasn’t someone designing an illustration of a fire, or a new building that would become Metropolis’ newest attraction, or a drawing of Superman, then the newspaper lost part of its essence, even online. It was exhausting work, yes, because sometimes you had a thousand things to do at once, but if you were honest, your true passion had always been drawing, and that was what made you happiest.
You had notebooks with worn-out pages, the kind that felt soft to the touch because you had opened them so many times. Inside them, you had captured landscapes from your travels, the faces of strangers you found interesting on the subway, animals you spotted in the street while walking to work. It was an art you never intended to let go of, because drawing was like breathing to you. So having a job as an illustrator, even while doing other things at the Planet, felt perfect. You wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
Perry usually asked you to draw Superman. It was always Superman. Superman from the waist up for an opinion piece, Superman flying above the buildings, Superman standing in the middle of Metropolis, Superman stopping a plane from falling apart midair. That happened whenever Jimmy Olsen failed to capture his essence with the camera. You would simply watch the news footage that recorded the moment, pause the image at the exact second, and sketch that frame for the article. Done. That was your job whenever something important happened. Somehow, drawing Superman so many times in that heroic suit with the enormous S across his chest, with his strong and calm face, made you feel as though you knew him without actually knowing him. You knew how his lips curved when he smiled, how his hair fell over his forehead, how his muscles showed beneath the blue fabric. You had drawn him so many times that he felt almost familiar, even though you had only seen him in person once during an interview Lois Lane conducted.
“He’s ridiculously sexy,” Sam said, laughing while staring at your iPad.
Sam was one of your closest friends. She documented fashion shows in Metropolis and sometimes traveled abroad to cover international events. Occasionally, you illustrated for her because she insisted fashion should be captured in drawings, not just photographs, that brushstrokes held something cameras could never truly catch. You laughed at her comment because, deep down, you knew she was right. You looked at your iPad screen, where you had just finished the final adjustments for tomorrow’s article. There was your drawing of Superman, detailed down to the smallest feature, along with the edits prepared for both the website and the physical newspapers sent to print every night.
“No wonder Perry’s been in such a good mood today,” Cat Grant said as she walked by with a coffee mug in hand, stopping the moment she noticed the drawing. “Look at those shoulders,” Cat added, pointing at the screen with her finger.
You looked at your drawing while Sam held the iPad in her hands, admiring it like a work of art.
“Right?” Sam said with a grin stretching from ear to ear. “If I had your drawing skills, I would’ve already created every single scenario I’ve imagined with Superman and locked myself in my room for an entire week,” she admitted shamelessly.
Cat laughed when she noticed your cheeks turning bright red. You couldn’t believe the things they were saying, but you also couldn’t deny you’d thought something similar more than once.
“No… that’s… unprofessional, isn’t it?” you said, though your voice sounded more like a question than a statement. “I mean, wouldn’t that count as some kind of crime or something?” you added, feeling slightly guilty just for imagining it.
“Unprofessional? Please,” Cat said, shaking her head. “Thousands of people on Pinterest do that all the time. They call it fanart. I would’ve done the same years ago if I knew how to draw like that,” she said before taking a sip from her mug.
“Actually,” Leslie chimed in, your editing assistant, who had been listening from behind her desk before approaching, “I would’ve drawn myself next to Superman, holding onto his arm. That would make a pretty incredible thing to hang on a wall,” Leslie said with a knowing laugh.
Everyone laughed, and you felt yourself relax a little. Apparently, you weren’t the only one.
When everyone left to gather their things and finish up the last tasks before heading home, you stayed alone at your desk. You picked up your iPad and looked at Superman’s face. It was a half-body portrait, his face looking straight ahead, and you realized just how well you knew his features. His broad shoulders, his powerful chest, the sharp line of his jaw. You had only seen him once in person, during that interview Lois held on a rooftop terrace. You watched him from afar, hidden behind a column, your cheeks red as tomatoes. You remembered that he looked at you for a second, just a brief instant, and your stomach twisted like you’d been thrown onto a roller coaster. Of course he was a man with presence; there was no denying that. And you couldn’t lie to yourself either: sometimes your hands wanted to draw Superman without the suit, just in regular clothes, or with even less clothing, but you always told yourself that would be unprofessional. Now that you knew other people—or several other people—had the exact same thoughts, maybe you could draw him without guilt. Maybe.
Your breathing caught slightly at the thought. You looked at your notebook with the worn pages, the one you always carried with you, and carefully picked it up. You packed everything into your bag: the iPad, your pencils, the charger, the notebook. You slung the bag over your shoulder, but before leaving, you scheduled the next day’s posts and triple-checked everything because that was who you were: careful, organized, professional.
You walked toward the elevator with your mind somewhere else, thinking about lines and shadows and muscles. You were so distracted that when you stepped inside, the doors were already slowly closing, and you didn’t notice someone approaching behind you.
“I’m going down too,” you heard a voice say just as the gap between the doors narrowed.
Your eyes widened instantly, and the moment you reacted, you pressed the “open doors” button. The doors stopped and slid open again. And when they did, you saw Clark Kent standing there. He looked slightly hunched as always, his gaze lowered toward the floor, almost as if he’d been saddened by the thought that you’d left him behind. Or maybe he thought you ignored him on purpose. No… you knew Clark. He’d been your coworker for years. You knew he was clumsy and shy and always bumping into tables. But everyone in the office said his destiny was tied to Lois Lane’s, that they were meant for each other. Then you remembered you were about to go home and draw Superman, the very same man Clark had interviewed countless times, the same man who seemed so completely different from Clark in every possible way.
“I’m sorry,” you said quickly, feeling a little guilty for leaving him out. “I was distracted, I didn’t see you coming. I’ve had a thousand things on my mind at once and didn’t realize you were back there. Sorry.”
“No… I’m sorry… yeah,” Clark said, nodding several times in a row as though agreeing with something he hadn’t fully said out loud. He adjusted his glasses with his finger, something he always did whenever he got nervous. Then he stepped into the elevator and stood beside you, leaving a polite amount of space between you.
The doors closed, and the elevator slowly began to descend.
You smiled and looked forward again, watching the numbers change on the screen. You hesitated. Was what you were thinking appropriate? Absolutely not. But you had imagined it, of course you had, even before your coworkers planted the idea in your head. And now you couldn’t stop thinking about it while Clark stood right next to you.
“How was your day?” Clark’s voice interrupted your thoughts. You looked up at him, and the moment he met your gaze, he blushed immediately. Or maybe it was just the warm yellow light inside the elevator. But his cheeks were definitely pink.
“Exhausting,” you answered with a tired sigh. “I edited everything that’s going out tomorrow. But it’s all ready now, so I don’t have to worry about it until morning.” You paused before adding, “I heard Lois is interviewing the president tomorrow. And you’re interviewing Superman, right?”
Clark looked at you with wide eyes behind his glasses, as though he couldn’t believe you paid attention to the things he did.
“You know about that?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. Like it was some secret only he knew.
“Well… Perry mentioned it this morning during the meeting, and everyone’s been talking about it in the break room,” you replied, not understanding why he seemed so shocked. It was public knowledge around the office.
“Right… right, that’s true,” Clark said, looking away and pushing his glasses up again with his finger. He swallowed and fell silent.
Once again, uncomfortable silence settled between the two of you. But your thoughts drifted elsewhere again. Muscles. Superman was incredibly strong; that much was obvious. He had to be perfectly built beneath that suit. You could already imagine the drawing in your notebook, the lines of his back, the curve of his arms. You sighed without realizing it, a deep sigh Clark definitely heard. How tall was Superman exactly? He was certainly taller than you; you knew that much because when you saw him in person, you’d had to tilt your head back to look at him properly. But how tall exactly? Then you glanced sideways at Clark and noticed his height. He was very tall, much taller than the other men in the office. You should compare his height to Superman’s. They were probably the same height, or close to it. You looked at him again discreetly, but you’d seen photos of Lois and Superman together, and Lois was fairly short. When Clark walked beside Lois, he looked just as tall next to her. When you glanced sideways once more, he was looking at you too. Both of you looked away at the same time. Clark’s cheeks turned red as an apple.
“How tall are you, Clark?” you suddenly asked before you could stop yourself.
Clark looked at you in confusion, frowning slightly.
“Why do you want to know that?” he asked.
“Curiosity,” you admitted with a shrug. “Just curiosity. I’ve always wondered how tall you are.”
“I… well, I think the last time I checked, I was around six foot three, I think,” he said as though recalling something from years ago. He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up slightly. “It’s been a while since I measured myself, honestly. But around that.”
“Oh,” you said, your mind instantly making calculations. Superman was probably the same height. How strange. You stared at the floor for a moment, and Clark kept looking at you as though expecting you to say more, something that never came. Then the elevator doors opened on the ground floor.
“Goodnight, Clark,” you said without waiting another second.
You stepped out of the elevator quickly, your heart beating slightly harder than usual. You didn’t turn around to see whether he stayed watching you or followed behind you. You kept walking toward the building’s exit, toward the cold streets of Metropolis, and made your way home without rushing, though not exactly calmly either. Your thoughts were filled with muscles and measurements and how you would draw that night.
When you arrived at your building, you took the elevator up again, reached your floor, and once you were finally inside your apartment, you put everything in order for the next day. You hung up your jacket, put away your shoes, and set your bag on the dining chair. But you didn’t place your notebook or pencil back into the drawer like you usually did. You were going to need them tonight. You changed into your soft, comfortable pajamas—the ones covered in little stars—and before locking yourself in your room, you grabbed a large glass of water from the kitchen because you knew you’d get thirsty while drawing. Then you went straight to your bedroom, specifically to your desk, your chair, the place where you had drawn ever since moving into that apartment.
You loved drawing. You loved it with all your heart. Even when editing was involved, you first created sketches in your worn notebook before transferring them to your iPad apps for the final touches—color, lighting, shadows, everything. But tonight you weren’t going to use the iPad. Tonight you would use your pencil and notebook, just like when you first started, and you were going to take your time. You opened the notebook to a blank page, rested the pencil against the paper, and closed your eyes for a moment.
You decided to draw Superman in the middle pages. Nothing unusual at first. Just ordinary Superman, little Superman logos here and there, things you’d drawn a thousand times before, especially because you were still hesitant. You weren’t sure how far you wanted to go tonight. But once the first page filled with logos and Superman in different poses, you looked at the next blank page and sighed. Without thinking too hard, you drew his face, just like always, knowing him in a way that surprised even you. You traced his firm jawline, his lips that you always sketched slightly curved as though he were on the verge of smiling, that curl falling over his forehead that never seemed capable of staying perfectly in place. Then you moved down to his neck, broad and strong, and you knew the next step should’ve been drawing the cape and the suit, the way you always did.
But it wasn’t.
Your hands moved on their own, almost without your permission. You drew his shoulders, wide and rounded, but without the fabric of the suit covering them. You outlined them like bare skin, giving them a soft yet firm contour, as though you could feel the warmth of those shoulders simply by looking at them on paper. Then came his chest, and imagining it made your pupils dilate slightly. Placing your hands there had to be… an entirely new sensation, you told yourself, smiling with a flushed face. Then you drew his pectorals, sharply defined, as though he’d spent endless hours training. You imagined how they would look under the light, how they would move with each breath. Then you moved lower, and you knew you were reaching his hips. You knew that going any farther would bring you dangerously close to a place that made your cheeks burn red. You stopped right there. Took a breath. Started another drawing.
You made several sketches in different poses. In one, you drew him with his head tilted slightly, as though he were watching something with interest, wearing that deep gaze only he possessed. In another, his hair was messy, as though Superman could sweat after a difficult fight. You added droplets sliding down his bare abdomen, glistening, while his fingers brushed over his own skin as though teasing, as though he were playing with someone. Then you drew another pose where you almost went lower than his lower abdomen, and you had to put the pencil down for a moment because it felt like the air had left your lungs.
Then, in the seventh drawing, he was no longer alone.
There was a waist. Nothing more at first, just a woman’s waist with Superman’s hands resting on it, squeezing gently. In the next drawing, it wasn’t only a waist anymore. There was wavy brown hair falling down someone’s back. Coincidentally, that hair looked identical to yours. You stared at it and couldn’t deny it. It was coincidence, wasn’t it? Just coincidence. Then came a nose, a mouth, the woman slowly taking shape beneath your fingers on the page, and you knew perfectly well it was you. You sighed as you looked at the lines. It was a drawing of yourself. His fingers so large, so firm, pressing into your waist as though he never wanted to let go. Your hands resting against his bare chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath your palms. Your mouth slightly parted, his the same, both of you desperate, so close to one another you could almost feel warmth radiating from the paper itself.
Then you drew another one. Another pose. The same scene but with sharper, more intense features. Your blouse clinging tightly to your skin, so tightly that you sketched your breasts pressed against him without any space between you. His hand beneath your chin, lifting it as though he wanted you to kiss him, and his other hand on your waist, but higher now, nearly at the middle of your back. Then you stopped. Your legs pressed together uncontrollably. Your breathing became uneven, short and quick. You snapped the notebook shut as though you could trap inside it everything you had just drawn.
“Too many drawings,” you muttered aloud before pausing. You closed everything, slipped the notebook into your bag to take to work the next day because you couldn’t leave it at home—you still needed to finish the building illustration Perry had requested. You went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on your face again and again, trying to stop thinking about those lines, those hands, that gaze. You sighed at your reflection in the mirror and decided it was finally time to sleep. But sleeping turned into an entire mission on its own.
You climbed into bed, turned off the lights, and closed your eyes. But your mind refused to quiet down. You tossed and turned repeatedly, thinking about the drawings, the lines you created, the way his abdomen looked beneath the imagined light, how it would feel to have his hands on your waist for real. Hours passed like that, staring at the dark ceiling while listening to cars driving far below. And only when exhaustion finally overtook you, when your eyelids could no longer stay open, were you able to rest. You slept without dreaming, or at least without remembering the dreams once morning came.
The next morning, you woke up with sunlight pouring through the window. You barely remembered the drawings, only a distant echo in your mind, like a dream fading away beneath daylight. You showered with hot water to wake yourself up properly, ate toast with jam and a glass of milk for breakfast, changed quickly into the first clothes you found in your closet, and rushed to work with your bag hanging from your shoulder, almost forgetting your keys in the door.
When you arrived at the Daily Planet, the first thing you did was check that everything was running smoothly with that day’s publication. You called the printing company, and they confirmed the newspapers had already been distributed all across Metropolis. You sighed in relief. Then you checked the website—everything was functioning perfectly, the articles were in place, the drawings looked good on every screen. Sam started monitoring the views from her desk, moving numbers and graphs around.
“So far, they’re doing great,” she told you with a thumbs-up.
Then you got to work on a new sketch. According to the email Perry had sent that morning, you needed to create an illustration of a building that would be completed within a month. It was called the Wallers Building. Perry wanted a polished illustration, something that would make people look at it and think, what a beautiful building, I want to visit when it opens—a modern tower with shining stores, something that would keep people excited for its grand opening.
“Here.”
A voice made you look up. It was Clark. He had walked all the way to your desk without you hearing him approach, and now he was placing a steaming cup of coffee beside your keyboard. The smell reached your nose, and you realized you desperately needed it.
“Thanks, Clark,” you said with a smile. “I already told you not to bother. Jimmy’s the one who should feel bad for not getting that picture on time.” You slid your chair slightly to the side and gestured for him to bring his over, the way you sometimes did whenever you wanted to talk for a while.
Clark sat beside you, a little clumsy as always, and his knees bumped against the leg of your desk.
“Oops,” he muttered, adjusting his glasses.
“Well… it’s still my article,” Clark said in that soft, calm voice of his. “I should thank you for finishing it. It turned out really well. Honestly. Perry told me it was one of the best drawings you’ve ever done of Superman.” He paused and glanced at you from the corner of his eye. “What are you working on now?” he asked, but the moment he looked at you directly, his gaze darted quickly toward your computer screen instead.
“The next drawing,” you said, pointing at the half-finished sketch in your notebook. “The Wallers Building. They say it’ll be a huge success once it opens. Perry asked me to draw it so people will already have it in mind before construction is even finished.” You showed him the sketch: a tall tower with large windows and plants hanging from the balconies.
Clark leaned in slightly to get a better look.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “You’re really good at drawing buildings too. Not just people.”
You smiled and closed the notebook to put it away.
And then you went pale.
Because the moment you shut the notebook, you noticed the edges of the pages, and you saw the faint outlines of last night’s drawings. A line here, another there, like they were trying to escape from the paper. Suddenly you remembered everything at once: the pectorals, the sweat drops, the waist, the brown hair, your hands on his chest. You admitted to yourself that bringing the notebook to work had been far too reckless. Far too reckless. Someone could see it. Someone could accidentally open the notebook, flip through the pages, and discover those images you had drawn the night before. Your cheeks heated just thinking about it.
Luckily, Clark hadn’t noticed. He was looking elsewhere now, out the window, with a calm expression on his face. He hadn’t seen anything.
“Are you okay?” Clark asked, turning back toward you. “You suddenly went pale.”
“Yes, yes,” you answered quickly, shoving the notebook deep into your bag and zipping it closed all the way. “Just… too much work. I forgot to eat this morning.”
Clark frowned with concern.
“You should eat something then. Want me to go to the cafeteria and get you something? Maybe a sandwich?”
“No, don’t worry about it,” you said, even though what you actually wanted was for him to leave quickly so you could check whether the drawings were visible from outside the notebook. “I’ll eat later. Thanks for the coffee, really.”
Clark nodded and stood up from the chair, awkward once again.
“Well… if you need anything, let me know,” he said before walking back toward his desk, nearly tripping over a chair along the way but catching himself just in time.
You watched him leave, your heart beating faster than normal. Then you slipped your hand into your bag, touching the notebook through the fabric, and sighed. You had to be more careful. You couldn’t let anyone see those drawings. No one. Especially not Clark, who worked so closely with Superman.
When the day finally ended, you stretched like a cat waking from a long nap. Your arms extended toward the ceiling, and your shoulders cracked softly from spending so much time sitting in front of the computer. You packed your belongings slowly: pencils into their case, charger into the front pocket, headphones neatly wrapped. But you left the notebook for last. You held it in your hands instead of putting it away, almost afraid you’d arrive home and somehow not find it, as if someone might steal it along the way. You preferred carrying it yourself, feeling the weight of the pages in your hands, making sure it was still there.
As you approached the exit, you passed by Clark’s desk like you always did. It had become a habit over the past few months, though you had never told him why. Maybe you simply liked saying goodbye before heading home. Or maybe you just liked seeing him one last time before he disappeared into the streets of Metropolis. That afternoon, he was gathering papers and organizing them with his large, clumsy hands, stacking them into a folder beside him. He looked focused, his brow slightly furrowed behind his glasses.
“New investigation?” you asked, leaning lightly against the edge of his desk.
Clark looked startled, as though he hadn’t heard you approach. His shoulders tensed, and his cheeks instantly turned pink.
“Yeah,” he answered quickly, nodding several times, almost like a child caught doing something he shouldn’t. He stuffed the papers into the folder and shut it firmly.
“Heading home now?” he asked, looking at you over the top of his glasses. His eyes seemed wider than usual, like he was waiting for your answer with too much anticipation.
But before you could reply, you heard quick footsteps behind you. Sam and Cat rushed over, pointing toward the television playing in the corner of the room. It was the last TV still turned on, and someone would shut it off once everyone had gone home. Clark used the distraction to take a drink from his water bottle, shifting his gaze toward the screen.
“That’s exactly what I was talking about,” Sam said excitedly, pointing insistently at the television.
You looked closer at the screen and realized they were airing a Superman story. But it wasn’t new. It was from the previous week, footage you had already seen before, from the fight where he faced some massive enemy that appeared out of nowhere and destroyed everything in its path. During the fight, the creature had ripped Superman’s suit along his side, exposing part of his abdomen—defined, tan, and firm. The footage replayed the moment in slow motion over and over again, like the news station knew exactly what it was doing. You watched without fully understanding why Sam seemed so excited.
“That tear where the enemy ripped his suit makes women imagine way too many things, doesn’t it?” Sam said, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow with a mischievous grin.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Leslie added, appearing behind Cat while narrowing her eyes at the television. “Life is so unfair. If the tear had gone just a little lower, I’m sure my boss here would’ve had no choice but to draw what Superman’s hiding under that suit.” Leslie laughed and looked toward Cat and Sam, who nodded in total agreement.
You blushed at the exact same moment Clark choked on his water.
But it wasn’t a small cough. It was violent, almost making him spit the water out completely. Some of it splashed across his carefully organized papers, and he dropped the bottle, which rolled across the desk before falling onto the floor with a loud thud. You turned immediately at the sound and saw him with cheeks red as tomatoes, coughing while trying to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Clark!” you exclaimed, crouching beside him to help gather everything.
The wet papers had scattered across the floor. Some were soaked, others luckily untouched. You picked them up one by one, careful not to tear them, handing them back to Clark as you gathered them. He accepted them without looking at you, his hands trembling slightly. Once you’d collected them all, you searched for something he could use to clean his glasses, which had also been splashed. You found a tissue in your pocket and offered it to him.
“Your glasses,” you said with a small nod toward them, but he didn’t look at you. Instead, he turned away and wiped them with his sleeve, giving you his back.
When he turned around again, he grabbed the papers from your hands quickly, almost snatching them away, and looked elsewhere immediately. You didn’t understand what was happening. He was acting strange, even more nervous than usual, and Clark was always nervous. But this felt different. You didn’t understand any of it, though you decided not to ask. The other girls were already walking toward the elevator together, laughing among themselves, and you followed after them. Clark came behind everyone else, holding his briefcase in one hand and the damp papers pressed against his chest with the other.
“Are you okay?” you whispered once you ended up standing at the very back of the elevator, directly behind him while the doors closed.
“Yeah,” Clark replied, his voice slightly rough. “Just swallowed wrong. The water went down the wrong way.”
You nodded, though you weren’t entirely convinced.
The ride down passed in silence. Once you reached the lobby, you waved goodbye to everyone—Sam, Cat, Leslie, the rest of the employees heading out. Clark lingered a step behind, staring at the floor. You smiled and wished everyone goodnight before heading home through the streets of Metropolis without any trouble at first. One by one, the city lights flickered on as evening settled in, and the air smelled faintly of street food and car engines.
You walked slowly with your hands tucked into your jacket pockets, thinking about what you had just seen on television. Superman with the ripped suit along his side, that firm abdomen, that hard muscle beneath tan skin shining under the midday sunlight. Your cheeks flushed red just remembering it. You could draw more, you thought. You could draw so much more. Tonight, once you got home, you could open the notebook again and let your hands do whatever they wanted. You didn’t have to feel guilty anymore, right? Nobody would ever see it.
Though maybe it would be smarter to tear those pages out of the notebook and use a different sketchbook entirely. That way no one would risk finding them. You could rip them out and hide them somewhere in your apartment—under the mattress, inside a locked drawer, anywhere no one else would ever discover them. Just for yourself. That would be safest.
When you looked down at your hands, you realized you weren’t holding the notebook.
You went pale. Your heart shot straight into your throat. You assumed it was in your bag because it was always there—it was your most precious possession. But then you remembered you’d carried it in your hands from your desk all the way to the elevator. For a moment, you thought maybe you’d left it back at the Planet on your desk, but no, you clearly remembered having it with you. Then you looked at your hands again. Empty. You yanked your bag open and shoved your hand inside. Nothing. You dug through everything: the pencil case, charger, headphones, a pack of gum, your keys. Nothing. The notebook was gone. You didn’t have it because you’d waved goodbye with one hand while the other held your bag—but the notebook… the notebook required one free hand to carry, and you couldn’t remember holding it after leaving the elevator.
Then you thought about Clark.
Clark Kent had choked on his water, of course he had. Papers had fallen everywhere, some wet, and you crouched to help him gather everything. You handed him every paper you picked up from the floor. The tissue for his glasses. And the notebook. Your notebook. In the chaos, while rushing to gather everything before everyone left, it must have mixed with his papers without either of you noticing. You handed him everything from the floor, and he accepted it without looking, his hands trembling. Your notebook had been among those papers.
You went even paler, if that was possible. Your hands started trembling violently. You yanked your phone from your pocket so fast you nearly dropped it. You tried retracing your steps, but you’d already walked several blocks away. You didn’t know what to do. You looked around desperately for a taxi, but naturally, none were passing. The streets were too quiet. You knew where Clark lived because once, you had accompanied Jimmy to pick up something from his apartment when Clark claimed he was sick. You remembered the address, the building, the apartment number. You could walk there, but it was far—too far—and if you ran, you’d arrive breathless and drenched in sweat.
Your hands shook harder. You opened your phone, found Clark’s contact, and called once. The phone rang once, twice, three times. Voicemail. You hung up and called again. Voicemail. Again. Voicemail. Every time you heard the automated recording, it felt like the ground beneath your feet sank a little deeper.
Then the taxi appeared.
It seemed to come out of nowhere, like a miracle in the middle of the empty sidewalk. You raised your hand immediately, barely thinking, and the car stopped right in front of you. You climbed in without hesitation, gave Clark’s address in a shaky voice, and once the taxi lurched forward, you pulled out your phone again, your hands still trembling. One message after another spilled out without pause, your fingers moving on their own across the screen.
“Clark you took my notebook,” you sent first, immediately realizing it sounded harsher than you intended, but it didn’t matter.
Right after that, without giving him time to respond, you typed: “Please don’t open it.” Your fingers were damp against the glass screen. Then: “I have private things in there.” The moment you pressed send, regret hit you. It sounded suspicious, like you were hiding something terrible. So quickly, trying to cover yourself, you added: “I have my credit card numbers and passwords written in it.” A lie, obviously, but a believable one. Anyone would understand not wanting someone to see that kind of information.
The taxi turned a corner, and there it was: traffic. Endless rows of stopped cars, glowing red brake lights, distant honking. It had to be a joke from the universe, right when you needed to get there quickly. You pressed your forehead against the window and closed your eyes for a second, trying to breathe deeply. It didn’t help. You called again. Once. Twice. Three times. Clark didn’t answer. Every ring felt like another stab twisting into your stomach.
Your pulse was erratic, swinging wildly between too fast and too slow, like your heart didn’t know what to do with so much panic. Imagining Clark opening that notebook made you feel physically sick. Clark, who knew Superman. Clark, your coworker who had always been kind to you, who brought you coffee without being asked, who blushed whenever you spoke to him. He would think you were a pervert. A lunatic. Someone wildly unprofessional who spent her nights drawing things she shouldn’t. The shame burned inside you like fire.
When you looked out the window and realized there were only two blocks left, you couldn’t wait anymore. Traffic hadn’t moved at all. The cars were completely stuck.
“Let me out here,” you told the driver, throwing cash at him without waiting for change, without even checking how much you handed over.
You jumped out of the taxi, nearly tripping on the curb, and started running. Two long blocks filled with parked cars, glowing streetlights, and strangers staring at you like you were insane. Your bag slammed against your hip while air tore in and out of your lungs like you’d just finished a marathon.
You reached Clark’s building and yanked open the front door. You took the elevator, pressing the button for the fifth floor over and over as though that would somehow make the doors close faster. You watched the numbers climb on the screen. Fifth floor. Right. That was it. The moment the doors opened, you practically sprinted down the hallway until you reached his apartment door—the same one Jimmy had knocked on that day you both came together. You recognized it from the small scratch in the wood and the slightly crooked doormat.
You rang the doorbell while knocking against the door with your knuckles at the same time, breathing hard, unable to stay still. Your heartbeat thundered in your ears.
Then the door opened.
You froze the moment you saw Clark. His hair was damp and pushed back, tiny droplets of water still sliding down the side of his neck. He wore a gray long-sleeved shirt and black pants, simple but comfortable, like casual sleepwear. He looked freshly out of the shower—or maybe the bath. That’s why he hadn’t answered his phone, you realized. That’s why he ignored the messages. You looked at him, and despite the panic and embarrassment, your cheeks turned red instantly because you couldn’t deny he looked good.
“Hi,” Clark said with a small smile, tilting his head slightly like a puppy recognizing its owner.
“You accidentally took my notebook, Clark,” you blurted out, the words rushing out faster than you intended. Then you took a breath, trying to calm yourself before adding, “Hi.” You bit your lip nervously without noticing.
Clark’s eyes widened slightly, like he had only just understood the situation. He ran a hand through his damp hair and nodded.
“Oh, right. I realized when I got home,” he said calmly—far too calmly. “I put it in my bag so I could give it back to you tomorrow at the office. I didn’t realize you needed it that urgently.”
He turned around and walked deeper into the apartment, leaving the door open behind him. You stayed frozen in the doorway, too nervous to step inside. You wanted to go home. You wanted to run away again. But fear rooted you in place. You couldn’t leave without that notebook in your hands. You just couldn’t. So you waited there, fingers gripping your bag tightly while listening to his footsteps disappear and then return.
Clark came back holding the notebook.
He offered it to you with that awkward little smile of his, and you grabbed it like a recovered treasure. Relief rushed through you so intensely it almost escaped as a moan. You clutched it against your chest, feeling the familiar weight of the pages and the rough texture of the worn cover. It was there. Everything was fine.
“I should’ve called you,” Clark said, guilt written across his face. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d worry this much.”
“You…” You swallowed hard because the question felt dangerous, but you needed to ask it anyway. “Did you open the notebook?”
Clark stared at you for a second that felt endless. His blue eyes behind the glasses didn’t blink.
“No,” he said.
You nodded with a relieved smile, feeling the weight of the world fall from your shoulders. Suddenly you felt lighter, calmer, like you had been holding your breath for hours and could finally exhale.
“Good… I… thank you,” you said, your voice no longer shaking as badly. “And sorry for showing up like this, out of nowhere, without warning. I just panicked. But it’s fine now. I’m going home. Bye, Clark.”
You walked away down the hallway without looking back, clutching the notebook tightly against your chest along with your bag. This time, you walked toward the elevator more calmly, no longer running, feeling like the night had finally returned to normal.
When you got home, you locked the door behind you as though someone were chasing you. You tossed your bag onto the couch and pulled out the notebook Clark had returned. You held it in your hands for a moment, staring at the cover like you could somehow see through it. Your fingers still trembled slightly. You opened the notebook halfway and flipped through it page by page, slowly and carefully.
They were all there.
Every drawing. Half-body Superman. Flying Superman. Small Superman logos. Defined muscles. Then you reached the middle pages, the drawings from the night before. The abdomen with sweat drops. The wandering hands. The waist with fingers digging into it. Your face. Your parted lips. You sighed in relief so deeply your chest almost hurt. Everything was still there. Nothing was missing. Clark hadn’t seen anything.
But you couldn’t keep doing this. You couldn’t continue carrying that notebook everywhere with those drawings hidden inside it. Someone else could see them, not just Clark. Sam, who was curious and always grabbed your things without asking. Perry, who sometimes borrowed your notebook to check your sketches. Anyone at the office. So you decided to tear the pages out.
Carefully, you removed each page containing those drawings. Shirtless Superman. The abdomen. The sweat drops. The hands. You tore them out gently but firmly, enjoying the crisp sound of paper separating from the notebook. Then you folded the pages in half and slipped them into a large envelope from your desk drawer. Afterward, you went into the kitchen, found one of those white adhesive labels you used to organize your things, and wrote clearly across it:
“Private drawings.”
You stuck the label onto the envelope and hid it beneath your mattress, deep enough that nobody would ever think to look there.
Then you picked up the notebook again. You grabbed another label and wrote:
“Daily Planet Notebook.”
You stuck it directly onto the cover, right in the center where it would be impossible to miss. That way you would never make the same mistake again. The work notebook was only for work drawings. The other one—the real one, the one you had named “Superman Notebook”—was only for you. For your thoughts. For your fantasies.
You felt calmer after that.
You drank an entire glass of water in one go, then finally went to bed without overthinking it anymore.
But Clark would never tell you that. Never tell you the truth.
Clark would never admit that he opened your notebook out of pure curiosity. He always looked at your drawings, even if you never noticed. Whenever you were focused, your head tilted slightly down, your tongue peeking between your lips, he simply couldn’t help himself. He loved watching you like that, so absorbed in your work, so dedicated. It was one of his favorite parts of the day. So when he got home that night, after you left, he sat down on the couch in his living room and let out a long sigh. He arranged the damp papers across the coffee table, the ones he had picked up from the floor, and while organizing them, his eyes landed on your notebook. He had taken it by accident, mixed in with his own papers. A smile tugged at his lips. How clumsy of him. Well, he would just return it to you at the office tomorrow.
He picked it up and opened it without thinking, almost instinctively, while settling back against the sofa cushions. He only wanted to take a quick look, just for a second, to see how far you had gotten with the Wallers Building sketch you showed him before leaving. He liked looking at your art. He liked the way you drew Superman’s features over and over again with such detail, such precision. And still, after all those drawings, you never suspected Superman was him. That you were drawing him without knowing it. That every line you traced along that face, those shoulders, that chest, belonged to his face, his shoulders, his chest.
He smiled again, warmth blooming quietly in his chest. He flipped through the first few pages filled with normal Superman sketches, tiny logos, poses you already knew by heart. Then came the Daily Planet notes, headline ideas, infographic concepts. He adjusted himself more comfortably on the couch, feet resting on the coffee table, and kept flipping through the pages.
Then he searched for the Wallers Building sketch. He wanted to see how much progress you’d made since showing it to him earlier.
He turned one page.
Then another.
And the moment he reached the next one, his eyes widened.
It was Superman shirtless.
Not the usual Superman in the blue suit and red cape. It was Superman bare-chested, every muscle carefully defined, the abdomen carved into the kind of perfect lines magazines obsessed over. The drawing was so detailed it almost looked like a photograph. Every shadow, every curve, every line of his body was there on the page with such accuracy that it stole Clark’s breath away.
He swallowed hard.
His fingers trembled slightly as he turned the page.
More drawings.
Superman with his head tilted, wearing an intense expression. Superman with messy hair and drops of sweat sliding down his abdomen, as though he had just come out of a brutal fight. Superman with his fingers brushing over his own chest in a pose that wasn’t heroic, wasn’t noble, but something else entirely.
Something intimate.
Something forbidden.
Then he reached the third page.
Superman holding a woman’s waist.
Her face wasn’t visible yet, only her hands tangled in the fabric of a shirt. Clark felt heat spread along the back of his neck. He turned the page again.
And there you were.
Your face, completely recognizable. Your features, your nose, your parted lips, your wavy brown hair spilling over your shoulders. His fingers traced over the drawing carefully, almost afraid to touch it, like he could somehow feel your skin through the paper.
Then he turned the page again.
The same drawing.
But more detailed.
Much more detailed.
His large hands were buried against your waist, gripping the fabric of your blouse. Your shirt clung tightly to your body, enough to reveal the curve of your waist, the shape of your hips, and your breasts pressed firmly against his bare chest. Your nipples strained faintly beneath the fabric, and even though it was only a drawing, Clark could imagine it perfectly. Your hand rested against his chest, fingers slightly spread as though you were caressing him. His other hand tilted your chin upward, like he wanted you to kiss him. Your eyes looked bright and dark with desire. His lips were parted too, ready to meet yours.
The entire drawing radiated need.
Urgency.
Desperation.
And Clark felt all the blood in his body rush downward.
A hard ache formed beneath his pants, impossible to ignore. He grew hard seeing you like that, seeing you drawn with him, with Superman. He imagined you drawing it. Imagined your hands moving the pencil across the page, slowly creating that image. He imagined whether you had pushed your shirt up while sketching him, whether you had touched yourself while drawing him. He could imagine your bare skin. Your naked breasts pressed against him without fabric between you. Your hardened nipples brushing against his chest. Your warm breath against his neck.
A rough sound escaped his throat before he realized it.
His hand moved on its own.
It dropped toward his lap, pressing against the hardness beneath his pants. No… was this right? he thought. You were his coworker. The woman who drew Superman without knowing he was the man beneath the cape. Someone he respected. Someone he admired. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t sit there aroused, staring at your drawings like they were something filthy.
But he couldn’t stop.
He stood from the couch abruptly and crossed the apartment toward his bedroom. He locked the door behind him, twisting the lock until he heard the click. As though someone could walk in. As though you could somehow appear there out of nowhere. Then he crossed to the window and shut the blinds completely, pulling the heavy curtains closed.
No one could see him.
No one could know what he was about to do.
He sat on the edge of the bed with the notebook open beside him on the most detailed drawing, his erection straining painfully beneath his pants. His cock throbbed, hard and hot, the skin stretched tight and sensitive. He freed himself from his clothes and sighed at the feeling alone.
Your drawings were everything he had forbidden himself from imagining about you.
He had denied himself thoughts like these countless times. At the office, whenever you leaned over your desk and your blouse shifted open slightly, he forced himself to look away. When you laughed with Sam and tipped your head back, exposing your neck, he bit down on his tongue to stop himself from staring. But having those drawings there in front of him, seeing you wrapped around him, pressed against him, wanting him—
It made him close his eyes while his hand finally moved.
Up and down.
Up and down.
The rhythm started slow, almost hesitant.
Then faster.
More desperate.
His breathing turned heavy and uneven. The image of you wouldn’t leave his mind. Your parted lips. Your shining eyes. The outline of your breasts beneath your blouse. His fingers dug into your waist.
He could imagine you moaning his name.
Imagine your back arching against him.
And by the time he reached the edge, the final sound torn from his throat was your name. A rough whisper, almost pleading. Your name spilled from his lips as release overtook him, white streaking across his hand and part of his shirt while his entire body tensed sharply. He came once, then again, trembling through it, mouth open in a silent groan before finally collapsing backward onto the bed, chest rising and falling heavily, his hand sticky and warm.
He snapped the notebook shut immediately afterward, like he could trap the guilt inside it.
Then he stood with shaky legs and disappeared into the bathroom to clean himself up. He turned on the hot water and scrubbed his hands again and again until nothing remained on his skin. Afterward, he stepped into the shower, letting the water pour down his back and over his hair, washing away every trace of what he had just done.
When he finished showering, the shame had dulled slightly, though embarrassment still lingered beneath his skin. Embarrassed that he had lost control. Embarrassed that he had used your drawings that way without your permission.
He sighed quietly while drying his hair with a towel, running it through the damp strands over and over again.
Then his phone buzzed on the nightstand.
He picked it up and finally saw your unread messages.
“Clark you took my notebook.”
“Please don’t open it.”
“I have private things in there.”
“I have my credit card numbers and passwords written in it.”
You were coming.
You would arrive at his apartment at any moment.
Panic surged through his chest instantly.
Using the same speed he used to save people, he changed into his pajamas in less than a second: gray shirt, black pants, simple and normal. Then his eyes landed on your notebook where he had left it on the bed. He picked it up carefully—very carefully—and found the final drawing again.
The most detailed one.
The one that had driven him into sin.
His hands still trembling slightly, he tore the page from the notebook, wincing at the sound of ripping paper because it seemed deafeningly loud in the silence of the room. He folded the page in half and hid it deep inside his drawer beneath stacks of papers where nobody would ever find it.
Then he slipped your notebook into his work bag, the same one he carried to the office every day. That way, he could pretend he intended to return it tomorrow morning.
Like nothing had happened.
Like he had never opened it.
Like he had never seen anything at all.
You would never realize one drawing was missing.
Between the panic and your nerves, you didn’t notice when you tore the pages out at home. Maybe you counted wrong. Maybe fear convinced you they were all there. But the most detailed drawing—the one showing your breasts beneath the fabric, his hand beneath your chin, your shining eyes—
That one was no longer inside the envelope hidden beneath your mattress.
That drawing now rested at the very bottom of Clark Kent’s drawer.
Clark couldn’t stop staring at you during the following days.
Whenever you turned toward him, he would look away too quickly, cheeks turning pink while thoughts of you, the drawings, and that night in his apartment flooded his mind again. He sighed constantly, as though he carried something heavy inside his chest. And maybe he had developed a new habit too: every night before bed, he opened his drawer and looked at the drawing he had kept—the most detailed one, the one of the two of you wrapped in each other’s arms—with a stupid little smile he simply couldn’t wipe off his face.
You noticed none of it.
Not really.
You continued on normally, doing your work, sketching buildings and landscapes and Superman whenever Perry asked for him. Maybe you noticed Clark blushing sometimes, but Clark always blushed, you thought. It was part of him, like the glasses and the clumsiness. Sometimes you saw him returning from the bathroom with flushed cheeks and slightly damp hair, like he had splashed water on his face, but you barely paid attention.
And maybe, just maybe, Clark wished you actually would notice.
He wanted you to ask him why he stared at you so much. Why he always hovered close to you. Why he got nervous whenever you smiled at him.
But you were so distracted, so lost in your world of lines and colors, that you never saw what stood directly in front of you.
“It’s only three pieces of furniture,” Jimmy said one afternoon, appearing at your desk with a huge grin while leaning both hands against the edge like he was about to share a secret.
You looked up from your iPad, confused.
“And why does that involve me?” you asked, frowning slightly. You didn’t understand why Jimmy looked so excited.
“Come help us. Lois is bringing pizza, which means you’ll eat for free,” Jimmy said, wiggling his eyebrows like he was offering you the greatest deal in the world.
You thought about the free pizza. You had spent the entire week eating sandwiches at your desk because you never had time to go to the cafeteria. The idea of a hot slice sounded heavenly.
You smiled.
“Fine,” you said, locking your iPad. “But only for the pizza.”
Jimmy laughed and slapped your shoulder lightly. “That’s my girl,” he said proudly, like the two of you were longtime partners in crime.
Jimmy was a good friend. You had worked together for years. But his insistence felt strange this time. Usually he hired movers for things like this, or asked Clark to handle everything himself because he was the strongest one. Maybe, without realizing it, Jimmy had already noticed the way Clark looked at you and was secretly trying to play cupid.
But you couldn’t prove that.
In the end, you agreed with a sigh and slipped your work notebook into your bag. You put on your jacket, said goodbye to the people still working, and followed them through the streets of Metropolis toward Jimmy’s apartment.
When you arrived at Jimmy’s building, the three pieces of furniture were already waiting outside the entrance. According to Jimmy, a delivery truck had dropped them off an hour earlier after he bought them from a same-day delivery store.
There was a massive new couch upholstered in gray fabric, the kind that looked soft enough to fall asleep on while watching television. A tall wooden wardrobe with two mirrored doors. And a white refrigerator, sleek and modern, still wrapped in plastic and cardboard, sitting on the sidewalk like abandoned giants waiting to be claimed.
“Well,” Jimmy said, rubbing his hands together, “we’ve gotta get all of this up to the fifth floor.”
Lois rolled her eyes immediately. She wore a fitted skirt and heels clearly not made for carrying furniture, and the look on her face made it obvious she had no intention of helping.
“I brought the pizza,” Lois declared, lifting the large box in her hands. “My job ends there. I’m going upstairs to unlock the apartment and set the table.”
“But Lois—” Jimmy started.
“Without me,” Lois cut him off while already walking toward the building entrance, her heels clicking sharply against the pavement.
You looked at Jimmy, then Clark, then the furniture.
Clark was already shrugging off his jacket silently, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. His arms looked broad and strong, even though he tried to hide it by hunching his shoulders the way he always did.
“I’m not carrying anything,” you said immediately, raising both hands. “I’m an artist, not a mover. Besides, I’ve got a notebook in my bag and I don’t want it ruined.”
Jimmy sighed dramatically. “Fine, fine. Go upstairs with Lois. We’ll handle it. But at least put on music or something while you wait.”
You smiled and followed Lois inside the building. The elevator was tiny, but there was enough room for both of you. Most of the ride passed in silence until Lois suddenly spoke without even looking at you.
“Clark looked at you again before you left,” she said casually, like she was commenting on the weather.
Heat rushed into your cheeks.
“Clark looks at me all the time,” you answered with a shrug. “That’s just his face.”
Lois laughed softly. “No, it’s not his face. It’s his eyes. And he’s had them on you for a very, very long time.”
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open.
“But hey,” Lois added while stepping out first, “not my problem. I’m just here for the pizza.”
Jimmy’s apartment was small but nice. Large windows overlooked the city, an open kitchen connected to the living room, and a narrow hallway led toward the bedrooms. Moving boxes sat scattered around the floor beside old furniture Jimmy still hadn’t decided whether to keep or throw away.
Lois set the pizza box on the kitchen table and opened it immediately. The smell of melted cheese and tomato sauce filled the apartment within seconds.
Your stomach growled.
“Want some?” Lois asked while reaching for the cutter.
“Yes, please.”
She handed you a huge pepperoni slice, and you sat down at the kitchen table where you could see the window. Lois sat across from you with her own slice, and the two of you ate quietly while listening to the distant noise of the street below and, occasionally, Jimmy’s strained complaints echoing up from downstairs.
Minutes passed.
You finished your first slice and accepted a second without hesitation. From the window you couldn’t see much beyond the entrance below, but you imagined Clark and Jimmy hauling the couch up the stairs, stopping every few flights because Jimmy got tired. Clark, on the other hand, probably could’ve carried it alone without much effort. Maybe a little sweat, but still. He had the build for it.
“How much longer?” Lois muttered mostly to herself.
At that exact moment, heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway. Doors slammed. Jimmy’s exhausted voice rang out:
“Almost there! Don’t fall asleep up there!”
Lois laughed and you did too.
It felt nice. Just sitting there together eating pizza, thinking about nothing serious.
And yet, something kept bothering you.
Clark had been looking at you differently these past few days.
And without meaning to, you had started noticing him more too.
His hands.
His back whenever he bent down.
The way his shirt clung to him when the weather got warm.
“You okay?” Lois asked suddenly, narrowing her eyes at you.
“Yes,” you answered too quickly. “Just tired.”
Lois didn’t reply, but she kept staring at you like she knew you were lying and was waiting for you to confess. You didn’t.
Instead, you stood to grab a glass of water.
That was when you heard the building’s main door downstairs slam open again. Voices followed. Jimmy complaining. Clark saying something low and calm.
You stayed beside the kitchen counter, glass in hand, and peeked toward the doorway without meaning to.
Jimmy appeared first, sweating and red-faced while carrying the back end of the couch. Clark carried the front.
The couch was enormous, yet Clark held it like it weighed no more than a pillow. His arms were tense beneath his rolled sleeves, and strands of hair had begun falling across his forehead.
You stared longer than you intended.
“They’re here,” you murmured.
The two of them carried the couch inside and dropped it into the middle of the living room with a dull thud. Jimmy collapsed onto it immediately, plastic wrap still covering the cushions, breathing like he had just run a marathon.
“That was… only one,” Jimmy wheezed. “Two more to go.”
“The wardrobe and the refrigerator,” Clark added while wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, though honestly you barely saw any sweat at all. One of his shirt buttons had popped open while lifting.
You stared at your water glass.
At the floor.
Anywhere except him.
But it was impossible not to notice him.
He stood only a few feet away, hair messy, the top three buttons of his shirt accidentally undone, looking completely different from how he looked at the office.
Bigger.
More real.
“Do you want water?” you asked suddenly, lifting your glass slightly without even knowing why you spoke.
Clark looked at you and his cheeks flushed pink instantly.
“Yes, thank you,” he said softly before walking into the kitchen to grab his own glass.
His fingers brushed yours when he reached for it.
A shiver traveled all the way up your arm.
“Let’s go get the wardrobe,” Clark said before leaving the apartment again, not even giving Jimmy time to complain properly.
Jimmy groaned dramatically while dragging himself after him, making you smile despite yourself.
When they came back again later, your eyes immediately found Clark.
Your heartbeat sped up the moment you saw his shirt.
Jimmy was panting loudly and gulping water while Lois teased him mercilessly, but your attention stayed fixed on Clark.
You kept staring.
You couldn’t stop.
Something about him felt different now. Something you couldn’t name. Maybe it was the evening sunlight pouring through the windows. Maybe it was exhaustion.
Or maybe it was because his glasses had slipped crooked from all the lifting, making his face look stronger.
More like…
Clark suddenly looked up and caught you staring.
His cheeks turned red instantly and he looked down toward the floor. You did the same, quickly finishing your water in one long gulp just to give your hands something to do.
“The refrigerator’s last,” Clark announced before disappearing again with Jimmy stumbling after him.
“If I die doing this, I won’t even get to use my furniture,” Jimmy complained miserably.
You waited.
Your gaze drifted toward your empty glass.
No. It was impossible, you thought. People resembled each other all the time, didn’t they?
Then they came back.
This time, you were already standing near the apartment entrance waiting.
Not because you wanted to help.
Because you wanted to see him up close again.
You wanted to confirm what you were thinking.
The refrigerator was enormous, white and sleek with double doors. Clark carried one side while Jimmy struggled with the other.
“Put it there,” Jimmy panted while pointing weakly toward an empty space in the kitchen. “Next to the wall.”
They lowered it into place. Jimmy nearly collapsed, but Clark adjusted the entire refrigerator in his arms and set it down smoothly.
Then he straightened up and wiped his forehead with his forearm.
His glasses slipped from his nose and hit the floor with a soft clack.
He bent down to pick them up.
But before putting them back on, he looked at you.
And smiled.
A soft smile. Calm. Closed-lipped.
Like he had nothing to hide.
Like he didn’t mind you seeing him that way—without his glasses, hair stuck to his forehead, cheeks flushed pink, blue eyes brighter than you had ever imagined.
Your heart stopped.
Those eyes.
That deep blue you had drawn a hundred times.
That messy hair falling over his forehead exactly the way you always drew it.
That jawline.
Those lips.
Your mind flashed back to the drawings hidden in your private notebook.
Superman shirtless.
Superman with messy hair.
Superman holding a waist—your waist—while looking at you like you were the only thing in the world that mattered.
And suddenly you remembered something else.
In those drawings, Superman looked like someone.
And that someone was standing right in front of you now, crouched beside the refrigerator with his glasses in his hand and his chest still rising from exertion.
Clark was Superman.
Superman was Clark.
Everything clicked into place instantly.
The height. The shoulders. The smile. The way he always disappeared whenever danger appeared. The way he returned late and disheveled after Superman saved the day. The times he lifted impossible things while claiming he was “stronger than he looked.”
You stood abruptly without thinking.
Your legs trembled.
The glass slipped from your hand and rolled across the floor.
“I need to go,” you blurted out suddenly, your voice strange and uneven. Your cheeks burned.
Lois narrowed her eyes. “Are you okay?”
You nodded too quickly, forcing a smile that didn’t feel real. “Yes, yes, I just… remembered something. Something urgent. At my apartment.”
“But we just got here,” Jimmy said from the couch, confused. “And you barely ate any pizza.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I really have to go,” you said while already grabbing your bag from the back of the chair.
“Want me to walk you home?” Clark asked.
His voice sounded so close it sent a chill down your spine.
He was standing again now, glasses back in place, though his hair remained messy and his eyes stayed fixed on you with an intensity you didn’t remember ever seeing before.
“No, thanks,” you answered quickly, almost too sharply.
You couldn’t look at him.
If you looked at him, you were afraid you’d point at him and scream, “You’re Superman,” right there in front of everyone.
So instead you kept your eyes locked on the door handle.
Anywhere but him.
You left the apartment in hurried steps, took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, and by the time you reached the street, the cool evening air hit your burning face immediately.
You walked fast without looking back, thoughts spinning wildly inside your head like trapped hornets.
Clark was Superman.
All this time, you had been drawing Clark without ever realizing it.
Sinopsis: After leaving a relationship that slowly stripped her of her confidence, a young woman finds herself standing alone at her apartment door—until a quiet neighbor steps in. What begins as a simple act of kindness grows into something steady, gentle, and unexpectedly healing, as she learns that love does not have to hurt to be real.
The way fate arranges everything so that a chance encounter becomes the beginning of something new was amusing—but not in a beautiful way. It was more as if fate itself were mocking everything and everyone, and all you could do was stand still, watching how everything was slowly connected, like threads someone had been sewing together without you noticing. You hadn’t expected tears to blur your vision, especially when the woman standing in front of you—the woman you had called “mother-in-law” just a week ago—looked at you with disdain from the doorway of your own apartment. Her lips were pressed tight, her arms crossed, and her gaze traveled over your body as if you were trash someone had left at the entrance.
“How did I end up here?” you asked yourself, as the air grew heavy and the tears threatened to fall again.
Your father and mother had fought so hard to give you a good education, a privileged childhood, and you were sure you were among the few who had that opportunity. Among the few whose parents treated them as the center of attention. You were born as the light of the household, growing up surrounded by smiles, hugs, and fulfilled whims. You weren’t rebellious, nor did you look down on anyone. Your parents raised you well. You were polite. Your maternal grandmother had taught you how to knit, and even though at first your stitches kept slipping, she would laugh and say, “Easy, my dear, that’s how you learn.” Your parents didn’t complain if you didn’t help around the house, but you did anyway because, despite having everything, you felt the way to repay it was by helping. You swept on weekends, washed the dishes after dinner, and your mother liked to say, “Look at what a responsible daughter I have.”
That was why you left home at twenty-five. Inexperienced in the city, but confident that if anything happened to you—if you ended up somewhere with nothing—your mother would call you, and your father would already be in the car. Both of them on their way to you. No matter the distance, they would find you and protect you. That’s what you thought. But then, when you heard that woman’s words at your door, when her cutting voice said, “Are you still here, ridiculous?” you thought: why is someone yelling at me when my parents have never yelled at me?
It had been a year. You started a relationship with Myller, a man who worked at a bank. You worked as an assistant at a law firm. You met him because you frequently went to the bank so that officials could sign papers and process documents the bank needed. At first, he seemed attentive. You fell in love and believed he had too. But you didn’t receive the treatment your parents had given you. One night, you were watching a movie at your place, and you told him that you still lived with your parents at twenty-five. He looked at you mockingly, shook his head, and said:
“Were you still living with your parents? Oh my God. I’ll teach you how to be a woman, then.”
You looked at him, almost frowning, but you said nothing. You thought maybe he was right. You let it pass. Maybe that was your mistake—letting it pass. Thinking it was true, that you seemed like a child and needed to loosen up. He started inviting you out more often. He was sweet. You smiled when he gave you roses. When you became a couple, you thought you had found the right one.
Months passed. One afternoon, after four months together, he said while you were watching television in his apartment:
“Can’t you just cook a meal? We always go out to eat. I’m tired of spending money outside.”
You looked at him, searching for words.
“It’s just that I don’t… well, I can cook, but…” you said, a little nervous, because in reality you only knew how to make simple things like rice with eggs or pasta.
“Yeah, I know. You’re a daddy’s girl,” he cut in, with that smile that was now starting to bother you. “That’s why you don’t know anything. That makes you less useful, sweetheart.”
He sighed and continued:
“Learn something so you can cook. It’s not that hard. Even my fifteen-year-old cousin knows how to make soup.”
You stared at him, not understanding. He didn’t know how to cook either. He had never even tried. Why was he so insistent that this was only a flaw in you? Still, you learned a few things. With the help of videos on the internet and by calling your grandmother to ask how to make this or that dish, you gradually learned. By seven months, you were spending more time in his apartment than in yours. You cooked for both of you. You washed his clothes because he said he didn’t have time, and you wanted to show him you no longer depended on your parents.
But it was exhausting. Your job, your own responsibilities, and on top of that, his. One day, after washing his shirts, you sat on the bed and thought: is this what I want for myself? When things worsened—when his mother started visiting and you had to cook for her too, and she scolded you because something burned—you began to see how absurd it all was. Once, she said:
“Don’t you even know how to fry an egg? My God, son, where did you find this girl?”
And Myller just laughed. He didn’t defend you. He never did.
That was why you returned to your apartment that night. You called him and said:
“We’re done.”
He yelled. You don’t remember his exact words, only that he yelled. But you hung up before it got worse. His reaction only made you feel that the decision you had made was the right one. Because you thought: if I had stayed and he dared to touch me, I would have been lost.
Now, days later, with his mother at your door looking at you with disgust, you glanced at your phone. You thought about calling home. Your mother would probably already be at your ex–mother-in-law’s house, yelling at her. Your father would be with your ex-boyfriend, telling him to leave you alone. But something stopped you. You wanted to deal with what you had done on your own. Besides, imagining the look of disappointment on your parents’ faces when they saw how you had allowed yourself to be treated—after everything they had given you—held you back. You couldn’t bear the idea of your mother looking at you with sadness and saying, “Why didn’t you call us sooner, my dear?”
So you just stood there, in front of the door, with that woman before you, feeling as though fate were mocking you.
Then you snapped back to the present. She shouted at you, made a scene at your door. Her voice was so loud the neighbors on the third floor had surely heard it. She pointed a finger at your face, almost touching your nose, and all you wanted was to disappear.
“Do you think anyone will ever love you?” the woman spat, her eyes full of rage, her mouth twisted with hatred. “You don’t know how to do anything! My son only wasted his time with you, useless girl. He lost months of his life over a little child who can’t even wash a dish!”
You swallowed hard. Your hands trembled, but you clenched your fists.
“Your parents did such a terrible job raising you,” she continued, louder, almost spitting the words. “Look at you—you’re useless. Worthless. They gave you everything and look what they made: a failure!”
“Don’t you dare speak about them!” you shouted. Your voice came out louder than you thought possible. The woman stepped back, surprised, and for a second she almost laughed, as if you didn’t even deserve to raise your voice in front of her.
“Your son is worthless,” you continued, feeling the anger fill your chest. “He doesn’t know anything! He can’t cook, he can’t wash, he can’t do anything—and you come here to humiliate me because I actually learned?”
“How dare you?” the woman said, her hand rising quickly toward your face. You saw it coming. It was like slow motion. But this time, you didn’t stay still.
You stopped her. You grabbed her wrist just before she struck you.
“How dare you, ma’am?” you said, your eyes full of tears but also exhaustion—an exhaustion you had been carrying for months. “Hit me? My parents never laid a hand on me. A woman like you doesn’t deserve to touch me. You don’t even deserve to look at me!”
You shouted so loudly that her eyes widened. For a moment, there was silence. Only your uneven breathing.
“Idiot! Take your hands off my mother!”
The shout made you turn. The woman yanked her hand free and clutched her wrist, pretending you had hurt her. She made a dramatic grimace of pain, and you saw it—you knew it was fake.
Myller was coming toward you. Fast. Forcefully. His fists were clenched, tight, white from the pressure. His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth a thin line of fury. You stepped back instinctively. Your back nearly hit your apartment door. There was nowhere to run.
Then you saw his fist rising.
You closed your eyes.
But the blow never came.
You opened them, and Myller was frozen, as if he couldn’t move forward, as if someone had grabbed him from behind. You looked past him. A tall man stood there, wearing glasses, his hair slightly disheveled as though he had just woken up. He held Myller with one hand, effortlessly, and in the other he carried a brown briefcase. He didn’t look nervous. He didn’t look afraid. He was simply there, steady.
“Making a scene is not allowed here, gentlemen,” the man said. His voice was calm, but firm. He wasn’t shouting, yet it carried clearly.
Myller pulled himself free and stepped back, breathing heavily. The tall man walked toward you. You looked at him, not fully understanding what was happening. Then you glanced at Myller, who still had his fists clenched, and instinctively, without thinking, you moved behind the man. As if he were a shield. As if you knew that behind him, nothing could hurt you.
The man seemed to understand. He said nothing. He only gave a small nod, as if to say, “It’s alright, stay there.”
“I don’t like problems escalating,” the man said, looking at Myller and his mother. “But harassing a woman, two against one—and a man who hits women—is… frowned upon. Very frowned upon. If you don’t leave right now, I’ll be forced to call security.”
Myller’s mother looked at him with disgust, then at you with narrowed eyes, as if you were garbage.
“This isn’t over,” she hissed. She grabbed Myller’s arm and pulled him sharply. “Let’s go. This idiot isn’t worth it.”
Myller followed, but before leaving, he pointed at you. “You’ll pay for this,” he said. And then they were gone.
There it was. That had been your first encounter with him, and you didn’t even know who he was. Your legs trembled. Your throat tightened. The tears you had been holding back slid down your cheeks. And it wasn’t just sadness. It was shame. Shame that a stranger had seen you like that—wrecked, trembling at your own door.
The man looked at you. You didn’t even look at him. You lowered your gaze to the floor because you couldn’t bear for anyone to see your tears.
“I… we’re neighbors,” he said, breaking the silence.
You looked up at him. His face was slightly flushed—not out of embarrassment for you, but as if he himself were nervous, unsure of what to say. His glasses were a little crooked, and he wore a small, kind smile that didn’t mock you.
“I’m Clark Kent,” he said with that same smile.
You nodded without speaking. Your voice wouldn’t come out. It was as if your throat had been locked shut.
“Thank you,” you whispered at last. The two words were barely audible.
He nodded, as if he had heard perfectly.
“Go inside,” he said, pointing to your door, then to his, which was right across. “If anything happens, I…” he gestured toward his door as he slowly stepped back. “I’m here. You go on in.”
He moved his hands as if making sure you entered first, so he could go in after and leave you alone. He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. He didn’t want you to think he expected anything.
You nodded again. You opened the door, went inside, and locked it. You heard him walk to his apartment and close his door as well. You stayed there, leaning against the door, breathing deeply until your legs stopped trembling.
Maybe an hour or two passed—you weren’t sure. You had sat on the couch, staring blankly at the wall, with no desire to do anything. Then there was a knock at the door. Soft. Three short knocks.
You stood up so quickly you nearly felt dizzy. You went pale. Was it them again? Hadn’t they had enough of humiliating you? You thought about not opening. About pretending to be asleep. About staying still until they left. But something made you look through the peephole.
No. It wasn’t them.
It was Clark. Your neighbor.
He was wearing the same clothes as before—a wrinkled blue shirt and dress pants. In one hand, he held a steaming cup. In the other, a small plate with cookies.
You opened the door. He greeted you with a smile—the same gentle smile as before. You looked at him, confused. Just a few hours ago, he had been a stranger. Then he turned out to be your neighbor across the hall. And now he stood there, with tea and cookies, as if he had known you all his life.
You had never seen him before, but it made sense. You spent more time at your ex-boyfriend’s apartment than in your own. You were almost never here. Of course you hadn’t seen him.
“Tea is always good for calming down,” Clark said, offering you the cup. Steam rose from it, smelling like chamomile. “Take it. You can return it whenever you want. It’s not like you don’t know how to find me,” he added, trying to joke. And even though the joke was simple—almost silly—there was something in his voice that made you feel at ease.
You looked at him without speaking. He let out a soft sigh and extended the plate of cookies. They were oatmeal cookies, the kind sold at the corner store. He had placed them on a nice plate, as if it were an important gesture.
“They’ll help you sleep better,” he said. “Go on.”
“Thank you,” you said again. It was the second time you had thanked him that day. And it still didn’t feel like enough.
He nodded, stepped back, and gently closed your apartment door himself from the outside, careful not to make noise. You heard his footsteps, then his door opening and closing.
You stood there, holding the warm cup in your hands, and for the first time in a long time, you felt that someone had been kind to you without asking for anything in return.
It had all been so strange. Suddenly, without even realizing it, you found yourself returning his teacup along with his plate—this time with a slice of cake as a thank you. You had spent an entire afternoon baking a vanilla cake, the one your grandmother had taught you, and when you took it out of the oven, you thought of him. Of his kind eyes behind his glasses. Of how he had seen you trembling and didn’t mock you. Of how he had offered you tea and cookies without asking for anything. So you cut a large slice, placed it on his plate, and knocked on his door. He opened it with a smile and said, “For me?” as if he were a child receiving a birthday present.
Then you would run into each other in the elevator. You were heading to work, and so was he. You told him about your day at the law firm—the endless paperwork, the bosses who were always in a hurry. He told you that he worked at a newspaper, the Daily Planet, and that he wrote articles about things happening around the city. “Nothing too important,” he would say modestly, but you could tell he enjoyed it. Then you would say goodbye when the elevator reached the ground floor. He would go one way, you another. And every time he said goodbye, he would add, “Have a lovely day,” in such a sincere voice that it warmed you from the inside.
By the next month, you were already laughing with him as you walked to the market, having run into each other again in the elevator. You both carried cloth bags for groceries. “Are you getting food too?” he asked, and when you said yes, he replied, “We can go together, if you’d like.” You walked slowly, browsing the stalls, and he made you laugh with silly comments about the fruit. “This apple looks like a heart,” he said once, and you laughed so much that the woman at the stand looked at you both fondly.
By two months, he was already inviting you over for dinner. He arrived at your door wearing a neatly pressed shirt and his hair slightly more styled than usual. He carried a bottle of orange juice because, he said, “I don’t know anything about wine, but orange juice never fails.” You cooked together—or rather, he cooked and you watched—and between stirring and tasting, he told you stories about his childhood in Kansas, about his mother Martha who taught him how to cook, about his father Jonathan who taught him to be kind. You told him about your parents, about how they gave you everything, about how you cried when you left home. And he listened. Truly listened. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t say “I know.” He just looked at you and said, “Your parents sound like wonderful people.”
By the fourth month, he had already given you your first kiss. It was on a Tuesday night, after watching a movie on his couch. He had brought you flowers that afternoon. They were sunflowers, large and bright yellow, and when he handed them to you, he said, “They reminded me of your smile.” You blushed, and he blushed too, and the two of you laughed like teenagers. The kiss came when the movie ended and neither of you made a move to stand up. He leaned in slowly, as if afraid of startling you, and when his lips touched yours, you felt as though everything bad you had lived through before no longer mattered.
As time passed, you found yourself resting against his chest while you watched movies in silence. His arm wrapped around you, his soft stubble brushed against your head, and his heart beat steadily beneath your ear. You didn’t need to speak. Words felt unnecessary. Sometimes he would glance down at you, and you could feel it, and without saying anything, he would gently squeeze your shoulder.
After that, you began to find his cup in your home. A white cup with a small crack along the rim that he refused to throw away because “it has memories.” His clothes started appearing among your things too—blue shirts, dress pants, and a gray scarf he always left draped over the back of a chair. His ties ended up in your drawer, mixed with your necklaces. One day you opened the drawer to look for a sock and found three ties coiled like sleeping snakes, and you laughed to yourself.
And then you would watch him from the living room as he cooked, because he would say, “You come home tired from work—let me cook.” You would arrive home with your feet sore from running after paperwork all day, and he would already be in the kitchen, wearing his apron—the same one you had bought yourself a month earlier, apple green with a small tomato design on the pocket. You would sit at the table and wait to eat. Sometimes he would sing while he cooked—softly, old songs his mother had taught him. And you would watch him, thinking you couldn’t believe a man like him truly existed.
Clark was different. He didn’t believe the kitchen was meant only for women to cook. He believed cooking was an art that required precision. He loved that—measuring, making things exact. Once, he spent ten minutes searching for the perfect measuring cup because “if it’s not exact, the cake won’t rise the same,” he said, completely serious. You laughed, and he pretended to be offended, but then he laughed too. For him, every spoonful of flour, every drop of milk, every minute in the oven mattered. And when the food turned out well, he smiled like a child who had just learned how to tie his shoes.
“I went to do the laundry,” he said one day as he walked into the apartment with a basket full of clothes. You looked at him, slightly surprised because you hadn’t noticed he had gone down to the laundry room. “I used a new kind of detergent,” he said with a wide grin. He pulled out your favorite blouse—the white long-sleeved one—and held it up to your nose. “What do you think?”
You inhaled. The scent was soft, like flowers and cleanliness, but with a hint you couldn’t quite recognize. “It smells really good,” you admitted, brushing the fabric against your cheek because it was soft too.
“My mom gave me a mixing trick,” he said proudly. “A little bit of lavender softener and a little bit of white vinegar. Can you believe it? Vinegar—and it doesn’t smell like vinegar.”
You laughed as he leaned in to give you a welcome kiss. It was a quick kiss on the forehead, but full of affection. Then he went to the kitchen to put on his green apron, and you stayed there, watching him from the doorway. You laughed when you saw how cute he looked with the apron and his slightly crooked glasses. He looked like one of those TV chefs—but messier, more real.
Every now and then, you helped him. You peeled potatoes, washed lettuce, or handed him the salt when he asked for it. But in truth, you were more the type to clean everything. You liked organizing his books—there were many of them—and arranging them by size or color. He found it amusing because he would say, “I keep them in order of importance,” and you would reply, “Well, now they’re in order of beauty.” One day he came home and found all his books mixed with yours—law books alongside journalism guides—and instead of getting upset, he smiled and said, “It looks like we’re already living together without realizing it.”
Before long, Clark no longer needed to live in his own apartment. His toothbrush appeared next to yours. His shoes lined up beside yours at the entrance. His sheets ended up on your bed, mixed with yours. And one day, without a big conversation or an official announcement, he moved in with you. He simply stopped going back to his apartment. One day you asked, “Don’t you go back to your place anymore?” and he replied, “This is my home.” It was so simple that no more words were needed.
Now everything was a strange but beautiful combination. Law books with journalism books, arranged by size or color depending on the day you cleaned. Two sets of keys hanging by the entrance—yours and his—and sometimes you would accidentally swap them, with him leaving with yours and you staying with his. Two umbrellas as well, one black and one blue, though you almost always used the blue one because “it’s happier,” he would say.
Everything got better. Clark gave you a place you didn’t think you could still have. After Myller, after his mother, after feeling like you were worth nothing, Clark came into your life and showed you that you were. You were his girlfriend, and he cared for you the way your parents did. He asked how your day had been. He made you tea when you came home tired. He listened when you had something to say, no matter how small. And beyond that, you had a love like your parents’—a calm love, without shouting, without humiliation, where both of you helped each other and neither felt lesser.
Of course, there were ups and downs. Once you argued because you had put his work notes in a box and he couldn’t find them. Another time, he forgot that you had planned to invite your parents over for dinner and came home late. But Clark always knew how to resolve things. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t blame you. He would simply say, “I’m sorry, let’s talk,” and sit beside you until you found a solution together. For many people, a relationship without fights or shouting might seem boring. For you and Clark, it was stability. It was peace. It was what both of you had always wanted without even knowing it.
And so, between borrowed cups of tea and cakes of gratitude, between elevators and markets, between mixed books and green aprons, you realized that fate hadn’t been mocking you after all. It had simply been waiting for the right moment. It had been arranging the pieces so that, when you least expected it, Clark Kent would knock on your door with a steaming cup and a gentle smile.
hi idk if you'll even want to write this but ive been wondering about how clark would cope with losing his partner (and later on his kids maybe?) when he outlives them. his life expectancy is in the thousands so its inevitable 💔
alternatively it could be how he avoids suspicion from the people around him of being immortal because how does he look the same after so many years??
sorry for the long req, ofc u dont have to write it if you dont want to!
-💐
Three Centuries of Loving You
Clark Kent x female reader
Sinopsis: Clark Kent marries the love of his life knowing time will never treat them equally.
Warnings: Aging, death, grief, existential themes, immortality struggles, loss of loved ones, emotional distress
WC: 4,800 words approx.
When Clark placed the ring on your ring finger, he looked at your face with uncertainty. And no, it wasn’t a lack of love—it was fear. A fear that tightened around his chest as if someone had pressed a firm hand deep inside it. Your arrival in his life had been something strange, something new that he had never felt before. Before you, Clark had lived like someone who always had to be careful, who always had to hide what he was. But when you appeared, all of that changed. He had experienced emotions so human, so real, that the only thing he wanted was to spend his entire life by your side. But at the same time, he knew how his body worked. He knew his growth was different from yours. He knew that, as a Kryptonian, he could live far too many years—more than three hundred. And that disturbed him. It circled his mind day and night. Because he would watch the people he loved die. He would see his parents grow old and disappear. But when he met you, that idea vanished from his mind, as if his heart had decided it wanted to love you no matter what.
“Are you telling me that at some point in our lives I’ll be older than you?” you asked with a smile, leaning against his chest. Your voice sounded calm, as if you were only playing with the idea.
Your laughter made him smile. But imagining it—just imagining it—broke his heart. At that moment, you were only twenty-six and he was thirty-one. A relationship that seemed to fit perfectly, even with that small age difference. You went for walks, cooked together, laughed at night while watching old movies. When you got married, you were still twenty-seven and he, therefore, thirty-two. Nothing out of the ordinary. You were young, just like Clark. You reminded him of it over and over again every time you looked into his eyes and saw that shadow of concern.
“It’s okay, Clark. Live in the present,” you whispered to him one night, your head resting on his shoulder. “If you keep thinking about how you’ll be in the future, you won’t have enjoyed the present.”
He nodded slowly. He tightened his arm a little more around your waist.
“Will you live many years?” he asked in a low voice, almost afraid to hear the answer.
You smiled and lifted yourself slightly to look at his face. “The real question is—will you keep loving me even when I start to grow old and get gray hair?” you said, fixing his hair with your hand. “Because I won’t be the same woman you see now. My knees will hurt, I’ll get tired more often, the skin on my arms will sag… all of that.”
Clark shook his head firmly. “I will love you until I take my last breath in the universe,” he said, his voice slightly broken but certain.
You nodded and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. “You better,” you whispered, and then leaned against him again. You kept cooking together, you stirring the spoon in the pot and him chopping vegetables beside you, as if nothing that had been said was so serious.
The years passed. And you had twins. A little girl named Sienna. The little one with blue eyes like her father and light brown hair like yours. Everything about her was like you: the way she laughed, the way she frowned when she woke up, even the gestures with her hands. And the little boy named Joseph, with blue eyes and black hair, identical to Clark. But there was a difference, and it was a big one. A difference that made Clark’s blood run cold when he began to notice it. Little Sienna seemed human like you, without any problem. She grew, crawled, babbled. Everything normal. While Joseph had inherited his father’s Kryptonian gene. At three months, he began to cry in a way that wasn’t normal. The lights in the house flickered. The kitchen lights, the living room lights, even the refrigerator light. You and Clark looked at each other, surprised.
“The neighbors are going to notice,” you whispered, your heart racing, trying to calm the baby in your arms. You rocked him gently, but the lights kept flickering.
Clark was already on his feet, looking toward the window. “It’s okay. I’ll fix something quickly,” he said, and stepped into the hallway. He returned seconds later. The lights stopped flickering. “I checked the building’s fuses. Well… I replaced them without anyone seeing me.”
You let out a long sigh. Then you wrapped little Sienna in a thick blanket. Clark picked her up carefully, holding her close against his chest. You wrapped Joseph and placed him against your chest, feeling how he was still trembling a little from crying. Clark held your waist tightly, and in a single breath you arrived at the Fortress of Solitude. Joseph’s cries were still loud, but in there no one could hear them. The ice gleamed around you. Everything was silent, except for the baby’s soft sobs.
“So he took after you,” you said with a tired smile, looking at Joseph as he slowly began to close his eyes.
Clark nodded with a shy smile. He looked at the baby—how, after an hour, the child had decided it was time to sleep. His fists were closed and his breathing calm. Clark looked at you while you held your son so carefully. Then his gaze shifted to little Sienna, also asleep in his other arm. He looked at her peacefully and suddenly a tremor shook something cold inside him. It wasn’t real cold. It was fear. That meant his son Joseph would live as long as he would. How would they live without you? How would Joseph live without his sister Sienna when she grew old and he didn’t? He looked at you with concern, but you didn’t notice. You were too focused on tucking the children in.
Clark stepped closer and hugged you gently. He carried all three of you without any effort: Sienna in one arm, Joseph in the other, and you pressed against his chest. They returned to the apartment in a second. He laid the babies in their crib, side by side, and you covered them with a soft blanket. Then you slept with Clark by your side. He held you all night, stroking your hair, breathing in your scent, as if he wanted to preserve that moment forever.
The fear worsened when the children turned ten. Clark watched them run through the living room, laugh, argue over toys, and then he would look at you. You were already thirty-eight. You were still beautiful—anyone who saw you would know that. In fact, Clark seemed more in love every day, if that was even possible. He looked at you as if it were the first time. You took care of your children, worked, kept the house running with a strength that left him speechless. But you also looked at yourself in the mirror more often now. You would stand still in front of it, running your hand over your face, touching the small lines that were beginning to appear beside your eyes. You looked at younger women walking beside you on the street, in the supermarket, in the park when you took the kids out. They were sweet, just as you once were. They were beautiful. And you lowered your gaze, tightened your grip on your keys, and kept walking. Forty would come soon, and you knew Clark would continue to look younger. You didn’t need a mirror to know it. Clark knew it too. He looked at you with concern, with that hidden sadness he tried to cover with smiles.
One afternoon, you were brushing your hair in front of the vanity in your room. He entered without making a sound, as always. He stood behind you.
“You’re still beautiful,” he said, wrapping his arms around your waist, looking at you through the mirror. He rested his chin on your shoulder. “Honestly, you make me nervous. I’m still a lovestruck teenager,” he added, letting out a soft, almost shy laugh.
You laughed too, shaking your head. But your laughter faded quickly. You remained staring at your reflection, your fingers still on the brush.
“When will it start to look bad?” you asked, your voice calm but with something broken inside.
Clark looked at you, not understanding. He frowned slightly.
“How long will I be able to kiss you without it looking like an older woman trying to win over a man in his thirties?” you continued, setting the brush down on the table. “Imagine when I reach eighty, Clark. Or seventy. I’ll look like your grandmother.”
He turned you gently, very carefully, as if you were something fragile. He caressed your face with his fingertips, from your temple down to your chin.
“I love you,” he said suddenly, his voice barely trembling.
You smiled, but he didn’t smile back.
“No, really,” he insisted, gently pressing your cheek. “I… it doesn’t matter how much your age advances. I will keep loving you just as much. I… I don’t want to love anyone else,” he said, and in his eyes you saw that fear again—that same fear he had the day he put the ring on your finger.
You took his hand. You held it with both of yours. “Hey,” you whispered, looking at him intently. “The day I die… Clark, you won’t spend your entire life loving me, will you?” you asked.
Clark looked at you in disbelief. As if the question had struck his chest. His eyes widened slightly.
“Love, I… you’ll live more than a hundred years,” you continued, squeezing his fingers. “I don’t want you to stay stuck after I’m gone. I couldn’t bear to see you that way—alone, sad, unwilling to love anyone else. That would hurt me more than dying.”
“We shouldn’t talk about that,” he pleaded, his voice rough. He shut his eyes tightly, as if he could erase the words just by not seeing them.
“Please,” he added, almost breathless.
You nodded silently. And he hugged you. He held you tightly against his chest and rested his face in your hair. The two of you stayed like that for a long time, without saying anything more.
And then it came. The years went by. The children grew. Sienna and Joseph were no longer those babies who cried in the Fortress. Now they understood things. You and Clark explained to them why their father still looked young. You did it calmly, sitting in the living room, with both children listening with the seriousness of those who were no longer little. Clark stepped away from Metropolis for a while. He was Superman—of course, that would never change. But as Clark Kent, you both decided to fake his death before people began to notice that something strange was going on. Because a man who doesn’t age—that raises questions. And questions were dangerous. So you did it. You said he had died in an accident. There was a small funeral, with few people, with white flowers and people crying in silence. You looked sadly at everyone who came to say goodbye to your husband, that husband who was actually still alive, who still slept beside you every night. Your husband was now as young as the first day you met him, and you were already fifty. Your children stood beside you, watching you. Joseph looked at you. He was so much like Clark that sometimes it made your chest tighten.
“It’s for the best, Mom,” Joseph whispered sadly, shaking his head slowly. He knew Clark was away at that moment so they could make the accident believable. He knew his father would return at nightfall.
“Besides,” Sienna said, her voice firm as she held your arm, “if we waited any longer, everyone would start to suspect. Someone would have noticed.”
You nodded without saying anything. You just stared at the empty coffin that no one could open.
Clark came back every day. No matter what the newspapers or the neighbors said. He returned home when the sun went down, took off his boots at the entrance, and looked for you in the kitchen or the living room. You were his wife. He wore his wedding ring on his finger, shining just like the first day. One night, you watched him as he washed the dishes. You lowered your gaze and looked at your hands. They were beginning to wrinkle. Your skin wasn’t the same anymore. You weren’t the same.
Clark dried his hands on a cloth and walked over to you. He knelt on the kitchen floor, in front of the chair where you were sitting. He took your hands in his.
“Hey, aren’t I still your husband?” Clark asked, with a small smile, tilting his head the way he did when he joked.
You smiled and caressed his face with your palm. He closed his eyes, resting his cheek against your fingers.
“I missed you,” you admitted, your voice breaking. You weren’t talking about that day. You were talking about all the days. Every morning when you saw him so young and it was hard to believe he had stayed by your side.
Clark opened his eyes and hugged you tightly, wrapping his arms fully around you, holding you against him as if you still weighed the same as you did at twenty-six.
Your life was long. Very long for an ordinary human. Those eighty years you once mentioned jokingly in your youth, when you laughed against Clark’s chest, fell short. You reached eighty-five. Death showed Clark mercy and gave you a few more years, as if it knew he wouldn’t be able to let you go so soon. In your final years, he cared for you with hands so gentle it seemed he feared breaking you. He bathed you, brushed your hair, read to you aloud when you could no longer hold books. He took you to the garden in the mornings so you could feel the sun. When the day came, Clark mourned your death. He cried as much as your children did. Joseph and Sienna stood beside him, the three of them embracing in the room where you had closed your eyes for the last time. Joseph had promised to take care of Sienna, the little human of the family who was now already thirty. Sienna had married a good man, a normal man, and had a baby who still carried some of your features: the same shape of the eyes, the same way of pressing the lips together when thinking. Joseph, on the other hand, was engaged to someone who was not from this planet. She was immortal, luckily for him. Joseph would not suffer the same fate as his father. He would not have to watch his love grow old while he remained the same.
Clark withdrew from everyone for a time. He couldn’t look at people’s faces without searching for yours among them. He went far away, to places where no one knew him, where he could be alone with his memories. He watched his grandchildren from afar, from atop a building or behind a tree, not daring to get too close. He spent time with them sometimes, when the pain eased a little. “He’s a friend of their mother,” Sienna would say when her children asked who that tall man was who sometimes appeared at parties. Even though she loved spending time with her father, she knew he needed his space. Clark looked at her—his little Sienna, just like her mother. So much like you now, with her own family, cooking for her children, laughing the same way you used to laugh. Joseph also had his own children, some with Kryptonian genes, others more human, all carrying pieces of both of you.
Then Clark returned to Earth. Not because he wanted to, but because Joseph went looking for him. He found him floating in space, staring into nothingness. Joseph stood in front of him and looked at him with those blue eyes just like his.
“Sienna wants to see you, Dad,” Joseph said, his voice calm but heavy.
Clark looked at him without moving. He waited.
“She’s saying goodbye,” Joseph said, and then his voice broke slightly.
Clark said nothing else. He descended to Earth immediately. He flew faster than he had in years. He arrived at Sienna’s house and entered without knocking. He found her in bed, covered with a blanket you had woven decades earlier. Her children were around her, her grandchildren too. Sienna’s hair was completely white. The years had settled over her, weighing in every wrinkle, in every bone visible beneath her skin. But when she saw her father, her eyes lit up just like when she was a child.
“Dad,” Sienna whispered, her voice tired, so soft it was barely audible. The scene was strange—having a father who looked younger than his own children. But for Clark, it wasn’t strange. He had already lived it. He took his daughter’s hand and smiled, even though inside everything was falling apart.
“I thought you wouldn’t come, Dad,” Sienna said, barely squeezing his fingers.
Clark shook his head. “I promised I’d come back,” he said, and gently stroked her white hair with infinite softness. “You’re very beautiful, sweetheart. Just like your mother.”
Sienna smiled. She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again. “You haven’t forgotten her, have you? Mom… you still love her, Dad. You’ve refused to find someone else,” she whispered, searching his gaze. “Mom wouldn’t want you to be alone.”
Clark hesitated. He shook his head in denial, but then he smiled with such deep sadness that Sienna’s eyes filled with tears.
“Your mother was the love of my life,” Clark said, his voice breaking, the words coming out as if they cost him. “I can’t call anyone else my wife but your mother. No matter how long I remain here. I… my heart was made to beat for her, even if she is no longer here.”
Sienna smiled, and in her smile was your smile—the same one Clark had loved for so many years.
“She loves you just as much,” Sienna said, her voice barely there now.
Clark watched as her voice faded, as her eyes slowly closed, as her chest stopped rising and falling. Sienna stopped breathing. Joseph, at the foot of the bed, looked at her with tears in his eyes. She was his twin, his other half, the one who had entered the world holding his hand. And now she had gone too.
The years kept passing. Superman was reborn again and again. He left, he escaped, he returned. But he was always there, saving those who needed him, even if his heart no longer beat with the same strength as before. Even though you were no longer there, your features and Clark’s lived on in those who came after. In fact, it was one of Sienna’s great-granddaughters who, one ordinary day, saw him from afar. Clark stood on a crowded street, looking at shop windows without truly seeing them. The young woman stopped. Something caught her attention. She was like you. She had the same laugh—the kind that begins with a soft whistle and ends in a burst of laughter. The same voice, slightly husky when she spoke softly. Her eyes were exactly like yours, large and dark, with that spark that wanted to challenge everything. Maybe she was a little more temperamental than you, with her brows always slightly raised as if she disagreed with something. But she was you—only with reddish hair inherited from her father. Clark smiled from a distance. He didn’t approach. He didn’t need to. He just looked at her for a moment, stored her image somewhere in his memory already filled with you, and kept walking. Your genes and Clark’s would remain for many more generations. Joseph kept meeting his great-grandchildren, his great-great-grandchildren, everyone who came after. Some had Kryptonian genes, with immense strength from a young age. Others were completely human. But almost all of them still carried some trace of you. A way of walking, a gesture with their hands, a way of laughing that reminded Clark why it was worth continuing to live.
“It’s been three centuries, Dad,” Joseph said, looking at his father in the Fortress. Joseph’s voice was no longer that of a child or a young man. It was the voice of someone who had lived a long life, who had seen entire generations be born and die. He stood beside Clark, arms crossed, observing the ice walls glowing with a bluish light. The Fortress seemed different now. It wasn’t just a workplace for Superman anymore. It had become something else. In every corner there were images: one of Sienna as a baby, wrapped in a yellow blanket, laughing while Clark lifted her toward the ceiling. Another of Clark running with Joseph and Sienna through a garden, the three of them rolling on the grass. There were pictures of you laughing—many pictures of you. You holding your children, you kissing Clark on the cheek, you looking at the camera with those eyes he could never forget. There was also the photo from your wedding day, with your white dress and him in his blue suit, the two of you looking at each other as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. Everything was a sanctuary. A sanctuary made for you.
Clark sat on a kind of ice bench, his gaze fixed on a floating screen. On it played an old video—one he knew by heart, every second, every sound. And yet he watched it again and again as if it were the first time.
“And in those three centuries, I have kept loving your mother,” Clark said with a smile. He didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
In the video, it was you. You were young, your brown hair falling over your shoulders, laughing at something that had happened off-camera. You had bought a house in the countryside, a small house with a large garden and an old tree in the background. Clark held Joseph in his arms, the boy with his black hair and wide eyes looking at everything with curiosity. Sienna was in your arms, holding a strand of your hair with her chubby little hands.
“We have to look at the phone,” you said in the video. Your voice sounded young, alive, full of energy as you pointed at the phone Clark had left resting on a chair. The little ones babbled, moving their hands, not really understanding what was happening. “Dad’s going to take pictures,” you said, and then Clark came to your side, drying his hands on a kitchen cloth.
“Ready,” Clark said in the video, with that slightly awkward smile of his. “Now we just have to press this button.”
You looked at the phone with curiosity, tilting your head. “Love, it’s a video,” you said when you saw the numbers on the screen going up. And then you smiled—that smile that stayed with Clark forever. “Like this, okay. I think you can record and take photos at the same time.”
You took the small remote and started recording. Clark wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you close. “Come on, look at the phone,” you said, and then the click of a photo sounded. You leaned against Clark’s chest, comfortable, as if that were your place in the world. Another photo. Clark kissed your cheek while your children laughed behind you. Another photo. And another.
Joseph smiled as he watched that moment. He had been so small then, so unaware of everything that would come. Your memory was a strange hollow in his chest. Something that hurt and comforted at the same time. He missed you so much. He longed so deeply to call you “Mom” just one more time, even if only to hear you answer. He longed to play with his sister Sienna, to run with her through the garden, to fight over the last piece of cake. Even though he was an adult now, even though centuries had passed, even though he had watched his own children grow and age, he still carried that childlike emptiness—the kind that misses his mother.
Loneliness surrounded Clark throughout all those years. He lived in a world that changed far too quickly for him. The people he knew grew old and left, and he remained. But your memory kept him alive. He smiled when no one was watching, remembering some silly joke you had made. He cried at night, when the silence of the Fortress became too heavy. Clark’s love was so pure, so intact, that he lived on only because you, from the shadows of his mind, told him: “Live. Don’t sink into despair because of my absence. We will see each other again.” And he promised. He promised you on your deathbed, holding your already cold hand. He wouldn’t do anything against himself. He wouldn’t seek an end. But life always needs heroes. And even the strongest hero can eventually die.
No one expected it. A cosmic enemy appeared—something from the farthest stars, capable of growing stronger by absorbing the light of different suns. Every time Clark struck it, the creature absorbed the energy and became larger, stronger. They fought in the sky, in space, above entire cities. Clark fought with everything he had. At one moment, when Joseph was about to be attacked, Clark stepped in front of him. He took the strongest blow of his life. Thousands died that day, in the most terrible battle the Earth had ever seen. But among the fallen was Clark. He was struck with kryptonite, yes, but it wasn’t just that. He pushed his power to its limit, beyond what his body could endure. He gave everything he had so his son could live. And in the end, he was gone. The memory of his body falling from the sky, his eyes closing, his arms opening as if he wanted to embrace the void. Clark embraced death like an old friend—like someone who had been waiting for that moment for centuries.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a field. It was strange, yet he recognized it immediately. It was Smallville. He could recognize that sky anywhere. But it wasn’t the same field where he had grown up as a child. It was different. The wheat swayed gently with the wind, white clouds drifted slowly across the sky. And then he heard a voice. A voice he had kept in his memory for four hundred years.
“You took your time, Kent.”
He turned quickly, almost stumbling. And he saw you. You were not the older woman he had watched die in that bed. You had no wrinkles, no white hair, no trembling hands. You were you at twenty-six. Your brown hair moved with the wind. Your eyes shone. And you were laughing—with that laugh he had believed he had lost forever.
“Did you miss me?” you asked, tilting your head the way you used to.
Clark’s eyes filled with tears instantly. He couldn’t speak. He opened his mouth and only a sob came out.
“Oh, my love,” he finally said, and ran toward you. His feet barely touched the ground. He wrapped his arms around you, held you as tightly as he could, burying his face in your shoulder. “Four hundred years,” he whispered, his voice breaking, soaking your clothes with his tears. “I waited for you and loved you for four hundred years.”
Then he looked at you, holding your face in his hands. He kissed you, and it was like the first kiss, like the one at your wedding, like every kiss you had shared in a lifetime.
You smiled, wiping his tears away with your fingers. “I know,” you whispered, your voice warm. “It’s time to rest, Clark.”
You took his hand, intertwining your fingers with his. “Let’s go home,” you said, and began to walk toward where the sun was setting, through the golden wheat.
Clark followed you. He didn’t let go of your hand. He walked beside you, feeling the wind on his face, feeling that something inside him was finally at peace. And at last, time stopped being a curse for Clark. Because there was no more waiting. No more counting the years, no more watching loved ones leave, no more being alone in a cold Fortress. There was only the field, your hand, and the fulfilled promise of seeing each other again.
Nota: I wrote this and just thought, “Damn, Clark Kent would be so hot with a beard.” Well, haha, read it.
Clark Kent x female reader
Sinopsis: A strained marriage between Clark and his wife begins to fracture under the weight of his responsibilities as Superman, leaving behind broken promises and quiet heartbreak. Yet even in separation, their love lingers.
The separation was something you never imagined when you had just married Clark. Back then, when you were just starting your life together, everything seemed so beautiful, so full of hope. You believed you could handle it, that both of you could have a good life despite everything. You thought love would remain strong enough that there would be no need to think about separating, about divorcing. But it happened. It happened when you began to notice, little by little, like something breaking without making a sound, that Clark seemed more overwhelmed with saving the world. His stress kept him away from you. It was no longer just that he came home late for dinner or fell asleep on the couch with his superhero suit still on. It was that when he was with you, his gaze drifted elsewhere, as if he were always listening to something you couldn’t hear, someone who needed him more than you did.
You remembered that night every single day. That night in the Metropolis apartment. You see yourself there, standing by the window, watching your four-year-old asleep in the living room. He had waited all day for his father. All day. He had woken up early, eaten breakfast quickly, counted the hours one by one. Because that was the day he was supposed to dance at school. Little Jonathan, the one you had named after Clark’s father, had spent the entire week practicing. But the day before, Jonathan had walked up to Clark with his arms crossed and his lips pressed together.
"I don’t want to be in the performance, Dad," Jonathan had said, looking down at the floor.
Clark had crouched down to his level and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Of course you’re going to be in it, son. You’re going to do great. And I’ll be there, we’ll be watching you," he said with that big smile he always used to encourage him.
Jonathan had looked at him with those serious eyes of his. "Do you promise?"
"I promise," Clark had said.
And the boy believed him. You believed him too, even though he had already been late to anniversaries and birthdays before. You understood, of course you did. Superman had to save everyone. How could you be angry at him for helping people? But that night, while Jonathan was still sitting on the floor with his little dancer outfit still on, you asked yourself something you had never dared to think before: who was saving your little boy from the disappointment of not seeing his father? You thought you were being selfish, that you weren’t thinking about the world, about people’s needs. But your little boy cried. He cried quietly at first, his shoulders trembling, and then it all came out at once.
"Dad broke a promise again!" he shouted between sobs.
You had heard it on the TV. A sunken ship. People in freezing water. You knew he would be late, of course you knew. But your little boy believed that maybe, if he watched the recording of the performance later, he could forget it. He sat on the couch with his legs dangling, his dancer outfit wrinkled, and waited. He looked at the door over and over again. An hour passed. Then two. Then three. And when the door finally opened, Jonathan was already fast asleep on the floor, his cheeks still wet.
You looked at Clark. He was tired, his blue suit stained with water and something else you didn’t want to look at. And you said it.
"This isn’t working anymore, Clark."
You said it that night, your voice calmer than you actually felt inside. And he knew. He looked at you, and you knew he knew. Because when he saved people, his hearing could pick up his little boy crying because his dad didn’t come. He could hear every sob, every "where’s Dad?" that Jonathan whispered to his teddy bear. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair to anyone. But he understood you.
Clark lowered his head. "I can do better," he said, with that dim voice he used when he didn’t know what else to say.
You smiled, but it was a sad smile, the kind that hurts. You shook your head slowly. "Again? This is the fourth time you’ve said that," you said, and your voice cracked just a little at the end.
Clark nodded. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.
They cried, of course they did. In silence, so they wouldn’t wake Jonathan. They cried standing in the middle of the living room, without touching, like two strangers who shared too much sadness. Then you got angry. You got very angry, but you stopped yourself. You thought about Jonathan. You couldn’t scare him. You couldn’t make him watch his parents shouting at each other like other families you had seen. So it just stayed like that. At some point, you would get divorced. There were no big fights, no broken plates, no doors ripped off their hinges. Just an enormous exhaustion that weighed more than any scream.
You left the apartment first. You packed your things and Jonathan’s into boxes that Clark carried up the stairs because the elevator was broken. Clark left afterward too. He moved into a place near yours, just three blocks away. It didn’t bother you. On the contrary, it even felt right for Jonathan. Sometimes, when you crossed paths on the street or at the school entrance, you smiled. And he smiled back, though his eyes looked more tired than before. Clark looked at you. He missed you so much. He missed his little boy. Losing you, losing the house, losing the nights together—everything made him realize what he had been leaving aside without noticing.
Jonathan, as he grew, would repeat it every time he came to pick him up at your apartment. He hugged him tightly, with those skinny arms full of determination not to let go.
"When are you coming back, Dad?" he would whisper, hugging him, his face pressed to his chest. "I don’t like spending so much time without seeing you."
Clark closed his eyes every time he heard that. He hugged him tighter and said, "Soon, son," even though they both knew it wasn’t true. Clark knew it well. At home, at least he carried him at night when he stayed over. Whenever he could, he spent as much time with him as possible. But now all that was left was to wait for weekends to see him, or an occasional weekday when you were busy. You tried to split yourself between being a mother and working. You had gone back to teaching at the university, like before Jonathan was born. You liked being in front of students, explaining things you knew well. You took Jonathan with you when there was no one to leave him with. The boy stayed beside you at a small desk the university lent you. He was disciplined like Clark—you couldn’t deny that. You watched him reading children’s books, collecting dry leaves he found in the courtyard, quietly playing with his toys while you taught a class. And in those moments, chalk in hand and your eyes on your son, you felt that maybe, somehow, you were okay.
Clark, for his part, kept working at the Planet. But he wasn’t the same as before. He arrived a bit more distracted, as if his mind were somewhere else while his hands wrote the news. Sometimes he would stare at the computer screen without seeing anything, lost in his thoughts. He also had a bit of a beard, from those days he didn’t bother shaving because he no longer cared as much about looking good. But if you looked closely, if you walked up to his desk, you could see that he still had photos of your wedding and your son in small spaces on his desk. He had placed them carefully, in simple frames, right where he could see them every time he looked up. And most importantly: he still wore his wedding ring. That silver band he never took off—not to sleep, not to shower, not to save the world. That’s why no one approached him. If a woman tried to flirt with him or ask him out, he would simply reply that he was married. Because he was. Because the divorce papers were still there, unsigned, tucked away in a drawer in his new apartment, as if both of you wanted to go back but neither dared to truly take the first step.
One ordinary day at the office, Ellie, the woman who worked at the Planet, approached his desk. Ellie was kind, always smiling, and one of the few people who knew Clark was separated from his wife. She leaned against the edge of his desk and looked at him with eyes that tried to seem casual but didn’t quite manage it.
"We’re going out to dinner today, Clark. Why don’t you come?" Ellie asked, playing with a pen between her fingers.
Clark looked up from the computer and smiled, but it was a short, quick smile, the kind that doesn’t reach the eyes. He glanced toward the window, as if there were something more interesting out there.
"I can’t," Clark said, his voice low but firm.
"No? But Clark, we’ll have fun," Ellie insisted, leaning in a little more, placing a hand on his shoulder. It was a soft, friendly touch, but Clark still tensed. His shoulders stiffened and his jaw tightened for a second.
"I’m spending the day with my wife and my son," he announced, standing up. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and began putting a few things into his briefcase.
Ellie frowned, as if she didn’t quite understand. "Really? I thought you were already divorced. You know, she probably already has someone too. That’s how it goes," Ellie said, shrugging as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Clark looked at her. He looked at her with those blue eyes that could be so gentle, but in that moment turned hard as ice. He didn’t say anything harsh, didn’t raise his voice, but his look was enough for Ellie to take a step back without realizing it.
"I’ll be with my son," Clark replied, his voice so cold it seemed to come from somewhere else.
Just then, his phone vibrated on the desk. The screen lit up and Clark saw it. It was you. Your name appeared on the screen, and something in his face changed completely. The hardness vanished, his shoulders relaxed, and even his eyes grew brighter. Clark answered immediately, not letting it ring more than twice.
Ellie watched him. She couldn’t stop watching him. She saw how Clark hunched slightly, as if he wanted to get closer to the phone, as if your voice deserved all his attention. She saw the smile that appeared on his face—not just any smile, but one of those real ones that come naturally, without control. For a moment, Ellie saw the old Clark again. The one who came to the office clean-shaven, shy, with slightly messy hair and immense kindness in his eyes.
"Hi..." Clark said into the phone, and his voice softened, almost tender. He listened to what you said and nodded, even though he knew you couldn’t see him. "Yeah, I’m on my way out. Do you want me to pick anything up?" he asked, grabbing his briefcase and slinging it over his shoulder. He glanced at Ellie and gave a small nod goodbye without stopping listening to you. "Do you still have soap? Last time I saw you were out. And toothpaste, just one," Clark said, then fell silent, listening to your reply. He listened as you told him you needed a few things, and you began dictating a list. Clark took a pen from the desk—the same one Ellie had been using—and began writing everything down on a piece of paper torn from a notebook. He wrote quickly, in that slightly messy but confident handwriting of his. "Soap, toothpaste, bread, milk..." he murmured as he wrote.
Clark loved those moments. He loved them with all his heart, even if he didn’t say it out loud. Because your voice was never sharp with him. Of course you got angry—it was your nature, you had always been like that. But even so, you smiled at him. And that was what he held onto, those small smiles you gave him when you crossed paths at the door or when he dropped Jonathan off at your apartment. Even if everyone else thought you hated each other, that you only saw each other out of obligation because of your son, the truth was very different. Clark cherished every moment alone with you. At night, when little Jonathan was already fast asleep in his room, Clark would come close to you. He kissed you—not just any way, but with a softness so beautiful it hurt. He placed his hands on your waist, with those big, strong fingers that could bend metal but touched you as if you were made of glass. He pulled you close, pressing his body against yours, to the point where you wanted to ask him to stay, not to leave, to sleep beside you like before.
Maybe that was why Clark sometimes left clothes there. A shirt in the closet, a pair of socks in a drawer, a jacket hanging on the coat rack by the door. Maybe that was why his favorite mug was still there, that white mug with a small newspaper drawing that he had been given when he started at the Planet. Every time he went to your apartment, he looked for it on the same shelf and poured himself coffee into it, as if he had never left. Maybe that was why Clark had learned to create a small field of silence around Jonathan’s room, a trick he had discovered by accident, so his little boy wouldn’t wake up and wouldn’t hear anything. So that the quiet laughter, the sighs, the movements of the bed—everything stayed trapped in a bubble that only the two of you could hear. Maybe that was why there was a locked box of condoms at the back of your closet, hidden behind old sheets and sweaters you no longer wore. A box neither of you mentioned, but both of you knew was there. Because you still loved each other. Because you still needed each other. Because you still punished yourselves with that lie of being separated, when at night, hidden from the world and from your own son, you were still husband and wife.
Clark went down the elevator with a heart a little lighter than it had been all day. The doors closed and he watched his reflection in the metal—that beard he hadn’t bothered to shave, those slightly tired eyes still shining from within. When the doors opened on the ground floor, he walked quickly out to the street. He headed to the supermarket a few blocks away, the usual one, the one he knew by heart because he had gone there hundreds of times when you still lived together. He walked through the aisles confidently, grabbing a basket and then switching it for a cart because he would need more space. He bought everything you had told him: soap, toothpaste, bread, milk. But he didn’t stop there. He also picked up a board game Jonathan had said he wanted the last time they talked on the phone. He had seen it at a toy store the previous week and the boy hadn’t stopped talking about it. "It’s pirates, Dad, it has a map and everything," he had said with wide eyes. Clark took it with a smile that wouldn’t leave his face. He also bought dessert, one you liked—a chocolate cake with cream that he knew the three of you would share after dinner.
The truth was that his apartment—the one he had moved into after the separation—felt like a place he only went to rest when he had to return. It didn’t have much of him. The walls were almost empty, the kitchen barely had the essentials, the fridge held only basic items and some fast food. There were no photos on the walls, no plants, none of the warmth your home had. Because your home, even if you no longer lived together, still felt like his home. That’s why every time he went there, every time he crossed that door, something in his chest relaxed, as if he could finally breathe properly after a long time.
He carried the heavy bags with one hand, because he was that strong, though he tried to hide it so people wouldn’t stare. In the other hand he held his briefcase and his jacket, and with the fingers of that same hand he carefully held the dessert so it wouldn’t fall or get crushed. He walked the three blocks separating his building from yours, took the stairs because the elevator was occupied, and when he reached the door, he knocked twice with his knuckles, soft but firm.
You opened. You had your phone in hand, pressed to your ear, talking to someone while you gestured with your head for him to come in. Your hair was slightly pulled back and you were wearing the long-sleeved blouse Clark had bought in Smallville years ago, that light blue one he had always liked because it made you look calm and beautiful. Also simple black pants, the kind you wore at home. Clark looked at you for a second too long, as he always did, storing the moment in his memory.
"Come in, Jonny’s in his room," you whispered, closing the door carefully behind him.
Clark smiled and stepped inside. He left the bags in the kitchen, his briefcase and jacket on the dining chair, and the dessert carefully on the table. He had barely set everything down when he heard the sound of small feet running down the hallway. His son, Jonathan, now six years old, came straight toward him like a bullet.
"Dad!" Jonathan shouted, full of excitement, arms open wide and a huge smile taking over his entire face.
But you, from where you stood, told him with a smile to lower his voice, placing a finger over your lips. Jonathan looked at you, nodded, and then kept running toward his father, just a bit quieter this time.
Clark lifted him into the air effortlessly, as if he weighed nothing, and held him tightly against his chest. Jonathan wrapped his arms around his neck and buried his face in his shoulder, happy. Meanwhile, Clark began putting everything away. He took things out of the bags one by one and placed them where they belonged: the soap on the bathroom shelf, the toothpaste in the cup by the sink, the milk in the fridge, the bread in the pantry. He did it so naturally, so confidently, as if he knew exactly where everything went, how, in what order. As if it were his apartment. Because deep down, to him, it was.
Jonathan, still in his father’s arms, saw you walk into your room to leave your phone on the nightstand. As soon as he saw you disappear down the hallway, the boy leaned closer to Clark’s ear and whispered softly, in that little voice of a child keeping an important secret.
"He talks to the man who always tells her she’s pretty," Jonathan said, swinging his feet happily.
Clark froze. His smile wavered slightly, like a leaf trembling in the wind. He blinked twice, processing what he had just heard.
"A man?" Clark asked, his voice calmer than he felt inside.
Jonathan nodded seriously, looking at him as if they were sharing a secret meant for no one else. The boy’s eyes sparkled with that mix of innocence and mischief only children have.
"He buys me candy, Dad," Jonathan said, lowering his voice even more. "But I tell him you’re Mom’s favorite."
Clark didn’t quite know how to respond. He just nodded, stroking his son’s hair while his mind raced. What man? Who told you that you were pretty? Why hadn’t you said anything? But before he could think further, Jonathan unintentionally extended his hearing. Children with powers didn’t always control those things well, and Clark understood that better than anyone. Suddenly, both of them heard your voice clearly from the room.
"Yes, thank you very much, I received the files, Harleth," you said, and they could hear you typing on your computer as you spoke.
The voice on the other end of the phone was audible too—a man, with a friendly, familiar tone. "No problem. I already told you to drop the last name. I know both you and your son. Call me Nate."
Clark frowned. Nate. This Nate bought Jonathan candy. This Nate told you that you were pretty. Clark’s fingers, the ones holding Jonathan, tightened slightly, though he immediately noticed and loosened his grip so as not to hurt his son.
You kept talking, unaware that they could hear you. "Of course. I have to go, my husband just got here," you said, your voice sounding completely normal, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Clark smiled. He truly smiled, with his whole being, because you still called him your husband. Just as he called you his wife when speaking to others. It was a small detail, but to him it meant more than anything.
"Husband? You still call him that even though you’re divorced?" the man on the phone asked, sounding surprised, as if he couldn’t understand why you would do that.
Clark almost laughed sarcastically. A dry, short laugh that didn’t quite come out. Of course, to an outsider, to someone who didn’t understand what the two of you had, it must have seemed strange. But he didn’t care what that Nate thought.
"I’ll send you the meeting link. Thank you for the documents. Have a good afternoon," you said, hanging up without further explanation. Your tone had been polite but firm, setting a boundary without needing to raise your voice.
Clark turned slowly, setting his son down on the dining table while he continued putting away the rest of the groceries. But his mind was no longer on the soap or the milk. It was on Nate. On Jonathan’s words. On that man who told you that you were pretty and bought candy for your son. Clark took a deep breath, once, twice, and kept putting things away in silence, waiting for you to come out so he could look you in the eyes and ask, as calmly as possible, who the hell Nate was.
"The man asked Mom out," Jonathan said, with that honesty only children have, the kind that blurts out the truth without thinking about the consequences.
At that exact moment, you walked out of your room, having heard none of what Jonathan had just said. You had a smile on your face, that calm smile of knowing Clark was there, in your kitchen, putting things away as if he had never left. You walked over to the table to see how everything was going.
"Really?" Clark looked at the boy, his eyes a little wider than usual, then at you. He tried to put on a relaxed expression, one that didn’t reveal what he felt inside. "Someone asked you out?" Clark asked innocently—or at least trying to sound innocent—because his son was right there at the table, swinging his legs, watching both of you with curious eyes.
You looked at Jonathan. Of course, the boy—identical to Clark—was far too jealous, even more than his father. You knew that well. Seeing someone who wasn’t his father trying to be kind never seemed funny to him, despite his young age. Jonathan was intelligent, far more than most six-year-olds, and his Kryptonian heritage allowed him to feel people’s heartbeats when they were near you. He could hear if someone’s heart sped up when looking at you, if their blood rushed faster, if their hands grew sweaty. That’s why he didn’t like that man. That’s why he always looked at him with suspicion.
"Yes, but I won’t go," you said, looking at Jonathan with an expression that was half affection, half warning. "I thought I made that clear," you added, pursing your lips slightly.
Jonathan looked down at his hands, which were playing with the edge of the table. He knew he had been caught saying something he probably shouldn’t have. But he didn’t regret it entirely, because deep down, he didn’t want his mom going out with anyone who wasn’t his dad. Simple as that.
You sighed, then looked at Clark, who still had his hands halfway inside a grocery bag. "And… what is he like?" Clark asked, his voice trying to sound casual but not quite managing it. "I’d like to know. I mean… it’s your life," he added, shrugging as if he didn’t care, though you found that hard to believe.
"He’s a university doctor," you answered in a normal tone, as if you were talking about the weather or what you would eat. Then you added, without giving it much importance, "but you know I’d never date someone from my field." You said it as if it were the most obvious rule in the world.
Clark turned to place the cans of tuna in the pantry. He did it slowly, carefully, and as he arranged them, he smiled. He almost laughed, but held it back. Of course, he told himself, you were his woman. His wife. The only one. No matter how many unsigned papers sat in a drawer, no matter how many separate apartments, no matter how many nights alone in his empty bed—you were still his, and he was still yours. That Nate could buy all the candy he wanted, could tell you that you were pretty every morning, but you would never date someone from your workplace. And Clark had known that rule since you first started dating. It was one of the things he loved most about you: you knew how to set boundaries.
"Let’s eat," you told Jonathan, changing the subject with the ease of someone used to avoiding uncomfortable conversations.
Jonathan nodded, relieved that he was no longer being looked at like that. You helped him down from the table, holding him by the waist and setting him down carefully so he wouldn’t get hurt.
"Go get the games ready to play with Dad," you said, giving him a gentle push toward the hallway.
The boy jumped excitedly, completely forgetting about Nate and secrets and everything else. He ran to his room, his shoes tapping loudly against the wooden floor, shouting something about a pirate game and a treasure map.
You stayed there for a moment, looking down the hallway, making sure Jonathan was no longer nearby. When you saw that he was gone, that his bedroom door had closed behind him, you looked at Clark and called him. Not angry, but with something in your voice that wanted to sound casual and didn’t quite manage it.
"Hey," you called, crossing your arms over your chest.
Clark looked at you with that “what did I do?” expression he always wore whenever he noticed that tone in your voice.
Before you could continue, Clark glanced toward his son’s room for a moment. You saw him do it, like he always did. It was his habit. He focused, stretched his senses toward Jonathan’s room, and created that small field of silence he had learned to make over the years. An invisible shield around his son’s room, so the boy wouldn’t hear anything the adults talked about. So he wouldn’t hear arguments, or if you talked about the divorce.
He gave a slight nod, as if saying, “it’s done, we can talk.” It was a power he used every time he came to your apartment. Every time he stayed for dinner.
"Who is Ellie?" you asked, and your tone came out sharper than you intended. "A few weeks ago I called to tell you Jonathan had a dentist appointment, and she answered your office phone. She said, ‘Mr. Clarkie can’t take your call.’ I told her I was your ex-wife," you said, frowning at the memory. That woman’s voice had been too sweet, too comfortable, like she had a right to answer Clark’s phone. And that “Mr. Clarkie” had annoyed you more than you were willing to admit.
Clark looked at you. He froze, a can of tuna still in his hand. He didn’t know. He knew nothing about that call. Sure, he had found a note on his desk a few days later, one that said he needed to pick up his son from the dentist. But he hadn’t known it was you who had called. No one had told him anything. He glanced toward his son’s room, where the boy was rummaging through boxes and scattered cards, looking for his game. Then he looked back at you. He took a step, then another, until he stood right in front of you. He placed a hand on your waist—that large, warm hand that always made you shiver. But this time his hand didn’t stay still. It slid down slightly, just a centimeter, brushing the curve of your hip, stopping right where your ass began. He didn’t squeeze, didn’t do anything else—just left his hand there, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he had every right to touch you like that. And he did. Because that same hand had traced your body the night before, and the night before that, and the night before that. Because he knew every inch of you by heart.
You looked at him, still frowning, even though inside your anger was already melting. You could feel the heat of his fingers through the fabric of your pants. You could feel his thumb making small, almost invisible circles on your lower hip. It was always the same with him. Always his little grumpy wife, as he used to say just to make you blush.
"That’s why," Clark said, whispering, looking straight into your eyes up close. His breath brushed your face and you felt your cheeks flush. "You said ex-wife. I don’t have an ex. I have a wife," he said, his voice so certain, so firm, that you hesitated, not knowing how to respond.
His hand tightened just a little. A soft but firm squeeze, the kind that said “tonight I’ll remind you who I am.” Because Clark was like that. During the day he was the loving father, the shy man putting cans of tuna away in the pantry. But at night, when the bedroom door closed and the silence field wrapped around the bed, he was something else. He was the man who grabbed your hips with strength, who whispered in your ear how much he had missed you, who made you burn from the inside out until you forgot your own name.
Your lips parted to say something, but no words came out. Clark kept talking, in that tone of his that could be so sweet when he wanted it to be. "Everyone at work knows it. You’re my woman," he said, his fingers moving again, brushing the fabric exactly where he knew you felt it most. "I don’t care about Ellie or anyone else. I only care about you. I only think about you. When I’m in my apartment, all I think about is coming back to this one. Coming back to you. Your legs around my waist. Your mouth saying my name. The way you move under me when you can’t take it anymore."
You pressed your lips together to keep from smiling, from moaning, from making any sound Jonathan might hear from his room. You really tried to keep your serious expression, your anger, your frown. But Clark knew you better than anyone. And before you could say anything else, he kissed you. Not a quick kiss this time. It was deep, with tongue, teeth catching your lower lip, one hand gripping your ass firmly and the other at the back of your neck holding you in place. You accepted it without resistance, like you always did. Your hands moved on their own up into his curls, those dark strands you loved so much, tangling your fingers in them, tugging gently the way you knew he liked. Clark groaned against your mouth, a low sound that ran down your spine.
When you pulled apart slightly, both of you were breathing faster. You looked at his beard. That beard he didn’t have before, and that now suited him so well. You knew exactly how it felt against your skin, against your thighs, against that place only he touched.
“Shave,” you whispered, running your fingers through his stubble. “You look better with a beard, and people might fall in love with you,” you added, and that last part sounded more jealous than you’d intended.
Clark smiled. That wide, calm smile that always undid you. "My wife likes it like this," he said, shrugging. Then he lowered his voice into a murmur only you could hear. "Besides… don’t you like feeling it between your legs? Don’t you like it when I go down there and make you moan into the pillow so no one hears us? Don’t you like it when I bite your thighs and leave marks so you know who you belong to?"
You nearly burst from how red you turned. You felt the heat rise from your neck to your face, to your ears, to somewhere much lower that made your legs press together without thinking. You hit his chest lightly, more out of embarrassment than anything else.
"Clark," you whispered, pulling back a little because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else.
But he didn’t fully step away. His hand was still on your ass, squeezing softly, tracing circles. His other hand had moved up to your waist, fingers slipping slightly under your blouse, brushing your warm skin. You both knew what happened at night. You both knew that when Jonathan fell asleep, Clark stayed. That he took off his shoes quietly, turned off the lights, and found you in bed like a man who hadn’t eaten in days. That you wore his old shirt, the one he had left in your closet months ago and that now smelled more like you than him. That you didn’t talk much because words weren’t needed. That all that remained were hands, mouths, bodies pressed together until dawn.
"Can I stay tonight?" Clark asked, his voice rough, his lips close to your ear. His warm breath made you close your eyes.
You looked at him. You looked into those blue eyes that saw you as if you were the only thing that mattered in the world. You swallowed and whispered, your voice trembling but trying to sound firm:
"Do you deserve it?"
Clark smiled. But it wasn’t the shy smile from before. It was darker, more certain—the kind that runs down your spine. He leaned closer to your ear and whispered something so low only you could hear.
"Tonight I’m going to prove whether I deserve it. You’ll end up begging me not to stop. Like always."
Your face turned so red you had to look away. You bit your lower lip—the same one he had just kissed—and said nothing. You didn’t need to. Clark knew you. He knew you had accepted. He knew that when Jonathan fell asleep, you would be waiting for him in bed with that look only he knew. He knew you would open your legs for him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Because it was. Because no matter that the divorce papers remained unsigned, no matter that everyone thought you only saw each other because of your son—you both knew the truth. You weren’t separated. You were just waiting. Waiting for the moment to be together again, for good.
A divorce? It would never happen. They both knew it, deep in their hearts, even if sometimes it was hard to say it out loud. Clark loved you with a force that went beyond what words could explain. His heart beat in rhythm with yours, as if you both shared the same pulse, the same blood, the same need to be close. His life was for his son, yes, but it was also for you. Maybe it was just a matter of adapting. Of learning to live with the absences, with the late arrivals, with the broken promises and the reunions in the darkness of the night. Maybe real love wasn’t that fairytale where everything turns out perfect, but this: two people who hurt each other, who separate, who sleep in different beds but never stop looking for one another. Who keep wearing their rings. Who keep saying “my husband” and “my wife.” Who keep creating fields of silence so their children won’t hear what happens when the sun goes down.
And just when everyone thought the divorce would finally come, that the papers would be signed once and for all, that each of you would go your separate ways, life gave you news that changed everything. Clark arrived at the Planet one ordinary day, a little more distracted than usual, his beard slightly more grown out and his eyes shining in a way his coworkers hadn’t seen in months. He sat at his desk, looked at the photos of your wedding and Jonathan, and then dropped the news without much buildup, in that voice of his that grew small when he talked about important things. You were going to have a second child. You were pregnant. Again. As if fate had laughed at everyone who had bet on the divorce.
Lois and Jimmy, who were nearby, heard him and went silent for a second. Then Lois let out a laugh so loud the whole newsroom heard it. Jimmy joined in, shaking his head as if it were the best news he had heard in years.
"Wow, so the reconciliation must have been pretty intense," Lois said, with that mischievous smile that defined her, raising an eyebrow and looking at Clark playfully.
Clark blushed all the way to his ears. He shook his head, bringing a hand to the back of his neck like he always did when he felt embarrassed. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Everyone knew those divorce papers were still unsigned in some forgotten drawer. Everyone knew Clark still went to your apartment almost every night. Everyone knew the love between you hadn’t gone out—it had just hidden for a while, like the sun behind a cloud.
"Your wife must be thrilled," Jimmy said, giving Clark a warm pat on the back.
Clark smiled. That wide, calm smile only you truly knew. "She is," he said, and his voice trembled just a little with emotion.
Not long after that, Clark made a decision that many didn’t understand at first. He left his job at the Planet. He left Metropolis. He left the skyscrapers, the noise, the sirens, the fast pace of the city. You moved to Smallville, the town where he had grown up, where the roads were dirt and neighbors waved at each other from a distance. The idea was to stay there at least until your children came of age. Until Jonathan, and the baby on the way, and any others who might come after, were old enough to decide if they wanted to go to college, travel, or build their own lives. But in the meantime, Smallville was perfect. Clark’s parents were there, Jonathan and Martha, a little older but still as warm as ever. The farm was there, with its endless fields and the barn where Clark kept memories of his childhood. The peace you had never found in the city was there.
You began teaching history in town, at the same school where Clark had studied as a child. You loved standing in front of the board and telling students about the past—about wars and revolutions, about people who had fought for a better world. And Clark taught literature and writing at a Smallville high school, just a few blocks away. He taught his students to love words, to write beautiful letters, to find beauty in simple stories. It was a quiet life, the kind that might seem boring to some but, for you, was everything you had ever wanted. After work, you came home to the farm you had fixed up together, spending afternoons watching Jonathan run through the fields, feeling the baby move in your belly, cooking together while the sun set behind the cornfields.
The divorce never came. Much less when your belly grew again in the third year with your second daughter. Because that’s how it was: after the second child, who was a girl, came a third. And suddenly you weren’t three anymore, but five. A big, noisy, lively family. Jonathan, the eldest, with his six years, then seven, then eight, always running everywhere, always asking questions, always wanting to be like his father. Little Lena, who came into the world with lungs that seemed Kryptonian, so strong and so beautiful like her mother, growing up in her father’s arms, clinging to him like a shadow, laughing every time Clark lifted her above his head. And the youngest, Clark, named after his father—a quiet baby who cried when he was hungry, slept when he was full, and seemed to eat all the time. It was unusual, Grandma Martha would say, such a calm baby, but no one complained. The three children grew without pressure. Without Superman’s shadow. Without the obligation to be perfect. Without the burden of saving the world. Just living. Just being children. Running barefoot through the farm fields, climbing trees, scraping their knees, laughing loudly while their parents watched from the porch.
Clark became a devoted father to his children. He woke up early to make them breakfast, drove them to school in the truck, taught them how to ride a bike, read them stories before bed. He didn’t have to save the world all the time anymore—the world could manage on its own for a while. He didn’t have to arrive late to school performances anymore, because now he was the father who recorded everything on his phone, the one who clapped the loudest, who brought balloons and cake and a huge smile. And at night, when all three children were fast asleep in their beds, Clark still created that field of silence around their rooms. But it was no longer to hide arguments or sadness. It was so the two of you could love each other in peace, as you always had, as you always would, without anyone hearing you, without anyone judging you, without anyone reminding you that once, you had almost signed papers that now lay forgotten at the bottom of a drawer, covered in dust and memories.
And sometimes, you would watch Clark as he played with the children in the yard. You would see him run after Jonathan, lift Lena up toward the sky, carry little Clark in one arm while holding a ball with the other. And you would smile. Because that was the man you had fallen in love with. Not Superman. Not the hero. But Clark. The father. The husband. The man who had learned, through mistakes and a broken heart, that what mattered most wasn’t saving the world, but being home.
And the divorce—that ghost that had hovered over your lives for so long—faded like mist under the morning sun, until one day it ceased to exist altogether. Because it had never truly been real. Because you had never stopped loving each other. Because love, when it’s real, doesn’t break over papers or distance. It transforms. It adapts. It waits for the right moment to bloom again. And you had waited. And you had bloomed. And now you had a big family, a home full of laughter, and an entire future ahead of you.
Sinopsis: A young journalist who abandoned her dream of painting meets Clark Kent, a kind and observant coworker who unknowingly becomes her muse. When she discovers his secret identity, their bond deepens into something tender and transformative—leading her back to the art she once buried.
Warnings: Emotional themes (family pressure, lost dreams), Mild romantic intimacy
WC: 4,000 words approx.
As you grew up, you began to realize something you didn’t fully understand at first. You looked at everyone around you—your classmates, your cousins, the children of your parents’ friends. Each one took a different path in their careers. Some chose more serious fields, like medicine, where they had to study a lot and help the sick. Others went down stranger paths, like scientific research, spending their days in laboratories with white coats and test tubes. There were also those who chose engineering, full of numbers and blueprints. But they all seemed to know what they wanted to do. Everyone except you, perhaps.
Your father was a hardworking man, the kind who woke up early and went to bed late. He had achieved many things in life, and together with other partners, he had founded the Daily Planet, that important newspaper everyone knew. For him, things had to be done in a practical way. He didn’t believe in wasting time. That’s why he repeated again and again that first you had to make money, that it was necessary before thinking about studying something you liked. “What you like doesn’t pay the bills,” he would say as he drank his black coffee in the mornings. And you, who loved and respected him, would nod without saying anything. Because he had given you everything: a roof, food, education, affection in his own way. But there was also something he would never allow you to do. He would not allow you to be a “simple painter,” as he called it. To him, that wasn’t a real job. So your path had already been set before you could even have an opinion. You would end up at the Daily Planet. You would be a staff writer first, then a journalist, and maybe one day, if you worked hard, you could become the head of the place. That was the plan. The only plan.
You, on the other hand, had had a secret love since childhood. You loved to draw. They weren’t just scribbles, no. What came out of your hands were vivid colors—intense reds, deep blues, yellows that looked like sunlight. You spent hours with your brushes and watercolors, getting lost in your own worlds. You wanted to learn more, take courses, improve, turn it into something important. But your father firmly opposed it. “What will you gain from that?” he would ask, his voice not angry but certain, as if he already knew the answer. And you would nod again, because you didn’t know how to fight against that certainty. So little by little, you let painting go. Not all at once—it was like a light slowly dimming. One day you painted less, the next you only looked at your brushes, and then you stored them in a box under your bed.
Your hands, once stained with living colors, grew used to something else. First came the black ink of your pen, that simple, dull stroke. Then the skill of typing, your fingers firmly striking the keys. You stopped drawing with colors, but you couldn’t leave it completely. In secret, in your notebooks, you kept drawing. But you no longer used watercolors or paints. Only pencil, sometimes pen. The feeling was different—colder, quicker. Something was missing, but over time you got used to it. Like one gets used to background noise or a small pain. You went on with your life, studied what had to be studied, learned to write well, to draft quickly, to look for news. When the time came, you joined the Daily Planet. But not as someone’s daughter, not with the position your father had secured for you. You joined as a simple intern, one more among many. No one knew you came from an important family, and you liked that. After some time, you were given a permanent position. Because you were good at writing. Thank God, you sometimes thought—you wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. If you were a disaster with words, you would have nothing.
The paintings remained stagnant. Like a river that stops flowing. You thought you would never paint again. You didn’t even draw in secret anymore. The pencil strokes had faded too. Only typed words remained—articles, headlines. And everything stayed that way, orderly and dull, until one day something happened.
It was a normal day. You were at your desk, reviewing some notes, when you heard a voice beside you. “Did you draw this?” someone asked. You looked up and saw Clark Kent. The reporter who had been at the Planet for a year and a half. He wasn’t as new as you anymore, but he wasn’t a veteran either. He was a tall man, with a calm gaze, wearing large glasses that sometimes slipped down his nose. He had picked up your notebook by mistake. His was the same red color, with a small squirrel sticker in the corner just like yours. Identical. He had confused them. And when he opened it, he found your drawings. The ones you thought no one would ever see.
You stayed silent for a moment. Your cheeks turned red, the kind of redness you can’t hide no matter how hard you try. You looked at the notebook in his hands, then at his eyes, then back at the notebook. “Yes,” you finally said, your voice a little shaky. And then you let out a smile, the kind that comes on its own without being told to.
Clark looked at the drawings carefully. It wasn’t a polite glance—it was real, as if he truly cared. “It’s lovely,” he said, his voice soft. “You’d be a famous painter if you decided to draw seriously too.” You looked at him in silence. The words were simple, nothing extraordinary about them. But thinking about that idea, that distant possibility your father had crushed years ago, made you smile for real. Not a polite smile. A full one, the kind that reaches your eyes.
After that, you went on with your life. But now something was different. You and Clark were coworkers. You worked in the same newsroom, saw the same stories, followed the same schedules. It was obvious you would see him often. There was no way to avoid it. And your eyes began to wander toward him. Not in a perverted way, not like that. You looked at his face, the shape of his jaw, how his eyes crinkled slightly when he laughed, how he ran a hand through his hair when he was thinking. One day, without realizing it, you picked up your notebook. You started drawing him. You drew his glasses—large and slightly crooked. You drew his gaze, the one that seemed shy yet deep. You drew his smile, the one that was almost never wide, always small, as if he didn’t want to bother anyone. You liked the result so much that you drew him again. And then again. And again. His features became etched into your memory, into your fingertips. You knew exactly what his nose looked like, how his hair fell over his forehead, how his brows furrowed when he focused.
Maybe that’s why—because you had drawn his face so many times—you were able to realize it. One day you saw a picture of Superman in the newspaper. The hero, the man who could fly, the one with the red cape. Something about his face felt familiar. You took your notebook, opened it where you had your drawings of Clark, and placed them next to the photo. You compared the jaws, the shapes of the cheeks, the line of the lips. The similarities were many. Too many. Your ability to study anatomy, to capture it on paper, had given you the answer. Clark Kent was Superman. And all because one day, by mistake, he had picked up your red notebook with a squirrel in the corner.
Clark went straight to you. He had no other choice, because you weren’t stupid. One day, after looking at your drawings and comparing them to photos of the hero, you confronted him. You were in the Daily Planet break room, alone, with the background noise of coffee machines and the distant typing of other journalists.
“Clark,” you said quietly, closing the door. “You’re Superman.”
He froze. He had a cup of coffee in his hand, halfway between the table and his lips. He blinked twice, quickly, as if that could erase what you had just said. “What? No, no, not at all. What are you talking about?” he said, his voice higher than usual. He even laughed, but it was a fake laugh, the kind you can spot from miles away.
“Don’t pretend,” you said, crossing your arms. “I’ve drawn you so many times I know every bone in your face. Your jaw, your forehead, the shape of your ears. It’s the same. The same, Clark.”
He sighed. He set the cup down carefully, as if it were made of glass. He took off his glasses and looked at you directly. Without them, with that clear gaze, he looked even more like the photos. “Alright,” he said at last, his voice deeper, calmer. “Don’t tell anyone, please. No one can know.”
“I won’t,” you promised. And it was true. You never told anyone.
Clark kept looking at you for a moment. His blue eyes moved as if he were thinking about something. Then he smiled, but it was a shy smile, barely noticeable. “So…,” he began, scratching the back of his neck. “You draw me?”
You went pale. Suddenly it felt like all the blood drained from your face, leaving you as white as the pages of your notebooks. But at the same time, your cheeks burned. You were pale and red at once, something you didn’t even know was possible. You opened your mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Just a small sound, like an “uh,” stuck in your throat.
Clark chuckled softly, not mockingly, but fondly. He took a step toward you. “Am I…,” he asked, his voice even softer now, almost a whisper, “part of your inspiration?”
You swallowed. Your hands trembled a little, so you hid them behind your back. You looked at the floor, then at the wall, then anywhere but his face. Because if you looked into his eyes at that moment, you thought you might faint. “I like to draw,” you finally said, in the smallest voice you’d had in years. “That’s all.”
But it wasn’t all. You both knew it wasn’t all. Clark smiled, slipped his glasses into his shirt pocket, and said nothing more. He just looked at you for a long second, then turned to pour himself another coffee, as if nothing had happened. But you saw how his ears had turned red too.
After that, something changed between you. You were no longer just two coworkers passing each other in the halls. Clark started seeking you out more. During breaks, instead of staying at his desk, he would come over to yours. “Do you have a moment?” he would ask, and you were already saying yes before he finished the sentence. He would sit beside you and tell you so many things you barely understood at first. His powers. How he could hear things from the other side of the city. How he had to measure his strength so he wouldn’t break everything he touched. How flying felt like floating in warm water, but faster. You would laugh at some of it, because it sounded so crazy it seemed like something out of a children’s book. “You can really see through walls?” you would ask, and he would nod, embarrassed. “It’s uncomfortable sometimes,” he admitted. “That’s why I learned not to look.”
Then, before you realized it, you were having coffee together every break. You watched him while he talked, while he laughed, while he adjusted the glasses you already knew he didn’t need. You watched him so much that you started to blush every time your eyes met his. That clear blue, like the sky after rain. You would turn red, look down, and he would laugh softly. “You like looking at me, don’t you?” he said once, and you almost choked on your coffee.
Then came the dinners. One day he invited you to a small restaurant near the Planet, one that sold the best burgers in the city. “Why not?” you thought. And you went. And you laughed. And you talked until the place closed and you had to leave. After that, you would walk back together to your apartment. The streets of Metropolis at night were beautiful, full of lights and shadows, and Clark walked beside you with his hands in his pockets, telling you stories about his childhood in Smallville. You listened to everything, every word, and when you reached your door, you didn’t want him to leave. But he always did. “See you tomorrow,” he would say, and you would stay there a little longer, watching him walk away.
One day he showed up at your apartment with a somewhat large box in one hand and a small cake in the other. It was your birthday. You opened the door in your pajamas, your hair a mess, and when you saw him, you were speechless.
“Happy birthday,” he said, with that small smile you loved to draw.
You looked at him, confused. He walked past you as if it were his home, set the cake on the kitchen table, and placed the box in your hands. “Open it,” he said.
You opened the gift carefully, undoing the ribbon and removing the paper. Inside was a set of paints. But not just any paints. They were beautiful ones, the kind you had seen in specialized magazines but never dared to buy because they were hard to find. They had a huge variety of colors—greens that looked alive, blues that shone, reds that burned. A complete set for a painter. Expensive. Very expensive. You looked at him with watery eyes, almost crying.
“I think… you should paint more often,” Clark said, a little nervous, shifting his weight. “I’ll buy them all. Whatever you need.”
You smiled. A smile so big it made your cheeks hurt. “Why?” you asked, even though you already wanted to hug him.
“Because I want you not to be just a writer when you’re with me,” he replied, stepping closer. “I want you to do what you love. I… I like being with you.”
You didn’t say anything else. He stepped closer, lowered his head, and it was your first kiss. Soft, brief, a little clumsy because you were both nervous. But it was perfect. The first kiss of many that would come after.
Clark became enchanted with you. But not in a strange way, no. He loved watching you paint. He loved the way you picked up a brush or a pen and suddenly, out of nowhere, a line would begin to take shape into a face or a building. He would sit beside you without saying anything, just watching. He loved seeing your eyes shine, lost in your own world, while he stayed there in silence. Sometimes you spent hours painting, and he never got bored. “Don’t you get tired of watching me?” you would ask. “No,” he would say. “Never.”
You gave him several paintings. One of Metropolis at night, with all its lights glowing. One of Superman flying among the clouds. One of a flying dog that had almost destroyed your home once, when a gust of wind carried away your laundry and he had to go retrieve it. Clark laughed so much at that painting that he hung it in the most visible spot. You gave him one of the Daily Planet building, with its large letters on the façade. You gave him one of his face—the one you had drawn the most times—with the glasses and everything. You gave him another of a strange landscape you had dreamed one night, with purple trees and an orange river.
So many paintings that you thought one day he might throw them away. But no. Every time you went to his apartment, a new painting was hanging on the wall. And another. And another. Until Clark’s apartment became your personal museum. The walls had no space left. There were paintings in the living room, in the hallway, even in the kitchen. He didn’t mind. On the contrary, every time he came home, he looked at them and smiled. “It’s like living inside your head,” he told you once. “And I really like being there.”
Life brought you together in a strange way. You still worked at the Daily Planet, because you couldn’t leave your job either. But when vacations came, or when the workday ended and you had nothing to do, you painted so much that Clark could only cook meals and watch you from the other side of the room. He would stand there, leaning against the doorframe, wearing an apron that looked a bit ridiculous on him because it was too big. He watched how you moved the brush, how you frowned when something didn’t turn out right, how you smiled to yourself when a line came out perfect.
“Do you need anything?” he would sometimes ask, breaking the silence because he liked hearing your voice.
“Silence,” you would reply, without looking up from the canvas. But your mouth curved slightly, because deep down you liked having him there.
Clark would fall quiet and smile. He stayed still, waiting. Because he already knew what your next request would be. It was always the same. He always loved hearing it. A few seconds passed, maybe a minute, and you spoke again without stopping your painting.
“And a kiss from my boyfriend,” you would say, your voice soft, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to ask for.
Clark would blush. Every time. No matter how many kisses you had already shared, he always turned red like a tomato. His cheeks would flush, his ears too, and that small smile of his would grow a little wider. He would walk toward you with slow steps, as if he didn’t want to interrupt you, but at the same time as if he couldn’t wait a second longer. He would lean down, and his lips would touch yours. A soft, warm kiss, just long enough to make you sigh. Then he would give you an extra kiss on the forehead, right between your brows, and linger there for a moment, his nose brushing your skin.
“Go on,” he would whisper. And you would keep painting, with renewed energy, your heart just a little fuller.
Sometimes Clark would sit on the floor with a book, leaning against the wall, while you painted. Time passed without either of you noticing. Hours flew like birds. You could spend two, three, four hours straight with the brush in your hand, and he never complained. But there was something he looked forward to eagerly. He didn’t say it, but you knew. Because every so often, after you had been painting for a long time, Clark would lift his gaze from his book and look at you. He wouldn’t say anything. He would just watch. And you, even if you were in the most important moment of your painting, could feel his gaze fixed on you.
So the only thing that stopped you—besides going to the bathroom or getting water—was to kiss him. You would set the brush down carefully, wipe your hands on the cloth beside you, and stand up. You would walk toward him, and he would already be closing his book because he knew what was coming. You would sit on his lap or kneel beside him, and you would kiss him. A long, deep kiss, the kind that leaves you breathless. Clark would close his eyes and place a hand on the back of your neck, gentle, as if you were made of glass. When you finished, you would rest your forehead against his for a moment, breathing deeply.
“I’ll keep going,” you would say.
“I’ll be here,” he would reply.
And that’s how the afternoons passed. Clark always waited for his moment of attention. He never asked for more than what you gave him, but it was clear he enjoyed it. Each kiss was like a reward for him—and for you as well. Because even while you painted, you needed him too. You needed his warmth, his mouth, his large, clumsy hands that never quite knew where to go. You needed that moment of setting the brush down and remembering you weren’t alone.
When you finished a long painting session, you would wash your hands, covered in paint. The water would run blue, red, yellow, and Clark would stand beside you, watching the colors disappear down the drain. Then you would lie down on the couch. You would rest your head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. Looking at your freshly finished painting from a distance, you would notice details you hadn’t seen before—a shadow placed wrong, a stroke too thick. But Clark only saw beauty.
“That sky turned out beautiful,” he would say, his chin resting against your hair. “It looks like you could step inside and live there.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” you would reply, but you would laugh.
“And that building—it looks like it’s breathing. How do you make it look like it’s breathing?”
“Clark, be quiet already.”
“I can’t. It’s so beautiful. And that light in the window—it looks real. I could swear it’s actually on.”
You couldn’t take it anymore. You would lift yourself just enough to reach his lips and silence him with a kiss. He would laugh against your mouth, a low, happy sound. His arms would wrap around you, pulling you close. “Alright, alright,” he would murmur between kisses. “I won’t say anything else. But it’s beautiful. Truly.”
You would laugh too. And you would stay like that, tangled together on the couch, looking at the half-finished painting, talking about nothing and everything. Because even though Clark interrupted you with his praise, it didn’t bother you. On the contrary. You loved his attention. You loved that he saw what you painted as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world. And if he kissed you in the middle of your work, it didn’t bother you at all. Because you loved that too. You needed that too.
Sometimes, when you were very tired after a long day at the newspaper and then hours of painting, Clark would carry you to bed in his arms. He would lift you as if you weighed nothing, with a ease that sometimes made you forget it came from his powers. “That’s enough for today,” he would say as he walked toward the bedroom. “You can continue tomorrow.” You wouldn’t protest. You would just rest your head on his shoulder and close your eyes. He would lay you down carefully, cover you up to your chin, and lie beside you. You would sleep wrapped in each other, your back pressed against his chest, his arms around you like a shield.
Other times, especially during the week, you could only paint for an hour. You would come home from work, eat something quickly, and sit in front of the canvas. Clark would sit nearby, without making a sound. An hour would fly by. And when exhaustion overtook you, you would set the brushes down with reluctance. “Tomorrow,” you would tell yourself. “Tomorrow I’ll paint more.” You would wash your face, change clothes, and go to bed to get enough sleep for the next day.
But always, in the mornings, before the alarm rang, you would wrap your arms around Clark. Sometimes he was already awake, watching you in silence. Other times he was still asleep, his mouth slightly open and his glasses resting on the nightstand. You would curl up against him, bury your face in his neck, and stay like that for a moment longer. No painting, no writing, nothing. Just him. Because Clark was part of you now. And every morning, when you held him, you felt like you could handle anything.
At night, when Metropolis fell asleep, Clark would take you flying to the highest points of the city. He would hold you carefully, as if you were made of porcelain, and you would rise between the buildings until everything looked small below. The cold air stung your cheeks, but he held you tightly and you felt nothing but his warmth. From up there, the city was beautiful. The lights looked like fallen stars scattered across the ground. The rivers shone like silver ribbons. And you captured all that beauty in your memory, and later you brought it to life in your paintings.
It was everything you had ever dreamed of. Not just painting—but having someone who loved your true art. Someone who didn’t say, “What will you gain from that?” Someone who bought you the most expensive paints without you even asking. Someone who hung every single one of your drawings on his walls, even when there was no space left. Someone who took you flying just so you could see the view properly and paint it later.
That was Clark. And you, without ceasing to be a writer, had become a painter again. And you had also found someone who waited in silence for each of your kisses as if it were the first, who blushed like a boy every time you asked for one, and who never, ever grew tired of watching you paint.
