I admit I already went to see my guy on the big screen, and oh my God, it was crazy. I'm going again tomorrow, haha. Ready for a flood of Clark fanfics?
"Oh come on, seriously? Those again?" Clark questioned you desperately.
You'd been dating him for months (long enough to feel comfortable keeping changes of any kind of clothes at his place and casually using his shower on Saturday mornings).
Now, Clark is an absolute angel through and through. What he would get pouty about, however, was seeing you-- his incredibly intelligent, hard working, sexy, loving girlfriend-- strutting around his apartment wearing Spider-Man pjs.
"Clarkie, baby, you know he's my favorite Marvel hero and this shirt and boxers are unfairly comfortable." You whine right back at him, mimicking his pout playfully.
"But wouldn't you rather wear, oh... I don't know... your boyfriend's merchandise to bed? I personally think the blue and yellow happen to look particularly stunning on you with, uhm, your hair and eyes....?" His argument fell a little flat there at the end but you had to admit, seeing him jealous of you wearing a fictional hero's merch around his apartment was very endearing.
You'd had the Spider-Man themed shirt and boxer set well before you met, forget started dating, Clark Kent. The pj rotation was so ingrained in your life that you didn't even think anything of it when you first brought the change of clothes to his apartment the first time he asked you to stay over. You were grabbing dinner one night, he had picked you up to go to the nice italian place across town, when he'd asked if you would like to spend the night at his place: "-you could show me some of the shows you always talk about or watch a couple movies. Only if you'd feel comfortable, of course" he rushed, almost like he was bracing himself for your rejection.
"Clark I would love to come over tonight, I just have to grab some stuff from my place first, if that's okay. Pajamas, shower stuff, yknow."
"Oh! Of course! I can run you by after dinner" Clark was blushing now.
And that's when the one-sided feud had started.
That night, after a couple glasses of wine, some generous flirting and kisses, you decided you were uncomfortable in your outfit and had asked Clark to release you so you could change. When you walked out, he froze. And you saw it. His shoulders tensed, he wouldn't meet your eyes, and his hands started fidgeting badly with his pants.
"Clark are you okay? You look like I just flashed you or something." you joked, trying to ease whatever tension you'd created in the five seconds it took you to reclaim your place on his couch.
"You're wearing a superhero shirt." Blunt. A little awkward. Shaky, even.
"Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of Spidey, he's probably my favorite, if I had to pick--" and that's when you saw him wince. Wince. At the mention of your favorite fictional superhero.
"Clark are you-" you felt so bad for giggling but come on, he was so cute when he was a little flustered.
"Are you jealous that I'm wearing Spider-Man themed pjs?" You questioned teasingly.
And Clark, red as a tomato at this point, nods stiffly. He wasn't upset at you by any means. Oh golly no, he would never truly be upset at you over something as silly as this! He was just slightly put off and, yes, a little jealous that the first time (and the next many times after this affair) he witnessed his girlfriend in superhero attire, it wasn't even his.
"I just think you'd look a lot nicer in my crest, is all" Clark mumbled, a little dejectedly.
You'd simply giggled again with the promise of getting some shirts ("and maybe some matching underwear if you're lucky" you'd said with a wink) to wear regularly.
Now, months later, as you're walking out of his bathroom comfy in your spidey pjs, Clark realizes you've never done good on that promise to get your own Superman clothes.
"What about my stuff?" He whines after you, following you to the couch to start your shared Saturday off right: watching trashy tv shows or internet deep dives.
"I never find anything good in-store and it's not like I go often enough to even look, you always get groceries when your out or whenever." You say while looking for something to watch. As you're messing around on the TV, you feel Clark pull you into his chest for cuddles and what you can only assume to be a sort of 'claim' over Spider-Man (you only roll your eyes, who knew Superman himself would consider superheroes a touchy subject).
"What if," he says, digging his nose past your hair and into the side of your neck, "we go out tomorrow on a Superman shopping spree so I can get you plenty of my things. Then you wouldn't need your silly Spider-Man shirt." He says, face still hidden by most of yours.
You gasp at that. "And throw away spidey!!? Clark, you know I can't do that!" You feel his arms tighten around you and hear a muffled groan and know you'll willingly lose this battle.
You hum in faux-thoughtfulness "Although, I think if you could help me find some suuuuuper comfy Superman shirts to wear to bed, spidey may show up less in the rotation." You offer, grinning because you know what he'll say next.
"I suppose I can accept that olive branch." Clark says before kissing the top of your head and settling down to waste the rest of your Saturday watching and doing whatever it is that Superman and his Spider-Man-loving girlfriend do on their Saturdays at home.
a/n: lowkenuinely wrote this instead of getting ready for bed but i've been thinking about it too much recently to ignore. anyway, in my head reader and clark are about to watch tires bc i'm obsessed with it again. get some sleep and happy reading my lovelies!
Sinopsis: Superman is the symbol of hope for the world—but as Clark Kent, he faces the one battle he cannot win. As memories fade and time slips away, he clings to ordinary moments, desperate to preserve what little remains of their love.
Warnings: Memory loss, emotional distress, grief, mentions of medical treatment
WC: 4,300 words approx.
They say Superman represents hope. That kind of hope you sometimes lose when you can no longer see a way out, when the days grow heavy and everything seems dark. The people of Metropolis felt that hope when they saw him flying across the sky, when they watched him descend like a falling star to catch a bus or stop a collapsing building. Children shouted in excitement, adults sighed in relief, because they knew that as long as he was there, everything would be alright.
But Superman was shattered on the inside. Clark Kent, rather. Because when he took off the cape and stopped being the hero, he was left alone with his thoughts, and those thoughts weighed more than anything he had ever lifted in the sky. “Was it that day?” Clark wondered as the smile faded from his face. He had saved some children from a fire, had hugged them one by one, had posed for photos with that wide smile everyone knew. But the moment he turned away, the smile disappeared. He took it off as if it were part of the costume. Then he put on his ordinary-person clothes, his shoes that clicked as he walked, his glasses, and began the journey back to his apartment.
When he opened the door, the scent of home was the same. His home. The place where you waited for him. It smelled like freshly made food, like cheap candles bought from the corner store, like dried flowers they never threw away because they carried memories. He closed the door carefully, as if making noise might break something fragile that was already cracked. Before a tear could slip down his cheek, he wiped it away quickly with the back of his hand. He forced a smile—the same false smile he used for interviews, for photos, so no one would ask questions. He left his briefcase by the entrance, took off his jacket, and placed it on the sofa. He walked through the living room, and his eyes, unwillingly, drifted toward the photographs he once loved. They were pictures of the two of you, the day you were bound in marriage. You, in that white dress that made you look like a dream; him, in his blue suit with that genuine smile only you knew. But he couldn’t look at them. Not because he hated them, but because if he did, the tears would return, and this time he wouldn’t be able to stop them. So he looked away, pressed his lips together, and walked into the kitchen.
He walked toward you. He wrapped his arms around your waist, rested his chin on your shoulder, and closed his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. To pretend nothing was wrong.
“I told you I’d come prepare dinner,” he whispered near your ear, his voice soft in that way he only used when you were alone.
You turned and smiled. Your hair was loose, cascading over your shoulders like a waterfall. You used to say you hated wearing it that way because the city was too hot, because it stuck to the back of your neck and made you itch. But you also admitted you liked how you looked with it down, that it made you feel prettier. Then you would say you looked thinner, that your clothes were too loose, and he would always shake his head and tell you you were just as beautiful as the first day he saw you.
“I’m unemployed now,” you whispered, your voice trembling slightly, though you hid it behind a smile. “I want to be a good wife to my husband.”
You stepped closer and placed a soft kiss on his lips. He looked at you intently, with those blue eyes that always saw you as if you were the only person in the world. He nodded slowly.
“You are always a good wife,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. “The best.”
You nodded, but your eyes were already shining. You didn’t want to cry. Not again.
“Clark,” you whispered, your hand rising to touch his cheek.
He shook his head before you could say more.
“No… don’t say anything right now, please,” he pleaded, his voice cracking just a little. “We should eat. Eat like we always do.”
You nodded and looked at him. His eyes were glassy, like a glass of water about to overflow. He wanted to cry—it showed in the way his chest rose and fell quickly, in how he bit his lower lip. But he stopped. For you. Because if he cried, you would cry, and then everything would fall apart. You understood. You stroked his cheek with your fingers, gently, as if he were something fragile.
“I made a cake too,” you said, changing the subject with a smile that was hard to maintain.
He nodded, grateful for the shift.
“I can’t wait to try it,” he whispered, and for a second, he seemed like the Clark from before—the one who got excited over homemade cake.
Yes. It was that moment. He confirmed it when he carried the plates to the dining room and set them on the table. He remembered that day in the doctor’s office, when the man looked at both of you and dropped the words like a stone against glass: it was a tumor in your brain. The doctor explained that your memories could be affected, that you would probably start forgetting small things first, then the important ones. They couldn’t operate—it was in a very dangerous place. They would begin chemotherapy. You cried all the way home, all that day, all that week. That had been a month ago. Clark had hope then. He believed that with treatment, with time, with luck, everything would turn out fine. But then the doctor had called him aside and told him the truth: the tumor had spread. Chemotherapy wouldn’t cure you, it could only delay your death sentence. A few more months, perhaps. Or maybe not.
Hope collapsed inside him. In the man who represented hope for the entire world. Clark Kent, Superman, broke. He screamed at the sky in an empty field where no one could hear him, begging for a power to save you. Any power. A new one, a greater one, one that could stop what even he could not stop. He went to Bruce Wayne in Gotham. He arrived flying, landed on the mansion’s rooftop, and when Bruce came out to meet him, Clark fell apart. He told him everything. He cried like a child. He apologized for the intrusion, for arriving unannounced, for the tears. And Bruce, Gotham’s dark man, simply nodded and said he would help. That he would call the best doctor in the world, that he would use his money, his time, everything necessary.
But while that was happening, you had lost your job. You grew tired more quickly. Climbing the stairs left you breathless. You wore your hair down because it had begun to fall out, strand by strand, and you wanted to keep it loose to remember what you would soon no longer have. In the mornings, you looked at yourselves in the mirror and both saw how time slipped away like water through your fingers. You cried, of course you did. You cried in bed with the lights off, you cried in the shower where the sound of water masked your sobs. But Clark clung to normalcy—to dinners, to silly conversations, to the three years of marriage that had been the happiest of his life.
You ate that night. He told you about Jimmy, who had made a terrible joke at the office. About Lois, who was learning to cook and had burned three pans. About Cat, who wore a hat so large it wouldn’t fit through the door. About Perry, who asked for coffee and was brought tea. You smiled, and you laughed at times, but he already noticed. He had examined you with his X-ray vision without you knowing, just to see, just to confirm what the doctor had already told him. He ignored it. He preferred not to know. He preferred to feel normal. You ate the cake, and you laughed when he smeared cream at the corner of his lips. You took a napkin and wiped his mouth carefully, tenderly. Then he smiled, but his eyes filled with tears again. You nodded. You knew. His blue gaze screamed a wordless question: why does the world want to take away what I love most? You smiled at him as tears rolled down your cheeks as well.
“Come here,” you said, and your voice did not tremble because you had cried so much you had no strength left to shake.
He rose from his chair, knelt before you, and buried his head in your abdomen. His shoulders shook silently.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Clark said, his voice broken, shattered.
You sobbed. No, you didn’t want to die either. You didn’t want to imagine that one day his pain would heal. That he would smile again without his chest aching. That he would love again—someone else—and you would remain in the past like an old photograph in a drawer. A bitter past. A memory that would blur with time. You hated that. You hated not being able to do anything. But Clark already had enough, carrying you, watching you slowly fade. You yourself knew the medication would enter your body and the deterioration would begin sooner or later. The vomiting. The exhaustion. The pain. You refused the treatment. You preferred to suffer for less time but with more clarity, with cleaner memories. But Clark begged you to stay, to try, not to give up. And in a desperate attempt to remove the tumor, everything worsened. The tumor only spread. Like a stain of ink on wet paper.
And there you both were, on the kitchen floor, holding each other while the cake cooled on the table and the world kept turning outside, unaware that the man who flew in the sky was falling apart in his wife’s arms.
The months passed, and the days became both slower and heavier at the same time. The dizziness came—sudden spells while you were in the kitchen or when you got out of bed. The world would begin to spin, and you had to grab onto something to avoid falling. But Clark was always there. He held you with his strong arms, arms that could lift a building yet held you with a gentleness that seemed impossible. He carried you through the skies to your treatments, flying slowly so you wouldn’t feel the cold wind, so you wouldn’t grow more dizzy. That way, you didn’t have to endure the stress of traffic, of buses, of people pushing in the streets. He smiled for you all the time, even as he was breaking inside. He prayed to the gods, to whatever watched from above, to help you. He was so strong—he could stop a train with one hand, could change the course of a river—but he couldn’t help you. And that broke him more than any blow he had ever received.
One night, you were sitting in front of the bathroom mirror. The lights were off; only the moonlight coming through the window illuminated your reflection. You held a lock of hair between your fingers, one that had fallen out while you brushed it. You looked at it as if it were the last piece of yourself you had left.
“I don’t want to cut my hair,” you cried without looking at him. Your voice came out broken by sobs. “I don’t want to… I’ll be ugly.”
Tears streamed down your cheeks and fell onto your thin hands. You knew that soon you would have almost no hair left, that chemotherapy would take it from you little by little, and the thought of looking in the mirror and not recognizing yourself frightened you more than the illness itself.
Clark knelt beside you, just as he had done so many nights. He looked at you with those blue eyes that had always been yours, that had always seen you as the most beautiful woman in the world. And although his eyes were also filled with tears, he didn’t let them fall. Not yet.
“You will be the most beautiful of all,” he whispered, gently caressing your cheeks with his fingers, as if afraid of breaking you. “Look at me.”
You lifted your gaze and saw him. He smiled at you—that smile he saved only for you, the real one, the one that never appeared in newspapers or Superman photographs.
“You’ll be so beautiful that I’ll fall even more in love with you,” he said, his voice trembling slightly, “and you’ll only make my heart ache from loving you so much.”
You didn’t know if it was the way he said it or the way his eyes shone like wet stars, but you laughed. You laughed while crying and threw yourself into his arms. Your tears mixed on his shoulders, in your hair, in the silence of that night. You held each other tightly, as if by holding on hard enough, you could stop time.
Clark continued working at the newspaper. He went every day, wrote his articles, talked with Lois and Jimmy, pretended everything was fine. And you, in secret, left him notes. You hid them in his briefcase, in his pockets, between the pages of the books he read. Small notes that said “I love you” or “buy milk” or “don’t forget to water the plants today.” Because the two of you had divided expenses, chores, life. The plants you had bought together at that corner nursery, the goldfish swimming in the round bowl you loved so much, the laundry you always left for Sundays. You wrote everything down. An entire notebook with contacts, with phone numbers of friends, of doctors, of Martha. With recipes—though he could cook almost anything, he had always loved your lasagna and those chocolate-filled cookies you made on cold days. You wrote them with precise instructions: how much flour, how much butter, what temperature for the oven. Everything. Your will was simple, because you didn’t have much. Clark was your husband, the sole owner of your heart, and he would keep the little you had gathered—your books, your dresses, the letters you kept in a box under the bed. You left everything ready, as if you knew. Maybe you did.
After a year, the doctor looked at both of you in his office. Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the desk cluttered with papers. The doctor removed his glasses, sighed, and released the words like dropping something unbearably heavy.
“Three months at most,” he said, his voice tired. “The chemotherapy has extended your time, but your condition is declining. I would recommend hospitalization.”
“No,” you said immediately. The word came out fast, almost without thought. You looked at Clark with fear in your eyes, that fear you felt every time someone talked about confining you to a white room.
“No,” Clark replied without hesitation. You lowered your gaze, grateful, and he squeezed your hand beneath the table. “I’ll take care of her.”
“But she needs to be monitored,” the doctor insisted, looking at you with eyes that had already seen many patients fade away. “We might be able to extend her time further.”
You smiled. A sad smile, the kind that hurts in the chest.
“But would it be miserable to spend my last months in a bed?” you said, your voice breaking. “I’d rather spend them at home.”
The doctor nodded. He knew you were right. You signed the papers to go home, to stop the treatment. Clark didn’t speak that day. Maybe you never realized it, but you were forgetting things. Your keys—you left them in the refrigerator. Your phone—you put it in your bag but later couldn’t remember where. The apartment number you had repeated so many times one day vanished from your mind. You stepped into the elevator, walked down the hallway, and stopped in front of a door that wasn’t yours. You called Clark, crying, not knowing where you were. And he came for you, found you sitting on the hallway floor, your hands trembling. He never made you feel bad. Never said “again.” He just held you, led you home by the hand, and poured you a glass of water.
That night, he slept with his head resting on your chest. He closed his eyes and whispered so softly it was barely audible.
“I love you,” he said.
You swallowed hard, clenching your teeth to keep from crying again. You kissed his dark hair.
“I love you more,” you replied.
“I will love you all my life,” he admitted, his voice shattering like glass hitting the ground.
You smiled. It was better this way—to believe him. Because if you thought about a future where he would have everything with someone else, everything you couldn’t give him, it would destroy you inside, and you would feel selfish for not wanting him to be happy. So you held him tighter and fell asleep listening to the sound of his breathing.
Martha would come to take care of you with Jonathan whenever Clark felt he wasn’t doing enough. Clark’s mother, that woman with gray hair and gentle hands, would cry in silence as she helped you get dressed. You comforted her, even though you were the one who was dying. You told her how much you loved her, how grateful you were for everything she had done for you. Jonathan, Clark’s father, a man of few words but warm embraces, would hold you tightly, and you would smile. They cared for you as if you were their own daughter. At night, Clark would accompany you to the bathroom, because the headaches were stronger now, and sometimes you became disoriented and didn’t know where you were.
One night, you looked at him with a frown. You didn’t recognize him. He was standing at the bathroom door, a towel in his hand, waiting to help you. But you saw him as if he were a stranger.
“Yes?” you asked, your voice sounding confused.
He smiled, though inside his heart was breaking.
“I’m Clark,” he said, pointing at the little note he had stuck on your mirror.
There were several. All written in his clear, rounded handwriting. “Clark is my husband.” “I have been married to Clark for four years.” “Clark fell in love first.” “You met him during an interview.” You read them slowly, moving your lips like when you were learning to read as a child.
You turned to look at him. You looked at your hand, the ring on your thin skin, your bones visible beneath. Then you looked at his finger, the ring identical to yours. You nodded, even though you still didn’t fully remember.
“I won’t come closer if you don’t want me to,” Clark said, his voice trembling slightly.
You looked at him again. The hallway light illuminated half of his face. His eyes were blue, very blue, like the sky after a storm.
“You have beautiful eyes,” you said, not knowing why, but feeling that it was true.
He blushed. He lowered his gaze and bit his lip. Then he swallowed with difficulty and looked at you again, his eyes filled with tears he could no longer hold back.
“I know,” he said, his voice broken. “You told me that when we first met.”
You smiled. Something inside you—something that wasn’t your mind, something deeper—told you that this man was important. You stepped closer and embraced him. Your mind no longer recognized him, but your heart seemed to, because when he held you, you felt at peace. As if you were home.
And so it went. Everything passed. The good days and the bad. The laughter and the silences. The memories that faded and the embraces that remained. Everything passed, until the clear skies turned gray. Drops began to fall over Metropolis, slow at first, then heavier. Darkness stained entire weeks, as if the sun had forgotten to rise. And then, as if nothing had happened, the sun was reborn. That is life. It goes on, even when it hurts.
Superman kept flying. He saved people who were falling, stopped trains that derailed, put out fires that threatened to swallow homes. And Clark Kent kept working at the newspaper, writing articles about traffic and neighborhood fairs, pretending the world was still the same.
“Are you coming, Kent, or what excuse are you inventing now?” Lois asked one day, her hands on her hips, a smile on her face that had no idea what Clark carried in his chest.
“I’m going to see my wife,” Clark said, looking at her. And for a second, Lois fell silent. Jimmy, who was nearby, smiled and nodded, because he knew. Everyone in the office knew that Clark went to the same place every day.
“Will you be okay?” Jimmy asked, in that voice of his that always sounded concerned.
“I always am,” Clark said with a smile. He stood from his chair, turned off his lamp, and adjusted the frames with the photos of his wedding that he kept on his desk. He looked at them for a second. You were there, in your white dress and that wide smile. He carefully placed them in his briefcase and left.
He walked slowly through the streets of Metropolis. People passed by him without looking, without knowing that the man who flew in the sky was walking with a shattered heart. He stopped at a hamburger stand and bought two with barbecue sauce, not too spicy, no mustard, just the way you liked them. Also two sodas, very cold. Then he stopped at a bakery and bought two pieces of bread, the kind you always broke apart with your hands before eating. Finally, he arrived at a flower shop. The scent of fresh flowers filled the place.
“That one, please,” he said to the woman attending, pointing at a bouquet of white flowers. “It’s for my wife. Please arrange it nicely.”
The woman smiled, the kind of smile people have when they’ve seen many men buy flowers for their wives.
“Wedding anniversary?” she asked as she tied the flowers with a ribbon.
“Seven years,” Clark said. The woman nodded and handed him the bouquet carefully.
When he arrived at the place, he entered in silence. The grass was green, freshly cut. The afternoon sun painted everything in warm colors. Clark looked toward the headstone and smiled, as if he could see you sitting there, waiting for him.
“I told you I’d be early,” he said as he approached. He knelt in front of the headstone and set everything on the ground. “Two hamburgers, because I didn’t have time to cook today. I know, I know, but you know I couldn’t miss today.”
He removed the dry leaves that had gathered at the base of the stone, brushing them away carefully, as if he didn’t want to make noise. Then he placed the white flowers in the small stone vase they had set there.
“I brought these so you’ll forgive me,” he said, his voice softening. He sat on the grass, crossing his legs like he used to when you watched movies together on the sofa. He placed one hamburger in front of the headstone, with its soda beside it. He took the other for himself. “It was a long day. You’re probably upset because I didn’t come yesterday. Hey, love, I’m working. Actually, it looks like I might get a promotion. With that, I’ll be able to buy a car and pretend to be more human.”
He took a bite of his hamburger and chewed slowly, watching the sky turn orange.
“Lois is getting married, can you believe it?” he continued, speaking with his mouth half full. “And Jimmy seems to have settled down. He bought a house with a garden and everything. But neither of them loves the way we do.”
When he finished eating, he put the remaining hamburger into a bag and set aside the soda he hadn’t opened. He cleaned the crumbs that had fallen onto the grass, as if he were cleaning the table at home. Then he knelt again in front of the headstone, his hands resting on his knees, and tears began to roll down his cheeks. But he was smiling. He always smiled for you.
“Happy anniversary, my love,” he whispered. He breathed slowly, deeply, like when he tried to calm himself before breaking. “It’s a bit unfair that our anniversary is the same day as your death. Life is a little unfair. But I told you. Even though you didn’t want me to listen that night when you said you were afraid of being forgotten in a grave, here I am, beautiful. Remembering you every day of my life.”
He wiped a tear away with the back of his hand.
“The house is still yours,” he continued, his voice trembling but steady. “The paintings are still there, on the same wall where you hung them. I wear your ring here.”
He pulled out a silver chain from beneath his shirt. Hanging from it was your wedding ring, the one you used to wear on your finger. It gleamed in the light of the sunset.
“And I wear mine here,” he said, pointing to his ring finger, where he still wore his own ring. “I told you. I love you, and I will love you all my life. Even if fate has taken you away from me, I can’t fall in love with someone else because… you gave me everything I ever wanted.”
The wind blew softly, moving the white flowers and Clark’s hair. He closed his eyes for a moment, and in that silence, it felt as if he could hear you. As if you could hear him too.
