hii! i love all of your clark content and i’d love to see a part two (or even a standalone) of the too much tequila drabble where clark decides to tell the reader the truth? i’ll let you decide how and where, i just wanna know how it ends!
keep up the good work 💗
anon you are too kind! i was considering a sequel when someone commented about it but now that u suggested it a standalone take on it might be so cute too! thank u for the sweet words, def going to try to find motivation somewhere down the line to (potentially) start on a sequel/standalone when i’m not as busy <3
if ya, ur so so pretty!! but im sure u’ve heard that b4, lol!
this is so sweet anon but unfortunately it isn’t me 😭 ! she is an actress, lauren donzis! she is so adorable and i thought that this selfie of her for my pfp would fit my overall blog layout/aesthetic when i first started it. but honestly i do my makeup basically the same way and we have some of the same features although she and i look completely different if that makes sense? like i am brunette with brown eyes and fairer skin so we pretty much share in our facial similarities but our facial compositions are totally different (also i am asian lol). + i am wearing my prescription glasses most of the time! i was thinking about doing a lil face reveal on here but i am so scared of irls finding me lol. i would prob be comfortable doing that with moots though haha. thank you for the sweet message although she isn’t me (the intent was sweet though haha)!
can i please have a clark kent x reader with a reader who has a medical condition that makes all sexual relations super uncomfortable and hurt 🩷? Thank you so much and have a wonderful day !
hi baby, i’m so sorry but i don’t write nsfw 😣! it’s just not for me and i apologize. HOWEVER! i can do still some sort of take on reader with medical condition if that appeals to u! maybe with hurt/comfort or whatever elements that u would prefer! <3
you’ve had a little too much to drink on a late night excursion out with the daily planet crew and start mindlessly babbling on about clark being superman—much to the dismay of the man who only wants to look after you. needless to say you’re a little bit difficult… (2.0k…drabble.)
tags: reader’s endless shenanigans, corenswet!canines (yes!) friends who are definitely in love and in denial, drunk confessions and mentions of alcohol, i’ve never had a drink in my life but this is how i feel it would be don’t mind me
˚୨୧⋆｡ navi masterlist latest work
A FRANTIC CLARK, with the wisdom of hindsight, glances down at his gold wristwatch nervously, gleaming tauntingly up at him as if to say time’s a-ticking.
You’re sitting on the barstool beside him, none the wiser to the face of his clock reading half past one in the morning. Mascara is smudged faintly around your eyes making you look almost raccoon adjacent. Several shot glasses that the bartender has yet to collect are scattered around your side of the dingy bar counter like a barricade. You’re giggly, putting your feet up on the barstool and hugging your knees to your chest just to lose Clark’s several-sizes-too-big suit jacket around your shoulders and his left leather shoe with a plop and a quick oops.
“Sweetie, we should put these back on.” He’s swift to pick up the abandoned blazer and sole as if you’ll freeze without them in the few seconds that they’re left there. “We’re gonna leave soon, alright? Gonna grab Jimmy and Lois and you and I will be back on my way to my apartment.”
“Water, Clark.” You whine when he’s done adjusting you. “Want water.”
“Okay, okay, honey. You just stay right there and I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. No funny business, alright?” He wags a finger at you in somewhat unserious warning. You give him a frantic nod before he’s on his way.
The blare of your favorite song in the bar speakers makes you jolt in your seat. You’re on your feet at once with a shriek, eyes frantically searching for him. “Clark! It’s my favorite! You have to come dance with me!” You’re clumsy and a little shaken when you kick off his leather loafers and climb for the bar counter, standing atop with wobbly legs. Other bar-goers around you gawk at your sudden performance, but of course you’re too gone to notice or care.
Clark’s standing before you with the speed of a mad man, almost in a singular movement nursing your ice cold water to his broad chest and coming to your aid in the same instant. God, where was the bartender when he needed him?
“Whoa, whoa, honey! Get down from there! You’re going to hurt yourself!” He bellows, and like clockwork, your knees give out mid-scream of the song lyrics and you’re tumbling off the counter and into his arm. Arm. The bare one not still clutching onto your forgotten water for dear life. With a relieved sigh, he’s setting you back down on your barstool.
“Clarkkkk,” you slur. “You’re so fast. And strong. Like Superman,” you grin from ear to ear, and heat rises to his cheeks.
“You’re a silly girl,” he says simply, one hand gently tilting your head up, and the other bringing the water glass to your lips that you, to his surprise, accept happily without a fight.
“You’re so pretty. Even like this. Especially like this,” he whispers when he thinks you’re zoned out, eyes zeroed in absentmindedly at the dartboard above his head across the way. Your wide eyes find his in your drunkenness, bloodshot and curious.
When you’re done drinking, he takes the glass from your mouth, that you wipe excess droplets from with the back of your hand. You belch, making him chuckle before muttering a quiet excuse me, much quieter than your burp.
“Aweee, Clark! You’re so sweet. You’re such a good boyfriend. Not boyfriend, but boy who’s a friend. I bet you’re a really good one of those, too though. I wouldn’t mind if you were mine,” you ramble on, and Clark can detect well over a hint of that sharp scent of alcohol on your tongue.
“And your eyes are so pretty…such a pretty pacific blue. Not the icy kind that scare you or that you want to look away from,” you point out, your own bloodshot eyes boring into his.
“You…you don’t know what you’re saying, baby,” Clark replies with a scratch at the back of his head, suddenly nervous that you’d overheard what he thought had been his hushed (enough) admirations of you. He’s overcome with a quiet somber to hear words you clearly don’t mean in your inebriation, but words he’s secretly always wanted to hear leave your mouth. Not like this though, when it reeks deliciously of mango and strawberry margaritas and one-too-many shots of tequila. Celebration bar-hopping for 100 years of the Daily Planet seemed to go a bit too hard tonight. The word echoes over and over again in his head in a timeless loop. Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend. You’d be the perfect girlfriend, he wants to say.
“No, I do,” you say defensively with a pout. “You hear that, everybody?!” You suddenly shout. “Clark’s fast and strong and sweet, just like Superman. Clark Kent is Superman—,” you bellow in a sing-songy voice before Clark clamps a quick hand over your blabbering mouth. Wandering eyes scattered around the bar all fall on you.
“Shhh, shhh,” He hushes gently, before removing his hand. “Baby, you’re causing a commotion. You can’t just say things like that,” he scolds you before turning to his curious audience.
“She’s a little…out of sorts right now, if you couldn’t already tell. Sorry, everyone,” he declares nervously before they buzz in a loud unison, returning to their conversations.
“I don’t like being hushed,” you quarrel and glare at him.
“I don’t like lying, baby.” He said, fully aware at the irony of his words. “You know that.” He fixes the hair framing your face to tie it into a loose bun with the hair tie he keeps around his wrist especially for you—that you don’t protest and seem to ease into, instead. He’s learned all sorts of elaborate (for a man) hairstyles to help you into when you’re busy, or intoxicated, what have you. Sometimes he settles for a loose braid, a hairstyle he was quite proud of himself for when he’d finally mastered. A loose bun goes with your business casual attire still left on from work, he decides.
“Sorryyy, Clark.” You say to him, sincere even in your clear lack of consciousness. He melts a little. It makes him grin a toothy white grin.
“You have cute little canines,” you giggle and press your fingers into his dimples. “Like a shark. I’m going to call you Clark Attack.” You roar and imitate claws, confidently, which only makes Clark bust out in failed stifled laughter.
“Dinosaurs roar, baby. Not sharks.”
“What do sharks do then?”
“They…chomp?”
“No, crocodiles—hic—do that,” you argue with a slight hiccup. Clark knows that sound all too well. That when the hiccup gets you, you’ve had well past your limit—which was already more than apparent to him—and that it was time to retire for the night. He brings the water to your lips again.
“Okay, Miss Hiccup. We can figure that out later,” he decides, before leaving the water glass among your abandoned shot glasses and signing off on the tab that the bartender mysteriously left for him. “Let’s go find Jimmy and Lois, for real this time.”
“No,” you fight, eyes welling up with tears dramatically and pouting. “I wanna stay and keep having fun with my friends, Limmy and Jois. And you, the bestest friend of all. Please, Clark. We’re having fun.” He chortles at your mix of words.
“You stayed with only me half the night. But alright, why don’t we find them and see what they have to say, okay? See what they think? Want to make sure my best friend gets home in a timely manner for work this time.” He raises a hopeful brow and you sigh.
“Fine. But I’m sure they wanna stay too,” you defend. He lugs you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and you squeal. His eyes search around, until they settle on a furious Lois and a defensive Jimmy at the pool table, arguing about whether or not she’s actually hit the eight ball.
“Okay, Jimmy, since you think game isn’t game and that I’m gonna let blatant cheating slide, we’ll let Smallville decide this one. Clark?” She looks at him for refuge when he approaches them.
“Hey guys, can we talk about this later?” Clark gestures silently at your sagged and relaxed frame on his shoulder, drawing hearts and other shapes on his back before dozing off all of a sudden.
“Geez, Kent. Can’t get a grip on your girlfriend?” Jimmy comments at the sight of you before taking a dismissive swig of his own glass. Lois snorts.
“Not my girlfriend,” Clark says reluctantly. Yet. The echoed loop of the word boyfriend makes its return to his head.
“Right, because friends keep hair ties around their wrists for their dearly beloved female friends and lug them home every night when they’ve had too much to drink. And coddle them up in their baby blankets to bed.” Lois adds. “You know, you went crazy on me when I even tried to touch that blanket, Clark,” Lois reminisces to one of the first instances she’d been over to his apartment with Jimmy. The blanket he was wrapped in from Krypton to Earth as a baby.
“It’s frayed already! And it’s, you know. Important. Very important childhood relic,” Clark squeaks. “And this is an entirely different case. She’s drunk.”
“Wasn’t she screaming earlier about how she’d like you for a boyfriend?” Jimmy said thoughtlessly. “Oh, and how you’re Superman? That’s a funny one. To think you could have laser eyes beaming into me if I piss you off well enough,” he chuckled. “You refrain from even killing flies in the office.”
“Like I said, she was out of sorts!” Clark rebuts. He knows better than to find much truth to what you say drunk, recalling all the thoughts you professed to him previously that sounded like utter nonsense. About how you’d have a house made of candy if you were mayor of Metropolis. But not chocolate, because it would melt. He thought back to that memory for a moment. Hmm, maybe there was some sense to your drunken thoughts then.
They’re suddenly distracted again by pool. You pull up from off his shoulder a bit to look him in the face with a tilt of your head. “Can I try on your glasses, Clark?” He’s stuttering and turning a bright pink. He desperately wants you to. “Not here, baby.”
“What? Why?!” You squabble. “What are you hiding?” You lean back onto his shoulder and whisper in his ear mischievously, “Superman.” Chills are sent down his spine at hearing you call him what he is without really even knowing for sure. The intimacy of it. “Enough with that, Sweetheart,” he mutters lowly.
“Alright, farm boy.” Jimmy pats the back of his other shoulder after officially forfeiting the game with Lois. “Whatever you say,” he yawns. “Let’s all get on out of here, gang.”
A jazzy song begins to permeate within the walls of the bar, a sweet dulcet tone you quite like. You’re begging Clark to let you down, for just a second. “Dance with me this time, please, Clark.”
“You’re going to fall, I know it,” he quips.
“No, I won’t, please! You’ll catch me if I do. You know you will, and I do, too,” you say surely.
He gives a reluctant nod. You’re back on your feet with a grin, and snatching his hands, forcing him along to the sound of the melody and giggling amongst yourselves when you accidentally step on his feet, which he never seems to mind. He’s abandoned your pair of high heels he undid from your feet, knowing they’d leave you sore after some hours.
He’s disheveled and beautiful, work shirt rolled up his forearms, curls a mess and glasses fallen to the bridge of his nose that you push up before he twirls you. Jimmy and Lois are long gone, one eyeing you two deviously and the other wiggling her brows at him tauntingly that Clark exchanges with a grin and a roll of his eyes before she gives him a good luck salute and they head out the door together. One by one, as the night drags on and the jukebox echo of melodious choruses fill the beat-down room, people file out, until it’s just you and him left. Light on your feet as ever to the beat, before he swoops you off your swollen soles and carries you home.
⋆˙⟡ masterlist • dc • david corenswet • 09/05/25 ⋆˙⟡
⌞ ⌕ recs seven⌝ I gif credits - @/barbie-2023
here are some clark kent stories i’ve read, loved, and reblogged. all the admiration for the writers who share their talent so generously. please be sure to read the warnings on each fic. and if you enjoy them, let the author know by a comment, reblog, or both! ♡
ᝰ.ᐟ key: A- angst I F- fluff I S- smut I C- comfort I HC- hurt/comfort I ~S- implied smut
☆ i never knew (well now you do) I @eddieslooneymoonie I A
You might let Clark get away with too much because you know he needs a break. But a woman can only handle so much when she didn’t even want to date Superman in the first place.
☆ crash landing into you I @staseras I F
what if after being defeated by ultraman, superman crash landed in smallville and you were the one to find him?
☆ vanilla cookies I @/staseras I F + HC
you share cookies with your coworker. from that blossoms a cute love story
☆ (you think) he doesn’t like you back pt2 I @/staseras I HC
you think he doesn't like you back, so you draw your love letters instead of confessing, and he finds your sketchbook one day.
☆ you’re gonna be the death of me I @/staseras I F
you like to make your boyfriend scared for your sanity. your latest crazy idea? you want to free fall from altitude, and have him chase after you. also, clark figures out you're pregnant before you do.
☆ request I @thyme-in-a-bubble I S
☆ request I @/thyme-in-a-bubble I S
☆ heat vision I @dumbbandpoetic I F
in which clark kent has a little problem he can't control. specifically, every time he gets just a little turned on, he sets something on fire with his eyes. pair that with a beautiful girl who's already onto his secret? not a good match...
☆ leave a message at the tone I @simplyseveredslut I F + A
in which Clark becomes very familiar with your voicemail after choosing work and Lois, once again. when you finally call, he’ll drop everything for you.
☆ rock me, sway me I @bowandlacy I C
superman accidentally reveals his secret identity through a hug.
☆ drabble I @followyourfleart I F + S
A Clark Kent who hides his superhero side from his partner
☆ one-shot I @hearts4johnwick I F + A
your school has a football game against smallville. after the game clark kent approaches you and asks if you want to hang out, but there’s one problem.
☆ truth serum I @froggibus I F
when you hear your boyfriend is injured on a mission, you prepare for the worst. what you didn't expect? him being high on truth serum
☆ it’s golden like daylight I @alwritey-aphrodite I F
☆ how to: fall in love again I @spideystevie I A + F
lovergirl at heart, you've decided love isn't anything you're willing to risk pursuing again after your last boyfriend. and then comes clark kent who's a little too perfect at breaking down those walls. and isn't that terrifying?
☆ drabble I @honey-on-your-tongue I S
☆ pretty girl pt2 I @/honey-on-your-tongue I S
you're friends with benefits with Clark Kent, and he can't keep himself off you. not even in the office.
☆ scary movies I @cherrysinner I F
you get your boyfriend to watch a horror movie with you, not knowing that he's scared of them.
☆ we’re…not together? I @/cherrysinner I F
you and clark confess your feelings to one another, but when he hasn’t asked you out, you start to worry that he didn’t mean it, unaware that clark thinks you’re dating.
☆ finding the right words I @headkiss I F
clark kent is already late to work as is, so what’s the harm of a little longer spent with you? (you and clark spend mornings at the office doing the crossword together)
☆ neighbourly I @little-miss-dilf-lover I F
☆ arguments I @maikorian I HC
when arguments arise, the last thing Clark expects to see is you flinching at his voice.
☆ the chaos of stars I @orobaxis I A + F
The rift in the multiverse showed you that in almost every universe, Clark ended up with Lois. Were you and Leia just flukes? What if in this universe, Clark only settled for you?
☆ to the rescue I @keirareidss I C
superman finds himself in yet another battle but this time, there's more at stake
☆ all’s fair in love and tug of war I @kaciidubs I F
You really couldn't fault Krypto, you knew his favorite game was tug of war - you just didn't think he would try to play it with you... or your towel.
☆ suckable I @coquettepascal I S
a routine fire alarm inspection leads into you proving to clark that he does have a suckable dick (kinda.)
☆ hold me now I @aelinwya I C
superman doesn't just help citizens from being trampled by aliens. he also helps you, a disheveled mess on a park bench after you might have ruined your career, and he doesn't only gives you hope — but also advice regarding your co-worker clark, who you've been harbouring a crush on
☆ half my heart is in your chest I @/aelinwya I F
4 times you and clark cross the line of what friendship entails + the 1 time the two of you do something about it
☆ kryptonite? I @ghostgirl-22 I S
It’s such a weird and niche power— so what if you can fuck a meta human and steal all their power? The odds of hooking up with one are like slim to none really. What’s the point of even bringing it up to your work crush, gentle, sweet farm boy Clark Kent.
☆ rooftop shenanigans I @saltcxrcle I F
maybe clark shouldn't trust you while you stand on the edge of a roof.
☆ guilty pleasure I @honey-on-your-tongue I S
Clark Kent jerks off while thinking of you (his friend and coworker), then feels guilty about it.
☆ clark - adrian x reader thought I @sacredsorceress I A + F
☆ starving, darling I @untitledw0rks I S
☆ sweet nothings I @fawnindawn I F + C
you’re a mess, but you’re his mess — and he’s going to take care of you.
☆ tongue-tied I @ohjustgonameless I F + C
☆ big blue I @lo-vearchive I HC + S
You think your coworker Clark is actually Superman. You ask him out to dinner to determine the truth, only to hurt his feelings. One bad confrontation and two sexually charged encounters later, you decide to stay clear of him at work. Except you really can't, especially not when you know he wants you just as bad, too. That's okay. You'll just have to seduce him into giving in.
☆ safe house I @voyter I S
after a brutal event leaves clark weak and poisoned by kryptonite, you follow strict orders to rush him to his parents’ home — the one place you’re certain no one would find him at. a safe house.
☆ skinny dipping pt2 I @wwinterwitch I A + F
bumping into an ex is always awkward...especially when it's the one you're still in love with
☆ should’ve said it I @tbyfandoms I A + F
after having a fight at work with your boyfriend, clark, you go to his apartment in hopes of making amends. what you don't expect is to find out he's been keeping a big secret from you, leaving you with a mix of emotions
☆ e.t. I @aliendickrocks I A
You are a scientist that is assigned to a top-secret government facility that houses an extraterrestrial subject to learn more about where he came from. In this he is not Clark Kent or Superman, just Kal-El. Martha and John did not find him, but the government did.
☆ desperate times, desperate measures I @thoughtfulfiction I A + F
☆ glasses pt2 I @maikorian I S
you've always wondered why clark never took off his glasses, it's hard to wonder when he's knuckle deep in you.
☆ eat you alive! I @ebodebo I S
Red Kryptonite turns Superman into a feral beast seeking prey.
☆ feed the flame pt2 I @quintetz I A
Clark is almost kissed by another woman, and god, you don’t know how you’ll ever forgive him!
☆ loving is easy I @eulogiez I A + C
clark is so easy to love, and he’d like to say he tries to make you think the same of yourself. maybe his efforts have been futile, because you don’t feel any less motivated to break things off one random saturday; but he’s not willing to let you go that easily.
☆ wedding feels I @lomlsatoru I F
clark is the best man for his hometown friend, and the ceremony has brought the topic on what the future of your relationship will look like.
you’re nothing if not committed to your work. so you’re saying yes in a heartbeat when your boss prompts your suggestion that you get an inside scoop on clark kent, renowned daily planet journalist, on his ties to superman. but one thing leads to another when the relationship that kindles between you becomes something more, something real. needless to say you’ve become committed to more than the bit. 4.0k
tags: fake/accidental dating (one-sided), sweet oblivious clark, guilty reader, reader is also a workaholic obviously, office siren reader, first fic that isn’t so self-indulgent b/c i’m not as confident as reader lol, outwardly nonchalant reader x lovesick clark, some angst
˚୨୧⋆｡ navi masterlist latest work
ANYONE WHO KNEW YOU would say you were unironically married to your work. In between promptly-released articles and the heft of loose papers on your somehow always-neat desk, there left little room for much else. So—as attractive as you were—you didn’t get very many dates, not with anyone who was well-acquainted with you, anyways.
The saunter of your walk and the rap of your heeled feet on the tiled floor of the Gotham Gazette newsroom commanded its undivided attention. Everyone is entranced by you, allured by your magnetism and your air of authority.
You were uniform in every sense of the word—no wrinkle left unattended to, no flyaways untrained. You were clean, punctual, and a force to be around, to say the least.
And Clark was, well…the opposite.
He wasn’t a slob, no. But he couldn’t seem to tell his two feet apart, and you didn’t seem to help this cause. He was no different from anyone else in that he was taken by you, by the look of you, that charmed sultry laugh of yours that reddened him so, the classy scent of you.
He was no better on his feet around you, a stumbling mess of dark curls with glasses tilted askew on his adorably gorgeous face. Over six feet of jumbled chaos. A bumbling buffoon standing before you.
“Can I um,” he gestured aimlessly behind you, looking down at his feet.
“Can you what, pretty boy?” You asked with an innocent tilt of your head, a barricade in his path.
He already has no clue what to make of the disarrayed alphabet soup of words all muddled up in his brain when your head does that slight tilt. So after then, he’s toast.
His long limbs are suddenly jello. “Can I uh, squeeze past right ya?” He asked, pushing his crooked glasses up the perfect slope of his nose.
“Oh, you most certainly can,” you say, feigning confusion and shuffling to the side of the communal coffee station to let him past.
Within weeks of knowing you, he’s mustering the courage to ask if you’d be so kind as to share in his company at a Meteors game.
Baseball isn’t really even entirely his scene. But when he thinks of you, he thinks about how you attract all those you interact with, how magnetic a force you are to be around. How lively your energy is. So, he thinks to himself, maybe a baseball game could be your scene. A bellowing, roaring crowd all fixated on one thing. The heightened charisma of a whole stadium.
Plus, it would take the attention away from him and him alone—lest you make him a nervous mess the way you always did, or his words failed him—there’d be a whole arena of other things for you to focus on instead, to distract you from his shortcomings.
You didn’t mean for things to turn out this way, and you’re hiding your reluctance when you give him an enthusiastic yes. You just wanted to befriend the guy, get him talking about Superman—which he seemed to love to do—maybe secure an interview with him yourself, and you somehow ended up here, on a date with that sweet, oblivious, dork. You did really like him. But things seemed to escalate in a way you didn’t intend for.
You think back to the when you’d first met. The rumble had only barely settled after another brawl between Superman and some otherworldly beast. Clark was scribbling away on a notepad furiously in the middle of the street, glasses askew and midnight curls tussled like he’d just rolled out of bed. You had driven like a mad woman from Gotham, after formulating a plan to pick up on some buzz on Superman with your rigid boss who needed to give the Gotham Gazette some edge.
“That Clark Kent seems to really get in on the action, pumping out articles on him like he knows the guy. I need my journalists to put in some elbow grease, like that. I don’t want anymore bedtime story and DIY tutorial crap in my papers anymore,” her voiced shrilled in the gulf of the newsroom, slamming a stack of the papers fresh off the press down on her desk with a clenched fist.
“I’ll see what the guy has on him, I’ll get in on how he’s getting all these interviews,” you suggested, probing at her for some semblance of satisfaction, receiving a slight hum of gratification in return. And here you were. Just barely missing the action on Superman somehow, each time after a hasty drive from Gotham, missing Clark in the heat of it all as well—until now.
And now there the two of you were, in observance of the post-Superman disaster serenity of the bustling city.
You cleared your throat, approaching him with a quiet sway, not missing a beat.
“Clark Kent, right?” You smiled that toothy white smile, that from that very moment, hitched the air from his broad chest, locked in his quivering throat with the steady bob of his Adam’s apple. He shook your outstretched hand in a firm and polite shake, then pushed his funnily-tilted glasses straight on his nose bridge.
“That’s uh…that’s right. And you are?” He had to muster the courage to speak above a murmur but seemed to have forgotten the power of his voice, that now boomed to an unnecessary height of amplification.
“No need to yell, Mr. Kent,” you chuckled playfully, turning the tips of his air red before informing him your name. “I’m um…I guess you could say, an admirer of your work at the Daily Planet.” You thought it safe not to tell him about being a journalist yourself so as to not give him the impression that you were using him for work.
That clandestine discretion about your job seemed to be untouched, instead digging a bigger hole to get yourself out of in terms of your blossoming relationship with Clark. The secret was yet to unfurl within its wraps.
“Say, can I ask how you’ve scored so many interviews with Superman? You’ve seemed to have made the front page with your work more frequently than most any journalist there. I’ve been so curious about how you do it.”
The tilt of your head when you asked was enough to make him a mad man, Clark thought to himself. He thought he’d let you know anything that you asked. Like if the secrets of the universe were stored inside that mess of a brain of his, he’d give you an outside look in. But he had to keep cover.
“Oh, I dunno…” He hesitated, scratching the back of his head. “I guess you could say I tend to catch him in discreet places. He’s typically willing with his time…”
You quirked a curious brow. His answer only left you with more questions. But he was more than charismatic to answer them when you prodded at him animatedly. It seemed you were both in a sticky situation you couldn’t get yourselves out of.
“And so he—” Clark was right in the middle of a tangent about Superman’s odd timing post battle and that he had the tendency to make a hasty exit.
You interrupted him to say “My god, Clark. You’re cute as a button, aren’t you?” You relished in watching the tips of his ears turn beet-red before the blush dispersed into his warm face.
And now, here you were—after stray baseballs he’d tried and failed to catch with his super speed to impress you—only to get hit square in the face sending you into a fit of giggles and his glasses on the peanut-littered stadium stands. Here you were, after faded remnants of kiss prints you’d left on his white Daily Planet mugs with each doting visit at the office and promises of secured interviews with Superman. Here you were, together. Even when you could’ve called it wraps, put an end to whatever was happening, you figured you couldn’t stay away from Clark. This was happening, and now he was yours.
You’d groan into your pillow sometimes, when Clark would leave a sweet thinking of you message, or a check-up text asking if you’d gotten home okay. The escalation of things from a formerly formal relationship with him to this was something that felt entirely out of your control (when it was all but). He was simply too sweet to turn down. Good as you were at keeping cool appearances and holding a calm demeanor, unbeknownst to Clark, he made you so flustered.
Also unbeknownst to him, he’d made you a hit at work.
Batman stories didn’t seem to pull the same excitement factor as Superman-centric articles did; there was something especially attractive to readers and plain spectators about Superman’s alien nature and abilities, especially in Gotham. You’d managed three interviews with Superman, cranking out bestsellers like mad, not after an awkward ending on your most recent encounter with him.
“I’ve got a question for you, Cronkite,” he said with a coy smile, to which you replied with an enthusiastic hum. “So, you and Clark, huh? Anything up with that?” He asked nonchalantly and took a sip of the peppermint tea you’d offered him, the cup looking comically miniature in the grasp of his mighty calloused palm. He leaned back in his spot on the armchair across from you with his pacific blue eyes trained on yours.
“Oh,” you hesitated nervously at his sudden query. “He’s great. And really sweet.” You drummed your pen on your clipboard for a moment before briskly moving on to your final question, leaving him a little stunned before giving you a satisfactory answer.
You’re walking hand-in-hand from the office, and it seems to weigh on you more than usual that Clark doesn’t know this sacred part of you that it didn’t make sense for him not to know.
He’s rambling on about some quarrel he had at work with Lois and Clark that he’s still all tied up about.
“But I told Lois that the Mighty Crabjoys made Kansas’ Top 100 one time, right? And granted, they were in 88th place but still—,”
“I work in Gotham.” You dropped his hand and blurted out before you could stop yourself. He could only look at you, stunned. “I work at the Gotham Gazette. I only really approached you that day for work. Because you know Superman,” your voice quivered a little bit, a defect of speech he’d never seen you prone to. “I really do like you though, Clark. And I don’t want you to think I was using you for work. I just didn’t know things would happen this way, and that you’d end up feeling the way you do about me.”
The silence that followed was deafening. “O-oh,” was all he could seem to muster in the moment, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. “You know—,”
“You know what, speaking of. I think we should call a rain check on dinner. I’ve got some work to do at home,” You proclaimed when you spotted your car parked a little way from the Daily Planet block. “I’m sorry, Clark. I need to go,” you meekly made a brisk stroll away from him, ignoring his clamours of your name befalling your ears.
“Wait!” His voice boomed over your car engine. If it wasn’t Clark, your sweet, would-never-hurt-fly Clark, Smallville Farm Clark, maybe you would’ve flinched. You only sat frozen in your driver’s seat, the car door left ajar.
The words were a blow to the chest, to your resolve, your hurried will to leave. “I’m Superman.”
The air hitched in your chest departs with a sharp exhale. “You’re…you’re lying.” Clark is unsteady, a jittering mess that slumped over his seat. Who never took more space than a crowded metro allowed, or the swarmed Daily Planet lobby. Clark who scribbled notes on his corkboard that read lyrics of cheesy pop band songs. How could this rubber-legged man also be the Man of Steel? But a pressing thought throbbed at you in the moment.
At the untimely coincidence of Clark’s frequent interviews with him. About how there was some constancy in the way they both looked at you that you could never quite explain. The same air of comfort you felt around each of them in spite of how wildly different they appeared, their clear contrast in confidence. It wasn’t so hard to find some truth in it all. Still, you can’t fight the immediate, instinctual disbelief you feel. “Clark, that’s not funny. Not…not now.”
He looks entirely un-funny. His jaw looks like stone, his eyes a piercing oceanic hue where you’d usually find warmth. But it’s not cold, it’s stern, like he’s pleading with them for you to listen. He is steady. He’s him. He doesn’t even need to remove his glasses when you know. When you feel it. The space between you is an uncanny thin, and when he steps into the luminescence of the street lamp, it’s undeniable. He is a strong and sturdy presence that can’t help but make a spectacle of itself, a powerful strength hangs in the air.
The same way you felt sitting across Superman.
“You’ve been lying to me all along?” You shake your head before continuing, “You let me chase you around like some—like some zoo animal—writing stories like a little groupie and you never said anything?” You neglect the irony of your own words.
Clark is gentle, unfaltering in his patience like always, when he says, “Well, you haven’t been entirely truthful in this other side to you this whole time, either. And if I’m allowed to say, isn’t it fair that there’s some suspicion roused in me, too? About what’s going on and what your intentions have been? I mean I…I can’t help but think I’ve been such a bore to you now. That you were around for Superman before even knowing I was him. If you actually really do like me. Or if it was just for show. And I…I’ve been hiding who I am my whole life. I just wanted it to be different. I wanted to be Clark to you,” his voice cracks a little. “I wanted that to be enough. Can it be? Is it?”
The air you’d worked so hard to steady hitches back in your chest. “I…I have to go.” You’re closing your door and shifting your gear faster than you can process. And even quicker, you’ve left the sting of the air between you.
This week was rougher than it had been in months. A recession of sorts, in articles. The blink of the cursor on your draft page seemed to taunt you.
A heavy sigh escaped you. You clicked your pen a few times before scribbling on your notepad, only to crumple and discard the page into the wastebasket beside your desk.
Later, you clacked on your keyboard in rapid ministrations. A simple headline came to you. Quick but steady, like a wave.
What Superman Means to Gotham, you hesitantly penned your name beneath it.
“Oh, hey Smallville,” Lois chewed absentmindedly on her pen cap with her legs propped on her desk. “Hey, you’re a Superman fanboy, right? You read this yet? The Gotham Gazette?”
His eyes widened at the mention, memories of previous days (and his influx of unanswered calls and texts flooding your voicemail and inbox) making his way back to the forefront of his mind. Before he can answer, Lois is chucking the thick of the papers at him, and he’s yelping out a startled “Ow!” when it sends his glasses an even more exaggerated tilt sideways. The headline glares up at him in black, blocky Times New Roman fault. Even more glaring are your first words.
The motif of Superman is beyond a beacon of hope to Gotham, to Metropolis, to the nation. He is an emblem of truth, the perfect picture of goodness and virtue, to all a genuine model of kindness. The article was a pure opinion piece, complete with exclusive photos of Superman. Coming up from a pile of rubble, flexing his massive arms beneath the foot of an extraterrestrial beast, even saving squirrels. This made him laugh.
“Lois, can you tell Perry I’ve gotta take a quick fifteen?” He’s clutched the paper tight in his first and is rushing for his briefcase before even hearing her respond.
“But didn’t you literally just get here?” She’s shouting at him by the time he’s already made it to the lobby.
“Oh, you so owe me, Kent,” she rolls her eyes with a sigh, letting her feet from off her desk edge.
The sharp but slight crackle sound of the window wakes you up with a jolt. It’s very clearly unlike you to sleep on your break. But you’ve been nothing short of a mess the past few days, unsure what to make of how you left things with Clark. Wishing you hadn’t left things with Clark that way, that night.
Your boss approached the following day with an unusual sense of regard for you, asking if there was some family situation weighing on you that you needed a day or two from when you’d showed up almost twenty minutes late clutching your blazer to your chest to hide that you’d forgotten to change out from a pajama shirt to your blouse underneath it.
It’s none other than the Man of Steel himself outside your window, usually standing firm and tall, now in a slight hunch and grimacing at the damage before mouthing a sincere “Sorry,” in between a hand cupping around his mouth, the other clutching a drink carrier holding two coffees. You almost want to laugh, but your eyes dart around fearfully at your coworkers first, all nosily observing the spectacle.
The little crack in the window was comical, left by the rock Clark had tried and failed to fling with subtle vigor. He seemed to have forgotten his strength. You felt so in love in this moment, pulsing within you strong and steady, that you didn’t shamefully want to bite down. That you wanted to embrace. In feeling both Clark and Superman when you looked at him, saw him like this in his stupid latex getup, but still looking more Clark than ever, even with the slicked back hair and demure curl at the crown of his head. Even with the absence of his dorky glasses. You made your way to the outside of the Gazette lobby, before grabbing him by the large bicep while his head swiveled around you and he badgered you with a startled, “Whoa, where are we—?”
“What are you doing here, Clark?” You hissed at him and dared to meet the cool of his eyes.
“I read your article,” he said simply.
You paused, yet to process what he’d just said.
“Are you really him? I mean, no, of course you’re him. Duh. You're in your freaking suit right now. I just called you Clark so clearly I must believe it a little bit, too.” It's how you’ve landed so many “interviews” with him,” you said with air quotes that prompted a chortle out of him.
“Yeah, yeah I'm him,” he stepped towards you. “More like, he’s me. A part of me,” he continued, taking your hands in his and handing your coffee.
“Don't go making me jealous of Superman,” you snorted at his dramatics. “Listen,” you said when he stepped closer. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you like that. Of course, of course Clark is enough for me. He’d be enough if there was no Superman, but he’s also extra beautiful because he is Superman. Because he helps people totally unprompted. And he uses this part of him for the absolute best cause.”
He was suddenly red again, that same blooming red that let you know he was still Clark. “You’re saying all that in third person, but I’m right here. Not the best verbiage for a journalist, sweetheart,” he grinned. You swatted at his bicep playfully and he pretended to be hurt, rubbing at it with feigned pain. “Oh, shut it!”
“I’m sorry for lying,” he said with a chaste kiss to your forehead. “I meant what I said. About just wanting to be Clark with you. The dork who can’t catch a baseball for jack,” he laughed with you. “But I wanted to tell you.”
“Don’t. I know why you didn’t. I’m sorry I lied. I never wanted you to think I didn’t want every side to you. Or that you were just a job to be done for me.” The melt of your gaze into his sends flutters to your stomach. The way he’s looking at you like there was no wrong to be done by you, that had been done by you. There’s only utter adoration there, a Clark-like softness that Superman was suddenly overcome with. That only you brought out of him.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” He said it and meant it, kissing both your temples. “I know you do now. I’ve always known.”
Your hands slid up his chest almost instinctively, wandering, curling into the latex and stretch of his suit—half wanting to shove him away for making you feel so unsteady, lightheaded and unlike yourself but also more yourself than ever, half desperate to pull him closer into an unbreakable embrace. He smelled like the billows of smoke and city wind, like the dark of coffee grounds and ink-stained paper. Like Clark.
Your next breath shook in the comfort of his air. Your forehead pressed against his. “You’re impossible. You’re impossible to be strong around, you know? You make me weak. Fluttery.” You realized you sounded like a schoolgirl when you said it. Maybe you weren’t so far from the groupies you accused him of reducing you to earlier, only he chose you. And he was yours.
He smiled an unintentionally coy smile, boyish, almost shy despite the cape billowing behind him sturdy and strong like a ship sail in the waves of a tide. “Only with you. You don’t make me feel any less weak.” He said it like he couldn’t lift you over his head, probably by only the tip of his index finger. You snorted.
“Y’know, you’re still cute as a button, even without the glasses, Clark.” He’s sighing shaky relief, an amused laugh leaving his lips. You’re kissing him before you’ve realized what you've done, the flutters now loud slams against your chest that tickle your insides. The world tilted as if you were flying with him. For a moment you forgot whether it was Clark or Superman you were kissing, because it was unapologetically, without a miss of certainty, both—because he was. He was breathless when you broke apart, seemingly against both your wills, spilled coffees forgotten when he whispered with breath fanning across your lips—
“Golly, that does it.” You rolled your eyes playfully at the dorkiness of his exclamation. He smiled that boyish smile once more, “Guess I don’t have to ask again.”
Your brows furrowed, dazed and perplexed. “Ask what?”
“If both of me is enough. If the secret was worth the tell,” He grinned cheesily, and this time, when he kissed you, it was slower, something momentous about it like he wanted to savor your lips. It was sweeter. Undeniably him, both of him.
things my chronically offline bf does — Clark Kent
summary: clark kent thinks tiktok means the passing of time, you're a (wannabe) influencer. what could possibly happen? answer includes but isn't limited to thirst traps, using your hot bsf to go viral, online anonymous confessions, and one really old cat named bean.
word count: 15k (insane, ik)
content warning: heavy rom-com vibes, heavy on the comedy and ridiculous. heteroerotic friendship, domestic clark & reader (they see each other naked and sleep together & so much more, they're literally disgusting), size difference, reader is a (non famous) influencer but she goes viral thanks to clark not knowing what slay means, clark and reader have no notion of privacy or boundaries around each other, they're also so stupid. heavy fluff, everything is sweet and nothing hurts. an embarrassing amount of slang and memes and tiktok mention (i apologize). this is seriously just crack. oh ALSO protective clark oh em gee i swooned writing that part. lois and jimmy act like creepy twins /aff
notes: this got out of hands, guys. ty for 1k<3 i hope you enjoy! apologies for the slightly rushed ending, i was growing tired with this behemoth of a fic
It’s common knowledge that Clark Kent and technology do not mesh well. He writes all of his drafts on paper. He takes notes on his legal pad with a pencil that he keeps losing, and he uses a cassette recorder for interviews, and he uses an actual camera for pictures. He has a phone, he has a laptop, he just— doesn’t really use them. He doesn’t know how to and doesn’t need to know more than is absolutely necessary (as in how to send emails, how to use Google and how to type his final drafts for proofing).
So anything beyond that, and he’s completely out of his depth. Put him in a complete alien civilization light years away from Earth and he would still be more at ease than if you’d asked him to make a TikTok video and, God forbid, post it.
So really, it only made sense that his best friend was an influencer. You weren’t exactly popular, and you didn’t do it for fame, you just enjoyed sharing your life with the people who stick around. You were a wizard with your phone and could turn any moment into something cinematic.
The two of you were polar opposites. He was the moon, pulled into orbit around you, and it made sense he felt so good whenever he was with you. You were the sun.
He was happy to tag along with you to any of your adventures. Trying out a new restaurant, a new club, vlogging a last-minute trip, trying out PR packages you get.
You’d always been the life of the friendship, and Clark was never afraid of being in your shadow. In fact, he reveled in it. He liked being invisible to others around you, as long as he was seen by you. It was more than finding a distraction so people didn’t look at him for too long and start getting suspicious; it definitely helped, for sure, but it was never what made him want you as his best friend. He couldn’t help it. After all, he was a sunflower. And you were the sun.
Sometimes his colleagues at The Daily Planet didn’t believe him when he talked about you to them, and gave them your username. It didn’t help that he didn’t have any social media so he couldn’t show them that you followed him back. Clark didn’t really care whether they believed him or not.
“It’s not because she has less than a thousand followers doesn’t mean your lie would be more convincing,” Jimmy said with the sageness of a monk. “She’s too pretty for you.” Then, as an afterthought, he added: “No offence, Clark.”
Clark shrugged. “None taken. I know she’s pretty.”
Lois hit Jimmy on the shoulder. “Eve is too pretty for you too but you don’t see me insulting you.”
Clark frowned. “Guys, she’s my best friend, not my girlfriend.”
Jimmy looked at him with pity in his eyes. “Lying about having a best friend is so sad… I didn’t know you were so lonely, Clark. I’ve been failing as a friend.”
Clark just rolled his eyes but didn’t try to convince him, since he didn’t seem like he wanted to be convinced.
“She would love to meet you one day,” Clark added before forgetting. He kept forgetting to. Or maybe, he just wanted to have you all to himself. He’ll never tell.
Jimmy looked at him suspiciously. “Is she just going to be a printed picture of her Instagram feed on a doll?”
Lois and Clark both ignored him.
“If she’s your best friend, she must be a really good person, then. I would love to meet her,” Lois said, before pressing on the follow button. Ding! “Oh. She followed me back already.”
“She knows about you,” Clark said. “She must have recognized you.”
“That was quick,” Lois noticed.
“Yeah,” Clark replied. “She says she’s terminally sick online or something. I never understand her when she says those Internet words.”
Jimmy’s jaw dropped. “He wasn’t lying…” he whispered to himself, mind blown. Which, honestly, he should have seen it coming. Clark was the most honest person he’d ever met. He was incapable of lying to save a life. Jimmy pressed the follow button on his phone too, as if some part of him still wasn’t convinced, and watched with quiet horror as a follow back notification popped. And he couldn’t justify it as you just following back everyone, because you only followed cat and food accounts.
Clark just thought Jimmy was being his weird self again and didn’t pay it too much attention. Honestly, he just took it as a compliment to you, which made him happy. He always felt proud and happy whenever people complimented you, as if he was an extension of you.
“Great, I will call you for the details. She’s gonna love preparing something for the four of us. She’s such a good event planner.”
Of course Clark didn’t text. Not that he didn’t want to, it was just that even the biggest phone he could get was still too tiny for his hands and it made typing a pain in the butt.
“Cool, can’t wait,” Lois said. Jimmy was just staring in the horizon.
Clark smiled. He was happy all of his favorite people were going to meet.
You were waiting for Clark at the Daily Planet’s lobby. You were taking pictures of the regular cat that became an honorary reporter at the office, more exactly.
“Hi Clark,” you brightened when you saw him.
“Hey you,” Clark replied, fondness dripping from his voice until it was sticky and sweet. “How was your day?”
“It was okay, I found this new spot we absolutely have to try together,” you replied, getting on your tiptoes despite your heels to press your lips to the edge of his mouth. Clark smiled instantly, like a switch was flipped.
Some people would say you were too obsessed with image and social media, but Clark knew you better than anyone else. Even if you weren’t an influencer, even if social media and the internet didn’t exist, you would still be the same. You would still take pictures of your day, share your meals with Clark in a spot you really liked, and you would still take video diaries.
“I can’t wait,” Clark replied. “Oh by the way, Jimmy and Lois said yes.”
With his superhearing, he heard Jimmy gasp from somewhere behind. “She’s really real. Wait, I thought he said she was his best friend? Why are they kissing?” Then the unmistakable sound of Lois slapping his shoulder.
He tuned it all out. He would get over his weird crisis later.
You grabbed his hand and dragged him away.
“Oh, yeah, I saw they followed me both. I figured you talked to them.”
Clark squeezed your smaller hand in his.
“What did they think?” you asked curiously.
“Lois said you must be a good person if you’re my best friend. Jimmy… well, I think he really liked you. He said you were way too pretty for me, whatever that means,” Clark replied earnestly.
“He’s an idiot,” you replied. “I’m not too anything for you. I’m just right for you.”
Clark nodded. “Exactly. Perfect for me.”
Clark often offered to learn about internet and what you do, but you just replied, “no it’s fine, don’t worry about it <3” (you made the heart with your hands).
You appreciated his offer, but you knew how all of this made his head turn and how hopeless he was with everything that was even remotely tech-related (don’t even get her started on microwaves and Clark). And quite frankly, you found him cute just the way he was. Like an overgrown, oversized, oblivious but eager puppy.
“You’re sleeping over tonight, right?”
You were asking as if it was a planned event, when in fact Clark wasn’t aware of this until right then and there. But Clark was nothing if not adaptable (he did get adapted to an entirely new and foreign planet when he was just a baby), and nothing if not used to you, so he took it in stride and nodded.
“Mhm,” he replied. “I’ll even make dinner if you want.”
“Deal.”
Walking to your place hand in hand had become routine early on in your friendship and one of the few things Clark would never bring himself to sacrifice. It was home away from home.
“I’m going to the gym tomorrow, you’re coming with me.”
“Okay.”
“Great.”
Clark, being who he is, didn’t need a gym, or at least not one fit for humans, but you asked, so he obeyed.
“What time?”
“Six am.”
That meant you were trying again to renew yourself and to adopt better habits and hobbies. It was something you routinely went through almost every six months. First when it’s the new year, second when it’s June, when you realized you’d been slacking off and not following your new year resolutions, and Clark became your accountability partner.
That title sounded big and full of responsibilities, but Clark didn’t really do anything, really — except show up wherever you went and gently reminded you of your commitments. When it was something really important, like taking your meds, he pressed but other than that, he let you flit through life like the butterfly you were meant to be.
Clark was awake before you, unsurprised to find you pressed against his body, sleeping deeply while holding him like you were scared he was going to flee. Well, considering he was Superman, he guessed you weren’t far off the mark.
With his free hand, he grabbed your phone to check the time since the arm he wears his watch on was currently being repurposed as a body pillow and his heart felt heavy at the thought of disturbing your sleep.
5.15AM. He woke up early, but not too early. Just in time to wake you up so you could enjoy your ‘free time with Clark. That’s what you called cuddling up with him and talking about your dreams before you both had to leave the bed.
“Psst,” he whispered against the crown of your head. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
“No,” you grumbled.
He chuckled softly. “What about your free time with me?”
“Mhmhmhmmm…” you mumbled before shifting position until you were actually cuddling him. “‘m awake,” you said.
He didn’t doubt you. He just thinks that you’re also asleep at the same time.
The both of you stayed like this for half an hour, Clark rubbing his thumb mindlessly on your arm, a quiet and gentle smile on his face while he listened to you ramble about your dream.
“You dreamt I was Batman?” he asked incredulously, swallowing back the laughter that overcame him. “Sweetheart, I’m literally already my own superhero, why would you dream of me as someone else?”
“I don’t know, Clark,” you replied and he didn’t need to look at your face to know you were rolling your eyes. “I didn’t do anything. I was quite literally just a spectator. Don’t shoot the messenger and all that.”
“You’re right. How could I forget you were literally incapable of wrong doing?”
“Mhm,” you hummed. “Better not forget next time.”
You fell back to sleep at six am on the dot. Clark tried to wake you up and remind you of your plans but you declined all attempts with the smooth dexterity of a politician deflecting questions.
“Sleeping with you is its own workout anyway,” he muttered to himself.
Clark quickly left you when he heard someone call for Superman but he came back before you woke up, which didn’t actually say anything about how long he took, since your sleep schedule was as predictable as a string of letters typed by a thousand monkeys on a typewriter.
He was under the shower when you finally woke up and barged in through the bathroom without a care in the world.
“I’m sleepy,” you tell him while peeing.
“Hi sleepy, I’m Clark,” Clark replied while showering.
You chucked the entire roll of TP at him and Clark didn’t even try to avoid it, even though he definitely could have. (You loved Clark dearly, but his dad jokes when you just woke up were unforgivable.)
Morning you was the best kind of you, and it was nice to know that your grumpiness didn’t do anything to erase your lack of privacy, because invasive you was also the best kind of you.
It’s not like there’s anything you didn’t already see.
(To be fair though, you didn’t just start barging in on him when he was naked without a care for his consent, it just… happened.
First it started with you walking in on him changing boxers, dick and everything out. Then it was him accidentally walking on you under the shower (honestly, how he didn’t realize you were under there with all of his gazillion superpowers was beyond the two of you). And then again, you walk in on him because you keep forgetting that Clark’s at your place more often than not, and then after that Clark accidentally used his super vision on you because he thought you were injured.
So you sat him down one day and asked if he minded whenever either of you accidentally sees the other naked and he replied ‘no’, so you asked, ‘would you mind if it wasn’t accidental? Not exactly on purpose but just… not caring at all?’ and he said ‘no’, and you said ‘okay, by the way you have a big shlong’ and that’s basically how it started (after teaching Clark what shlong meant.
Clark only regrets his decision when it’s early in the morning and his hormones are raging and you’re changing in front of him like no one’s watching.)
He was out of the shower by the time you were brushing your teeth.
“You’re not vlogging this morning?” he asked, feeling that same rush of pride he felt whenever he used one of the words you taught him, towel wrapped around his middle. His hair was wet and curled and doing all kinds of swoopy woopy things. His chest was glistening and dripping with water.
“I wanted to but I also didn’t want you to steal my thunder with your naked cameo,” you replied with a floss string between your two front teeth. “Although you would have definitely made me go viral.”
“Ah, my bad,” he replied humorously. “I’ll try to be less… hot under the shower next time.”
You threw the used floss in the bin. “I don’t think that’s possible, unfortunately.”
Clark blushed and the redness followed him right to his neck and collarbones.
You grinned toothily at him so he could inspect your teeth. He grabbed your chin between his index and thumb, and used his thumb to push your lower lip lower. “Mhm…” he hums thoughtfully. “Perfectly flossed. You get a star. Doctors from around the world want you as their client.”
“Yay! Thanks, Clark!”
His lips broke into a happy grin. “You’re welcome. You know, it’s not too late to go to the gym now.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” you said. “My past self was crazy. I don’t associate with the likes of her anymore.”
“I see, your past self is being cancelled. Right?”
You burst out laughing before petting the top of his head. “God, I love you Clark. Never change.”
You ended up going to the gym anyway, dressed in your “cuntiest” outfits to “serve” (to serve what? Clark thought you quit being a server a year ago), but all you did was point at things and ask Clark if he could max them all out. Of course he could, and you knew he could, but you asked for a demonstration anyway.
Then, because seeing him succeed flawlessly at every machine (and after attracting every “gym bro” in the vicinity who started asking Clark about powders and training regimen and whatnot, and lowkey looked impressed when Clark replied earnestly to the question of how he became so strong with “By being kind and respectful to everyone”), you decided he now had to do pushups with you sitting crisscross applesauce on top of him.
“But why?”
“I’ve always wanted to know what it felt like to be a barbell,” you replied.
“I think you mean plate, sweetheart.”
“Same difference,” you replied. And of course, Clark was totally convinced.
“Do you mind if I take pictures?” you asked him once you were sitting on him and he was laying on the floor, shirt off.
“You know I don’t,” he replied. He didn’t need to remind you not to post his face anywhere because he trusted you implicitly.
And then he started the pushups with complete ease, because there was no better way for him to spend his day-offs than to go to the gym with your best friend and use her as additional weight.
You took plenty of pictures; some you called aesthetically pleasing and “would do well in tumblr”, others you said were just silly and for fun.
You showed him the pictures while still on his back, your arms on each side of his neck as you scrolled through the pictures for him while he stayed in an isotonic contraction (his muscles didn’t even flail, and it took you almost fifteen minutes to show him everything because you annotated each one.)
“I really like this one,” Clark said, lifting a hand from the floor to point at a picture, still lifting your weight with only one arm.
The picture he picked was one where he looked at the mirror in front of you, and he was obviously looking at you, while you were making a silly face that wasn’t really silly, because it made you look devastatingly pretty. You were also flexing your left arm, winking and tugging your tongue at the camera.
“Solid choice,” you replied, tapping something on the screen. “Definitely one of my favorites too.”
He smiled happily, and then remembered they were in public and he shouldn’t be showing off his strength so much, as much as he wanted to impress you.
So, he pretended to have his muscles locking and asked you to get off, in case anyone was watching. You were always up for a bit of acting with him. You said it made you feel like the sidekick of a hot spy in a film noir.
Clark hung in the side while you took a video of yourself rambling to the camera — he was tall enough that he didn’t worry about his face being caught on camera, but the camera could still pick up your interlaced hands from the angle you held the camera. People would only be able to see his arm swinging and the beginning of his legs.
You were talking about going to the gym and how you earned a big meal after it (though if you asked Clark, he would say you should never feel like you have to earn a meal, and that you could eat anything anytime you wanted if it made you happy).
You set up the phone against the wall so it could take a video of you and the table. Clark was sat across from you, and again, wasn’t visible at all. Not even your face fully showed. Just the bottom half of your face. Your hands did most of the talking as you animated your stories with a floating burger.
The camera captured Clark’s hand across the table, wiping the side of your mouth with a thumb, and your pleased, bashful smile after.
It captured you stealing fries from Clark’s plate, and then Clark sharing half of his fries with you.
It captured your laughter, and then your lips as they moved to form the words: I love you, Clark.
(When you finally uploaded the video to YouTube a while later, people commented:
‘am I the only one who felt like a third wheel throughout the video? I loved it though. Always wanted to be the third to a hot couple’
‘God I see the things you do for others’
‘Guys ik she said he was just her best friend but I’m seriously having doubts rn. Maybe she meant it as in best boyfriend?’
‘You’re so pretty!!!!!! And your bf looks so hot too. Definitely my fav power couple of youtube’
Which then pushed your videos to more people.
You read all of the comments to Clark while he was writing down notes for his next article. His thoughts? “I think they really liked the video. I’m happy for you, sweetheart.”)
You picked a nice coffee shop downtown for your first meeting with Lois and Jimmy. Jimmy couldn’t look you in the eyes in shame.
“I’m so sorry I doubted Clark’s ability to have pretty friends,” he said, before getting elbowed by Lois in the ribs.
“Excuse my friend. He’s a dumbass.”
You took it in stride. You loved them and they loved you. Jimmy helped you take the perfect pictures for your picture dump, Lois and you talked about fashion, and Clark was happy to just step back and watch as three of his five favorite people get along so well.
“How did you guys meet?” Lois asked curiously. She’d been eyeing the way you were both sitting so close to each other it bordered on lap sitting.
“He mistook me for a scarecrow,” you replied.
“We were childhood friends.”
“Clark I love you, but for a journalist you’re really bad at hooking people in,” Lois said. “As for your best friend, she was clearly made to hook people in.”
Clark was too happy to even feel offended, and just let you tell the story. The insult flew right over his head.
It wasn’t anything grand. Clark was in the fields with his parents when he noticed a figure almost his height in the distance, and ran towards it. It was you, standing still with your arms outstretched.
He ran back to his parents and asked if they put a new scarecrow in the fields that looked like a little girl.
Jo and Ma looked at each other concerned before setting off to find this little scarecrow girl.
And the rest was history.
“I still don’t know what you were doing,” Clark confessed at the end of your story. “You won’t tell me.”
You shrugged. “Because I am aloof and mysterious.”
“This raised more questions than it answered,” Jimmy said with a faraway look on his face.
“Good,” you and Clark said at the same time.
“Your friends are really nice. Maybe I should become a journalist too and then become your colleague. That would be so much fun,” you told him after quitting Jimmy and Lois. “What do you think?” You took a sip of your Oreo milkshake you got for take-out.
Clark smiled. “I think you just can’t get enough of me,” he said.
You squeezed his hand. “Yeah, you’re right. I won’t even try to lie.”
He laughed.
He had never realized how his friendship with you could be seen as strange until you were both in college and everyone on campus the two of you were dating. It was common knowledge around all of the campus that you and Clark were the it couple. Even in high school, you’d been both voted prom queen and king, even though you both didn’t even know you were participating. Clark didn’t regret it though, because he got to wear a crown alongside with you and dance. It was one of his fondest memories with you.
“Friends don’t act like that,” people would say. No one would ever be able to understand the bond you two have, so he doesn’t bother replying or trying to explain. Besides, what you have between the two of you was special, and he wanted to keep it that way.
But Clark supposed there was some part of truth to that. Lois and Jimmy were his best friends too, but he would never cuddle in a bed with them, as much as he loved them. He also wouldn’t even dream of letting them peck him on the lips, or, God forbid, walk in on him under the shower.
If this friendship was considered weird, then he was happy to be weird with you. Besides, nothing he could ever do would be weirder than being an actual alien pretending to be human. Or stumbling through your window into your apartment, jaw dislocated and nose bleeding.
“Clark? Is that you?” you called out from the kitchen.
He closed his eyes. Coming here was a bad idea, because he hated the thought of worrying you, but there was also nowhere else in the world he would rather be. “Yeah,” he replied, voice distorted because of his jaw. He heard you close the lid on a sauce pan and wipe your hands on a kitchen towel before hearing the soft pads of your feet walking into the living room.
“Hey, what did I say about tracking blood and mud in my apartment?”
Your words sounded mad but your voice betrayed your worry. You dropped the kitchen towel and reached him in quick strides. He was sitting on the floor against the wall, and you fell on your knees, hands hovering over his jaw, unsure whether you could touch him in this state.
“Sorry,” Clark replied. “Will remember for next time.”
“There won’t be a next time because you’re going to stop letting bad guys hit you, okay?”
He laughed, even if it hurt to. Of course you said it as if it was that easy. It wasn’t, but Clark would make it so.
“Stop laughing at me,” you chided, even as you inspected his nose. “It doesn’t look broken, so that’s good.”
“It healed on the way here. Perks of being Superman.”
“Stop acting like nothing’s wrong or I’ll break your nose myself, and I’ll make sure your healing factor is too busy to handle your nose first.”
“Wow,” he said. “Such violence coming from such a tiny little human.”
You grabbed his jaw without a warning and snapped it back into place.
“Golly, woman! Warn a guy first, will you?” he yelped indignifyingly, rubbing his smarting jaw, before moving it left and right to make sure it was still working. He didn’t need to worry because you were a professional by now, ever since you were both fourteen and you started playing nurse for a Clark who was discovering his powers and trying each day a new way to test his abilities.
“If I warned you, you would never be ready,” you replied, and Clark smiled sheepishly at that. You were right. Despite him being the strongest human on Earth, his pain tolerance was subpar, and he always chickened out before anything like that. Usually, you would at least fake a countdown. “And besides, that’s what you get for making fun of me.”
He pouted. “I’m sorry baby,” he said, batting his eyelashes at you.
“Ugh! This is so unfair,” you groaned, before bending at his height and pressing your lips against his pout in a quick peck. “I hate you.”
“I love you too,” Clark replied, not in the least bit remorseful for guilt-tripping you, basking in the bliss of the feeling of your lips against his, as fleeting as it was.
You pinched his bruised nose and stood back up.
“Ow, ow, ow!”
“Don’t even try to talk to me for the next five minutes. I’ll be too busy hating you.”
He was behind you before the five minutes even were up, wrapping his arms around your waist, still pouting. “Why are you so mean to me?” he asked, cheek pressed against the top of your head. He was still in his dirty Superman suit; he hadn’t even taken off his boots yet.
You were trying really hard to ignore him. It was funny, and Clark couldn’t keep up the wounded act any longer. His shoulders were shaking with barely suppressed mirth.
“Message received, baby. I’ll let you be for five minutes. In fact, I’ll let you be for thirty minutes.”
He used that time to clean up the mess he’d left behind (superheroing wasn’t a clean job) and finally take a shower. He tried not to notice how you kept pretending you forgot something in the bathroom while he was showering. First, it was your glasses, which you hadn’t even found, then you had to check a pimple on your face, and then it was your makeup, which you needed to retouch.
“You know,” he said, voice barely heard over the sound of the stream of water. “I’m starting to think you’re just finding any excuses to come check on me.”
You shot him a dark look. “You said you weren’t going to bother me for thirty minutes.”
“I’m not bothering you, but you are bothering me.”
He realized his mistake before the words even finished leaving his mouth. You gasped.
“See if I ever bother you again,” you said, turning on your heels.
Clark groaned, before shutting the water off and grabbing a towel to wrap around his hips and chased after you, dripping water everywhere but unable to care because he just wanted to catch before you locked yourself in your room (and coincidentally blocking him from getting his clothes) and started listening to heartbreak songs at full volume.
“Nooo,” he whined, “you know I love it when you bother me! Please don’t ever stop!”
“Nuh uh,” you replied, escaping his hand narrowly.
“Oh come on, are you really going to sulk at me for that? And why were you so mean to me anyway? Ever since I got here, you were being grumpy, which, don’t get me wrong, I love it, but I don’t understand why, did I do something wrong?”
“Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that you were injured again as Superman, you don’t take it seriously when I’m worried, you make fun of me when I tell you to be more careful, and you tracked blood everywhere! You know I hate blood! Stupid blood! And your blood isn’t even normal, it’s alien blood!”
You still didn’t stop walking but now the two of you were walking in circles until you were the one chasing him now. It was a ridiculous sight, but it wasn’t an unusual occurrence at your household.
“Wait, what do you mean by alien blood?”
“Your blood doesn’t come off easily, you know that! Remember when I was trying to scrub your blood out of the rug and I kept mixing any chemicals I could find and accidentally made chloroform?”
Clark felt silly for entertaining for even one second the terrifying thought that you thought of him differently, and his shoulders dropped. He stopped walking. And he did remember that time. Of course he did. He’d been sick with worry his muscles had locked in place for a few seconds before he finally spurred into action and got you to a safe place with fresh air and threw away everything else before it did more damage.
He’d made you sleep over at his place for a week to make sure the smell had completely left the apartment.
“Baby, I’m sorry, I know you hate blood, but I really wasn’t thinking straight, and I just wanted to see you, and it made everything else disappear. It’s not an excuse however, and I apologize for it. And I’m also sorry for not taking you seriously when you’re worried about me, it’s just… I’m not laughing at you, it’s just… it’s really sweet how you’re always so worried about me, and you always get so endearing when you lecture me, I just can’t help myself.”
You sniffed. “Okay, fine. I forgive you. And I’m sorry for being so mean to you today. It’s not really because of you. I’m just so irritated these days and lashing out makes me feel better, even though I shouldn’t.”
Clark’s heart instantly broke at your small voice, and gathered you in his arms. “No need to apologize, sweetheart. I gave you a good reason to get annoyed at me, it was my fault.”
“It’s always your fault,” you mumbled, voice muffled by his chest.
He snorted through his nose, unable to help himself. “Yes, baby. It’s always my fault, and I’m sorry.”
“Mhm, and you’re taking me out tonight.”
“Okay, baby. Anything you want.”
There was a comfortable silence before you said, “I think your towel just fell.”
Clark couldn’t look at you for the rest of the day without going as red as his cape in the face and you laughing at him every single time.
“It was time it happened, you know? It’s just the natural course of events.”
You pretended it was fine, but Clark could tell you were embarrassed a little too and that knowledge comforted him a little.
You were laughing at him again. Because he just took out his pocket notebook from his backpocket so he could make a note out of something he wanted to look up later. And he had a tiny pencil that came with it.
“You’re so—” you shook your head.
“An old soul?” Clark offered helpfully as he closed his notebook and slid it back in his pocket.
“Chronically offline, I was going to say, and it’s crazy how even your words reflect how chronically offline you are.”
Clark smiled. He liked it when you teased him, because it meant you liked him, even if he had ten billion other proofs that you liked him.
“I’m going to say words and you’re going to say the first thing that comes to mind, okay?”
“Let’s do it.”
He moved his upper body so that he could fully face you, giving you all of his attention.
“Serve.”
“Tennis.”
“Eat.”
“Food.”
“Slay.”
“Dragons.”
“Flop.”
“Flip flop.”
“Tik Tok.”
“Clock.”
Your face got progressively red as you tried not to burst out laughing.
“Do you know what rizz means?”
“Uh… not really, but I remember Lois telling Jimmy she didn’t understand how he got so much rizz. Is it… freckles? He has a lot of freckles.”
You broke into laughter. “Oh you’re so cute, Clark. I just want to eat you up. In a soup. Like wonton soup but it’s Clark soup.”
“Thank… you?”
“You’re welcome, babe.”
Clark Kent was a mild-mannered, soft-spoken, respectful young man. It’s a truth universally acknowledged. Despite his stature and his size, no one had ever seen him use it in a way to cause harm rather than help. Sure, they’d seen him climb on top of a tree to save a kitten, help lift things from one floor to another, but they’d never seen him use that strength against someone else.
And no one ever will. Not even you. Clark takes great mesures to make sure that it stays that way. He’ll do anything to protect you from anything that could upset you and if it’s truly important, he won’t tell you about it. Why would he ruin your day when he was perfectly capable of handling everything? He was happy to handle everything else while you were busy enjoying yourself, like now.
You weren’t even drunk — you hated alcohol and besides, Clark couldn’t get drunk either so it wouldn’t be fun for him to be the only one sober — but you were feeling the music, and talking to someone, looking gorgeous and in your element in your dress. You looked stunning. Not just because your dress was pretty — though it was — but because you were radiating with joy. You loved going out and having fun and dancing to a music that reverberated deep in your ribcage.
“Hi Clark!” you screamed over the music, even if he could have easily heard you mumble it ten feet away in the middle of fireworks. “You having fun?”
“I am,” he called back.
You grabbed him by his hands and tugged him against you. “Come on, let’s dance.”
“Oh, no, you know I don’t do any of that.”
You snorted. “If it’s just because you’re embarrassed of your dance moves, I won’t judge, I promise. I’ve already seen them all anyway.”
“It’s not that…” he countered weakly. It was exactly that. His gracefulness as Superman unfortunately did not translate to when he was Clark Kent, and coupled with his height and size, he was an actual public hazard. He didn’t want to accidentally bump into someone or, God forbid, step on your feet. He knew you wouldn’t care, but he did, and it made him feel bad.
You huffed. “Fine. I’m gonna go dance with that hot guy over there, then. He’s been trying to talk to me for like an hour but since I thought you were going to dance with me… anyway, it’s his lucky day, bye Clarkie,” you said, before sauntering over to the guy who, Clark had to admit, was attractive.
He watched you talk with him with an unnamed feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he forced himself to take a sip of his water. Maybe he should have gone with you.
But then you were back already, not even ten minutes later. You said you just didn’t “vibe” with him, but Clark suspected it was because you missed him.
“Let’s go home,” he whispered against the crown of your head. “I was getting tired anyway.”
“Bollocks,” you replied in a fake posh accent. “You never get tired.”
He hummed. “True. I just wanted to go home with you.”
“Then let’s go home.”
The streets of Metropolis were half-lit. It was a Friday night in the summer so everyone was still out, despite the late hour. He had your hand in his and you were skipping on the pavement, heels clicking, arm swinging.
He loved you best when you were like this. Happy and blissful and totally unaware of the rest of the world, because you trusted him to have your back, even if you weren’t entirely aware of the many ways he’s had your back.
“I hate the subway,” you muttered, scanning your metro card against the reader.
“Well, you refuse to fly you home, and also walk home so,” Clark replied patiently.
“Should have taken a taxi.”
“And complain about how it’s expensive all the way home?”
“You know, Clark, I don’t think I appreciate how much you know me. Maybe it’s time we start putting some distance between the two of us.”
Clark didn’t need to reply, he merely looked down at the way you were literally pressed against him until there was not a single inch of space left between the two of you.
“Shut up,” you grumbled.
The subway was full despite the late hour so the both of you had to keep standing. Well, Clark had to, but you leaned against him, putting most of your weight against him. He loved it.
It happened when there were only five stops left.
You were rambling to Clark about something even you wasn’t sure about it, when Clark noticed the man behind you who had been trying to get closer for the past five minutes.
His reaction was swift but controlled. Making sure your attention was elsewhere, namely fixating on the bright lights announcing the stations left, he grabbed the man’s wrist in a tight enough grip that it was uncomfortable, but not tight enough to break anything — yet.
“Hey, baby, can you explain to me what Instagram again?” he asked you, voice soft and sweet.
“Again?! You do realize it’s been—“
He tuned you out, not out of malice, just so he could focus his energy into the man who thought sticking his phone underneath your skirt was a good idea.
The man’s eyes looked up in unwarranted anger, ready to yell at whoever dared touch him, but it quickly switched into fear once he saw the stony expression on Clark’s face — and the height and muscle he had on him.
Clark knew he shouldn’t, but he squeezed his grip tighter until his super hearing could pick up the sound of his joints creasing against each other.
“Are you even listening to me, Clark? This is your problem, because you say you want to understand but then you always zone out even before I even start.”
“Sorry darling, there’s just a… bug that’s been bothering me.”
“Silly, just swat it away, and then give me your full attention.”
Clark grinned, and twisted the man’s wrist until it sprained. Just enough to make him second guess himself next time he tried to pull this stunt again — to you or any other unsuspecting girl who may not have Superman by their side. The phone dropped and Clark ‘accidentally’ stepped on it.
“Perfect idea, my smart girl.”
The rest of the ride home went without any other problem, but Clark still couldn’t for the life of him understand what Instagram was.
You passed out in bed before Clark even took off his pants.
He sighed at the sight, but without any real annoyance. He supposed your clothes were comfortable enough to sleep in, but he gathered your makeup wipes from the bathroom.
You mumbled something intelligible when the mattress dipped underneath his weight as he crossed a leg on the bed and sat down, and he smiled. Even unconscious, you were endearing.
He poured some product in the cotton before he wiped your face with it gently. He did the same with another cotton wipe and focused on your eyes this time, removing the mascara and eyeliner he loved so much that made your eyes look even bigger and shinier.
He threw everything away and then got into bed behind you. Sleep had never felt sweeter than when he slept with you in his arms.
Things my chronically offline bsf does
“What’s this?” Clark asked, blinking at the screen you just shoved in his face as if you were afraid he was going to somehow miss the glowing bright box. He was drinking his glass of milk when you walked in the kitchen in a flurry of excitement.
“It’s an idea for a TikTok,” you explained. It probably explained it for most people, but it only left Clark even more puzzled. He knows you explained it to him, multiple times, but he keeps forgetting.
“What’s bee-ess-eff?”
“Best friend. It’s you. You’re my chronically offline best friend. I think the world needs to know about this.”
“Uh… sure?” He wasn’t sure why the world needed to know the things he did, but he wasn’t one to not show you support whenever he can, so he went along with it. “What sort of things do I do?”
“Take notes on an actual notepad.”
“That’s normal, why would they care?”
“You use physical maps.”
“They’re fabricated for a reason!”
You ignored him again. “You print recipes instead of following them on your laptop. Wait, let me correct that. You ask me to print you the recipes because you still haven’t figured it out.”
He blushed at that. “But it’s just so much easier that way! I like having everything I need right in front of me. I don’t want to have to scroll or zoom in or whatever else it is.”
“Mhm,” you replied, unconvinced. “I still think it makes for a really funny TikTok video, so. I’m posting it.”
“Well… okay. Sure. Maybe someone in the comment section will explain to me why it’s so funny.”
You snorted. “I love you, Clark.”
He brightened up, confusion leaving his face. This, he knew. This, he was used to. “I love you, sweetheart. Let me know when you upload it. I want to read comments with you.”
The TikTok was forgotten for a bit. Life got in the way, you got distracted by other shinier, newer, better things, and it was deadline season for Clark, and crime seemed to have multiplied overnight.
So, it wasn’t long before he and you finally got to reading the comments.
“Clark, you’re a famous man,” you preamble.
He paused mid-slurp of his chicken noodles. “Huh?”
“The video blew up.”
Clark instantly looked concerned. “What? Are you okay?”
“Yes, silly. It means the video went viral.”
“It went where?”
“Ugh! Whatever. You’re famous. I got like 35k comments.”
Clark knew what going viral meant. He was just being a little jerk, and you were so used to him being actually that obtuse that the joke flew right over your head.
But the number made him pause. “That many? Where do these people come from?”
“All around the world. Do you want me to read the comments for you or not?”
Clark placed his chopsticks down and stapled his fingers, as if he was getting ready for an important meeting. “Let’s hear it.”
You cleared your throat, readying yourself to start reading some sort of royal decree. “Him having the actual notepad from old iPhone noteapp is taking me out.”
Clark was frowning, not upset, just trying to understand. “Okay, but where is my notepad taking them out?”
“Do you actually want to know or do you prefer living in bliss?”
“Uh… is it bad?”
“No, I just don’t know if you want to preserve your ignorance.”
“Oh. Explain this one. I’m intrigued.”
You did, and he cracked a smile when he finally got it. You kept reading him some comments, explaining them when needed.
“Someone said, this is the only person who would probably survive a nuclear fallout.”
You snorted at that one, knowing that the commenter couldn’t possibly realize just how close to the truth they were.
“How did they know?”
“It’s a figure of speech, honey.”
“Oh. Okay, next one.”
“I am lowkey jealous of him. I bet he is happy and healthy and has clear skin.”
“Could you reply to them?”
“Yeah. What do you want to say?”
“Tell them that if they have questions about how I live, they can ask me. Or I guess, direct message you.”
“If I do that, everyone will flood my DMs but fine. The things I do for you… okay, done. Next. Bet he pays all his bills by check too with a crying emoji.”
Clark frowned. “Why are they sad? Did I make them sad?”
“A crying emoji is basically laughter, don’t worry.”
“Weird. Next.”
“This guy’s got the world’s cleanest internet footprint. Even rainbolt wouldn’t be able to find him.”
“Who’s rainbolt?”
“A dude who’s really good at finding locations in the world with the tiniest picture.”
“Oh.”
Sometime between the first comment and the last one, you’d ended up on his lap, and he’d leaned back against his chair to give you more space.
“What is this one?”
“I hope he knows he’s iconic,” you read out loud.
“Oh. That’s really sweet. I am iconic, thank you. But so are you.”
You smiled, pleased before bursting into laughter. “Oh you’re gonna hate this.”
“Uh oh. Lay it on me.”
“Chronically offline but chronically FINE,” you said, barely able to read it with a straight face. “I should have known people were going to lose their mind over you.”
“I’m fine? As in, nice to look at?”
“Yes, honey. They’re saying you’re hot.”
“Oh. How many of them?”
“That comment alone got fifty thousand likes.”
“Gosh. The Internet is a scary place.”
You kept reading comments, giggling to yourself.
He can write me a letter any time.
I would learn how to use a rotary phone for him.
I’m getting a pigeon just so he can start sending me letters.
“Unlucky for them, you’re all mine.”
Clark smiled, pleased and smug. That’s right. He was yours.
You started including him more in your TikToks, partly because people demanded more of him, but mostly because you enjoyed doing things with him.
You posted another one:
things my bsf does for me because he’s just built like that
Ever since they met, Clark had just felt more inclined to do things for you. He was raised that way, yeah, but it was more than that.
Clark didn’t think there was any door he’d let you open when he was around. Paying for you had always been second nature to him, just like kissing your forehead whenever he was happy. Holding your hands started out because you wanted to hold his hand, but he kept the habit. Now he couldn’t go anywhere with you without holding your hand.
If anyone asked why, he wasn’t sure he would be able to explain why. He just felt like it. Just like walking on the side of the road, or gently guiding you with a hand to the small of your back.
He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary in the things you picked, but somehow the internet had a lot of things to say about it. Surprisingly, they were all nice.
May this kind of friendship kidnap me (What?!)
Is someone going to tell them? (Tell them what?)
I don’t think they’re aware they’re dating. (Clark would like to believe that he would know whether he was dating someone or not.)
THEY SLEEP TOGETHER?!? (Yeah? How else would they cuddle then?)
I feel so bad for their partners. (Clark and you haven’t dated anyone ever, so the worry was appreciated but unwarranted.)
I’m struggling to find a good bf because girls like her are hoarding the good men (What?)
Girl you’re living the life. Where can I find me a man like that? (In corn fields.)
THAT SHOULD BE ME… holding your hand (Oh! Clark recognizes that song.)
Clark didn’t say anything as you wedged your head between his arm and forearm, using it as a sort of prop, only watched in confusion as you took a picture of it using the reflection on the train’s windows.
“It’s for my collection,” you helpfully added.
Your collection of pictures of the two of you. Picture of your hand against his, another one of you flexing your arm next to his relaxed biceps, his hand wrapped around your waist. He never really understood why, but he didn’t need to understand it to feel a sort of understated satisfaction and pride at the sight of the two of you together, your difference in size so pronounced. When asked about it, you merely said ‘Tumblr’s gonna go crazy’ as if it explained everything.
Clark didn’t know who Tumblr was, but he felt bad for them.
But like anything else that you did or said, Clark didn’t need to understand it to support it.
During lunch break, Clark was swamped by Lois and Jimmy who stood over his desk like two very nosy sentinels.
“Did you see your best friend’s new post?”
Clark clicked out of a tab before peering up at his two other best friends through his thick glasses. “Uh… she didn’t show me anything, so I wasn’t aware she uploaded something new. Why? Did she?”
“Oh no,” Lois said, way too normally. “We, uh, we were just wondering if she was going to post something soon.”
“Yeah, we became huge fans. We can’t get enough of her posts,” Jimmy supplied.
Clark beamed. “Oh, that’s really sweet. She’s going to be so happy hearing that. I’ll definitely let you guys know if she ever wants to post something new on the TikTok.”
“Cool, cool,” Jimmy said in his usual shifty way.
“Wanna go out for lunch with us?” Lois asked.
“Uh… sure,” Clark replied with a nod. You were busy that day, so it wasn’t like he had anything planned with you.
Clark wasn’t much of a talker. Around his loved ones, he preferred listening. He couldn’t get enough of it.
Jimmy was talking about his latest date with Eve, a really sweet girl who kind of reminded Clark of you, because she was an influencer too.
Lois talked about her latest investigation against Luthorcorp. You could take her out of the office but you couldn’t take the journalism out of Lois. It’s how Lois and him had become friends when Clark first joined the Daily Planet.
“How are things with her?” she asked once the conversation trailed off and Clark smiled, always happy to talk about you.
“Good, we’re actually going to the movies tonight. I can’t wait.”
Lois slurped loudly on her Oreo milkshake.
“The new horror movie?” Jimmy asked. “Eve and I went to see it last week. It was really good but I think Eve forgot she had her own seat.” He rolled his eyes.
“Eve deserves so much better,” Lois sighed longingly.
“Hey! You said you weren’t gonna say stuff like that to me!”
Lois shrugged. “I lied.”
Clark watched them bicker happily. Weirdly enough, it reminded him of his own parents bickering together.
Clark raised a brow at your look. “Lazy night tonight?”
You were dressed in Clark’s old hoodie that still hung loosely on you and a pair of sweatpants (not his, unfortunately), and your hair was tied haphazardly into a bun. “Mhm,” you grunted. “I looked at my closet and it looked back at me and then I stared back and I realized I was way too lazy tonight to dress up properly. So, you get this.”
“Well, not that you asked, but I still think you’re gorgeous like this. Actually, I think I like you better like this, wearing my shirt.”
“Possessive much, huh?”
Clark rubbed the back of his hand with a sheepish smile. “Ah, well…”
Clark liked going to the cinema with you. He liked buying you overpriced snacks just because you loved them, and he loved it when you inevitably get tired mid-showing and lay your head against his shoulder. Or when you grow bored with the movie and start playing with his hand instead, sending shivers down his spine when you caress the back of his hand with a feather-light touch.
“This movie is so lame,” you grumbled, hand digging into Clark’s popcorn.
Most of all, he just loved you. Even when you were being a harsh critic.
Clark’s eyes crinkled as he laughed. “It’s a children’s movie, sweetheart. What did you expect?” he whispered back.
“Even kids deserve quality! They need to watch good movies at the earliest so that they learn to appreciate good cinema.”
Clark snorted. He usually tried not to be so noisy in the cinema but the room was filled with approximately twenty children who were all screaming or crying or making some sort of noise. His snort flew under the radar.
“Have you always been this passionate about children movie?”
“I was a child once too, Clark. This is very important to me.”
Clark barely resisted the urge to grab your hand, buttery and salty, and press a kiss to it.
Clark cannot exist without you, but Clark thinks that you could exist without him, you just choose not to.
“Clark,” you said one day, phone in one hand and Clark’s arm in the other. “My favorite bubble tea shop is offering free drinks for couples on Valentine’s day. We have to go.”
Clark knew that bubble tea was your favorite, so it was easy to agree. “I’m not sure they count best friends as couples, though.”
“Oh Clark, you dummy. We’re going to go there as a couple. I got us matching outfits. We’re going to be the cutest couple ever.”
Clark heard matching outfits and his heart hammered inside his chest. He was no stranger to matching outfits. It was you, after all, who introduced them to him.
It had started out small: friendship bracelets, then necklaces, then clay rings they made together.
Then one day you’d come across matching beanies and bought them on an impulse, because they made you think of him. Clark had really loved the beanie. His was red and blue, because of course it was. Yours had been pink and black.
From then on, there were no more limits to what you would consider matching. You’d even made him exchange sim cards holders so that yours became black and his pink.
A full matching outfit had always been the next natural course of action.
“Wouldn’t that be… lying?” he said, smiling sheepishly. As much as he loved the idea of wearing matching outfits with you and helping you get free boba, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to help you commit fraud.
“Clark, think about it. We regularly go on date together. Your toothbrush is next to mine in my bathroom. We celebrate anniversaries. We sleep in the same bed. These are all things couples do.”
“Yeah? But we’re not a couple.”
“They don’t have to know that! We’ll just let the facts speak for themselves.”
“Well…”
Clark Kent was about to commit fraud in the name of love friendship.
You got your free drinks because nothing could stand in the way between you and your favorite drinks with pearl shaped tapioca inside.
“Hey, Kat,” you said, greeting the cashier by name as if you guys were long lost friends. “Can you help me out?”
Kat had a confused smile, but she also looked intrigued. “Sure?”
You hook a thumb towards Clark. “He’s been sleeping in my bed for close to a year now, and he makes me breakfast every day, but he refuses to believe we’re dating.”
Clark’s entire face went beet red with sheer embarrassment. “H-Hey!”
Your grin could put to shame the Cheshire cat’s smile.
Kat snickered. “Oh boy, he’s got it bad, isn’t he?”
You showed her your matching clay rings. “Look at this. We made them together ten years ago. And now because he refuses to admit we’re together, I won’t be able to get my free drink.”
Kat’s eyes went big, before looking at Clark like he was really dumb. “Is he blind?” she asked you while looking at him.
“Well, they do say that love makes you blind.”
Oh you were good, and you were such a menace, and Clark wasn’t sure his face was ever going to be able to go back to a normal shade after this.
“Was this really necessary?”
“No, not really,” you admitted, taking a large sip from your straw. Your drink was pink, because of course it was. It’s Valentine’s day, after all. “But it was fun. And I technically didn’t say lie.”
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he whimpered.
“You love me.”
“I do. Unfortunately for me.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, sweetheart. Enjoy your drinks. They’re tainted with the taste of my mortification.”
“Yummy. Extra delicious.”
Contrary to popular belief, Clark Kent was a menace too. He just hid it really well, and only let it show around you.
It was stupid, really. He came across a joke store and he went inside for some reason. He thought he would find something silly or cute for you. Maybe matching disguises.
But then he found a disturbingly realistic cockroach and before he knew it, he was out of the store with a bag and three dollars missing from his wallet.
He already felt so guilty, but also very excited.
Clark was pretty humans all over the globe, metahuman or not, had been able to hear your scream when you noticed the cockroach right next to your eyes.
“Clark!”
Your first scream was one of fear.
Another thing about Clark Kent was that he had a terrible poker face. It’s why you loved playing poker against him.
But it also meant that he was the worst at playing pranks, because guilt always showed on his face. Ergo, you knew instantly.
“Clark!”
Your second one was of anger and Clark smiled, ducking his head to the side. “Good morning?”
“Oh Clark, I hate you.”
But Clark didn’t need his enhanced vision to see the way your lips quirked up as you struggled to not smile.
“Are you free Friday night?” you asked him, peeking your head inside the bathroom where Clark was showering. Thankfully he was only showering and not doing anything else.
“Uh, sweetheart, you know I’m always free Friday nights,” he said, wiping a hand over his face to see you better.
You snorted. “Oh yeah. Forgot you were such a nerd. Oh well, consider yourself not free anymore. You know, you look really cute with your hair pushed back.”
He flushed.
“You blush down there too. Interesting.”
You closed the door behind you and he let his forehead bump against the wall with a dull thud. Oh, he was in so much trouble.
If Clark Kent stopped being dishonest with himself, he would finally let himself admit that he liked you more than normal friends, and more than their own brand of friendship.
His feelings for you ran as deep as the ocean, as old as the birth of his civilization. From the day he thought you were a scarecrow, to his first kiss. His first kiss was with you, of course. It was your first too. You said you wanted to know what the fuss was all about.
Fireworks had erupted the moment your lips touched his, and never stopped once whenever he saw you.
Clark Kent was really in love. With his first kiss, his first friend, his first love, you.
And it wasn’t as scary as people made it out to be, honestly. Nothing was scary when you were there.
When he first started getting his powers, it was scary but you were there. You made it not scary.
When Pa Kent had a health scare, it was really scary, but you were there. You made it not so scary.
Point was, Clark wasn’t afraid of the depth of his feelings for you, because he had blind trust in you. (And something told him that you felt the same.)
Even if you dragged him to random parties on a random Friday after work. It felt weird to spend eight hours cooped up behind his laptop and then find himself in a nightclub that same night, wearing clothes that were way too fitted.
“I need you to wear something good,” you told him before dragging him into an impromptu shopping spree. It was planned for you, but it was a surprise for him. Really, who was he to tell you no?
Your whistling and happiness were worth wearing something out of his zone of comfort.
“You never leave your drink unattended, okay?” you warned him seriously.
Clark only nodded sagely, even though he was fighting the stupid grin that was threatening to break on his face. It was cute how you worried for him, even though drugs literally had no effect on him.
“No drinks left unattended, got it. And I don’t talk to strangers. Unless they’re cute.”
“Don’t sass me, young man. I’m doing this for you.”
His smile turned softer. “I know. Thank you, sweetheart.”
It was a regular nightclub, like any other. You wanted to taste their drinks, take pictures, have fun. Clark was used to these nights. You were there for the fun, he was there for you.
He didn’t usually dance but there was something different about tonight. He remembered the way he felt when you went to dance with someone else, and he didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.
He waited until you finished your drink to ask, “Can I have this dance?”
You looked at him with eyes wide like saucers. “Oh em gee!” you shrieked. “I thought you would never ask!”
If he’d known how happy it would make you, he wouldn’t have kept refusing you.
He wasn’t really used to dancing, and the only thing that came to mind when he thought of dancing was slow dancing. So that’s what he had in mind when he asked you. But then you finished his glass in one go and pressed yourself to him until there was no more space left, and the rest of the world disappeared.
He could feel everything. The press of the swell of your breasts against his chest, your hands gliding along his waist, the intoxicating smell of your lavender perfume.
Oh yes. This was a nightclub. This was how people danced. He swallowed thickly. Maybe he chose the wrong time to ask for a dance.
Your hands are now caressing your neck, up to your hair, your head turned to the side. You were one with the song, and Clark was frozen in place, hands hovering in the air, suddenly unsure whether he was allowed to touch you.
“Aw, Clarkie, getting shy on me now?” you teased him when you noticed him unmoving. You grabbed his hands and placed them on each side of your waist. “Just follow the music. Sway from one side to the other.”
He tried, but God did he feel stiff and watching you in your element didn’t help. The friction of your dancing body against him was doing something to his nerves.
“Look at how the man are dancing with the girls,” you whispered. “Try doing the same.”
He looked, and immediately averted his eyes. “I can’t do that,” he whispered in panic. “It’s… borderline graphic!”
You laughed. “Oh Clark. You’re adorable. I’m gonna grind on you,” you said with that same look on your face that said you were up to no good, and that Clark couldn’t even dream of surviving you.
“Please don’t,” he whimpered in a tiny voice. “At least not here, where everyone can see.”
You paused at that, your teasing smile frozen in place, and Clark watched with barely muted satisfaction at how he’d so easily rendered you speechless.
But then your eyes turned mischievous, and Clark realized his mistake. “I like the sound of that.”
He groaned, throwing his head back. You used that moment of weakness to press your lips along the lines of his neck. Not a kiss, not a bite. Just the soft press of your lips against his neck.
And then you screamed when your favorite song came on, and it was like that moment never even happened.
“This is my song!” you squealed excitedly.
You were so drunk.
Clark Kent didn’t mind taking care of you when drunk. He would like to say it was because he always wants to take care of you, but the truth was a little more selfish than that.
Sure, drunk you was a menace, but when you got tired and sleepy and drunk, you were always so sweet. So clingy, so desperately needy and Clark absolutely loved to take care of you in that state. You were already clingy on a normal day, but drunk and sleepy was a whole other level. If he didn’t have his Superman strength, he would never be able to extricate you from his body. You turned into an oversized, drunk, needy koala. Clark leaving for just one minute to bring you water was enough to send you into an inconsolable state, so he learned to improvise. Again, he was thankful for his superstrength allowing him to lift you with one arm while he took care of things.
Tonight was no different. By the time you both reached your apartment, you were already dozing off to sleep but fighting it, your entire chest wrapped around Clark’s arm.
“Clark, you’re staying the night, right?” you asked, voice muffled and words slurred.
“Yes,” he replied, fighting hard a smile, turning his own copy of your keys in the lock.
“And you’re staying with me, right?”
“Yes,” he replied. This time he couldn’t help the smile. He helped you walk inside.
Your bottom lip quivered, tears already forming in your eyes. You let go of him. “You hate me!”
Clark’s eyes went wide. “What? Where the heck did that come from? I just said I was staying with you.”
“Yes, but you sounded like you hated me when you said it,” you replied, voice already watery.
“Gosh no, what? I could never love you. I love you. Always have, always will.”
“So why did you stop calling me petnames? You hate me!”
You broke into tears in the middle of your living room and for the first time since ever, Clark felt utterly helpless. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d stopped.
“Oh baby, is this what it’s about?” he cooed, and his heart broke when you nodded pitifully. “Come here sweetheart.”
He opened his arms and you launched yourself into them. He closed his hold around you, his arms wide enough so he could hide all of you, and protect you. Your shoulders shook with the strength of your sob, and once again he found himself wondering how such a tiny little thing could have so much feelings inside of her.
“I love you baby, I could never hate you. Forgive me?”
“Okay,” you said, sniffing. A second later, he felt you wipe your snotty nose against the really nice shirt you got him earlier. He suppressed a small laugh. “I love you too. Even if you’re mean sometimes.” A pause. “Okay, you’re never mean. But still.”
“Thank you sweetheart.”
He kissed the crown of your head and you didn’t move for so long he thought you’d fallen asleep, but your heartbeat was still strong and rapid.
“Let’s get ready for bed, okay?”
“Okay.” But you still didn’t move.
No matter, Clark thought. He had superstrength for a reason. He easily lifted you with one arm, and his heart swelled inside his chest at your giggle. You were such a strange girl.
“Open up,” he said with a tap of his finger on your chin after he placed you on top of the bathroom counter, standing between your open legs, and pouring toothpaste on your toothbrush.
“Aaaah.”
“Good girl,” he praised, and started brushing your front teeth in gentle circular motions.
You had your right index finger hooked inside his pants. You always needed to feel him around, even when he was literally brushing your teeth.
Your mascara had run across your cheeks — unable to support a drunken night of dancing and singing and crying; your eyes were slightly red and your undereyes were swollen, and yet you were still the prettiest sight he’d ever laid eyes upon. Your lipstick was smeared across your lips, and Clark wanted to run his thumb across so badly, just to smear it even more.
You were patient while he meticulously brushed your teeth because you’d gotten used to him brushing them for two minutes exactly as prescribed by dentists. He was thorough in his cleaning, making sure you were properly clean before he makes you gargle and then spit in the sink. He didn’t give you water to rinse it off because he’d seen that you shouldn’t do that.
Then, with movements honed with years of practice, he grabbed your cotton pads and miscellar water from your skin care product self.
“Can you close your eyes for me, sweetheart?”
The effect was instant. You pouted. “But I wanna see you.”
“I’ll be quick, I promise.”
“Okay.”
You closed your eyes and he started with them, gently wiping your makeup with the cotton pad. “Almost done,” he whispered. Your fingers tugged at his pants.
Then, it was your lips’ turn, and Clark imagined it was his thumb wiping them.
“Yucky. Doesn’t taste so good,” you mumbled.
He laughed. “Oh baby, you shouldn’t taste it.”
You pouted again.
He used a fourth pad for your entire face, just to remove dirt and threw everything in the bin.
You grinned at him, all sleepy and mellowed out and looking like the angel you were. You were still in your outside clothes — Clark hadn’t gotten to that — and the juxtaposition of your sweet and innocent smile and your clothing was endearing. You could do both so well, and he loved them both a lot, but he always preferred the side of you that felt more like his, the one with no pretenses, no walls put up. Just you and your unfiltered love.
“All cleaned up, baby. Now we just need to get you into some comfortable clothes and we can go to sleep.”
You looked proud of yourself, even if all you’d done was lean sleepily against his chest and made his job a lot harder than it should.
Neither of you blushed when he helped you take off your clothes. You were drunk and sleepy, and Clark would never take advantage of you in this state. His eyes didn’t look anywhere he wasn’t supposed to, and his movements were clinical. His hands didn’t linger, didn’t stray.
He loved you and that meant he would never hurt you.
Then, finally, when you were both dressed and in bed, he gathered you in his arms and listened to your heartbeat until it slowed down. It never took too long, when he held you and you were drunk. You were always out like a light when he cuddled you close to his chest.
Clark got the idea the next day, when you were under the showers and he saw your phone light up with a notification while he was still in bed. It was a notification from TikTok — he recognized that logo.
He grabbed his own phone and downloaded the app himself, and struggled for close to thirty minutes just to create an account. Most of that time was spent figuring out a username (in the end he kept the default one TikTok gave every user).
Then you came out of the shower and Clark forgot about it.
“Wanna go grab brunch?” you asked him, still dripping on the floor, towel around you.
“Sure. Bubby’s?”
“God yes.”
Bubby’s was your go-to restaurant whenever you were hangover — or just particularly hungry.
Clark didn’t waste a second and stood up from his bed, his phone completely forgotten.
It was only a month later, when he received a notification from the app (that confused him for a good ten seconds until he remembered how he’d downloaded the app) inviting him to join a random person’s LIVE, that he remembered the really stupid idea he had.
He spent one hour learning how to use TikTok and another one trying to make a video. He kept accidentally deleting everything with his stupidly big thumbs and he tried five times before he finally finished.
It was nothing big — it wasn’t even a video. Just a static picture and some text, but he did it himself. He even managed to change the color of the words and add a gif (because he thought that was really cute and like something you would love).
He felt silly for how proud of himself he felt. He just hoped he didn’t do anything wrong, and then pressed on the post button.
He wasn’t quite sure what hashtags were or even if they were needed, but he added one just in case — the first one that popped up.
And then he deleted the app, promptly forgetting about it and going back to his usual life. It was either the stupidest idea he’d ever had, or the greatest one. In any case, he was already onto the next thing. Namely, taking you out to dinner in a near future.
───────── ౨ৎ ─────────
You woke up to your phone absolutely blowing up. Clark was at work and had been for a few hours already.
It was strange, you thought as you looked at the hundreds of notifications showing up on your lockscreen. You hadn’t posted anything on there in so long, and definitely nothing about Clark (apparently your videos about him always did crazy well).
Oh no, you thought to yourself. Were you getting cancelled?
Half of your notifications were mentions to a random video from an account with no name and no picture, and only one post.
IS THIS THE BSF?!?!
I KNEW IT!!!!
omg i ship them so bad
Is this @pinkbubbles’s bsf?!?! The girl in the picture looks so much like her
@pinkbubbles GIRL LOOK
LMAO i literally just saw the other pov of this, tiktok knows what its doing
You clicked on the video. It was silent. It was just a picture, one that you recognized. It was you. A few years ago, when you’d traveled to the beach with Clark and he invited you to diner that night. He’d taken a picture of you, and he wanted to be subtle so your entire face didn’t show. Just your smile and your arms.
The caption read: she doesn’t know i am so in love with her.
This had to be Clark. The username and picture matched, and only him had access to that picture.
You burst out laughing when your read the caption and it was just ‘i hope she loves me back #charlidamelio’. But your heart was still hammering inside your ribcage like a crazed horse who wanted to break free.
Clark was in love with you. And he confessed through TikTok. Of all the places. It was so him and so unlike him at the same time, that you didn’t know whether you should laugh or cry or burst inside his office.
Honestly, the crazier thing was that you had posted something exactly like it a few months ago. It was just a video of Clark, not showing his face, and the caption ‘he doesn’t know i am in love with him’. The only difference was that you’d used an actual song, and you didn’t use any hashtags. It wasn’t meant to go viral. It was just… a letter inside a bottle thrown to the sea. A way not to explode while holding onto what felt like your biggest secret.
And Clark had the same idea, it seemed. A few months later, but still. You wondered when was it—what had pushed him to publish something like that. More importantly, how he’d even been able to do this, when Instagram as a concept itself broke him.
Oh God. He was in love with you, and his confession had gone viral. It was such a strange thing to say. Clark, going viral. Clark who only had an iPhone so that he could use iMessage with you and match lockscreens and sim card holders. Clark who thought TikTok was a song and not an app.
You think you’re going crazy. Clark Kent was going to be the death of you.
He was acting like nothing was wrong when you met up with him after work. He had that dopey smile on his face, the one that meant that nothing was wrong and that the world was a beautiful and perfect place to be. He usually had a terrible poker face — just that one time he bought a fake cockroach to scare you and the guilt was written all over his face like face paint for children. One look at him and you realized that the monstrosity you woke up next to was fake, and none other than Clark’s latest childish stunt.
Now
So how did the man who couldn’t even keep a surprise secret without blubbering and stuttering over his words look so serene? As if he didn’t just break the Internet and turn upside down your heart in the same night.
“Hey, baby,” he said, head tilted to the side like a confused little puppy who doesn’t understand why his owner wasn’t acting like normal? “How was your day?”
“Uh… um… it was okay. Thanks! How are yours?”
He raised an eyebrow with a teasing tilt of his lips. “How are mine? Mine what?”
You’d meant to ask how his day was, but at the same time how he was, and your tongue twisted. Oh God. He was usually the awkward one out of the two of you. Not you. Never you. You didn’t even feel that awkward when you’d hugged him once and he felt your stupidly perk and hard nipples. Admittedly, that was because Clark had done something worse just the day before and by comparison nothing you could ever do could ever be worse.
“I hate you,” you grumbled, slamming a weak fist against his chest.
Why did it have to be you who found out? What even were you supposed to be doing with information like this? Kiss him? Offer him a ring?
Clark didn’t look particularly offended by that. His hand merely found its place on top of yours and squeezed. “Come on, let’s go. Where are you taking me tonight?”
Your mind blanked. “Uh. Home?”
“Then let’s go,” he replied, his hand finding its natural position at the back of your neck, warm and present and guiding without being oppressive. He’d done that particular gesture a thousand times and you’d never particularly reacted. But tonight, it was different. Tonight, you were being held by the neck with the knowledge that he loved you. That he was in love with you as well, and that maybe had always been.
Well, if you were being honest with yourself, you would realize that this wasn’t supposed to be surprising. Clark was Clark and you were you, and the pair of you had always been like this — and your weird heteroerotic friendship had always been this way probably because you were both desperately and pathetically in love with each other.
But panicking about required love was more dramatic.
“Clark.”
“That’s my name, yes.”
“Smartass.”
He smiled in reply.
He was being so weirdly normal. As if he hadn’t posted his confession for possibly millions to see last night.
What if that wasn’t even him? What if someone hacked his phone and got his pictures of her? Poor Clark was definitely the kind of person who would fall for a phishing scam. There was a 33% chance of him actually being hacked. This was serious. You had to talk to him about it.
But… not now.
Now, you were going home with your best friend of almost thirty years and you were going to make him make dinner and you’re going to light candles and then you’re going to make him take pictures of you.
It was a regular night for the two of you. Except for the glaringly obvious and impossibly unavoidable fact that made every moment, every look, every touch a thousand times more… charged. More intimate. More…
You were running out of adjectives.
“This pasta is wonderful,” you told him and appreciated the way his ears still turned pink every time you praised his cooking.
“Ah, well, thank you, sweetheart. I wanted to make them from scratch but I didn’t have time.”
“Another time,” you replied. His homemade pasta was to die for, and he always made the best shapes ever. (One time you stole dough from him and made a penis shaped pasta. He couldn’t look you in the eyes without bursting into laughter for the rest of the evening.)
“Another time,” he confirmed.
Silence fell. The flames were still flickering, unbothered and swaying to the dancing of the air. It cast a particularly romantic light to the whole scene. Which was fitting, considering the two of you were apparently in love with each other, and probably have been for the past two decades.
Oh no. Have you guys wasted two decades for nothing when you could have been happily dating and in love? Perhaps you’d have even been married by now. Yeah, definitely married by now.
“Clark.”
His fork stilled mid-twirl and looked up to you, his entire attention riveted on you.
“Could you pass me the salt?”
His sauce was perfectly seasoned but it wasn’t your fault you chickened out right at the last minute.
“Sure thing,” he replied, standing without a complaint and getting it from the kitchen.
You were going to talk about the marriage thing another date. Well, you figured you should talk about the confession thing first.
You can do this.
You should also do something about those really nosy followers of yours who demanded an update quite literally every hour.
You really missed life back when you only had one follower — Clark’s account before he forgot the password and gave up on having an online presence.
You couldn’t post a single story of a cute cat you saw without getting swarmed with messages and comments, and not one of them was about the cute feline.
“Hey Clark, look at this cute cat I saw earlier.”
When in doubt (read: lacking attention), always turn to Clark.
“Oh look at that little fella,” he replied, genuinely excited to see him. You could always trust him to say the right thing. “Was he on your way to work?”
“Uh-huh,” you replied. “He was sooo cute. Almost adopted him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Oh, yeah. He was perfect.
“Well we hadn’t talked beforehand about bringing a child into this life so I didn’t want to presume.”
“Next time, then.”
“Next time,” you confirmed.
As easy as that. He’d agreed to adopt a child, so the marriage talk would be easier than anticipated.
Naturally, you found yourselves at a rescue center, trying to find the perfect fit for them. Clark wanted a dog, you wanted a cat, so you compromised and got a really old cat who’d been waiting for a forever home for fifteen years.
Her name was Bean (you let Clark pick) and she was both the loveliest and saddest creature you both had ever seen. Her favorite spot to sleep was between the two of you, and she got sad whenever Clark wasn’t staying over the night, so Clark officially moved in. For Bean, of course.
Clark was, much to your dismay, her favorite, but you understood her. Clark was your favorite as well.
“You know,” Clark said one day while Bean was busy purring up a storm on top of his large chest (oh how you were jealous), “she really reminds me of you. She always meows outside the bathroom door whenever I take a shower, and she recently learnt how to open the door. Just to stare at me.”
You snorted. “That does sound like something I would do.”
Clark scratched behind Bean’s ears subconsciously. “It’s not just that. It’s… well, she’s quite clingy.”
“I am not clingy,” you refuted automatically, but it was more of a knee-jerk reaction than anything.
Bean meowed in displeasure too.
“Sweetheart, you’re currently using my arm as a body pillow.”
“Doesn’t mean anything.” Bean meowed. “See? She agrees. We aren’t clingy.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He scratched the top of your head, and you think he meant to scratch Bean’s head, not yours, but you found that you absolutely didn’t mind.
“Meow,” you said, just to really sell it in case he suspected something.
───────── ౨ৎ ─────────
Clark was pleasantly surprised when Lois told him that she wanted to see you again. Jimmy, of course, heard it and was promptly standing guard at Clark’s desk.
“I want to see her too,” he said. As always, he was expertly (read: awkwardly) avoiding the looks a coworker had been giving him for the past three days.
“Uh…” he pushed his glasses up his nose. “Sure. She would love that. And I would love that too.”
“It’s weird, we thought you would be more ecstatic than this,” Jimmy said.
“You guys talk about me behind my back?”
“Duh,” Lois replied. “What else are we supposed to do when you randomly and suspiciously disappear at random intervals during a work day?”
He blushed. “Fair enough. But why did you think I would be happier than this?”
Lois and Jimmy shared a look. “How can he be so big yet so dense?” Lois asked.
“Hey!”
“Honestly, I just want to know what went through his brain at that moment,” Jimmy said, like he was discussing the weather. “Was he held at gun point? Did his phone become conscious on its own? How did he even know how to use the app?”
“I couldn’t have asked better questions myself,” Lois said, nodding wisely as she took a sip from her monstrous drink. “Clark, would you be up for an interview later?”
Clark frowned. “What… what is going on?”
They shared a look.
“I don’t think he knows that we know.”
“Or that the entire Internet knows,” Lois added.
“Or that she knows,” Jimmy appended.
“He thinks he’s sleek with it,” Lois commented.
“Stop talking like creepy twins!” he shrieked. His dignity was never left intact around those two. “What is going on? No, I don’t wanna know. I need to take a break.”
“Should we tell him?”
“Yes. I mean, they adopted a cat together. I don’t think he knows the implications of it.”
“What does Bean have anything to do with any of this?”
“Bean is your child. You’re the father, your best friend is the mother. You guys have moved in together, you co-parent a child, and you’re both in love.”
He finally blushed. “No we’re not.”
“Yes, you are. You confessed to her and she confessed to you.”
“Wait… when did she confess?”
“Oh great heavens.”
Taking an impromptu coffee break, they dragged Clark to the break room where they sat him down (he was going to need it) and showed him his video on Jimmy’s phone and her video on Lois’ phone.
“Who are you and what have you done with our Clark Kent?”
“The Clark I know would have never confessed like this. Granted, it’s cute, but it’s not something Clark would do.”
“He can barely use the selfie mode on his phone!”
Clark Kent really felt like a hostage being interrogated, with the two of them looming over him like menacing journalists who wanted to get to the bottom of this. The only thing missing was the table and a threatening lamp projected right in his face, blinding him. He could very well see Lois with a foot up on her chair, elbow on her knee as she stared him down so menacingly he had half a mind to confess to things he didn’t even do, just to make her stop.
His face was impossibly red, and the only thing he was thinking about wasn’t about how millions of people saw his video, but that you must have seen it, because everyone was tagging you in the comments, and this was definitely not the way he expected to confess to you.
Beneath it all though, his chest was rumbling with pleasure at the confirmation — finally — that you felt the same. Knowing it was different from being clearly told.
“Stop grinning like an idiot, this is making me wanna puke.”
“Gross. Maybe we shouldn’t have shown him this. His face is making a very disturbing and off putting expression.”
“I’m just happy and mortified! Can’t I be happy and mortified in peace?” Clark whined.
“No,” came their reply in unison.
“Guys, something came up. I have to go. Tell Perry I’ll work from home.”
He doesn’t wait a second for their answer. Quite frankly, he didn’t care much at the moment. He had a girl waiting for him at home to kiss her senseless.
clark is so easy to love, and he’d like to say he tries to make you think the same of yourself. maybe his efforts have been futile, because you don’t feel any less motivated to break things off one random saturday; but he’s not willing to let you go that easily. 2.9k
tags: hurt/comfort (reader experiences a small injury), sort of anxious/depressed reader (slight anxiety attack?), hints of a sucky family/upbringing, reader is kind of mean to clark at the breakup but it’s just b/c she’s insecure, i promise she loves him too, reader thinks clark baby’s too good for her
˚୨୧⋆｡ navi masterlist latest work
You’d been sitting on the idea of breaking up with Clark for months now. Actually, it had been weighing on you for months now. It felt more like an obligation.
There was no reason not to be totally enamored by Clark. He was quick-witted, unfathomably sweet, and the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. He wasn’t selfish and motivated by his own needs and desires, much like other men you’d had prior unpleasant experiences with.
That seemed to be exactly the problem. He was too good to be true and you wanted to break free of whatever spell he had you under before it was too late. You knew you had to be the one to call it quits before Clark got irrevocably attached, too.
You felt you couldn’t allow yourself to get used to it. The just-because flowers, the unprecedented notes he left on your sun visor mirror, the dates whose planning he left entirely up to himself so that you needn’t so much as lift a finger or worry your pretty little head about a singular decision after a back-breaking day’s of work. He was just so uncannily thoughtful. Almost un-humanly.
So you finally mustered up the courage, some weeks before your four-month anniversary. Sucking in a breath of air sharply, you shoot him a text one night when you felt the thought had been pressing on you too heavily.
you: Hey, Clark. Can we talk, tomorrow at mine?
clarkattack 🦈: Sure thing, honey. I’ll bring some goodies! :)
You felt an overwhelm of guilt all of a sudden. Clark was so unsuspecting, so sweetly oblivious. No doubt he thought you were just wanting to have a calm date night in. You slumped in the plush of your bed, suddenly worried if this was the right thing to do.
To say the least, the romance that blossomed between you was completely unforseen. At least to you.
It came quietly, then loudly, all of a sudden. It was buying you coffee. Then dinner. Nights out. Then nights in, cuddled up in the crook of his neck, cozied up in the warm, incandescent comfort of your quaint apartment. Like it was built for just two. Built for you. It happened faster than you could process, and in those four months, that blurred haste of time, you could never seem to process why he chose you.
Plain, average, ordinary you. He was Clark. Selfless Clark who towered over you, a pure gentle giant. Clark who knew you like a unit of his broad body, Clark who was something of a fairy tale prince. If anything, you thought he’d be a better match for his equivalently attractive, snarky-but sweet counterpart Lois Lane. You pushed back the notion of their chemistry one too many times.
You let yourself fall asleep with that all-but-pleasant idea the last thing on your mind. It would all be over tomorrow anyways.
⊹₊⟡⋆
You were unsure how to go about it. Before you knew it, before you could mentally prepare yourself for what felt like a disaster to come, a blaring ring sounded at your front door.
“Hey, Clark,” you’re opening the door with quivering hands, still feeling uneasy about it all. To make matters worse, he’s greeting you with the sweetest smile, a dimpled one on that gorgeous canvas of a face that has no sneaking suspicions of what’s to come.
“Hey honey, I brought your favorites,” he’s holding up a paper grocery bag and with the widest grin.
“Clark, you really didn’t have to do that,” you mutter embarrassingly.
“It’s really no trouble at all. You know I’d do it whether you asked or not.”
You can only nod along, any semblance of words failing you. And when you’ve made your way to the couch, he’s already made it has mission to make the couch as comfortable a place to nestle into as possible, setting up the blankets just the way you like before fluffing and perching the pillows up—he seems to have already forgotten why you invited him over in the first place. You’re clearing your throat when he flips on the TV, surfing through for something to watch already.
“So what’d you want to talk about, honey?” He says absentmindedly, scrolling through various films and TV series.
“Oh, right, um. About the TV, Clark, I really don’t think it’s a good idea that we—,”
“Oh look, honey! They’ve got The Princess Bride! Our favorite! Let me go grab the popcorn,” he exclaims, and with that, he’s making a dash for the grocery bag like a mad man. You sigh to yourself. Maybe it can wait.
⊹₊⟡⋆
You’re halfway into the movie and sitting an unusual distance from Clark. Every sideways glance makes you feel sorry for both him and yourself. A few times you ponder to yourself why you’re even doing this, why you seem to have to pull the plug on any good thing that comes to you.
But a deeper sense within you seems to know it’s too much for you, too good of a thing. That you’re sure to corrupt Clark’s goodness at some point. That at any point he could unknowingly switch up on you and shut all the goodness off.
He scoots closer to you, giving you a small peck on the forehead, then a peck on the cheek. You scoot further away and clear your throat. “I like this part,” you murmur with your eyes trained on the flatscreen. “This will all soon be but a happy memory,” Westley says after he extinguishes the fire at the hem of Buttercup’s gown.
Clark would never push you, and he has a perfected mastery at reading your body language. He stares and you for a moment after bearing in mind the way you pull away where you otherwise would have deepened into—sunk into—his kisses and gentle advances.
“You alright, honey?” He asks like he doesn’t have half a mind to know you’re not. He just wants to hear it from you. You hum a simple yes.
“I’m going to go finish up on those dishes I was washing before you came,” you inform him flatly.
You’re looking down into the empty chasm of the sink, hands on either side of it. Wondering about your verbiage when you actually go through with the freaking arrangement that you invited him over for. You’ve been through breakups before. You hated how all of them sounded when it ended.
Were you just going to be another cliché? You thought of a string of everything you could possibly say and which sad excuse you’d go through with. This just isn’t working out. We’re too different. We don’t click. I feel like we can’t communicate thoroughly. I just can’t. It’s not you, it’s me. Most of them being total lies with the exception of the last one.
“I’m coming with, I can make more popcorn,” Clark hollers from the other room. He makes a brisk entrance with your half-empty popcorn bowl that only he touched. You make quick work of a random dish you swiped from the drying rack to look busy, turning on the sink to look as if you’re rinsing it. He notices your anguish and the pained look on your face when you suddenly start scrubbing at it with a sudsy sponge.
“Honey, are you sure you’re okay? You’re scrubbing at that plate like you’ve got a vendetta against its family. Did the bowls wrong you or something?” He chuckles to himself at his own joke.
“Fine, Clark,” you say shortly.
“You haven’t touched the snacks I bought you,” he points out. The look on his face is scrawled with concern.
“Not hungry.”
“You sure?”
“Really sure.”
“I’ll make us something later after the movie, how ‘bout that?”
“That’s alright. I had a big lunch so I’ll just go to bed after.”
“Already? ‘S only six right now, should be a little after seven when we’re done.”
“Just tired.”
“Honey,” he hesitates for a moment, breath hitched and careful about what his next words will be, whether he’ll strike a nerve or if he had already. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
“I said I’m fine, Clark,” you hissed coldly, taking him aback. He doesn’t flinch at your sudden harshness. He just stands there, the same expression of concern sturdy on his face.
“You know what I invited you over for? I want to break up,” you said simply, avoiding the look of hurt his cerulean eyes are suddenly overcome with.
“What, but why—,”
“It’s just…it’s not working out.” You’re unsure what more to say. You didn’t realize you’d get this far.
“Can we talk about this?” His voice cracks a little and you have to fight a little harder not to look at him. “What exactly isn’t working out? I’m sorry if I did something—,”
“I just can’t.” Now you’re trying to fight tears welling up in your eyes.
He says something more and you turn on the garbage disposal, digging for a fork you lost in the commotion. Against all better judgment telling you not to, you look at him, hand inching towards the depths of the sink, disposal forgotten when you suddenly graze the back of your hand by the blades of it. You shriek and curse at yourself, hand newly blooming with crimson on the back of it.
“Oh my gosh, sweetheart, let me help you,” Clark’s more worried about the blood than you, it seems, his own hands making haste to coming up to your quivering one only a second after.
“Just go, Clark,” you exclaim tersely at him.
“Hey,” he says softly in spite of the threatening cut of your own severe voice. “Please just let me help you so we don’t have to go the Emergency Room. Then I’ll go, okay? As you wish.” He thinks you won’t notice his Princess Bride reference at the end. But you do. And for some reason that’s what it takes to bring you to tears, the aching gash at the back of your hand be damned. They’re hot tears that caress you when they slowly stream down your face. Tears that are hard to fight with only a singular hand.
“Hey, hey,” he coos at you and drags you to the living room without waiting your approval, a clean rag in hand. He’s wiping away at your tears when you sit there lamely. “I know it hurts, I’ll make it better, I promise.” He rushes to the kitchen quickly, in a moment’s notice returning with your first aid kit under the sink.
You want to tell him it’s not really the cut that hurts. You’re practically numb already, which is also of concern to you. But it’s the stupid breakup that hurts more right now and the way he seems to care so deeply for you even in your malice, that his gentle advances are utterly unfaltering.
In another scenario like this one you’d praise him for knowing where everything in your apartment is so well. Like he had the blueprint of everything memorized in that super-mind of his, pocketing a detailed visual in there. But this is an odd-case scenario where you’re being treated by the aid of your now ex-boyfriend for an almost certain E.R-worthy injury after screaming at him to leave.
You’re watching him in silence, with the steadiest hands taking your gaping one into his without so much as a wince. You wish you weren’t so painfully human in times like these, that you could heal by the sun alone and wake up fresh in the morning the way he did. He is my sun, you thought to yourself sometimes. He grabs the hydrogen peroxide hastily, pouring a cap full of it.
“Grab onto my arm when I pour this onto you. Squeeze it as tight as you want. It’ll make it hurt less,” he reassures. You give him a nod before he pours onto it, and you’re grimacing through the motions while holding onto his strong bicep for dear life.
“Attagirl, attagirl. That’s good,” he whispers while petting your hair before pulling away quickly so as to not worsen your earlier frustrations. He mutters a short sorry. “I would blow on it but I don’t wanna spread any germs.”
He grabs the Neosporin after dabbing at the excess peroxide your hand with a clean cloth. “Look, Clark, about earlier…”
“We don’t have to talk about it right now, you’re hurt.”
“I need to.”
He gives you a meaningful look, nodding before squeezing at the ointment tube carefully.
“I just, I feel like you’re too good for me.” Before you can help it, the tears are making their way back to your eyes. You curse yourself and rub at your eyes with the back of your freehand. And Clark, in all his softness, is reaching up to wipe at them again with a large thumb, collecting them on the bed of his nail. You don’t stop him.
“I’m difficult, you know? It took me well over near two months for you to get anything out of me about my family, why I am the why I am. I feel like you give me everything sometimes. The whole world. And I can hardly give anything in return,” you know he wants to interrupt you because his mouth is slack. “God, Kent. Can you let me finish?” you laugh without looking at him, instead down at your severed hand.
“I’m just a lot. I feel like I’m either too much or not enough. You’re so much prettier than me,” you cradle his soft face in your hand and he smiles a sad smile. You know it’s hurting him to not be able to immediately shut down your crazy talk. You’re practically forcing him through your whole ordeal. “You’re funny, you’re dorky in the cutest way. You’re so smart and you have the biggest heart. I just feel like, how can I compare to you sometimes, you know? I feel like I’m holding you back from your fullest potential. I want you to be with someone as good as you and better than me. I’m messy, broken. I’m dark,” you finish, sobbing when you do. It’s getting harder to breathe and he’s taking you in the vastness of his arms. Cooing and shushing you, rocking you back and forth.
“Hey, hey.” He says sternly, loud over your scattered breaths and hiccuped sobs for you to hear. He kisses at the back of your freshly bandaged hand. “Breathe with me, breathe with me, please, honey.” You’re letting out a few more sobs before you’re nodding off at him, and he’s counting your deep inhales and exhales. Doing it with you. 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4. In, out. In. Out. You finally settle down, still hiccuping slightly and breathing shakily.
“You,” he says, giving a slow, deep kiss at your forehead, then again at your hands, “are not difficult in the slightest. Like most humans you have a fair sense of cynicism. It means more to me that you let me in no matter how long it took because the point is that you did. You let me be a part of your world. And I couldn’t be more grateful. Because I like it here. A lot,” you both laugh. “And I know I told you I would leave, but I don’t want to walk out of here not being a part of your world.”
“And I’m glad I know why you are the way you are now. You are not your experiences, though. And not all of them shaped you entirely. You didn’t let them. You came to shape your own beautiful little experiences and leave behind the pains of your past.” You liked the way that sounded. Beautiful little experiences. Clark was surely one of them.
“You are not messy, or broken, or dark,” he says firmly, as if to make sure it gets to your head. “You are my fullest potential. You’ve taught me what true goodness really means. And you’re perfect. You are smart. You are kind. You are the most beautiful person I know. In every way. You’re beauty personified,” This almost makes you want to break all over again. Clark just seems to have such a way with words.
“You are my sun.” He kisses your hand once, twice, three times. Then each of your fingers. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. You kiss the top of his hair while he’s still leaned down. “Can you let me be yours?”
You look at him for a moment. “I’m sorry if I ever am too much, okay? Can you just let me know if I ever am?”
“Not too much, so it’s never going to happen,” he says simply, now nuzzling your hand into his face.
You think about everything he’s said. He repeats it. Can you let me be your sun?
As you wish, you say. You win, farm boy. You lean in to kiss him. For once you feel satisfied. For once you don’t feel heavy with the weight of everything. More than sorely aware of the space you take. Right now you feel it’s just enough.
a/n: omg i hate doing these little pic layout things bc i feel like they never look good when i do them but the middle pic of david didn’t look right on its own…anyways please don’t let this flop i actually kind of liked it
i promise i have something for u guys, college is working me like a dog though and i’m on a hunt for another job after being unemployed for seven months now no classes tmr though so i will be sleeping all day…
