clark kent is your mortal enemy; it's been a constant battle between who's going to get front page privileges and clark always manages to top you with superman. when you both get a little too drunk and repressed feelings rush to the surface- surely it can't be real? how could it be real when you wake up naked in his bed, unsure of how you ended up there? when you've accidentally sent the department the doc you made in a rage listing all the reasons you hate clark kent? it can't be real so why does it hurt so much when he calls it quits- when you cry to superman of all people- when everywhere you go reminds you of him?
superman! clark kent x fem! journalist! reader (no use of yn- clark nicknames you neutron)
themes: onesided enemies to lovers (you are enemies- he thinks you're lovers but he's also a brat), hidden feelings, workplace rivalry- clark is not that nice in this (neither are you tbh which is not canon i know bit it is an enemies to lovers- sue me!!!) drunk shenanigans, kissing, implied smut, and love confession, fluff, angst, betrayal (juicy angst), mentions of insecurities, feeling overwhelmed, confiding in superman, previous relationships and an ending inspired by "how to lose a guy in 10 days"
wc: 15k (CLARK HURT COMFORT FINAL BOSS)
masterlist.
it's the smug half smile that catches your narrowed eye unwillingly, the sympathetic look your best friend jimmy sends your way and the fresh copy that lands at your desk to settle the fire in your blood.
you love the smell of fresh paper printed; the crispness, the warmth of the stories it tells and trusts you with. the faint inky scent that bleeds under your fingertips, excites you to new highs- you're sure this could very well be a strange addiction. but now? seeing clark kent's name printed small under the overbearing headline that's most certainly not yours but very well deserves to be, you've never felt the urge to scrunch it up, crumble it to death as it shreds along with your pride.
metropolis' man in the cape saves again: his thoughts on humanity, hope and his place in the world.
and he might've. you applaud superman, he's a man of the people, a story worth writing and you've even asked to interview him once- he never replied, like a ghost, except he haunted you through repetitive interviews with your mortal enemy clark kent and it burned. and from that day? you preferred batman, at least he rejected you with honesty and a bluntness you could appreciate. he didn't get cosy with the enemy, he punished them and relished in the feeling of it, just how you wished you could do yourself to one person in particular.
"you'll get em next time tiger," and its a stiff pat of the lazily dropped on to your shoulder, a smile imprinted in the air that englufs you. you don't even have to look up to recognise the unwanted looming 6'4 shadow towering above you, as if from that height you couldn't feel anymore smaller- be anymore smaller compared to him. the rage bubbles over in your stomach, steaming at your organs and quietly releases through the air that flares from your nostrils. you're seething and he knows it, he tortures you with the same lame comfort every time he makes the front page and you don't- which these days, feels way more often than not.
but you won't burst, not yet, and definitely not infront of the one person who's waiting for it to happen. you wouldn't want to give him the satisfaction of letting him know that he's won, he's under your skin and you let him roam free there. so you grit your teeth, open your document and begin to list all the things you hate about clark kent.
. . .
"golly, if it isn't jimmy and neutron," shining blue eyes twinkle with a tease and you feel the bile rising up in your system already. the play on words had gotten old very quickly; matter of fact a day after he met you quickly and decided that because you were pushing in the field of science journalism, using your physics degree to explore current trends in space with an environmental focus often- clark had used his big brains to label you as neutron, fitting for your best friend jimmy. it was also the last time you wore red, clark's evil pretty smile basically bursting when he saw the correlation and on your first day, before lunch time had even hit- clark kent had made two embarrassing (on your part) mistakes. first, he had thought you were the latest intern and asked for his coffee order and then came the likening you to a fictional character- the nickname sticking to you with hot embarrassment. months later and you're still neutron, you're pretty sure you may die as neutron.
"ha, ha," the stale echo leaves your mouth as you shoot him your best disapproving glare. it doesn't deter him one bit, you get a flash of teeth in return, a blinding superstar grin that just fuels your disgust- god, how could anyone be as obnoxious as him, you think.
"hey clark!" jimmy calls out and clark responds with a wave, you hiss at your friend, the outward act of betrayal infront of your own eyes as you duck your head low to avoid any further confrontations with your mortal enemy. that's enough evilness for one day, anymore and you'll be at the gates of pure hell, clark kent's poster face ready and waiting.
"keep walking jim," you whisper through your teeth, giving clark one last glare before continuing on to the lifts and into your lunch time plans- the weather seemed nice enough to eat outdoors, you two had thoroughly checked the weather days in advance, hoping to get some much needed serotonin, sunshine and serenity the city can offer.
"hey jim, say if you see this nerd about yay big," he levels your height with his hand, purposely making you look smaller, "tell her the second page is looking for her," and you flip him off as you walk away, hearing a loud weight of boyish laughter thud in the air of the daily planet. a sliver of his stupid face disappears once the doors shut, though it lingers at the forefront of your mind- the crevices and lines etched of his skin burnt into your memory as the words echo again. you rub at your temples, massaging them softly as you slump your body against the wall- jimmy immediately taking your bag from you and lightening the load on your shoulders.
he doesn't have to say anything; he knows what has you so uptight and part of him thinks its the funniest and silliest game of cat and mouse that you and clark are locked in, both blissfully and painfully unaware.
"i hate when he calls me that," you mumble into your hands, feeling the anger seethe, bubble and then you mute it down into what feels a lot more like practised exhaustion and fatigue. there's no bark in your bite whenever clark isn't around, there's just something in his presence that greatly amplifies your annoyance and the secondary feeling of insecurities pushing on you. he's clark kent. he's loved by the whole team, he's buddies with superman, he makes the front page like it's his birthright with such ease, he's built like a damn machine and he has a dog, he talks to his parents every other day, he watches star wars and he is kind- albeit kind to everyone but you. you can't help but feel like this is all a personal attack- of course clark kent isn't perfect and has enemies, he chose you as his target, you as his nemesis- he must've seen some sort of match to play though often than you'd like to admit you do feel way out of your sparring depth.
"i think it's cute," jimmy shrugs, and by the downward turn of your curled lip, bordering into snarl territory he knows you disagree- and hard.
"he said i had a big forehead!" you didn't mean to shout, but the outrage is astronomical, the disbelief burns in your veins. clark kent cannot find you cute- he's satan in disguise, this will ruin everything, everything you've worked for and against because that will mean you are wrong and clark kent is actually capable of being a decent person.
"he called you a genius!" jimmy tries to reason and the look you level him with incredulity makes him want to hide away and wait this out.
"a young boy genius-"
"the most renowned of minds," he compliments, trying to make it sound way better than what it is, not that you have a giant forehead or the one instance you wore red and became the butt of a joke. you're his best friend, and he loves you more than anything but some part of him wants to just shake you awake, that clark kent must be drawn to you if he only ever acts this way around you. for two incredible journalists, you two are so stupid with the evidence right there infront of you.
"oh yes jimmy, because that's what every girl wants to hear- not that i'm hot or that my work matters and is good enough to make the print but that i'm a young boy genius with a forehead the size of fucking space- what? why are you looking at me like that?" you take a step away from him as the lift finally opens and leads you outside and on a pathway to the nearest park where you can settle down, let the breeze run through your skin and hair and squash any thought of a certain black curly haired nuisance in your already occupied brain.
"oh nothing," he teases, "why would you care about clark kent, your quote unquote "nemesis", calling you hot?"
"i don't," you immediately spit out, aware of how suspiciously quick the response came and the smug look jimmy olsen tries to hide. it's like your brain had this rehearsed, formulated in a strict "clark kent protocol" and shot it out along with any inclination that you could feel anything other than a strong dislike for your co-worker.
"okay," jimmy shrugs, his hands drop lazily in surrender but the smile he sports is as clear as day; soft as the clouds you sit under as you unwrap your sandwich and kick your legs free.
"i said i don't," you repeat, even minutes after the conversation dies down and jimmy is busying himself trying to find a movie on his laptop, but it bugs you the indifference- no, jimmy not siding with you immediately, like there's some secrecy he's holding to himself instead of defending your honour boldly.
"i heard you the first time babe," he mumbles, scrolling and clicking, "how do you feel about star wars?" he asks, and your heart knocks against your ribcage, a slump at having to work overtime at the constant reminder of clark fucking kent. but you know jimmy, saying no and bringing up clark's strange addiction with the series would only prove his point- that as much as you dislike him, some part of you searches for his opinion in a sick and twisted way.
so you take a bite of your sandwich, swallowing pesto and your pride and let it grow stale in your mouth as you nod, "sounds good to me," you try for a careless, offhanded comment of indifference but it burns, it bothers you in ways you can't even explain.
"okay," fuck you, okay.
. . .
"oh, she loves when i call her that," he doesn't even try to dull out the laughter when he spots your middle finger sent his way, his tongue presses in his cheek, mischief laced in his mind as he watches your form disappear through the doors and out into the wind. he swivels back in his chair, the wheels rolling as the gears in his brain turn- he really needs to think of a new article for next week's brief, check in with perry, come up with something that can top your new advancement on the science column. that task enough was difficult, you were smart and everybody included clark kent knew it and had to deal with it, you really gave him a tough run for his money in the fight to make the front page.
"do you know if she's seeing anyone? she's hardly with anyone other than jimmy- maybe she's seeing jimmy," he mutters as he closes the millions of tabs open on his screen, his stomach rumbles and he's due for a break soon. he was tempted to join your and jimmy's picnic, overhearing you guys from across the corridor and he salivated at the mention of you bringing some banana bread and tea in flasks. he lingered at the printers, waited to be given an invite, even focused on jimmy- the weaker of you two to crumble first but the pure steel you gave him as you moved to the opposite side of the room with your best friend following like a lost puppy as soon as you caught sight of clark staring intently, it was clearly not going to happen.
"clark, what do you care? you give her absolute hell-" lois' warning is cut off by clark's brows shooting to the ceiling at her admission.
"i do not! it's our thing-"
"i think this might be a you thing-" she tries to reason to her colleague, bring him out of the depths of delusion he's ran himself through and back to the surface of reality.
"she likes it!" clark scoffs, you engage in this mini war just the same as he does- the effort does not go unnoticed by him. out of everyone he's ever met, only you've come close to his wit, his intellect, his humour- you're his equal and if he has to mess with you to keep the competition on your toes and your focus on him, clark kent will spend the rest of his life playing this dangerous game. and if anything, he loves a challenge. you didn't swoon when you first met clark, you didn't bat an eyelid or even go out of your way to impress him but you've stolen his attention from the first look and the rest is history.
"and what makes you think she likes it?" you. lois wants to say, but she doesn't think her friend is ready for that type of conversation yet. but the real meaning is unspoken but heard, lingers in the air as his eyes are struck on the spot where you've left.
"she smiles," and he sports one of his own, if lois focused a little longer than maybe she would've heard the subtle pick of his heartrate, the dreamy sigh that leaves his lips followed by a little gasp when he pictures you, how he has to press his lips together to stop himself from bursting out the seams.
"at everyone but you," lois, the true voice of reason and honesty, tries to hit him with.
"exactly," he's smug when he faces his friend, kicking his feet up on his desk and relaxing back in his chair, "mine are reserved," he brags. he thinks about the small smiles kept with clark kent's name attached to them. how they're half teeth but all heart, with your lips pressed together but clark can see the small curve of your lip. the smirks that radiate confidence, how clark marvels at your talent and intellect, the small snarls where you mean to throw disdain but clark catches it with pride that he can rile you up this good. then there's the smiles where you don't think he's watching but he always is, where your eyes crinkle and your whole existence seems to soften with something gentler, something kinder, something so overtly hidden from him that he doesn't want to ruin the moment and let you know he's there.
he must've trailed too far off into the distance, overstayed in the shrine he's built of you in memories that lois' knowing look pulls him back to the surface and he tries to return back to their earlier conversation- the start of it all, questioning the existence if there's someone out there other than clark who is deserving of your attention, "i don't think her and jimmy are a thing, i mean i saw her wrestle him for a coffee mug in the break room earlier," and he tries to hide the fondness with a poorly executed scoff.
"clark again, what do you care?" except this time lois doesn't bother to hide the giggle of stupidity at one of her closest's friends and clark panics, he doesn't care. he can't care- it'll ruin his easygoing relationship with you and if you have to hate him for him to get access to a side you don't give out to anyone else, clark kent will do it.
"i don't, i told you, maybe if neutron got laid or was seeing someone, she'd like i don't know lighten up," he excuses but the words feel as misplaced as they leave him, when they linger in the air and cut through the thickness with a swift elbow jab from lois. it feels wrong, like a branding he's put out there- a label on your character but he needs to throw his friend off his trail. he's clark kent, he's number one and you're the competition. and then a heavy silence takes over and clark trails lois' apologetic gaze to where you stand just a few feet away from him, sporting the same glare you always mean for him but a new faint red blush creeping up your neck.
oh lord, he thinks.
because somewhere along from torturing yourself with star wars and your work nemesis thinking of your smile, you've made it back to the office- forgetting a cup for your flask. and at that moment in time, fate is a cruel twisted and funny thing because your ears burn hot with the intensity of the words he's hit you with and they paint a tomato hue of embarrassment you can't bring yourself to die down.
"dick," you scoff in his direction, disgust laced on your features but its a little more of a weaker whisper than you'd like.
"hey, you can borrow it whenever," he tries to recover, regain the comedic banter and shoots you a wink to recover from his stumble. but you just stare, stare and stare till he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. when you're satisfied with his squirming you turn to head back to your desk to grab a small blanket and some cups.
"i'd rather eat glass," you return smoothly, "glad to know a dry spell is also hitting you too or do you just you offer your services up to anyone?" it's snarky, but if you weren't so thrown off guard, you know you could've done better.
"ah, not anyone, just you babe," another smirk. but when you've disappeared he faces a stern lois who stands with her brows raised clearly unimpressed, theres just something about you that brings out the competitive childish side in him and he doesnt know what to do. his mouth moves far too quick for his brain to keep up with, anything for you keep your eyes on him. until you don't.
"oh gosh," he breathes when you're out of earshot, though he'd never let you hear or give you the satisfaction of throwing him off his usual calm, collected and smooth game.
"a little too far, kent," she pats him on the back, its a little harder but carries the consequences of him mouthing off "keep that up and you'll drive her too far out you'll need a damn map to bring her home."
"oh i'm not trying to bring her home," he rolls his eyes and a beat of silence passes the two of them.
"clark, i think you like her," lois softens.
"i think you're being crazy and should just help me with damn article," he huffs, directing his attention to literally anything but the confession his friend hits him with. he can't like you- he can't, but lois saying it doesn't make it feel any less real. so she lets it go, settles into their easy routine and helps nitpick where he's gone wrong and what he can do better, clark listens obediently and tries to focus but he can still feel you in his orbit. he needs to do something to salvage the mood and so he does what he knows he can do- pure journalism.
"full disclaimer not that i care or anything but for purely based on my outstanding deductive skills as a journalist- that means she's not seeing anyone," he breaks the shifted mood to recall your earlier comment from memory, like his muscles remember the contraction, the wave of oxygen it takes to formulate your name and your entire existence like its a secret oath he's sworn to protect.
"not that you care though right," lois teases and he feels his friendship slowly restores its balance, his earlier slip up not forgotten, just lightly grazed over into something familiar.
"of course not," he confirms and ducks his head lower into his desk, not without sneaking a look in the direction of your desk that still sits empty- you must've returned to your picnic with jimmy and afternoon without the tyranny of clark kent.
"it was on the record- observational, i'm a journalist," he excuses with a shrug. lois catches the ramble fondly but clark is too far in his head to notice. and maybe if he repeats it enough, he'll believe it enough.
. . .
the thing is, clark kent has tried to be nice to you. a truce of some sorts.
it started with coffee cups that he would leave on your desk, watch you sniff cautiously and the first few you spilt down the sink along with his eager-eyed hope for peace. you weren't sure of who was leaving them until you arrived to work a lot earlier than usual- your plans to leave a lot earlier that day and make up the time.
you watched him pick up your mug from the cupboard through blinking tired eyes- it had to have been a blur, a lapse in judgement you were half asleep. but the guilty look, his widened eyes like a deer in headlights, its a look you'll score into your memory.
from there, he still made the coffee and he'd watch you drink it in agonising slow slips, never once did you acknowledge it, thank him other than a slight nod, but he held onto it.
he tried through giving you pointers on your work, just little comments to push you in the direction and you were pushed alright. you didn't speak or look his way for days, the cold shoulder freezing clark out as you poured yourself into long days glued to your desk to come out better, to do better, to be better.
he even offered to walk you home and you looked at him like he was insane; and maybe he was. maybe he shouldve known it came across as weird, out of the blue, i mean you two were hardly even friends and your commute was in the entirely different direction of his but he thought it was gentlemanly, honourable even but you gave him one weird look and left. and he never asked again.
and from then, clark decided there was higher reward that came from annoying you than what came from being nice to you. nice didn't earn him your attention, didn't push him to be his best for you and him, in fact he owes a large part of his career growth to you- it's nice to be challenged but being nice wasn't going to get you to look in his direction and linger. nice was for strangers, for friends and you and clark? he knew your connection was meant for more.
. . .
it's wednesday and you have the mornings off, entering the daily planet just after the callback from lunch is announced and you step into the meeting room ready for a debrief.
you've had your hair cut, clark notices immediately as he catches sight of your frame slipping through the door behind perry. he likes it, a lot, he decides. it looks so soft and bouncy, styled in a blowout that clark for a second, thinks what it would be like to feel the strands through his fingers, like silk. do you use silk pillows?
you catch sight of lois, send her a sweet smile and it drops to a slower polite one at clark, who lets his fingers dance in a teasing wave as you walk past the pair to get to your usual seat- right across from him. he gets a faint smell of vanilla and deeper notes of cherry that intoxicate his bloodstream and lure him deeper in your vicinity- is that a new fragrance? he doesn't have time to notice because a laughter like sunshine streaks through the sky, throwing planet earth off orbit.
"that good?" jimmy murmurs, and you shake your head, eyes widening and flashing in delight,
"incredible," you gush in a whisper and clark feels left out. there's clearly something unspoken in the air, you just feel lighter. you've abandoned your usual slacks for a fairy-like skirt, paired with a simple knit sweater and bow ballet flats, you look ... nice, he wants to say. like, you always look nice but today, you look really nice. you look softer, less guarded and it is drawing clark in like a magnet he can't turn from.
before he can even tease you, the room drifts off into a deep discussion as they pass around their ideas for the week and when it gets to you, clark uses the opportunity to ask you the most useless questions, hold your gaze intently as he quizzes on random hypothetical scenarios and when he hears the frustrated sigh leaves your lips as you pack up your things, clark faces a tired lois, ignoring how he hears you mumble a faint "i'm going to kill him jimmy, i'm going to go down for first degree murder and i give lois permission to have that story."
"what?" he questions. she levels him with a look and he shrugs it off, "she looks different today," he adds a little quieter today.
and then lois swats his shoulder in annoyance, "dude," she breathes, "you know, maybe she finally got laid and eased up a bit" lois repeats a stale regurgitation of his previous words and scoffs at how ridiculous it sounds. and as if by instinct, clark's fists clench and rumble under the table as he pins a dark look to your seat. he can't imagine it- you? sharing an electric chemistry with someone other than him? must be a nightmare he's stuck in because suddenly clark doesn't feel as special anymore. he feels lonely, and a little bit childish for getting such a reaction out of you. he tunes out on lois' teasing and taps his fingers against the table in thought and then without saying goodbye, he leaves lois lane confused behind.
for this type of journalism, clark has to go out on the field.
he tries to find you on many occasions to conduct his investigation on your love life but it seems you're playing hide and seek, though he does spot jimmy olsen refilling his coffee in the break room and very subtly leans his back to the counter, facing jimmy cooly.
"can i help you, clark?" jimmy furrows his brows, looking around to see if there's anyone else clark is here for.
"hey jimmy," he smiles and it's strange, unnerving even. clark has always been nice to jimmy but his little stunt flustering you in the break room after you've clearly had a good morning, jimmy feels the need to protect his honour and show his loyalty today to you today.
"listen, i gotta go," he swats off clark, holding up two mugs and clark catches it instantly- the mug he used to refuel so often for you. he matches jimmy's stride within seconds, his longer legs having to slower down a few steps to keep up in tandem with him. jimmy catches on slowly to what clark's doing and speeds up, narrowing a corner and hoping to lose him.
"what do you want?" jimmy breathes out, trying to catch his lungs up to this metaphorical turned physical chase.
"neutron," clark stops him, extending his arm as a physical barricade to the wall and cutting him off and jimmy nods slowly, careful not to pour any more spillage from the steaming mugs he's transporting. "she uh, she doing okay?" he asks.
"is she doing okay?" jimmy dumbly repeats, "yes?"
"yes?"
"yes?" he repeats,
"why are you saying it like a question, she is or she isn't," clark rumbles in exasperation.
"yes she's fine! what do you care?"
"why does everyone keep saying that!" clark bursts our and quietens down once he sees the few stares that have accumulated his way. jimmy rolls his eyes and sends him a glare, eerily similar to lois' but all clark can focus on is how its nothing like yours.
"clark, you're like, a menace-" jimmy gets out, "in the nicest way possible, i think you're out of your depth," and clark doesn't make a move, just sets his lips between his teeth and sits on it.
"she's not seeing anyone is she?" he speaks low, a depth he's sure can touch the centre of the earth and meant for jimmy's ears only. a smirk settles on your friend's features as he tries to hide the smile.
"you'll have to ask her yourself," he shrugs trying not to act too smug, "her business is her business." and he ducks his head under clark's arm of a barricade and carries on his way, he walks around the corner slightly again out of clark's way but sends a final look back in resignation and slight pity for your work nemesis who's clearly trying to branch out into friends and more territory with no clue how to, "clark?"
"yeah?" he answers hopeful, the beat of his heart skipping as he jumps to each conclusion.
"save her a dance tomorrow, i think she'd like that," and he nods to himself, that's if you don't kill him before the daily planet gala starts.
. . .
"girl, tomorrow you wear the dress. trust me on this, no questions, just do it."
. . .
there's faint buzz of something questionable, something familiar and something that makes the butterflies soar in your stomach as you take a walk around the room. it's been decorated so beautifully and you take the time to just soak up the ambience- the warmth it offers as you're here so often this place is basically your second home, you've made friends, enemies but so many memories that tonight is a celebration.
you let yourself looser, you dance as much as you can and let the liquid courage swim through your veins as you float carefree, until you hit the deep end. 6'4, 240lbs of a deep end.
"clark," you nod and sip into your drink, you had wanted to avoid him tonight but coming to think of it, there's nowhere in existence you could go without clark kent following you at your side.
"neutron or would you prefer my sweet nemesis?" he grins, taking in your attire and he lets his eyes roam on your frame, it warms a different kind of fire in you, a little bit of a burn that wraps around your frame- the kind that comes from a campfire, settling into the sweet night.
"you look well," you get out, ignoring his trap and his smile grows. well. he straightens to his full length, relishing in your compliment and fights back the drawl, he knows he looks good. and he knows that you know he does. he looks fucking incredible in his navy suit, his slicked hair with a small curl that hangs to the forefront. it drops, dangling dangerously infront of you and you feel the urge to reach out and wrap your finger around it, tug it enough for him to fall into you and-
"you look incredible, you know," he leans in with a tease, "for a nerd," and your heart races at the intensity of being so close. you take a step forwards, ignoring the beat of a drum in your ears and the warnings blarring in your mind and you whisper, letting it simmer in the air and lands on his lips.
"you look well," you repeat, "for someone who's about to be second place to me," and he rolls his lips together, melting your words into his soul, imprinting what he knows and loves. clark kent doesn't come second place- it's not in his nature, but the confidence you shoot at him, it sends something straight to his head and his heart. god, he loves a challenge- he likes you. and he just doesn't know what to do with all of this.
he replaces your empty glass of drink with his own, and when your lips touch the mark where his own had been moments before something tingles down his spine. you chug it down in one go and face him with a smile. your best friend's words come to you earlier and remind you that tonight is a party and you're allowed to enjoy yourself. you're a professional, you work hard, you deserve to let loose and you'll be damned if you let clark kent steal all your energy to keep up with his immature banter. there doesn't have to be a fight or arguement tonight, you could be civil coexist in the same place as clark kent and not have everything go to shit.
"jimmy said you were gonna save me a dance or have you gotten all chicken-shit?" you lay the bait and he takes it, burning at the red of your dress that flashes in his brain. he wants to photograph this moment, burn it into his soul for permanent memory because the twinkle in your eyes is dangerous, he's falling in deep. he tries to play it safe, knowing that you'd hardly let him close to you if you were sober and aware- the alcohol numbing your nerves and feeding in his delusions. so his hands find your waist at a respectable distance as he sways you to the beat, your own wrap around his shoulders and before you know it, he's skipping you around the room, twirling you in his arms and all you can feel is him.
"i need another drink," you laugh when you detach yourself from his hold, patting his chest (and pretending like you didn't feel a whole bunch of muscle under that white shirt) in a forced friendly manner and making a bee line for the table set up.
someone needs to stop you before its too late, so he warns your best friend who cheekily nods at him before he takes off in the same direction, needing the same liquid courage that has you seeing stars though clark kent is far from sober himself; his tolerance just a lot higher than yours.
the shots line up and clark takes them with each loosening his muscles and drowsing him with replays of how you smiled at him, how your laughter sounded when he finally let go of you. how tonight you weren't pretend enemies, he was a man standing infront of the most gorgeous woman alive and pretending like he wouldn't sacrifice anything to be close to you.
it's sloppy to get drunk at a work function, but clark decides its sloppier to let the only person who's ever made him feel so alive walk away so he searches for you in the sea of souls, eyes straining as he dodges body to body till he sees a sliver of red make a beeline to the bathroom and he follows.
come on clark, you're superman, you can do this, the alcohol cheers him on.
you can tell her that you love her and it all won't go to shit.
. . .
the knocks at the door interrupt your application of a fresh coat of lipstick, the red as crisp as your dress and you feel yourself blush slightly; you look good and you feel great too, which makes a really nice change for once.
"occupied," you raise your voice and steady yourself at the sink, taking a deep breath in to pace yourself. it might be a good idea to think about turning in for the night, making sure you have enough rest- you have the day off tomorrow but, still. you've had your night of breathless fun and it's time to clock back into being responsible you.
the knocks clutter again and you huff, ripping the door hinges with more force than you intended that you stumble your balance, reach out for the frame to lean on for support and face the almost intruder.
"clark?" you don't mean for it to sound like a question but it just does.
"you are infuriating," he breathes. his speech is slightly slurred and you scrunch your brows in annoyance, then your nose at the smell heavy in the air. god, he's ruining your mood already.
"all you had to do was wait," you hiss, it doesn't come as quick as you'd like but it lands all the same. he's blocking the corridor to get back out on the dance floor with that looming intensity and you wait, tapping your foot- the click of the heel signalling where you want to be.
clark refines the sound and aligns it to his heartbeat, matching each click with a footstep closer to you until he has you up against the wall, milimetres and months of tension separating the two of you. "i've waited so long," he murmurs, suddenly softer and his hand reaches out hesitantly, his fingers stroke your jaw before he cups your cheek in his hand. the other snakes around your waist and you close your eyes, subtly leaning into his touch and he hums.
"this colour on you," its a whisper as his fingers trace your lips and his eyes darken with something heavier and unfamiliar you can't name but it excites you. you wait so patiently any moment now to feel his lips on yours, if you angle your head just slightly, bend your waist into him, you'll be there yourself
"you talk too much," and sparks fly when you decide to close the gap yourself and bridge something new. theres a soft "oomf" as you throw yourself at him and he bends immediately into you, moulding your soul to his as he lets his lips lock into yours, catching your lip between his teeth as he makes further work down your neck.
"clark?" you whisper and he hums against your skin, the breath as warm as the blood pooling through your veins that you have to press your hand against his abdomen to steady yourself.
"look who's talking too much now," he rumbles and a small gasp escapes you when you feel the graze of his teeth.
"clark?" you call out again, tugging the curls of his upwards to lift his gaze to yours and you find a hint of concern hiding in them.
"yeah, baby?" and the gruff sends a new sensation to your heart, bleeding through the edges as you scramble to find a new home where you can slot the words "yeah baby" into existence for the rest of your life. it goes straight to your head, weakening your knees to jelly as you fold. for a moment it reminds you of why you don't like being called neutron when clearly, baby is the best option out there by lightyears.
"not here," you shake your head softly,
"mine?" he asks in the inches that separate you.
"yeah," you breathe before you're tangled in him again.
you're the picture of grace and elegance as you wobble away back out into the main hall. you wave to your friend goodbye and jimmy yells for you to get home safe. minutes later, clark does the exact same except he doesn't stop for anyone. he tears the front doors down like they're a mission and meets you in biting secrets of midnight. a taxi is called, the two of you two drunk to drive and keep your hands to yourself as you land at his door.
with his mouth on yours and his hands clearly busy, it takes four tries to get the key through the door before you almost trip over yourself getting in. he catches you effortlessly and where the door had taken four attempts, it only takes clark one and possibly four seconds to have you undressed and feel his skin on yours, and not just linger under it like he usually does.
it's a night filled with praises, a messy tangle of the months of yearning and miscommunicated feelings that rush to the surface. and as your back hits the soft clouds of his mattress and he sends you to a new type of heaven, you forget all the reasons you've ever hated clark kent. how could you not? when he's hell bent on making sure you're loved enough in one night for a lifetime.
. . .
the first thing that unsettles you is that when you wake there's no sunlight that peeks through your blinds which alarms you dangerously.
it then amplifies when you sit upright and the sheets slip, pooling at your naked waist that you gasp horrified, clutching them back to cover you as you dart your eyes in your surroundings.
the hangover rushes to your head, a drum that pounds with panic as you bite your lip down, blood rising with a bruised ego as you realise just where in the hell you were.
in hell.
in satan's homeland you've lost your dignity.
you stand, the urge to cry in embarrassment as you flush, desperately grabbing your trail of clothes all over the room and dressing at the speed of light. the mirror catches your reflection, the print of pillows that aren't yours etched onto your cheeks, the ruffled of your hair a sloppy mess- a direct echo of how you feel and you shudder at your appearance. this feels like a far cry from how you looked last night- you just look so undone and it nags at you as you plan your escape.
heels may be too loud with their clicking, you ponder so you clutch as the straps and pad barefoot out of the bedroom door. the eery quiet and silence of the house just makes it easier to hear your heart thud in your chest, begging to break free and relieve itself from the anxiety building up in your system.
just a few steps to go and freedom will feel so incredible.
"not even going to join me for breakfast?" and its a deep runble, etched with fatigue and gentleness that pulls you from your escape plan as you freeze. you're mid-tiptoe and pause, turning swiftly to face the bane of your existence, the cause of all your problems and most recent mistake with a cheesy smile.
its a new one, clark thinks and he makes a mental note to jot it down for later safekeeping. it's childish even, curled with nerves at the edges as he watches you try and come up with an excuse. he sets the frying pan down on his oven and makes his way towards you. unlike you, a hot mess, he's dressed in a cotton t shirt and pyjama bottoms- like a normal person would be and you couldn't help but feel more stupid. he plants his hands on your shoulders and steers you into the direction of his kitchen, ignoring your pleads and excuses with a hand firmly pressed to your mouth, stifling you to silence.
"come on neutron," he mumbles, "eat." and the plate placed infront of you unlocks something ravenous, caveman-like, setting back your mannerisms years to the beginning of existence. you swallow your pride and some of the omlette he's made slowly and clark smiles, it feels like the very first time he saw you actually drink one of the coffees he made for you at the office and its funny how the deja vu just hits him.
if he could take it back, he would have tried harder, he thinks. would've made the coffee regularly into a habit, wouldve showed you in the smaller moments that he can be more than the competition, he could be a steady force in your life. or maybe, he could've just pavlov'ed you into expecting a coffee that when it didn't come, it would've caused you to seek him out either way.
"fuck," you mumble, of course clark kent had to have been a good cook too- this feels highly unfair on you, you think.
"yeah we did," he mutters into his steaming mug of coffee and when he feels you freeze under the table opposite him he apologises. its the softest of "sorry"'s you've ever heard in your life, the first from him for sure that you test how it feels on your ears, savour the sensation and decide you like it almost as much as you loved hearing the word "baby" slip from his lips last night. clark sends you a softened look, hoping his slip up hasn't scared you off- gentle steps, he curses at himself. he knows you, knows the structure you value that any sort of off balance will drive you away and he intends to keep you as close as he can.
he waits for you to finish breakfast and you sit there awkwardly, "i can do the dishes?" you offer and he shuts you down instantly, letting you linger in your shame a lot longer than you'd like as you try to come up with new escape routes.
"i can feel you thinking from here neutron," he offhandedly calls as he dries the dishes he lays on the rack, his broad back is still turned to you and you mouth a plethora of curses at the muscle you could recite like its the word of god. "lay that big brain on me, baby."
baby.
and your heart skips too many beats you fear you may go into cardiac arrest, so you settle for deflection instead, "i think last night was a mistake," you rush out. and its painfully slow how long it takes him to put down the rag, turn around and lean against the sink counter, the slight tense of his forearms as they brace at his sides the main inclination he already doesn't like what you're about to say.
"i don't think it was," he tries to catch your gaze and as soon as he does, its an intense lock of eye contact as he searches deep into your soul.
"clark we were drunk!" you try to reason, squirming under the intensity of it all. and that's the last time you'll ever drink, you swear to yourself.
"and i would do it sober," he shrugs, he bounces off the sink with a little leap as he stalks towards you, each step an echo of how he approached you last night and how you know how easy it could be to just slip and fall into his embrace all over again; clark kent is pure poison, evil and intoxicating that you feel a strong dependancy on him. you don't just love somebody like clark kent and when he leaves you make it out alive- you just about tried hating him and it feels like you're hanging on for dear life. the consequences should be earth shattering, heart-breaking disastrous.
"you don't think we have a chance here?" he asks, his fingers tipping your chin upwards to him, crushing some centimetres of distance.
"i don't think we'd work," you softly speak, "up until last night, i'm sure you hated me," and he recoils, letting out a strained sigh before nodding.
"i couldn't hate you, no matter how hard i try. i don't think we hate each other at all," he confesses, "i think we feel a lot for each other, maybe too much we can handle and know what to do with it so it possibly gets misplaced. warped and wrapped up but it's shaped in the love i feel for you," he reaches out for your hand, lays it on his chest where his beating heart rests and spreads your fingers so you can feel the extent of the contraction. "i don't know what to do with all these feelings but i do know, with my life and more than anything, that i want to be with you and i want to try- we worked so well last night, that was just a tester baby, i'd be so good to you, we," he pleads, "we could be so good to each other." and he presses his forehead so tenderly into yours, a greater look into your vulnerable gaze.
"i don't know how to do this clark," you whisper, "i'm scared," and the voice that escapes you is so small and foreign, clark's own heart breaks at the sound of it.
"we'll do this together, slow. i'll take the lead if you want but i won't pursue this if this is something you don't want," if i'm someone you don't want, he doesn't push to say.
"okay," you swallow, blinking back a few stray tears and he narrows his eyes, assessing if there's any underlying feelings you're hiding from him. part of you doesn't know if this is okay, but the word leaves you before you can stop it.
"okay?" he asks, to be sure.
"okay," you breathe and he holds your head against his chest, rocking you into his embrace and you stiffly pat his back. you've never been anything other than clark kent's work nemesis before and part of you feels way out of your league, this is unfamiliar territory and you're wildly unprepared for being someone he could love. but the way he looks at you, like you've lifted the sky to its height and hold the weight of his entire universe, you have to give it a try or it will crush you whole.
. . .
the first time clark kent holds your hand in his you almost scream.
his own is dropped at its side and when he walks with you up to the office, he tries to be subtle with how it knocks into yours. a soft slide of skin as he slows his steps to match yours. it happens four times before you grow suspicious but he doesn't bother to look down at you, the guilt is already lingering in the soft smile he tries to downplay. and then he just interlocks his hands in yours, sends you a sweet smile and carries on walking like it's the most natural thing to do.
it's unbelievably warm, protective and holds what the future could be like for you one day. it swings in tandem as you walk and he only lets go once you've made it to your desk. he presses a soft kiss to your knuckles, then to your forehead and whispers "have a good day honey, meet you for lunch?" and all you can do is stand there, dumbly nod as he stretches out his arm to the full length before he actually has to let go of your hand and walks in the direction of his own desk.
you stand and then you sit, trying to regain composure of how different it felt to not have to have the snark ready on your lips, to not have to brace yourself for a day of matching wit- your heart beats softly, telling you to relax, get a grip of yourself- it's still clark. the clark who's showed you the worst of yourself and has still chosen to take an interest in you. he's clark, for god's sake, that hasn't changed.
"what the heck was that?" jimmy's head pops up into your view and you stutter, trying to find the words, but nothing comes up right.
"i don't know," your wide eyed gaze startles your friend. he's seen you seconds before a deadline, after a five coffee caffeine crash, when your past partner broke up with you months ago because of how much of a workaholic you were but the stillness in your gaze as you wander in the direction of where clark sits. as if he can sense your attention like its a damn superpower he meets your stare with a grin, a poke of his tongue out as he waves and you slowly return the wave back. his grin grows larger and he swivels back around but the nerves in your stomach still stay.
"honey, are you okay?" jimmy crouches to your height, "when did all of this happen?" and you look around before whispering carefully, hoping it reaches his ears only.
"i slept with him the night before last and when i woke up i thought we could go back to normal- he hates me, i hate him, whatever but," and you shake your head, "he's being really nice to me and i don't know what to do, this feels so strange, jim, this is," and you groan, dropping your head into your hands.
"oh honey," he sighs, "do you like him?" he asks quietly and you nod slowly, hoping the tears don't start spilling from your waterline and ruining your mascara.
"i think i might," you murmur, "i don't know yet, i haven't given it the time for this all to really settle yet- am i making sense?" and jimmy hugs you gently. he thinks you do already, it'll just take time for you see past the previous persona clark has shown you- that he can be more than a rival, he can be dependable, trusted, loving.
"i'm giving it a try," you add, "i mean you never know unless you try, right?" and he pats your head affectionately.
"i'm here if you need me, my friend," and you pat his shoulder in return, thankful for one thing that hasn't changed in the last few days that have blurred past and thrown you off course.
"thanks, jim."
. . .
your days moves slower when there's no arguing that takes place; it's kind of peaceful, slower paced in a way that lets you regain control of your feet. it feels a lot more intentional; the uneasy weight from the last few days slowly slipping away as you enter this new normal and you've been enjoying it.
the sex is incredible- it's hard to think when clark keeps you busy when you're alone and when he's so soft and tender in the moments after, you feel incredibly grateful to see this new side of him. there's something special between the two of you and you look forward to seeing clark, to spending time with him as you learn more about him.
like how he also loves the theatre.
you find this out when you're catching your breath, your back to his mattress and bare tummy to the air as he lies next to you.
"question," he murmurs, planting a kiss to your shoulder.
"that's not a question," you tease and roll over to your side, he flicks your nose in return and continues.
"last week when you came into work-"
"i come into work every day, clark-"
"well baby, if you let me finish my sentence," he rolls his eyes and it feels like the clark you've always ever known and you really like it. and then there's that damn baby again that has you weak in the knees all over. you smile and gesture for him to continue, "you had your hair cut, you were smiling- but not like you always do- but like," he pauses, "it was radiant, magnetic like you looked happier," and you stop and try to think of what you had been up to recently.
"oh," you mumble into his chest, noticing the slight tense he holds in his frame that you pull back with a wrinkle in your forehead.
"was there someone else?" and its the quietest you've ever heard his voice before, it wobbles a little at the edges and knifes a jagged edge into your heart.
"oh no," and you try to hide yourself in his embrace, an embarrassed chuckle leaving you as you squirm, "you're going to think this is so lame," you groan and he twists so you're underneath him, trapped by his huge arms as he hovers on top of you.
"what?" he chuckles at your sudden nervousness, an astronomical size of relief taken off his soul knowing that there's only him- even when it hadn't even been him.
"jimmy got me tickets to "hamlet" as an early birthday gift and it was incredible," you beam, "the haircut was just an addition but god clark," and when you're excited, rambling underneath him he can't help but linger into your space, cut you off with a swift kiss to the corner of your lips as you chase him for more.
one ends up into two then three and soon enough, forever.
"that's insane," his breath tickles into your skin and you scrunch your nose in delight, "because i also happen to be a former theatre kid-"
"oh my god, clark," you laugh, "who's the nerd now?" and he pinches at your side, "clark kent, a fellow drama lover- who would've thought?"
he talks with you about his favourite plays, how he wishes he had more free time to see them live, how wonderful acting is as a profession and when he lists off all the things that excite you the very same way you realise that maybe after all, you and clark aren't so different after all.
he makes a promise that this friday, the two of you will see "romeo and juliet" live as an official first date and you can't hide the soar of butterflies swirling in your stomach that you check it down into your calender immediately, pepper him with an insane amount of kisses and mentally start preparing your outfit.
he stares at you with such fondness as he listens to you talk about your family out of the city; how it was your mother who first showed you the importance of maintaing a creative outlet when pursuing such an academic and intensive career and he listens and listens and wants to soak up every single word like a sponge and wash away the doubts that have circled in his head the past week.
he worried he was moving too quick, then too slow but all he really had to do was show you he's here, that he wants to get to know you beyond your work ethic and integrity, beyond the conversations he has to search for details about you and slowly, he thinks its all falling to place.
its in the quiet of the night where he asks you again,"you sure you're okay with this?" he wouldn't be upset if you weren't, he'd bear the weight of patience and wait forever for you, he really would with how bad he wants this to work.
"yeah," you breathe and when you say it this time, the earth settles into a slower spin, and when it tilts you're ready to hold your balance. it feels right when you look into his eyes and say just one word, and you really start to believe it that this is okay, more than okay and you're only scratching the surface of how incredible it could be.
. . .
a week into spending more time with each other and dating, it feels like this is what your soul was meant do that you feel silly for even worrying about this all at the beginning.
it's monday, which means there's four days until your next theatre date with clark, you had so much fun last time that you've decide to make this a weekly occurence when you can. it's a secret you're going to surprise him with after work on the way home, you'll lean into his side, whip out the tickets like theyre gold and you know he'll be insanely pleased; its the first time you're making a move in this relationship and it's a big deal for you.
you don't see clark whilst you're at work and you think it's strange- clark's been known to disappear randomly and you've not noticed it too much in the time you've officially spent together to be bothered by it in the slightest. your main concern is finding your boyfriend and seeing if he has plans after work.
its 3pm and you start to worry, you don't want to draw any attention to you by asking others for his whereabouts but you catch lois lane in the far corner of the room who tenses when you come near and its the first warning that throws you off.
"lois?" you call out and she awkwardly turns around, feigning surprise like she hadnt stalked you for a few minutes before making your way over there.
"hey!" and you watch her cross her arms over her chest, a defensive posture, you note. why?
"have you seen clark anywhere?" you ask, and she shoots you a careful look before sighing.
"i think its best if you give him some distance for a few days," and you crumble immediately, panic flaring in your chest as your gaze narrows. god, you knew this was too much- that you were too much, you should've-
"i didn't realise how deep your feelings were for each other," she mumbles and it cuts your spiral off eerily short.
"what?" you pause, "what do you mean?"
"i think the word document says enough," she winces, "i thought the rivalry thing was a joke but.." her words trail off because you don't give her the time to finish. your heart is racing as quick as your footsteps out the door and you break out into a full sprint.
the purring of cars and clattering of metropoliton city drown out the whispers of gossip from the daily planet and your muscles burn but you keep going, you push and push and push till they give way and your heart collapses.
a sob escapes your throat in a raw guttural sound and this time, you can't stop the tears. you have no idea where you are but you know that this all just fucking hurts. your tears well up and are caught in your hands that also carries the weight of your head and the world as you just cry. knees tucked in close to your chest against the side of a building, you just cry. hours have passed and when you look around, hardly anyone around to have noticed your breakdown you just about stand. the energy completely taken out of as you sigh, you wish the ground could just wake up and swallow you whole for how stupid and careless you had been.
of course it was a word document that was going to be your downfall, you had made a lame list of things you disliked about clark and on the torturously long walk to his house they burn in your mind.
i hate the way he laughs so loudly, it rings in my ears i'm pretty sure i could go deaf in the near future.
i hate the way he looks at me like he's got something to say but never does or maybe he's too much of a coward.
i hate the way he's buddies with superman- lame.
i hate the way he sneaks up on me, throws me off guard- he's so big it consumes my space and i can't think.
i hate the way second best to him still feels like its worth something- it shouldn't.
i hate the way he makes me feel.
i hate him.
you've got to find him, you've got to apologise to him, salvage what you can and make it out of this alive, hopefully still with him but each word you remember, each muscle moved to type the childish betrayal raises a fresh new wave of tears and you're a blubbering mess by the time you reach his door.
"clark!" you shout, your voice raspy from crying, exhausted from thinking if you could run quick enough, you'd be able to outrun all your problems. you tap against the door, then full on bang with urgency as you shout his name, "clark, please!" you try, panicking when you can hear the shuffle of footsteps behind the door but no words in reply.
"clark please baby," it slips from your lips- the first time you've ever called him that in a sheer moment of desperation and you recoil, you don't deserve to call him that right now- you had the privilege and dishonoured yourself with it, "clark please open the door!" and you bang your head against it, the hot touch of your forehead cooling against the steel. "i didn't mean it," you cry, "i didn't mean any of it, i swear- i don't hate you, i promise please just let me in, please let me explain," the choked sobs rise and you're mumbling, half coherent but the words land the same. "i wrote it ages ago long before we started to get to know each other, i don't feel that way god no, you just gotta let me explain, i don't hate you, i lo-" and you're cut short by the rapid movements and the sudden open of his door.
he looks devastated and still so beautiful that it knocks the already very little air out of you. like he too had spent the afternoon working mentally in overtime, he shakes his head, restraint evident as he grips the door. his ocean eyes pierce your soul and when you move to take a step forward he grits out a sharp, "don't" and closes the door just an inch.
you can see forever through that sliver, it's so close but it's so far away, just out of your depth and reach.
"clark please," you cry and he shakes his head, torn between wanting to comfort you and wanting to protect you.
"don't," he repeats, its heavier, a little firmer but still somehow hurts all the same, bleeding through your heart as it crackles and lays bloodied and bruised open for him. and he steps on it with his next words, "god some part of me knew this wasn't going to work and gosh," he breathes, "you really do just hate me,"
"no," you shout in desperation, shaking your head and all your senses, "i don't! i swear- clark, i'm in lo-" and he cuts you off.
"i don't think you should say things you're not ready to mean," he whispers and he looks as though he might reach out, grasp your hand a final time but decides better of it.
"you win neutron," he speaks softly, lethally tender and it destroys your entire existence in one soft breath, "i thought for a second we were working, that everything was fine. but, if everything's ever just been a competition and that's all you've ever seen me as, then you win. i give up, this game? it's not for me, not if i'm never going to come first place for you," and he closes the door with a soft thud.
you don't move from your position, crying and knocking on the door once more, "clark, please!" and you fight the urge to just slump and slide against it, to camp out here forever until he opens the door and gives you an inch to redeem yourself, to clear the air and just listen. "clark, i don't hate you- i could never hate you," and fate is a cruel and twisted thing to have you repeating the same words he promised to you the morning you woke and everything changed. "i can explain, please let me explain," and you know it's heard, it just doesn't matter enough to be actioned.
you hang your head low, the image of the door closed bruising your optic nerves that it's time to go home. the damage is done and its time to mourn the casualties of getting crossed in the fire. you knew you'd never come out of loving clark kent alive, you just didn't realise hating him had burned you first long ago.
. . .
you try to catch him at work but he's missing for the first two days and you're subjected to the growing whispers and judgemental looks that are shot your way as he proceeds to just plain avoid you. he's never at his desk when you pass by, he's never at the break room, when he gets an inkling you're in his vicinity he takes off completely in the opposite direction and you can't even feel him, but you can hear the thoughts about him.
"i knew she never liked him,"
"she's actually gotta be deranged to make a whole document- imagine who else she's got written in that death note."
"i don't know babe, clark wasn't exactly the nicest to her."
"didn't they try dating?"
jimmy takes a seat beside you after the great shift where he's noticed you avoiding every single person in sight, including him and it hurts. you try your best to smile at him in greeting, force the ends in an upwards curve that it falls embarrassingly flat.
he sighs, leaving your newly filled coffee cup at your side and rests his head on yours affectionately, a little bump of support to let you know that he's always been on your side and always will.
"people are talking," you mumble, "i get it if you want to take some space," you nod tightly and he scoffs.
"we're not going anywhere," his voice is firm, "i don't care about what they say, you're my best friend and i am here for you." and you breathe out a thanks of appreciation, begging yourself not to cry again as he wraps you in a hug.
"you okay?" he murmurs into your hair and can feel you shake it against him and he sighs once more.
"he'll come around," when he pulls back.
"how can you be so sure?" you whisper, broken.
"because he's clark, he's never been one to stay away from you," he grins but your heart drops. not this time, you think. maybe not ever again.
but still you try, you pull tricks out of his own book in a pathetic grovel of sorts- but you just have to show clark that you're here, you're waiting and you'll do whatever it takes to show him.
so for the next few days you start to get to the office earlier, you make him a fresh cup of coffee and lay it at his desk, you write little pointers of encouragement on post it notes (given the fact that you have no idea of what he's writing to return him the advice he used to give you), but when the end of the day comes and you've tried not to make it obvious the way you stalk his big build that exits through the lifts and takes your heart with him, you make your way to his desk. the coffee sits untouched and cold, filled to the brim but the notes? they've disappeared. the blinding yellow fluroscent isn't pumped at the bottom of his bin with other scraps of paper he's scrunched up. you're embarrassed to admit that you half emptied it to check, they- like clark, himself- have just disappeared and you're left to deal with the radio silence in the aftermath. which somehow hurts more when it leaves everything unsaid and then some.
and like the days that have come before and all of your life before you gave clark kent a try at this thing called love, you walk home alone and lonely, all the same.
. . .
you finally meet superman on your commute home.
its the end of the week, you're final day before you're due to take some time off and you've left the office later than usual, giving clark ample time to avoid you and leave without having to actively dodge you, and then you had to speed up your writing because you've fallen behind on schedule and with everything in your life going to shit, you just needed one thing to be constant and be completely yours.
it's actually good enough to beat clark this time, you think after perry had complimented the first draft earlier. but he's made it clear that this rivalry the two of you were enamored in is no longer something he's interested and the win feels bittersweet, pointless even you could argue, it's just not the same and you hate it.
there's a hum of billy joel "piano man" that dramatically belts through your earphones as you turn the corner of the next block and if it weren't for the extra pair of feet tappering behind your shadow you probably wouldn't have noticed the strange man following you from behind. you take a random turn, panicking and afraid of leading this stalker to your doorstep that you don't recognise the alley you've turned into.
the evening air darkens with the absence of street lamps and you shake your head softly, "please," you quietly plead and at the flash of yellow teeth you throw the first punch. it's lazily and poorly directed that you miss and he grabs at your waist. you elbow him, hit him and then plain knee his nuts as soon as he drops you to the ground. the panic turns to rage and you feel the weight of the week just climb into each punch you land that you don't even feel the body turning eerily limp below you or the flash of blue and red that lowers into the alleyway.
"miss?" a deeper, ruff voice calls out, it catches sight of your side profile and softens, "hey, hey, hey," and arms that feel oddly familiar wrap around your waist and peel you off the weird man who heaves at the floor, "you're safe now,"
"no thanks to you," you almost scream the words, "for fucking superman you sure are slow!" and the agitation turns to straight tears as you just sob, "oh my god, what the fuck even is this week?" you breathe out shakily, "it's just shit after shit and i can't catch a break? i can't even get saved by superman?" and superman (clark) part of him wants to laugh at how strange both this situation and you are right now.
he wished he could've gotten to you quicker, it took him a flash of a second to recognise your scream but of course your rage was faster and you did all the heavy work, the least he could do was lend you a listening ear, even if hearing you open up so vulnerable to him broke his heart even further.
"how are you feeling?" he tries; part of him is easier to be superman like this, he stands at a distance, giving him space between the two of you because he knows he'd just crumble. he wanted to at the first sob he heard that night? the first cup of coffee he noticed, the first yellow post it note that now makes itself home in the top drawer of his desk- he couldn't bring himself to throw your little attempts at love notes away. he pats the ground next to him, offering his cape as a little blanket which you sit gingerly on, sniffles sitting in the centimetres that separate you respectably.
"i don't know if i can tell you," you mumble and his body freezes, surely you wouldn't have caught on to his identity- "you're like clark's buddy aren't you," you scoff and he blinks slowly.
"clark?" he asks, ignoring the huge weight lumbered off his chest and lets himself breathe again.
"6'4, 240lbs of pure muscle mass and glossy onyx curls, god he's just so," you groan, "he's so perfect and i as always," you start to fear the wave of sadness take over and you lower your head between your knees, focusing on how the ground feels underneath you, how the gravel looks a lot more sharper up close, "i ruined everything," and its a heartbreaking admission.
superman doesn't say anything, he stares at you, brows raised waiting for you to continue your story, "clark and i- it was strange. we weren't exactly friends, i mean we work together but it was always different. we used to compete for the spot for the first page privilege and thanks to you," you scoff and he sends you a wince of guilt, "he would come out on top most times- but he always used to push me to just be a better writer. it was petty i know, and for the longest time i just thought thats what we were. we were enemies, we hated each other- he brought out the worst in me," you chuckle,
"and yet he always stayed, he never expected anything from me in return, he was just there, you know and one night, we got together and i didn't think i was ready but i was going to try you know, he asked me for a chance and i gave it to him. i owed it to us, to the special relationship we had, to the way he made me feel like nobody on earth ever has. and you know, i've been in relationships and they've ended terrible- i'm not the best person i know but clark made it feel like it was easy to love me like he saw the worst and loved me despite it- most people would run away but clark he," and you cry, "he was my person."
you feel a hand land on your shoulder, his thumb soothing you in a backwards and forewards motion and through the tears you can't even see superman anymore. "so what happened?" he asks, though he already knows this first hand.
"when i first started the job, clark kent liked everyone but me and it felt personal, it hurt," you gasp, shrugging your shoulders as you relive the memory, "he made fun of me, and before i learned to understand and match the digs, before i found the routine and loved it with him, it honestly felt targeted so i made a word document- this was months ago, you have to believe me," you plead, "i was childish, i started listing these nasty things about him that i hated like god his smile, his laugh, just him- i had to get out all this negative energy somehow and i'm a writer, i fucking took it out on a word document, sue me," you bitterly laugh, "i don't know how it got out but it did, because the world hates me and i'm undeserving of the good things and now, i'm undeserving of clark,"
"he's incredible and i've never felt this way about someone before, but he doesn't believe so with that stupid document and me not showing up in the ways he has when we got together, he thinks that i hate him," you get out, shaking with the thick of emotion.
"and do you?"
you press your lips together in thought, maybe to repress them, if you don't speak it it won't be real, it won't be true, it won't hurt so much. but you're a journalist and your whole career has taught you that the truth is powerful, especially when it can hurt, so you be brave for once and face superman through the tears, "i'm in love with him."
the words don't come, clark feels his heart break through his chest and he wishes, oh he damn wishes that he wasn't superman- that superman doesn't even exist, he wishes he could be clark. your clark in this moment and hold you and tell you that he wants to fix this, that we can fix this and it will be alright again, he's in love with you too, he has to let you know this.
but he can't. because being superman is bigger than being clark kent. so he murmurs some useless advice at how things take time, you'll heal and clark will come back to you if he's the person you've fallen in love with- clark kent is honest and truthful and determined, if he's right for you then he will return.
superman does nothing but let his heart plummet further as you slide a faded white, slightly crumpled ticket his way and his blood freezes at the sight of shakespeare printed in small, "if you see clark, could you give him this? i wanted to take him, make it a regular thing- show him i'm committed to this and having time for it and i know we're not talking and he hates me more than anything but, i think he'll like it."
"then i will make sure he receives it, you have my word," and the world burns when you sniffle, send him a soft smile and get up to stand. to leave your problems in the hands of superman and in the darks of the alley, there's nothing more you can do and honestly you're tired of this all. you've tried and all you can do now is play the waiting game.
"i see why clark likes you, and you owe me an interview soon big guy," you nod and he sends a tight smile back, saluting you with a wave and ignoring the way his bones want to snap at how weak he feels right now. "have a good night, superman," and he waves again.
when he sees your form disappear and his tears fall onto the worn out ticket, still warm from your sweating hands, he whispers an oath, "see you soon, neutron."
. . .
"some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them," the voice of malvolio echoes throughout the hall and you watch intently.
there's an ache as you try not to look beside you, at the empty seat- the clark sized hole that mirrors the vacant area in your heart as you train your eyes forward. the theatre has always been your favourite place to just let go and relax, have someone else feel the emotions for once and bring them to life but it feels lacking tonight, you can't distract yourself enough and suddenly the air weighs down on you and crushes you at a great intensity.
you silently grab your purse, sneak out the back row and head out of the doors. it's time to call it a night, go home and probably call your mom- maybe it's time to go home home, ground yourself with people who do love you and have never treated you any different, to be in an area that just doesn't remind you so heavily of clark, maybe it'd make the healing process a lot easier and you can actually start it.
you wave into oncoming traffic, drawing the attention of a taxi and rocking yourself as you wait for it to pull up near to you. the bag on your shoulder lightly dips as you step off the curb and into the taxi door before an arm pulls you back and youre thrust back into his orbit.
"clark," you breathe as his ocean blue orbs sink and drown you in. you've seen him in the week but this is different; this is upclose and vulnerable, this is intimate and before the world exploded on you.
"where you going?" his drawl lands breathless in lieu of an actual greeting.
"home?" you question and a small curl of his lip extends to the sky, the faint smile lines resting at peace.
"i said where you going, baby?" he repeats, earnest laced in his voice as his hold on you tightens against him, you're breaths are uneven as you intake his breath as your own air and you blink.
"come on man!" the exasperation of a third stranger breaks your trance and clark pops his head into the cab window at your side, lands a fifty note in his hand and grins.
"i'll take this one, thanks, have a good one," he wraps his fist in a gentle tap to the back of the car to signal its departure and the cab driver wolf whistles in return, counting the money and shooting clark a thumbs up for good luck, steering off into the distance.
"clark i-" and he presses his finger to your lips, silencing your tired fight immediately.
"so where you going, hon?" and the frustration builds up inside of you. you don't think you can do this tonight, you need energy, defense, bite and a plan to escape out of this untouched but its the sudden intensity he stares down at you, boyish and determined as he clears his throat, not offering anything else but patiently waiting for you to reply and then it hits you.
oh. home.
he is home.
"clark, i'm sorry," you whisper, "i'm sorry how this started and how it ended but it just goes to show we don't work," you get out, the words betray your voice in a tight strain and you shake your head softly, trying to detach yourself from his hold but he reaches for your hand and interlocks it, kissing your knuckles like its the very first time and then holds it to his chest.
"i don't believe that," he breathes, like its some secret joke only his soul can memorise. "you said you hated the way i laugh- it's too loud," and the words are a sharp stab, even as they spill from his lips.
"it is too loud," you confess, "i can hear it after you've stopped, it rings in my ears like an echo and i start wishing i knew how to make you laugh like that, how to keep hearing that sound again and again," the words start spilling before you can stop them and he softens completely.
"you hate the way i look at you, i'm a coward," he breathes.
"because you look at me like i'm the only one who ever matters and i didn't know what to do with all of that. its heavy, its all on me and i get nervous, clark," you scoff, hitting him lightly, tiny fists against his chest, "its worse when you look at me like you want to say something more but you don't because then i spend all day torturing myself with the what if's and its brutal," you stretch, resting your head on his chest in defeat and his heart sings beneath the touch.
"you hate the way i sneak up on you," he narrows his brows, "i take up too much space," he echoes and you glare at him.
"i know what i said clark," you seethe, annoyance bubbling up inside of you all over, "and you are big, you're fucking massive and you surround me, you consume me and steal all the air like its your birthright and i feel so damn helpless i hate it," you spit, taking a step away from him in hopes the chill of the evening hair will cool the fire that steams from your skin. "i can't even think when you're near and you're the only person who can throw me so hard off my game that i can't even remember my name some days and you do it so easily," you heave.
"do you hate that almost as much as you hate the way i make you feel?"
"oh thats worse, you make me feel like i'm not in control," and you take a step closer to him, "and i've never not been in control, you make second best to you feel like first place- like i'm still a winner because i get that cool look swung my way and i giggle like i'm back in school and i hate it- it's like you take all the years of hard work and practise just like nothing- you took my heart like it was nothing," and the tears are free to fall now, you don't even lift your arm to wipe them away you let him look at you, really look at you and let him feel the extent of the damage he's done- how he's caused you to come so undone.
"you hate me," he laughs, and its the same damn laugh you hate, you hate that you love it so damn much that you want to bottle it and get drunk on it every single night you spend in his absence.
"i do," you giggle and it feels like the most ridiculous thing you've ever said, you blink through the tears and he cups your jaw with his large hands that again, he's here consuming you all over. he presses a soft kiss to your lips and its not as hungry, as devouring and deep as the first drunken kiss you shared on that night two weeks ago. its slow, earnest, filled with the pinings and regrets of never knowing the right way to show your love. its wrapped in apologies and forgiveness and a promise to be brave and loud in how you feel.
"but here's a new one for you," you pause, "i really do hate the way that i broke your heart," you mutter ashamed, lowering your gaze but he catches it instantly with a shake to his head.
"do with it what you will; it was only ever yours to have because i'm in love with you," he smiles when he pulls away and its so loud and large your heart soars, "and you're in love with me," he presses his forehead into yours, uniting your broken hearts.
"i am," you swear, "i don't know when i fell but i know that i'm here in the deep end with you and i'm scared but i'm here clark, i promise," and he wipes away your stray tears.
the bustle of the crowds exiting the theatre breaks you free from his hold and he laughs once more, and then quieter for your ears to burn into memory only, "it's okay," he murmurs into your hair, ogling at the stars swimming in your eyes, "we have next week to make up for it," and you stare at the theatre doors and then at your lover. you lean up on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips once again.
"we have forever to make up for this, so take me home, baby," you whisper.
and he does.
he does it for a lifetime and more.
riya saying hi: there's a lot to say but first hello! first clark fic after a few days off 🥺🥺 i poured my whole heart and soul into this one hence how long it is, how angsty it is - this is clark hurt comfort final boss. this by far has to be the best ive written and my most favourite love confession to date. ugh ! i really do hope you like it, i fear it did take a large portion of my energy so i will be focusing on requests for the next few days something easier and slower paced compared this monster.
i do want to reiterate that thank you so much for 1k followers! it means the world, beyond that how much this all feels and god im the luckiest person on earth. its such a gift to be able to create something, put myself in some words on a page and have it liked, and enjoyed my god i am gonna cry- but to celebrate this and you (!) because this in no way shape or form wouldve been possible without you, i am taking in clark requests and will try my hardest to get them out asap so send in whatever ! literally whatever ! (just not smut soz) but again thank you !!!!
and finally, this fic would not have been possible without the incredible, the STUNNING @hangmanwrites - anna i owe you a serious portion of my heart (not that you didn't already have it) for letting me work through this with you, helping steer it in the right direction and bring it to life. youre an incredible writing partner and your support has forever altered my brain chemistry- thank you my love, i appreciate and love you so damn much !!! 🥺💘
and again, to you readers, let me know what you think! my ask box is always open if you ever want to talk (and inbox too if youd prefer a longer conversation) thanks for being here and reaffirming kindness on this blog- love you !
˚‧⁺ ･ ˖ · ୨ৎ recs six II gif credit - @/corensweat
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
ꨄ︎ go save the world, i’ll be around I @honeypiehotchner I A + F
You and Clark are childhood best friends, growing up just across the field from one another. When he moves to Metropolis and announces himself as Superman, it causes a rift so large that you aren't sure you'll ever cross it. Until Superman comes home, sick and out of his mind, and only two things can help: sunlight and you.
ꨄ︎ you hide your injuries from him I @staseras I A + F
you’ve been asking your boyfriend to take down a bookshelf for months, but every time he gets to it, something comes up and the world needs your boyfriend. you decide enough is enough, so you decide to do it yourself. it’s going well until you fall and get hurt, and you hide the injuries from him because you don’t want to worry him. he finds out anyway.
ꨄ︎ office gossip I @blank-potato I S
You have a big crush on Superman, and the whole office knows it, especially Clark. When you can't seem to stop thinking about him or talking about him, it has you asking yourself (and the office): Is Superman good in bed?
ꨄ︎ clark is jealous of himself? I @glassmermaids I F
ꨄ︎ blister in the sun pt2 I @moonlight-prose I F + A + (in progress)
the daily planet was the home of gods in a city you never thought might see your presence. a newspaper that won awards, that held the hearts and minds of the best and brightest to exist. yet your boss handed over a job that only a reporter from gotham could do.
ꨄ︎ broken down and hungry for your love I @/moonlight-prose I F
a conversation leads to kissing him on his couch until oxygen becomes secondary.
ꨄ︎ stupid glasses I @snooperzz I F
She hadn’t found out the way that he wanted. Not that he ever really had a plan, but he certainly hadn’t meant for it to happen like this.
ꨄ︎ the dint I @imagines-all-day-everyday I F
when clark kent stumbles into a 24 hour vet clinic with his unconscious side-kick, the last thing he expects to find is maybe the only person in metropolis who can handle krypto. It’s an extra bonus that she’s beautiful too.
ꨄ︎ the mystery of love I @rosesaints I F + S
4 times he showed you he loves you + 1 time he says it
ꨄ︎ knowing clark’s coffee order I @/rosesaints I F
clark's no stranger to doing the grunt work around the daily planet.
ꨄ︎ i’ll crawl home to her I @se7entyrell I F
You and Clark just got married four months ago. That's barely enough time to settle into the house, and your new life. So when you take a pregnancy test in solidarity with your friend, the last thing you're expecting is a positive.
ꨄ︎ put you in a bodybag or in my bed I @bodhiscurls I A + F
clark kent is your mortal enemy; it's been a constant battle between who's going to get front page privileges and clark always manages to top you with superman. when you both get a little too drunk and repressed feelings rush to the surface- surely it can't be real? how could it be real when you wake up naked in his bed, unsure of how you ended up there? when you've accidentally sent the department the doc you made in a rage listing all the reasons you hate clark kent? it can't be real so why does it hurt so much when he calls it quits- when you cry to superman of all people- when everywhere you go reminds you of him?
ꨄ︎ cause i can see you I @myladybelle I F
it’s been a couple months since you started working at the daily planet, and you’re beginning to suspect that your awkward, mild-mannered coworker might be hiding a much bigger secret than his crush on you
ꨄ︎ just a super dog I @idk-imjustanerd I F
Clark is trying to get Krypto acclimated to city life when you unexpectedly knock on his door.
ꨄ︎ enough for you I @teascorner I A + C
Plagued by insecurities, you can't imagine that Clark Kent would ever return your feelings. After weeks of pining, weeks of feeling your heart break more and more, it all comes to a fever pitch. Can you and Clark work it out?
ꨄ︎ purpose I @wwinterwitch I F
you get back from work to find clark preparing a little surprise for you
ꨄ︎ virgin!clark I @audreyownsdiamonds I F
making out with you for the first time
ꨄ︎ bury the lede I @levanswrites I A + F + S
clark kent runs on compassion the way most reporters run on espresso. he is, by all observable metrics, the most principled man you know. so when your hard-won article gets pulled without explanation, the softest man in metropolis is suddenly ready to raise quiet, righteous hell. because when something’s wrong, he never lets it slide—especially when it comes to you.
ꨄ︎ i can see you I @stargazsblog I F
you and clark have been secretly dating for three months. no touching, barley talking at work. so why does it feel like everyone knows?
ꨄ︎ companion I @murdockparker I F
You were an adult, with adult money. You can buy things that bring you joy! Hopefully your boyfriend never finds out about it.
ꨄ︎ theory of goodness pt13 pt14 pt15 I @messylxve I F + HC
ꨄ︎ mornings with you I @writing-for-marvel I F + S
The morning after your first night together, Clark still can’t get enough of you.
ꨄ︎ i never was the good samaritan I @supershit-hits I A + F
a stupid bet between two coworkers with allegedly opposite morals. if all’s fair in love, war, and corporate life, then who’s willing to be kinder for a month?
ꨄ︎ villian!reader pt2 pt3 I @maiamore I S
clark meets another super, who he can fuck the way he really wants to.
ꨄ︎ metahuman-telepathic!reader pt2 I @/maiamore I S
Clark has to enlist the help of his metahuman ex for an interview.
ꨄ︎ to good for me I @lomlsatoru I A + F
everytime you remember your life, clark is always there, and now after everything came crashing down, clark thinks he has loved you from the very start.
ꨄ︎ blurb I @daenysx I F
you wash clark's hair and praise him until he turns red
ꨄ︎ all pent up pt2 I @honeybunnyale I A + F + S
Clark has been utterly perfect, smart, kind, cute and witty. But a woman has needs and doubts were starting to lead you to a detrimental decision. A breakup. But this Clark guy shows you that he fucks hard and checks all of your boxes.
ꨄ︎ the way he waits for you I @danitcx I F
You’ve always been shy. Quiet. Invisible, even. But working at the Daily Planet gave you a badge, a desk… and a seat across from Clark Kent. What starts as silent glances and white chocolate donuts turns into a walk, a bar, a moment —where maybe, just maybe, your heart begins to hope he sees you too.
ꨄ︎ sue me I @fatherjohnmistake I A + F + S
after a nasty breakup, you find your name plastered on the front page of the daily planet, courtesy of no other than your ex, clark kent.
ꨄ︎ leftover frosting I @navybrat817 I S
Clark bakes you a cake and has a plan for the leftover frosting
ꨄ︎ 10 things you hate about clark kent I @bitterballad I S
You had just moved to Metropolis from Gotham after quitting the Gotham Gazette. You thought it would be a breeze. But there's 10 things about your coworker that irk you more than you ever thought.
ꨄ︎ just clark I @larkandpen I F
You live in the same building as Clark Kent. You think he’s sweet but awkward, he carries your bags, helps you build things, fixes issues in your apartment. You joke he’s “like a superhero” for doing the chores your ex never did, and he panics and runs off
ꨄ︎ best to you I @sunsburns I F + C
clark loves being superman, though he can be away for hours and sometimes days on end. you tend to miss him more than you admit, and you find comfort in wearing his clothes and... his spare superman suits.
ꨄ︎ baby, it’s just you I @eupheme I S
the suit stays on
ꨄ︎ clark’s super secret I @celestiababie I F
In which Clark Kent has to face the truth if he wants to get a good night's sleep...
ꨄ︎ heartbeat I @maikorian I A
clark adores the little thing about you, now he'll never get to experience them again.
ꨄ︎ superbanned I @arkofangels I S
After one too many, ahem, “incidents,” the Justice Gang slaps Clark Kent with a temporary sex ban. He promises to behave—until one look and a little teasing from you has him breaking every rule he promised to keep.
ꨄ︎ kanas anymore pt3 I @junleb I F + A
you're bruce wayne's date to a gala and clark starts feeling under the weather
ꨄ︎ the one with the broken printer I @heartburriedinvenice I F
the five times in which clark made your head spin and the one time you finally got him back. and it all started with a broken printer.
ꨄ︎ super shy I @fhrlclln I F
in which you’re trying your best to tell him you like him in your own quiet and shy way but clark kent is an oblivious fool when it comes to these things.
summary: you’re just the new intern at the daily planet—anxious, invisible in your books, and falling for the man who, disguised, saves the world between coffee breaks. he could catch the sky if it fell. but for some reason, he keeps choosing to catch you.
word count: 22.4k (i know it’s a lot but it’s worth it)
warnings/tags: +18 mdni, angst, banter, fluff !!!, clark has a savior complex, friends/coworkers to lovers, intern!reader, slow-burn office romance, lots of feelings and introspection, miscommunication, the reader’s sort of a sensitive and insecure gal at times, clark picks the reader up, mentions of reader's hair, both of them are very awkward at times, idiots in love (proceed with caution), declarations of love, p with plot, fingering (f receiving), handjob, oral (m and f receiving), whiny clark kent !!!, cum swallowing, p in v, missionary, happy ending.
a/n: first time writing for clark kent!!! to say i’m nervous would be the understatement of the century. i finally got to watch superman last week, and let me tell you: i’ve been obsessed with it <3 i walked out of the theater and pretty much ran home to start writing this fic. so yes, this one’s completely self-indulgent. i just got carried away by the feelings and couldn’t stop writing, hence the length lol. i really hope you enjoy this story. if you do, likes, reblogs and comments mean the world. and feel free to scream in the tags—i’ll be screaming too 🫂
Sometimes, you truly wished you didn’t have a brain.
It sounds ridiculous, worded like that. You know for a fact you’re not the first person to want a quiet mind, to dream of a day when you’re not held hostage by your own intrusive, spiraling thoughts. You take a look around and realize there are much bigger problems out there in the world.
Scratch that—right here, where every few days, some inexplicable, monstrous creature appears out of the blue and starts tearing through everything that gets in its way, like Metropolis is a giant city made of Legos.
And yet, you can’t help but drown in self-doubt. The worst part is how suddenly it all hits you. There’s no warning or mercy. One moment you’re fine—functioning, even laughing—and the next, something inside you flickers and dies. The illusion of confidence crumbles, and you're left looking for the broken pieces, wondering when you’ll finally figure out what’s wrong with you.
If only there were a way to cut it out, the rot, and replace it with something clean. Something shining. Something better.
The day you’re accepted for an internship at the Daily Planet, you stare at your reflection in the bathroom mirror and try to tell the girl in the fogged glass something that sounds like hope:
It’s going to be okay. You’re capable of this. Just show them your potential.
But the voice in your head isn’t convinced. It places an imaginary hand on your shoulder, deceptively gentle, until its fingers dig in, cold and burning all at once. It leans in, just behind your ear, and hisses the thought you’ve been trying to avoid:
It’s only a matter of time before they realize they could’ve chosen someone better.
Just so much for a girl in her twenties.
You squint at the girl on Jimmy’s phone.
She’s beautiful. Blonde. The kind of effortlessly pretty that feels unfair. If you didn’t know her from these selfies, you would’ve thought she was some kind of model. Tall, blue-eyed, glowing with confidence. She even looks like the type of person who’d throw a tantrum if someone accidentally stepped on a cat’s tail.
Picking at your nails, your eyes flick from the screen to Jimmy. Then back again. Jimmy. Blonde girl. Jimmy. Blonde—
“She’s super pretty,” you say finally, handing the phone back to him over the desk divider.
He stands up with a smug little shrug, grinning as if he’s about to accept an award. “What can I say? Ladies just seem to love me.”
At that moment, Lois passes by right on cue, bracing herself on your desk and leaning toward Jimmy with a certain look that usually comes before total verbal destruction. “I’m still trying to figure out why,” she mutters dryly. “Guess I know what my next article’s gonna be about.”
A giggle catches in your throat, too fast to stop, and you mask it with a fake cough.
Jimmy eyes you like you’ve betrayed his loyalty. “You’re supposed to be on my side. Proximity makes us allies.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t resist a good joke,” you mumble, lifting your hands in mock surrender, earning an exasperated sigh from him.
Lois high-fives you without missing a beat. “You can always change seats.”
With a scoff, he declares, “Traitors. Both of you.”
As he launches into a dramatic defense of his dating history, Lois unwraps a candy bar, taking a bite before giving voice to her thoughts. “Honestly, I don't know why Clark gets away with disappearing for an hour and a half during lunch. I miss one deadline, and I’ve got Perry breathing down my neck.”
“Ever heard of this revolutionary thing called… privacy?” Jimmy asks her, raising his eyebrows in her direction.
She rolls her eyes, gesturing with the candy bar. “If I find out he’s out there eating real food while the rest of us are surviving on vending machine snacks, I’m suing.”
You're about to jump in with an equally sarcastic remark when the elevator dings.
The doors quietly slide open, and there he is.
Clark Kent. Carrying a cardboard tray of four coffees, his tie slightly crooked and hair looking like the wind styled it for him on the way in. There's a coy tilt to his smile, like he knows he’s late but hopes this peace offering makes up for it.
“Hey,” he says warmly. “Thought we could all use a little caffeine. Fuel for the hardest part of the day.”
Lois lifts her chin. “Look who finally decided to rejoin society.”
Balancing the tray in one hand, he straightens his glasses. “I brought bribes.” He hands hers over first, the corner of his mouth quirking up. A second later, Jimmy’s follows, and he gives Clark a quick pat on the back.
Then, to your complete surprise, Clark holds one out to you. No matter how many times he does it, you still get excited by his thoughtfulness.
You blink owlishly. Your name's neatly written on one side of the cup with a permanent marker, just above your order: two creams, two sugars. He still remembers your order and has never gotten it wrong. You take it calmly, like it might vanish if you move too fast, struggling to fight the smile wanting to break free. “Thanks, Clark.”
He bows his head, scratching the back of his neck, and looks up to meet your pleased gaze, studying how your expression softens. “You know there's a legal limit to how many times you can say thank you in a day, right? Pretty sure you’ve already gone over it.”
No clever, witty comeback comes to mind, so you turn back to your monitor, hoping the screen hides the heat crawling up your neck. Still, you can’t help whispering a very soft, “Thank you,” just before Clark turns on his heel and walks away.
He pauses for a split second, long enough to glance over his shoulder. His eyes land on yours again briefly, like he’s trying to find a hidden answer in your features, and he gives the smallest nod, almost imperceptible, continuing toward his desk, the hem of his coat swaying with each step.
Your heart flutters in your chest as you chew on your bottom lip, twisting your ankles together beneath the desk to keep from fidgeting, hoping you’re playing it cool.
“Jeez,” a familiar voice mutters nearby. Jimmy’s shaking his head, arching a knowing brow. “You’re down bad.”
“Shut it.”
“I swear to God, if you’d just admit it—”
You lob a yellow highlighter at him, managing to hit him squarely on the shoulder with a satisfying thwack. He opens his mouth to protest, but you cut him off with a pointed finger. “Keep your voice down. There’s nothing to admit. I’m just happy I have something to sip while I work. That’s all.”
Spinning lazily in his chair, he folds his arms behind his head like a painting of a man at peace. “I’ve got to hand it to you—it’s adorable, watching you try to lie to me. I’ve been sitting across from you for what, a month now?”
A faint line appears between your brows, and you catch the highlighter as he tosses it back your way.
He grins. “I’ve grown familiar with all your faces, young lady. And that dreamy look? The puppy eyes? That little tight-lipped smile?” He props his chin on his hand, his voice descending to a murmur. “Yeah. Those aren’t for public consumption. That’s VIP treatment.”
Fighting Jimmy is pointless. He’s the kind of guy who never loses an argument—mostly because he talks over you until you forget what your point even was.
He just doesn’t get it. You can find someone attractive without liking them, right? It’s just a stupid crush. A stupid work crush, to be precise, which is significantly worse than a normal one, because now the object of your hopeless affection walks past your desk on a daily basis like it’s nothing.
At some point, you stop being sure if you're trying to convince Jimmy or yourself.
Your brain whirs back to your very first day at the Daily Planet. You remember being led around by a chatty woman from HR, who kept smiling at you with what appeared to be feigned sympathy. She pointed out the break room, the vending machine, and in the end brought you to your new, empty desk right across from a redheaded guy who immediately stood and extended a hand.
“James Olsen,” he commented. “Welcome to hell.”
Before you could respond, he waved Lois over from a few desks away. “Lois, come meet the new intern.”
You told them your name, attempting to seem casual while subtly folding your arms across your chest like a human shield. You didn’t mention you already knew who they were, or the fact that you’d read Lois’s columns like gospel. Some things were better kept to yourself.
Then, along came Perry White. The Perry White. It only took you one glance at the man to recognize him: the iconic gruff editor-in-chief with a permanent scowl and a cigar that looked surgically attached to his mouth. He stomped over, barely glancing your way.
“Where’s Kent?” he grumbled, words muffled by the cigar between his lips.
Lois and Jimmy exchanged a look. Silence. Apparently, no one felt like volunteering information.
Kent, as in Clark Kent. The name alone triggered something weird in your stomach. He was the guy who somehow landed exclusive interviews with Superman like it was no big deal, most of which you’d devoured in one sitting.
In the nick of time, as if he’d heard his name from afar, Clark entered through the elevator, brushing his fringe to the side with one hand. Slung over one of his shoulders was a worn satchel bag, and in the other, he carried a cardboard tray, loaded with steaming coffee cups. He spotted Perry and made his way over, towering over pretty much everyone in the immediate vicinity.
“I know, I’m late again. Sorry, Perry,” he apologized, already reaching into the tray. “Maybe a hot coffee will help start your day?”
Perry grunted, took a cup, and walked away without another word. Clark contemplated him as he got farther and farther away, and once he was gone, turned back to the rest of you with a quiet exhale. “Really glad I bought an extra one today.”
Only two cups of coffee remained. He handed Jimmy and Lois theirs, then scanned the tray, his brows snapping together. His gaze landed on you, standing just a little behind the group, hands clasped awkwardly in front of you. That was when it hit him.
“Oh, I’m—” he stammered, fixing his posture. “I didn’t know there would be someone new. I’m so sorry, I would’ve brought you something too.”
“This is the new intern,” Jimmy supplied casually, taking a trial sip of his drink. “Started today. Doesn’t bite, probably. Has a name and everything.”
You offered a nervous little smile, giving Clark your name.
Clark repeated it under his breath, as if he was trying to memorize it. His attention flicked back to the empty tray, later returning to you. “Next time, I’ll make sure to bring you one. What do you usually get?”
Shaking your head, you tried to wave it off. “No, really, it’s okay. You don’t have to—”
But Clark shook his own head right back, stubborn and visibly determined. “I insist.”
Jimmy leaned in, elbowing him. “No, for real—he insists.”
Lois smirked into her cup. “He's going to agonize over this all day.”
Clark’s ears reddened as he cast a glance at you again. “Just... let me know. So I get it right.”
Ultimately, you ended up telling him your order: two creams, two sugars. He nodded seriously, and repeated it: “Two creams, two sugars.”
“Better write it on your arm or something,” Jimmy interjected, sitting down on his chair. “In case it comes up in your next Superman interview.”
The next morning, you were late. Disastrously, embarrassingly late. Not just five-minutes-past-start-time late. More like why-even-bother-showing-up late.
You burst through the front doors of the Daily Planet like a fugitive fleeing a crime scene, lungs clawing for air, sweat clinging to your lower back and pooling around your temples. The last ten blocks had been a blur of dodged pedestrians and half-choked apologies, and every eye in the office felt like it had turned your way.
Avoiding eye contact, you slid into your seat. It was only your second day, and already you’d earned a reputation: the intern who can’t be punctual. What would be next? Forgetting your name? Accidentally setting the printer on fire? Calling Perry “dad”? You were so far inside your own head you barely registered the beverage sitting on your desk.
A lone paper coffee cup. You froze.
It was from the café around the corner, the same one Clark brought coffee from yesterday. An orange Post-it was stuck to the side, curling slightly at the corners, your name written just beneath it.
Hope you have a good time here. The handwriting was clean and tidy, with no signature, though you knew who had written it.
Your fingers brushed the cup tentatively, and the warmth seeped into your fingers, anchoring you in a moment that felt strangely tender. It was a small gesture, but it had found you when you were at your most unravelled, and somehow, that made it hit harder than it should have.
Glancing up, you noticed Clark was already seated at his desk, typing with ease. When your eyes met, he didn’t look away, just lifted a hand in a soft wave.
Before you could even process it, Jimmy bent over the partition, nodding at the cup. “Wow,” he uttered, pressing a hand to his chest. “On day two? Must be nice to be his favorite.”
“Excuse me?”
“Next thing you know, he’s bringing you lunch and rescheduling your dentist appointments.”
“It’s just coffee,” you retorted, but your hands didn’t loosen around the cup, clutching it like it contained the secret to world peace.
“Observe: the flustered intern in her natural habitat, attempting to rationalize a clear romantic gesture—”
“Don’t you have any photographs to take?”
His nose crinkled. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your tragic office romance off the record. For now.”
To shut him up, you took a long sip, and immediately burned your tongue. Of course. When you glanced over again, Clark was observing you with mild alarm, eyes wide, like he wasn’t sure if he should intervene. But then he returned to his screen, his shoulders just a little stiffer than before, and you looked back down at the cup. The note.
You weren’t saying that was when the crush started. But it sure didn’t help.
Fast forward to the present day, your fingers have been levitating over the keyboard for an embarrassing amount of time, the blinking cursor taunting you like it knows. You just hope nobody’s noticed the light leaving your eyes as you spiraled into a memory that felt much warmer than the air-conditioned newsroom.
You turn your head to the left for what you swear will be the last time today, though deep down, you know that’s a lie. A practiced one at this point. Clark is already typing, posture relaxed but focused, forearms braced against the desk. He’s moved his chair today, and the faint movement of the muscles beneath the back of his white shirt makes you blink hard, as if that might reset your brain.
“Perv,” Jimmy interrupts your thoughts in a sing-song voice, not even bothering to look up from his computer.
You jab the side of his ankle with your shoe.
He hisses, eyes squinting shut. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
You don’t. What frightens you the most is that perhaps he has clocked you right. Straightening in your chair, you roll your shoulders back like you can shake it off. Crushes pass. This one will as well. Maybe by the time your internship’s ended.
Taking a sharp breath, you decide you need to get back to work. You can’t afford another mistake just because Clark Kent exists in the same room as you.
An email lands in your inbox. It’s one of many, the kind you handled almost without thinking twice. The task in it was far from difficult: skim the article, fix the typos, clean up the formatting, and make sure the version that goes online looked as polished as something with your name near it should. Routine. Safe.
At first, you don’t even flinch. You’re wearing headphones, the world on mute, until Jimmy taps your shoulder and motions for you to take them off. The moment you do, the noise rushes in. You register the low hum of tension in the room, and then comes the voice of one of your coworkers, shouting across the bullpen that an unedited version of an article had been published.
Silently, heads begin turning to find the culprit. And still, you don’t let yourself panic. Not until you hear the title.
Beneath the Streets, Above the Skies: The Creatures We Can’t Explain.
It’s yours.
Goddammit.
Your stomach flips as you scroll through the now-public piece on the Daily Planet’s website. It’s all there: the all-caps notes left by the writer mid-draft, barking out instructions to a future editor.
[FIX THIS. TOO WORDY.]
[DELETE — USE STAT FROM EARLIER DRAFT?]
[MAYBE CHOOSE A STRONGER QUOTE HERE.]
You’d sent the wrong version. Drafts mixed up, tabs blurred together, one careless attachment. And worst of all? You weren’t the one to catch it. By the time someone did, it had already been up long enough to embarrass the paper.
The article is eventually pulled, of course, but it had already been read by others.
A few people come to your rescue, trying to comfort you with those well-meaning phrases that sting more than they soothe.
It’s fine. Happens to the best of us.
Don’t beat yourself up over it.
It’s just one article.
Lois, in a moment of impossible generosity, offers to buy you an entire chocolate cake if it’ll get you to smile. She says it with a lopsided grin, trying to lighten the mood, but you can see it in her face, the silent sympathy. The confirmation that… yes, it had been bad.
What makes it worse is that it confirms what you already suspected about yourself: you’re not good at this. The little voice in your head, the one that is usually subdued by the clack of keyboards, is now screaming. You can hear going insane it in the spaces between your thoughts and heartbeats.
You had one job. You’ve been here for over a month, and you still managed to screw it up.
Panic blooms in slow, suffocating waves, rising behind your ribs and poisoning your bloodstream. You walk to Perry’s office on numb legs that barely feel like they are attached to the rest of your body. Your name had been called moments before. Knocking once, you step inside, your back flat against the cool surface of the door.
He doesn’t even look up right away. Just keeps reading something on his screen. “Something bothering that young brain of yours?” he asks without turning. “Because if you’re not going to be focused, I need to know. I don’t do hand-holding. This could’ve been a disaster.”
Your heart pounds so loudly you’re surprised he doesn’t pause to comment on it. When he finally decides to spare you a glance, it isn’t anger you’re met with. He looks tired, and even irritated, that he has to explain these things to you at all.
“Don’t be sloppy. I don’t like sloppy. Got it?”
Fervently nodding, you say, “Yes, sir.” You might grant him a smile, or perhaps something close enough to one, anyway. Then you leave, holding yourself together, and storm out of his office.
The newsroom is all windows and noise, impossible to disappear into, but taking the elevator isn’t a viable option at the moment. The stairwell, by contrast, is dim and forgotten, since no one uses it unless the elevators break down. That makes it a perfect place for you to hide.
You sit on the concrete steps and fold in on yourself, allowing yourself to cry. Sweaty palms pressed to your face, tugging at your hair like it might anchor you in your body. Silent sobs wrack your chest, and tears slip down your face, pooling at the edges of your mouth, making their way towards your chin and neck. Your knees draw to your chest, and you let yourself dissolve into shuddering breaths.
You aren’t just crying over the article, or the look Perry gave you, or the shame you saw in every pair of eyes that passed your desk.
You’re crying because at some point, without you even noticing, you’d let yourself believe that maybe—maybe—you were starting to belong here. That maybe you weren’t a complete fraud. It turns out it doesn’t take much to unravel those thoughts. Just one mistake. One article. One email you should’ve double-checked.
A couple of minutes pass, and you hear the door being opened and then shut. You’re too far gone by then: cheeks damp, fingers gripping your knees, shoulders drawn tight toward your ears. The sound of someone’s footsteps approaching you makes your stomach lurch, and instinctively, you swipe at your face, trying to clean yourself up with the heel of your palm as if that could erase the fact you’ve been crying.
You hear it. His voice.
“…Hey.”
Clark.
You rub your eyes, keeping your gaze fixed on a chipped bit of concrete near your foot, your throat too raw to answer.
There’s a pause. You don’t even hear him move, yet you feel him there, not close enough to crowd you, but not far enough either. He waits. It’s his thing, apparently.
Before you can stop yourself, you speak. “I’m fine,” you croak, too quickly. A reflex.
He doesn’t reply right away. A beat slides, and he mutters, “Didn’t ask.”
That earns a weak exhale from you. Not exactly laughter, but akin to it. You rest your forehead on your knees, and because you can’t help it, because it’s bubbling up and there’s nowhere else for it to go, you start talking. More like rambling, actually.
“I was tired, and I was trying to finish it fast, and I thought I’d already attached the right file, and—” You stop, inhaling sharply. “God, I’m pathetic.”
Clark still says nothing. You risk a glance in his direction and find him standing just a few steps down from you, one hand loosely resting on the railing.
You interpret his demeanor as an invitation to go on. “It’s so stupid. Everyone’s supposed to make mistakes. That’s what they say. But this doesn’t feel like a mistake. It feels like confirmation. That I shouldn’t be here. That I’m playing pretend, and now everyone can see it.”
It’s only a matter of time before your voice cracks, and you suck in a breath like it might steady you, but it only makes your chest hurt.
Gently, without needing to say anything, he sits down beside you, leaving just enough space so you don’t feel boxed in. You feel the warmth radiating off his body even through the distance. A comforting kind of heat.
“I didn’t want anyone to see me like this,” you croak. “It’s miserable.”
“It’s not.”
You shake your head, and the tears come back again for a second round, your whole frame shaking. More tears. You thought you were done.
That’s when you feel it. The hesitant pressure of his hand between your shoulder blades. He doesn’t move it, just lets it rest there, warm as you continue to cry your heart out. You’re pretty sure he must think you’ve gone mental. Once he notices you’re not backing away from his touch, he begins rubbing your skin in small, slow circles. No pressure. No expectation.
Eventually, after long minutes of trying to even your breath, you shift toward him on instinct, and he opens his arms, enveloping you. You fold into the space he makes for you, still trembling, trying to convince yourself this isn’t humiliating. His chest is solid against your cheek, and he smells like cologne and paper and something sweet you can’t quite place.
You don’t ask why he came. You believe you already have your answer. Lois probably saw you bolt. Maybe Jimmy sent him. Maybe he drew the short straw.
It turns out you say it out loud, because Clark speaks gently into your hair. “No one sent me.”
You choke on your own saliva.
“I just noticed you’d been gone for a while,” he adds. “That’s all.”
Pulling back a little, just enough to look at him in the eye, you find his expression to be unreadable in that Clark Kent way. “I didn’t even realize I was gone that long,” you admit.
He smiles, barely. “I know.”
A long silence hangs in the air between you. Not uncomfortable, but thick with things unsaid.
Then he asks, almost like he already knows what you’ll respond next: “Why are you so hard on yourself?”
You laugh, though it comes out watery and bitter. “I don’t know how else to be.”
He watches you for a moment. The world outside the stairwell feels a thousand miles away.
“I think,” Clark begins carefully, “you hold yourself to this impossible standard. You think if you slip up, everyone will rub it in your face.” You stare at him, swallowing hard. “But no one’s waiting to punish you,” he explains. “They already like you. I already—” He stops himself mid-sentence. “You don’t have to earn that every second.”
His hand is still on your back. You don’t know what you’re supposed to say to that, so you just sit there with him. With yourself, and with everything you’re carrying. The silence lingers, suspended in time, and you can’t help but sniff after all that crying. You’re certain your eyes must be far beyond puffy and red-rimmed, your face blotchy, and you don’t even want to think about what your mascara’s looking like right now.
“Was it—” You hesitate, keeping eye contact. “Was it a lot? That I hugged you?”
Clark’s brows bump together in a scowl. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—” You gesture vaguely between your chests. “It was a full, like… torso-on-torso kind of hug. Which feels very much like a panic-hug. And I’ve only been working here a month, and you’re… you.”
His smile widens, carving those charming, endearing hollows into his cheeks. “I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, but I do. You probably have, like, policies about emotionally unstable interns clinging to you.”
“If there’s a policy, I haven’t read it.”
“Figures. Of course, you read everything except the employee handbook.”
Playfully surrendering, he snorts. “Guilty.”
There’s a beat. He looks like he’s considering something as those blue eyes of his map your face.
“Want to hear something that’ll make you regret hugging me at all?”
You scratch your nose. “Sure?”
“What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary?”
“…No.”
He grins, too pleased with himself. “A thesaurus.”
“Oh my God.”
“I warned you.”
“No, but—a thesaurus?”
“What do you mean? It’s a classic!”
“I should’ve hugged Perry instead. Or the janitor. Literally anyone else.”
“That hurts. I opened my arms to you.”
“I did the arm-opening,” you shoot back. “You were just conveniently located.”
He’s chuckling, but his expression softens again when he sees you swipe under your eyes. You try to smile. You try. And it almost works, until your voice comes out small again. “I just didn’t want to mess up. I wanted to be good at this.”
“You are. Messing up doesn’t make you less good. You’d never say that to another human being.”
You look at him. The way he says it makes you understand he believes it. You’re not used to that. Most people say things like that with ifs and buts tacked on. Clark doesn’t. He just lets the truth sit there between you. Pressing your lips together, you gape at your lap, and then back at him.
“…Okay,” you whisper.
“Okay,” he echoes.
A pause.
“Wanna hear another one?”
“Clark, please—”
“What do you call fake spaghetti?”
“I don’t even want to think about that one.”
“An impasta.”
You groan louder, forehead tipping dramatically against his shoulder. “Just fire me already.”
Clark giggles, not moving an inch. “Can’t. I’m just the delivery guy.”
“Of terrible puns?”
“Of coffee and emotional support.”
You laugh, this time for real, short and soggy and kind of breathless. In this tiny stairwell, with your head spinning and your chest still aching, this had been exactly what you needed.
By the time you’re both standing again, your eyes feel like they’ve been rubbed back and forth with sandpaper. You wipe at your face with the sleeve of your cardigan, though Clark hands you a tissue without saying anything. You take it, thanking him while intending to fix your appearance in the reflection of his glasses.
“You always carry tissues with you?”
“A man needs to be prepared.”
He doesn’t rush you, although both of you know that eventually you have to go back. “Ready?” he asks gently.
You nod like a liar, returning to the office. Jimmy spots you the second the door to the stairwell opens. He stands near the copy machine, holding a mug shaped like the Daily Planet’s globe, and raises his eyebrows like he’s seeing something scandalous. Lois leans out of her cubicle and gives Clark a slow look, then swings her gaze to you.
“Well, well,” she murmurs, wrapping a loose strand of hair around her finger. “We thought you’d fled the country.”
Jimmy snorts into his coffee. “I must confess I’ve never tried stairwell therapy. Sounds very promising.”
Clark clears his throat, cheeks just slightly pink. “She was just upset. That’s all.” Inching toward you, he whispers into your ear, “You sure you’re okay?”
You nod, and this time, it’s not entirely a lie. Your chest twists a little: not from embarrassment, but from the warm way everyone seems to be looking at you. You sit back at your desk, and Jimmy passes you a couple of snacks wordlessly, winking at you.
Lois throws a scrunchie at your head, giving you a thumbs up. “Fix your face,” she says. “If you cry again, you’ll dehydrate and die. And I don’t have time to explain that to Perry.”
Your throat tightens again, but for entirely different reasons.
You like Lois.
You really, really do.
She’s sharp-tongued and sharp-minded, the kind of journalist who could scare a senator into answering a question they’ve been dodging for a decade. She doesn’t soften herself to fit the room. If anything, the room adjusts to her. You admire that. You admire her.
You trust her, too, in the weird way you trust people after you decided not to trust them at all.
Which is why it catches you off guard, the quiet pinch in your chest when you see her standing next to Clark, cackling. And him, tittering the way he does when he’s truly listening, the corners of his eyes crinkling just barely behind his glasses.
They look like puzzle pieces that have known each other forever.
In your defense, this was all supposed to be a harmless observation. You’re standing next to the copier, waiting for it to spit out your stack of edited pages.
All of a sudden, the copier beeps, and you jerk away.
“Hey.” Jimmy materializes out of nowhere behind you, nearly making you drop your stack. “You okay?“
You force a laugh, too high-pitched. “No, I was just…thinking. That Clark and Lois would make a good couple. Like, objectively. They’re very…compatible.”
Jimmy blinks.
Then blinks again.
Then tilts his head as if you’re announcing you’re moving to Mars. “What—why would you say that?”
You stare at him, and the weight of what you’d just admitted out loud hits you like a train.
“I’ve picked up this terrible habit of saying my thoughts out loud,” you half-whisper, burying your face in the warm papers you’ve just printed. “You didn’t need to know that.”
“Hold on, hold on.” Jimmy steps in front of you, looking way too interested. “Back up. You think Clark and Lois are compatible?”
The copier makes an unholy crunching noise, and you yank the paper tray open, because you don’t want to meet his demanding gaze. “I meant it like…as a neutral statement,” you lie, badly. “A purely objective, journalistic observation. A general public-interest…thing.”
“Like you’re a neutral third-party scientist, observing the wild mating rituals of the office?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re so not a neutral third party. That might be the worst save I’ve ever heard.”
“Give me a break.”
“No, seriously, this is interesting. Tell me more about this neutral thought process. Was it before or after you began looking at Clark like he personally invented gravity?”
“Drop it, Jimmy.”
Jimmy looms closer the copier, puffing out his chest, looking way too smug for someone who sometimes accidentally deletes half his own files. “Listen. I love Lois. Everyone loves Lois. But Clark and Lois? No way.”
You glanced at him. “What do you mean ‘no way’? They’re…they’re them.”
“You said it yourself. I’ve seen Clark, a grown man, blushing when someone compliments his tie. You think Lois has time for that?”
You don’t answer right away. Your gaze drifts back to Clark, who’s now scribbling into his notepad while Lois steals the last bite of his muffin, and you force yourself to avert your attention from that scene. What you believe to be the truth sits heavy in your stomach, even as you joke around.
Because here’s the thing: this isn’t Lois’s fault. You’d fight anyone who said a bad word about her—so why does it still sting? Why does some ugly voice in your head start listing every way you fall short in comparison? This profound ache that you feel isn’t about her, not really. It’s about you: about how you always seem to be two steps behind the version of yourself you’re supposed to be.
Comparison is a cruel game, especially when the other player doesn’t even know she’s on the board.
Jimmy nudges your arm, the teasing gone a little softer. “Hey. Don’t overthink it.”
You’re fiddling with an old bracelet that dangles from your wrist. “You’re only about thirty years too late.” Gathering your pages, holding them a little too tightly, you take a step back. “I should get back to work.” You choose that to be your response, given it’s easier than saying I don’t want to feel like this, or I wish I didn’t care, or I think I’m falling for him, and I don’t know how to stop.
And because the alternative is staying here and letting Jimmy be right.
Again.
They arrange the plan casually, almost in passing. Someone mentions something about finally clocking out, someone else brings up the bar a few blocks away from the building, and then Lois chimes in with, “We’re all going, no excuses,” unwilling to take no for an answer.
And somehow, that settles it.
The sun dips low as the office empties, everyone spilling into the street with sleeves rolled and voices louder than they’ve been all day. You walk a step behind Jimmy, who’s listing the bar’s drink specials like he’s memorized them for a play he forgot to audition for.
The night has that kind of electricity. The possibility of being something good. Memorable.
The bar’s noisy in the comforting way only post-work places could be: the hum of old songs, clinking glasses, the rise and fall of casual arguments about baseball, or film, or whether Perry White had once owned a parrot (Jimmy swears yes, Lois says no, and Clark just answers “I’m afraid I have no parrot knowledge”).
You don't mean to drink your first cocktail that fast. You just... forget to pace yourself, but it helps, giving you permission to just exist. Laugh at Jimmy’s impressions. Pretend you’re not glancing at Clark more than you should.
The group is gathered near a back booth when Clark slips away. You only notice because it’s like a light flicks off inside you. When you spot him through the bar window—outside, on the sidewalk, phone pressed to his ear, fingers pushing through his hair—you follow without thinking.
You don’t hesitate, slipping through the crowd and nudging the door open, letting it swing closed behind you.
He half-turns at the sound, catching you in his peripheral. A tiny smile lifts the corner of his mouth. He raises a single finger as if to say: One sec. So you lean against the wall beside the door, letting the cool air cling to your skin, internally cursing yourself for not putting on your coat before going out.
“Okay, Ma. Yeah, I’ll give him a call tomorrow. No, I promise, it’s fine. Yeah. Yeah, love you too. Sleep tight,” he says into his phone, ending the call and tucking the device into the pocket of his black slacks. “Sorry. That was my mom. Sometimes she calls without checking the time first. She gets all excited.”
You smile, your mouth twitching. “That’s… adorable.”
He shrugs, glancing down at his feet, almost bashful. “She’s always worried I’m working too much.”
“Well, are you?”
His eyes find yours, and for a second, he doesn’t answer. At long last, he retorts, “Maybe.”
You study him—the way his posture seems to be at ease out here, how the line of his shoulders relaxes in the quiet. There’s something about him that always feels held back, as if he’s managing himself carefully, like he’s afraid of taking up too much space.
Which is funny, considering how much space he’s been occupying in your thoughts lately.
“Are you annoyed?” you ask.
His smile fades. “What?”
“You seemed… I don’t know. Off.”
“No,” he says, seemingly caught off guard. “Not annoyed.” You nod slowly, unsure if that’s a real answer or the kind people give when they don’t want to be asked twice. “I just needed some air. That’s all.”
You let that sit between you. Let the quiet stretch a little. The last thing you want is to pry, but there’s something you want to know. It seems that lately you always want to know more with him, even when you’re afraid of the answers you might receive.
Next thing you know, your brain, being the traitor it is, decides now would be the perfect time to blurt: “So, uh… are you and Lois a thing?” It comes out too fast and loud, way too sincere. You immediately want to grab the words midair and cram them back into your mouth.
Clark straightens so quickly it’s like someone snapped a rubber band on his arm, his jaw clenching. “What?” The pitch of his voice cracks up a little, like his vocal cords haven’t gotten the memo that he’s supposed to be cool and composed.
“You and Lois?” you repeat, trying to style it as harmless curiosity. You throw in a half-shrug that feels more like a full-body spasm. “I mean… it’s not a crazy question. She’s Lois Lane. Beautiful woman, insanely good hair. I’d date her.”
“She’d eat you alive.”
“Yeah, but it’d be an honor.”
“Lois and I are just friends. Really good friends. We’ve been through a lot together, but… it’s never been like that.”
Looking down, you nod in agreement, peering at your heels. Did they always have that much shine? You shift your weight, unsure where to put your hands. “Great,” you reply. “I wasn’t trying to make things weird. It’s just—people talk, you know? Office gossip. Background noise. Someone had to ask.”
Clark cocks his head to the side, his forehead creasing. “Someone?”
“Yeah. I was just the unfortunate soul selected by the people. Took one for the team.”
He smiles then. “The team.”
“Yeah. Julie from Sports. And, uh… Carl.”
“Caro?”
“Yeah,” you say, faking confidence. “He’s new. Big into Hawaiian shirts. You’d remember him if you’d seen him. That dude’s hilarious.”
“Right.” He huffs out another quiet laugh, gesturing vaguely toward the bar. “Wanna go back inside?”
You shake your head. “Actually... I think I’m heading home.”
“Oh. You sure?”
“Certainly. I’m just tired. It’s been a long week. Brain soup.”
“I get that,” he says, softer now. But he doesn’t move. “Do you want me to call you a cab?”
“Relax. I can get one myself. Last time I checked, I still owned a phone.”
He still doesn’t budge. “Or… I could walk you home.”
And just like that, he disappears inside, the door swinging shut behind him with an almost faint thud.
The moment he’s gone, you let your head fall back against the bricks and close your eyes. It hadn’t been in your plans to ask about Lois. Actually, you hadn’t planned for any of this. You just saw him step outside and followed like gravity stopped being theoretical.
But sometimes, he looks at you like he sees something you don’t, which is the part that terrifies you.
The door creaks open behind you. You straighten quickly, trying to shake off whatever expression you were wearing. Clark has your bag slung over one shoulder and your coat draped carefully over his arm. He looks absurdly responsible.
“You really didn’t have to do all that,” you say as he hands everything over to you.
“Too late,” he replies. “Chivalry wins again.”
You walk the first few blocks in companionable silence. The city has started to go quiet, and even though the night is soft, your brain isn’t.
Then, because the world is poetic when it’s inconvenient, your heel catches a crack in the pavement and you go down like a cursed fairytale. “Shit—damn it!”
“Whoa—got you,” Clark huffs, catching you just in time. His hands are at your waist, strong and certain, and you hate how easily your pulse betrays you.
You wince. “Ankle. Ow.”
He guides you down to sit on the front steps of a random building, pursing his lips. He crouches, eyes scanning your foot like he’s searching for something under the skin. “Probably just a twist. You should be alright.”
“How do you…?”
“What?”
“How do you know it’s not swelling?” you ask, scrutinizing him. “You barely looked. Didn’t even check it properly.”
“Just… a hunch, I mean—” His mouth opens, then closes, and then opens again with a whole new sentence. “Look, I didn’t hear anything snap, so... unless your bones are stealthy...?”
“That’s not exactly how ankles work.”
“I mean, you haven’t turned purple. That has to be a good sign.” He laughs, tight and awkward, and you snort despite yourself. His hand rakes through his hair. “Sorry. Just trying to be optimistic.”
“You sure you weren’t a paramedic in a past life?”
“Oh, no. I’d be terrible at that.”
Still, you watch him a second longer. He looks... nervous, like he’s afraid he said too much.
He kneels with his back to you. “Here. Get on.”
“Excuse me?”
“Piggyback. Let’s not make it a thing.”
“It’s already a thing. A humiliating one.”
“Let me reframe it: this is me being chivalrous, and you being temporarily horizontal.”
“That is not how that word works.” You sigh, dramatic. “Fine. Just… please, don’t drop me.”
As you climb onto his back, his hands reach back to catch the backs of your knees, and when his palms find skin—warm where your skirt’s ridden up slightly—it short-circuits something in your chest. It’s not even overtly intimate. It’s just… contact. Unflinching contact. You feel it like a current, a hot spark that rushes up your spine and settles somewhere inconvenient.
“Have I already mentioned this is embarrassing?” you mutter, resting your chin lightly against his shoulder.
“You say that like I’m not honored.”
“I’m a grown woman. You’re carrying me like a backpack.”
“You are basically a human backpack,” he quips back. “And kind of a noisy one.”
You smack his shoulder gently, making him laugh. You let your eyes drift closed for a second, his back is broad under your touch. You become aware of how safe it feels, how easy it is to trust him.
“Clark?”
“Hmm?”
“You didn’t even blink when I said I hurt my ankle. Like you already knew it wasn’t serious.”
He pauses. “I had a feeling.”
You lean back slightly to see his face, though the angle mostly gives you a view of his glasses and the top of his cheekbone. “You’re weird.”
Smirking, he glances sideways just enough for you to catch it. “Takes one to know one.”
You let it drop, at least out loud. But your brain doesn’t. It files this away with the other strange Clark Kent moments—the way he sometimes seems to flinch at distant sirens, or how you’d swear he once turned around because someone two desks over whispered his name.
By the time you reach your apartment, your ankle has started throbbing again, a dull ache radiating up your calf. Clark shifts slightly to let you down as you fumble for your keys.
You aren’t exactly drunk, but your head definitely feels funny. “Here we are,” he says, and you slid off his back and onto the ground like a sack of potatoes with a master’s degree.
“Thanks,” you mumble, trying to stand in a way that suggests grace and control. “You can, um. You can go be normal now.”
He sticks his hands in his pockets. “I was normal before.”
“That’s debatable.” You finally open the door, triumphant, but instead of going in, you linger in the doorway, facing him. “Thanks for the rescue. Again. I’ll see you Monday?”
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Goodnight.”
He doesn’t move, and neither do you. Your fingers tighten around the doorknob.
There’s an unexpected pull in your chest. The way his collar is rumpled. The way his hair curls behind his ears. The way the night had been soft, and the sidewalk felt warmer when he walked beside you, and—
An unbeatable desire to kiss him invades your whole being. You want to touch his jaw and feel the shape of his mouth and know what it would be like to exist under his hands. To be held by Clark Kent.
He finally steps back, appearing reluctant. “You might want to put some ice on it. Maybe take something for the pain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And give me a call if it gets worse.”
“Only if I want to be carried again.”
“Happy to oblige.”
And then—finally—he walks away. You close the door behind you, pressing your forehead to the wood, heart knocking hard against your ribs.
You’re beyond head over heels.
Another Monday at the Daily Planet. It’s 8:56am, and as the elevator doors open with a cruel little ding, you carefully step out, checking your surroundings.
Everything looks the same—the hum of all those computers, some colleague having a hard time with the copier, Perry barking out unintelligible orders in the distance—but you are not the same. Not since last Friday.
Your ankle’s still a little sore, you haven’t been sleeping well, and Clark Kent could be somewhere in this building, existing like a real person with real hands and a real mouth you definitely didn’t imagine kissing at least ten times this weekend.
You weave through desks, praying for invisibility, when—
“Morning, sunshine,” Jimmy sing-songs from his chair, already halfway through a bagel, a smile plastered on his face. “How’s the foot?”
“Clark told you,” you say flatly.
Jimmy gives you a look, his eyes going round with faux innocence. “Who, me? No! I just assumed you mysteriously developed a limp and Clark suddenly discovered how to piggyback people from years of quiet farm strength.”
“I cannot believe he told you.”
“Oh, come on. It’s adorable.” Jimmy leans back in his chair, using his feet to make it spin. “You? Carried through the city like a Victorian maiden? I wish I had footage. I’d set it to music.”
“I hate you.”
He stops spinning to point his bagel at you. “You say that, but I think you secretly love being the main character.”
“Do I look like someone who enjoys attention?”
“Not attention in general. Just his.”
You don’t dignify that with a response. Mostly because he’s not wrong, and your face is already betraying you. Sliding into your chair, you pretend to focus on your monitor like it contains NASA launch codes.
Maybe if you don’t look up, you’ll avoid—
“Morning,” Clark says gently, materializing beside your desk. You look up, and there he is. Soft smile. Soft eyes. Probably soft everything.
You panic and blurt the most neutral, irrelevant thing your brain can conjure: “Did you see that viral video of the goose chasing the guy through Centennial Park?”
Clark blinks. “I haven’t.”
“Crazy stuff. Nature’s relentless.”
“...Okay.”
You clear your throat, willing yourself not to combust.
“Anyway,” Clark continues with his inquiry, “I just wanted to check in. How’s the ankle doing?”
“Fine! Yep. Great. I can do five jumping jacks. Not that I have, but I could.”
He raises his eyebrows, visibly amused. “That’s good to know.”
“Cool,” you reply, cringing on the inside. “Cool, cool, cool, cool.”
And then you both just stand there, marinating in awkward silence. Eventually, Clark raises a hand in greeting and excuses himself to his desk, not before placing your usual coffee next to your keyboard. You thank him without managing to meet his eyes.
Your fingers hover near the cup, though you don’t pick it up right away. The warmth radiates against your skin. You’re aware of everything—your pulse, your breath, the tight flutter in your chest.
You try to return to your work. Really, you do. It’s just that your thoughts don’t seem to line up in a straight line today, and somehow English doesn’t even feel like your mother tongue anymore.
Then Jimmy slides a folder across your desk. “Perry wants you to proofread this by noon. No pressure. Except all the pressure.”
You sigh, taking a sip of coffee and trying to remember how to be a functioning adult. You’ve got a job to do, feelings to repress, and exactly three hours until lunch.
Later that day, after a full shift spent second-guessing every adjective you typed and rereading all those drafts like they were confessionals, you finally make it home.
Shoes abandoned by the door. Work shirt flung somewhere in your hallway. The glow of your laptop waits on the coffee table, your latest half-thought article still open, the cursor blinking, mercifully patient.
You settle into the couch with a sigh and think: this, at least, is something.
And then—you notice it. A crucial absence.
Your charger.
Still plugged in beneath your desk at the Daily Planet like it’s mocking you. Of course. Of course the universe wants you to suffer. As you reach for your phone, ready to spiral, it buzzes in your hand.
Jimmy Olsen.
You answer blandly. “If this is about that goose video again—”
“Relax. It’s not.” He speaks as if he’s chewing something. “Although, side note, there’s a new edit where the goose honks to the beat of Eye of the Tiger and—anyway. That’s not why I’m calling.”
“Then what, Jimmy?” You drag a hand down your face, dreading every second of the call.
“You left your charger here—”
“Don’t even get me started on that.”
“—but I already gave it to Clark.”
Silence. Heavy, jagged silence.
“You what?”
“Gave it to Clark. Figured he could drop it off, since he already knows where you live.” He pauses, then adds, in the world’s most audible smirk: “Wink wink.”
“You didn’t actually wink just now, did you?”
“Oh, I did, physically. With both eyes.”
“Jimmy—”
“You’re welcome. He said he was heading that way anyway.”
The line clicks dead. You stare at your phone for a moment longer, and then, because there’s nothing else to do, you stand.
You wander to the balcony, scanning the street in search of a man you know very well. There’s no way you’re mentally or emotionally prepared for this. Murmuring something unspeakable, you dart to the bathroom mirror. It’s too late to fix anything. Nevertheless, you splash cold water on your face, wiping under your eyes and blinking at your reflection like that’ll make you look alive.
Three polite, measured taps on your door have you looking at the doorway with utter fear, and that’s when you consider faking your death.
In the end, you open the door. Clark’s wearing a big coat that makes his shoulders look broader than human decency allows, holding your charger like it’s something precious.
“Hey. Delivery service. Courtesy of Jimmy Olsen.”
You draw in a long breath. “Thank you. I—I’m sorry you had to do that. He really didn’t need to drag you into—”
He shakes his head before you get to say more. “It’s no trouble. I was happy to.”
You step back, thumb tapping the edge of the door. “Do you wanna come in for a minute? I mean, you don’t have to. Obviously. But if you want water or—tea? Bad tea. That’s all I’ve got.”
He smiles, stepping inside as if he were trying not to track in mud. “Water’s perfect. Thanks.”
You leave him in the living room while you hunt down a clean glass, and as you pour, you curse yourself for the mess of dirty dishes on the counter. Once you come back, he’s not moving. Just standing by the couch, staring. At your laptop.
“I didn’t mean to meddle in your stuff,” he says gently. “But… were you writing something?”
You make your way around the couch. “Oh. Yeah. No. It’s nothing.”
He sits after getting rid of his coat, seemingly not believing your words. “Can I ask what it’s about?”
Placing the glass on top of the table, you take a seat beside him, your knees folding under you, fingers worrying at the seam of your pants. “It’s kind of dumb.”
“I doubt that.”
“It’s just—something I started on Saturday night. I don’t know. It’s not an article, really. Not for the paper. Just… thoughts. About Superman. Or not him exactly. More about what he means to people.”
He says nothing. So you keep going.
“I guess I’ve been thinking about why people need something to believe in. Like a… structure. A symbol. Something to hang all their hope on. And for some people, that’s Superman, even if he’s flawed. He gives people permission to believe the world isn’t doomed.”
You pause. “And Perry would throw it in the trash if he ever came across it,” you add, bitterly. “So. Doesn’t matter.”
Clark’s gdoesn’t tear his gaze away from you. “I’d like to read it.”
You blink. “What?”
“If you’re okay with it,” he says, nodding toward the laptop. “I’d really like to.”
Hesitating for a second longer, you eventually slide the laptop in his direction. He adjusts on the couch as he leans forward, careful with the device, treating it as something delicate.
“Brace yourself for excessive metaphors.”
“Oh, I love metaphors. The more excessive, the better.”
And so he begins to read.
You try not to stare. At him, at the screen, at anything. You focus on the ticking of a clock you didn’t even know had batteries, wondering if Clark will also think that what you wrote is too silly. Too emotional or abstract. Perhaps he'll want to know why you were writing about Superman in the first place.
There’s a sudden shift in his demeanor. It’s subtle, barely anything. His shoulders drop a fraction, and when you take in the full sight of him, he’s grinning, reading all the way through.
“This is good,” he says, still concentrated on the screen. “Really good.”
“You don’t have to say that just to be nice.”
He shakes his head once, firm. “No—I mean it. The structure’s clean. You build your argument gradually, but it doesn’t drag. Your transitions are solid. And your tone—” He glares at you now. “—it’s vulnerable without tipping into sentimentality. There’s conviction in it, but you don’t preach. It feels like a conversation.”
Your mouth opens, but nothing comes out. “It’s not finished yet,” you manage eventually, voice tight. “I still have to go over the middle section. I think I wasn’t that clear once I got into the part about collective memory—”
“Even so. You’re onto something. If you let me, I’d love to help you get it in front of Perry.”
Your eyes bore into his, edging closer to where he’s located. He looks entirely sincere. A sharp pressure envelops your chest, and you want to thank him for his kindness, but what comes out instead is a hoarse: “Really?”
“Really. We could try and talk to him one of these days.”
Before you can stop yourself, you lean in and hug him.
You don’t even think about it—your body just does it, and then you’re flushed against him, arms around his neck, your face tucked against the warm fabric of his coat. He smells like paper and some brand of laundry detergent you don’t recognize.
He hugs you back, and it’s not one of those loose, polite things. His arm curves around you like he means it. You close your eyes, just for a second, just long enough to remember what it feels like to be held like that.
“I keep doing this,” you utter, voice hushed by how near he is. “Randomly hugging you.”
“I don’t mind it. Not at all.”
When you pull back, you’re still half in his space, breathing a little faster than usual. The relief is short-lived.
You ask for the antidote to the ache that keeps you up at night, something to quiet the want that only he seems to understand. “Can you please do it?”
“Do what?”
Does he want you to say it?
You stare at him, and something in your stomach dives. “Please, kiss me,” you plead, your voice barely rising above the hush of breath between you, and yet it seems to echo in the small apartment. Your cheeks feel burning hot, but you don’t, can’t, won’t look away. Not now. Not with him so close you’re convinced your skin might start fusing with his.
That seems to shake something in him. It might be the first time you’ve seen him truly stunned. His lips part slightly, eyes flicking from yours to your mouth, trying to make sense of the fact that this is real. That you want this from him.
One hand lifts reverently and settles along your jaw. The pads of his fingers cradle the hinge of it like you’re beyond fragile, afraid of pressing too hard. His thumb barely skims the corner of your mouth, and you perceive a jolt going down your spine.
His touch is featherlight, but his breathing is not. It’s affected, perhaps as much as yours. “You really want me to?”
You nod. Or try to. It comes out more like an eager lean into his palm, your body already answering before your mouth does. It’s been too long since you’ve been touched this way, like you mattered.
Your thighs press against his, knees brushing the outside of his, as if you were nearly straddling him. When your hands move instinctively to his chest, you see it: the first button of his shirt undone. The faint rise and fall beneath it.
You glance up, asking without words. He doesn’t back away, and you press your fingertips lightly there. His pale skin feels smooth to the touch, and his heartbeat flutters beneath your fingertips, stuttering out of rhythm.
He wants this as much as you do. The human body doesn’t lie. It can’t. It doesn’t pretend to want something it doesn’t crave.
“I do,” you insist, the words catching faintly at the back of your throat, transfixed in a whirlwind of emotion. “I need you to do it.”
A shallow breath leaves him. There’s a thin, glowing ring of blue circling his pupils, his gaze so dark it nearly swallows the light. His other hand slides around to the nape of your neck, achingly gentle.
Clark pulls you in, and his lips meet yours.
At first, it’s a series of tender collisions, just the press and lift of mouths, as if he’s testing the shape of you against him, trying to memorize it in pieces. One kiss. Another. And another. They don’t last long because they don’t need to.
It’s when you tilt your head and open your mouth to him that he gives in. That’s all it takes.
He deepens the kiss instantly, as if he’s been waiting for that signal all along. His mouth claims yours with an urgency that feels both new and inevitable. His lips are plush, cool with mint, probably the vague trace of chewing gum still clinging from earlier.
Your hands fist the fabric of his shirt like a lifeline, his glasses knocking into your nose once, twice. Your body shifts, and then you’re fully perched in his lap, thighs spread over his. His arms adjust around your waist, steadying you there, holding you like he can’t bear the idea of you leaving. One of his hands slides to your lower back, while the other, still at your neck, traces along your jaw, then behind your ear, fingers tangled in your hair.
Sighing into him, your breath gets caught in the cavern of his mouth. The world gets smaller, somehow quieter. Just the sound of his breath mixing with yours, the thud of your pulse in your ears, the heat pooling between you like a live wire.
And even through it, he never stops being gentle. He doesn’t rush it. Doesn’t push too hard, though his body trembles beneath you every time he elicits a new sound out of you.
At some point, your lungs scream for oxygen, having grown unaccustomed to the sheer indulgence of kissing for several uninterrupted minutes. You pull back only enough to press your forehead to his, gasping his name. You’re kissed raw, lit from the inside out, and the only thing anchoring you is the reassuring pressure of his arms, still wrapped around your frame.
Your lips linger over his, and when you open your eyes, you find his still closed. Neither of you speaks for a moment. His thumb traces a distracted path across your lower back.
Then:
“You should start forgetting your charger more often,” he murmurs, voice a little raspy.
That alone has you focusing on evening out the creases of his shirt with your palm, mostly to avoid combusting. “I swear it wasn’t on purpose.” His finger gently lifts your chin, coaxing you to meet his gaze. The quiet ache of tenderness in his eyes nearly does you in. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
The words you’ve been actively trying to cage in for months fall out of your mouth without permission, but you don’t regret them. “I like you.”
He gathers you tighter against his chest. “Well, I can’t say I’m not flattered,” he says, teasing, that crooked half-smile already returning. A laugh bubbles out of him—but it’s giddy, boyish. You cut him off by covering his mouth with your palm.
“Don’t make fun of me. I’m trying to have a moment here.”
He gently peels your hand away, lacing your fingers with his instead, and brings them to rest against his chest. “I’ve probably been dreaming about this since your first week at the office,” he admits.
You glance up and notice his glasses have slipped down the bridge of his nose. Carefully, you push them back up with a fingertip. “I was always looking at you, you know,” you confess, quieter now. “Couldn’t help it.”
“You talk like I didn’t bring you coffee on your second day,” he teases, brushing his nose against yours. Leaning back just enough to take you in, his eyes sweep slowly across your face. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
The words melt straight into your spine, and before you can think better of it, you surge forward and kiss him again. He meets you without hesitation, and when you break away, you leave a trail of humid kisses across his cheeks, down the line of his jaw, until your mouth finds the curve of his neck.
“I think my kissing might be a little rusty,” you croak into his skin. “Could probably use some improvement.”
“You’re kidding? It was fantastic. What are you—oh.” A beat. Then: “Oh. Sure.” He’s grinning like an idiot now, draping an arm around your waist. “I mean, I can help you with that. Practice makes perfect.”
“How noble of you, Kent.”
Your first kiss (kisses, plural—you lost count around the third) marks a shift in the fabric of everything. You’d seen it coming, even gave yourself a pep talk in the mirror that morning.
But then Clark sets a coffee on your desk, just as he always does, and says, “Hope you have a really good day today,” and suddenly your pep talk is useless. You’re smiling like someone who knows something others don’t. Because you do.
Together, you find a rhythm. You don’t talk about what this is—yet—but something’s shifted. No overt PDA. Not even flirtation, not really. Just… little things. Things that no one else clocks. The way he passes you a folder with an unnecessary brush of fingers. The way he saves you a chair in meetings and pulls it subtly closer to his, so that your knees bump under the table.
It’s the kind of thing that would be completely invisible to anyone else, but to you, it’s everything. It’s a love letter made of glances and millimeters, what you replay at night before bed, giggling at your ceiling like a fool.
Weeks pass in a blur of late nights and whispered conversations in elevators, and work has never been this motivating. Even Perry has stopped looking at you like you’re one bad coffee spill away from being escorted out by security.
One of Clark’s articles makes the front page—again—and when Jimmy sees it, he promptly rolls up the newspaper and smacks Clark in the arm with it. “Alright, headline hero. At this point, you’re just showing off.”
Clark ducks his head with a laugh, caught mid-fumble with his bag, a coffee, and what looks like three different folders sliding out from under his arm. You want to help him, but instead you just stand at your desk, watching like an idiot, warm with the kind of affection that makes your hands feel too light.
Lois arrives like she’s been summoned by sarcasm. She chews the end of a pen and corners Clark against his desk, watching him try to stack his chaos. “You know, Kent, I find it fascinating. You always seem to be conveniently nearby when Superman’s handing out interviews like candy on Halloween.”
He doesn’t look up, adjusting his monitor as if that could save him. “What can I say? Maybe I’m his type. We haven’t kissed yet, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
She narrows her eyes. “Don’t try to be clever with me. What do you give him? Why does he only let you interview him?”
“Have you considered he just… likes my writing?”
“So now you’re accusing him of bad taste?”
Jimmy slides into frame, palms raised. “Okay, okay. Time’s up, guys.” He puts both hands on Lois’s shoulders with exaggerated care. “You, my friend, are tense. Breathe. Maybe try yoga. Or tequila.”
Blowing air through her cheeks, she finally peels away, muttering, “I just wish Superman would leave his favoritism aside.” Before heading to her desk, she gives Clark one final, mysterious look.
Jimmy drops into his own chair dramatically, putting his feet over his desk. “Well, at least I tried.”
The day presses on. When lunch rolls around, you’re still grinning. You spot Clark at his desk, half-eaten sandwich in one hand, the other scrolling through something on his monitor, glasses barely askew. You approach with your hands clasped behind your back, adopting a mock-serious tone.
“Mr. Kent.”
His eyes flick up, and he swallows a bite too quickly. “Oh. Hi. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
You tilt your chin toward the newspaper near his bag. “Just wanted to congratulate you on the article.”
He lowers his voice until it’s almost inaudible, cheeks going faintly pink. “Thank you, baby. I would've hugged you the second I saw it, but, you know…”
“To celebrate… I was thinking dinner? I could make homemade pasta.”
“Gosh, I’d love that. Your place?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish I could kiss you right now,” he murmurs, gaze soft and so full of feelings it nearly unmoors you. “You look beautiful today.”
It hits you in the ribs, the way he says it. You offer him your fist. “Fist punch?”
His smile is half laughter, half reverence. He bumps your knuckles with his own, his fingers linger a beat longer than necessary.
As night folds in around your apartment, you’ve been stirring the sauce for the past twenty minutes, though it’s been done for at least ten. The smell of garlic and basil lingers in the air, the wine is uncorked, and the candles you lit—just two, nothing too obvious—are dripping lazy wax trails down their sides and onto the counter.
Your phone buzzes where it’s propped upright beside the sink.
Clark: Hey, I’m so sorry. Something came up. Can we rain check dinner? Promise I’ll make it up to you.
You just stand there, wooden spoon in hand. No call or explanation. Just the same vague apology he's given you three times now, each time with a different flavor of excuse. Each time with the same effect: you, left waiting with something you didn’t mean to take so personally.
There’s an answer teetering on the edge of your tongue. You even type, It’s alright! :-), with the smiley face and all, mostly to seem breezy. Effortless. But your thumb pauses, then backspaces slowly until the message disappears, and you leave him on read. Not as a form of punishment, but because you don’t know what else to reply.
You try to be patient. Try to be the kind of person who shrugs things off, who doesn’t take a rain check as anything more than bad timing. The problem’s that you’re not wired that way: you feel too much. You think too much.
Turns out, keeping your brain from imploding is the hardest part. You’ve even been practicing it lately, this thing of not jumping to the worst-case scenario. Telling yourself not everything is a sign, and that people get busy and have lives.
The thing’s that your brain has a voice of its own. A mean one, which sounds an awfully lot like yours.
Maybe he kissed you because he felt like he had to.
Maybe he doesn’t know how to say it, but he’s changed his mind.
Maybe he never wanted something serious, and you’re the only one building stories out of crumbs.
Dragging your feet back to the living room, you sit down in the nice pair of clothes you’d chosen for the occasion, and blink at the empty coffee table. As your body sinks into the couch cushions, the fatigue of disappointment sinks deeper than any full day at the Daily Planet. The TV throws shadows on the walls, some sitcom playing to an invisible audience.
And when your eyes finally close, you let sleep take the shape of mercy.
The pasta incident, when the spaghetti went cold and your heart even colder, wasn’t the last time he left you waiting.
Almost two weeks later, it plays out again.
The door clicks open an hour and a half past when he said he’d be here. You don’t greet him. Instead, you remain in the kitchen, back precisely angled away from the entrance, pretending to be focused on dinner even though it’s gone cold.
Clark’s footsteps are calculated, a careful shuffle across the living room carpet, testing the silence. He pauses just inside the kitchen's threshold. “Hey, honey,” he says, a little too bright, a little too loud, his greeting threading through the stillness. “Sorry I’m late. There was something I had to take care of.”
You crane your neck slowly. His hair is damp, curling at the edges, exactly as it does after sweating. His shirt is inside out, rumpled, the collar a crumpled mess. His cheeks are flushed, a deep, uneven red, and his chest rises and falls in quick, shallow breaths, as if he sprinted the last few blocks. He looks utterly disheveled.
You don’t ask where he’s been. Not yet. “Your shirt's backwards,” you retort instead, the words flat, neutral.
Startled, he bows his head, looking down and letting out a short, forced puff of air as he rubs the back of his neck. “My bad. I didn’t even notice.” His eyes, meeting yours, hold a flicker of surprise, quickly veiled.
“Yeah. You seem… in a rush.”
He doesn’t contradict you, just watches, completely tongue-tied, his posture subtly tightening. You drop your gaze back to the casserole dish—stuffed eggplants, roasted earlier in the day—and put it back into the oven, hoping it’ll survive the fifth reheat of the night.
Behind you, you feel him inch closer. A familiar warmth spreads across your back as his body presses gently against yours. His arms wrap around your waist, his hands resting lightly on your stomach, chin settling onto your shoulder while he brushes his lips against your cheek. “You’re quiet.”
You lift your shoulder in a half-shrug. “And you’re late.”
His hold around you tightens, rocking both your bodies back and forth before spinning you around to face him. His eyes, filled with longing, seek yours. “I missed you.”
If only that could be enough. You wish you could live off the sound of his voice and the weight of his hands on your body, letting his presence fill all the empty spaces, though you can’t help craving the one thing he won’t grant you: clarity.
Clark kisses you hungrily, a low, frustrated sound catching in his throat the moment you open to him, your tongue clashing with his. His cold hands glide up your back, slipping beneath your shirt to find bare skin, and you gasp as his fingers knead your lower back, the swift curve of your spine.
In one seamless motion, he lifts you onto the counter, and the kiss evolves into one heated and consuming, more of a desperate embrace. It's almost like he’s trying to make up for every second he’s missed, every moment of absence now erased by the force of his presence. Your fingers tangle in the damp hair at his nape, giving it a firm tug. That has him groaning against you, stepping further in between your knees, pressing flush against you.
His kisses deviate, trailing south, turning sloppy. "It’s been two months since our first kiss," he rasps against your throat, lips dragging over your damp skin, leaving open-mouthed kisses and a trail of heat.
For a moment, you let yourself vanish into him, surrendering to the overwhelming sensation, the promise of fleeting oblivion. You swallow hard, a whine bubbling up in your chest as his hips grind into yours with rhythmic pressure.
A sharp sizzle coming from the oven cuts through the haze.
You stiffen, hands finding his chest, pushing against him, breathless. "The eggplants."
He lets out a dazed breath, his forehead still resting against your clavicles before you manage to slide off the counter. You crack open the oven just in time, a cloud of smoke puffing out.
Plating the food, you meticulously avoid his gaze. The comfortable intimacy of moments before has been shattered. “You could’ve let me know you’d be arriving this late.”
“I told you—”
“I know,” you cut in. “Something came up.”
He exhales, planting hands on his hips. His body remains a few feet from you, a physical barrier building. “Okay. So you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Disappointed, then?”
“Clark, it’s not even about tonight.”
“Then what is it about?”
You hesitate, picking up both your plates. Then: “Where were you?” The silence that follows stretches too long, and he merely stands there, observing you “Right.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“I’m not fighting. I’m just… tired.”
He takes a single step closer, his brow furrowed. “You don’t believe me.”
You glance at him, quietly. “Should I?”
That hits him like a slap. “I told you I liked you, that I care about you. About us. I’ve shown you that.”
“But then you vanish,” you say in rejoinder, voice trembling. “You show up looking like you’ve just escaped a fire. You don’t answer calls. You don’t explain anything. Don’t you think that drives me crazy?”
“I’ve been telling you—”
“Clark, it’s not about you saying it! It’s about me believing it. And you don’t exactly make that easy.”
“The real problem here is that you don’t trust me.”
“You think I want to be like this? You think I like doubting people when they’re kind to me? Well, I’m sorry,” you snap, the words coated in sarcasm, a desperate defense. “Would you like me to book a therapy session mid-dessert?”
“Maybe you should,” he agrees—and the moment he does, his shoulders slump, a quiet wave of regret washing over his face.
Biting your tongue, you carry your plates to the table, placing them down on the wooden surface. He stays in the kitchen, breathing hard.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, softer now. “I just— I don’t know how to do this when you already assume I’m going to leave.”
“I’m not assuming,” you say, barely a whisper, sitting down at the table. “I’m just preparing for what usually happens.”
“You’re staring at me like I’m about to vanish.”
You blink, wounded by his accuracy. “Because people do. They do that.”
“I’m not people!” he exclaims, suddenly louder, cracking with what you perceive as frustration. His fists clench at his sides, knuckles white, though he remains rooted in place. "I’m me. And I’m standing right here, aren’t I?"
“For now. Who knows if something else will come up?”
Something cracks in him then. He exhales a sharp sound of utter defeat. His blue eyes dart around the kitchen, looking everywhere but at you, like he suddenly doesn’t know where to put his hands. With a jerky motion, he turns abruptly and moves to the couch, grabbing his bag, and after a quiet clink, he places the set of keys you gave him—your apartment keys— on the table.
He doesn't look back at them. Or at you. “Okay,” he mutters under his breath. “Okay.”
“Clark—” you start, a desperate plea forming in your throat.
“Thank you for the food,” he says, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “I’m sure it’s great.”
Then the door clicks again, and he’s gone.
The Daily Planet office, once a source of nervous excitement, now feels like the perfect stage for an excruciating play, where every creak of a chair, every muffled phone call, and every far-off laugh from the newsroom, feels amplified.
One day bleeds into the next. Two become three. Three into four. Time unspools in quiet, colorless strands, and you and Clark don’t speak.
You develop a radar for him. The way his broad shoulders appear in the periphery of your vision when he walks past your desk. The clean scent that lingers for a moment too long in the air after he’s been near. The rustle of his coat, the click of his shoes.
Each tiny signal sends a fresh jolt through you, a cocktail of longing, hurt, and a futile sense of hope that he might just look at you differently.
He never does. His gaze, when it lands anywhere near your orbit, can be described as nothing more than fleeting. His profile, when you cast him a quick glance, is unreadable, stony. He still places your usual coffee beside your monitor. The one you haven’t asked for. The one you don’t touch.
It’s the careful avoidance of two people who know too much about each other, and yet, not enough.
Jimmy, bless his usually boisterous heart, is the first to notice the shift. The absence of his jokes feels heavier than any of his previous teasing. He watches you some mornings when you walk in—does a quick, puzzled double take—then looks away with a frown you’re not supposed to catch.
Your new routine includes staying late at the newsroom. Not because you’re more productive, but because being alone in the office feels better than being alone in your apartment. You stare at the same document for hours while words blur and sentences unravel in front of you.
But when your mind finally stills, it drifts to the article. The one you wrote about Superman. The one Clark urged you to show Perry.
You’d written it during a different time. A better one. It had come from a place of awe, from a belief that Superman was more than a shiny cape and strength—that he was what Metropolis aspired to be: a symbol of better days, of striving, of hope.
Now, hope feels like a language you’ve forgotten how to speak.
Today, you don’t believe in hope. You believe in a man who held you like he meant it, once, and can’t meet your eyes now.
Nevertheless, you print the article, not really knowing why. Maybe because it’s the only thing in this building that still feels like it belongs to you.
Gathering the pages, you breathe in, hold it, let it out. Outside Perry’s office, you linger for a full minute before knocking.
His office is its usual chaos: tottering stacks of newspapers, coffee cups in varying states of decay, and the smell of old cigar smoke clinging to the walls like wallpaper.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” he grunts. “What’ve you got?”
You step inside slowly, article in hand, your grip faltering slightly as you set it down on his desk. “I know this isn’t what I was assigned, but I’ve been… working on something for the past weeks.”
He squints at you. “You been using our electricity for your side projects?”
“No! I—I wrote it at home. I swear.”
He huffs, puts on his reading glasses, and begins scanning the first page. You try not to stare at him, but it’s impossible. Your eyes cling to every twitch in his jaw, every slight narrowing of his eyes.
His face gives away nothing, and you brace for the worst. That it’s too sentimental. Too soft. Too young.
Finally, he leans back, lifting his chin and pinning you with a piercing look. “Do you like it?”
You blink owlishly. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because I want to know.”
“It’s not up to me,” you deflect. “You’re the one who decides if it runs.”
“I know that. But you wouldn’t bring me something you didn’t believe in. So I’ll ask again: are you proud of it? Do you think it belongs in the columns of this paper?”
For a moment, your throat closes up. You hadn’t realized how deeply you’d buried your own opinion. You’d been so focused on disappearing, on not making noise, not taking up space—especially this week—that you forgot to consider what you thought of your own work.
Perry’s looking at you like he’s not going to breathe until you answer.
So you speak, nodding in agreement, and right after adding, “I believe people will find it comforting.”
“Then you know what comes next.”
Your confidence may not be at its best, neither is your hope, but this is enough. At least to keep writing, to walk back to your desk.
It’s enough to make it to tomorrow.
Sleep won’t come.
You’ve tried everything: writing until your hand cramped, scrolling endlessly, even lying on the floor like a starfish, begging the ceiling to knock you out. Meditation felt like self-punishment tonight. Silence only made the memories louder.
So you call him. Once, twice, but you’re met with nothing else than his voicemail. You don’t leave a message. What would you even say? Hi, I know you said you cared about me and then walked out of my apartment looking like you were breaking from the inside out, but I miss you and I can’t breathe right now, and can you please just—
You decide to hang up, tossing your phone onto the couch and flicking on the television. Static. Infomercials. Cartoons. Some old film from the 1940s.
And then—Lois Lane’s voice. The screen flickers to life, showing a live, chaotic feed. A shaky handheld shot from a rooftop shows a scene near Metropolis General Hospital. A glowing creature, a blur of silver and blue and fury, throws what looks like an empty city bus like it’s paper. A streetlamp explodes and sirens scream in the distance.
It all makes you wonder where Superman is.
He’s not flying in for a rescue, not beaming reassuring smiles, not waving at kids from the sky. He’s in the dirt, bloodied at the temple, gritting his teeth as he lifts a half-crushed ambulance off the street.
You sit up straight, your heart climbing to your throat.
Lois’s voice crackles through the footage: “—been a difficult few weeks for Metropolis’s hero. Fans online have pointed out the change in his demeanor: less smiling, more… focused. Almost withdrawn. We’ve reached out to the authorities—”
It’s physically impossible for you to hear the rest because you’re entranced watching him. He’s moving like someone who hasn’t slept in days. Fighting like he doesn’t care if he gets hurt.
You can’t look away.
The camera pans wildly as Superman lunges forward, slamming his shoulder into the creature’s ribs with a sound that resembles crumbling concrete. There’s a fresh gash across his cheekbone, his hair disheveled, not in the windswept, magazine-cover kind of way, but genuinely messy: flattened in places, curling in others, soaked with sweat.
For the first time, you’re not watching Superman. You’re watching someone else. Someone who looks like—
No. No, that would be insane. The idea is so preposterous, your mind rejects it, but the seed of recognition has been planted. It can't be. Not him.
Once again, Lois’s voice cuts through the footage, her tone sharper now, edged with that reporter’s concern she usually hides under cool professionalism.
“Superman was spotted fighting alone for nearly half an hour before backup arrived. And while officials say the Justice Gang is expected to contain the situation soon, many are asking the same question: what happens when Superman is no longer invincible? What happens when he burns out?”
Staring at the screen, you contemplate his eyes flickering up for a second—just a second—like he’s heard something above the noise. And they’re blue. The exact kind of blue that’s filled your mornings for the last three months.
Your breath stutters. The camera angle shifts. This time, it shows his jaw flexing as he takes another hit, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand.
You’ve seen that gesture. Too many times. “No,” you whisper out loud. “No, that’s not possible.”
You’re already moving, with your heart in your mouth. You don’t even know what you’re reaching for at first, until your hand brushes something at the back of the drawer beneath your TV. It’s a pair of old prescription glasses you never quite got used to, the ones you always said gave you headaches.
Holding them up, you hover them in front of the TV, and your world rearranges itself.
There he is.
Clark.
Clark, with that same square jaw, that same tilt of his mouth when he’s gritting through something.
Clark, who stammers when he’s nervous, who brings you coffee even when you won’t drink it.
Clark, whose shoulders you could rest your whole weight on—not only because he’s strong, but because he’s been carrying the sky for so long and somehow still made room for you.
Clark, who sat next to you on the stairwell that day when you felt like quitting.
Clark, whose kindness never felt performative, who looked at you like you were worth listening to even when you were barely making sense.
Clark, who vanishes into smoke and ash and headlines. Who leaves through the fire escape and returns hours later. Who smiled at you across the office like it meant something, and maybe it did, maybe it always did—but now you know the cost of that smile.
If you lower the glasses, he’s Superman again.
If you lift them… it’s the Clark you know.
They’re the same man. Two halves of a single truth.
“Oh my God,” you whisper again, this time not out of disbelief, but something much deeper. Something hollow and shattering.
Lois’s voice keeps going, but it’s background noise now, a murmur beneath the ringing in your ears.
You sit back on the couch, eyes locked on the screen, heart thudding like a trapped bird. Every memory starts to rearrange itself, clicking into a terrifying, undeniable pattern. His sudden disappearances. The uncanny way he knew you weren’t hurt that night at the bar. The tension in his voice each time he apologized for being late. The way he’d always kiss you like it was the last time he’d ever get to.
The truth has slipped through a crack you never saw until now, and there’s no unseeing it. He was lying to you, but not in a cruel way. He was just trying to protect you.
The monster finally goes down in a shuddering collapse of concrete and bone. The camera shakes violently, jolting as dust swallows the scene, and then steadies just in time to catch Superman—or Clark—landing hard on one knee.
Green Lantern, Mr Terrific and Hawkgirl all converge around him, bruised and dust-streaked, checking in on each other. But your eyes won’t leave his face. There’s a scratch across his brow along with many others. His mouth twitches into a faint smile as the crowd outside the hospital begins to clap, nodding at them. He doesn’t need to say anything, at least not right now.
For one suspended second, his gaze falls directly into the camera lens, and it’s not the kind of look meant for press or headlines or statues carved in his honor. It’s private, and heavy, and it feels like he’s looking straight into your apartment, straight through the screen.
Straight through you.
Lois’s voice snaps back into focus: “Metropolis, you can rest easy tonight. For now, Superman and the Justice League have subdued the threat.”
You press a hand to your mouth, the glow from the television casting his silhouette across your walls, larger than life, yet so impossibly familiar now it almost hurts to look.
He steps away from the others. Sirens flash red against his suit, casting ripples of color through the smoke. A few children break from the crowd, darting past yellow caution tape, their small arms wrapping around his legs in awe-struck gratitude. He kneels momentarily, accepting their hugs with the kind of gentleness that breaks you open.
You can’t hear what he says to them, but it softens their faces. One of them gives him a flower. Another just holds his hand.
Then, without fanfare, he lifts off the ground, launching himself into the sky. The wind kicks up rubble, camera crews duck, the picture shakes, and he vanishes into the sky like he was never really there.
Gone.
You stare at the empty space he left behind on the screen, breath snagged in your lungs.
“Where are you going?” you mumble, reaching for the screen. “Where are you—”
The muted clatter of ceramic on concrete interrupts your rambling.
Slowly, you turn your head to your balcony, afraid of what you’ll find. Out past your window, a potted lavender plant lies cracked and wilting. Clark’s standing there, just outside the glass. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice muffled, wincing is he gestures to the shattered pot at his feet. “I didn’t calculate the landing right.”
Rooted to the floor, as if your feet have been sealed to the carpet, you stare at him through the glass as if he’s a hologram. A turbulent mixture of strange feelings clashes inside you, and you fight them back, stepping to the side as you open the window. His boots scuff against the floorboards, dragging slightly as he steps inside
At first, he can’t seem to bring himself to look at you directly. He paces around the living room, running his hands through his hair, sighing like someone who’s rehearsed this moment a thousand times and still doesn’t know where to begin.
“Clark—”
“This is why I disappear all the time,” he blurts, abruptly stopping in front of the television. “Why I cancel our plans. Why I show up late, or leave before I’m supposed to, or text you lame excuses like ‘Sorry, got held up’ when I’m halfway across the planet.”
It’s hard to make the connection. The leap between the man who fumbles with his tie and tells bad puns over takeout, and the mythological figure on screen who bends steel and outruns storms, whose every move seems broadcast across the globe.
They’re two versions of a whole you never imagined could overlap. And yet… it makes sense, somehow. Of course Clark would be Superman. A man so genuine, so generous, who expects for nothing and finds the way to see beauty in rusted scraps and broken things—who better to carry the weight of hope?
“I should’ve told you sooner. God, I meant to. I wanted to, I swear. I was going to, that night after I read your article. You were sitting there, talking about Superman like he was some kind of miracle and I just—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “It got too easy to pretend I could have both. Be with you. Protect you. Keep it all going without having to risk what we had.”
Interrupting him now would feel like an act of pure cruelty. You see the disoriented anguish in his gaze, the way his fists clench and unclench with each passing second, how desperately he seems to need to unburden himself.
You wonder what would’ve happened if, instead of crashing onto your balcony and shattering a pot in the process, he had simply returned to his own apartment. Would the love you hold for him feel so present in any other scenario?
“I know this is a lot to process, but I came to understand something about you.” His voice holds such certainty it frightens you, because lately it feels like everyone else can decipher what’s happening to you except for yourself. “You think you’re just this temporary thing, because you don’t see yourself the way I do. That’s why you’re always bracing for things to fall apart.”
You want to explain yourself, to give a reason for your not-at-all-desirable behavior, but you realize you can’t in this moment. Not when honesty radiates from him like heat.
In the blink of an eye, he’s holding your hands in his, his grip gentle yet firm, and he brings them to his lips to press a short, tender kiss to the back of them.
“I can’t seem to make sense of it. I’ve tried. But it’s been impossible for me to find a single reason why you should believe that about yourself.” You brush a tentative finger along his injured cheekbone, stopping just before you swipe dried blood, though he still offers a soft smile. His gaze is so profoundly tender you wonder if this is the first time you're truly contemplating the depth behind them. “I’m in love with you. And if I could show you your reflection through my eyes for one day, you’d understand why you’re the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing before I fall asleep.”
You never thought this type of experience could be granted to you. The belief that such moments were reserved for certain people feels now demystified. Perhaps no other moment in your life could’ve prepared you for this.
Of all the unrealistic scenarios you'd concocted over the years, mostly in your adolescence, when fantasies of a pure and overwhelming love did nothing but numb you, you never would’ve imagined someone would love you in this way, declaring their love for you so sincerely.
The need to get rid of the blood on his face gnaws at you, and you find yourself gently tugging him towards the kitchen, neither of you saying a word. You search for a clean dishcloth in some forgotten drawer, holding it under the faucet for a few seconds. Once it’s dampened, you press it softly against the bruised areas on his lip and cheek.
He tries not to move, placing both hands flat on the counter behind you, caging you with his whole frame. This scene reminds you of the last time you were both here, the day that marked two months of seeing each other.
A day to forget, actually, because it devolved into a complete disaster.
“I got used to living with this voice in my head that sabotages me. I don’t know when it started. Part of me thinks it’s always been there. Sometimes it’s quieter. Other times, it’s so loud I can’t think straight. But I’ve never been able to shut it up completely.”
You take a shaky breath, putting down the cloth once it’s no longer useful. Clark doesn’t pull away, nor does he move closer. He remains right where he is, poised, his entire being waiting for what you’ll say next.
“I never feel like I deserve the good stuff that happens to me. I wish I did. God, I do. Perry even said he’s publishing the article I wrote and I still have to convince myself he’s not just doing it out of pity—”
His eyebrows lift, and he can’t help but cut you off. Wait—really? He’s publishing it?” A broad, genuine smile blooms on his face, almost illuminating the dimness of your apartment. “That’s amazing!”
“Thank you. I was planning on telling you, but—you know.” Your gaze drifts to the symbol on his suit, and you trace it with a tentative finger, the synthetic material feeling utterly strange under your touch. “The thing is I overthink everything. Always have. And I don’t know if you’ll think I’m crazy or exhausting or whatever, but I can’t control it. I wish I could. So every time you went away, when you started canceling plans or looking at me like you were somewhere else entirely, I got scared.”
So this is what it feels like to truly open your heart to another soul.
“I thought that voice was right, and that you were pulling away because you regretted it because you’d realized I wasn’t worth the trouble. And maybe you just didn’t know how to tell me, since we work together, and we share the same friends. Plus, things between us have been—” Once again, your words tangle, and you internally blame the raw emotionality of the moment. “I can’t get away from myself, Clark. But other people? They can walk away. And I thought that’s what you were doing.
There’s a pause, and his advice seems to be: “Don’t trust your brain.”
“What do you mean—”
“Don’t believe everything it tells you. I mean it. If you need me to tell you I love you, I will. If you need me to tell you how beautiful and sweet you are, I’ll do that too, and happily. Because I want to help you. It’s not like I can spare you from those thoughts—believe me, I would’ve if there were a way. The least I can do is make you realize that voice in your head isn’t always right.”
Some things cannot be put into words, and you simply have to act in their name. You kiss him, your arms finding their way around his neck, pulling him as close as possible as you smile against his lips, trying not to generate any pressure where he’s hurt as you say, “Shit, I love you so much.”
It’s incredible how one can transition from immense sadness to something that must closely resemble the deepest tranquility ever known to humankind. He holds your face between his hands, his thumbs caressing your cheeks with such fondness it could make you sick. You don’t know how someone can look so happy and so overwhelmed at once. “Say that again.”
“I love you.”
“Again. Please.”
You kiss him between each word, letting them stretch longer and deeper until your mouths can’t bear to part. “I. Love. You.”
He tilts your face toward his, his hand cradling the back of your head as if he’s afraid you’ll float away. “Please tell me your brain’s not saying anything right now.”
“It’s been surprisingly quiet.”
“Then let’s keep it that way.”
You make a strangled noise as the kiss turns fierce, not knowing exactly where to put your hands. There’s so much you want to do, so much of him you want to touch and skin to trace with your fingers. That simmering desire had grown between you both, never quite breaking through the surface. Not because you didn’t one want it, but because you'd asked him to hold back.
Remember that tiny voice in your brain? The mean one? That one had told you several times that you had to wait a certain amount of time before sleeping with him. Because if you didn’t, if you got too close too soon, he might realize he wasn’t into you. Physically speaking. And you had done just that: waited.
But now, all patience shatters. There’s no room for cautious stretching of things anymore, not when the man you love, the one you’ve been pining for months, stands before you
He doesn’t get the hint when you kiss back or when your teeth nip at the skin of his throat, not until you take his hands, which are resting politely on your lower back, and push them lower, guiding them up to cup your ass through the layers of clothing.
You hear the way he breathes out, a grunt caught somewhere between surprise and shock, as you shift even closer and speak softly over his lips. “I want to do it. Tonight.”
“Are you sure? Because we could totally—”
“Clark, stop being such a gentleman.” You tug him toward the couch and fall back onto it, kicking your shoes off without grace or ceremony, your heart gallops with anticipation as you stretch out, swallowing hard.“I’d like you to touch me, then I’d like to return the favor, and then I want you to fuck me. In that specific order,” you admit. So as not to lose the habit, you whisper the word that never fails to soften his expression: “Please.”
You notice the impressive bulge straining at the front of his suit, and he nods his head in earnest, one of his large hands pushing your thighs open. “Yeah. I can do that.”
Electricity now runs through your veins, each part of you igniting under his hands as he touches you. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t rip your clothes off or fall into cliché. He wants to take his time with you, grazing the soft curve where your neck meets your shoulder. As his hair slips through your fingers like silk, you clutch at him, sighing into his touch. Your eyes flutter open to ask him: “Does the suit stay on?”
“Well, that depends,” he replies, lifting his head and meeting your wanting gaze. “Does it—turn you on?”
A low fire spirals in the pit of your stomach, your chest heaving with a shaky inhale. “It’s certainly doing the job.”
“So first you write about Superman like a professional journalist…” he trails off, his palm smoothing his palm over your stomach to undo the button of your jeans with ease, lowering the zipper of your jeans millimeter by millimeter, “... and now you get wet for him?”
Wiggling your hips to help him peel off your pants more easily, you gape at the ceiling momentarily. “I’m sorry. Do my inappropriate thoughts bother him?”
“I actually believe he’d very pleased, to be fair,” he murmurs, settling on the couch beside you. His hand returns, slower this time, tracing over the cotton that clings to your heat. “You see, he’s a simple man. Safe to say he’d really like you.”
Clark teases his thumb to your clit through the cotton and your back arches from the couch. “Clark, I—”
“I’ll go slow.” He presses his lips against yours briefly, running the length of his nose along yours, your skin buzzing where it brushes his. “Do you trust me?” You nod, unable to speak, struggling to keep your eyes open. He presses against you again, this time with purpose. Slow, deliberate circles over your clit, his free hand curling around your waist to keep you steady as you writhe beneath him, holding you down to the earth. “Then relax. I’ve got you.”
You weren’t a virgin, but he’s making you feel like one. Or maybe something even more tender than that, like you’re being touched properly for the first time in your life. Every graze of his fingers sends heat crawling under your skin, his ministrations alone having you whimpering into his neck, tugging at his hair.
“Take them off,” you beg, your hips bucking up to meet him, chasing his hand every time he attempts to pull away, needing more. It’s more of an instinct at this point.
He doesn’t make you ask twice, your underwear being gone in a flash and ending up dangling from one foot. He parts your folds, and you see his eyes darken with unfiltered awe, staring for a beat longer than expected. “Jesus,” he mutters, almost to himself. “You’re gorgeous
Clark spreads your slick across your swollen flesh, his long fingers reverent in their exploration, never faltering. When he circles your clit again, raw and bare now, you jolt, the pleasure pulsing bright and fast, like you’re going to blow up at any given moment.
He seems to enjoy watching you squirm, listening to the whimpers torn from your throat. “You’ve got no idea how hot you look right now,” he pants beside your ear, voice ragged and affected by the noises he keeps pulling out of you. His own hips grind lazily against your thigh, the pressure of his cock unmistakable, rock hard behind the fabric. “I want to see you come.”
“Just—keep doing whatever you’re doing,” you gasp, clinging to his arm and biting back a moan when he kisses you languidly. A new wave of warmth runs under your skin, and you swear you can feel your blood rushing south. “Clark, I’m—don’t you dare stop.”
Your words spur him on, and he tightens the circles, faster now, his other hand closing around your inner thigh for leverage. That ache in your belly sharpens to a desperate pressure, and your whole body looms into him as if drawn to gravity itself.
“Oh my God—Clark—” You grip his shoulder, nails scrapping against the harsh material of his suit. It’s too much and not enough, and every time he flicks just right, you’re launched impossibly higher. You’re a panting mess, legs starting to tremble as pleasure coils tight in your gut.
“Come on, you’re almost there,” he encourages you, kissing your sweaty forehead. “You’re doing so good. Let go, baby.”
You break. It starts at your core, deep and volcanic, spreading like a spark catching on dry leaves. Your thighs clamp around his hand, head thrown back as the orgasm ripples through you, crying out his name with a sound borderline raw and unrestrained. He doesn't stop until your hips stop jerking and your back settles against the couch again, twitching with aftershocks.
You’re left gasping, eyes blurry, vision haloed in white. “I—” you try to speak, but your voice fails, coming out broken. Instead, you let out a sigh. “Jesus.”
He presses a kiss to your shoulder, then slowly works his way up to your mouth. “I came as well. Mentally.”
A disbelieving laugh bubbles out of you, and you swat at his face, covering your eyes with your forearm. You’re about to sit until you feel his breath ghost across your belly, shoving your shirt further up. You rake your hand through his fringe, brushing it back, hissing when his lips graze the patch of skin just above your clit. “Are you—”
“It’d be stupid not to take the opportunity.” He finds your legs and places them over his shoulders, effortlessly dragging your body to the edge of the couch, kneeling by the carpet and between your thighs, his large hands framing your hips.
Clark licks a broad stripe up your folds, collecting your arousal on his tongue, and you cry out, shoulders slumping forward from the overstimulation, still sensitive from your first orgasm. Yet he peers up at you with feigned innocence, kneading the flesh of your thighs. “I can stop if you want me to,” he says, a husky edge to his usual tone.
“Don’t want you to,” you purr, guiding his mouth to where you need him the most. “Make me feel good.”
Devotedly, devastatingly even, he takes your words to heart, lapping at your clit with careful, coaxing pressure, sometimes flicking with the pointed tip of his tongue, sometimes flattening it to trace languid strokes. He groans at the taste of you, sinking a finger into your heat and making you clench instinctively around the intrusion.
“It’s tight in here,” he ponders aloud, not sparing you a single glance, much more preoccupied with the way you’re squeezing him. “We’ll have to see if I’ll fit.”
You mean to laugh, but it comes out as more of a sob the moment he adds another finger to the equation, and you can hear every single squelching sound your cunt makes in response to his movements.
“God, it feels—” Your voice cracks as his lips seal over your clit again, drawing firm circles around it, the pacing of his digits inside you forcing you to alternate your attention. “So good, Clark. You’re being so good to me.”
It’s not that you’re just saying these things out of pocket. You’ve noticed he likes it, likes being praised. Not only in this context, where he has his head buried between your legs, but it usually happened whenever he did something right, and you would be there, praising him, telling him he’d done a great job.
His pupils would dilate a little, and he’d always shut you up with a kiss, but he can’t right now. He seems to be destined to hear and acknowledge your words, nearly rutting into the edge of the couch the more you say. His desperation sets something alight in you, and it only makes you want to explore that side of him even more.
“If you make me come again, I’ll suck your cock,” you mumble, dragging your nails lightly along his scalp. You don’t miss how his shoulders stiffen through the suit, and he pushes his face deeper into your core. “I can’t wait to have you in my mouth,” you add, smiling through the haze.
“What’s got you this chatty, huh?” He pumps his fingers deeper, faster, a relentless rhythm designed to shatter your composure. His teeth scrape along the inside of your right thigh, seemingly enjoying the noise that reverberates in your chest as he bites gently on it. “You have Superman right here with you and all you do is talk.”
Three of Clark’s fingers stretch you out and you can’t no longer think straight. Neither can you breathe, having utterly forgotten how consonants and vowels combine to form words.
This, it seems, is precisely what he intended: to have you reduced to a writhing, desperate mess that can’t stop mewling his name over and over. The questions, the teasing, all of it is obliterated by the rising tide of pure sensation as your world narrows to his touch and everything it means.
When you tell him you’re close, the ache coiling tight in your belly for the second time in the night, every nerve in your body lights up. He’s a man on a quest, who whimpers in unison with you the more your breath staggers.
He asks you to come on his tongue, because he wants to know exactly what it tastes like. Because he simply must. He’s been fantasizing about this, he confesses, about touching himself thinking of you, about how soft your skin looked in your work clothes, about—
Your orgasm tears through you, fast and overwhelming, and you cling to his shoulders, riding out the tremors. His fingers remain deep inside you, and he curves them to hit that sweet spot one last time before you tell him it’s too much. His hair is mussed where your fingers yanked it, his chin glistening with your essence, and you tug him closer to kiss him, tasting yourself in the aftermath.
Somehow, without even breaking the kiss, he manages to peel the suit from his body, letting it fall in a heap beside your shoes on the floor. All that’s left is the snug fabric of his underwear, and the sight of him nearly steals the breath from your lungs.
You trail a hand down his abdomen, fingertips brushing along the faint trail of hair beneath his navel until they meet the solid outline of his cock. You palm him softly through the fabric, feeling the twitch of need under your touch.
Now that he’s bare before you, no more slouchy coats hiding him away, you take in the rest of him. The defined lines of his chest, the softness at his waist, the tension coiled in his thighs. It takes everything in you not to outright stare, not to drool, although your mouth waters anyway.
By the time he’s lying back on the couch, you’ve taken his place, kneeling between his legs. He laces his fingers behind his head, muscles taut like he’s trying to anchor himself there, to stop his hips from jerking up on instinct.
You start slow, teasing. Your fingers wrap around his shaft, stroking him lazily as your lips press hot kisses to the tip. You circle your tongue around it, dipping into the slit just to hear what kind of sound you can pull from him.
He exhales like he’s in pain. Beautiful, tortured pain. You hesitate for a split second, uncertain—was that too much?
“Do it again,” he breathes, voice wrecked, his chest rising in uneven pulls of air. “Please… that—Jesus, that feels really good.”
And you want to please him. You want to give him everything, so you do it again.
The head disappears past your lips. He groans as you sink down a few inches, his hips tensing immediately, and you hum in satisfaction at the sharp hiss he lets slip. You take more of him, then a little bit more, until you’re jerking the rest of him off with your hand, saliva slicking your chin, your throat fluttering and eyes stinging every time he brushes the back of it.
Swallowing around him, your nails scratch the line of dark hair that leads below his navel. There’s nothing delicate about this. Not right now, not when he’s chanting your name like a prayer, not when you’re dizzy from the taste of him. His breathy moans echo in your ears, more intoxicating than anything else you’ve ever heard.
At some point, you glance up, and the eye contact nearly undoes you. Clark looks ruined, entirely entranced. His brow is furrowed tight, a deep crease between his eyes that might’ve read as frustration if you didn’t know better.
To some stranger, he might even appear to be angry. His jaw is clenched, lips parted as if he’s struggling to form coherent thoughts. His hips tremble under your palms, twitching like every nerve in his body is firing at once. He’s holding himself still with impossible effort, his thighs taut, hands clawed into the couch cushions to stop from thrusting up into your mouth.
“Perhaps—” His voice is hoarse, and he swallows hard. “Perhaps we should stop.”
You slow your pace but don’t let go.
“I don’t want to finish yet,” he groans, neck strained, his composure cracking under the tension. “Not this fast. I want to last. I want—” He cuts himself off with a hiss when you press a wet kiss to the flushed head again, pulling back the foreskin. “God, I just want more time with you like this.
You keep your hand wrapped around him, dragging your palm slow and tight from base to tip, letting your thumb swirl over the sensitive slit. His hips twitch again, betraying how close he really is.
“But can’t Superman come twice?” you ask, tilting your head to the side. He blinks, dazed, not fully registering the meaning of your words at first. You give him another firm stroke and watch his brows knit in pleasure. “It’s been a hard day.”
“Baby, I swear—”
“Didn’t you save an entire hospital tonight?” you whisper, leaning in to mouth at his hipbone. “Kept it from collapsing?”
“Yeah,” he grunts. “Yeah, I—yes.”
“Then you deserve it.”
“But twice?”
“You heard it right. Once in my mouth, just like this, and then again inside me.”
Clark makes a sound that’s somewhere between a gasp and a whimper. His arms collapse from behind his head, hands flying to his face, shielding himself from how hard words just hit him.
“Oh my God,” he mumbles, palms pressed to his eyes. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” you inquire, jerking him a little faster now. “You’re blushing.”
“I’m not—” he lies, breath catching when your lips part around his cock once again, still not getting used to the feeling. “I just—I’m so close.”
One of his hands finds your hair, smoothing it back from your face with a gentleness that makes your heart ache. He cups the back of your head as if he’s holding something sacred, brushing his thumb along your temple as his other hand clenches the couch cushion.
“You’re unreal,” he murmurs, eyes locked on your movements, still stroking your hair. “You don’t—you don’t even know what you do to me. You’re gonna be the death of me.”
Your hand tightens around his base just a little, urging him closer to the edge. He grits his teeth, unable to hold on any longer.
“I’m sorry—be careful, I’m gonna—”
He empties his load into your mouth, hips stuttering in jerky thrusts. His entire body tenses beneath you, trembling as the pleasure crashes through him, head tipped back against the couch. Clark comes for what feels like ages, pulse after pulse of heavy release filling your mouth, and you take it all, letting the salty taste land on your tongue and flood your senses.
Shortly after, everything moves in a blur. Clark insists that the couch isn’t ideal for what’s about to happen. Something about angles, support, long-term consequences for your spine. You, naturally, insist you’re perfectly fine where you are.
In the end, the one with super strength settles the debate. Which is to say: he wins. He lifts you effortlessly into his arms and carries you to the bedroom like it’s the most obvious solution. The couch had been fine. Serviceable, even, but it was time for an upgrade.
Now, sprawled across your bed, you kiss beneath the warm press of blankets. Pre-cum smears over your stomach, leaking from him in needy dribbles as he hovers above you, holding his weight on his forearms, cradling your face between his hands.
His voice is low. “Just to be clear. We’re not using a…?”
“Condom?”
He nods, cheeks flushed. “Yeah.”
“I told you you could come inside me.”
That stuns him into silence. “Are you sure? Want me to—go buy some?” he manages, faltering a little.
“Some?” you echo, amused. Your gaze dips down his body, landing on the leaking head of his cock, his hips twitching as if straining to stay still. “I’m on birth control,” you murmur.
He blinks, his Adam’s apple bobbing. You can almost hear the gears in his head grinding, trying to decide whether or not you’re serious.
“I mean it. It wasn’t for sexual purposes in the beginning. I’ve been on the pill for years. But if it makes you uncomfortable—”
“What exactly makes you think I don’t want this?”
“Say that to your face. You’re looking at me like I just proposed a blood pact.”
Huffing a breath, he pulls back enough to meet your eyes. “So… we’re doing it. Like this.”
“Yes.”
“Bare.”
“Would you like to see my birth certificate?”
He lets out a strangled laugh, one hand sliding down to part you gently. His fingers glide through your folds, collecting your slick to lube himself up. Just as he’s about to wretch your entrance, he pauses, brows drawn tight. “Ready?”
“I’ve been ready since we left the couch.”
“You can’t be joking when I’m this close to being inside you.”
“Clark,” you plead, lifting your hips. “Please, just—”
He pushes in.
At first, it’s just the tip. The stretch is instant, unavoidable, and you throw your head back, nearly knocking into the headboard.
“Easy,” he grits out. “Be careful.” His thighs tremble where they cage you in, and he slides in another inch, groaning through clenched teeth.
“Th-that’s—fuck—” Your mouth hangs agape briefly before you shut it again. You can’t even think, eyes landing on where your bodies meet, and his whole frame looks huge on top of you, the sight alone making you whimper. “Clark, please—”
“Wait.” He stills, tearing his gaze away from you, squeezing his eyes shut. “I need a second.”
“Want me to kiss you?”
He lifts his head slightly. “Are you the devil?”
You bite your lip, fingers digging into the muscles of his lower back. “What are you doing? Counting?”
“To a million.” He buries his face in your neck, forehead damp against your skin, feeding the rest of himself into you in shallow thrusts, and the final stretch burns as he bottoms out. “You’re impossible sometimes,” he growls against your skin, groaning as you clench around him. “Jesus, you’re still so tight. I don’t even—I don’t know how to move.”
A desperate sound slips from your lips when his mouth brushes behind your ear. His hand strokes up your thigh, bending you slightly beneath him, folding you open. “You’re so big.”
His arm trembles beside your head. A bead of sweat trails down his temple as you comb your fingers into his hair. “Don’t say that,” he pants.
“Why not?”
“Because—” he pulls back, just the head left inside, “—you’re playing with fire.” And then he slams his hips forward, hard, drawing a strangled cry from your throat. “I usually like how you always have something to say, but right now? I just want to fuck you. If that’s okay with you.”
It’s official: your long, unplanned celibacy ends here. Courtesy of Superman himself.
As if he’s learning you by heart, each thrust is measured and unhurried, his hips rolling into yours with a careful intent and setting their own tempo, savoring the way your bodies fit, the subtle give and take of your curves.
Your breath hitches when he finds it: that angle, that precise, exquisite spot inside you, and your legs instinctively tighten around his waist in response. A groan slips from him when your walls flutter around him in gratitude.
He starts to unravel. His body writhes against yours with an instinct he hadn’t dared show before now, his muscles working as he moves deeper, hungrier, shedding the last vestiges of his gentle restraint. You press your chest to his, fingers splayed across the flex of his back, memorizing the slope of his spine, the tremble in his arms as he struggles to hold himself back. Every sound he makes, every choked whimper, every whine he later tries to mask, you trap in your memory like precious treasure.
The moment he buries himself to the hilt, you swear you’re going to snap in half. The fullness is dizzying, and you cry out his name in a quiet plea. His lips graze your cheek, his hand smoothing your hair as he whispers something you can’t quite catch, lost in the roar of blood in your ears.
It’s not rushed at all. He’s learning you second by second, mapping your responses, and each time he shifts the angle or tilts your pelvis just so, it steals another moan from you. He knows now. Where to press, where to grind, where to thrust until your feet curl and your throat aches from trying to hold in the sounds.
“Clark,” you mewl, voice torn and trembling. A strand of his hair, dark and damp, sticks to the shell of your ear. He shifts to kiss you there and then stills, forehead resting against yours.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he chokes out, the words raw and fragile in comparison to your heated skin.
The confession pierces you with more precision than anything else tonight. Your body is still pulsing around him, hips still twitching and asking for more, but your heart stutters, aching with sudden clarity.
You don’t know if he means that night you stopped talking, the agonizing silence between you. If he means the days you went quiet and he watched from afar. You cradle his face in both hands, your thumbs tracing the sharp lines of his cheekbones, forcing him to peer down at you. His pupils are blown, his mouth swollen from all the kissing, and you feel a pang in your chest because he’s never looked so vulnerably human.
“You didn’t. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
His throat bobs, and pushes in again, quivering, a silent affirmation of your words.
It’s like something breaks open inside him. The last of his control gives way.
His thrusts get rougher, more insistent, his mouth finding yours mid-moan, and you kiss him through the frantic rhythm, through the way his hand slides between your sticky bodies to circle your clit, hoping to make you fall apart. He needs this—needs you to come around him, to feel you clench and call his name and prove to him you’re his. That you chose him. That you’re still here. That you're real.
You’re close. So close that the precipice looms. “Don’t stop,” you gasp, clawing at his shoulders, needing something to hold onto.
“I won’t. I won’t—” His groan catches in his throat, escaping as a raw whisper. “You feel so good. You’re perfect. Can’t believe you’re letting me do this to you.”
The pressure builds so fast it becomes borderline unbearable. Heat coils in your belly, every muscle taut as a bowstring, straining toward release.
“I—Clark—I—” Your body arches, back lifting off the bed.
“Come on,” he begs, short of breath, his hips grinding relentlessly. “Come for me. I want to feel you.”
And when it hits, it crashes. Your orgasm blindsides you, flashing behind your eyelids, and your mouth falls open in a silent scream, body trembling violently under him as incandescent pleasure tears through you like a searing current. Your walls spasm around him, squeezing, and he cries out a primal sound of absolute abandon before surging forward with a final thrust and spurting his release inside you.
It’s messy. It’s beautiful and overwhelming and glorious.
He collapses, half on top of you, still deeply buried, his body spamming in unison with yours. You’re both left shaking and sweating, but in the most magnificent way.
Clark plants a series of tender kisses to the valley between your breasts, the soft underside of your jaw, the corner of your mouth. “I didn’t know it could feel like this,” he murmurs, awe coloring every syllable.
You press your nose to his hairline, drawing in the scent of him. “Me neither,” you reply, contentment curling in your chest.
He simply stays there, wrapped around you, his weight a comforting anchor. The moment stretches and neither of you dares speak too loud for a while. It’s the kind of silence that means everything.
Eventually, he lifts his head just enough to meet your gaze. His lashes are damp, a quiet sigh leaving him, and with an almost reluctant pull, he finally shifts, easing himself out of you. The sudden emptiness is palpable, an ache that makes you want to reach for him again, but he’s already moving, surprisingly graceful as he rises. He glances around your bedroom, then towards the bathroom.
“Want me to get a towel?” he asks, gesturing vaguely between your legs. “A wet one, ideally.”
You blink, chest lifting with a giggle. “Oh, right. Yeah, bathroom cabinet, bottom shelf.” You watch him disappear, the absurdity of the moment deeply endearing. He emerges a moment later, a small hand towel clutched in his fist, already damp, and he kneels back between your legs, cleaning you.
The warm cloth against your skin sends a fresh shiver through you, but it’s his focused, unselfconscious tenderness that melts your insides. He looks up, an apologetic grimace on his face. “I just realized I don’t exactly have a change of clothes on me.”
You trace his jaw, the curve of his ear. “Well, I mean,” you muse, a playful smirk tugging at your lips, “we could always see how you look in my pajamas. I’m sure my oversized college sweatshirt would be… form-fitting.”
“I don't think you’re ready for that sight.” He pats your inner thigh, then rises, tossing it to the side. “Come on. Let’s get into bed.”
You slide under the blankets, the silk against your bare skin a welcoming sensation. He joins you immediately, the mattress dipping under his weight, and pulls you close, your bodies spooning, limbs tangling. His arm finds its way around your waist, his hand splayed flat against your stomach. Your fingers twine with his, and your leg hooks over his, pressing your hip to his.
There’s a moment in which you turn your head on the pillow, meeting his eyes in the dim light. He now lies on his side, facing you, one hand tucked beneath his head.
“I love you,” you say again, the words unbidden.
A smile spreads across his face, lighting up his tired eyes. He pulls you impossibly closer, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, then looks down at you. “You know those people who use songs as their alarm?”
“What does that have to do with what I just said?”
“They say you should always choose a song you’ll never get tired of.I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing you say those words.”
“That… was a weird route to get there.”
He kisses the tip of your nose, lingering on your lips shortly after. “I’m just saying. You could say it every day. Every hour. And I’d never get sick of it.” His thumb strokes your hand and you melt into him, every molecule of your being sighing in tranquility. “By the way,” he says, his tone sounding hesitant, “I told my parents about you.”
You pull back, just slightly, enough to stare up at him, your eyebrows shooting to your hairline. “Wait. What?”
“It was like a week ago.”
“We weren’t even speaking.”
He lets out a small, sheepish chuckle. “I know. But I still thought about you all the time. My mom scolded me through the phone for not telling you the truth sooner.” His nose crinkles, probably remembering the call. “They said they’d really like to meet you someday.”
“So, our first trip together is going to be… Kansas?”
“Smallville,” he corrects proudly. “What can I say? I’m a traditional guy.”
“Well, to be a ‘traditional guy,’ you haven’t even asked me to be your girlfriend yet.”
“Oh. Right. I guess I—”
“Are you going to?”
“I—would you want to?”
You laugh, pulling him into a kiss. “You’re such a dork.”
When you break apart, he’s smiling—really smiling, the kind that lights up his whole face and carves deep dimples into his cheeks.
“So is that a yes?”
“Yes, Clark. I’ll be your girlfriend.”
“Okay. Good. Because I’m already very emotionally invested.”
At that moment, you snort into his chest. Sleep begins to pull at your limbs, heavy and soft, and your eyes flutter closed without resistance. His arms tucks your head beneath his chin, his breath steady against your hair, and for the first time in what feels like forever, your mind is quiet. No anxious spirals. No fear of him vanishing now that you’ve let your guard down. Just stillness.
Maybe it’s true, what the wise ones say: you’re never too much in the hands of the right person.
You’ve been in love before, okay? And it’s… alright, you guess.
You’re sensitive. And you miss jokes, and you’re stuck wondering if it’s you who’s just not getting it. Love.
Enter Clark Kent — mutual friend recently turned boyfriend, sweetheart, and small-town farm boy. Also the man who’s making you question everything you know about love. Which isn’t a lot.
Better make a list.
[10k, fem!reader, no spoilers, one steamy scene & no other way to put this but you’re a weird girl <3 ]
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
It’s not that you haven’t had boyfriends before.
‘Cos you have. Well, kind of.
Technically, if you’re counting (and you are), there was Danny. He was your boyfriend from second grade, which lasted all of 2 days.
It was tough from the beginning. He hadn’t been appreciative of the myriad of bugs you tried to present him with over the 48 hours of your relationship. He also didn’t want to hold your hand.
The final straw came when he claimed that a pile of worms was gross, not romantic.
You still didn’t get that. But you figured if getting mud between your fingers wasn’t some notion of romance, then perhaps romance wasn’t for you.
And after that, it had been a long while.
Teenage years had slogged by. You got to watch as your friends got boyfriends—then got to wonder what bizarre magic it was that turned them into hopeless fools.
Lost to reason. Endeared by things you could never quite understand.
You had asked about it, just once. Your best friend at the time, Kelsey, had fixed you with a look and said, “You’re thinking about it too much. It’s just, like, love. You get it or you don’t.”
Kelsey and you hadn’t been friends for much longer. But you still remembered what she said for years to come.
It hadn’t been all that confidence inspiring, if you were being completely honest. Since then, you’ve been wondering if you’re just one of those people who are never going to ‘get it’.
There seems to be a lot of things that people get that you don’t.
It’s not been for lack of trying though. During your early twenties, there had been that awful three weeks where you had downloaded a dating app.
It had been tricky. It didn’t seem all that romantic either. How are you supposed to sum yourself up in a couple of photos? How are you supposed to read tone through a text?
Besides, no matter what you seemed to do, all the conversations led back to the discussion of sex. Which didn’t seem very fitting, considering it was called a dating app. Were hookups considered dates? A mystery to you.
But - and you remember this clearly - it had been the day you’d deleted the app, that you had run into Darren in the hall of your apartment complex.
By anyone else’s standards, Darren is the only boyfriend you’ve had.
Except for now — because now, you have Clark.
And yeah, like you said, it’s not like you haven’t had a boyfriend before. It’s just that somehow, with Clark now, you’re noticing things.
New things. Different things.
You and Darren had dated for the better part of a year. The break-up had been amicable — at least you think so.
Getting a read on Darren’s emotions was one of those things that never really clicked - though, ironically, you could tell that it was one of the things that annoyed him so.
It was one of quite a few things, apparently.
According to your friends, you and Darren had a ‘fairy-tale’ meeting. Bumping into each other in the elevator, his coffee spilling down your sleeve, his apology and insistence at making it up to you.
You’d agreed before you’d even really realised it was a date.
It was easy to get wrapped up in it, in him. Darren was certainly nice to look at. He had this swoopy blonde hair and nice green eyes that reminded you of seaweed. He didn’t seem to like it when you’d told him that though.
The first date had been at a dive-bar you’d never seen before, a grimey place called The Last Resort.
It flaunted crimson lighting and sticky vinyl seats. You’d been too overwhelmed and tried to stem it with a margarita - overshooting it a bit with the booze. You hadn’t expected it when Darren tried to kiss you.
It had been awkward, his lips not quite meeting yours, combined with the squeak of surprise you’d let out. But Darren insisted it was cute.
He’d walked you home (but then again, he did live in your building) and asked you at your door, tall and nearly intimidating in the space of your doorway, if you’d like to do it again. You’d barely had a second to think it over, to analyse any emotion of the night, before an answer stumbled out.
It’s, like, love. You get it or you don’t get it. The only haunt from your old best friend - the only reason you really wondered if you were missing something.
Something that made you want to get it, even if you weren’t entirely sure what it was.
You’d told Darren yes.
After a couple of weeks together, you were confident. Kelsey had been right. You got it now.
Darren was sweet. He took you out — though, those nights frequently ended up at The Last Resort. Eventually, you learned to like it with time.
He’d invite you over and cook you dinner — but sometimes he’d forget that he hadn’t been grocery shopping and would just order in.
He’d kiss you like no else had - because no one else really had - and you’d let him convince you to be late to work. He’s peel off your clothes in a rush of frenzied passion, as though he couldn’t make himself wait. Darren made you feel special.
Love. You had been in love.
Correction: you think you had been in love.
It must’ve been, you’ve since concluded. You can’t really think of any other reason that it lasted that long if it wasn’t love.
In fact, you hadn’t really questioned it until now. Hadn’t had any reason to.
Until Clark.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Clark’s apartment is fancier than yours.
It’s all high-rise and sleek surfaces, with big windows that stretch from the roof to the ground. You like how fast the elevator goes and how it makes your stomach swoop.
Clutching the strap of your bag, you watch the numbers climb as it reaches his level. The path to his apartment is memorised, even though, technically, you and Clark have only officially been seeing each other for a couple of weeks.
You have your prior friendship to thank for that. A friend of a friend, that’s how you two had met.
Lois Lane is a fantastic reporter and a good friend. She could ask the right questions, make you uncomfortable for the sake of finding out the truth, but she was never mean. You liked that. It was rare in people.
You two had been friends — though you hadn’t been sure if she would use that word — back in your college days.
It was an accidental reunion on the streets of Metropolis that had her dragging you along to some Daily Planet happy-hour drinks after work. There you’d met Ron, Steve, Cat, Jimmy, and Clark.
This is where people say the rest is history.
The elevator dings and rocks to a halt. You step out, counting the doors on the way to Clark’s apartment. His door, like all the others, is a lime-green you’re not fond of. Clark always smiles when he catches you wrinkling your nose at it.
It’s as you come to a pause before the familiar lime-green, do you realise you haven’t called ahead.
You hadn’t been thinking of that — just that you got off work early, had to run an errand on this side of town, and were right by Clark’s building entirely by accident. You’d only been thinking of seeing Clark.
Most people don’t like it when you show up unannounced, you’ve found.
You get it, you suppose. You get that way when someone comes into the kitchen when you’re cooking - or when you’re wearing your headphones and people won’t stop trying to talk to you. It makes you itch.
You don’t mind so much when people come by and visit you, mainly because it doesn’t happen all that often.
It might be your apartment; a quaint shoebox, especially compared to Clark’s.
But Clark insists that he likes your apartment more, calls it homier. Which is nice, because Darren only ever called it tiny.
And Darren really didn’t like it when you called by without telling him in advance.
The first time you had, after getting a surprise bonus at work, had been the first time he’d ever raised his voice at you.
You’d stood in the hallway the whole time, because Darren never even undid the chain to let you in, and felt slimy with guilt and confusion for days after.
Just as you’re envisioning all the ways this unexpected visit might result in a similar disaster, the door swings inward. There stands your boyfriend.
He’s smiling - a good sign for your predicament - and it’s a good-surprised kind of smile. Like finding something you’d thought you’d lost kind of surprise.
Clark opens his mouth to speak, but you beat him to it.
“Hi. I- I’m sorry, I— wait, how did you…? I didn’t knock.”
“Hi,” Clark says back, still so smiley. He has one hand still on the door, the other against the doorframe. He looks very pretty. “What are you sorry for? I thought I heard you come down the hall, so I thought I’d just check.”
You wonder if he’s done that when it hasn’t been you — the thought of his head poking out, searching the hall for you, makes your stomach feel like it does when the elevator goes too fast. In a good way.
You shrug your shoulders in explanation for your apology. “I didn’t call ahead.”
To that, Clark grins a little wider. He steps back and opens the door further, to invite you in. “I’m glad you didn’t. I love surprises.”
Something preens within you at the idea of being a nice surprise.
He’s clearly back from work early — or he’s working from home, but still decided to put on his work clothes. No glasses today either.
He’s wearing his usual slacks and smart dress shoes. His white button-up, though, has been replaced with a tight-fitting ringer t-shirt. It hugs his arms well, snug across his biceps, and it's tight across his chest.
If he asked you what you thought of it, you’d probably sputter something stupid. And sinful.
He doesn’t ask thankfully, he just ushers you inside politely. You step through the door you’ve been through countless times, toe off your shoes, and stop at the edge of the kitchen. Clark closes the door behind you and you wonder what protocol for this is.
This is a new part you’re still getting used to.
Normally, you’d take yourself to the couch, the usual corner seat you’ve unofficially reserved. But, now that you think about it, you haven’t actually been here since Clark dropped the g-word.
(He hadn’t actually asked to be his girlfriend in that manner of words. It had been much more poetic, flowers bought, a nervous and murmured ‘Please be mine?’ that you still thought about before bed.)
A hand touches your shoulder lightly and you turn towards it, to Clark, with a tentative smile.
This is where you’re unsure. Are you just allowed to kiss him? Whenever you want? Darren hadn’t been like that.
Kisses to say hello? It feels preposterous. You’ll never stop if given the chance.
“Hi,” Clark says again, and all thoughts of Darren evaporate. His hand shifts, tracing the line of your shoulder slowly up to your face.
Then, he answers your endless unvoiced questions for you, his hand cradling your jaw tenderly. You can feel the callouses on his fingers, feel the goosebumps you get in response.
Clark guides your chin up, you hold your breath, and he kisses you, soft.
You savour the moment by keeping your eyes closed a little longer, even when his lips have left yours.
Clark’s smiling again when your eyes flutter open, grinning enough to show teeth. You’re mirroring it without even realising, eyes creased and cheeks already aching.
You can’t believe it’s been a few weeks and it still feels like that when you kiss him.
It’s an effort not to get worried about when that will stop.
Clark removes his hand slowly, eyes still roaming your face, but eventually he relents. He takes a step further into the apartment.
You follow, wrapping one hand around your wrist to subtly feel for your pulse. It’s rocketing. No wonder you feel so lightheaded.
“How’d you end up on this side of town?” he asks, taking a seat on the couch.
You realise where his dress shirt is now, picked up between his fingers as he unwinds a spool of thread. There’s a button on the table, matching the others on the shirt.
You take a seat next to him. Close, but not so close to be clingy. Clingy isn’t good, you’ve learned.
You pull your legs up and rest your head on your knees, watching as he hunts for a needle on the table.
“Work let me leave early,” you say. Clark locates the needle with a quiet aha! “I had to return that book I got from the library. I don’t know if you remember, but they only had it at this particular branch.”
“I remember,” Clark says warmly, his eyes glancing up at you. “You finished that book already?”
He’s talking and trying to thread the needle at the same time. It’s not going well. The needle looks tiny in his hand. You take pity on him after the third try.
“Yeah, I — hey, let me have a go,” you cut yourself off, holding out your hand. Clark smiles guiltily, carefully passing over the needle and thread in your waiting hand.
In one quick motion, thread wet on your tongue, you push it through the needle. Instead of handing it back, you hold out your hand again - and Clark dutifully puts the button in your palm, handing over the shirt at the same time. You readjust, putting your knees to the side and folding your feet up beneath you.
“It was good, then?”
You hm, eyes fixed on the button as you prepare the thread, lining everything up. You glance up, meeting Clark’s eye, and realise he’s still asking about the book.
“Oh. It was okay, I guess,” you shrug a little.
You bite the needle between your teeth so you can align the button with both thumbs. “It had one of those three-day loans so, y’know, I had to read it in three days.”
It’s one of those little rules that make more sense to you than to anyone else. Darren hated them - and you hated that he called them senseless. It was the exact opposite!
“Well, of course,” is all Clark says. Another flash of your eyes up to his face tells you that, surprisingly, he’s not making fun of you. “I should get you to read some of my articles if you can read all that so quickly.”
For some reason, that makes your face burn. You focus on jabbing the needle through the fabric in precise motions to distract yourself.
“Why would you want me to do that?”
“Why not?” Clark responds. “I trust your opinion.”
The burn in your face gets worse. You pull the needle through for the final time and tug the thread taut til it snaps.
Just to check - and to give yourself a moment - you run your fingers over the button to check. Secure and neat.
“Here you go.” You pass it back. The needle and thread go back on the table.
Clark takes the shirt, but doesn’t move to do anything else. You lift your eyes to his face and realise he’s waiting for your answer.
“I don’t think I’d be very good at it.” You admit. He shrugs, as if to say maybe.
“We won’t know til you try,” he says. Then he kindly backs off, turning his attention to the shirt.
He does just as you had, running his fingers over the newly secured button, but with a much more enthusiastic reaction.
“Holy cow, this is—” He squints at it. “It’s so neat!”
Clark looks up at you, eyes somehow both wide and accusatory. “You didn’t tell me you could sew.”
Technically, you can’t. You can do little things like buttons and hems—but the way Clark’s smoothing his hands over the fabric, you’d think you’ve given him a brand new shirt, made from scratch.
You say sheepishly, “It’s just a button.”
Suddenly, the shirt is tossed to the side and Clark’s reaching for you - his large hands curl around your thighs, just above the knee, and he pulls you across the couch with a surprising strength. You slide forward, almost into his lap.
“Clark!” You laugh, hands on his collarbones to stop yourself from falling into his chest.
Your protest goes unnoticed - or ignored - as Clark’s hands move up, circling around your waist and pulling you even closer. You are in his lap now, with his big arms around you and his face so close. God, it’s a nice one, you can’t help but think.
He’s smiling at you and you have no idea what to do with your hands.
“Sorry,” Clark says, not sounding very apologetic at all. “It’s just, you’re so full of surprises. I love getting to learn new things about you.”
One hand on your back is tracing up and down lightly. You feel like you’ve accidentally swallowed a bag of pop rocks.
“A lot of people can sew.” You say. You shift a bit on his lap, hoping you aren’t making him uncomfortable and his hands loosen to let you do so - but the moment he realises you’re not moving off, he brings you in closer.
“I know,” he says, hand resuming its drift up and down your back. “A lot of people aren’t you though.”
His eyes roam your face, his mouth curled into a smile so sweet, it’s devastating.
Your hands at his collarbones finally unfurl as you let yourself relax a little more into him, pulse still racing. Your nerves never really leave around Clark.
“What are you thinking about?”
You’re not expecting the question - and answer more truthfully than usual. “How you still make me nervous.”
You expect Clark to laugh, but he doesn’t. His brows knit together, a sketch of concern on his face.
“In a good way?”
You weren’t before, but, abruptly, you’re concerned that Clark might think otherwise.
Darren certainly complained that all your annoyances came out of nowhere. History tells you you’re not the best communicator.
“Yes,” You nod severely. You’re clinging a little tighter to his neck now, worriedly. “It’s good. You’ve never made me bad-nervous.”
“Whew,” Clark says. “You’ve never made me bad-nervous either.”
You haven’t thought about that before. The idea of Clark being nervous is laughable.
Awkward? Yes. But he’s so sure in his ideas, in his motions. It’s why it surprised you that much more when he asked you on that first date.
Brow furrowed, you ask, “I don’t make you nervous, do I?”
In answer, Clark frees one of his hands and brings it between you. Gently, he places it atop one of your own, cradling it, and he drags it from his neck down to his chest.
He holds it over his heart.
“Feel that?”
You can, just lightly. There’s a thumping, but you can’t quite tell if it’s faster than usual - not unless you sit still for 15 seconds and count the beats.
“It would be much more efficient to feel the pulse on your neck.” You inform him.
Clark chuckles, smiling somewhat shyly. “That’s-well, uh, I mean, where’s the romance in that?”
Genuinely perplexed, your brow creases again. All of this is romantic to you - being in his lap, his hands on your back.
It certainly feels more intimate than any kind of cuddling you did with Darren—though, he self-proclaimed himself ‘not a cuddler’.
“Isn’t it?” You ask.
To test the theory, you slip your hand out from under Clark’s.
He lets you maneuver him, picking up his hand and moving his two front fingers together, up to your neck. You push them lightly against your jugular, knowing your rabbiting pulse must be thrumming against his fingers.
Clark looks at you, his eyes fixated on your hand still holding his, and swallows.
His ears have gotten redder. He lifts his gaze to your face, “I stand corrected.”
You release his hand with your own shy smile and before you can back out, you reach for his neck, two fingers out. He lets you, chin even shifting up to give you more space.
His skin is warm, with a little scratch from his shadow - he’ll be due for a shave soon. You haven’t gotten brave enough to tell him that you quite like stubble just yet.
Fingertips tracing, you find his pulse point.
Staring at the hollow of his throat, you don’t even need to count to 15 to feel his pulse is faster than normal. He’s not lying. You do make him nervous.
You’re not quite sure why it seemed so impossible until right this moment.
Flicking your gaze up to meet his, you find Clark already watching you. Like his ears, a lovely pink colour has dusted across the tops of his cheeks - it takes a second to realise it’s a blush. He’s blushing.
Clark clears his throat. His voice sounds raspier when he asks, “Believe me now?”
With his heartbeat against your fingers, you have no choice but to. Though the idea it’s just from two fingers is positivity delirious.
“I never said I didn’t.”
“No, you didn’t.” He agrees.
He straightens up on the couch, his hand on your lower back keeping you steady as his face dips closer to yours. You hold your breath instinctively - and swear you see the ghost of a smile cross his lips - then, he’s kissing you.
It’s short. He doesn’t linger, though the look in his eyes tells you he might want to.
Given you're on his lap, hand still pressed to his neck, you try to convince yourself it’s probably a good thing.
Just one kiss is enough to inspire more. There’s no other word than ravenous—which is highly concerning since you had never felt that way with Darren.
You shelve the thought of sinking your teeth into Clark’s shoulder far, far away.
And then mentally make a note to check and see if you’ve had any bites from rabid animals recently. That would at least explain the strange urges.
Clark breaks the silence, “Thank you for mending my shirt.”
He reaches for it, tugging it between your bodies. He thumbs over the newly fixed button, almost as if he’s marvelling at it.
His sincerity mystifies you. It’s like nothing you’re used to.
Having read a dozen articles on new relationships (your best attempt at research, inspired after your first date with Clark), you know definitively that bringing up an ex is the worst thing you can do.
It’s the first thing on the lists: THE TOP TEN THINGS WOMEN DO WRONG, as Cosmopolitan had titled it.
1: Bringing up their ex. Always bright red, meaning danger!
That’s how things work in nature at least, like poison dart-frogs. You know better than to lick a poison dart-frog and you apply the same knowledge here.
No bringing up exes. You don’t want to bring up your ex.
Worse, you don’t want Clark to bring up any exes.
But you can’t drop it - the thought caught in your mind like a fly that can’t find the open window, going round and round, louder and louder.
You got it. The love thing.
It had been an open and shut case with Darren, one that had left you mildly dissuaded from it in the future. Yeah, yeah, love, you’ve been in — but it had been like, sharing a sundae.
Except, you had a straw and Darren had a spoon - and the flavour was chocolate, which you didn’t like, and you only got some if it melted before Darren ate it all.
…Not your most astute metaphor, you’ll admit.
Point is, with Clark, you’re worried you were so focused on getting it, that you actually… didn’t.
Point is, if you were in love with Darren, then you have no idea what you’re doing with Clark.
Point is, that’s incredibly fucking scary.
You best start keeping notes.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
In your notebook, you write he thanked me for mending his shirt.
You’re not sure exactly what the list is yet.
Notes on the Clark Kent boyfriend experience? A step-by-step guide to the differences between boyfriends?
Neither of those seem right. You end up printing a ? at the top of the page and deem that sufficient. Then after a moment of consideration, you add the word love before it so it ends up reading: love ?
You read the first line you’ve written again. It’s the most concise way to sum up what had stuck out to you about that day — not the mending, but the sincerity in his thank you. The excitement over just a button.
If you didn’t know Clark to be so earnest, you’d think it might be one of those sarcastic jokes.
Sometimes, people play them on you — an exaggerated reaction that you’re supposed to know actually means the opposite.
But only sometimes. You’re not particularly good at cottoning on in the moment.
Luckily for you, Clark isn’t the sarcastic type. You like that he’s honest.
The first line in your notebook doesn’t stay lonely for long. The next time you add to your notebook, it’s your eighth official date together, just a few days after.
Clark had secured some swanky museum tickets, a perk offered from his job, as he told you over the phone. He’d called while still at work, the telephone lines ringing and an office murmur in the background.
It made you think he got the tickets and called you right away. Your stomach had done the elevator thing again, all swoopy and good-nervous.
The shelved thought of biting his shoulder made a fierce reappearance and you had to fight to focus on Clark’s words, not just his voice.
“They have a new butterfly exhibition, that’s what the tickets are for, and I thought of you. I thought we could, uh, go. My treat. I mean, obviously, I’ve already got the tickets…” He had trailed off awkwardly. It’s part of what makes you like him, his awkwardness. It’s so very Clark.
“What do you think?”
You answered candidly, “I love the museum.”
You hope the one he’s talking about has a mineral room.
“You do?” He’d sounded truly delighted to find that out. “That’s great, I—mean, me too. So we’ll go?”
You remember frowning at that, like he thought you might not want to - very much untrue. “Yes. I like going places with you.”
Following that had been a sharp inhale, then a stuttered cough, which made you pull the phone back with a cringe at the volume.
“Sorry, that was— something, my throat.” His voice had pitched up a bit. “So, tomorrow? Friday? It’ll be less busy, but we could do Saturday if you don’t want to go after work.”
“I like Friday.”
Then, far off, someone else’s voice had filtered through the phone. A coworker, jeering loudly enough for you to hear—“Clark, stop twirling the cord like you’re on the phone with your gir— oh my god, you are, aren’t you?”
“I have to go now.” Clark had said hastily, voice suddenly louder, like his mouth was closer to the receiver. “I’ll come by your place, Friday, 6pm. It’s an evening exhibit. Have a good day!”
Then the phone had hung up.
Then you were here, the next day, walking to the museum with Clark beside you.
This afternoon, you had been mulling over whether to call it a date or not.
Clark hadn’t actually said the words — it’s a date — not like how he had when he first asked you, over a month ago now. That had been clear.
This feels like murky ground. Do you still even call them dates after you start dating? Darren didn’t.
As you two walk, hand in hand, you decide to ask, “Is this a date?”
Clark jolts to a halt on the sidewalk and with your hands joined, you inadvertently come to a stop too. Perplexed, you look back at him, having to tilt your head up.
Fixed on you, his eyes are wide behind his glasses, something like concern pulling his brows together. It reminds you for all the world of a lost baby rabbit. His nose even twitches too.
You don’t like how upset he suddenly looks.
“What?” he says, sounding crushed. His fingers shift in yours. “I-I mean, I think so. I would- do you not think so?”
You also don’t like how his hand is loosening in yours, so you grip it tighter and shrug your shoulders. “I don’t know if you still call them dates once you start dating. You didn’t call it one. That’s why I asked.”
That makes Clark sigh loudly in relief. His shoulders, which have hiked up to his ears, sink down like a slowly deflating balloon.
He doesn’t look upset anymore, which is good. In fact, he’s looking at you much more intensely, a smile gracing his mouth.
He grips your hand back with the same fervor as before and starts you both walking again. “Yes, this is a date.”
You like that he answers your questions without poking fun at you for asking them.
You twist his hand over and start counting the freckles on the back absentmindedly.
“When is it a date and when is it just hanging out?”
You don’t look up, so you miss the affectionate glance Clark steals. He gives a hum in thought. He has 11 freckles on his left hand.
The museum peeks out, just up ahead. Something wilts in you. You wish you had another block to go, to keep walking with him. Then you could count the freckles on his other hand and see if they match.
“I think when you go out together, like this—” Clark finally answers, gesturing with your joined hands to the museum as you approach. “—it’s a date. Just you and I. I invited you out.”
“You invite me over,” you point out.
“True.” Clark smiles at you. “Maybe dates are the special occasions then.”
Your mouth twists. You don’t like that answer. Namely because it feels like a special occasion every time Clark calls, or invites you, or holds your hand, or kisses you.
“It’s always a special occasion,” you say pointedly, frowning a bit in your confusion. “You’re the special. Everything else is just an occasion.”
You’ve arrived at the doors to the museum. There’s a little line. Clark has the tickets in his pockets.
You pause slightly further back to let him retrieve them — you know you hate having to get things out in a rush — but he doesn’t reach for his pocket.
You glance up at him, concerned. He’s turned that brilliant shade of red again.
“Clark?”
“Hm?” He clears his throat, long lashes batting wildly as he blinks rapidly. You wonder if you should tell him you can’t blink away a blush - you know because you’ve tried.
“Tickets?” You ask a bit more weakly. Maybe he’s experienced a sudden change of heart about the museum - or you.
“Yes!” He exclaims, banishing that last thought swiftly. He shoves one hand in his pocket and pulls them out, brandishing them like a winning lottery ticket. “They’re here, I have them.”
The sign carved into stone, above the entrance way, reads METROPOLIS OBSERVATORY & SCIENCE CENTRE. It explains why it would be open for the evening - star-gazing is trickier during the daytime, you’d imagine.
Clark lets go of your hand to hand over the tickets, which get punched, handed back, and pocketed again. You make a note to ask for the keepsake later — you like things people often call junk.
He doesn’t reach for your hand again, instead resting his on the small of your back, ushering you through the doors.
The interior opens wide, with several paths splitting off from the entrance. There’s large, bright butterfly stickers on the ground leading to the right, accompanied by flourishing arrows. You can see into the beginning of the exhibit, people milling around already.
There’s also signs posted on a column, various arrows assigned to different paths. One reads Observatory, another Botanical Hall, and below it, Mineral Room, with a crystal decorated sign pointing to the left.
You perk up in interest and stop at the intersection of paths. “Can we see the mineral room, please?”
“The mineral…? You don’t want to see the butterflies?” Clark seems surprised.
That makes you pause, worried. You didn’t think about this — will he be upset if you say you want to look at rocks more than the butterflies?
You feel for your wrist, fingers pressing to your pulse. An old habit. You’re relieved to find your heartbeat steady.
Still, an old argument tickles at the back of your neck, Darren’s frustrated voice creeping in, and you force yourself not to physically bat the bad feeling away.
Biting your cheek, you realise you should’ve said something on the phone to begin with.
Now you’ve made Clark believe one thing, when you meant another. He invited you to see the butterflies. He didn’t mention going to the mineral room. You’re probably being demanding.
“If you want to,” you say as evenly as you can.
You’re not very believable. Clark sees straight through it, and even so, you’re not even aware that your body language gives you away, feet pointed to the left.
Never mind the fact you’re also a terrible liar - or the fact he can hear the skip in your heartbeat.
You wait for his sigh.
His hand on your back slips forward and he holds it out, palm up. You frown at it, then look up at him.
“I want to do what you want to do,” he says earnestly. “Let’s look at the minerals.”
He nudges his glasses up with his spare hand and his gaze holds such a softness that eye contact seems more unbearable than usual. The familiar burn in your face returns.
You look at your shoes—but not before you put your hand back in his.
You’re the only two in the mineral room, which is a treat all in itself. It’s quiet. You can keep Clark closer than usual.
He listens dutifully when you rattle off about pleochroism and birefringence — still keeping that intense warmth in his stare that you can’t handle for long. He doesn’t stop smiling the whole time. Neither do you, given the ache in your face.
By the carbonates, he kisses you, slow and sweet.
His glasses fog up and his blush makes an appearance. You feel like you’re having your own chemical reaction in your chest, fondness crystallising in the valves of your heart.
And when you ask if he minds that you didn’t get to see the butterflies at all, you believe him when he says not in the slightest.
You add, he asked me questions about rocks, to the list after he walks you home.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
After one particular morning, you add three lines in one go.
It had started the night before technically, when Clark had offered to come over to yours for the night. Tame enough overall, but… surprising.
Because, well, you were already at his apartment.
The thing is, you really like your own bed - though Clark’s is a close second.
And it’s just, you get finicky about these things —and last night, it had been the yoghurt you bought for tomorrow's breakfast, already in your fridge.
It makes you itch when you mess up the flow you have planned. But it didn’t mean you didn’t want to spend the night with Clark either.
Darren used to say you were punishing him when you went home like this. He’d never really believed you when you said there was nothing wrong — if there’s nothing wrong, then why are you going home?
Darren also didn’t like it when you were truthful. He said he did. Just be honest with me.
Yet, when you were — telling him his sheets were too scratchy, that his incense made your head too woozy, and his yoghurt brand was the one you hated — it always seemed to backfire. You told him anyway, because he asked.
One time, he’d called you a tease, spitting out the word. You didn’t get what you were teasing, but didn’t like how it felt either way.
To avoid this, you had made sure to set the precedent with Clark.
You stay over, but only with ample warning and a well-packed bag. You bring your own toothpaste, pillowcase, and a tiny Kermit that stays hidden in your bag - there for reassurance mainly. Clark never lights any smelly candles and his sheets are plenty soft enough for you.
Tonight, you find the precedent isn’t needed. Saturday night, a lazy afternoon spent together, and your boyfriend makes no protest beyond an adorable pout when you start to pack up to leave.
“I wish you could stay the night.” Clark murmurs.
It doesn’t sound like a guilt trip - it sounds like i miss you, before you’ve even gone.
He looks devastatingly comfy, relaxed beside you on the couch, lounging in his casual clothes. His hair is messier than usual.
You want to bury your hands in it, and let him kiss you over and over again, like he’s been prone to doing recently.
It’s becoming a serious hazard for your heart—so much, you’ve been thinking of informing your doctor. This much tachycardia can’t be healthy.
You remember it’s impolite to stare.
“I don’t have my things.” You remind him.
Clark twists his mouth, sighing a bit. “I know. I just like it when we sleep in the same bed.”
“I do too,” you say truthfully as you lace your shoes, moving slower than necessary. You glance back up.
Something in Clark’s open expression pulls the explanation off your tongue. “I just, it’s- I have my yoghurt. I got it for tomorrow.”
It sounds silly when you say it aloud. You try not to cringe so visibly.
“Wait, you’re going home just to go home?” Clark perks up, as if this is good news. “Not because you’re sick of me?”
Distress must show on your face because he hastily adds, “I’m kidding. I know you’re not.” Then, before you can worry about that too much, “Can I come with you? Spend the night?”
You haven’t even considered that he might want to.
“You’re already home, though.”
You realise that might sound like you don’t want him to and your hands clench up tightly.
Thankfully, Clark only shrugs and smiles, “Well, I was already going to walk you home.”
Relaxing, your hands unfurl. He’s being sincere. He wants to come over and spend the night - and he doesn’t mind if it’s at yours, instead of his.
Something in your chest aches tenderly and without thinking, you abandon your shoes and burst across the couch to Clark.
Surprised, he still catches you, arms cushioning your fall against him, but he isn’t prepared enough for your kiss. It catches him off guard and your teeth knock together from the force.
“Sorry,” you breathe, not that sorry at all. You’re gripping his shirt in your hands like you’re worried he might slip away — or worse, retract his offer to come over. “Yes, come over. I really want you to.”
Clark, still reeling from your kiss, looks a bit starry-eyed as he fixes his glasses that you’ve knocked askew.
But he’s smiling and he’s smiling at you. You can’t resist another kiss. You adore the little hum he makes in response.
It’s as though its set you off for the evening— Clark quickly packs a small bag, you kiss him; he grabs both your coats, you kiss him; he locks his door and you wrap yourself around his arm, pressing up on your tiptoes to kiss him.
He’s paying attention to locking the door and you can’t quite reach, so you kiss his jaw instead. Clark flushes hotly, but he’s still smiling. You still can’t believe he wants to come over.
It’s a highly uneffective way to travel, wrapped up in each other as you walk the blocks to your own apartment.
It’s a warmer night. The heat worsens when the doorman at your building clears his throat obnoxiously, making it clear your lovey dovey behaviour has an unwilling audience. It makes Clark fluster wildly, sputtering out a polite apology.
You drag him to the elevator in the midst of his, “My apologies, sir-!” so you can kiss him again, away from prying eyes.
Clark looks a little debauched against the elevator wall. You could probably roast marshmallows over his bright red face. His hands hover over your sides, flexing, but not touching.
“You—” He starts, a little out of breath. “What’s- I mean, I really don’t mind, but you’re, uh, well, eager tonight.”
“Bad?” Your voice dips into worry, fast.
“No!” Clark quickly amends. His hands finally find your waist, strong and sure, pulling you in before you even realise you’d been retracting. “It’s just a, uh, a bit of surprise.”
It’s true. To begin with, you were very shy with affection - your first kiss so sweet, Clark remembers your lips trembling.
Like how you hold your breath subconsciously every time he kisses you first. A tiny sharp inhale. Clark could write a full-length feature, worthy of the Daily Planet front page, on how much he adores it.
You remind him, “You like surprises.”
Clark softens at the memory you’re referring to, eyes shining in affection. “I do.”
“You like it when I surprise you?” You check.
“That I really like.” He’s grinning now, and he’s so handsome that you don’t know what to do with yourself. Kiss him? Bite him? Live in his dimples? He’s so nice to you in a way Darren never was.
The elevator dings, opening to your floor.
You tumble out together, with Clark still attempting to maintain a sense of manners. He straightens his rumpled coat with one hand, the other occupied by yours.
You lead him to your door, then through it.
Shoes toed off, you flip on the lights, then wince at their harshness. Clark slips off his shoes and gives your hand a squeeze before he drops it, moving past you. He knows the path to the myriad of lamps about your place.
As he turns them on, one by one, he has to duck to avoid the low-hanging living room light. It’s a relief to turn off the big overhead light.
“Let me put this in your room, alright?” he says, gesturing with his bag in hand, before disappearing into your bedroom.
Something compels you to follow and you watch as he turns on the lamp on your bedside too, coating the room in a soft amber. That now all-too familiar rabidness runs rampant beneath your skin.
“Clark?” Your soft voice catches his attention, and he turns, mid-way through shucking off his coat.
He told you once that you could ask him anything.
“Can you kiss me again?”
Something crosses his face, his eyes a little wider. He swallows, hard, and his motions falter momentarily. Finally, he wrangles his coat off and tosses it onto his bag and then he reaches for you.
“Y-Yeah, c’mere,” he says. In the same motion, you’re in his arms and he’s sat back on your sheets, pulling you both onto the bed. “Anything you want, honey.”
Still, he doesn’t move to kiss you just yet.
You’re adjusting yourself, getting comfortable in his lap, and you’re still wearing your coat. You move to shrug out of it and Clark helps, his hands guiding it off your shoulders.
It’s banished to sit with his coat. The whir of the air-conditioner unit permeates the air and you can feel the softness of your sheets where your knees meet the bed.
A hint of Clark’s cologne makes your nose twitch. It smells nice, musky and warm. It might be your new favourite scent.
You’re suddenly too nervous to look him in the eye, so you study the rest of his face. You’ve reddened his lips with your kisses, which you feel quite guilty about. Further up, you follow the line of his brow. You can’t resist tracing along one with your finger softly.
“You’ve got good eyebrows.” you say, closer to a whisper.
Clark’s grip on your waist tightens, so gentle that you’re not sure if he’s aware he’s done it. He swallows thickly and you remove your hand, moving it to rest over his throat.
“You think so?”
You can feel the timbre of his voice under your fingertips when he speaks and it makes you grin. You nod in response to his question too, finally brave enough to meet his gaze.
Blue eyes meet yours.
Then, sweeping your hair back from your face, he kisses you.
The first kiss is slow, easy. Like the kiss he gives you when saying hello. Your hands find their place around his neck, jittery and twitching in your excitement.
Clark’s hands on your waist shift, his arms wrapping around you like a hug. His next kiss, you sink into. You’re helpless to do anything but.
He dedicates himself to the curve of your mouth, memorising it with kiss after kiss after kiss.
It makes you feel dizzy. You clutch the collar of his shirt, a soft, sweet noise slipping out your throat.
It breaks the kiss. Clark exhales hard, his nose drawing a line down your cheek, along your jaw. He kisses as he goes, delicate little presses of affection.
He hovers at your neck, “May I?”
He sounds a bit wrecked, voice rougher and unlike himself. You nod, a minuscule motion, and clutch his collar tighter.
There's heat on your neck, a warning kiss bestowed. Then his lips begin to mouth softly at the warm skin of your neck, with what can only be described as a devoted reverence.
You melt in his lap.
Clark’s arms around you keep you close as your head tilts back, letting him in. His glasses nudge against your jaw as he teeth scrape your neck.
You’re so close to him—and yet not close enough. You want to crawl into his skin. You’re too worked up to know if that’s an appropriate thing to tell your boyfriend.
It’s no mind; with Clark’s lips on your neck, you’re not capable of any words.
You’re not capable of anything beyond these cute hiccuping gasps that will follow Clark for weeks. He feels insatiable, like a livewire. He’s attuned to everything you.
It’s why he pulls back, one hand stroking up your spine.
“You’re shaking,” he says, voice low.
You are—trembling slightly in his hold.
You hadn’t noticed, the same way you hadn’t clocked your own laboured breathing. It’s like you’re skipping a breath by accident, the way you do when you’re overwhelmed.
Unclenching your fingers from his crumpled collar, you put two fingers to your pulse point. It’s still warm from Clark’s mouth and beneath the skin, your pulse rabbits wildly.
“I-” Your mouth is unbearably dry. “I promise I’m enjoying it.”
Even your voice is shaky, though your assurance isn’t. You are, you are. You’re not shaking because you’re scared of this, of him. It's just a lot.
“I know.” Clark says calmly, though his eyes scour your face with a tinge of worry. His hand hasn’t ceased its soothing up and down your back. “I know, I—”
“It’s not you,” you say, desperate to steal the worry from him. “Well, it is you, but it’s not, like, you—that sounds stupid. It’s, uh, me, it’s a me thing. I— you haven’t done anything wrong, please.”
“Okay,” he says, which makes you feel better, because it means he believes you. “Neither have you. Believe me, I know what it’s like to feel like everything’s dialled to eleven.”
That is sort of what this feels like—like you’re a spring loaded too tightly.
The rich smell of his cologne, the taut feel of his firm shoulders, the heat of his beautiful mouth - all of it urges on that fervent feeling that skitters under your skin. You can’t process it all at once.
You close your eyes.
Despite how you really don’t want to, you draw back your hand from his neck, curling your nails so they bite into your palms. Clark’s hand against your spine pauses, pressed against your lower back. He holds it there, and waits, patient.
It doesn’t take long to ready yourself — only a few moments — and when you finger your pulse, it’s steadier. Eyes creasing open, you find Clark watching you closely.
The apology nearly falls off your tongue out of habit. Clark gets there first.
“Please don’t apologise,” He pleads.
His eyes scan across your face, looking for any other sign to worry, but it’s needless. He can hear your heartbeat, can follow the now steady rhythm of it.
He knows you - and more than that, he trusts you. He trusts you’ll tell him if something is wrong, even if sometimes you need a nudge. He doesn’t need any apologies for needing a moment.
Clark kisses the next apology out of your mouth and it dissolves on your tongue.
It’s chaste, this kiss. While he’s still close, breath fanning across your face, he murmurs, “Tell me if you need another one,” like this wasn’t even a hiccup to him.
You kiss him so fiercely, you bite his lip. Clark barely registers the twinge of pain, only the enthusiasm. He aches.
Without breaking the kiss, he leans back on your sheets, and tugs you down with him. His big hands slide to hold your hips, grip still gentle. The buzzing under your skin gets louder.
You pull back, hands still moving up, and you tentatively, carefully, slide his glasses from his face.
Clark lets you, hands unmoving from their place, his gaze still hopelessly fixed on you. His lashes are long, his eyes creased from his smile. He’s so handsome.
He looks in love, you think to yourself.
You bury the thought for later - and your hands in his hair, like you’ve been wanting to do all night.
You only need one other breather that night. One break from the sensations—when his long, careful fingers sink into you and have you whimpering into his neck, grasping his shoulders tightly. His breath shudders, but he talks you through it, patient and unwavering.
You fall asleep, sated, skin to skin, and dream of nothing.
In the morning, you’re roused by the smell of fresh coffee. The sheets beside you are empty and you follow suit.
Golden light paints the kitchen. Bathed in it, Clark looks sleep-rumpled and lovely.
You drink your coffee together, your ankles linked together beneath your table. It looks extra tiny with Clark’s large frame sitting at it.
He does the dishes, no asking or prompting from you, so perfectly midwestern of him. He only nearly drops one of your mugs when you kiss his shoulder blade in thank you.
You watch him, in between getting yourself dressed, and Clark blushes scarlet when you pass him with no pants on to retrieve something from your bag - which makes no sense, considering you were wearing much less the night before.
It’s almost like those days before he had asked you out—quick glances that make you both smile, eyes dancing away. You have to remind yourself you’re allowed to look now.
It’s easy. So easy, it’s scary.
The buried thought from last night rises to the surface. Whether you want it or not, Clark Kent is single-handedly rewriting every idea you ever had about love.
That old fear twinges in you— you get it or you don’t.
You decide you don’t mind if you were wrong with Darren, if it means you get it this time — get it and get to keep it.
When he’s gone, in your notebook, you write he came over to my place - which is almost too astute, but you know what it means.
It’s not about the yoghurt, or the bed, or anything else. It’s the complete simpleness of how it had panned out. You can’t stay the night and he wants to see you, so he makes the effort.
Below it, you write he likes doing the dishes.
Then, after a moment, you cross it out. Your brows knit together. No, it wasn’t that that was different to Darren. It takes another moment to put your finger on it.
You write he likes to help. With more thought, you tack on another word, so it reads he likes to help me.
The last one makes your face burn so much you nearly get too shy to put it down on paper. You write it all the same; he takes his time with me.
You really, really hope you get it this time.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The love list isn’t meant to be seen by anyone’s eyes but your own.
And to be clear, he didn’t mean to see it.
Clark is not a snoop. He believes strongly that privacy is a human right that everyone deserves to have respected. Even amongst relationships, not every thought needs to be shared. Not every secret.
He still has his big blue secret, after all.
You have… this list.
He hadn’t meant to see it, truly. But given how you’d left your notebook open on your kitchen table, and how you knew he was here, it hadn’t clocked as something you might want to hide.
You disappear after letting him into your apartment and Clark can trace you to your bedroom, his hearing tuned to your heartbeat. In the evening kitchen air, your perfume lingers. Your notebook is left on the table, open.
And Clark just… glances at it.
He doesn’t even know what it is.
He’s not so presumptuous to think it’s about him to begin with — there are no names on the paper. But, given its title, if it’s about love, he quietly hopes it’s about him.
Though, there is a question mark attached. That feels less good.
Especially as he reads the line about rocks and questions, which is as telling as it gets - Clark is pretty sure he’s the only one taking you to museums and kissing you in the mineral rooms. He really hopes he is.
It’s as he skims over the line he takes his time with me and realises what that means, he knows he should really stop reading.
Unable to help it, his cheeks bloom bright red. But beneath his slight embarrassment, something glows proudly.
These are good things. He’s making you happy.
But… then, why the list?
“—did I tell you about how when I was going by Fran’s the other day, there was this shirt in the window- you know the shop across from—”
You stop speaking and walking in the same second.
Clark’s head snaps up and he watches your eyes dart between him and the notebook in rapid succession, hears your pulse tick up in pace. The embarrassment from earlier flourishes up again.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- it was out.” He wasn’t sure before, but now he knows this wasn’t meant for his eyes. Gosh, he’s such a jerk. “I only glanced, I promise.”
He pulls at his collar, which suddenly feels too tight. You won’t meet his eye and Clark can see the tell-tale sign of your nervousness—your fingers pressing to your wrist, taking your pulse.
Awfulness coats over him. But despite that, you only give a shrug and murmur, “It’s okay. It’s not, like, bad. I was just- it was just to help me.”
Clark swallows. “Help you?”
You haven’t made a move to close the notebook or to approach him. He can still read the lines if he glances over - and he can’t ignore the itch to understand it. Help you with what?
You shrug again, now picking at your fingertips. You still won’t look at him.
“Just,” You exhale through your nose, a stressed sigh, and Clark wants to close the space between you. “When you… did something I didn’t get—or, just- like I know you’re not supposed to bring up exes, or- or compare, but it was only— Darren didn’t—”
You make a frustrated noise, hands clenching up tight, your sentence abandoned. Clark’s heart aches, more at your frustration than the mention of your last boyfriend, Darren.
He doesn’t know a lot. Has never met the guy. What he does know is that Lois wasn’t a huge fan, which meant he probably wasn’t the most stellar of partners. He trusts her judgement a lot.
Clark tries not to judge people he’s never met — but as your words sink in, when you did something I didn’t get, and he looks at the list again, something clicks.
he thanked me for mending his shirt, he came over to my place, he asked me questions about rocks.
They’re hardly impressive acts of love.
Clark likes to think he’s done a good job at wooing you, but none of what he’d consider the most romantic is on the list. None of the carefully crafted date ideas, none of the meticulously picked gifts.
It’s the little things. The quiet acts of love, of patience.
It’s evening, the sunset bleeding into the horizon, but Clark suddenly feels like he’s doused in yellow sun. Relief twines with his endearment, almost feverish with how it stirs up in his chest.
The next thought bleeds into fact with ease; he’s in love with you. Irrevocably. Entirely.
And with one final glimpse at your notebook, Clark knows exactly how to tell you.
For right now though, you’re still staring at the ground. Still picking at your fingertips in frustration, one ankle rolling to the side in a fidget.
You’re not worried about the list, he realises, you’re worried about him.
That just won’t do.
He crosses the room in two quick strides. It forces your head up in surprise and it’s the perfect opportunity to cup your face. Clark cradles your jaw, hears the inhale and smiles, before he kisses you.
He kisses you sweet, short. Then kisses, again and again. He can only hope he’s kissing away the frustration, the doubt, the unease.
There’s a brief moment where he worries he’s overwhelming you, your breath still stuttering between kisses — but your hands rise to hold his wrists, keeping him in place. He knows you well enough to know that means more, please.
He indulges you like it’s the easiest thing in the world. It is, to him.
You’re leaning into him and Clark takes the weight effortlessly. He’s messing up your lipstick undoubtedly, which he'll feel bad about later.
“We’ll be late if we stay much longer,” he says, reluctantly breaking the kiss.
You’re both breathing heavy. Clark studies the plush of your lip, while your eyes stay closed - which only makes you all that more endearing to him.
You’re a stickler for being on time though, so it’s so unlike you to respond with, “S’fine. It’s—”
You pivot mid-sentence, as if remembering what spurred his kisses on. “—the list. You didn’t think it was…?”
You don’t finish your sentence, trailing off stiltedly. Clark drops his next kiss to your hairline, his thumbs swatching along your cheeks with gentle ease.
“Think it’s what?” He hums, his next kiss on your nose. “I’m not thinking anything about it, because I wasn’t meant to see it and-” A kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Huh, what do you know? Its completely left my mind. What are we talking about?”
There’s a furrow in your brow for a moment before you catch on. Then your mouth curls into a shy smile and Clark knows he’s convinced you.
Your grip on his wrists tightens, an involuntary motion to get him closer. He complies, kissing you again. The pink of his cheeks might become permanent if he doesn’t calm down soon.
“C’mon,” He relents the closeness to step back, slipping his hands from your face. “We can still make it on time.”
Clark Kent, notoriously late for most things, except for your dates. He’s learning from you.
Fixing his glasses with a nudge, he gives you a moment to compose yourself, before he offers his hand. When you link it with his, he dotes you with a kiss upon it.
He figures that, to you, it’s the little things that really matter.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
When you return home and the notebook is where you left it, open to the love list, embarrassment wells within you.
You hadn’t meant for him to see it. It had been a mistake in your excitement, flustered just by him coming to meet you at your door.
He’d been a sweetheart about it all the same, but it doesn’t mean you can shake the fumble so easily.
Yet, at the same time, there had been something… different about Clark on the date that followed.
He’d seemed surer, more settled. Like something had been decided finally, and he could see the way forward.
Your coat finds a home on the peg by the door, your shoes slipped off.
Soft footsteps take you to the table and it’s as you go to fold your notebook closed, does it catch your eye.
There. Below the love list, there are two new lines, both in handwriting that isn’t your own. With a soft jolt, you recognise it as Clark’s.
Perplexed, you squint down at the paper.
He’s written, in his neat scrawl, he loves that you made this list.
Your heart pounds, that familiar fervor you associate with your boyfriend begins to coarse through your bloodstream. You bite your lip so hard it nearly bleeds—but you can hardly feel it. You’re goddamn untouchable right now.
Whether you got it with Darren didn’t matter. You realise now it never mattered. It’s you and Clark—and that is all you need.
Because, below his first line, Clark has written—he loves you.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
the notebook :’) bcos i love a lil graphic
tagging sum lovelies i think might be interested / replied to my snippet tehe <3 but no pressure! @spideystevie @sanguineterrain @brettsgoldstein @aarchimedes @strangerstilinski @djarinova @kissmxcheek @langaslefthairstrand
a/n: this was purely inspired by the fact i totally interpreted that final kiss in the film as clark just being so enraptured he didn't even notice he was flying tehe
Working at the Daily Planet, you - like everyone with eyes - are particularly enamoured with Clark Kent. A meteor and a spilled secret later, he shows you just how enamoured with you he is. spoiler-free, fem!reader, 7k, all fluff babey <3
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
You always hear him before you see him—though the ding of the elevator is a dead giveaway.
A glance at the clock tells you it’s 9:07am. Not the latest he's been, but it's definitely getting there.
"You're late, Kent."
"Sorry, sorry."
There's a smattering of murmured apologies being given out behind you, soft, fast footsteps, and then something is placed beside you. An iced latte rings the beginnings of a water-mark on your desk.
You look up, already smiling. "Please don't tell me you were late because you were getting me this."
Clark, ruffled and clutching his briefcase in one hand, balancing a tray of coffees in the other, pauses in his hurried motions. He looks down at you guiltily.
His mouth twists, a poor attempt to hold back a smile. You're thankful, if only for the fact you're particularly prone to your most foolish moments when Clark Kent smiles at you.
"Alright," he says. "I won't tell you."
Your eyes track him as he rounds the desk, slanting up his briefcase to deposit it. His response has only made you smile harder. You hide it behind a sip of your coffee.
Upon first taste, a pleased sigh escapes you. The drink is perfectly sweetened, creamy and icy-sweet. You have to force yourself not to chug half of it in one go.
The logo, forest green, printed across the front catches your attention.
Just to check, you glimpse at the other cups in Clark’s tray. He delivers one to Jimmy, his head buried in his laptop, and one to Lois, who hums her thanks. Another to Cat and one to Ron.
Each of their cups are a boring beige - which he’s gone out of his way for you specifically.
“You shouldn’t have,” You say, as Clark sits down opposite you at his desk, his hands finally free. He looks up, expression innocent, and his glasses slide an inch down his nose.
You twist the cup to face him, the only coffee from a different store than the others. “Really.”
Clark shrugs, nudging his glasses back up almost sheepishly. You can almost convince yourself that his ears are a shade pinker.
“It’s the one you like, isn’t it?” He gestures with a pen.
“That’s beside the point.”
“Is it?”
He’s being unbelievably genuine. As if, of course he’d go the extra distance for you.
“Yes, Clark,” You say, much less firmly than you’re hoping for. Your smile weakens it even more. “It is.”
A ping on your laptop saves you from having the sputter through your exact reasoning on why it’s beside the point.
You tend to it hastily, pointedly ignoring your hot coworkers expression. It’s not smugness — Clark could never be — but it’s something damn close.
He knows he’s right. You know he’s also sort of right too. He's perfectly allowed to do nice things for you. It’s just…
Clark Kent is a man who is too good to be true.
First of all, he’s nice. Awfully nice. Clark goes out of his way to help others.
He opens doors, is always the one with his arm out, holding the elevator, and he never minds the awkward wait for the last person to catch up.
He offers to carry bags, insisting even, then loads them over his arms like they weigh nothing.
You’ve seen him hail a cab for an old lady. He gets coffee for everyone around your corner of the bullpen. He’s nice.
And he seems to do it for the sake of being nice too.
Then there’s also the fact that… Well, you have eyes.
That is to say, he’s handsome. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair and light eyes. He’s double-take-on-the-street-handsome.
He’s a gentleman too, polite and never overstepping. In fact, sometimes you think he’s loud on purpose, rustling as he moves about so he never accidentally catches you off guard.
That combination— the kindness of his character and his attractive appearance —is killer to a girl like you.
And anyone with eyes and a brain, in your humble opinion.
It’s why you’re also 100% sure, without even asking, that he’s already snatched up and locked down.
A man like that, single? In Metropolis? Ha!
Nevermind that he’s never technically mentioned a partner. Clark’s on the reserved side. You know about the same as everyone else; a small town farm boy from Kansas turned big city journalist.
Though, he did mention he was looking after his cousin’s dog to you the other week—after he caught you scrolling the SPCA’s page. You wonder how many people he’s told that to.
Wordlessly, you glance up, peering over the dividers between desks.
Clark’s engaged in his work, as you should be, a furrow between his brows. Despite all that you’ve just outlined, despite him being your coworker, there’s still a tug. You can’t resist the daydream.
Besides, there’s no real harm in a sweet and secret work crush.
No harm other than to perhaps your own ego—which happens every time you catch yourself mooning over him like a muppet.
Nose twitching, you force your eyes down. A new email slides onto your screen, blinking its high priority at you. You sigh, resisting the urge to look back up. It’s a fun daydream, but you have work to do.
You take another sip of your coffee — and in doing so, miss the gaze that lingers on your lips.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Living in Metropolis, two things are a given for all citizens.
1. Some part of your life has been interrupted by intergalactic aliens and 2. You have an opinion on Superman.
These two things usually go hand-in-hand, often when the first thing crashes into your life, forcing the second.
Though, in your experience, most Metropolitans have a handful of words prepared on whether the metahuman is more menace or hero.
As a journalist yourself, you’re surprisingly middle of the road.
Alien attacks suck. Superman does his best to intervene, saving people first, buildings second. Fallout is mitigated, but ultimately inevitable.
You see more of it than usual. You’re the Daily Planet’s man on the ground — out in the fray, it’s generally your notes that veto whatever else is circulating around the news hubbub; Superman action included.
Of course, you’ve not quite managed to snag an interview with the man himself.
That is a Clark Kent exclusive, which infuriates you just a smidge. You suppose it’s good for Superman that Clark favours painting him in a good light.
Today, you’re not even out for a Superman-esque story — your tape-recorder, an old-school thing, whirs loudly on the table to get a quote from the Mayor’s office — but as you track the meteor heading straight for a skyscraper, you figure it’s just one of those days.
“Please excuse me,” You say, reaching out to pause your tape.
The man before you, focus stolen and solely on the incoming meteor through the window, doesn’t respond. His mouth has opened a fraction, in surprise.
You figure he’ll understand you stepping out.
The door chime announces your exit and you get a closer look at today’s threat.
The meteor is a concerning flaming purple colour. A trail, dark and murky, traces its path in the sky. If you strain your ears, you can hear it—a faint whistle, like a shriek picking up volume as it approaches.
You don’t bother taking notes. There’ll be footage streamed online within the minute.
Pocketing your tape-recorder, you straighten your jacket and try to map the trajectory. You squint.
If you had to bet money, you’d guess it’s heading straight for the Harmony block apartments on 7th St - if it’s not intercepted, that is.
Sniffing for the story, you tuck your hands in your pockets and begin to head in that direction.
Dotted throughout the street, people have begun to stop and stare, their worried mutters paired with pointed fingers. Cars screech to a halt and impatient drivers honk their unhappiness.
An odd apprehension tinges the air. A nervous hush settles down amongst the streets.
You wind through the crowds of people easily, keeping a close eye on the violet-coloured projectile. You don’t want to get too close. You’re not stupid — you just need to get close enough to scrape together the important details.
Regular ol’ meteor? Intergalactic version of a catapult flung towards Earth with intent to harm?
Your brows furrow in thought, mind whirring, as you sidestep a halted couple, murmuring your excuse me’s.
Without taking your eyes off the meteor, you fumble around to find your notepad in your bag, You hand bangs against your tape-recorder in your pocket, hitting record.
“Well, what is it?” An older lady remarks.
She’s too blind to see it properly you’d guess, evidenced by her thick-glasses and heavy squint. “Some sort of bird?”
“It’s definitely not a plane,” Someone else in the crowd mutters.
The shriek of the meteor gets louder, its burn transforming to an auburn colour as it tears through the atmosphere. You’re just a couple blocks away from Harmony apartments when you hear it, a familiar sonic boom! that sets you stumbling for a moment.
Something has taken flight.
Just in time as well. An awful crackling noise has pierced through the shrieking of the meteor. Shimmers of light, brighter than the flaming auburn, begin to reach out from within the rock like stretched out fingers.
It’s at this point you have the sense to stop walking toward it.
And as if on cue, the meteor fractures with a loud burst.
The structure crumbles, torn into a handful of pieces and they quickly careen out in various directions. They’re faster now, propelled by the delayed blast.
“Shit.” you say astutely.
There’s a funny thing about things falling right in your line of vision; they can appear to stop moving completely.
You watch, perplexed, as a large chunk of the meteor seems to hover in place, then rise up, then slowly, slowly it dawns on you that it’s rapidly growing in size. You realise with a spike of horror that it’s heading right for you.
“Shit.” you say again, more panicked this time.
This is not what you meant when you said you’re out in the fray. Feet backtracking, you stumble over yourself before realising going backward isn’t your best bet.
You course-correct, before finally realising you aren’t the only one in the crosshairs of this rogue rock.
Your head whips around, left to right. People are staring at the incoming meteor, but not enough have realised what you already had.
“Move,” you say, too quietly. People can’t seem to break their horrified stares. The strange roar of the meteor deafens as it gets closer.
“Move! Everybody move!”
Something in your voice overrides their frozen instincts. A frantic energy surges through the crowd around you, people beginning to move with haste, bleating their fear.
You swallow your relief as the space begins to clear out and you follow them closely, casting another glance around.
Your gaze catches.
A lone child stands in the middle of the rapidly clearing street, a little girl swathed in maroon and confusion. Her little face searches for the reason for the obvious distress washing over the street, despair beginning to sink in.
Limbs freezing, your eyes comb through the crowd desperately, hoping to spot a parent fighting their way back to them - to no avail.
Horror shoves up your throat at the thought of her alone, waiting, unaware of the danger. You move without thinking.
You manage all of one step, then there’s a blur of blue that stops you. Suddenly, the girl is right before you - and so is Superman.
“Hello.” He says politely.
“Hi.” you breathe.
He’s got one hand on the shoulder of the kid, who’s torn between the shock of travelling at super-speed and seeing Superman himself. Her distress has been wiped away by awe.
He looks back up at you. “I trust I can leave this little one with you til the danger is past?”
“Hi.” you say again, foolishly. Your face flames. “I mean- yes, you can.”
When you look back on this interaction, you’ll undoubtedly be beyond embarrassed. Sue you, you’ve never seen Superman up close before.
Superman smiles again, this time his perfect grin on display. He scans the street around you diligently, sweeping for danger.
“You did a terrific job clearing out the street.”
His focus locks onto the now much closer threat with a more serious expression. You secretly take the moment to appreciate the sharp line of his jaw.
“Now, I’ll be right back,” He assures, looking first at the kid, then up to you. You wonder if his curl just does that. “And then we can find this one’s parents together.”
And with a final friendly squeeze on the kid’s shoulder, he turns and launches into flight, heading right for the incoming meteor.
The next few minutes are a bit of daze after that. You snatch moments of the chaos in the sky as Superman juggles between the pieces of the meteor.
It’s unclear if the plan is to let them ground, but given their hideous continued shrieks, you’re rather relieved when he bats them back up into the atmosphere.
Huh, you think, almost amusedly; it’s almost like superpowered baseball.
Just as they had arrived, the pieces streak back up into the sky, their awful shrieks fading as they disappear from view. You spot a familiar blur tracing their paths. Keeping them out of airspace, no doubt.
The girl, who had taken your hand the moment you offered it, still holds it tightly.
“Is he coming back?”
You turn and smile down at her, stooping down to match her height. Truth is, you’re not sure - but Superman seems like a man of his word.
“He said he would be.” You hope that’s assurance enough. “What’s your name?”
“Maisie.” She tells you, smiling enough to show off a slight snaggle-tooth. Adorable.
“That’s a wonderful name,” You say genuinely. “Who were you with today? Who might be looking for you, hm?”
Somewhere across the city, an ambulance siren wails its cry. The crowds are dispersing from their panic, people getting back on track with the danger now averted. This is Metropolis, after all.
Maisie rattles off how she had been with her aunt, ‘cos it’s Tuesday and she spends every Tuesday with her aunt Tess, and they were on their way to get lunch at Alma’s, ‘cos they always get Alma’s on a Tuesday.
It’s a sandwich store only 2 blocks away. She points with a finger in the general direction.
“Hmm,” You hum, following her finger. “I bet if I was your aunt Tess, I would’ve gone to Alma’s to see if you were there. Do you think we should go see if she’s there?”
Maisie nods, her loose pigtails flying with the motion.
“But what about Superman?” She says before you can straighten up.
“Right here.”
You jump a little, having not heard his arrival. Superman at least has the decency to offer you a sheepish look as he steps up on the other side of Maisie, already offering her a hand.
“Alright there, Miss?” He asks her seriously. She openly gawps up at him and nods faintly, her mouth open.
He smiles. “Great.”
His eyes flick up to meet yours intently. “And you, Miss? I think I can handle getting Maisie here back to where she belongs, if you have somewhere else you need to be.”
Maisie’s petite head swings around to face you. She hasn’t let go of your hand. Or closed her mouth. You think she’s even more starstruck that Superman knows her name.
“Y’know, I think I’d like to see her back into safe hands if that’s alright?”
Something flits across Superman’s expression, but he still only smiles and nods. “Two chaperones are certainly better than one.”
So, the three of you walk the two blocks to Alma’s, with both of Maisie’s hands held the whole way. Aunt Tess is tearfully relieved at her safe return and when she blubbers her thank-you’s, you’re surprised when Superman redirects them to you.
“I had help today,” he says.
Between the sincere thankfulness from Aunt Tess and the warm look from Superman, it’s a challenge not to fluster too much.
Maisie waves goodbye to both of you, her little hands still going wildly as she rounds the corner out of sight — and you can’t help but chuckle.
“Thank you for taking good care of her,” says Superman.
You turn and blink, half-surprised he’s still here.
He surely must be busy with, like, …hero stuff, right? But still, he’s taking the time to thank you.
“Of course.” You say. The words stammer a bit as you’re taken aback by his sincerity.
You find he has a very intense gaze when it’s fixed solely on you.
“Not everyone would have stayed with her the whole time. Or stepped in to begin with.” He commends. “It was brave of you to put yourself in danger to help her, so thank you.”
Now you’re really stunned. You flounder for words and end up biting your tongue so nothing stupid comes out.
In the end, you just say, “Of course.” again.
That makes him smile again. Dimples press into his cheeks. It’s enough to threaten to make you swoon.
“Take care of yourself, y/n.” He nods to you, then steps back and readies himself to fly once more.
“Wait,” The sound of your name pulls you up short. “How do you know my name?”
“It’s, uh, on your case.” He nods to it.
Any other questions are swallowed up by the howl of the wind, air tunnelling around him loudly as he abruptly takes flight. He turns to a blur and you watch the sky, even when there’s nothing left to watch.
The street around you dims, softened, and then its noise filters back in slowly. Cars droning, traffic lights flicking, the murmur of conversation. You hadn’t realised how much all of that had quietened with Superman’s attention on you.
For a long moment, you’re simply stumped on how to feel.
If one’s things for sure, you have a much more concrete opinion on Superman than you did this morning — though nothing you can quite put a finger on.
Admiration? Maybe.
Something else twinges in there, unbidden.
You slip your hands into your pockets to mull it over, surprised when your hand bumps into something unexpected. Curling your fingers around it, you pull it out.
Still whirring away, your tape-recorder sits in the palm of your hand, record button blinking.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
“Take care of yourself, y/n.”
The tape clicks as it pauses, then revolves back with a scribbling sound.
“Take care of yourself, y/n.”
You hit pause, then hit rewind. Your finger hovers over the play button, contemplating if you’re really going to listen to this part of the tape over and over like a lovesick teenage girl.
You certainly feel like one. The tape must be wearing thin by this point.
Eyes screwing shut, you hit play.
“Take care of yourself, y/n.”
Hitting pause, you groan. You chuck the tape softly to the other end of the couch you’re draped across so you can’t be tempted to play it once more. Then you bury your face in your hands.
“This is getting pathetic.” you mumble to yourself.
The rogue meteor and your subsequent brush with Superman had occurred two whole days ago.
You’re rather thankful it had all gone down on a Friday. It has certainly given you ample time to waste. All of yesterday and today has been spent on that god forsaken tape and the graininess of Superman’s voice.
The audio was a little muffled, given the device had been pocketed away. There’s lots of rustling, louder than anything else, when you’d been running.
But your whole easy conversation with Maisie as she dawdled her way to Alma’s had been captured — including her a million questions for Superman, that he’d dutifully answered.
That’s not quite the part you’re stuck on though.
Sighing, you deflate into the couch. The image of his dimples, his smile, floats in. You have to mentally bat it away.
Man, why do you feel almost like you’re betraying your crush on Clark right now?
You drag your hands away and huff again at your own dramatics. There’s no betraying. Those crushes fall into the exact same box: unfathomable and impossible.
Sitting up, your eyes fall on the tape recorder. You regard it thoughtfully for a moment.
Beyond the selfish reasons you’ve been abusing the tape, there’s also the question of using it for an article. The idea has been circling your mind since Friday, since your first listen.
There’s a reason you’re the man on the ground. Sure, you can write but, well, you’re not quite top quality like Jimmy or Clark or Lois.
This one though, this tape, has you particularly inspired.
Plus, you’re not exactly jazzed at the idea of passing off the recording to one of your coworkers.
Jimmy? He’d probably latch onto your part in it all, some Superman-inspires-citizen-to-do-good angle. The thought makes your nose wrinkle - you don’t want to be the focal point.
Clark? Who already got Superman interviews? It’s hardly worth his time.
And Lois? No chance you’d turn the tape over to her. She’s so sharp, she’d probably notice the scratch in the audio from where you’ve paused and rewound — and then you’d never know peace.
Given your choices, or lack thereof, it really only leaves you with one last option.
Feeling more set than you have all weekend, you push up off the couch and retrieve your laptop. You settle it in your lap and get comfy, folding the screen up.
After a moment, you lean across and grab the tape recorder too, rewinding once more — this time from the very beginning.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
If someone were to describe you, you bet they'd say that today, you have a pep in your step. And screw it, maybe you do!
It's not every day that you get an article published in the Daily Planet, not with your more lackey-level job on the ground.
But it's more than that too. Not only is it published, but it's on the second page.
For some, that's all in a day's work. For you? It's nothing to sneeze at.
It's your most prolific article published to date in your whole year of working at the Daily Planet. You suppose you have some great inspiration to thank for that
And some of your coworkers are kind enough to take notice of your milestone.
Cat had squealed excitedly her congrats in the elevator earlier, whilst Jimmy had given you a nod of approval from across the bullpen. You're practically walking on air as you drop down into your seat.
For a change, Clark isn't late today.
Glimpsing the time, you watch him subtly out the corner of your eye as he spends the last few free minutes dropping a round of coffee.
The crush in you aches. You bury your yearning beneath your best attempt at looking busy, studying your computer screen.
It's broken instantly when Clark sits across from you and your eyes flit up at the movement.
He's already looking at you. With both hands on the cup, he holds your regular iced latte and presents it forward like a precious gift.
To you, it is. You wonder if it's written on your face, with how you can't bite back your smile.
"I'm sorry I can't get something better to celebrate with." He says as you relieve him of the cup. The condensation clings to your fingers, but you can only focus on the brush of his fingers.
"Celebrate?"
Clark's brow furrows. He regards you with a look that says you know what.
"It's only second page." You downplay.
Like you hadn't done a little dance when you got the email that Perry had greenlit it for the second page.
"Only?" Clark exclaims. If you didn't know better, you'd have no idea he'd copped multiple front page articles for the Planet. "C'mon, you must have some plans for a celebration."
If you're being honest, said plans included curling up on your couch and gorging yourself on Chinese food. Not quite a celebration, but still a treat for you.
"Not really." You admit honestly. The attention from him is making you bashful - and truthful.
Clark shakes his head at that. He plants his hands on the desk and leans forward, looking at you seriously over the rim of his glasses. "That just won't do. Let's do dinner."
After a moment, he seems to realise how pushy that might seem. Clearly (and thankfully), your glee is well-hidden as he retracts in a bit, sitting a bit straighter.
"I mean, that is- if you'd like. Would you?" He clears his throat. "Like to go to dinner?"
You have to wrestle to keep the grin from splitting on your face. Magically, you muster the calm to take a sip of your coffee, pretending to mull it over.
Across the desk, Clark pushes his glasses up his nose - almost nervously.
You get struck with the sudden thought that perhaps, crazily, your crush might not be as one-sided as you once thought.
"I meeean," You drag out the word as if you're still tossing it up. "I was pretty set on the #4 combo from Mr. Go's on my block."
Screw being a journalist, you should be an actor given the little twitch of Clark's brow. You don't let him stew for more than a moment.
"So, you could maybe join?" You offer, nearly holding your breath. "Come to mine?"
Your heart threatens to turn itself inside out from nerves. Somehow, Clark manages to sit up even straighter. He huffs out a breath, then he's grinning, dimples on show. He nods severely.
"To celebrate." He tacks on.
One of his hands has drifted up to fiddle with his tie, but you can't tell if it's tighten or loosen it.
"To celebrate." You agree with a nod. You have to press your lips together to contain your grin. It's a battle you're happy to lose.
And if you spend the rest of the day catching each other's eyes across the desk? That's your own damn business.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
"I can't believe I've never heard of this place before!"
You laugh around your forkful of noodles at Clark's earnest excitement. He's had his first bite of food, and it's quickly been followed by his second, third, and fourth.
He looks up at you from the other side of your couch, eyes wide. "This has gotta be, like, Metropolis' best kept secret."
You laugh again and press a finger to your lips. That makes Clark laugh and the sound makes you feel a bit drunk.
He looks devastatingly at home on your couch. His suit jacket had been shed during your walk from the Planet, his tie loosened and stashed in his bag when you sat down to tuck into your food.
Now he sits, his sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up. The top button or two of his dress shirt have been undone.
You're nearly undone with it.
This is nothing like the Clark you've gotten to know at work, proper and kept. Sitting in your space, he's casual. Relaxed. Domestic.
It's not a stretch to imagine doing this every night.
It's a particularly nice evening too — even the sunset had tinted the colour of love on your walk back to your apartment, reds fading to a blush pink. Clark had held all the food at his own insistence.
The evening is darker now. A coolness blankets your apartment, amber streetlights reaching through the windows. There's some show playing on your television, but it's on low, barely a murmur.
"Last wonton?" Clark says, holding out the box. "It is your celebration night, after all."
Right. It hasn't felt much like a celebration— mainly because it's been feeling like a date.
It occurs to you that that feeling might not be mutual. You spear the wonton with your fork to give you something to swallow the bad feeling that thought gives you.
You've barely started chewing when Clark starts moving, gathering the plates from your coffee table.
"You don't have tuh—" You protest through your mouthful before you think the better of it.
Clark's already waving you off. The plates quickly form a tall stack and he scoops them up with one hand with remarkable ease.
"Please," He smiles. "I’ve left you with your share.”
He nods to the one plate and one fork still in use in your lap. Then he’s winding his way through the doorway to your kitchen before you can protest further — as if he owns the place!
You chew furiously through your wonton. "Don't do them all before I can help!"
No response beyond a laugh that makes you feel a bit melty. You slow your jaw, enjoying the food, and savouring the swallow.
You sit for a moment, soaking in the moment built around you. He’s here, in your space, and he’s taking care of you - seemingly quite happy to do so.
You’re reaching dangerous levels of hope now.
The plate clinks as you stack the fork atop it, climbing to your feet. You trace Clark’s footsteps to the kitchen.
He’s running the sink, bubbles foaming up in little tufts. He’s already rolled his sleeves back further, exposing the strong muscles in his forearm. His hands hidden are beneath the water, soaking your blue sponge and when he wrings it out, it manages to look extra tiny in his grip.
You take a moment to send a prayer for strength. Or luck. Insane luck. You’ll take either.
Adding your plate to the pile beside the sink, you grab the Garfield tea-towel hanging over the rail and sidle up to take the place next to him.
Wordlessly, Clark lets the suds run off the first plate and then hands it over.
You steal a glimpse at his face. This close you could count his lashes. They kiss together at the end, courtesy of his warm smile.
Side by side, the two of you work in comfortable silence. When passing the next plate, his elbow bumps up your arm and he leaves it there, pressed up lightly against you.
“You know,” Clark says idly, speaking as he scrubs at a pair of forks. “I’ve actually wanted to, uh,” He clears his throat. “Find a way to ask you out to dinner for, well, a long time.”
It’s a miracle you manage not to drop the plate in your hands. That prayer worked fast. Somehow, you recover enough to tease.
“You mean to tell me you hijacked my celebration night for your own gain?”
Without missing a beat, Clark says, “Maybe I did.”
He's completely sincere, nudging his arm against yours again. He rinses off the last plate and this time, instead of handing it over, he plucks the tea-towel out of your hands and starts drying.
With nothing to do with your hands, you’re left to deal with the conversation. You do your best to grasp your courage tightly. You wonder if he'll notice if you pinch yourself, to check if this is real.
“A long time, huh?”
Leaning your hip up against the kitchen counter, you echo his earlier words. Clark’s watching you, something that looks an awful lot like hope in his eyes.
“I…” You start. Your voice is getting quieter as your courage slips away and you can’t quite meet his gaze anymore. “I mean, I- me too.”
You hope he won’t make you spell it out — that he knows what you mean with just those words.
But Clark has never been cruel and he isn’t now. He places the final plate down gently, the tea-towel beside it.
Then he steps closer to you, bracketing you against the counter. It forces your eyes up, because staring at the hollow of his throat is almost as maddening as meeting his expression.
Clark’s smiling, a warmness in his blue eyes you haven’t realised is reserved just for you, til right this moment. His dimples, you bemoan silently. He’s beyond handsome.
He has no right to look like that - to look at you like that.
“Would it be improper of me then,” He begins. “To hope we might do this again?”
You have the sudden urge to throw your arms around his neck and kiss him stupid. Your hands, which have moved to hold the bench for support, are shaking just a bit.
“Not improper at all.” It’s barely a whisper.
His eyes drop to your mouth and that alone makes you feel dizzy.
“Great,” Clark grins, matching your tone with a low murmur. “Because there’s this woman I work with…”
Slowly, he reaches up and gently tucks a stray piece of hair behind your ear. The warmth of his hand feels like it’s scorching the side of your face. Your heart is in your throat - and in your head, your stomach, pulsing at the end of every fingertip.
“She’s incredible at what she does,” He continues, hand still hovering. “Beautiful too. And whip-smart—though, I’m beginning to question that, given she said yes to going out with the likes of me.”
That laugh startles out of you and it breaks Clark into a grin too. His eyes roam your face, as if he’s drinking in your joy.
He’s entirely too gorgeous. You have to grip the counter tighter to remain upright.
“Shut up.” you say weakly.
Clark’s eyebrows raise. “And a bit bossy too—”
“Shut up,” you say again, a little more breathlessly. “And kiss me, Clark.”
To his credit, Clark doesn’t waste a second.
The hand that had been hovering finds your neck, burying into your hair, while the other finds the edge of your waist.
He tugs you forward, lightly, but even so it’s enough to make you laugh in surprise - so when he presses his mouth to yours, you’re already smiling.
It makes the first kiss clumsy. You’re too smiley to kiss back properly. That apparently makes Clark smile too, his glasses pressing into the bridge of your nose before you break apart.
“That-” He breathes. “Gosh, sorry, I meant- that is, for it to be less,"
He struggles to pick the correct word. You guess for him.
"Improper?"
Clark laughs at that, his eyes shining with an ardent affection. It's enough to make you shiver in his hold. God, those eyes, that mouth.
"Yes, improper." He says, though he sounds utterly pleased. "Will you let me redeem myself?"
In answer, you finally let yourself give in to the urge that's been building. Fingers curling into the collar of his dress shirt, you have to press up on your toes, but Clark's already there, meeting you halfway.
He's tugging you in again, the hand on your waist tighter as he sweeps you up in a kiss that you'll be dreaming of for years.
Clark is an infuriatingly good kisser you're learning.
Plush lips against yours, your head spins. Through an impossible series of events, in your little kitchenette, you're being kissed by Clark Kent like there's no sweeter taste than your mouth.
Your hands slide up, arms winding around his neck, feeling as though you're floating on literal air.
And it's with that thought that the abrupt realisation that your feet are off the ground comes.
Perplexed, you draw back, blinking in your confusion. Has he lifted you up-?
It takes one glance to realise that yes, not only are your feet off the ground—but so are Clark's.
It gives you a violent shock, but instinct has you clinging closer to Clark as a startled yelp escapes you. Then you're on the ground again, so quick you'd think you imagined it, if not for the shock in your legs.
You scramble back in bewilderment, hands clambering for purchase on the counter.
"I-! That-! You can fly!" You exclaim, pointing at the ground where you had just levitated.
Clark starts to stammer. "I-I, it's not- listen, I can explain."
You stare at him, waiting, but Clark only smothers a hand over his mouth. He still looks terribly blushed from the kiss, cheeks pink and mouth undoubtedly the same. His glasses are askew.
Somehow, you know you're staring at a huge puzzle piece.
Screwing your eyes shut, you attempt to process the rolling rampage of thoughts streaming through your mind.
Clark Kent can fly!
Clark Kent kissed you! (Less important, but still a thought.)
Clark Kent is... not human?
Your eyes open again and Clark's still there, his hands now hanging off his neck. He looks terribly stressed, his own eyes screwed shut in thought.
"Okay, listen-" He says abruptly, eyes still closed.
"—No, wait," You interrupt, holding a hand up. You're nearly there, you know it. The realisation is so close you can almost taste it.
Who else do you know who can fly? Technically, there's more than a handful of meta-humans with the capability of flight — but squinting at your hot coworker crush, a particular one is coming to mind.
The moment you consider it, you know it to be true. You straighten up with an incredulous look - and Clark knows that you know.
Clark Kent is Superman! You kissed Clark Kent! You've kissed Superman!
"Oh, man." you say dazedly. Something compels your feet to move and mindlessly, you're walking to the couch. It sinks under you as you flop onto it, still reeling in your disbelief.
That would certainly explains the absences at work. Knowing your name, that day on the street. The same dimples you go crazy for. Now you've figured out the puzzle piece, you can't stop marvelling at how well it fits.
"y/n?" Clark has followed you from the kitchen, a wary look on his face, unsure what to make of your silence.
You blink, taking in the sight of him perched nervously on the other end of your second-hand couch and a delighted laugh is tickled out of you. "Of course, it's you."
Clark tenses up momentarily before he shifts to sit closer to you. "Okay, but, really, you have to listen—" He's pushing a hand across his face, knocking his glasses. Without thinking, he plucks them off his face.
Woah. So, that's why you hadn't picked it - given how when you look at Clark's face clearly, without his glasses, it's obviously Superman staring back at you.
Without much thought, you're clambering forward across the couch, closer, and taking his face between your palms. Clark watches you closely, still distracted with speaking - "—you can't tell anyone, I'm serious- What're you doing?"
You're tilting his face from side to side is what you're doing. "Of course," You say again, this time sounding a little more awed. "I mean, I wouldn't have picked it— it's the glasses, right? They have some sort of—"
Your sentence is cut off, Clark's hands reaching up to encircle your wrists. He holds your hands still and says you name once more, softer.
"You don't seem to be hearing me. Or," His eyes roam your face, searching for something. "You aren't really... responding how I thought you would. You can’t tell anyone."
His worry finally reaches you. You stop your near-frantic moment of revelations and breathe, feeling the concern in his words, shown on his face.
His brow is furrowed, eyes stormy. You can't stop looking at him. It's like you've never seen his face before.
"Do you really think I would?" You ask quietly.
Clark swallows, throat bobbing. After a moment, he answers honestly. "No. I don't think you would."
The truth of his statement sits in the air, blanketing the pair of you in something warmer, tasting of trust. You're looking at Superman —looking at Clark — and all you can think of is how it all makes sense. This, him, you—all of it.
Somewhere within you, the baby crush from Friday’s brush with Superman merges with your feelings for Clark. It fizzles in you, rushing through your veins. God, you like him so much.
"So,” You breathe. “What now?"
"What now?" Clark echoes. He's still holding your wrists, but his grip has softened. As if he's holding them to keep you close this time round. "I mean, I- well, if you still—that is to say... Dinner?"
He sputters through the sentence, landing clumsily on the last word. You're grinning before he's even finished.
"Dinner would be—" You pause for effect. "Super."
"Alright," Clark declares, shaking his head dramatically. "Date invitation revoked for that one. Are you kidding me? Already?"
He's released your wrists, getting to his feet and making a big show of it. Still, he's grinning and you're laughing, hopelessly enamoured. The laughter threads through your words.
"No take backsies."
“Alright, fine,” Clark huffs, crossing his arms. The bulge of his biceps draws your eye and this time, you let yourself look. You think you’ve earned it.
An unexplained question piques your mind.
“You didn’t mean to tell me.” You comment, tilting your head slightly. “Why did you fly?”
Whatever reaction you're expecting, it's not the glorious one that unfolds before your eyes. A blush paints Clark’s cheeks, but it doesn’t stop there. You can see it crawling down his neck, beneath his shirt. His ears are tinted red.
He scratches the back of his neck bashfully, avoiding eye contact. His voice has dropped in volume. “That’s… I… it happenswhenIgetexcited.”
“What?”
“It hasn’t happened for years!” The words suddenly burst out, Clark's hands held out. “It was more, like, when I was younger, yeah, if I got, like,” He begins to stammer. “Too excited, or- or happy, it would- just, oh gosh.”
He buries his face in his hands. You take a moment to process his words, brows rising to your hairline.
“Oh,” You sound pleased as punch. “Oh, okay, that’s just adorable.”
Clark straightens up, dragging his hands from his face and placing them on his hips. His face is still pinker than you’ve ever seen. He seems to accept his fate. “Thank you. I think?”
If he was still beside you on the couch, you think you wouldn't be able to resist kissing him once more. Instead, you lose the fight against your grin. You tuck up one leg and drape your arm across it, pressing your smile into your skin.
“You gonna have that under control in time for our next dinner?” You say.
Clark perks up at you words, as though he assumed the reason for his accidental flight might’ve scared you off. Like being excited could ever be bad.
“Yes.” He nods seriously. "Absolutely."
"Then," you say lightly, as though your heart isn’t pumping molten lava right now. You give a little shrug, aiming for nonchalant and fooling no-one. "It's a date."
Clark nods again, straightening up. He folds his arms, his posture serious, but you can still see it in his face - the joy. The excitement.
"It's a date." He agrees - and it sounds like the promise of much, much more than that.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
tagging sum lovelies i think might be interested <3 but no pressure @spideystevie @sanguineterrain @headkiss @brettsgoldstein @aarchimedes
You're curled under the covers, screen glowing in your face, finger mid-scroll. Clark shifts beside you, already in his usual sleeping position: one arm tucked under his head, the other reaching for you blindly like a sleepy sea creature.
"Baby," he mumbles, voice low and warm from sleep. "Put the phone down."
"In a sec," you murmur. "Just one more thing."
“Mhm.” He doesn’t believe you. He never does.
Instead of arguing, he does what he always does — rolls over slowly and wraps himself around you like a human weighted blanket. Big chest pressed to your back. One leg thrown over yours. A soft kiss behind your ear.
“Five more minutes,” you promise.
Clark lets out the smallest dramatic sigh. “That’s what you said twelve scrolls ago.”
You snort. “Are you counting now?”
“Yes,” he says. “Because I’m being ignored. Neglected. Replaced by a tiny glowing rectangle.”
He nuzzles into your neck like a needy puppy. “I’m cold. And alone. And possibly dying.”
“You’re 6'4" and 200 pounds of cuddle,” you giggle, leaning into him.
“Exactly,” he says, smug now. “You’re lucky I haven’t suffocated you with affection yet.”
With that, he gently but firmly grabs your phone and sets it on the nightstand. The room dims immediately, leaving only the soft yellow hue of your bedside lamp.
“Hey!” you whine.
“No more blue light, sweetheart. It’s time for cuddles.”
And then he tucks you into him. Tight. Chin over your shoulder, arms around your belly, one hand petting slow, sleepy circles into your hip.
“See?” he whispers. “Way better than doomscrolling.”
You huff, but you’re already melting. The warmth of him, the rhythm of his breath, the safety of his arms — it’s your favorite place on Earth.
“You’re annoying,” you mumble, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.
“I’m Mr. Bedtime,” he corrects, smiling against your skin.
You roll your eyes. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.”
And before you can argue, he whispers:
“Sleep, baby. I’ve got you.”
You fall asleep five minutes later. Phone forgotten. Heart full. Clark already snoring softly into your hair like the big bedtime menace he is.
You confess your affections to an unsuspecting Superman, but your best friend Clark can’t know about your crush, okay? You’d die of embarrassment. (Or, Clark falls in love while Superman does most of the wooing.) fem, 8k
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
You never thought you’d get to talk to Superman. You've never been in that kind of danger, and you never hoped to be. You hadn’t wanted to talk to Superman because you know this is weird. You can’t have a crush on someone you don’t know. It’s idol worship, a celebrity fixation, and Superman is the perfect target. You’re not alone in loving everything about him —it’s easy. You aren’t ever confronted with the bad in his good.
And then he’s standing in front of you with his hands braced on your shoulders, and there’s blood running down your face from your temple and you’re crying, because it hurts, because you’re in the panic of your life and not sure what to do next.
He frowns at you with an unwavering gentleness.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “take a deep breath, ma’am. Deep breath.”
“It’s bl– bleeding.”
“I know.”
You shudder through tears as Superman brings his cape up and rips. It startles you, sending fat tears plinking down your cheek. You hold your breath as he brings his scrap to your face, dabbing the wetness from your cheeks before turning the fabric and holding it to your temple firmly.
You gasp painfully under his touch, desperate for air.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his voice a new shade, “it’s alright, you’re going to be fine, I promise. I’m gonna press this to your head, and we’ll see if we can get this bleeding stopped. As soon as it does, I’ll take you down and we can get you some real help.”
You nod, skittish as a scared deer, eyes as wide as they’ll go to follow his movements. It doesn’t hurt any more than the injury itself as he presses down on your head wound. He sighs in sympathy anyway. A broad hand spreads behind your back, familiar in a way, or maybe it’s the way he’s talking to you now. Like he knows you as you know him.
The photos of him online don’t do him justice.
“It’s not bad. I know it hurts, but,” —his hand finds your shoulder, squeezes lightly— “it’s because it’s so high up, alright? They always bleed more. It doesn’t mean this is anything to worry about beyond fixing you up and getting you some pain relief.”
“You– you’re real help.”
He holds your gaze. “Yeah?”
You wonder if he can feel the heat of your blush. It’s all over. He’s lucky your head wound doesn’t start spurting. “Yeah– yeah, I– Superman.”
His smile is everything. “What?” he asks patiently.
“I’m a big fan of– of yours.”
“You are?”
“You’re so brave,” you breathe out in a rush, though it hurts your head. “So brave. And– and…”
“Sorry,” he murmurs, putting a little more pressure on your temple. “Thank you for being a fan. All I want is to keep everyone safe.”
“You’re so gentle with everyone, even the aliens, and– you’re pretty…”
“Pretty?” he asks, pure surprise in his voice, his hand falling off of your arm.
You wince. “Yeah. Yes. Handsome. Sorry, you must get told that so much.”
“It’s okay. I won’t hold you to anything you say. You’re injured, after all.”
His teasing tone pretty much flies over your head. “No, I’m not lying. I mean it. You’re really lovely, and what you do, it makes you lovelier, it does–” You nearly choke on your enthusiasm. He has to know.
“Don’t get wound up, I’m sorry. I believe you. Let’s try to stay calm.”
Your head is aching in a new way, now. Less the sting of a wide cut, more beating, like a whirl in your own brain twisting and shaking, dizziness alive behind your eyes and threatening to knock you over. You clutch at Superman’s arm and he knows what you need, slipping his free arm behind your back before you can collapse.
“I don’t usually get crushes on people,” you inform him. “But it was hard not to get one with you. You’re even nicer than I thought you’d be.”
“It’s easy to be nice to you. Easy as breathing.”
Superman hugs you. You swear he does. But when the concussion begins to clear up and your confusion wanes in a hospital bed outside of the battle zone, you realise that he was holding you upright. Superman doesn’t know you, he never will, and you’re okay with it in the grand scheme of things. If you had to meet him, you’re glad it was while he was keeping you safe. He really is a good guy.
—
A week later, Clark Kent is waiting for you at the doors to the Daily Planet.
“Are you sure you don’t need more rest?” he asks, forcibly removing your handbag from your shoulder to carry himself.
“I’m sure.”
“It’s okay if you need more time to recover. You’re still wearing a dressing.”
“It’s a bandaid, Clark, and it’s to hide the scar for now, it’s–”
“It’s still a wound.”
“It’s fine! You saw it, you know it’s fine.”
Your overbearing best friend had surprise-visited you the day after your injury despite a text to tell him to stay home. You’re fine. It was a cut and the mildest concussion you could’ve had. You didn’t throw up, or collapse, you’d simply gotten confused and bled all over Metropolis’ finest super hero until his hands were more red than white.
“It looked awful, it still does.”
“It looks fine. Even the nurse said it was a small cut, in an unfortunate place.”
“Very unfortunate.”
You follow him to the elevator bank with a frown. “Clark, you don’t have to sulk.”
“I’m not sulking! I just don’t see what’s wrong with staying in bed for now.”
“I have stuff to do, babe. I have to work. I have to move forward, it barely hurts anymore.”
He likes being called babe, simpering accordingly. “Well, you’re sitting down all day. Doctor’s orders.”
“Show me your oath and I’ll consider it.”
“Please?”
He looks like he could cry. Not that he will, but like he could if you keep saying no to him. And despite all your grievances with being treated like you’re fragile now, you decide to take it easy, if only to give Clark the peace of mind. “Okay, sure. You can wait on me all day.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Clark’s your best friend because —no matter how much it might confuse you— he seems to really love you, maybe from the moment he met you. You started at the Daily Planet and he took to you like a duck takes to water. Everything you said made him laugh, every recipe you wrote was one he had to try. And you figured it was something boys tend to do, right? Pretend you‘re interesting until they get what they want from you, but Clark’s never asked for anything else, loving you wholly and expecting nothing in return.
You let him swing an arm around your shoulders, a mirror of himself those few nights ago where he’d come shaky and sorry to see you. He apologised for not being there when you got hurt, as if he could’ve stopped it.
“I’m sick of working already,” you say.
“Then let’s go home.”
“Clark. I’m being conversational.”
“Don’t tease me,” he pleads, sounding all sudden and whiney. You squirm out of his arms to poke his side. Gets more solid by the day. Idiot boy.
“Have you been working out?”
“Can you stop?”
“Can I stop? You’re a nightmare.”
Clark threatens to superglue you to your deskchair, but he titters around you hopelessly all day.
—
You’re laying on the gravel roof of your apartment on top of a sun lounger, trying to decide if getting some sun is worth all the noise. Beeping, birds, cars, doors, the wind, this high up and occasionally curving through buildings to kiss your skin —noise, noise, noise. Your phone is ringing while you ignore it, desperate to get through the last chapter of your book without interruption. You have thus far been foiled, and figured nobody’d be able to find you up here.
The quick, awful zip of a high impact sounds somewhere close. You nearly topple from your lounger, a hand pressed to your chest, your heart racing near painfully at the surprise. You whip your head to the horizon looking for smoke, but there’s nothing. For a few minutes, you can’t hear anything at all.
The shape of him descends before your mind can catch up. Then, he’s there in one piece. A touchable dream, Carol Ann Duffy at work and torturing you in passing. You’ve seen a ton of photos of him, hundreds, videos of girls recording to ask him sweet questions, and you’ve never seen him smile so shyly. You shiver violently down your arms, but Superman isn’t here to hurt you.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“You were?” you ask.
“I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”
You sit up properly. The book in your lap makes a crunching noise that you happily ignore. “I’m fine. I’m fine, did you– You’re here to see if I’m okay?”
His smile strengthens. “Is that okay?”
You stammer, “Of course it’s okay!” A flush rises from your chest to your cheeks as he stays there. He’s not leaving until you answer. Holy fuck. “I’m great, Superman. All healed up.”
“Are you sure? You still have–” He gestures to your bandaid.
“It’s to keep it clean in the daytime. I take it off before bed.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No, of course not.”
“Why of course not?”
Your heart makes a funny pulse. Handsome isn’t the right word for him. There’s something special about it, otherworldly, literally, the cut of his jaw somehow sharp and soft at once, his pert nose, his eyes gone light in the sunshine and framed by dark lashes that beg to be touched. You imagine running a fingertip along them, gently brushing them up for no reason at all, and he narrows his gaze at you in your silence. The shorts you’re wearing have you worrying you’re underdressed in his eyes. They’re pajamas, pink with black polka dots and edgings. You’d had the forethought to wear a short-sleeve rather than a vest lest one of your neighbours find themselves up here with the same quiet idea. Superman’s fully clothed in comparison.
His boots look formidable next to your puppy dog socks.
“It doesn’t hurt,” you promise, half-lying and uncaring. Superman saved you. He’s perfect, so your head doesn’t hurt.
“You seem a little flustered, is all.”
“Oh. Oh, well, it’s hot out, and I’m not like, super used to being in your company. Or any company, um, like yours.”
“You’ve never met a metahuman?”
“No, never.”
“We’re just like everybody else.”
You laugh.
“No, really,” he says, idling toward you, red boots treading the gravel down flat. “I’m just like you, you don’t have to be nervous.”
“Sorry.”
“Now what do you have to be sorry for?”
You laugh again, a giggle you’d never admit to. He’s strangely intimidating; a presence, but not an imposing one.
“What are you reading?” he asks, nodding to your lap.
“Oh, uh. Uh, it’s called The Ocean?” You straighten up the book to show him the cover. “It’s good, uh, the main character is a young boy who wants to find his father, I think it’s supposed to be a take on The Odyssey,”
“Why is he looking for his father?”
“He’s missing after a terrible war. It’s one of those ones that hurts the entire time but the ending has wrapped it up so nicely, it was worth it.”
“Maybe I’ll read it, too. You look like someone who has great taste.”
“You can borrow my copy.”
Superman’s gaze narrows again. “You’re finished?”
“Yeah, I finished it before you got here.”
He waits in the quiet. You’re sure he’s going to call you out for your lie. It's not as though a Kryptonian truth-radar would be outside of the realm of possibility.
Superman finally smiles. “I promise to bring it back,” he says simply.
“Sure. Well, take your time.”
—
How long can it possibly take a superhero to read one book?
You shouldn't be thinking about it again. Poor Clark is sitting in the corner of the couch with your feet stuck under his thighs, telling you about the grocery store widow who asks him for help to take her groceries out to her car whenever she sees him. She’d spotted him at the produce section today and dibsed him, and Clark doesn’t mind (though she leaves her car at the back of the parking lot no matter the weather). In fact, Clark doesn’t bring it up to complain. He’s sympathising with her, how lonely she must be.
You try to shake Superman from your head while Clark is talking, but the thoughts of him won’t budge.
You’d made a fool of yourself on the roof. Superman had taken your book to be polite. He probably won’t come back.
“Hey.”
You lift your head.
Clark’s looking at you. Big blue eyes in a classic face, the line of his glasses dark and heavy against his brow. They trace your expression, searching for the misery you’ve failed to hide, until he finds it in the creases of your eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is weak with worry.
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“It’s really not.”
“It definitely is. You can tell me about anything, you know. Or you don’t have to tell me, but I’ll be here for you no matter what. Some food for thought.”
“Food for thought. Eat this, Kent,” you say, jabbing him at the top of the thigh with your heel.
Clark grabs your foot. “Come on. I know something’s wrong, and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me, but…” He lets your foot smack down into the top of his thigh to grab his tea instead.
“Isn’t that cold?” you ask.
“It’s tepid,” he allows after a sip.
You laugh, so he laughs. It’s a lovely sound.
“Again. Again, you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but I’d listen if you wanted me to.”
“Don’t try and make out like you’re not keeping secrets.”
Clark goes slack-jawed. “Sorry?”
“You don’t tell me everything. I know exactly where you disappear to all the time.”
“You do?”
You climb up on your knees and settle in front of him. You’re wearing those pink polka dot shorts like you were on the roof with Superman, in hopes they’ll summon him to you like a talisman. Clark presses his lips together, watching you closely as you take his face into your hands.
“You’re dating Lois Lane,” you say.
His fingers dust your elbow. “What?”
“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you? Plus, you’re busy all the time. You’ve cancelled movie night three times this month, did you know?”
“I’m sorry–”
“I’m not. I’m happy for you.”
Clark shakes his head. “But Lois and I… I mean, not for months. We were almost something, I think, but no. Not for a while.”
You let your hands fall off of his cheeks. “Oh. Sorry, Clark.”
“Don’t be. I should’ve told you, but it was new and then it was over.”
“You should’ve told me,” you agree, “but I sort of get why you didn’t. I’m your girl best friend. That’s a thing.”
“You’re my best friend,” he promises, no ‘girl’ prefix necessary. “That’s not why it ended, Lois isn’t like that. It was… we disagreed on so many things. Looking back, I think she was right about most of it.”
“Well, she’s a girl.”
“That she is. You’re all the same, aren’t you? All dazzling.”
He says it with an earnestness that reminds you of the other half of your friendship-equation. Clark’s your best friend because he loves your work and your jokes and your company, and you’re his best friend because he’s good as gold, inside out, just awfully lovable.
“You’re ’dazzling’ too,” you say. “You are.”
Clark offers you his mug of tea. You take a sip for something to do.
“Not that cold,” you murmur.
“I never realised you were such a liar.”
“I don’t really lie to you, Clark.”
He leans up to kiss your head, chaste against your purpling scar. “I know.”
—
“So, this book–”
You jump hard enough to send your groceries five different ways, oranges and kiwis for Clark flying up in the air. They never hit the ground —Superman catches them in two hands.
Your loaf of bread lays cradled in his arm like a baby.
“Fuck,” you complain.
“I’m sorry.” Superman laughs at you. Laughs. “Sorry. But this book, is there a sequel?”
“What?” you ask. Superman tips your groceries into your waiting paper bag.
“I think I need a sequel.” He pulls The Ocean from a pocket and squeezes it unkindly. “I think it ruined my life.”
“There’s no sequel. But–” don’t spoil the ending for me, you almost say. “Did you enjoy it at all?”
“It was good. Do you read a lot, or are you down to the real heart-achers?”
“Uh, I guess. Well, no, I used to read more, but I didn’t have time for a while ‘n now I’m usually too stirred up to settle down.”
“You cook.”
You blink. “You googled me?”
“No, how could I? But I did see you on the third page of the Daily Planet. You have a little author’s window. You made pumpkin pie.”
“For Thanksgiving weekend, yeah. They only ever put me near the front or on the main page of the website if it’s the holidays.”
“Is that true?”
You shake your head. Not to say no, to say, let’s not talk about it. Silly insecurities are unnecessary conversation. At least, they are with him.
Someone gasps from behind you. With one comes a few. The people near the crosswalk are starting to notice Superman’s tall figure standing in the sun, and though you’d wish he’d managed to hide in the shadows, you admit to yourself that there’s nowhere else he could ever be. He looks right in the sun.
“Do you want to come with me?” he asks.
Do you want to go with him? What the fuck does he think? said in your head ecstatically, not a lick of derision against him. Your excitement nearly blinds you.
“Yeah,” you say, practically mumbling, wanting to come off nonchalant and instead sounding painfully shy, even to your own ears.
“Yeah?” He offers an arm. “Come here.”
Your charmed little laugh makes him grin. “Alright?” he asks, locking an arm around you vice-tight.
“Where are we–”
The air leaves your lungs in one fell swoop. There and gone, breathless and weightless in tandem.
The sky is more than blue when you’re in it.
There’s nothing you can say about it. You’re terrified Superman is going to drop you, you can hardly breathe from the sudden speed at which you’d been taken up with him, but beyond that, there’s nothing to say. Wordless, endless sky. Blue, blue—
“It’s not as scary as you think, right?” he asks, his head angled down to yours.
“I expected you to have to shout. I don’t know why.”
“It’s windier in the air, but we’re close. I don’t need to yell.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t get many groceries.”
“You aren’t heavy.”
You’re delighted. “This is a paper bag, you realise! I’m surprised it didn’t explode the second you got me up here!”
“I’ll be careful. You’re precious cargo, and you deserve a better experience now than the one you got when you first came up here with me.”
“I don’t remember much of it.”
“That’s okay. I do.”
You should feel ridiculous, but strong arms hold you steady. Blue eyes like someone familiar pour over your face, as though they need to see you clearly, with all this perfect light. Your few groceries are squeezed between your chests as you squeeze him by the neck, desperate for the extra security, that he won’t simply let you go, and have you fall.
“This is amazing,” you breathe, your eyes sweeping down to take in beautiful Metropolis beating away beneath you. The cars look like ants. The buildings cast shadows you’d never noticed from the ground.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s something.”
You glance up to find him still staring at you.
The girls on SuperClub would never, ever believe you if you tried to tell them what passes between you, then. (Not that you frequent SuperClub. Often. You see it while scrolling, and you tend to scroll past it with a fond eye roll.) They wouldn’t believe that Superman brings his hand to your head to touch your temple, as though your small scar is a personal affront to him. They wouldn’t believe the way that he pauses when you shudder. Wouldn’t believe how he lets his fingertip tumble down your cheek, or the soft incline of his head. The slightest kiss of his eyelashes meeting in the very corners of his eyes as they almost close.
“Don’t feel guilty, please,” you say.
“What?” He sounds as though he’s woken up from a nap.
“About what happened. It wasn’t your fault that I got hurt. I wanted you to know that. You saved me.”
Superman lets the distance between your two faces grow. “I…”
“If this is what that is, if you feel like you owe me something, well. You don’t… I don’t know you, Superman, but sometimes I think I do. It’s like… someone I've met before? I can see your bleeding heart.” You offer a brash smile. “But I’m just fine. You promised me that I would be, and I am.”
“You’re not making this any easier for me.”
You shift in his grasp, his hair tickling you and the little hairs on your arms.
“I’m not a very easy person,” you say.
Superman presses his nose to your cheek.
“I think you’re giving me tachycardia,” you whisper.
He hears it. Doesn’t answer for a while, and when he does, it’s to neither of the things you said before.
“Let me take you somewhere new,” he says.
—
A day later, Clark asks if he can bring you dinner. Like and unlike himself, to care enough to ask but to forgo his usual boisterous lack of respect when it comes to taking care of you. Clark recognises that you like to be cared for aggressively. That you want someone to care so much that they won’t stop at the first hurdle. You want someone to take it at a sprint, and Clark’s a show off loser-dork who likes taking care of you.
He meets you at the door, where you show him your small picnic basket kitted with two plates, knives, forks, and a hidden dessert. “Too hot in my apartment,” you say.
“What’s wrong with the AC?”
“It’s leaking.”
“I’ll take a look at it. What happened to that fan I got you?” he asks, his fingers at your wrist trying to steal the basket.
“Oh, Clark, can’t you just leave me alone?” you plead.
He laughs like a kid. “I love when you do that.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, is it sarcasm? I don’t think that’s apt. Whatever it is, when you act like that? You’re really convincing. It’s funny.”
“I can be funny.”
“I know, that’s what I’m saying. You’re really funny. Can you do it some more?”
“Now it’s not natural, though.”
“Please?”
“Leave it alone, Clark. You’re such a beg.”
He laughs again. It peters off to a quiet you’d like to live in. His takeout bag rustles, your picnic basket rattles, his fingers brushing the back of your arm as he follows you down the street to the wooded path.
There’s a small park not far from your apartment that’s been divided into two halves. The playground for the neighbourhood kids, and the picnic tables made of strangely shaped wood. They’re all rounded. One table is shaped like an ‘S’. Another like a filled in ‘8’.
You sit at the one furthest from the playground, coincidentally shaped like a ‘C’. “For Clark,” you say, pleased.
“Adorable.”
You set up your plates, dividing up the food squarely. Clark had the wherewithal to bring two cans of soda and a big bottle of water. He asks which one you want, cracking it open accordingly. “Gonna pour it into my mouth, too?” you tease.
“Do you not want me to be nice to you?”
And the night slips away. You eat your takeout at the picnic table and linger until your legs are numb. The grass around the park is damp, but you sit, and you shoot the breeze until the sun starts to go down. It must be hours out there together.
Clark takes his jacket off and spreads it over your shoulders. “This is your only bad trait,” he says happily. “You never tell me when you’re cold.”
“I’m not that cold.”
“Sure you’re not. Look, come here,” —he pulls you bodily into his side, his voice turning silky as angora— “you act like you’re such a plague, like– I don’t know, like I wouldn’t wanna know that you’re cold.”
“I don’t act like that.”
“You do. You could rely on me for more, you know? I want you to lean on me.”
You lean on him.
Clark presses his nose to your temple, his glasses digging into your skin.
And you think, I know you.
But you don’t know why.
—
Clark can't believe this is happening again.
He woke up this morning with a scary yet firm plan: he’s going to get himself together, pluck up what he has in the way of courage, and be honest with you about Superman. If only so he can stop lying to you. He should’ve told you months ago that he was Superman. Hell, he might’ve told you from the moment he met you, that’s how sure he was that he’d love you. As a friend —his best friend, half of his life. There’s this ease, like he’s known you for far longer than he truly has, like he could know you for the rest of his life.
And lately.
Oh, lately. Clark can’t get a handle on things. He hadn’t realised he was falling in love with you, isn’t even sure that’s the way to describe it; far from a sharp plummet downward into love, this has felt like a slow and steady ascent, but now suddenly he’s at the mountain top and the air is thin, and he’s looking for you, aching for relief, and you’re sitting in the snow with your book and your shy smile, cross-legged, just waiting for him to get there and open his cowardly mouth.
Or that’s what he’d like to think.
Fact of the matter is, Clark would like to kiss you. Hold your hand, have your head rest on his shoulder. He’d like to pull you into his lap and squeeze. Clark could die happy if he got just one shot at it, no matter the outcome.
He knows he won’t lose you, but he’s worried you don’t want what he wants. He’s gotten so close to having you, he’s not sure he can take being any further apart than this.
Clark takes the tramline to the rich part of the city with the best florist. There are buckets and buckets of flowers; orange tiger lilies and white orchids turned green in the sun; roses as big as his fist, unfurling; sweet peas kissing pinkest camellias all tangled up with baby’s breath. He chooses the sweet peas. They really are sweet, their hemmed edge petals curling in and nearly blue. They’re beautiful. He can see them in a glass on your nightstand by tonight if he’s lucky.
It’s on the walk to your apartment (tramline too busy to risk, lest your flowers get hurt) that the trouble begins.
The light goes out.
It doesn’t make logical sense. He’s outdoors. It’s the early morning, the sun should be shining for hours to come.
He looks up and finds a singular dark rectangle over Earth.
It blots out everything, disapears the clouds, turns the blue sweetpeas in his hand a tired shade of grey.
Clark wonders if he should’ve told you how he felt when he had the chance. Then, he leaves his glasses, his jacket, and his sweetpeas in the hedgerow at the park with alphabet picnic tables and throws himself upwards into the sky.
—
What emerges from the spaceship (and it is a spaceship, made of an element humans aren’t want to touch) are creatures shaped like spinning asterisks, wisps of their angel-white bodies bending the shadows they’ve cast down onto Metropolis. It’s like smoke.
The dark makes it hard to breathe.
You sit huddled in your bedroom looking out through the window, despite a desperate urge to hide somewhere further inward. Sirens echo throughout otherwise quiet streets, discordant wailing that wavers for long, sharp minutes. There had been screaming and crying and the splintering sounds of glass. It’s not —not unseeable, out there, but anyone with poor vision will find themselves stranded.
You open your phone. Your theory is that the aliens have been able to dampen sound as well as sun, leaving the battlefield dangerously quiet. Clark’s not answering your texts because he never has his phone, but you’re sure he’s out there somewhere. He told you he was coming. The last message he sent this morning blinks at you from the bottom of your screen: Coming by soon if you’re not busy, do you want me to bring breakfast?
You’d said, just some eggs please if you want eggs
You’d said, hey, are you safe? What’s with the dark?
You’d said, clark please text me back right now, I’m freaking out, do you need me to come get you?
He won’t answer the phone. Outside, up in the sky where it’s darker still and the white shadows have begun to ripple, the occasional red beam of heat slices into whiteness, turning it to shadows again. There are two sets of red if you watch carefully. Green light flickers at the ground.
And Clark Kent is out there all alone.
You crawl to your shoes under the bed and put them on, pajamas and all. Clark’s blue hoodie lays on the back of your deskchair. You shrug it on.
He’s gonna lose his entire mind if you do find him out there. Can friends ground you? Because Clark’s going to ground you. But you’d rather be grounded than all alone.
—
Superman groans into the floor, his tongue coated in dust.
He has far better vision than a person feasibly needs. He wore a pair of glasses once that are supposed to approximate what it’s like to have legal blindness, and he’d felt suddenly, achingly sorry for the human race. But then he’d found the glasses stand beside it with all their different prescriptions and shrugged it off. Humans are brilliant. He’s in awe of their persistence, their resilience, and their strength. He knows he can find it in himself to go on because they can, too.
He has better vision, and still he finds himself batted away from the entities like a bothersome fruit fly.
“Krypto?” he asks into the smog.
His borrowed dog flies at him with impressive speed, pressing his snout straight into a bruise.
“Ow!”
Krypto snuffles and hits at his arms with both paws.
“Krypto, stop! Jeez, stop. You’re such a pai– Ow! Get off.”
Krypto nibbles his shoulder.
Clark forces himself to sit up. At least he hasn’t killed the dog. Kara would probably eviscerate the planet country by country if something happened to her dog, not mentioning the aliens that started this whole thing. And he is good at bringing the suit when Clark needs it.
He rubs at his eyes and drags himself to his feet, back aching, eyes like sand. Nothing is healing because he can’t feel the sun, but he’s not too hurt. He can take a bad landing. He can take twenty of them.
“Krypto, stay.”
Krypto tilts his white blurry head.
“You’re not helping.”
Arf! Clark rolls his shoulders and shoots back into the air.
Krypto stays down, for now.
Clark takes a lap through the air, searching for signs of life with his ears. The eery quiet is beginning to fill with catastrophe.
“Clark?”
He stops dead in the sky.
“Clark?” you call, ten miles below him, shouting all clipped and scared. “Clark Kent! Are you out here? If you can hear me, call back to me!”
He says your name.
“Clark? I’m here!”
Clark looks up into melted-sugar shadows as they begin to curdle and makes a choice. Damn the aliens, they can have the sky, so long as Clark gets to keep you safe.
He has to keep you safe.
—
You’re watching a shadow plummet toward you when the sky opens up into shards of Technicolor. Concentrated around a single point of red and blue and moving so fast it turns puce.
—
There’s a scene in The Ocean where the main character realises his father has been dead before the beginning of the book. Dead for years. He goes searching for him because he’s scared to be alone, brave enough to realise it, and young enough to misunderstand the danger of the world. He treks sandbanks, ferries favour, turns in promises and follows the footsteps of a man long dead across the world. Clark told you once, privately, quietly, in a moment that immediately panicked him, that his parents had adopted him, and that his birth parents had left him with a letter after they both died.
What did it say? you’d asked.
To be good.
You find your copy of The Ocean cradled in familiar hands. You recognise its secondhand cover, the bends in the front where a previous owner had tented it for a long period of time. The spine is loose and lax with age. The pages are yellow with time.
Clark is sleeping quietly in the plastic-wrapped chair beside your bed. He doesn’t have a bruise or cut. He doesn’t look anything like Superman had as he’d flung himself at you, two seconds too late, his body a shield against an explosion that lit your body with fire and colour alike. The whole world had been red, and then yellow, and suitably blue. There was pain.
Not a darkness as people often say. Just hurting and now this.
You take a scary breath. Hitching and pained, you search for comfort and find none of it. There’s a needle in the back of your hand secured with a teddy bear wrapping. The sheets have been drawn to your chin and choke you as you try to sit.
After a moment of struggling, you sink back and try for another breath. Deep, aching breaths. You do it until your lungs burn, these awful, stringing breaths, eyes to the ceiling and fighting the spots of nothingness that cloud your vision.
“Hey,” a soft voice says, softer hand pressed to the curve of your neck. “Oh, hey, sweet girl, hey… it’s okay. The pain won’t last, they gave you a little more morphine a few minutes ago, it’ll kick in.”
“Uh–”
Clark makes a sound. “Oh.”
You let your eyes slide to him. He’s checking his wrist where it’s resting on you.
“I was sleeping for a long time, I… Honey, I’ll get a nurse.”
“No,” you breathe.
“Yeah, honey, I’ll get a nurse,” he repeats, stroking your neck with his thumb. His eyes are their usual calm blue, bearing down into your own with an emotion that’s somehow palpable and implacable. “It’s no good, you being in pain like this. I’ll come right back.”
“Clark, don’t go,” you whine.
It’s like the world has been placed heavy on your head.
Clark offers you relief. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Tell me what’s hurting, and I’ll fix it.”
You shake your head at him. Fuck, nothing hurts. It’s not pain you’re being smothered in.
“Okay,” he murmurs.
For a while, you don’t talk. Clark stays stooped over you, too tall and careful anyhow to stay out of your light. He holds your cheek, rubbing at skin with his thumb until it’s tickled into numbness, your body begging you to move away from his touch and your brain knowing you can’t. You’ll never duck away from his fingertips ever again.
Where he’d been unhurt, he isn’t unharried. His hair is in a complete disarray, curls in places pulled straight and greasy behind his ears. His face is pale. His eyes flicker obsessively between you and your monitor, as though he can decipher the information it displays. He must see something there that he trusts, sitting down again in the chair dragged quick and easy to the side of your bed. His hand stays at your face. He’s long. It’s simple work.
“You read The Ocean,” you whisper.
“I read all your annotations, too,” he tells you, turning his hand to run it down your cheek, his fingernails especially silky against the line of your jaw.
You turn your face toward his touch. Your eyes flutter closed as he indulges your deepest fantasy.
“I didn’t–” Oh, you can’t say it. You hadn’t meant to want him like this. You hadn’t known he was Superman, and isn’t that awful? Something cruel. Your best friend kept a worst secret.
He doesn’t rush you.
You’re ready to try again a few minutes later. His fingertips have started to draw a flower into your neck.
“I’m embarrassed that Clark knows what I said to Superman,” you say plainly.
“Superman didn’t tell Clark anything,” Clark says. His voice is light in contrast to your hesitancy.
“But you know it all.”
“I know you,” he agrees.
“I’m really… sorry. I’m sorry, I–” You search for his touch and he immediately cups your cheek again. “Clark, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come out looking for you. I didn’t realise you could look after yourself and I made things worse.”
“Do you even remember?” he asks.
Mildly. You’d woken once before and found a less fixed Clark covered in blood above you. A part of you had understood that it was Clark, even without his glasses, and a different part knew it was Superman. Then things had blurred, half-replaced by a memory of his hand behind your back in the middle of a meadow halfway across the world, that beautiful quiet valley where the water had been ice and the grass emerald velveteen under your legs.
In the dream, Superman (and this had been real until it wasn’t), turned to you, and said, with Clark’s dorky intonation, “That’s seriously beautiful, huh?”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“But–”
“You don’t. I won’t argue about it with you. You have no apologies to make, you did everything right and nothing wrong, and I lied to you, and I got you hurt, and…” He has the gall to pink in the cheeks, like you’ve taken the skin between your knuckles and pinched. “I wasn’t honest with you about my feelings. I almost kissed you as Superman, and that wasn’t fair.”
“You really are… him?” you ask weakly.
“Yeah, I am.”
Clark sits up as a doctor opens your room’s door.
“Everything okay?” she asks. When she sees you awake, she smiles broadly. “Hey, you’re up! Can we get you some dinner now?”
“You skipped breakfast,” Clark tells you.
“I was awake for breakfast?”
“Barely. We had you on some pretty gnarly painkillers,” the doctor says. She adjusts her white coat. “I just wanted to check in with your nurses and your lovely partner here that you hadn’t thrown up again.”
You flush. “I’m fine.”
Clark simply rubs your chest like a wave of his hand against your heart.
“I’m worried you haven’t gotten enough sustenance this past day, but we try not to hook you up with too many things,” the doctor explains, “much better for you to settle and then eat. And to drink some water!”
“I don’t feel very hungry.”
“The painkillers you’re on can make some people feel quite sick. But try your best, okay? I’ll come back after dinner to see what we can do about those broken fingers.”
You follow your arm down to your hand. Your pinky and ring finger on the non-dominant hand have been splinted but not casted.
“Oh.”
The doctor takes her leave, abandoning Clark to your questions.
“What’s wrong with me?” you ask.
“You got concussed again. It made you sick, and your hand is very nearly broken, but they think it’s just your fingers from the look of your x-rays. And you have a long cut.” He puts his hand on your stomach gently. “Here. Almost as long as your arm, but it’s a surface cut. You landed on debris. I’m sorry, my– honey. Sorry.”
You can’t fight the chills or your bewilderment. “What for?”
“I didn’t get to you fast enough.”
“Clark.” Your mouth is dry. He’s pretty. Your head goes round and round and aching and then with a dash of clarity, the world snaps back into place. Your hospital room is empty and bright, with a vase filled to bursting with sweetpeas in pride of place on your nightstand. There are voices drifting in from the hallway, and Clark is handsome even as he tears himself apart. The silver lining his bottom lashes doesn’t go unnoticed. “I’m okay, babe.”
He laughs wetly.
“I’m fine,” you promise, quieter now. “How couldn’t I be? You’re so gentle.”
Clark finds your hand, pulling it to his forehead, his body bending forward like a marionette on loosening strings. He shakes his head vehemently, his grip on your wrist tight but far from cruel.
“You’re gentle,” you promise under your breath, “I told you that before, didn’t I? You’re kind, and brave, and– it’s not your fault I went looking for you.”
“I should be comforting you. I should be helping you,” he whispers.
“You won’t catch me crying on your shoulder twice, Superman.”
His head flinches up, like he’s realising for the first time that you know who he is.
Whatever he sees in your face helps him to settle down. He curls long, thick fingers around your hand. You can’t help noting how adversely tender they feel while he holds your hand.
“What did you think of the book?” you ask finally.
“I didn’t know you liked to read,” he says.
You shrug. Let your head fall back into a thin pillow, wondering how you might go about getting a better one, and beginning to feel the effects of the painkillers they’d been talking about. “It’s not like it’s the most alarming secret, between us.”
He lets out a wounded whine. “Why do you hate me?” he asks.
“You’re due some hazing.”
“Can’t you take pity on me?” he asks.
You curl your fingers around his where they’d otherwise been limp. “I’m not really half as cool as I’m trying to act, Clark.”
He sulks beautifully. “I think you’re lying to make me feel better.”
Only a little.
—
Being cool around Clark Kent lasts about as long as the morphine does. The reality is this: Clark Kent —best friend extraordinaire, sweetheart farm boy who’s vetted all your worst ideas, held your hair back in the smallest toilet in Metropolis bar history after a too-happy happy hour, knows all your holey socks and questionable medical queries— is Superman.
And Superman?
He’d been courting you.
The word is antiquated and accurate. Superman had been cautiously courting you with his sparse visits, shy and brave at once, brash but remarkably put together. It is after you know the truth that you realise Clark had been not so secretly courting you simultaneously.
“Is that why you were bringing me dinner and stuff?” you ask, lured into the conversation by accident, now deeply curious.
“No. I did that stuff before I wanted you. It was hard to sort the feelings into boxes, like– platonically, I’ve loved you since you came into the office with your miserable laptop and– and romantically, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realise until I tried to kiss you and you wouldn’t let me.”
“Sorry?”
“I tried to kiss you, and you thought it was a pity kiss.”
You hold him by the shoulder. “That was real?”
“Do you dream about it?” he asks knowingly.
“It was really going to be a kiss?”
He softens. Clark, big on your smaller couch, in his pajamas with his hair finally washed again and your hand in his lap, rests his shoulder into yours with a long-suffering sigh. “Best kiss of your life,” he promises.
“Prove it.”
“What?”
It’s been four days since the hospital and Clark is horrifically chaste. “Do you not want to kiss me?”
“You know I do.”
“So kiss me.”
He pinches your chin. “If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve just taken one,” he tells you, looking you straight in the eyes.
“From Superman?” you ask with a little scoff.
He moves his head from left to right. “From me,” he says.
There has been so much to tell him. So little space to hide from him. Lines of books you’d underlined for him, lines for Superman, for both of them. The guilty way you’d watched Clark Kent take off his shirt at the public pool in summer heat and the loop of Superman under your thumb as you’d fallen asleep scrolling SuperClub. You’ve been more honest with him than you’ve dared to be previously.
Clark has repaid you in kind.
Did you know, he’d confessed, when you were still grody from the hospital and he’d demanded you let him stay, that night, that everything I’m good at is because of the sun? I can function without it. I can store up the energy in my cells and I don’t need much to stretch it far, but without the yellow sun, I’m just like you?
How could I know that? you’d thought. Why are you telling me this? you’d asked instead.
I want you to know.
Clark loves the sun, you realise now. He turns his face up to it often, soaking it in silently. He gets this look whenever he stops to take it in. Perfect contentment. Trust, that it will make him feel better.
Clark tilts his chin against yours, nudging your face gently inward, giving you the shortest glimpse of that content stretched across a smile as it presses into yours.
You hyperventilate your way into an open-mouthed, gasping sort of thing, and find Clark a fiercer kisser than you could’ve imagined. All those daydreams about Superman saving you from another day copyediting your own messes, you’d never thought to picture the boy sitting at the desk across from you, how his hand might slide behind your neck like water. How he’d take the breath from your lips and offer his own in a shaky, wanting gasp.
Superman, breathless under your touch. No one would ever believe you.
“Did you want me to tell you how it ends?”
You break away from him, panting, vaguely confused. “Sorry?”
“The Ocean? You never finished it.”
“Oh. Maybe you can read it to me. You know, afterwards.”
Clark grins. “After,” he promises, leaning down for another kiss.
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
thank u Bec for proofreading ur brains are irreplaceable <3 and thank u everyone else for reading!
summary: “clark kent who…” bc he’s all i can think abt.
────୨ৎ────
CLARK KENT WHO…responds with “i like doing what you say.” when you told him, “i like when you do what i say.”
CLARK KENT WHO…picks up stray cats and brings them back to the apartment (you guys have 4)
CLARK KENT WHO…cannot be nonchalant for the life of him. you grab his arm to get his attention. “i love when you touch me, y’know that?” and he’s cheesin ear to ear.
CLARK KENT WHO…lays gentle kisses on your knee. you’re telling him about your day, one leg near your chest and the other slightly bent. “the bread came out really good—” your next sentence lingered on the tip of your tongue. clark is delivering soft kisses to your knee, simply enjoying your presence.
CLARK KENT WHO…just looks at you when you bite him. he pulls you off him like you’re a bad dog. #godforbidawomanhavehobbies
CLARK KENT WHO…has you sit on his back when he does pushups.
CLARK KENT WHO…wakes up with kiss marks on his cheek and lips because you’re going into work early and don’t want to wake him.
CLARK KENT WHO…coordinates his tie to match the pattern of your skirt or blouse.
CLARK KENT WHO…is a garbage disposal. you could get your food first and he’s done before you. he takes such big bites, you fear he might choke.
CLARK KENT WHO…reads to you because his voice is a comfort within itself.
CLARK KENT WHO…watches movies with you only for him to name the actor/actress and all the other projects they’ve been in.
CLARK KENT WHO… says “no, i’m clark.” whenever you say things like “are you serious?”
CLARK KENT WHO…remembers your orders from all different restaurants—“the usual, right?”
CLARK KENT WHO…just adores you and everything about you.
—
a/n: not too much on me, i’ve been out of the game for a while 😔 hope you guys enjoyed! please let me know what you guys want more of!! :3
Warning ⚠️: brief smut, mostly fluff, maybe grammar error and maybe some punctuation errors
Word Count:~650
A/N: This was so random, I don’t remember how the idea came to me 🤭, Happy Reading ❤️
-//-
Dinner is long forgotten — the only thing that matters now is the way Clark’s mouth trails fire down your throat, how his hands roam your bare skin as he lowers you onto the couch. He hovers over you, warm and solid, kissing you so deeply you forget how to breathe. His hands cup your breasts, thumbs circling your nipples until you’re gasping, your hips rolling up to meet him. He presses kisses lower — wet, open-mouthed, down your neck, over your chest — pausing only to suck a nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling until your soft moans echo off the walls.
Your fingers fumble at his pants, desperate to feel him. He laughs breathlessly against your skin, then helps you tug them down and toss them aside. When he slides your panties off, he kisses his way down with them — leaving a trail of warmth that makes your whole body shiver.
He settles between your thighs, spreading you open so easily it makes your cheeks burn. His mouth lowers, tongue tasting you in slow, deep licks that have your back arching off the couch. You whimper his name, one hand buried in his hair as he groans low in his throat, savoring every sound you make.
When your thighs tremble and you fall apart for him, gasping his name in a soft cry, he doesn’t give you a chance to come down. He kisses his way back up your body — soft, hungry pecks along your stomach, between your breasts, up your throat, his lips finding yours again just as he slides inside you in one smooth, deep thrust.
You moan into his mouth, your nails dragging down his back as he starts to move — slow, steady strokes that get faster, deeper, until the slap of skin on skin fills the room. He whispers your name between kisses, his breath ragged when you clench around him.
Your soft cries build again until you’re trembling under him, walls fluttering around him as you come a second time, a choked moan on your lips. That’s all it takes — he pushes in deep, hips stuttering as he spills inside you, his mouth buried against your neck as he pants your name.
After, he slips away just long enough to grab a warm cloth and clean you up gently, pressing kisses to your cheeks every time you flinch from how sensitive you are. Then he pulls you under the blanket, both of you curled together on the couch, your leg thrown over his hip, your cheek resting on his chest.
The living room is a mess — clothes scattered everywhere, soft TV glow flickering across the walls. You’re half-asleep, drifting in the warmth of him, when you feel him shift under you.
He squints over your shoulder, brow furrowing, “What you got there, buddy?” he mutters, suspicion creeping into his voice.
You peek over, stifling a giggle when you see the dog standing proudly with your bra clenched between his teeth. He wags his tail, gives it a tiny shake like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Your boyfriend lets out an exasperated sigh, running a hand over his face. He shifts out from under you, the blanket slipping off his hips as he stands.
You giggle, tugging the blanket tighter around you as Clark steps off the couch, half-naked and still flushed.
He tries, “Hey, Krypto, buddy…” but Krypto just takes off behind the coffee table, your bra flapping like a victory flag in his mouth, “Kyrpto, No! Drop it.”
You bury your face in the blanket, shoulders shaking as you watch your gorgeous, half-naked boyfriend running circles around the living room, muttering more empty threats while the dog wags his tail like it’s the best game in the world.
“Give it back, Krypto!”
You wouldn’t trade this ridiculous moment for anything.
—————————————————————————-
Thank you for reading guys... feel free to like, reblog, follow my account, leave a comment and my chat is always open for random chats or requests... appreciate every single one of you... ❤️
hands. big hands. big chunky hands. calloused yet somehow soft right in the middle of his palm. they're so big i actually want him to fist me but i know he wouldn't because he's just a baby and three apples tall. but i also want him to punch me a lot in a way that is concerning to feminism. i miss writing smut
you shift closer in the dim glow of the lamp, your lips grazing the edge of his jaw, then lower in that slow and teasing way. you let your tongue drag across his skin until you find the spot just under his collarbone. the one you know would make anyone else melt. you kiss it. suck, just a little. just enough. then, you smooth over the spot with your tongue once again.
and…nothing. you pull back, squinting. with the tilt of your head, you try again—harder this time. you’re focused like a girl with a mission. clark watches, amusement dancing around his eyes. but still, no mark and no color. not even the faintest blush blooming under the skin. it’s like trying to bruise marble. you sit back, scratching your head and blinking at him. “okay. weird question.”
clark, propped up on one elbow, looks up at you with that soft, dopey smile like he’s already charmed and doesn’t know what for. “yeah?”
“do you…not bruise?”
he winces, sheepish. “oh. right. yeah, that’s—that’s a thing.”
you just stare at him. “you let me go at you like a vampire and didn’t think to mention that first?”
he shrugs, cheeks a little pink. “i didn’t wanna ruin your moment. you looked really focused.”
you groan and flop forward, burying your face in his chest. “clark.”
“in my defense,” he says, trying not to laugh, “this is the first time anyone’s been disappointed that they can’t injure me.” you hit him in the ribs—it does nothing. he peeks down at you. your brows are furrowed, lips pursed forward in pure thought. suddenly, your bare feet are padding on the wooden floors. you make a sharp turn into the bathroom and shuffle through your makeup bag. finally, you pull out the shiny tube.
he hears the click of the cap before he sees you again. you’re strutting back, hips swaying and smirking. your lips are twisted in triumph, the lipstick already slick across your mouth. clark’s still propped up against the pillows, watching you with that boyish, utterly doomed look on his face. “uh oh.”
you crawl onto the bed with the kind of slow, lethal grace that should be illegal. “stay still, superman.”
his eyes dart down to your mouth, then back up. “should i be scared?”
“yes,” you say sweetly, straddling his hips. he’s warm under you and still shirtless, still glowing faintly like he swallowed the sun. you grab his chin with two fingers, tilting his face, and then press your mouth to his neck. firmly, purposefully, slowly. you pull back to admire your work. a perfect crimson kiss blooms right beneath his jawline. “there,” you declare, victorious. “perfect.”
clark touches it, awestruck. “you vandalized me.”
you grin. “i claimed you.”
he sits up a little straighter, brows high. “this is your version of a kryptonian bonding ritual?”
“pretty much. and don’t wipe it off.”
“never.” he promises, all starry-eyes and solemn.
the next morning, he stumbles into the bathroom half-asleep, hair a riot of soft curls, rubbing at his eyes. he flicks on the light—bright, unforgiving—and freezes. his reflection blinks back at him, bleary and shirtless. his neck, his collarbone, and the swell of his shoulder are completely covered. your lipstick blooms across his skin. your smudged kisses in scarlet and rose, one dusted over his clavicle, another tucked just beneath his ear like a secret.
he exhales a laugh. quiet and disbelieving. his fingers skim over one of the stains, careful not to smudge it further. “yeah,” he murmurs to the empty room, lips twitching. “definitely claimed.”
