clark kent 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫
𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 / 𝐭𝐰 – 18+, MDNI, secret admirer au, slowburn romance, mutual pining, radical acceptance and love is the real punk rock, yearning, clark is a softie, smut, piv, oral sex (f!recieving), fingering, creampie, touch starved clark Kent
word count: 18k
Summary: You start getting anonymous love notes at the Daily Planet—soft, sincere, impossibly romantic. You fall for the words first, then realize they sound a lot like Clark Kent. And just when the truth begins to unravel, you start to suspect he might be more than just the writer… he might be Superman himself.
notes – not proofread and my first full Clark Kent fic!
— reblogs comments & likes are appreciated
The first thing you notice isn’t the coffee—it’s the smell.
Sharp espresso. The exact blend you order on days when the world feels like sandpaper. Dark, hot, and just a touch too strong. But when you reach your desk and set your bag down, the cup is already waiting for you, balanced on the corner of your keyboard like it belongs there.
A single post-it clings to the cardboard sleeve, the ink a little smudged from condensation:
“You looked like you had a long night.”
No name. No heart. Just that.
You stare at it for a second too long. The office hums around you—phones ringing, printers whining, the low buzz of voices—but your ears tune it all out as you reread the handwriting. Rounded letters. Slight right slant. You can’t place it.
And no one in this building knows your coffee order. You made sure of that.
Across the bullpen, Jimmy Olsen drops into his chair with a paper bag in his teeth and two cameras slung around his neck.
“Someone’s got a secret admirer,” he sings, catching sight of the note.
You glance up, but try to play it cool. “Could be a delivery mistake.”
He snorts. “Right. And I’m dating Wonder Woman.”
Lois, passing by with a stack of mock-ups under one arm, pauses just long enough to lift a perfectly sculpted brow. “Who’s dating Wonder Woman?”
“Jimmy,” you and Jimmy say in unison.
“Right,” she says, deadpan, and moves on.
You feel a little heat crawl up your neck. You pull the cup closer. The lid’s still warm.
You’re still turning the note over in your hand when Clark Kent rounds the corner. His hair is a little damp at the ends, like he didn’t have time to dry it properly, already curling from the late-summer humidity. His tie—striped, loud, undeniably Clark—is halfway undone, the knot drifting lower by the second. His glasses are slipping down his nose like they’re trying to abandon ship.
He’s juggling three manila folders, a spiral-bound notebook balanced on top, a half-eaten blueberry muffin in his teeth, and what you’re almost certain is the entire city council’s budget report from 2024 spilling out of the bottom folder. It’s absurd. Kind of impressive. Very him.
“Clark—careful,” you call out, mostly on instinct.
He startles at the sound of your voice and turns a little too fast. The top file slips. He manages to catch it, barely, with an awkward swipe of his forearm, the muffin top bouncing to the floor with a quiet thwup. He rights the stack again with both arms now locked tight around the paperwork, and when he looks at you, he’s already wearing one of those sheepish, winded smiles.
“Morning sweetheart,” he says breathlessly. His voice is warm. Rough around the edges like he hasn’t spoken yet today. “Sorry, I’m late—Perry wanted the zoning report and the express line was… not express.”
You don’t answer right away. Because his eyes flick toward your desk—specifically the coffee cup sitting at the edge of your keyboard. And the note stuck to its sleeve. He freezes. Just for a second. A micro-hesitation. One breath caught too long in his chest. It’s nothing.
Except… it’s not.
Then he clears his throat—loud and awkward, like he swallowed gravel—and shuffles the stack in his arms like it suddenly needs reorganizing. “New… uh, budget drafts,” he says quickly, eyes very intentionally not on the post-it. “I left the tag on that one by mistake—ignore the highlighter. I had a system. Kind of.”
You blink at him, watching his ears start to go red. “…You okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, waving one hand too fast, almost drops everything again. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Just, you know. Monday.”
He flashes you the smile again—crooked, a little boyish, like he still isn’t sure if he belongs here even after all this time. That’s always been the thing about Clark. He doesn’t posture. Doesn’t strut. He’s got this open-face sincerity, like the world is still worth showing up for, even when it kicks you in the ribs.
And you’ve seen him work. He’s brilliant. Way too observant to be as clumsy as he pretends to be. But it’s charming. In that small-town, too-tall-for-his-own-good, mutters-puns-when-he’s-nervous kind of way.
You like him. That’s… not the problem. The problem is— He turns to walk past you, misjudges the distance, and thunks his thigh into the sharp edge of your desk with a grunt.
You flinch. “You good?”
“Yep.” He winces, but manages a thumbs-up. “Just, uh… recalibrating my ankles.”
Then he’s gone, retreating to the safe, familiar walls of his cubicle, still muttering to himself. Something about rechecking source notes and whether anyone notices when hyperlinks are one shade too blue.
You’re left staring at the cup. At the note.
You run your thumb over the y again, the way it loops low and curls back. There’s something oddly familiar about the penmanship. Not perfect. Neat, but casual. Like whoever wrote it didn’t plan to stop writing once they started. Like they meant it.
You don’t say it aloud—not even to yourself—but the truth is whispering at the edge of your brain.
It looks like his. It feels like his. But no. That would be— Clark Kent is thoughtful, sure. He’s the kind of guy who remembers how you like your takeout and always lets you borrow his chargers. He holds elevators and never interrupts, and he stays late when you need someone to double-check your interview transcript even though it’s technically not his beat.
He’s the kind of guy who brings you a jacket during late-night stakeouts without asking. He’s the kind of guy who makes you laugh without trying. But he couldn’t be the secret admirer.
…Could he?
You glance toward his cubicle. You can’t see him, but you can feel him there. The way his presence always lingers, somehow warmer than everyone else’s. Quieter.
You tuck the note into the back pocket of your notebook.
Just in case.
-
You forget about the note by lunch.
Mostly.
The newsroom doesn’t really give you space to linger in your thoughts—phones ringing, printers jamming, interns darting between desks like caffeinated ghosts. It’s chaos, always is, and you thrive in it. But even as you’re skimming through edits and fixing a headline Jimmy typo’d into a minor war crime, part of your brain keeps circling back to that one y.
By the time you head back from a sandwich run with mustard on your sleeve and a half-dozen emails on your phone, there’s another cup on your desk. Same order. No receipt. No name.
But this time, the note reads:
“The line you cut in paragraph six was my favorite. About hope not being the same thing as naivety.”
You freeze mid-step, bag still dangling from one hand.
You hadn’t published that line. You wrote it. Typed it, then stared at it for twenty minutes before deleting it—thought it was too sentimental, too soft for the piece. You didn’t want to seem like you were editorializing. And yet… it had meant something. You’d loved that line.
And someone else had read it. Which means…
Your eyes flick up. Around.
The bullpen looks the same as always: fluorescent lights buzzing, keys clacking, the faint scent of stale coffee and fast food. Jimmy’s arguing with someone about lens filters. Lois is deep in a phone call, gesturing with a pen like she might stab whoever’s on the other end.
And then—Clark. Sitting at his desk, halfway behind the divider. Fiddling with his glasses like they won’t sit quite right on the bridge of his nose. He glances up at you and smiles. Soft. A little crooked. Familiar in a way that does something deeply unhelpful to your chest.
You stare for a second too long.
He blinks. Looks down quickly. Reaches for his pen, drops it, fumbles, curses under his breath. You see the top of his ears turning red.
Something inside you shifts. The notes are sweet, yes. But this is specific. This is someone who read your draft. Someone who noticed the cut line.
You never shared it outside your initial file. Not even with Lois. You almost didn’t send it to copy at all. So… who the hell could’ve read it? How could they have seen it?
You return to your chair slowly, like it might help the pieces click into place. Your eyes catch the handwriting again.
The loops. The slight leftward tilt.
Clark does have neat handwriting. You’ve seen his notebook, all tidy bullet points and overly polite margin notes.
You tuck this note into your drawer. Next to the other one.
You don’t say anything.
-
Later that afternoon, the newsroom’s background noise crescendos into something louder—Lois and Dan from editorial locked in another philosophical brawl about media framing. You’re not part of the fight, but apparently your latest piece is.
“It’s fluffy,” Dan says, waving the printed article like it personally offended him. “It doesn’t do anything. What’s the point of it, other than making people feel things?”
You open your mouth—just barely—ready to defend yourself even though it’s exhausting. You don’t get the chance. Clark beats you to it.
“I think it was insightful, actually,” he says from across the bullpen, voice louder than usual. “And emotionally resonant.”
The silence is sharp. Dan arches a brow. “Listen, Kent. No one asked you.”
Clark straightens his tie. “Well, maybe they should.”
Now everyone’s looking. Lois leans back in her chair, visibly suppressing a smile. Dan scoffs and mutters something about sentimentality being a plague.
You just stare at Clark. He meets your eyes, then seems to realize what he’s done and looks at his notebook like it’s suddenly the most fascinating object in the known universe.
Your heart does something inconvenient. Because now you’re wondering if it is him. Not just because he defended you, or because he could have somehow read the line that didn’t make it to print, but because of the way he did it. The way his voice shook just a little. The way he looked furious on your behalf.
Clark is soft, yes. Awkward, often. But there’s something sharp underneath it. A quiet kind of intensity that only shows up when it matters. Like someone who’s spent a long time listening, and even longer choosing his moments.
You make a show of checking your notes. Pretending like your stomach didn’t just flip. You don’t look at him again. But you feel him looking.
-
The office after midnight doesn’t feel like the same building. The lights buzz quieter. The chairs stop squeaking. There’s an eerie sort of calm that settles once the rush hour of deadlines has passed and only the ghosts and last-minute layout edits remain.
Clark is two desks away, sleeves rolled up, tie finally abandoned and flung haphazardly over the back of his chair. He’s squinting at the screen like he’s trying to will the copy into formatting itself.
You’re just as tired—though slightly less heroic-looking about it. Somewhere behind you, the printer groans. A rogue page slides off the tray and flutters to the floor like it’s giving up on life.
Clark gets up to grab it before you can.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” you say as he crouches to retrieve it. “Or fall asleep with your face on the carpet and get stuck there forever.”
He offers a smile, crooked and half-asleep. “I’ve survived worse. Once fell asleep in a compost pile back in high school.”
You pause. “Why?”
“There was a dare,” he says, deadpan. “And a cow. The rest is classified, sweetheart.”
You snort before you can stop it.
It’s late. You’re punchy. The kind of tired that makes everything a little funnier, a little looser around the edges. He sits back down, stretching long limbs with a groan, and you let the quiet settle again.
“You know Clark, sometimes I feel invisible here.” You don’t mean to say it. It just slips out, quiet and rough from somewhere behind your ribcage.
Clark looks up instantly.
You keep staring at your screen. “It’s all bylines and deadlines, and then the story prints and nobody remembers who wrote it. Doesn’t matter if it’s good or not. No one sees you.” You tap the corner of your spacebar absently. “Feels like yelling into a tunnel most days.”
You expect him to say something vague. Supportive. A standard “no, you’re great!” brush-off. But when you finally glance over, Clark is staring at you with his brow furrowed like someone just insulted his mom.
“That’s ridiculous,” he mutters. “You’re one of the most important voices in the room.”
The words are firm. Not flustered. Not dorky. Certain. It disarms you a little.
You blink. “Clark—”
“No. I mean it, sweetheart," he says, almost stubborn. “You make people care. Even when they don’t want to. That’s rare.”
He looks down at his coffee like maybe it betrayed him by going cold too fast. You don’t say anything. But that ache in your chest eases, just a little.
-
The next morning, you’re halfway through your walk to work when you find it.
Tucked into the side pocket of your coat—the one you only use for receipts and empty gum wrappers. Folded carefully. Familiar ink.
“Even whispers echo when they’re true.”
You stop walking. Stand there frozen on the corner outside a coffee shop as cars blur past and someone curses at a cab a few feet away. You read the note twice, then a third time.
It’s simple. No flourish. No name. Just words—quiet, certain, and meant for you.
You don’t know why it lands the way it does. Maybe because it doesn’t try to dismiss how you feel. It just… reframes it. You may feel invisible, small, unheard—but this person is saying: that doesn’t make your truth meaningless. You matter, even if it feels like no one’s listening.
You fold the note gently, like it might tear. You don’t tuck this one into your notebook. You keep it in your coat pocket. All day.
Like armor.
-
By midafternoon, the bullpen’s usual noise has shapeshifted into something louder—one of those half-serious, half-combative newsroom debates that always starts in one cubicle and ends up consuming half the floor.
This time, it’s the great Superman Property Damage Discourse, sparked—unsurprisingly—by Lois Lane slapping a freshly printed article onto her desk like it insulted her directly.
“He destroyed the entire north side of the building,” she says, exasperated, as if she’s already had this argument with the universe and lost.
You don’t look up right away. You’re knee-deep in notes for your community housing series and trying to keep your lunch from leaking onto your desk. But the words still hit.
“To stop a tanker explosion,” you point out without much heat, eyes still scanning your page. “There were twenty-seven people inside.”
“My point,” Lois says, crossing her arms, “is that someone has to pay for all that glass.”
“Pretty sure it’s the insurance companies,” you mutter.
Lois raises a brow at you, but doesn’t push it. She’s used to you playing devil’s advocate—usually it’s just for fun. She doesn’t know this one’s starting to feel a little personal.
And then Clark walks in. He’s balancing two coffee cups and what looks like a roll of blueprints tucked under one arm, sleeves rolled up and tie already loose like the day’s been longer than it should’ve been. His hair’s a mess, wind-tousled and curling near the back of his neck, and he’s got that familiar expression on—half-focused, half-apologetic, like he’s perpetually arriving a few seconds after he meant to.
He slows as he approaches, catches the tail end of Lois’s rant, and hesitates. Just a second. Just long enough for something behind his glasses to tighten. Then, without warning or warm-up, he steps in like a man walking into traffic.
“He’s doing his best, okay?” he blurts. “He can’t help the building fell—there was a fireball.”
The bullpen quiets a beat. Just enough for the words to settle and sting. Lois doesn’t even look up from her monitor. “You sound like a fanboy.”
“I just—” Clark huffs. “He’s trying to protect people. That’s not… easy.”
He lifts his hand to gesture, but his elbow clips the corner of his desk and sends his coffee tipping. The paper cup wobbles, then crashes onto the floor in a slosh of brown across your loose notes.
“Clark!” You shove back in your chair, startled.
“Sorry—sorry—hang on—” He lunges for a stack of printer paper, overcorrects, and knocks over another folder in the process. Its contents scatter like leaves in the wind. He flails to grab what he can, muttering apologies the whole time.
The tension breaks—not because of what he said, but because of the way he said it. Because he’s suddenly in a mess of his own making, trying to mop it up with a handful of flyers and an empty paper towel roll, red-faced and flustered.
You can’t help it. You smile. Just a little.
Lois glances sideways at the scene, then turns to you, tone dry as dust. “Well. He’s… passionate.”
You arch a brow. “That’s one word for it.”
She doesn’t notice the way your eyes linger on him. She doesn’t see the shift in your chest when you watch him drop to one knee, scooping up wet files with shaking hands, his jaw tight—not from embarrassment, but from something quieter. Fiercer.
Because Clark hadn’t just jumped to Superman’s defense.
He’d meant it.
Like someone who knows what it feels like to try and still fall short. Like someone who’s carried the weight of people’s expectations. Like someone who’s watched something burn and had to live with the cost of saving it.
You know it’s ridiculous. You know it’s a stretch. But still… your breath catches.
He steadies the last folder against his desk, rubs the back of his neck, and looks up—right at you. Your eyes meet for a second too long.
You offer him a look that says it’s okay. He returns one that says thanks. And then the moment passes. You turn back to your screen, heart pounding for reasons you won’t name. And Clark returns to quietly drying his desk with a half-crumpled press release.
You don’t say anything. But you’re not watching him by accident anymore.
-
You’ve read the latest note a dozen times.
“Sometimes I wish I could just be honest with you. But I can’t—not yet.”
There’s no flourish. No compliment. Just rawness, stripped of any careful metaphor or charm. It’s still anonymous, but the voice… it feels closer now. Less like a mystery, more like someone standing just out of sight.
Someone with hands that tremble when they pass you a coffee. Someone who knows how your voice sounds when you’re frustrated. Someone who once told you, very softly, that your words matter.
You start thinking about Clark again. And once the thought roots, it’s impossible to pull it free.
-
You test him. It’s petty, maybe. Pointless, probably. But you do it anyway. That afternoon, you’re both holed up near the copy desk, reviewing your latest layout. Clark’s seated beside you, sleeves pushed up, his pen tapping lightly against the margin of your column draft. His knee keeps bumping yours under the desk, and every time, he apologizes with a shy smile that doesn’t quite meet your eyes.
You’re running on too little sleep and too many thoughts. So you try it. “You ever hear that phrase? ‘Even whispers echo when they’re true’?”
He looks up from the page. Blinks behind his smudged glasses. “Uh… sure. I mean, not in everyday conversation, but yeah. Sounds poetic.”
You tilt your head, eyes narrowing just slightly. “I read it recently,” you say, like you’re thinking aloud. “Can’t stop turning it over. I don’t know—it stuck with me.”
He stares at you for a beat too long. Then clears his throat and drops his gaze, pen suddenly very busy again. “Yeah. It’s… it’s a good line.”
“You don’t think it’s a little dramatic?”
“No,” he says too quickly. “I mean—it’s true. Sometimes the quietest things are the ones worth listening to.”
You nod, pretending to go back to your edits. But his pen taps a little faster. The corner of his mouth twitches. He’s trying to look neutral, maybe even confused. But Clark Kent couldn’t lie his way out of a grocery list.
And if he did write it, that means he knows you’re testing him.
You don’t call him on it.
Not yet.
-
Later that evening, he helps you file your story. Technically, Clark’s already done for the day—he could’ve clocked out an hour ago, could’ve gone home and slipped into his flannel pajamas and vanished into whatever quiet life he keeps outside these walls. But instead, he lingers.
His jacket is folded neatly over the back of your chair, sleeves still warm from his arms. His glasses sit low on his nose, catching the screen’s glow, one smudge blooming near the top corner where he’s pushed them up too many times with the side of his thumb.
He leans over the desk beside you, one palm braced flat against the surface, the other gently scrolling through your draft. His frame takes up too much space in that warm, grounding way—shoulder brushing yours occasionally, breath warm at your temple when he leans in to squint at a sentence.
You’re quiet, but not for lack of things to say. It’s the way he’s reading—carefully, like every word deserves to be held. There’s no red pen. No quick fixes. Just soft soundless reverence, like your work is already whole and he’s just lucky to witness it.
And his hands.
God, his hands.
You try not to look, but they’re impossible to ignore. Big and capable, yes, but gentle in the way he uses them—fingers skimming the edge of the printout like the paper might bruise, thumb stroking over the corner where the page curls, slow and absentminded. The pads of his fingers are slightly ink-stained, callused just at the tips. He smells faintly like cheap soap and newsroom toner and something you can’t name but have already begun to crave.
You wonder—just for a moment—what it would be like to feel those hands touch you with purpose instead of hesitation. Without the paper buffer. Without the quiet restraint.
He leans a little closer. You can feel the press of his shirt sleeve against your arm now, soft cotton against skin. “Looks perfect to me,” he murmurs.
It’s not the words. It’s the way he says them—like he’s not just talking about the story. You swallow, pulse jumping. You wonder if he hears it. You wonder if he feels it.
His eyes flick to yours for just a second. Something hangs in the air—fragile, charged. Then the phone rings down the hall, and the spell breaks like steam off hot glass. He steps back. You exhale like you’ve been holding your breath for three paragraphs.
You don’t look at him as he grabs his jacket. You just nod and whisper, “Thanks.”
And he just smiles—soft and private, like a secret passed from his mouth to your chest.
-
You don’t go home right away. You sit at your desk long after Clark and the rest of the bullpen has emptied out, coat draped over your shoulders like a blanket, fingers toying with the folded edge of the note in your lap.
“Sometimes I wish I could just be honest with you. But I can’t—not yet.”
You’ve read it enough times to have it memorized. Still, your eyes trace the handwriting again—careful lettering, no signature, just that quiet ache bleeding between the lines.
It’s the first one that feels more than just flirtation. This one hurts a little. So you do something you haven’t done before.
You pull a post-it from the stack beside your monitor, scribble down one sentence—no flourish, no punctuation.
“Then tell me in person.”
You slide it beneath your stapler before you leave. A deliberate offering. You don’t know how he’s been getting the others to you—if it’s during your lunch break or when you’re in the print room or bent over in the archives. But somehow, he knows.
So this time, you let him find something waiting.
And when you finally shrug on your coat and step into the elevator, the empty quiet of the newsroom echoes behind you like a held breath.
-
The next morning, there’s no reply. Not on your desk. Not slipped into your coat pocket. Not scribbled in the margin of your planner or tucked beneath your coffee cup. Just silence.
You try not to feel disappointed. You try not to spiral. Maybe he’s waiting. Maybe he’s scared. Maybe you’re wrong and it’s not who you think. But your chest feels hollow all the same—like something almost happened and didn’t.
So that night, you write again. Your hands shake more than they should for something so simple. A sticky note. A few words. But this one names it.
“One chance. One sunset. Centennial Park. Bench by the lion statue. Tomorrow.”
You stare at the words a long time before setting it down. This one’s not a joke. Not a dare. Not a flirtation scribbled in passing. This is an invitation. A door left open.
You slide it under your stapler the same way you’ve received every one of his notes—unassuming, tucked in plain sight. If he wants to find it, he will. You’ve stopped questioning how he does it. Maybe it’s timing. Maybe it’s instinct. Maybe it’s something else entirely.
But you know he’ll see it.
You pack up slowly. Shoulders tight. Bag heavier than usual. The newsroom is quiet at this hour—just the low hum of the overhead fluorescents and the soft, endless churn of printers in the back. You turn off your monitor, loop your coat over your arm, and make your way to the elevator.
Halfway there, something makes you stop. You glance back. Clark is still at his desk.
You hadn’t heard him return. You hadn’t even noticed the light at his station flick back on. But there he is—elbows on the desk, hands folded in front of him, eyes already lifted.
Watching you.
His face is unreadable, but his gaze lingers longer than it should. Soft. Searching. Almost caught. You feel the air shift. Not a word is exchanged. Just that one look.
Then the elevator dings. You turn away before you can lose your nerve.
And Clark? He doesn’t look down. Not until the doors slide shut in front of your face.
-
You tell yourself it doesn’t matter. You tell yourself it was probably nothing. A game. A passing flirtation. Maybe Jimmy, playing an elaborate prank he’ll one day claim was performance art.
But still—you dress carefully.
You pull out that one sweater that always makes you feel like the best version of yourself, and you smooth your collar twice before you leave. You wear lip balm that smells faintly like vanilla and leave the office ten minutes early just in case traffic is worse than expected. Just in case he’s early.
You get there first. The bench is colder than you remember. Stone weathered and a little damp from last night’s rain. Your coffee steams in your hands, and for a while, that’s enough to keep you warm.
The sky begins to soften around the edges. First blush pink, then golden orange, then the faintest sweep of violet, like a bruise blooming across the clouds. You watch the city skyline fade into silhouettes. The sun drips lower behind the glass towers, catching the river in a moment of molten reflection. It’s beautiful.
It’s also empty.
You wait. A couple strolls past, fingers laced, talking softly like they’ve been in love for years. A jogger nods as they pass, earbuds in, a scruffy golden retriever trotting faithfully beside them. The dog looks up at you like it knows something—like it sees something.
The wind kicks up. You pull your coat tighter. You tell yourself to give it five more minutes. Then five more.
And then—
Nothing. No footsteps. No note. No him.
Your coffee goes cold between your palms. The stone starts to seep into your bones. And somewhere deep in your chest, something you hadn’t even dared name… wilts.
Eventually, you stand. Walk home with your coat buttoned all the way up, even though it’s not that cold. You don’t cry.
You just go quiet.
-
The next morning, the bullpen hums with the usual Monday static. Phones ringing. Keys clacking. Perry’s voice barking something about a missed quote from the sanitation board. Jimmy’s camera shutter clicking in staccato bursts behind you. The Daily Planet in full swing—ordinary chaos wrapped in coffee breath and fluorescent lighting.
You move through it on autopilot. Your smile is small, tight around the edges. You’ve become a master of folding disappointment into your posture—chin lifted, eyes clear, mouth curved just enough to seem fine.
“Guess the secret admirer thing was just a prank after all.” You drop your bag beside your desk, shuffle through the morning copy logs, and say it lightly. Offhand. Like a joke. “Should’ve known better.” You make sure your voice carries just far enough. Not loud, but not a whisper. Casual. A throwaway comment designed to sound unaffected. And then you laugh. It’s short. Hollow. It dies in your throat before it even fully escapes.
Lois glances up from her monitor, eyes narrowing faintly behind dark lashes. She doesn’t laugh with you. She doesn’t smile. She just watches you for a beat too long. Not with judgment. Not even pity. Just… knowing. But she says nothing. And neither do you.
What you don’t see is the hallway—just twenty feet away—where Clark Kent stands frozen in place. He’d just walked in—late, coat slung over one arm, takeout coffee in the other. He had stopped just inside the threshold to adjust his glasses. He’d meant to offer you a second coffee, the one he bought on impulse after circling the block too many times.
And then he heard it. Your voice. “Guess the secret admirer thing was just a prank after all.” And then your laugh. That awful, paper-thin laugh.
He goes still. Like someone pulled the oxygen from the room. His hand tightens around the coffee cup until the lid creaks. The other arm drops slack at his side, coat nearly slipping from his grasp. His jaw tenses. Shoulders stiffen beneath his white button-down, and for one awful second, he forgets how to breathe.
Because you sound like someone trying not to care. And it cuts deeper than he expects. Because he’d meant to come. Because he tried. Because he was so close.
But none of that matters now. All you know is that he didn’t show up. And now you think the whole thing was a joke. A stupid, secret game. His game. And he can’t even explain—not without tearing everything open.
He stares down the corridor, eyes fixed on the edge of your desk, on the shape of your shoulders turned slightly away. He watches as you pick up your coffee and blow gently across the lid like it might chase the bitterness from your chest.
You don’t turn around. You don’t see the way he stands there—gutted, unmoving, undone. The cup trembles in his hand. He turns away before it spills.
-
That night, you go back to the office. You tell yourself it’s for the deadline. A follow-up piece on the housing committee. Edits on the west-side zoning profile. Anything to fill the time between sunset and sleep—because if you sleep, you’ll just dream of that bench.
The newsroom is quiet now. All overhead lights dimmed except for the halo of your desk lamp and the soft thrum of a copy machine left cycling in the corner.
You drop your bag with a sigh. Stretch your shoulders. Slide your desk drawer open without thinking. And find it. A note. No envelope. No tape. No ceremony. Just a single sheet of cream stationery folded in thirds. Familiar handwriting. Neat loops. Unshaking.
You unfold it slowly.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to be there. I can’t explain why I couldn’t—
But it wasn’t a joke. It was never a joke. Please believe that.”
The words hit like a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Then they blur. You read it again. Then again. But the ache in your chest doesn’t settle. Because how do you believe someone who won’t show their face? How do you believe someone who keeps slipping between your fingers?
You hold the note to your chest. Close your eyes. You want to believe him. God, you want to. But you don’t know how anymore.
-
What you couldn’t know is this: Clark Kent was already running. He’d been on his way—coat flapping behind him, tie unspooling in the wind, breath fogging as he dashed through traffic, one hand wrapped tight around a note he planned to deliver in person for the first time. He’d rehearsed it. Practiced what he’d say. Built up to it with every beat of a terrified heart.
He saw the park lights up ahead. Saw the lion statue. Saw the shape of a figure sitting alone on that bench.
And then the air split open. The sky went green. A fifth-dimensional imp—not even from this universe—tore through Metropolis like a child flipping pages in a pop-up book. Reality folded. Buildings bent sideways. Streetlamps started singing jazz standards.
Clark barely had time to take a deep breath before he vanished into smoke and flame, spinning upward in a blur of red and blue. Somewhere across town, Superman joined Guy Gardner, Hawk Girl, Mr. Terrific, and Metamorpho in trying to contain the chaos before the city unmade itself entirely.
He never got the chance to reach the bench. He never got the chance to say anything. The note stayed in his pocket until it was soaked with rain and streaked with ash. Until it was too late.
-
It’s supposed to be routine. You’re only there to cover a zoning dispute. A boring, mid-week council press event that’s been rescheduled three times already. The air is heavy with heat and bureaucracy. You and your photographer barely make it past the front barricades before the scene spirals into chaos.
First it’s the downed power lines—sparking in rapid bursts as something hits the utility pole two blocks down. Then a car screeches over the median. Then someone starts screaming.
You’re still trying to piece it together when the crowd surges—someone shouts about a gun. People scatter. A window shatters across the street. A chunk of concrete falls from the sky like a thrown brick.
Your feet move before your brain catches up. You hit the pavement just as something explodes behind you. A jolt rings through your bones, sharp and high and metallic. Dust clouds the air. There’s shouting, then screaming, and your ears go fuzzy for one split second.
And then he lands.
Superman.
Cape whipping behind him like it’s caught in its own storm, boots cracking against the sidewalk as he drops down between the wreckage and the people still trying to flee. He moves like nothing you’ve ever seen.
Not just fast—but impossible. His body a blur of motion, heat, and purpose. He rips a crumpled lamppost off a trapped woman like it weighs nothing. Hurls it aside and crouches low beside her, voice firm but gentle as he checks her pulse, her leg, her name.
You’re frozen where you crouch, half behind a parking meter, hand pressed to your chest like it can keep your heart from tearing loose.
And then be turns. Looks straight at you. His expression shifts. Just for a moment. Just for you. He steps forward, dust streaking his suit, eyes dark with something you don’t have time to name. He reaches you in three strides, body angled between you and the chaos, hand raised in warning before you can speak.
“Stay here, sweetheart. Please.”
Your stomach drops. Not at the danger. Not at the sound of buildings groaning in the distance or the flash of gunmetal tucked into a stranger’s hand.
It’s him. That word. That voice. The exact way of saying it—like it’s muscle memory. Like he’s said it a thousand times before.
Like Clark says it.
It stuns you more than the explosion did.
You blink up at him, speechless, heart stuttering behind your ribs as he holds your gaze just a second longer than he should. His brow furrows. Then he’s gone—into the fray, into the fire, into the part of the story where your pen can’t follow.
You don’t remember standing. You don’t remember how you get back to the press line, only that your legs shake and your palms burn and every time you try to replay what just happened, your brain gets stuck on one word.
Sweetheart.
You’ve heard it before—dozens of times. Always soft. Always accidental. Always from behind thick glasses and a crooked tie and a mouth still chewing the edge of a muffin while he scrolls through zoning reports.
Clark says it when he forgets you’re not his to claim. Clark says it when you’re both the last ones in the office and he thinks you’re asleep at your desk. Clark says it like a secret. Like a slip.
And Superman just said it exactly the same way. Same tone. Same warmth. Same quiet ache beneath it.
But that’s not possible. Because Superman is—Superman. Bold. Dazzling. Fire-forged. He walks like he owns the sky. He speaks like a storm made flesh. He radiates power and perfection.
And Clark? Clark is all flannel and stammering jokes and soft eyes behind big frames. He’s gentle. A little clumsy. His swagger is borrowed from farm porches and storybooks. He’s sweet in a way Superman couldn’t possibly be.
Couldn’t… Right? You chalk it up to coincidence. You have to.
…Sort of.
-
You don’t sleep well the night after the incident. You keep replaying it—frame by impossible frame. The gunshot, the smoke, the sky splitting in half. The crack of his landing, the rush of wind off his cape. The weight of his body between you and danger. And then that voice.
“Stay here, sweetheart. Please.”
You flinch every time it echoes in your head. Every time your brain folds it over the countless memories you have of Clark saying it in passing, like it was nothing. Like it meant nothing.
But it means something now.
You come into the office the next day wired and quiet, adrenaline still burning faintly at the edges of your skin. You aren’t sure what to say, or to whom, so you say nothing. You stare too long at your coffee. You snap at a printer jam. You forget your lunch in the breakroom fridge.
Clark notices. He hovers by your desk that morning, a second coffee in hand—one of those specialty orders from that corner place he knows you like but always pretends he doesn’t remember.
“Rough day?” he asks gently. His tone is careful. Soft. As if you’re a glass already rattling on the edge of the shelf.
You don’t look up. “It’s fine.”
He hesitates. Then sets the coffee down beside your elbow, just far enough that you have to choose whether or not to reach for it. “I heard about the power line thing,” he adds. “You okay?”
“I said I’m fine, Clark.”
A beat.
You hate the way his face flickers at that—hurt, barely masked. He pushes his glasses up and nods like he deserves it. Like he’s been expecting it. He doesn’t press. He just walks away.
-
You find yourself whispering to Lois over takeout later that afternoon—half a conversation muttered between bites of noodles and the hum of flickering overheads.
“He called me sweetheart.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Clark?”
“No. Superman.”
Her chewing slows.
You keep your eyes on the edge of your desk. “That’s… weird, right?”
Lois makes a sound—somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “He’s a superhero. They charm every pretty girl they pull out of a burning building.”
You poke at your noodles. “Still. It felt…”
“Weird?” she teases again, nudging her knee against yours.
You shrug like it doesn’t matter. Like it hasn’t been clawing at the back of your brain for three days straight. Lois doesn’t press. Just watches you for a second longer than necessary. Then she moves on, launching into a tirade about Perry’s passive-aggressive post-it notes and the fact that someone keeps stealing her pens.
But the damage is already done. Because you start thinking maybe you’ve just been projecting. Maybe you want your secret admirer to be Clark so badly that your brain’s rewriting reality—latching onto any voice, any phrase, any fleeting resemblance and assigning it meaning.
Sweetheart.
It’s a common word. It doesn’t mean anything. Maybe Superman says it to everyone. Maybe he has a whole roster of soft pet names for dazed civilians. Maybe you’re the delusional one—sitting here wondering if your awkward, sweet, left-footed coworker moonlights as a god.
The idea is so absurd it actually makes you laugh. Quietly. Bitterly. Right into your carton of lo mein. You tell yourself to let it go. But you don’t.
You can’t. Because somewhere deep down, it doesn’t feel absurd at all. It feels… close. Like you’re brushing against the edge of something true. And if you get just a little closer—
You might fall right through it.
-
Clark pulls back after that. Subtly. Slowly. Like he’s dimming himself on purpose. He’s still there—still kind, still thoughtful, still Clark. But the rhythm changes.
The coffees stop appearing on your desk each morning. No more sticky notes with half-legible puns or awkward smiley faces. No more jokes under his breath during staff meetings. No more warm glances across the bullpen when you’re stuck late and your screen is giving you a headache.
His chair now sits just a little farther from yours in the layout room. Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to feel. You notice it the way you notice when the air shifts before a storm. Quiet. Inevitable.
Even his messages change. Once, his texts used to come with too many exclamation marks and a tendency to type out haha when he was nervous. Now they’re brief. Punctuated. Polite.
“Got your quote. Sending now.”
“Perry said we’re cleared for page A3.”
“Hope your meeting went okay.”
You reread them more than you should. Not because of what they say—but because of what they don’t. It feels like being ghosted by someone who still waves to you across the room.
You try to talk yourself down. Maybe he’s just busy. Maybe he’s stressed. Maybe you’ve been projecting. Maybe it’s not your admirer’s handwriting that matches his. Maybe it’s not his voice that slipped out of Superman’s mouth like a secret.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
But the space he used to fill next to you… feels like a light that’s been quietly turned off. And you are the one still blinking against the dark.
And yet, one afternoon, someone in the bullpen makes a snide remark about your latest piece. You don’t even catch the beginning—just the tail end of it, lazy and smug.
“—basically just fluff, right? She’s been coasting lately.”
You’re about to ignore it. You’re tired. Too tired. And what’s the point in arguing with someone who thinks nuance is a liability?
But then—Clark speaks. Not from beside you, but from across the room. You’re not even sure how he could have possibly heard the guy talking across all the hustle and bustle of the bullpen. But his voice cuts through the noise like someone snapping a ruler against a desk.
“I just think her work actually matters, okay?”
Silence follows. Not because of the volume—he wasn’t loud. Just certain. Unflinching. Like he’d been holding it in. The words hang in the air, charged and too real.
Clark looks immediately horrified with himself. He goes red. Not a faint flush—crimson. Mouth parting like he wants to take it back but doesn’t know how. He tries to recover, to smooth it over—but nothing comes. Just a flustered shake of his head and a noise that might’ve been his name.
The other reporter stares. “…Okay, man. Chill.”
Clark mumbles something about grabbing a file from archives and practically stumbles for the hallway, papers clenched awkwardly in one hand like a shield.
You don’t follow. You just… sit there. Staring at the space he left behind. Because that moment—those words—it wasn’t just instinct. It wasn’t just kindness. It was him.
The way he said it. The emotion in it. The rhythm of it. It felt like the notes. Like the quiet encouragements tucked into the margins of your day. Like someone watching, quietly, gently, hoping you’ll see yourself the way they do.
You think about the phrases he’s used before.
“The line you cut in paragraph six was my favorite. About hope not being the same thing as naivety.”
“Even whispers echo when they’re true.”
And now:
“Her work actually matters.”
All said like they were true, not convenient. All said like they were about you.
You start to notice more after that. The way Clark compliments your writing—always specific. Never lazy. The way his eyes crinkle when he’s proud of something you said, even when he doesn’t speak up. The way he turns the thermostat up exactly two degrees every time you bring your sweater into work. The way he walks a half-step behind you when you both leave late at night.
It’s not a confession. Not yet. But it’s a pattern. And once you start seeing it—
You can’t stop.
-
It’s a quiet afternoon in the bullpen. The kind where the overhead lights hum just loud enough to notice and everything smells like stale coffee and highlighter ink.
Clark’s sprawled in front of his monitor, sleeves rolled to his elbows, brow furrowed with the kind of intensity he usually saves for city zoning laws and double-checked citations. You’re helping him sort through quotes—most of which came from a reluctant press secretary and one very talkative dog walker who may or may not be a credible witness.
“Can you check the time stamp on the third transcript?” he asks, not looking up from his notes. “I think I messed it up when I formatted.”
You nod, flipping through the stack of papers he passed you earlier. That’s when you see it. Folded beneath the top printout, half-tucked into the margin of a city planning spreadsheet, is a different kind of note. A loose sheet, scribbled across in black ink. Not typed—written. Slanted lines. A few false starts crossed out.
At first, you think it’s a headline draft. A brainstorm. But the longer you stare, the more it reads like… something else.
“The city is loud today. Not just noise, but motion. Memory. The way people hum when they think no one’s listening.”
“I can’t stop watching her move through it like she belongs to it. Like it belongs to her.”
You freeze. Your eyes track down the page slowly, like touching something sacred.
The letters are familiar. The lowercase y curls the same way as the one on your very first note—the one that came with your coffee. The ink is the same soft black, slightly smudged in the corners, like whoever wrote it holds the pen too tight when they’re thinking. The paper is the same notepad stock he’s used before. The same faint red line down the margin.
You don’t mean to do it, but your fingers curl around the page. Your chest goes tight. Because it’s not just similar.
It’s exact.
You hear him coming before you see him—those long, careful strides and the faint jangle of the lanyard he keeps forgetting to take off.
You tuck the paper into your notebook. Quick. Smooth. Automatic.
“Hey, sorry,” he says, rounding the corner with two mugs of tea and a slightly sheepish smile. “Printer’s jammed again. I may have made it worse.”
You nod. Too fast. You can’t quite make your voice work yet. Clark hands you your tea—just the way you like it, no comment—and sits across from you like nothing’s wrong. Like your whole world hasn’t tilted six degrees to the left.
He launches into a ramble about column widths and quote placement, about whether a serif font looks more “established” than sans serif.
You don’t hear a word of it. You just… watch him. The way he gestures too big with his hands. The way his glasses slip down his nose mid-sentence and he doesn’t bother to fix them until they’re practically falling off. The way his voice drops a little when he’s thinking hard—low and warm and utterly unselfconscious.
He has no idea you know. No idea what you just found.
You murmur something about needing to catch a meeting and excuse yourself early. He nods. Worries at his bottom lip like he’s debating whether to walk you out. Decides against it.
“Thanks for the help,” he says quietly, as you shoulder your bag. “Seriously. I couldn’t’ve done this draft without you.”
You give him a look you don’t quite know how to name. Something between thank you and I see you.
Then you go.
-
That night, you sit on your bedroom floor with the drawer open. Every note. Every folded scrap. Every secret tucked under your stapler or slid into your sleeve or left beside your coffee cup. You line them up in rows. You flatten them with careful hands. And you compare. One by one.
The loops. The lines. The uneven spacing. The curl of the r. The hush in every sentence, like he was writing them with his heart too close to the surface.
There’s no room for doubt anymore. It’s him. It’s been him this whole time.
Clark Kent.
And somehow—somehow—he’s still never said your name aloud when he writes about you. Not once. But every letter reads like a whisper of it. Like a promise waiting to be spoken.
-
The office is quiet by the time you find the nerve.
Desks are abandoned, chairs turned at angles, the windows dark with city glow. Outside, Metropolis hums in its usual low thrum—sirens and neon and distant jazz from a rooftop bar—but here, in the bullpen, it’s just the steady tick of the wall clock and the slow, careful steps you take toward his desk.
Clark doesn’t hear you at first. He’s bent over a red pen and a half-finished draft, glasses low on his nose, the curve of his back hunched the way it always is when he’s lost in edits. His tie is loosened. His sleeves are pushed up. There’s a smear of ink on his thumb. He looks soft in the way people do when they think no one’s watching.
You speak before you lose your nerve. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
Clark startles. Not dramatically—just a sharp breath and a too-quick motion to sit upright, like a kid caught doodling in the margins. “I—what?”
You don’t let your voice shake. “That it was you. The notes. The park. All of it.”
He stares at you. Then down at his desk. Then back again. His mouth opens like it wants to offer a lie, but nothing comes out. Just silence. His fingers twitch toward the edge of the desk and stop there, curling into his palm.
“I—” he tries again, softer now, “—I didn’t think you knew.”
“I didn’t.” Your voice is gentle. But not easy. “Not at first. Not really. But then I saw that list on your desk and… I went home and checked the handwriting.”
He winces. “I knew I left that out somewhere.”
You cross your arms, not out of anger—more like self-protection. “You could’ve told me. At any point. I asked you.”
“I know.” He swallows hard. “I know. I wanted to. I… tried.”
You watch him. Wait.
And then he says it. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just the truth, raw and shaky and so Clark it nearly breaks you. “Because if I told you it was me… you might look at me different. Or worse… The same.”
You don’t know what to say to that. Not right away. Your heart clenches. Because it’s so him—to assume your affection could only live in the mystery. That the truth of him—soft, clumsy, brilliant, real—would somehow undo the magic.
“Clark…” you start, but your voice slips.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m just the guy who spills coffee on his own notes and forgets to refill the paper tray. You’re… you. You write like you’re on fire. You walk into a room and it listens. I didn’t think someone like you would ever want someone like me.”
You stare at him. Really stare. At the flushed cheeks. The nervous hands. The boyish smile he’s trying to bury under self-deprecation. And then you say it. “I saved every note.”
He blinks.
You keep going. “I read them when I felt invisible. When I thought no one gave a damn what I was doing here. They mattered.”
Clark’s breath catches. He opens his mouth. Closes it again. He takes a slow step forward, tentative. Like he’s afraid to break the spell. His eyes search yours, and for a moment—for a second so still it might as well last an hour—he leans in. Not close enough to kiss you. But almost. His hand brushes yours. He stops. The air is heavy between you, buzzing with something fragile and enormous. But it isn’t enough. Not yet.
You draw in a breath, quiet but steady. “Why didn’t you meet me?”
Clark goes still. You can see it happen—the way the question lands. The way he folds in on himself just slightly, like the truth is too heavy to hold upright.
“I…” He tries, but the word doesn’t land. His jaw flexes. His eyes drop to the floor, then back up. He wants to tell you. He almost does. But he can’t. Not without unraveling everything. Not without unraveling himself.
“I wanted to,” he says finally, voice rough at the edges. “More than anything.”
“But?” you press, gently.
He just looks at you and says nothing. You nod, slowly. The silence says enough. Your chest aches—not in a sharp, bitter way. In the dull, familiar way of something you already suspected being confirmed.
You glance down at where your hand still brushes his, then look back at him—really look. “I wish you’d told me,” you whisper. “I sat there thinking it was a joke. That I made it all up. That I was stupid for believing in any of it.”
“I know,” he murmurs. “And I’m sorry.”
Your throat tightens. You swallow past it. “I just… I need time. To process. To think.”
Clark’s eyes flicker—hope and heartbreak, all tangled up in one look. “Of course,” he says immediately. “Take whatever you need. I mean it.”
A beat passes before you say the part that makes his breath catch. “I’m happy it was you.”
He freezes.
You offer the smallest smile. “I wanted it to be you.”
And for the first time in minutes, something in his shoulders unknots. There’s a shift. Gentle. Quiet. His hand lingers near yours again, knuckles brushing. He doesn’t lean in. Doesn’t push.
But God, he wants to. And maybe… maybe you do too. The moment stretches, unspoken and warm and not quite ready to be anything more.
You both stay like that—close, not touching. Breathing the same charged air. Then he laughs under his breath. Nervous. Boyish.
“I’m probably gonna trip over something the second you walk away.”
You smile back. “Just recalibrate your ankles.”
He huffs out a laugh, head ducking. “I deserved that.”
You start to turn away. Just a little. But his voice stops you again—quiet, sincere, something earnest catching in it. “I’m really glad it was me, too.”
And your heart flutters all over again.
-
Lois is perched on the edge of your desk, a paper takeout box balanced on her knee, chopsticks waving in lazy circles while you pick at your own dinner with a little too much focus.
You haven’t told her everything. Not the everything everything. Not the way your heart nearly cracked open when Clark looked at you like you were made of starlight and library books. Not how close he got before pulling back. Not how you pulled back too, even though your whole body ached to close the distance.
But you have told her about the notes. About the mystery. About the strange tenderness of it all, how it wrapped around your days like a string you didn’t know you were following until it tugged. And Lois—Lois has been unusually quiet about it. Until now.
“I’m setting you up,” she says between bites, like she’s discussing filing taxes.
You blink. “What?”
“A date. Just one. Guy from the Features desk at the Tribune. You’ll like him. He’s taller than you, decent jawline, wears socks that match. He’s got strong opinions about punctuation, which I figure is basically foreplay for you.”
You stare at her. “You don’t even believe in setups.”
“I don’t,” she agrees. “But you’ve been spiraling in circles for weeks, and at this point, I either push you toward a date or stage an intervention with PowerPoint slides.”
You laugh despite yourself. “You have PowerPoint slides?”
“Of course not,” she scoffs. “I have a Google Doc.”
You roll your eyes. “Lois—”
“Listen,” she says, gentler now. “I know you’re in deep with whoever this guy is. And if it is Clark… well. I can see why.”
Your stomach flips.
“But maybe stepping outside of the Planet for two hours wouldn’t kill you. Let someone else flirt with you for once. Let yourself figure out what you actually want.”
You press your lips together. Look down at your barely-touched food.
“You don’t have to fall for him,” she adds, softly. “Just let yourself be seen.”
You exhale through your nose. “He better be cute.”
“Oh, he is. Total sweater vest energy.”
You snort. “So your type.”
“Exactly.” She lifts her takeout carton in a mock toast. “To emotionally compromised coworkers and their tragic love lives.”
You clink your chopsticks against hers like it’s the saddest champagne flute in the world. And later, when you’re getting ready, you still feel the weight of Clark’s almost-kiss behind your ribs. But you go anyway. Because Lois is right. You need to know what it is you’re choosing. Even if, deep down, you already do.
-
The date isn’t bad. That’s the most frustrating part. He’s nice. Polished in that media school kind of way—crisp shirt, clean shave, a practiced smile that belongs on a campaign poster. He compliments your bylines and talks about his dream of running an independent magazine one day. He orders the good whiskey and laughs at your jokes.
But it’s the wrong laugh. Off by a beat. The rhythm’s not right.
When he leans in, you don’t. When he talks, your thoughts drift—to mismatched socks and printer toner smudges. To how someone else always remembers your coffee order. To how someone else listens, not to respond, but to see.
You realize it halfway through the second drink. You’re thinking about Clark again.
The softness of him. The steadiness. The way he over-apologizes in texts but never hesitates when someone challenges your work. The way his voice tilts a little higher when he’s nervous. The way his laugh never lands in the right place, but somehow makes the whole room feel warmer.
You pull your coat tighter when you leave the restaurant, cheeks stinging from the wind and the slow unraveling of a night that should’ve meant something. It doesn’t. Not in the way that matters.
So you walk. You tell yourself you’re just passing by the Daily Planet. That maybe you left your notes there. That it’s just a habit, stopping in this late. But when you scan your ID badge and push through the heavy glass doors, you already know the truth. You’re hoping he’s still here.
And he is.
The bullpen is almost entirely dark, save for a single desk lamp casting gold across the layout section. He’s hunched over it—tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, shirt rumpled like he’s been pacing, thinking, rewriting. His glasses are folded beside him on the desk. His hair’s a mess—fingers clearly run through it too many times.
He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm, breathing out hard through his nose. You don’t say anything. You just… watch. It hits you in one perfect, unshakable moment. The slope of his shoulders. The cut of his jaw. The furrow in his brow when he’s thinking too hard.
He looks like Superman.
No glasses. No slouch. No excuses. But more than that—he looks like Clark. Like the man who learned your coffee order. Like the one who saves all his best edits for last so he can tell you in person how good your writing is. The one who panicked when you got too close to the truth, but couldn’t stop leaving notes anyway.
And when he finally lifts his head and sees you standing there—still in your coat, fingers tight around your notebook—you watch something shift in his expression. A flicker of surprise. Panic. Bare, open emotion. Because you’re seeing him without the glasses.
“Couldn’t sleep,” you murmur. “Thought I’d grab my notes.”
He smiles, slow and unsure. “You… left them by the scanner.”
You nod, like that matters. Like you came here for paper and not for him. Then you walk over, slow and deliberate, and retrieve your notes from the edge of the scanner beside him. He swallows hard, watching you.
Then clears his throat. “So… how was the date?”
You pause. “Fine,” you say. “He was nice. Funny. Smart.”
Clark nods, but you’re not finished.
“But when he laughed, it was the wrong rhythm. And when he spoke, I didn’t lean in.”
You meet his eyes—clear blue, unhidden now. “I made up my mind halfway through the second drink.” His lips part. Barely. You move to the edge of his desk and set your notebook down. Then—carefully, slowly—you pull out the chair beside his and sit. The air between you goes molten.
Clark leans in a little, eyes flicking to your mouth, then back to your eyes. One hand moves down, like he’s going to say something, but instead, he reaches for the leg of your chair—fingers curling around it. And pulls you toward him. The scrape of wood against tile echoes, loud and deliberate. Your thighs knock his. Your breath stutters.
He’s so close now you can feel the heat rolling off him. The weight of his gaze. Your heart hammers in your chest. And lower.
“Clark—” But you don’t finish because he meets you halfway. The kiss is fire and breath and years of want pressed between two mouths. His hands come up—one to your jaw, the other to the back of your head—and tilt your face just so. Fingers tangle in your hair, anchoring you to him like he’s afraid you might vanish.
You moan into his mouth. Soft. Surprised. He groans back. Rougher. You reach for his shirt blindly, fists curling in the cotton as he pulls you fully into his lap—into the chair with him, your legs straddling his thighs. His hands don’t know where to land. Your waist. Your thighs. Your face again.
“You’re it,” he whispers against your mouth. “You’ve always been it.”
You know he means it. Because you’ve seen it. In every note. Every glance. Every moment he looked at you like you were already his. And now, with your bodies tangled, mouths tasting each other, breathing the same heat—you finally believe it.
You don’t say it yet. But the way you kiss him again says it for you. You’re his. You always have been.
His hands roam, but never rush. Your fingers are tangled in his shirt, your knees pressing to either side of his hips, and you feel him—all of him—underneath you, solid and steady and shaking just slightly. The chair creaks with every breath you share. His mouth is still on yours, slow now, like he’s memorizing the shape of you. Like he’s afraid if he goes too fast, you’ll disappear again.
When he finally pulls back—just enough to breathe—it’s with a soft, reverent exhale. His nose brushes yours. “You’re really here,” he murmurs, voice hoarse. “God, you’re really here.”
You blink at him, your hands sliding to either side of his jaw, thumbs brushing the high flush of his cheeks. He looks so open. Like you’ve peeled back every layer of him with just a kiss. And maybe you have.
His lips find the edge of your jaw next, slow and aching. A kiss. Then another, just beneath your ear. Then one lower, along the soft skin of your neck. Each press of his mouth feels like a confession. Like something that was buried too long, finally given air.
“You don’t know,” he whispers. “You don’t know what it’s been like, watching you and not getting to—” Another kiss, right beneath your cheekbone. “I used to rehearse things I’d say to you, and then I’d get to work and you’d smile and I’d forget how to talk.”
A laugh huffs out of you, but it melts fast when he leans in again, his breath fanning warm across your skin. “I didn’t think I’d ever get this close. I didn’t think I’d get to touch you like this.”
You shift in his lap, chest brushing his, and his hands squeeze your waist gently like he’s grounding himself. His mouth finds your temple. Your cheek. The corner of your mouth again.
“You’re so—” he breaks off. Tries again. “You’re everything.” Your pulse thrums in your throat. Clark’s hands stay respectful, but they wander—curving up your back, smoothing over your shoulders, settling at your ribs like he wants to hold you together.
“I used to write those notes late at night,” he admits against your collarbone. “Didn’t even think you’d read them at first. But you did. You kept them.”
“I kept every one,” you whisper.
His breath catches. You tilt his face back up to yours, studying him in the low, golden light. His hair’s a little messy now from your fingers. His lips pink and kiss-swollen. His chest rising and falling like he’s just run a marathon. And still, even now—he’s looking at you like he’s the one who’s lucky.
Clark kisses you again—soft, like a promise. Then a trail of them, across your cheek, your jaw, your throat. Slow enough to make your skin shiver and your hips shift instinctively against his lap. He groans quietly at that—barely audible—but doesn’t press for more. He just holds you tighter.
“I’d wait forever for you,” he murmurs into your skin. “I don’t need anything else. Just this. Just you.” You bury your face in his shoulder, overwhelmed, heart pounding like a war drum. You don’t say anything back. You just press another kiss to his throat, and feel him smile where your mouth lands.
-
The city is quieter at night—its edges softened under streetlamp glow, concrete warming beneath the fading breath of the day. There’s a breeze that tugs gently at your coat as you and Clark walk side by side, your fingers still loosely laced with his. His hand is big. Warm. Rough in the places that tell stories. Gentle in the ways that say everything else.
Neither of you speaks at first. The silence isn’t awkward. It’s thick with something tender. Like a string strung tight between your ribs and his, humming with each shared step.
When he glances down at you, his smile is small and almost shy. “I can’t believe I didn’t knock over the chair,” he says after a few blocks, voice pitched low with laughter.
You grin. “You were close. I think my thigh is bruised.”
He groans. “Don’t say that—I’ll lose sleep.”
You look at him sidelong. “You weren’t going to sleep anyway.” That earns you a pink flush down the side of his neck, and you tuck that image away for safekeeping.
Your building looms closer, brick and ivy-wrapped and familiar in the soft hush of the hour. You slow as you reach the front step, turning to face him.
“Thank you,” you murmur. You don’t mean just for the walk.
He holds your hand a beat longer. Then, without a word, he lifts it—presses his lips to your knuckles. It’s soft. Reverent.
Your breath catches in your throat. And maybe that’s what breaks the spell—maybe that’s what makes it all too much and not enough at once—because the next second, you’re reaching. Or maybe he is. It doesn’t matter. He kisses you again—this time fuller, deeper—your back brushing against the door behind you, his other hand cradling your cheek like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he doesn’t hold you just right.
It doesn’t last long. Just long enough to taste the weight of what’s shifting between you. To feel it crest again in your chest.
When he finally pulls back, his lips hover a breath away from yours. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says softly.
You nod. You can’t quite say anything back yet. He gives your hand one last squeeze, then turns and disappears down the street, hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders curved slightly inward like he’s holding in a smile he doesn’t know what to do with.
You unlock the door. Step inside. But you don’t go to bed right away. You walk to the front window instead—bare feet quiet on hardwood, heart still hammering. Through the glass, you spot him half a block away. He thinks you’re gone. Which is probably why, under the streetlight, Clark Kent jumps up and smacks the edge of a low-hanging banner like he’s testing his vertical. He catches it on the second try, swinging from it for all of two seconds before nearly tripping over his own feet.
You snort. Your hand presses against your mouth to muffle the sound. And then you smile. That kind of soft, aching smile that tugs at something deep in your chest. Because that’s him. That’s the man who writes you poems under the cover of anonymity and nearly breaks your chair kissing you in a newsroom.
That’s the one you wanted it to be. And now that it is—you don’t think your heart’s ever going to stop fluttering.
-
The bullpen is alive again. Phones ring. Keys clatter. Someone’s arguing over copy edits near the back printer, and Jimmy streaks past with a half-eaten bagel clamped between his teeth and a stack of photos fluttering behind him like confetti. It’s chaos.
But none of it touches you. The world moves at its usual speed, but everything inside you has slowed. Like someone turned the volume down on everything that isn’t him.
Your eyes find Clark without meaning to. He’s already at his desk—glasses on, shirt pressed, tie straighter than usual. He must’ve fixed it three times this morning. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, a pen already tucked behind one ear. He’s doing that thing he does when he’s thinking—lip caught gently between his teeth, brows drawn, tapping the space bar like it owes him money.
But there’s a softness to him this morning, too. A looseness in his shoulders. A quiet sort of glow around the edges, like some part of him hasn’t fully come down from last night either. Like he’s still vibrating with the same electricity that’s still thrumming low behind your ribs.
And then he looks up. He finds you just as easily as you found him. You expect him to look away—bashful, flustered, maybe even embarrassed now that the newsroom lights are on and you’re both pretending not to be lit matches pretending not to burn.
But he doesn’t. He holds your gaze. And the quiet that opens up between you is louder than anything else in the building. The low hum of printers. The whirr of the HVAC. The hiss of steam from the office espresso machine.
You swallow hard. Then you look back at your screen like it matters. You try to focus. You really do.
Less than ten minutes later, he’s there. He approaches slow, like he’s afraid of breaking something delicate. His hand appears first, gently setting a familiar to-go cup on your desk.
“I figured you forgot yours,” he says, voice low.
You glance up at him. “I didn’t.”
A smile curls at the corner of his mouth. Soft. A little sheepish. “Oh. Well…” He shrugs. “Now you have two.”
You take the coffee anyway. Your fingers brush his as you do. He doesn’t pull away. Not this time. His hand lingers for half a second longer than it should—just enough to make your pulse jump in your wrist—and then slowly drops back to his side. The silence between you now isn’t awkward. It’s taut. Weightless. Like standing at the edge of something enormous, staring over the drop, and realizing he’s right there beside you—ready to jump too.
“Walk with me?” he asks, voice barely above the clatter around you. You nod. Because you’d follow him anywhere.
Downstairs, the building atrium hums with the low murmur of morning traffic and the soft shuffle of people cutting through the lobby on their way to bigger, faster things. But here—beneath the high, glass-paneled ceiling where sunlight pours in like gold through water—the city feels a little farther away. A little quieter. Just the two of you, caught in that hush between chaos and clarity.
Clark hands you a sugar packet without a word, and you take it, fingers brushing his again. He watches—not your hands, but your face—as you tear it open and shake it into your cup. Like memorizing the way you take your coffee might somehow tell him more than you’re ready to say aloud.
You glance at him, just in time to catch it—that look. Barely there, but soft. Full. He looks at you like he’s trying to learn you by heart.
You raise a brow. “What?”
He blinks, caught. “Nothing.”
But you’re smiling now, just a little. A private, corner-of-your-mouth kind of smile. “You look tired,” you murmur, stirring slowly.
His lips twitch. “Late night.”
“Editing from home?”
He hesitates. You watch the way his shoulders shift, the subtle catch in his breath. Then, finally, he shakes his head. “Not exactly.”
You hum. Say nothing more. The moment lingers, warm as the cup in your hand. He stands beside you, tall and still, but there’s something new in the way he holds himself—like gravity’s just a little lighter around him this morning. Like your presence pulls him into a softer orbit. There’s a beat of silence.
“You… seemed quiet last night,” he says, voice gentler now. “When you saw me.”
You glance at him from over the rim of your cup. Steam curls up between you, catching in the morning light like spun sugar. “I saw you,” you say.
He studies you. Carefully. “You sure?”
You lower your coffee. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
His brows pull together slightly, the line between them deepening. He’s trying to read you. Trying to solve an equation he’s too close to see clearly. There’s a question in his eyes—not just about last night, but about everything that came before it. The letters. The glances. The ache.
But you don’t give him the answer. Not out loud. Because what you don’t say hangs heavier than what you do. You don’t say: I’m pretty certain he’s you. You don’t say: I think my heart has known for a while now. You don’t say: I’m not afraid of what you’re hiding. Instead, you let the silence stretch between you—soft and silken, tethering you to something deeper than confession. You sip your coffee, heart steady now, eyes warm.
And when he opens his mouth again—when he leans forward like he might finally give himself away entirely—you smile. Just a soft curve of your lips. A quiet reassurance. “Don’t worry,” you say, voice low. “I liked what I saw.”
He freezes. Then flushes, color blooming high on his cheeks. His gaze drops to the floor like it’s safer there, like looking at you too long might unravel him completely—but when he glances back up, the smile on his face is small and helpless and utterly undone. A breath escapes him, barely audible—but you hear it. You feel it. Relief.
He walks you back upstairs without another word. The movement is easy. Comfortable. But his hand hovers near yours the whole time. Not quite touching. Just… there. Like gravity pulling two halves of the same secret closer.
And as you re-enter the hum of the bullpen, nothing looks different. But everything feels like it’s just about to change.
-
That night, after the city has quieted—after the neon pulse of Metropolis blurs into puddle reflections and distant sirens—the Daily Planet is almost reverent in its silence. No ringing phones. No newsroom chatter. Just the soft hum of a printer in standby mode and the creak of the elevator cables descending behind you.
You let yourself in with your keycard. The lock clicks louder than expected in the stillness. You don’t know why you’re here, really. You told yourself it was to grab the folder you forgot. To double-check something on your last draft. But the truth is quieter than that.
You were hoping he’d be here. He’s not. His desk lamp is off. His chair turned inward, as if he left in a hurry. No half-eaten sandwich or scribbled drafts left behind—just a tidied workspace and absence thick enough to feel.
You sigh, the sound swallowed whole by the vast emptiness of the bullpen. Then you see it. At your desk. Tucked half-under your keyboard like a secret trying not to be. One folded piece of paper.
No envelope this time. No clever line on the front. Just your name, handwritten in a looping scrawl you’ve come to know better than your own signature. A rhythm you’ve studied and traced in the quiet of your apartment, night after night.
You slide it free with careful fingers. Your heart stutters as you unfold it. The ink is darker this time—less tentative. The strokes more deliberate, like he knew, at last, he didn’t have to hide.
“For once I don’t have to imagine what it’s like to have your lips on mine. But I still think about it anyway.”
—C.K.
You stare at the words until the paper goes soft in your hands. Until your chest feels too full and too fragile all at once. Until the noise of your own heartbeat drowns out everything else.
Then you press the note to your chest and close your eyes. His initials burn through the paper like a touch. Not a secret admirer anymore. Not a mystery in the margins. Just him.
Clark. Your friend. Your almost. Your maybe.
You don’t need the rest of the truth. Not tonight. Not if it costs this fragile thing blooming between you—this quiet, aching sweetness. This slow, deliberate unraveling of walls and fears and the long-held breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
Whatever you’re building together, it’s happening one heartbeat at a time. One almost-confession. One note left behind in the dark. And you’d rather have this—this steady climb into something real—than rush toward the edge of revelation and risk it all crumbling.
So you tuck the note gently into your bag, where the others wait. Every word he’s given you, kept safe like a promise. You don’t know what happens next. But for the first time in weeks, maybe months, you’re not afraid of finding out.
-
You’re not official.
Not in the way people expect it. There’s no label, no group announcement, no big display. But you’re definitely something now—something solid and golden and real in the space between words.
It’s not office gossip. Not yet. But it could be. Because you linger a little too long near his desk. Because he lights up when you enter a room like it’s instinct. Because when he passes you in the bullpen, his hand brushes yours—just barely—and you both pause like the air just changed. There’s no denying it.
And then comes the hallway kiss. It’s after hours. The building is quiet, the newsroom lights dimmed to half. You’re both walking toward the elevators, your footsteps echoing against the tile.
Clark fumbles for the call button, mumbling something about how slow the system is when it’s late, and how the elevator always seems to stall on the wrong floor. You don’t answer. You just reach for his tie. A gentle tug. A silent question. He exhales, soft and shaky. Then he leans in.
The kiss is slow. Unhurried. Like you’re both tasting something that’s been simmering between you for years. His hands find your waist, yours curl into his shirt, and the elevator dings somewhere in the distance, but neither of you move.
You part only when the second ding reminds you where you are. His forehead presses to yours, warm and close. You breathe the same air. And then the doors close behind you, and he walks you out with his hand ghosting the small of your back.
-
You start learning the rhythm of Clark Kent. He talks more when he’s nervous—little rambles about traffic patterns or article formatting, or how he’s still not entirely sure he installed his dishwasher correctly. Sometimes he trails off mid-thought, like he’s remembering something urgent but can’t explain it.
He always carries your groceries. All of them. No negotiation. He’ll take the heavier bags first, sling them both over one shoulder and pretend like it’s nothing. And somehow, he always forgets his own umbrella—but never forgets yours. You don’t know how many he owns, but one always appears when the clouds roll in. Like magic. Like preparation. Like he’s thought of you in every version of the day.
You don’t ask.
You just start to keep one in your own bag for him.
-
The third kiss happens on your couch.
You’ve been watching some old movie neither of you are paying attention to, his arm slung lazily across your shoulders. Your legs are tangled. His fingers are tracing idle shapes against your thigh through the fabric of your leggings.
He kisses you once—soft and slow—and then again. Longer. Like he’s memorizing the shape of your mouth. Like he might need it later.
Then his phone buzzes.
He stiffens.
You feel the change instantly—the way his body pulls back, the air between you tightens. He glances at the screen. You don’t catch the name. But you see the look in his eyes.
Regret. Apology. Something deeper.
“I—I’m so sorry,” he says, already moving. “I have to—something came up. It’s—”
You sit up, brushing your hand against his arm. “Go,” you say softly.
“But—”
“It’s okay. Just… be safe.”
And God, the way he looks at you. Like you’ve given him something priceless. Something he didn’t know he was allowed to want.
He kisses your temple like a promise and disappears into the night.
-
It happens again. And again.
Missed dinners. Sudden goodbyes. Rainy nights where he shows up soaked, out of breath, murmuring apologies and curling into you like he doesn’t know how to be held.
You never ask. You don’t need to.
Because he always comes back.
-
One night, you’re curled into each other on your couch, your legs thrown over his, your cheek resting against his chest. The movie’s playing, forgotten. Your fingers are idly brushing the hem of his shirt where it’s ridden up. He smells like rain and ink and whatever soap he always uses that lingers on your pillow now.
Then his voice, quiet in the dark, “I don’t always know how to be… enough.”
You blink. Look up. He’s staring at the ceiling. Not quite breathing evenly. Like the words cost him something.
You reach up and cradle his face in your hands.
His eyes finally meet yours.
“You are,” you whisper. “As you are.”
You don’t say: Even if you are who I think you are.
You don’t need to. You just kiss him again. Soft. Long. Steady. Because whatever he’s carrying, you’ve already started holding part of it too.
And he lets you.
-
The night starts quiet.
Takeout boxes sit half-forgotten on the coffee table—one still open, rice going cold, soy sauce packet untouched. Your legs are draped across Clark’s lap, one foot nudged against the curve of his thigh, and his hand rests there now. Not possessively. Not deliberately.
Just… there.
It’s late. The kind of late where the whole city softens. No sirens outside. No blinking inbox. Just the low hum of the lamp on the side table and the warmth of the man beside you.
Clark’s eyes are on you. They’ve been there most of the night.
He hasn’t said much since dinner—just little smiles, quiet sounds of agreement, the occasional brush of his thumb against your ankle like a thought he forgot to speak aloud. But it’s not a bad silence. It’s dense. Full.
You shift, angling toward him slightly, and his gaze flicks to your mouth. That’s all it takes.
He leans in.
The kiss is soft at first. Familiar. A shared breath. A quiet hello in a room where no one had spoken for minutes. But then his hand curls behind your knee, guiding your leg further over his lap, and his mouth opens against yours like he’s been holding back for hours.
He kisses you like he’s starving. Like he’s spent all day wanting this—aching for the shape of you, the weight of your body in his hands. And when you moan into it, just a little, he shudders.
His hands start to move. One tracing the line of your spine, the other resting against your hip like a question he doesn’t need to ask. You answer anyway—pressing in closer, threading your fingers through his hair, sighing into the heat of his mouth.
You don’t know who climbs into whose lap first, only that you end up straddling him on the couch. Your knees on either side of his thighs. His hands gripping your waist now, fingers curling in your shirt like he doesn’t trust himself not to break it.
And then something shifts.
Not emotional—physical.
Clark stands.
He lifts you with him, effortlessly, like you don’t weigh anything at all. Not a grunt. Not a stagger. Just—up. Smooth and sure. His mouth never leaves yours.
You gasp into the kiss as he walks you backwards, steps confident and fast despite the way your arms tighten around his shoulders. Your spine meets the wall in the next second. Not hard. Just sudden.
Your heart thunders.
“Clark—”
He doesn’t answer. Just breathes against your mouth like he needs the oxygen from your lungs. Like yours is the only air that keeps him grounded.
His hips press into yours, one thigh sliding between your legs, and your back arches instinctively. His hands span your ribs now, thumbs brushing just beneath your bra. You feel the tremble in them—not from fear. From restraint.
“Clark,” you whisper again, and his forehead drops to yours.
“You okay?” he asks, voice rough and close.
You nod, breath catching. “You?”
He hesitates. Not long. But long enough to count. “Yeah. Just… feel a little off tonight.”
You pull back just enough to look at him.
He’s flushed. Eyes darker than usual. But not winded. Not breathless. Not anything like you are. His chest doesn’t even rise fast beneath your hands. Still, he smiles—like he can will the oddness away—and kisses you again. Deeper this time. Like distraction.
Like he doesn’t want to stop.
You don’t want him to either.
Not yet.
His mouth finds yours again—slower this time, more purposeful. Like he’s savoring it. Like he’s waited for this exact moment, this exact pressure of your hips against his, for longer than he’s willing to admit.
You gasp when his hands slide under your shirt, palms broad and steady, dragging upward in a path that sets every nerve on fire. He doesn’t fumble. Doesn’t rush. Just explores—like he’s memorizing, not taking.
“Can I?” he murmurs against your mouth, fingers brushing the underside of your bra.
You nod, breathless. “Yes.”
He exhales, soft and reverent, and lifts your shirt over your head. It’s discarded without ceremony. Then his hands are on you again—warm, slow, mapping out the shape of you with open palms and patient awe.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs, more breath than voice. His mouth finds the edge of your jaw, trailing kisses down to the hollow beneath your ear. “I think about this… so much.”
You shudder.
His hands move again—down this time, gripping your thighs as he sinks to his knees in front of you. You barely have time to react before he’s tugging your pants down, slow and careful, mouth following the descent with lingering kisses along your hips, the dip of your pelvis, the inside of your thigh.
He looks up at you from the floor.
You nearly forget how to breathe.
“I’ve wanted to take my time with you,” he admits, voice rough and low. “Wanted to learn you slow. Learn how you taste. How you fall apart.”
And then he does.
He leans in and licks a long, deliberate stripe over the center of your underwear, still watching your face.
You whimper.
He smiles, just slightly, and does it again.
By the time he peels your underwear down and presses an open-mouthed kiss to your inner thigh, your knees are trembling.
Clark hooks one arm under your leg, lifting it over his shoulder like it’s nothing, and buries his mouth between your thighs with a groan that rattles through your whole body.
His tongue is warm and soft and maddeningly slow—circling, tasting, teasing. He doesn’t rush. Not even when your fingers knot in his hair and your hips rock forward with pure desperation.
“Clark—”
He hums against you, and the sound sends a full-body shiver up your spine.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, lips brushing you as he speaks. “Let me.”
You do.
You let him wreck you.
He’s methodical about it—like he’s following a map only he can see. One hand holding you steady, the other splayed against your stomach, keeping you anchored while he works you open with mouth and tongue and quiet, praising murmurs.
“So sweet… that’s it, sweetheart… you taste like heaven.”
You’re already close when he slips a thick finger inside you. Then another. Slow, patient, curling exactly where you need him. His mouth never stops. His rhythm is steady. Focused. Unrelenting.
You come like that—panting, gripping his shoulders, thighs shaking around his ears as he groans and keeps going, riding it out with you until you’re trembling too hard to stand.
He rises slowly.
His lips are slick. His eyes are dark.
And you’ve never seen anyone look at you like this.
“Come here,” you whisper.
He kisses you then—deep and possessive and tasting like you. You’re the one tugging at his shirt now, unbuttoning in frantic clumsy swipes. You need him. Need him closer. Need him inside.
But when you reach for his belt, he stills your hands gently.
“Not yet,” he says, voice like thunder wrapped in velvet. “Let me take care of you first.”
You blink. “Clark, I—”
He kisses you again—soft, lingering.
“I’ve waited too long for this to rush it,” he murmurs, brushing hair from your face with the back of his knuckles. “You deserve slow.”
Then he lifts you again—like you weigh nothing—and carries you to the bed. He lays you down like you’re fragile—but the look in his eyes says he knows you’re anything but. That you’re something rare. Something he’s been aching for. His palms skim over your thighs again, slow and deliberate, before he spreads you open beneath him.
He doesn’t ask this time. Just settles between your legs like he belongs there, arms hooked under your thighs, holding you wide.
“Clark—”
“I know, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice low and raw. “I’ve got you.”
And he does.
His mouth finds you again—warm, skilled, confident now. No hesitation, just long, wet strokes of his tongue that build on everything he already learned. And then—without warning—he slides two fingers back inside you.
You cry out, hips jolting.
He groans into you, fingers moving in tandem with his mouth—curling just right, matching every flick of his tongue, every wet press of his lips. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t falter. He watches you the whole time, eyes dark and hungry and so in love with the way you fall apart for him.
You grip the sheets, gasping his name, over and over, until your voice breaks on a sob of pleasure.
“Clark—God, I—I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” he breathes. “You’re almost there. Let go for me.”
You do. With a cry, with shaking thighs, with your fingers tangled in his hair and your back arching off the bed.
And he doesn’t stop.
He rides your orgasm out with slow, worshipful strokes, kissing your thighs, murmuring into your skin, “So good for me. You’re perfect. You’re everything.”
By the time he pulls back, you’re boneless—dazed and trembling, your chest heaving as he kisses his way up your stomach.
But the way he looks at you then—like he needs to be closer—tells you this isn’t over.
His hands brace on either side of your head as he leans over you. “Can I…?”
Your hips answer for you—tilting up, chasing the heat and weight of him already pressed between your thighs.
“Yes,” you whisper. “Please.”
Clark groans low in his throat as he pushes his boxers down just enough, lining himself up—his cock flushed and thick, already leaking, and you feel the weight of him between your thighs and gasp.
“God, Clark…”
“I know,” he murmurs, forehead resting against yours, hips rocking forward just barely, teasing you with the head of his cock, dragging it through the slick mess he made with his mouth and fingers. “I know, baby. Just—just let me…”
He nudges in slow.
The stretch is slow and steady, his breath catching as your body parts for him. He’s thick. Too thick, maybe, except your body wants him—takes him like it was made to.
You whimper, and his jaw clenches tight.
“You okay?”
“Y—yeah,” you breathe. “Don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. Not even for a second. Inch by inch, he sinks into you, whispering your name, kissing your temple, gripping the backs of your thighs as you wrap your legs around his waist.
“Fuck,” he hisses when he bottoms out, buried deep, balls pressed flush against you. “You feel—Jesus, you feel unbelievable.”
You’re too far gone to answer. You just cling to him, nails dragging lightly down his back, moaning into his mouth when he kisses you again.
The first few thrusts are slow. Deep. Measured. He pulls out just enough to feel you grip him on the way back in, then does it again—and again—and again.
And then something shifts.
Your body clenches around him in a way that makes his head drop to your shoulder with a groan.
“Oh my god, sweetheart—don’t do that—I’m gonna—fuck—”
He thrusts harder.
Not rough, not yet, but firmer. Hungrier. The control he started with begins to slip. You can feel it in his grip, in the sharp edge of his breath, in the tremble of the arm braced beside your head.
“Been thinkin’ about this,” he grits out, voice low and wrecked. “Every night—every goddamn night since the first note. You don’t even know what you do to me.”
You whine, rolling your hips up to meet him, and he snaps—hips slamming forward hard enough to punch the air from your lungs.
“Clark—”
“I’ve got you,” he gasps, fucking into you harder now, his voice filthy and tender all at once. “I’ve got you, baby—so fuckin’ tight—can’t stop—don’t wanna stop—”
You’re clinging to him now, crying out with every thrust. It’s not just the way he fills you—it’s the way he worships you while he does it. The way he moans when you clench. The way he growls your name like a prayer. The way he falls apart in real time, just from the feel of you.
He grabs one of your hands, laces your fingers with his, pins it beside your head.
“You’re mine,” he grits. “You have to be mine.”
“Yes,” you gasp. “Yes—Clark—don’t stop—”
“Never,” he groans. “Never stopping. Not when you feel like this—fuck—”
You can feel him getting close—the way his rhythm starts to stutter, the broken sounds escaping his throat, the way he buries his face against your neck and pants your name like he’s desperate to take you with him.
And you’re almost there too.
You don’t even realize your hand is slipping until he’s gripping it again—pinned tight to the pillow, your fingers laced in his and clenched so tight it aches. The bed frame is starting to shudder beneath you now, the headboard knocking a rhythm into the wall, and Clark is gasping like he’s in pain from how good it feels.
His hips snap forward again—harder this time. Deeper. More desperate.
“Fuck—fuck—I’m sorry,” he grits, voice ragged and thick, “I’m trying to—baby—I can’t—hold back—”
You moan so loud it makes him flinch.
And then he breaks.
One second he’s pulling your name from his lungs like it’s the only word he knows—and the next, he slams into you so hard the bed shifts a full inch. The lamp on the bedside table flickers. The candle flame bursts just slightly higher than before—flickering hot and fast, the wick blackening with a thin curl of smoke. It doesn’t go out. It just burns.
Clark’s back arches.
His cock drags over everything inside you in just the right way, hitting that spot again and again until you’re clutching at his shoulders, babbling nonsense against his skin.
“I can’t—I can’t—Clark!”
“You can,” he pants. “Please—please, baby, cum with me—I can feel you—I can feel it.”
Your body goes taut.
A white-hot snap of pleasure punches through your spine, and your vision blacks out at the edges. You tighten around him—clenching, pulsing, dragging him over the edge with you—and he loses it.
Clark curses—actually curses—and growls something between a moan and a sob as he slams into you one last time, spilling deep inside you. His body locks, every muscle trembling. His teeth scrape the soft skin of your throat—not biting, just grounding himself. Like if he lets go, he’ll come undone completely.
The lights flicker again.
The candle sputters once and steadies.
He breathes like a man starved. His chest heaves. But you can feel it—under your hand, against your skin. His heart’s not racing.
Not like it should be.
You’re gasping. Dazed. Boneless under him. But Clark… Clark’s barely even winded. And yet—his hands are trembling. Just slightly. Still laced in yours. Still holding on.
After, you lie there—chests pressed close, legs tangled, the sheets barely clinging to your hips.
Clark’s arm is slung across your waist, palm wide and warm over your belly like it belongs there. Like he doesn’t ever want to move. His nose is tucked against your temple, breath stirring your hair in soft little pulses. He keeps kissing you. Your cheek. Your jaw. The edge of your brow. He doesn’t stop, like he’s afraid this is a dream and kissing you might anchor it in place.
“Still with me?” he whispers into your skin.
You nod. Drowsy. Sated. Floating.
“Good.” His hand runs down your side in one long, reverent stroke. “Didn’t mean to… get so carried away.”
You hum. “You say that like I didn’t enjoy every second.”
He smiles against your neck. You feel the curve of it, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.
A moment passes.
Then another.
“I think you short-circuited my bedside lamp somehow.”
Clark freezes. “…Did I?”
You roll your head to look at him. “It flickered. Right as you—”
His ears turn bright red. “Maybe just… a power surge?”
You arch a brow. “Right. A romantic, orgasm-timed power surge.”
He mutters something into your shoulder that sounds vaguely like kill me now.
You grin. File it away.
Exhibit 7: Lightbulb went dim at the exact second he came. Candle flame doubled in height.
-
Later that night, long after you’ve both dozed off, you wake to find Clark still holding you. One of his hands is under your shirt, splayed low across your stomach. Protective. Possessive in the gentlest way. His body is still curled around yours like a question mark, like he’s checking for all your answers in how your breath rises and falls.
You shift just slightly—and his grip tightens instinctively, like even in sleep, he can’t let go.
Exhibit 8: He doesn’t sleep like a person. Sleeps like a sentry.
-
In the morning, you wake to the scent of coffee.
Your kitchen is suspiciously spotless for someone who swears he’s clumsy. The pot is full, the mugs pre-warmed, your favorite creamer already swirled in.
Clark is flipping pancakes.
Barefoot.
Wearing one of your sleep shirts. The tight one.
You lean against the doorframe, watching him. His back muscles flex when he flips the pan one-handed.
“Morning,” he says without turning.
You blink. “How’d you know I was standing here?”
“I, uh…” He falters, then gestures at the sizzling pan. “Heard footsteps. I assumed.”
You hum.
Exhibit 9: He heard me from across the apartment, over the sound of a frying pan.
-
You’re brushing your teeth later when you spot the mirror fogged from the shower.
You reach for a towel—and notice it’s already been run under warm water.
You glance at him, and he just shrugs. “Figured you’d want it not freezing.”
“Figured?” you repeat.
He leans against the doorframe, smiling. “Lucky guess.”
You don’t respond. Just kiss his cheek with toothpaste still in your mouth.
Exhibit 10: He always guesses exactly what I need. Down to the second.
-
That night, he falls asleep on your couch during movie night, head on your thigh, hand around your wrist like a lifeline.
You swear you see the movie reflected in his eyes—like the light isn’t just hitting them but moving inside them. You blink. It’s gone.
You look down at him. His lashes are impossibly long. His mouth is parted. His breathing is steady—but not quite… human. Too even. Too perfect.
Exhibit 11: His pupils did a thing. I don’t know how to describe it. But they did a thing.
-
The next day, a car splashes a wave of slush toward you both on the sidewalk.
You brace for impact.
But Clark steps in front of you, faster than you can blink. The water hits him. Not you.
You didn’t even see him move.
You narrow your eyes. He just smiles. “Reflexes.”
“Clark. Be honest. Do you secretly run marathons at night?”
He laughs. “Nope. Just really hate laundry.”
Exhibit 12: Literally teleported into the splash zone to shield me. Probably didn’t even get wet.
-
And still… you don’t say it.
You don’t ask.
Because he’s not just some blur of strength or spectacle.
He’s the man who folds your laundry while pretending it’s because he’s “bad at relaxing.” Who scribbles notes in the margins of your drafts, calling your metaphors “dangerously good.” Who kisses your forehead with a kind of reverence like you’re the one who’s unreal.
You know.
You know.
And he knows you know.
Because he’s hiding it from you. Not really.
When he stumbles over his own sentences, when his smile falters after a late return, when his jaw tenses at the sound of your name whispered too softly—you don’t see evasion. You see weight. You see care.
He’s protecting something.
And you’re trying to figure out how to tell him that you already know. That it’s okay. That you’re still here. That you love him anyway.
You haven’t said it yet—not the knowing, not the loving. But it lives just under your skin. A second heartbeat. A full body truth. You think maybe, if you just look him in the eye long enough next time, he’ll understand.
But still neither of you says it yet. Because the space between what’s said and unsaid—that’s where everything soft lives.
And you’re not ready to let it go.
-
The morning feels ordinary.
There’s a crack in the coffee pot. A printer jam. Perry yelling something about deadlines from his office. Jimmy’s camera bag spills open across your desk, and he swears he’ll fix it after his coffee, and Lois is pacing, muttering about sources.
And then the screens change.
It’s subtle at first—just a flicker. Then the feed cuts mid-commercial. Every monitor in the bullpen goes black, then red. Emergency alert. A shrill tone splits the air. Someone turns up the volume.
You look up.
And everything shifts.
The broadcast blares through the newsroom speakers, raw footage streaming in from a local news chopper.
Metropolis. Midtown. Chaos. A building half-collapsed. Smoke curling upward in a thick, unnatural spiral.
The camera jolts—and then there he is.
Superman.
Thrown through a brick wall.
You feel it in your bones before your brain catches up. That’s him. That’s Clark.
He’s on his knees in the wreckage, panting, bleeding—from his temple, from his ribs, from a gash you can’t see the end of. The suit is torn. His cape is shredded. He’s never looked so human.
He tries to stand. Wobbles. Collapses.
You stop breathing.
“Is Superman going to be ok?” someone behind you murmurs.
“Jesus,” Jimmy whispers.
“He’ll be fine,” Lois says, too casually. She leans back in her chair, sipping her coffee like it’s any other news cycle. “He always is.”
You want to scream. Because that’s not a story on a screen. That’s not some distant, untouchable god.
That’s your boyfriend.
That’s the man who brought you coffee this morning with one sugar and just the right amount of cream. The man who kissed your wrist in the elevator, whose hands trembled when he whispered I want to be enough. Who holds you like you’re something holy and bruises like he’s made of skin after all.
He’s not fine. He’s bleeding.
He’s not getting up.
You freeze.
The bullpen keeps moving around you—half-aware, half-horrified—but you can’t speak. Can’t blink. Can’t breathe.
Your hands start to shake.
You grip the edge of your desk like it might anchor you to the floor, like if you let go you’ll run straight out the door, out into the chaos, toward the wreckage and the fire and the thing trying to kill him.
A part of you already has.
A hit lands on the feed—something massive slamming him into the pavement—and your knees almost buckle from the force of it. Not physically. Not really. But somewhere deep. Something inside you fractures.
You don’t know what the enemy is.
Alien, maybe. Or worse.
But it’s not the shape of the thing that terrifies you—it’s him. It’s how slow he is to get up. How much his mouth is bleeding. How his eyes are unfocused. How you’ve never seen him look like this.
You want to run.
You want to be there.
But you’re not. You’re here. In your dress pants and button-up, in your neat little office chair, with your badge clipped to your hip and your heart breaking quietly.
Because no one else knows. No one else understands what’s really at stake. No one else sees the man behind the cape.
Not like you do.
Your vision blurs.
You wipe your eyes. Pretend it’s nothing. The bullpen is too loud to hear your breath catch.
But still—your hands tremble and your heart pounds so violently it hurts.
And you cry.
Quietly.
You cry like the city might if it could feel. You cry like the sky should. You cry like someone already grieving—like someone who knows what it means to lose him.
The footage won’t stop. Superman reels across the screen—his suit torn, the shoulder scorched through in a blackened, jagged arc. Blood smears the corner of his mouth. There’s a limp in his gait now, one he keeps trying to mask. The camera catches it anyway.
The newsroom is silent now save for the hiss of static and the low voice of the anchor describing the damage downtown.
You sit frozen at your desk, the plastic edge biting into your palms as you grip it like it might stop your body from unraveling. The taste of bile has settled at the back of your throat. Your coffee’s gone cold in its cup.
Across the bullpen, someone mutters, “Jesus. He took a hit.”
“Look at the suit,” Lois says flatly, standing by one of the screens. “He’s never looked that rough before.”
“Dude’s limping,” Jimmy adds, pushing his glasses up. “That alien thing—what even was that?”
Their words feel like background noise. Distant. Warped. You can’t seem to hear anything over the white-hot panic blistering in your chest.
You blink, your eyes burning, throat tight. You can’t just sit here and cry. Not in front of Lois and Perry and half the bullpen. But your body is trembling anyway. You clench your hands in your lap, nails digging crescent moons into your skin.
He’s hurt.
And he’s still out there.
Fighting.
Alone.
You can’t just sit here.
You shove your chair back hard enough that it scrapes against the floor. “I’m going.”
Lois turns toward you. “Going where?”
“I’m covering it. The attack. The fallout. Whatever’s left—I want to see it firsthand.”
Lois’s brow lifts. “Since when do you make reckless calls like this?”
“I don’t,” you snap, already grabbing your coat. “But I am now.”
Jimmy’s already halfway to the door. “If we’re going, I’m bringing the camera.”
Lois hesitates. Then sighs. “Hell. You two’ll get yourselves killed without me.”
You don’t wait for her to finish grabbing her phone. You’re already out the door.
-
Downtown is a war zone.
The smell of scorched concrete clings to the air. Smoke spirals in uneven plumes from the carcass of a building that must have been beautiful once. Sirens scream in every direction, red and blue lights flashing off every pane of shattered glass.
You arrive just as the dust begins to settle.
The battle is over but the wreckage tells you how bad it was.
The Justice Gang moves through the remains like figures out of a dream—tattered and bloodied, but upright.
Guy Gardner limps past, muttering curses. “Next time, I’m bringing a bigger damn ring.” Kendra Saunders—Hawkgirl—has one wing half-folded and streaked with blood. She ignores it as she checks on a paramedic’s bandages. Mr. Terrific is already coordinating with local emergency crews, directing flow with a hand to his ear. And Metamorpho—God, he looks like he’s melting and re-solidifying with every breath.
And then…
Him.
He descends from the smoke. Not in a blur. Not with a boom of sonic air. Slowly. Controlled.
But not untouched.
He lands in a crouch, shoulders tight, the line of his jaw drawn sharp with tension. His boots crunch against broken concrete. His cape is torn at one edge, flapping limply behind him.
He’s hurt.
He’s so clearly hurt.
And even through all of it—through the dirt and blood and pain—he sees you. His eyes lock onto yours in an instant. The rest of the world falls away. There’s no press. No chaos. No destruction.
Just him.
And you.
The corner of his mouth lifts—just a flicker. Not a smile. Just… recognition.
And something deeper behind it.
You know know.
And he is letting you know.
But he straightens a second later, lifting his chin, slotting the mask back into place like a practiced motion. He squares his shoulders, winces barely perceptible, and turns to face the press.
Lois is already stepping forward, questions in hand. “Superman. What can you tell us about the enemy?”
His voice is steady, but you can hear it now—hear the strain. The breath that doesn’t quite come easy. The syllables that drag like they’re fighting his tongue. “It wasn’t local,” he says. “Some kind of dimensional breach. We had help closing it.”
Jimmy’s camera clicks. Kendra coughs into her hand.
You’re not writing.
You’re just watching.
Watching the soot along his cheekbone. The split in his lip. The way he shifts his weight to favor one side. The way the “s” in “justice” drags like it hurts to say.
He looks tired.
But more than that—he looks like Clark.
And it’s never been more obvious than right now, standing under broken sky, trying to pretend like nothing’s changed.
You want to run to him. You want to hold him up.
But you stay rooted.
When the questions start to slow and the press begins murmuring among themselves, he glances over. Just at you.
“Are you okay?” he asks, barely audible.
You nod. “Are you?”
He hesitates. Then says, “Getting there.”
It’s not a performance. Not for them. Just for you.
You nod again. The look you share says more than anything else could.
I know.
I’m not leaving.
You don’t have to say it.
When he flies away—slower this time, one hand brushing briefly against his ribs—it’s not dramatic. There’s no sonic boom. No heat trail. Just wind and distance.
Lois exhales. “He looked rough.”
Jimmy nods. “Still hot, though.”
You say nothing. You just stare up at the empty sky. And press your shaking hand over your heart.
-
You fake calm.
You smile when Jimmy slaps your shoulder and says something about getting the footage up by morning. You nod through Lois’s sharp-eyed stare and mutter something about your deadline, your byline, your blood sugar—anything to get her to stop watching you like she knows what you’re not saying.
But the second you’re alone?
You run. It’s not a sprint, not really. Just that jittery, full-body urgency—the kind that makes your hands shake and your legs move faster than your thoughts can follow. You don’t remember the trip home. Just the chaos of your own pulse, the way your chest won’t stop aching.
You replay the scene again and again in your mind: his landing, the blood on his lip, the flicker of pain when he looked at you. That not-quite smile. That nearly imperceptible tremble.
You’d never wanted to hold someone more in your life.
And when you reach your door, keys fumbling, heart still hammering? He’s already there.
You pause halfway through the doorway.
He’s standing in your living room, like he’s been waiting hours. He’s not in the suit. No cape. No crest. Just a plain black T-shirt and flannel pajama pants, his hair still damp like he just showered.
He looks like Clark. Except… tonight you know there’s no difference.
“Hi,” he says quietly. His voice is soft. Familiar. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
You blink. “Did you break through my patio door?”
He winces. “Yes. Sort of.”
You lift a brow. “You owe me a new lock.”
“It doesn’t work like that.” He says with a roll of his eyes.
A silence stretches between you. It’s not tense. Not angry. Just full of everything neither of you said earlier.
He takes a step toward you, then stops. “How long have you known?”
You drop your keys in the bowl by the door and toe off your shoes before answering. “Since the lamp. And the candle,” you say. “But… mostly tonight.”
He nods like that hurts. Like he wishes he could’ve done better. Like he wishes he could’ve told you in some perfect, movie-moment way.
“I didn’t want you to find out like that,” he says quietly.
You walk to the couch and sit, your limbs finally catching up to the adrenaline crash still sweeping through you. “I’m glad I found out at all.”
That’s what makes him move. He sinks down beside you, hands on his knees. You can see it in his profile—the exhaustion, the regret, the weight he’s been carrying for so long. You’re not sure he’s ever looked more human.
“I’ve been hiding so long,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “I forgot how to be seen. And with you… I didn’t want to lie. But I didn’t want to lose it either. I didn’t want to lose you.”
Your throat tightens. “You won’t,” you say. And you mean it.
His head turns then, slowly, eyes meeting yours like he’s trying to memorize your face from this distance. You don’t look away.
When he kisses you, it’s not careful. It’s not shy. It’s like something breaks open inside him—softly. The dam finally giving way.
His hands cradle your face like you’re something he’s terrified to shatter but needs to feel. His mouth is hot and open, reverent, desperate in the way it deepens. He kisses like he’s anchoring himself to the earth through your lips. Like everything in him is still shaking from battle and you’re the only thing that still feels real.
You reach for him. Thread your fingers into his hair. Pull him closer.
It builds like a slow swell—hands tangling, breathing harder, heat coiling low in your stomach. He pushes you back gently against the cushions, his body moving over yours with careful precision. Not to pin. Just to hold.
You feel it in every motion: the restraint. The effort. He could crush steel and he’s using that strength to cradle your ribs.
He undresses you with reverence. His fingers tremble when they touch your bare skin. Not from hesitation—but because he’s finally allowed to want. To have. To be seen.
You undress him too. That soft black T-shirt comes off first. Then the flannel. His chest is mottled with bruises, a dark one blooming across his side where that alien creature must’ve hit him. Your fingertips trace the edge of it.
He exhales, shaky. But he doesn’t stop you.
You’re straddling his lap before you realize it, chest to chest, foreheads pressed together.
“Are you scared?” he whispers.
Your thumb brushes his cheek. “Never of you.”
He kisses you again—slower this time. More control, but more depth too. His hands glide down your back and settle at your hips, thumbs pressing into your skin like he needs the reminder that you’re here. That you chose this.
The rest unfolds like prayer. The way he touches you—thorough, patient, hungry—it’s worship. Every gasp you make pulls a soft, broken sound from his throat. Every arch of your back makes his eyes flutter shut like he’s overwhelmed by the sight of you. The way he moves inside you is deep and aching and full of something larger than either of you.
Not rough. But desperate. Raw. True.
And even when he falters—when his hands grip too tight or the air warms just a little too fast—you hold his face and whisper, “I know. It’s okay. I want all of you.” And he gives it. All of him. Until the only thing either of you can do is fall apart. Together.
Later, when you’re curled up on the couch in a tangle of limbs and quiet breathing, he rests his forehead against your temple.
The city buzzes somewhere far away.
He whispers into your skin: “Next time… don’t let me fly off like that.”
Your smile is soft, tired. “Next time, come straight to me.”
He nods, eyes already fluttering shut.
And finally, for the first time since this began—you both sleep without secrets between you.
-
You wake to sunlight. Not loud, not harsh—just soft beams slipping through the blinds, spilling across the floor, warming the space where your bare shoulder meets the sheets. You blink slowly, the weight of sleep still thick behind your eyes, and shift just slightly in the tangle of limbs wrapped around you. He doesn’t stir. Not even a little.
Clark is still curled around you like the night never ended—his chest at your back, legs tangled with yours, one arm snug around your waist and the other folded up against your ribs, fingers resting over your heart like he’s guarding it in his sleep.
You don’t move. You can’t. Because it’s perfect. You let your cheek rest against his arm, warm and solid beneath you, and you just listen—to the steady rhythm of his heart, to the rise and fall of his breathing, to the way the silence doesn’t feel empty anymore. You don’t know if you’ve ever felt more grounded than you do right now, held like this. It isn’t the cape. It isn’t the flight. It isn’t the power that quiets the noise in your chest.
It’s him. Just Clark. And for once, you don’t need anything else.
He stumbles into the kitchen half an hour later in your robe. Your actual, honest-to-god, fuzzy gray robe. It’s oversized on you, which means it fits him like a second skin—belt tied loose at the hips, collar gaping just enough to make you lose your train of thought. His hair is a mess, sticking up in soft black tufts. His glasses are nowhere to be found. He scratches the back of his neck, blinking at the cabinets like he’s not entirely sure how kitchens work.
You lean against the counter with your arms folded, watching him with open amusement. “You own too much flannel.”
Clark glances over, eyes squinting against the light. “I’ll have you know, that robe is a Metropolis winter essential.”
“You’re bulletproof.”
“I get cold emotionally.”
You snort. “You’re such a menace in the morning.”
“And yet,” he says, opening the fridge and retrieving eggs with the careful precision of someone who’s clearly trying not to break them with super strength, “you let me stay.”
You grin. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”
He burns the first pancake. Which is honestly impressive, considering you weren’t even sure it was physically possible for someone with super speed and heat vision to ruin breakfast. But he flips it too fast—like way too fast—and the thing launches halfway across the skillet before folding in on itself and sizzling dramatically.
You raise an eyebrow. Clark stares down at the pancake like it betrayed him. “I didn’t account for surface tension.”
“Did you just say ‘surface tension’ while making pancakes?”
“I’m a complex man,” he says solemnly.
You lean over and pluck a piece of fruit from the cutting board he forgot he was slicing. “You’re a menace and a dork.”
He pouts. Full, actual pout. Then shuffles over and kisses your shoulder. “I’ll get better with practice.”
You roll your eyes. But your skin’s still buzzing where his lips brushed it.
Later, you sit on the counter while he stands between your knees, coffee in one hand, the other resting warm on your thigh. It’s quiet. Not awkward or forced—just soft. Full of little glances and sips and contented silence. There’s no fear in him now. No carefully placed pauses. No skirting around things. He just… is. Clark Kent. The boy who spilled coffee on your notes three times. The man who kept writing to you in secret even when you didn’t see him.
“You’re not what I expected,” you say, fingers brushing his arm.
He lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought Superman would be… shinier. Less flannel. More invincible.”
“Are you saying I’m not shiny enough for you?”
“I’m saying you’re better.”
He blinks. And then—just like that—he smiles. Not the bashful one. Not the public one. The real one. Small and warm and honest. The kind of smile you only give someone when you feel safe. And maybe that’s what this is now. Safety. Not the absence of danger—but the presence of someone who will always come back.
His communicator buzzes from somewhere in the bedroom. Clark lets out the most exhausted groan you’ve ever heard and buries his face in your shoulder like it’ll make the world go away.
“You have to go?” you ask gently, threading your fingers through his hair.
“Soon.”
“You’ll come back?”
He lifts his head. Meets your eyes. “Every time.”
You kiss him then—slow and deep and familiar now. The kind of kiss that tastes like mornings and memory and maybe something closer to forever. He kisses you back like he already misses you. And when he finally pulls away and disappears into the sky outside your window—less streak of light, more quiet parting—you just stand there for a moment. Barefoot. Wrapped in your robe. Heart full.
You’re about to start cleaning up the kitchen when you see it. A post-it note, stuck to the fridge. Just a small square of yellow. Written in the same handwriting you could spot anywhere now.
“You always look soft in the mornings. I like seeing you like this.”
—C.K.
You read it three times. Then you smile. You walk to the cabinet above the sink, open the door—and stick it right next to all the others. The secret ones. The old ones. The ones that helped you feel seen before you even knew whose eyes were watching.
And now you know. Now you see him too.
All of him.
And you wouldn’t trade it for anything.
-
tags: @eeveedream m @anxiousscribbling @pancake-05 @borhapparker @dreammiiee @benbarnesprettygurl @insidethegardenwall @butterflies-on-my-ashes s @maplesyrizzup @rockwoodchevy @jasontoddswhitestreak @loganficsonly @overwintering-soldier @hits-different-cause-its-you @eclipsedplanet @wordacadabra @itzmeme e @cecesilver @crisis-unaverted-recs @indigoyoons @chili4prez @thetruthisintheirdreams @ethanhoewke (<— it wouldn’t let me tag some blogs I’m so sorry!!)
i want the sweetness of your closeness (i want the sweetness of your words)
you and spencer hang out at one of rossi's dinners.
a/n: this was inspired by @inkdrinkerworld and @januaryembrs's one-shots with sunshine!reader! i'm so charmed by the idea of spence walking into the bureau tired as fuck only to get bowled over by a reader who's excitable like a puppy. i'm new to posting writing on tumblr so if the characterization is off/it feels unfinished pls bear with me :)
When Spencer arrived, you were folded into Rossi’s living room couch alongside Penelope, laughing so hard your stomach was beginning to hurt.
“Rossi let them into the wine already?” The amused voice sounded from behind you, but in your distraction you didn’t realize who it was; your brain simply glazed over the words without processing them.
Luke responded, “Pregame at Garcia’s. Like, they actually called it a pregame. JJ and Prentiss are in the bathroom.”
“I wasn’t invited?”
“Girls only.”
“Ahh…”
By this time, he’d come close enough to the back of the couch that you caught a hint of his scent: something clean and musky, warm enough to impart a sense of deep comfort. Ambrette, maybe? Spencer swore up and down that he didn’t wear cologne—most were too strong for his delicate sensibilities, allegedly—but you maintained that he must use some kind of product. Nobody smelled that good naturally.
You craned your neck over the back of the couch; a thrill of happiness thrummed through you with a force which rendered you helpless against the delighted grin that bloomed on your face. “Spencer!”
His upside-down face hovered over you. Spencer possessed some of the biggest doe eyes you’d ever seen; they watched you fondly. Adorably wind-mussed, his hair haloed his head in a tawny cloud.
A small, sweet smile pulled at his lips. “Pregaming Rossi’s? Garcia’s becoming a bad influence on you.”
“Objection!” Penelope garbled, face stuffed in a pillow.
Her wine had put a lovely, hazy filter on the world, softening everything. There was a fuzz to Spencer’s features as he pulled a face at you; you chortled.
“Maybe I'm the bad influence on all of you,” you beamed.
“You?” Spencer pretended to think for a second, before shaking his head. “You couldn’t be a bad influence if you tried.”
It was a bit of a running thing, you being the sweetheart of the team. Angel. Sunshine. Maybe you were naïve—you got the sense, sometimes, that you only thought this way because you hadn’t experienced enough of the “real” world yet, whatever that might mean. Easy to believe in the beauty of the world when you’d barely even scratched the surface of the nightmares this career could throw at you.
But your teammates were kind. They seemed to like you. And, in truth, it was hard not to have faith in humanity when you had a family like this.
Especially Spencer. He’d snuck up on you, really. Only recently released from prison and disappearing intermittently on his sabbaticals, he’d seemed a distant figure for a while; then, one day, you realized in the middle of saying something to him that you trusted him more than anyone else.
Each time he said something nice to you, you treasured it like the rarest pearl. Your heart squeezed to near-bursting.
Softly, you said, “Have some wine, you gotta catch up.”
He tilted his head. You watched him. In moments like this, those pretty eyes fixed on you, you almost let yourself believe he was watching you back.
Eventually, he sighed. “You’re trouble,” he said, but he was smiling. His hand rose to brush against the collar of your sweater. He didn’t make contact with your skin once—still, a shiver went down your spine. “C’mon, pour me a glass?”
You didn’t think you’d ever say no to him. You followed him to the kitchen.
Rossi, still performing alchemy over the stove, arched an impressive brow at you as you entered. “Ah, so you can walk!”
“Oh, yeah. I can do it in a straight line, too.” Breathalyze that, bitch! “Or run. I bet I could run a mile right now.”
Actually, a run in the crisp evening air sounded amazing. Invigorated just at the thought of it, you bounced on the balls of your feet.
“No running.” Spencer put a hand on your shoulder, corralling you towards the stools fanned around the kitchen island. “Hi, Matt.”
Matt and Luke, seated at one end of the island, tittered behind their wineglasses as Spencer urged you onto a stool. “Might have to get a set of those backpack leashes for babies,” Matt advised. “Prentiss and JJ are worse than she is.”
“Man, if you tried leashing any of them you’d just land yourself in the ICU.”
“Touché.”
“Are Prentiss and JJ okay? How long have they been in there?”
“They’re out back with Tara now. Last time I checked, they sounded like they were plotting something evil. So they’re fine. I don’t know about the rest of us, though.”
“I want to be in on an evil plot,” you said sadly.
“We can start one,” Matt reassured you. “Rossi, want in?”
“I want no part of this conversation!”
“Cool, just us, then. Let’s cheers to it—hey, where’s your glass?”
“Oh, I’m done for the night, I don’t want to get sick.”
“You respect your body’s limits better than anyone else I know,” Luke said, impressed.
“Oh, no,” you replied. “It’s just ‘cause Spencer lectured me the last time I got wasted.” All heads swiveled towards Spencer, who immediately busied himself pretending he hadn’t, indeed, been leveling you with a warning look moments before.
Matt and Luke, avid proponents of your descent into debauchery, booed him loyally.
“Let the baby drink!”
“Yeah, don’t you remember what it was like when you were in the womb?”
“I’m almost thirty!”
“So a baby.”
“Baby!”
You shook your fist at them threateningly. Spencer, for his part, just snickered, tugging on the back of your stool. You might’ve shrieked, except the world blurred into motion so suddenly that you couldn’t even utter a sound.
Between one heartbeat and the next, you found yourself relocated to Spencer’s other side. Here, his body served as a wall between you and the MattLuke duo. They jeered good-naturedly for only a few seconds longer before a burst of flame from one of Rossi’s pans caught their attention.
At some point, Spencer had procured an empty glass and an open bottle of wine. He offered the bottle to you with a raise of his brows; you took it with a smile.
The deep, translucent green of the bottle matched the foresty color of the sweater he wore, striking against the white button-down he’d donned beneath it. The blooded red of the wine, as you poured some carefully into his glass, complemented the rest of the palette perfectly.
Beautiful. “‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,’” you intoned, cutting off the wine’s flow with a flourish. You hadn’t been to church—much less believed in any god—in almost a decade. But wine had a way of making you feel biblical, you supposed.
Spencer laughed. “Matthew, chapter twenty-six.”
“Verse twenty-eight, Spencer, remember the verse,” you leered.
He rolled his eyes, taking a sip. You watched the graceful lines of his throat move as he swallowed.
“We should go to one of those sip and paint classes,” you suggested, kicking your feet. “Like, the ones where you drink wine and paint.”
Spencer pulled a complicated face. “I don’t do very well with the visual arts.”
Which was exactly why you suggested it. You’d been obsessed with the way Spencer fumbled through most forms of arts and crafts since Garcia had led the BAU through a paper-snowflake-making tutorial back in December. You’d reassured Spencer that there was no wrong way to make a snowflake; then, when he showed you his finished product, you laughed so hard that Rossi had to send you to his office to calm down.
He could knit just fine, of course: he claimed that this was because knitting “actually made sense,” with its patterns and charts, and that it was the only art form he needed. In your opinion, though, one needed to learn the intricacies of abstract art to be considered cultured.
“Please,” you wheedled. “You don’t have to be good at painting and they show you how to make the picture anyways! It’d be fun.”
“Why don’t you go with Rossi?”
“I’m not taking Rossi to any event involving wine that’s hosted by an American, oh my God. He still hasn’t forgiven me for Secret Santa. Spencer, please!”
After a long pause, he said, “I’ll think about it,” clearly lying. You decided to let him off the hook, just this once.
The conversation wandered for a while after that. Spencer finished one glass; you poured him another; a sweet flush began coloring his cheeks.
“It’s incredible. The organism doesn’t have a brain or any kind of central nervous system, but it’s very intuitive. A slime mold plasmodium is basically one giant cell—there’s no walls sectioning off its insides like with other living organisms. And it has pathfinding capabilities. It can figure out what direction it needs to go in to find the resources it needs without a brain!”
“Pathfinding? What do you mean, pathfinding?”
“The ability to find a path through a field with obstacles in it—and not just find any path, but figure out the most efficient half. So slime molds can solve mazes, without any of the sense organs or body parts that humans would consider necessary for navigation!”
You try to fathom it: a living thing, with none of the parts that you, another living thing, have. “So it solves mazes… without solving them. Like, without having to think it through.”
“Exactly! It’s a kind of intelligence that we can’t even begin to conceive of. Did you know: there was an experiment where scientists arranged slime mold food to match the locations of various areas in Tokyo, and when presented with the problem, the slime molds formed a network that was almost identical to the Tokyo railway system? It took countless experts years to design the railway system to be efficient—and the slime mold did it within 24 hours!”
Spencer’s eyes glimmered as he spoke. Grinning, you reached out a hand to brush against his fingers. “Careful, you’re gonna spill.”
“Oops.” Chastened, but still glowing with happiness, he allowed you to take his glass and move it to safety on the countertop. “It’s just so cool. Non-human intelligence is amazing.”
“It is.” You leaned back a bit, squinting one eye closed, then switching to the other. “I think you’d make a pretty cool slime mold.”
Spencer laughed. “You think so?”
“Yes, you’d be so cute!” Your eyes widened. “You’d be, like… bright orange. Or really, really, electric blue.”
“Electric blue sounds a little too cool for me, I think.” He didn’t sound self-deprecating as he said it, though, and his lips pressed together in a stifled smile. When he let his arm hang at his side, it brushed against the side of your thigh. Sparks prickled at the point of contact.
You liked Spencer so, so much. You liked him so much that sometimes it felt like you wouldn't be able to survive it. It was just so easy, with him—to talk, to relax, to laugh. Sometimes, you wanted to spend a day in his head, just to be able to experience the way he saw the world.
His gaze, resting on you, was almost unbearably warm. “I think you’d make a pretty cool slime mold too.”
i haven't seen anyone talk about this but has anyone noticed how spencer, a LITERAL genius and geographic profiler, loses his sense of direction when he's in love ??? LIKE remember that scene with lila in the set after she take a sip from his cola ... morgan teased him and went left to exit but then it seems like he meant to go on the opposite direction! or that one scene when he was talking to maeve in a phone call and then he walked out but then turned around again, meaning to go to the opposite direction pls he's just so so CUTE ☹️🫶🏻
in which spencer reid and fem!reader meet by accident at a coffee shop. and then they keep meeting there. they've really got to stop meeting like this. (no, seriously. hotch is pissed.) / do you believe me now? bonus chapter!
fluff!
warnings/tags: meet cute:) some dark humor, romantically inexperienced reader, spencer reid graduated from caltech, mit, and the derek morgan school of rizz
a/n: this can absolutely be read as a standalone BUT it was written as a prologue for my series do you believe me now? to explain how spencer and r met! completely optional, if you're only here for the smut no worries! reading this bonus chapter might make the next chapter better though as it contains discussions of how they met:) anyway, I LOVE YOU!! let me know if you like this silly little random thing! kisses
The café door opens again. A blustery wind raises goosebumps on your arms and makes your bones ache again. You look up at the latest intruder—a hobbling elderly man in a newsboy cap and a knit red scarf.
Stupid scarf, you think.
Stupid door.
Stupid wind.
Your mug is empty, and the table you’re sitting at is sort of sticky and rickety, and there are so many papers in front of you that you wonder why the hell you thought it’d be a good idea to print the PDF out and annotate it that way instead of just doing it on your laptop like a normal person in the 21st century. Nothing is going right today. It’s the third café you’ve tried in the past few weeks as you attempt to find some place that feels homey, lucky, but this one just feels… inconvenient.
You look at the stack of papers and sigh.
Stupid Lord Byron.
Stupid cafe.
Usually, cafés are relatively quiet and peaceful—a refuge for the overworked to bask in the luxury of quiet jazz and the smell of dark roast as they continue to overwork themselves. This particular establishment, however, today hosts a group of teenagers—presumably playing hooky—who have commandeered a big booth in the back and keep walking right past your table because apparently they couldn’t have just ordered their drinks at once and they all have to do it separately and loudly.
One of them has an incredibly irritating, gratingly pubescent laugh, and they think everything is hilarious. This whole situation is unbearable.
Just as you’re gearing up to go, of course the fucking door opens again. This time, it’s accompanied by a particularly strong gust.
Strong enough that Lord Byron doesn’t stand a chance.
Your printed copy of his works blows off the table, at first page by painstakingly annotated page and then before you can even process it, all at once.
Yeah. This is definitely not your lucky café.
As you curse and go to stand up, you run into one of those dumb kids. His huge ceramic mug goes flying, careening against the edge of your table and completely splattering you and all your stuff in 16 liquid ounces of scalding espresso and milk.
It’s silent for a second, save for a few drips from the puddle on your table to the floor, before the kid is apologizing profusely and turning red as a tomato. You can’t even respond—you look down at your ruined favorite sweater, and then around at the pages of Byron littered with color-coded sticky notes, overflowing with angry and purposeful red ink that you spent so much time on, scattered all over the floor.
Eventually the boy catches on that you’re not going to forgive him and he skitters away, back to his friends, who whisper and giggle profusely. Only a few of them get up to start gathering the fallen pages with you. Several other patrons end up helping as well, so the sheets of paper are gathered and returned into your sticky hands fairly quickly. You thank each person without looking up as they hand you their respective stack. All you want is to get out of here.
“Here—I’m really sorry about this,” someone says—a tenor-ish male voice, distinctly sympathetic as he holds out a rather larger stack of papers than anyone else had bothered to pick up.
“I’ll live,” you sigh, straightening up. “But thank… you.”
The man standing in front of you is the kind of man who makes you want to untuck your hair from its usual spot behind your ears, and to stand up straighter, and to try and not stare even though you want his attention. He’s gloriously beautiful in a way that repels and attracts you. He’s the type of man who wouldn’t have given you the time of day in high school and probably wouldn’t now. Instantly you feel both insecure and reduced to a former version of you who would simper and fawn over boys who wanted nothing to do with her. You feel like going to the other side of the café and sitting in the best light and staring out the window poetically and hoping he’s looking at you.
“On the one hand, I feel bad for being the person who opened the door and let the wind in. On the other… I feel compelled to say at least they’re not covered in coffee like the rest of your table is?”
You laugh vacantly, a second too late, positively coveting the awkward smile on his angular face. Then you make eye contact, and his eyes are so the opposite of angular—they’re huge and inviting and the warmest golden-brown you’ve ever seen, and they’re looking right back at you—and you have to look down. Fuck. You hate when you do that.
Think of something normal to say!
“Yeah, true. Now I just have to reorder 264 pages. That… that don’t have page numbers.”
You shuffle through the papers. They are hopelessly scrambled. Your heart sinks just a bit.
“Um… I might actually be able to help with that, if you want?”
You frown, glancing up. What kind of sex trafficking ploy is this?
“That’s okay. Might be easier with just one person.”
He laughs—it’s similarly awkward, similarly endearing.
“Do you mind letting me just… try? It’ll only take a minute.”
Only take a minute? Is this beautiful man deranged? Why are the hot ones always crazy?
But, perhaps because you’re a pushover who can’t stand up to people, much less beautiful people, much less beautiful men who are paying you undue attention, you find yourself giving in. You hold the stack out.
“Sure. Give it your best shot. I’ll be impressed if you can even figure out what page one is.”
He’s already flipping through the papers with a drawn brow, walking away with them, and barely looking over his shoulder as he mutters, “I have Byron memorized. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”
You follow him, because hello, he has all your annotations. He’s definitely insane, you think, as he sits down at a table and starts rapidly sorting the sheets into separate piles.
All you can do is stand awkwardly behind him as he stacks papers seemingly at random, barely glancing at them before deciding where they go.
Maybe a minute, maybe a few go by, each of which have you progressively more flabbergasted, before he’s tapping the edges of a stack of paper on the table and standing, handing them to you with his lips pressed into a thin pleasant line. There’s almost a glow about him—like he couldn’t be more in his comfort zone.
“There you go. Should be in order now.” You sport a frown bordering on a grimace as you take the stack and flip through it a bit. Sure enough, it seems that everything is in order. You keep looking between the man in front of you and the papers, incredulous as you wait for something to be in the wrong spot.
“How did you do that?”
His cheeks turn slightly pink.
“I know Byron really well. I know how each passage ends and begins so I put them together like puzzle pieces.”
“How did you read that fast?”
“Uh. I’m a speed-reader?”
You scoff, taking another look through the stack.
“I think that may be underselling it.” A thought occurs to you as you’re grazing over one of your longer annotations—full of expletives and strong opinions. “Oh, god. You didn’t… you didn’t read my notes?”
The man’s eyebrows raise as if he was waiting for you to mention that and he smiles like he doesn’t quite know how to break it to you gently.
“Maybe a few,” he eventually decides, laughing under his breath. “I appreciated the commentary on his relationship with Augusta. It was… colorful.”
Heat rises in your cheeks as you mumble.
“Yeah, I had a hard time appreciating the romantic poems. They’re less cute when there’s like a fifty percent chance he’s writing about his sister.”
“Half sister,” he corrects. You give him a look.
“Does that make it better?”
“… no,” he realizes. “Not even a little bit.”
You laugh, relieved that his face looks as warm as yours feels.
“Well… thank you, for the help,” you say after a silent second.
“Of course. Sorry, again. I, um—I hope your day gets better?”
“Yeah, well. I feel like statistically it has to, right? It’s kind of a low bar.”
He smiles, a perfect, perfect smile, and gives you a little wave as he leaves. Without coffee. Checking the clock on the wall, you realize it’s approaching one in the afternoon. If he’d been here on his lunch break, he sacrificed it to organize your stupid Byron texts. You smile to yourself.
He was totally in love with me.
And he can’t prove me wrong because I’ll probably never see him again.
All things considered—this coffee shop does seem pretty lucky. Maybe you’ll stick with it for a while.
The next time you see the mysterious sexy speed reader is four days later—though you’ve been here every day since. He catches your eye right as he walks in, and his brows jump in pleasant recognition. You smile. He smiles back, before going up to the counter and ordering a coffee with a ludicrous amount of sugar in it.
I should take note for when I make him his coffee in the mornings, you think to yourself, and then you snort at your own delusions, shaking your head at your book. Obviously you’re not that divorced from reality, but you’ll entertain the fantasy forever until one of you stops showing up to this café.
What you’re absolutely not expecting is for him to walk up to your table with his to-go cup.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi!”
Jesus. Tone it down, girl scout.
He gestures to your stack of papers: now secured in a three ring binder. The cup says Spencer.
Spencer. Spencer.
It feels important.
“I see you’ve upgraded.”
“Yes! Yes, I did,” you laugh self-consciously, still struggling to meet his eyes. “Thank you for the help the other day. I would still be sorting through all of this if it weren’t for that, so… yeah. Thanks.”
“Of course! I’m glad I could be of use.”
“Spence!” Someone calls from the cafe door. You both look up to see a stunning blonde beckoning him away.
Ah. Naturally. The girlfriend who is one trillion times prettier than you.
Spence.
Reality sets in.
“Coming!” He replies, with all the eager compliance of a child, before turning back to you. “Um… well… I’ll see you?”
It’s an awkward way to say goodbye to a stranger, but you suddenly don’t care enough to dwell. Instead you nod once, less enthusiastic now that you know he has a 10 waiting for him on the sidewalk.
“I am a creature of habit.”
Another wave as he walks away.
The two disappear from the doorway, but the perpetual breeze seems to carry a snatched bit of conversation your way.
“Who was that?”
“Uh… I don’t actually know.”
Yeah. Reality definitely sets in.
Over the next few days, you break your café streak. Life is busy. There’s not always time to artfully ponder Romantic poetry and drink a six dollar coffee while waiting around for certain people to show up.
Okay, so… maybe it has more to do with him than you’re letting on. But you’re not going to do that thing you do again, where you become limerently obsessed with a man you don’t know and who is way out of your league just because you can’t form an actual attachment to anyone to save your life. Besides, you remind yourself; we probably wouldn’t be compatible anyway. He’s probably a huge loser. Or secretly a douche. Or chews with his mouth open. Obviously nobody that attractive can also have a good personality.
Not to mention he has a girlfriend. That should put you off, too.
But you hadn’t been lying when you’d proclaimed to be a creature of habit—you return to the café once you feel sufficiently detached from this Spencer character.
He’s there. Of course he’s there. Why had you been expecting for him to not be there? It’s not like he was a figment of your imagination.
This time he’s accompanied by a different blonde woman—a bespectacled blonde with a big floral headband and a patterned dress and a red cardigan and tights and heels that look self-injurious. She’s quite eye-catching; you want to keep looking at her, but you seem to draw her attention, too. Her big eyes widen minutely and briefly you wonder if you’re supposed to know her, but certainly you’d remember meeting a person like that. She doesn’t seem easily forgettable. Both of you look to Spencer at the same time, who’s looking between you with an almost panicked expression.
“Oh! Th—” the woman whispers, cutting herself off when she realizes how loud she’s being in the otherwise silent establishment. “Ah! Okay, right. Never mind.”
Spencer sighs. You want to laugh, but you’re baffled by the whole thing. So you go back to reading.
Ten minutes later, they draw your attention once more.
“Go, go ahead! It’s more problematic for you to be late than me. I’ll be like, thirty seconds tops.”
You don’t look up as Spencer leaves the café—but are you supposed to gather that these two eccentric individuals are coworkers? And what of the first blonde woman, who you’d presumed to be his girlfriend? Where is she?
While you’re wondering all of this, the new blonde teeters her way over to your table.
“Hi!” She says pleasantly, waving a purple-tipped hand and wearing the biggest grin.
“Uh… hi?”
“I’m Penelope. You’ve met my friend Spencer. He just left.”
“Oh—sort of,” you smile weakly, closing your book. “Not formally. I didn’t know his name.”
That’s a lie, but maybe feigning non-chalance will make it real.
“Well, I just wanted to come over and say I love your bag. And your jewelry and your coat. I love your whole look. I bet you’re a really cool person.”
“Um—thank you!” You perk up, smiling genuinely now. The compliment warms you—you didn’t think your look was all that interesting today. “You too. I love your outfit.”
“Great! You’re—you’re great. This is good information. Um… just out of, like, sheer curiosity, could I get your name, age, and occupation? Oh—and your zodiac sign?”
What kind of convoluted sex trafficking ploy—
“Garcia!”
Spencer is at the doorway again, looking adorably miffed.
Adorable? Get a grip.
“Wh—I’m just making a new friend! Is friendship illegal, now?”
“This is the kind of friend-making that gets you a restraining order,” he urges.
You look up at Penelope Garcia, enamored by their whole dynamic. They clearly care for each other, despite the squabbling. What kind of job do they have where they talk to each other like this?
“It’s fine,” you smile, introducing yourself to her.
“That is such a good name!” She says, and you’re getting the sense she’s kind of always this enthusiastic. “So now we know each other’s names—we should probably definitely be friends, right?”
“Yeah! Um, definitely!”
“Yes? Oh my god! I love this! Okay, um—we work at Quantico, so, we’re like, 10 minutes away—but this is better than the coffee shop that’s closest to the building, so we come here all the time. Usually it’s just us and five grouchy old men, which makes this is really exciting.”
“Quantico… that’s the FBI academy, right?”
“Other stuff, too,” she nods, still smiley.
Oh! Cool. So they’re FBI agents.
So that’s cool.
You’re cool with that.
Her phone starts ringing—she locks eyes with Spencer.
“Hotch?”
“Ooh, we are in trouble,” Penelope sing-songs, leaning down to write her number on your notebook without asking. Not that you mind, of course. She adds a little heart and a smiley face next to her name before capping your pen and toddling away. “Bye, new friend!” She calls over her shoulder, waving goodbye with just her fingers.
“Bye,” you manage, though it’s probably too quiet.
Spencer flattens his mouth into an approximation of a smile and waves again.
You accidentally find yourself mirroring his goodbye, facial expression and all. Fuck. You hope he doesn’t notice. You hope he doesn’t read into it.
Nah. Boys are dumb.
You text Penelope later that afternoon—a simple greeting so that she can save your number—and then you forget about it.
It’s not until five days go by without sign of any of them—the two blondes, Spencer, this mysterious and foreboding Hotch figure—that you start to seriously question your sanity. Did they drop off the face of the planet, or what?
But of course, just as you’re sitting at your usual table, Spencer walks in. Alone.
He sees you immediately, but instead of the wave you’d come to expect, he immediately flushes, looks down at his shoes and hurries into the small lunch-rush line.
Weird.
You corner him at the coffee bar, where he’s adding more sugar to his coffee. How are his teeth so nice if he does this to himself every single day?
“Hey,” you say, affecting casual confidence as you bus your empty mug. “… Spencer, right?”
It’s comical how you’re pretending you haven’t turned that name over and looked at it from every angle hundreds of times since the first time you heard it.
He nods, only glancing up at you as he stirs. To your surprise, he knows your name, too. When you give him an odd look, he smiles almost apologetically, finally looking at your face for longer than half a second.
“I heard you introducing yourself to Penelope. Sorry if that’s…”
“No, no! Is she around, today? I texted her last week, but she never responded...”
“Today is operating system update day, so I don’t even really have a way of knowing if she’s alive in her office.” It’s funny to him, but you just smile, baffled. He notices your silence and catches on, scrambling to explain himself. “She’s our tech analyst. There are 243 computers in our building and she has to update them all remotely, which requires getting every agent to agree to not touch their computer at the same time for an hour or so.”
“Oh… does the FBI not have, like… an IT guy, or something?”
He laughs again—the way his eyes crinkle when he does it makes you a little breathless.
“You should say that to her. I think you would become her favorite person.”
It’s hard not to smile when he’s smiling because of you—however indirectly that may be. Quickly you realize you’ve both been standing in front of the coffee bar for too long.
“Alright, well… tell her good luck, for me?”
“I would, but I’ve been kicked out for an hour while she does the updates.”
Your brow furrows and you laugh.
“From the whole building? You just can’t keep your hands off your computer for an hour?”
“Not if I want to do my job, no. And I am kind of obsessive about my job. I’ve been the reason she had to start the whole process over again before and I’d rather not be that person again.”
You say it before you can think too hard.
“Well, if you have an hour to kill… there’s an open seat at my table? No pressure, obviously.”
And that was the first of thousands of hours you would come to spend with Spencer Reid.
After that, it sort of becomes a regular thing. He comes almost every day—except for occasional week or so long stretches, which you have discovered are a part of his absolutely fucking insane job—and sits with you, sometimes with Penelope, once with the other blonde, JJ, who you’ve since deduced is not his girlfriend, most often alone. Usually he can’t spare more than ten minutes, but he begins pushing it, little by little, until thirty minutes go by and you think surely his boss (the great and all-powerful Hotchner) must be beginning to notice.
One day, during your usual lunchtime rendezvous, his phone rings. He talks right on through it, like it’s not happening.
It ceases. And then it starts again.
Your head drops to your shoulder, something like pity or regret softening your features. He catches your eye and melts slightly, mid-sentence—like he knows you’re about to tell him to be responsible.
“Do you think you should…”
His hands drop from where they’d been enthusiastically positioned mid-air.
“They’ll be fine if I’m late from lunch one time. I’m usually more punctual than any of them.”
You roll your lip between your teeth—it’s not that you want to tell him to go; in fact, those delusions you’ve been harboring about your future life together are only getting worse with each inexplicable minute he entertains your company.
But his job is important.
“What if you have a case?”
“Then I would have gotten more calls from more people by now.”
Your head tips back as you laugh lightly at his unwavering insistence.
“I’m flattered that you so enjoy my company that much. But I can’t with good conscience keep taking up your work hours like this.”
As the laughter fades, he just… watches you, lips slightly parted, eyes intense but not entirely present.
“You’re probably right,” he finally breathes. “Maybe… you should start taking up my other hours, instead?”
Spencer Reid, you unexpected charmer.
You balk.
“Like… we would hang out? At a different time of day? Not here?”
“Those are the basic premises, yes,” he chuckles, nodding affably. “I’ve never actually seen you anywhere else. For all I know you could be a ghost eternally tethered to this building.”
“Where would this hanging out take place?”
Fuck, you’re totally being weird. His brow knits.
“I don’t know. Where else do people hang out?”
He’s not genuinely asking you, he’s gently turning you in the right direction. You charge forward blindly.
“Restaurants.”
There’s that pretty smile of his again, the one that makes all the thoughts drain from your head like cold bathwater. Though, there’s a sort of mischievous edge to it now that you haven't seen before.
“That’s certainly an option. If I asked you to hang out with me at a restaurant... would you say yes?”
You look down. God, your face feels warm.
“Would you be asking me out on a date? In this hypothetical scenario that we’ve constructed, I mean.”
Spencer seems to think about it for a moment, which fills you with unexpected panic. When you look back up anxiously, he has the same smile on his face, but his eyes are a little softer now.
“I would.”
More panic sets in—just a bit. But you don’t let what is undoubtedly a tidal wave of anxiety break through the emotional guard-dam. Keep it together. This is a good thing. This is what you wanted.
Unfortunately, you are perhaps more transparent than you’d realized. Spencer begins to look slightly worried, leaning forward in his chair.
“You don’t have to say yes. I know we don’t know each other very well, I just—”
“No!” You find yourself assuring him, though you curse yourself because you kind of want to know what he was going to say. “I would say yes. I’ve just, um—god,” you laugh gustily, self-consciously. “Sorry I’m being so weird. I’m out of my depth. Nobody’s asked me on a date before. I don’t really know the etiquette.”
Spencer chuckles.
“You’re doing great. Don’t worry about it.”
Not, what?
Not, you’ve never been on a date before?
Not, that’s crazy, or that’s weird, or how have you gone your whole life without being asked out?
With the implication being, you’re odd. Different. Maybe not in a good way.
He says none of that.
“But I should probably actually ask you, huh?” His cheeks turn pink as his laughter is redirected inwards.
“Sounds like a good first step.”
Spencer is still smiling as he says your name and it sounds so good from his mouth. It makes you sound so real.
“Will you go on a date with me?”
Butterflies in your stomach doesn't begin to brush what you're experiencing—your entire abdominal cavity is like a Monarch sanctuary.
“I’d love to.”
He seems genuinely relieved as he beams, slumping back in his chair.
“Oh, thank god. I was so nervous you’d say no. I never do that. Thank you for not saying no. Not that you couldn’t have said no—it would have been completely fine and obviously within your rights to—”
His phone rings again. Both of you are relieved that he was interrupted—but admittedly you thought his rambling was super cute.
“I should—”
“You definitely need to go.”
“Yeah,” he agrees with a still-breathless smile. “Um—what’s your number?”
You look around fruitlessly for pen and paper.
“I don’t—”
“Just tell me. I’ll remember.”
He’s so weird.
A breeze hits your skin as he opens the door. You’re already writing your wedding vows in the back of your mind as you watch him go.
“You’re probably right,” he finally breathes. “Maybe… you should start taking up my other hours, instead?
had to pause and stop reading ... i literally SQUEALED AND JUMPED jesus christ can't blame reader for thinking about wedding vows bcs i too would marry that man no questions asked yes im totally sane about him really 😭😭😭
in which spencer reid spends a rainy day teaching inexperienced fem!reader how to touch him. of course, her efforts don't go unrecognized, much less unrewarded
part one | part two
18+ (smut)
warnings: inexperienced reader, softdom!spencer, sub reader, oral m receiving, reader swallows lol, a truly sickening amount of praise, like really, you JOKINGLY refer to each other as dirty sluts, r has longish hair, spit mentioned once, thigh riding (moans loudly), its filthy idk what to tell you, i feel like i've crossed the desert on foot i don't even know what else is in here, your honor they're in love, i take you to dinner first, this part is stupidly long
a/n: had a fucking field day the three separate times i had to rewrite this el oh el... but think i like how it turned out?! anyway, if u like this PLS lmk bc writing it took a small piece of my soul, and yes there will be a part four!! take care of yourselves!! i love you!!!
You give Spencer half a minute or so before knocking on his door for a second time.
It’s miserable outside, and though the hallway you’re standing in now isn’t terribly cold, you’d much prefer to be in Spencer’s apartment, where it will be the same toasty 68.5 degrees as always. Not that the heating will magically dry you. And not that you’ll be there for long, if the date you’d scheduled last week goes on as planned.
You’re getting worried, about to knock for a third time when the locks finally click and the door opens to reveal a disheveled Spencer Reid—not at all looking ready for a date. You take in his ensemble; blue checked pajama pants, FBI Academy crewneck, the usual questionably paired socks. He’s rubbing his droopy eyes, which slowly widen as he notices your attire.
“Shit, I’m sorry, our date! I mean—you look really nice. I look… like this. Why don’t you come in while I get ready to go?”
He holds the door open a little wider and you step through, relishing in the familiar warmth as you pull your hood down and excess water droplets spatter on the ground.
“When did you get in?” you ask, hanging your raincoat up on a hook. You know he’d wrapped up a case yesterday evening, but you’d gone to sleep before the team left Cincinnati.
Spencer pauses in the middle of the room, staring at the antique flooring like he forgot what he was doing.
“Uh… four hours ago.”
“Wh—four hours? Spencer, you must be exhausted.”
He laughs awkwardly, running a tired hand over his face.
“I mean… I’ve definitely felt better.”
You kick your soaked shoes off and cross the room until you’re toe to toe with him. Immediately his hands settle on your waist and yours find his arms. His eyes are kind, and he’s clearly pleased by your presence despite his lack of energy.
“The weather’s terrible, anyway. Let’s just go out another day.”
His features have softened and you can see how tired he truly is—not just in his bleary eyes, but the way his fingers grasp weakly to you, the way his head bows slightly. It seems bone-deep.
“But I haven’t seen you in a week. I don’t want you to go home.”
Your lips twist. A clap of thunder rolls in the distance and the rain starts coming down even harder against the windowpanes.
“Plans that can be rescheduled. The bookstore will still be there next weekend.”
It takes him a moment to settle into the idea, but you watch the exhaustion win.
“Okay. But no nap. I want to be awake for you. Coffee?”
You nod enthusiastically, beaming at the prospect of getting to spend the day doing nothing with him. Spencer mirrors your grin, before pressing a kiss to your head.
“You’re so cute.” Heat creeps into your cheeks and you can’t think of a satisfactory reply, but in the end you don’t need to, as he tugs gently on your hands. “C’mon. Tell me what mug you want.”
The kitchen counter bites into your palms as you lean with your back to it, watching Spencer putter all around the kitchen as he works on the coffee. It makes you tired just to watch.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take a nap? Caffeine isn’t a substitute for sleep, you know.”
“I do know,” he agrees, measuring coffee grounds. “But other than last night, I actually slept fairly well this week.”
“You seem exhausted.”
“I… am tired in lots of ways. Not all of which can be resolved with more sleep.” he admits.
Your heart drops ever so slightly at the way his voice weakens as he looks through the fridge. Sometimes you remember there are still things you don’t know about him—sides you haven’t met. His work side is one of them, and it more than a little intimidates you.
“Bad case?” you ask, voice quiet and crackling with nervous energy.
Spencer nods, approaching and setting a carton of milk on the counter behind you—caging you in with his arms in the process. It’s hard to find the words when he’s this close, but you manage to stumble through them.
“Do… do you wanna talk about it?”
Spencer hums, tilting his head before gently saying, “not right now. But thank you for offering, lovely.”
“Okay, well—if you change your mind… if there’s anything I can do to make you feel better…”
Finally he stops with the teasing—the unabashed staring at your lips, the faux-attentive nods—and drops his head to your level to kiss you properly. It’s obviously an attempt to get you to shut up, you’re not dumb enough so as to miss that—but you don’t really care why he’s doing it so long as he does it at all.
“I feel pretty great right now, actually,” he murmurs against your lips, a hint of a smile coloring his words. “Do you want sugar in yours?”
“Um…”
Your eyes dart helplessly between his as he pulls away and you struggle to un-fluster yourself enough to answer his simple question. Spencer seems to delight in this. The longer it takes you, the bigger his perfect smile gets.
“You took too long. You’re getting sugar.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?” you plead later on the couch, for the third or fourth time, setting your mostly-empty mug on the coffee table.
His eyebrows raise.
“I’m sure, honey.”
“But I want to help,” you pout, pulling your knees into your chest. Spencer regards you for a moment from the other end of the couch, before beckoning you closer wordlessly.
“You are helping,” he assures you, gently grabbing your wrist as you crawl into his lap. He rubs soothing circles into the delicate skin with his thumb. “You being here and being you is plenty.”
It’s the closest you’ve been to him since before he left, and while you’ve all but given up on asking him to sleep with you, it doesn’t mean you don’t think about it multiple times per day. It’s especially difficult to keep your thoughts PG when you haven’t seen him in a week, and his hair is all messy, and he’s got his pajamas on, and you’re in his lap, and he’s looking at you like that.
“What are you thinking about?” Spencer murmurs, likely concerned by your lack of response and the glazed-over look in your eyes. You reanimate, averting your gaze to the spot on your thigh he’s now rubbing absentmindedly.
“Nothing. I just missed you.”
“I missed you a lot, too.” You don’t even have to look up to know that his brows have twisted into a pleasant sort of bemusement, like you are a particularly complex puzzle—you can hear it as he continues speaking. “I’m still not used to having something external take up so much of my attention while I’m trying to do my job. I’ve never had that before. Not something good, anyway. It’s like every time I leave, I’m thinking about you more than the time before. And I was already thinking about you a lot.”
The corner of your mouth twitches as he rambles.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really,” he chuckles. “You prove to be incredibly distracting even when you’re hundreds of miles away. Do you know how many nights I almost called you before realizing it was one in the morning?”
A slow smile spreads over your face.
“Oh? Whatever could you have been calling about at one in the morning?”
You’re teasing him, and it works. He blushes adorably.
“Um… probably exactly what you’d expect. In hindsight I think it’s best that I refrained.”
“What?” You grin, incredulous, forgetting your shyness and leaning closer. “You totally should’ve. I’ve never had phone sex before. I would’ve done it.”
“No, you wouldn’t!” Spencer laughs. “It would have just been me talking to myself with you on the other line. I don’t think phone sex is really up your alley.”
“Shut up,” you laugh as your lips meet. He smiles into the kiss. Before you get too lost in it, you pull away, leaning back when he tries to follow you. “I think you’re over-complicating it. It’s just dirty talk, right? I can totally do that. It’s just, like… blah blah blah, dirty slut, something something…”
You trail off as he gives you a look. Poker faced—aside from the slightly narrowed eyes sparkling with humor.
“You want me to refer to you as a dirty slut?”
Maintaining eye contact is an uphill battle—you crack in a matter of seconds, resting your forehead against his and closing your eyes stubbornly.
“No. For all you know I want to call you a dirty slut.”
It’s a ridiculous, but he recognizes the bravado for what it is, still smiling slightly as he rubs your hips.
“Right. I apologize for assuming. But just for future reference, I don’t want to be called that, and I don’t think I’d be comfortable calling you that, either.”
“But you can call me other stuff,” you remind your boyfriend, pulling back and still not looking at him.
“Yeah? Like what?”
And just like that, you’re shy again.
“I don’t know… nice things. I like when you’re nice.”
“I like being nice to you.” It’s so sincere-sounding that you meet his gaze, examining his face. His eyes are clear and soft on you, the only source of warm light on such a grey day, as his hands keep running slow lines over your sides. “Kiss?”
And how could you ever deny him anything?
As has happened before, the kiss starts out innocent enough. And it’s not that it gets particularly heated, or anything—it’s just that it doesn’t end, and after a few moments your mouth slips open and so does his and that’swhat gets both of you worked up over a period of minutes. Pressure and heat that you’re becoming accustomed to build between your legs, and you don’t even notice that you’ve begun rocking back and forth in his lap until Spencer is attempting to still your hips with patient but assertive hands.
“Honey, that’s—slow down, sweetheart.”
Finally he gets a grip on you and you realize as soon as you stop moving that there had been friction occurring—and you’re pretty damn sure you know what you were grinding against.
Your whole body feels hot with arousal and embarrassment.
“Oh my god—I’m sorry,” you mumble, moving your hands from his shoulders to cover your face. “That was an accident, I—”
“It’s fine,” Spencer assures you, squeezing your waist gently. “I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing because I know we haven’t… gotten there, yet.”
A moment passes—your hands fall to the FBI stitching across his chest, studying the letters without really seeing them. You haven’t gotten there yet… but why not? Why haven’t you touched him, or even seen him? You think back to the few times he’s touched you and realize that you had been too busy with either your own insecurities or pleasure to genuinely consider how it might be affecting him. He says your name gently, drawing your attention.
“You okay?”
You nod haltingly, brow furrowed as you think.
“I—yeah. I was just realizing that I haven’t, like… touched you, yet.”
It’s silent for another long second, and you glance up, to where he’s studying you with a dissonant kind of relaxed scrutiny—a knowing confidence that probably comes with a lot more experience than you have.
“Do you want to?”
Woah.
Usually you have to beg on hands and knees and prepare a slideshow presentation before he agrees to doing anything sexual in nature. He’s never so overtly invited or initiated it before. Not that you’re complaining by any stretch of the imagination.
You nod shyly, still fiddling with the fabric of his shirt.
“If you want to, I can show you how. But it’s also absolutely okay if you don’t.”
Show you how?
Your brain is melting into sludge at the idea.
“I do,” you admit, meeting his gaze again. It’s kind, and you know he really wouldn’t be upset if you said no—but now that you’ve thought about it, you feel deeply compelled to try.
“Okay. Come here, first.” You lean forward expectantly, eyes fluttering shut as his hand finds the back of your neck and he pulls you into another soft kiss. By the time your lips separate again, your head is spinning. “We’re just trying something, okay? You’re allowed to stop whenever you feel like it. Really low stakes. Got it?”
You nod, still close enough that your noses brush as you do.
“Got it.”
He presses one more chaste kiss to your lips before pulling away and leaning back into the couch.
“Scoot back a little, angel.”
Wordlessly you do so, heart pounding with nervous excitement as he lifts his hips and slides his pajama pants down just enough to where he can comfortably pull himself out, and—
Your breath catches.
Now, you may be about as virginal as they come, but you weren’t born yesterday. You’ve seen porn, you’ve received unsolicited nudes—it is the 21st century. Yet never before have you thought to yourself; wow, that dick is the pinnacle of beauty. Perfect. Breathtaking. But there’s just no other way to describe him.
So that’s what hits you first—how unexpectedly pretty it is.
The size sinks in a quick second later.
You can’t tell with perfect accuracy how many inches he is, but you’re pretty damn sure he’s big. That’s meant to fit inside of you?
No, no—that’s a consideration for another day. Right now you need to stop staring like an idiot. You glance up at his face, and he’s sporting a cocky little half-smile which lets you know you’ve been caught. Motherfucker he’s so hot. It’s unnerving.
“Do you have something you’d like to say?” he asks politely, quite obviously containing his amusement. But you can’t summon a sufficiently sarcastic response.
Your voice comes so soft when you reply, “you’re pretty.”
Spencer melts, eyes impossibly softening.
“Pretty?” His smile is earnest now. He strokes your cheek and you can’t not lean into his touch.
“Mhm. I want to, um…” your lips twist to the side as you look back down, finding he’s not gotten less intimidating since you last checked. “But what if I’m bad at it?” you whisper. He chuckles, brushing hair over your shoulder.
“It’s kind of a hard thing to be bad at. And I’m gonna help you, okay?”
It’s the honesty with which he speaks to you that makes you feel so safe. There are no hidden intentions or words that seem to mean one thing but really mean another. Spencer wants you as a person more than he wants you as a body and that’s been clear since the first time he touched you. You take a deep breath.
“Okay. What do I do?”
“First, you’re gonna spit in your hand.”
You look up, alarmed.
“You want me to intentionally get my spit on you? Is that not your worst nightmare?”
“Believe it or not, I’m not super worried about yours,” he teases. “But if you’d prefer, I can spit in your hand.”
“Actually, mine is fine,” you laugh nervously.
Hesitantly, you do as instructed, even though it seems frankly bizarre.
“Good. Now just wrap your hand around it, like this.” His voice is quiet, focused as he guides your hand downward. Your heart rate ticks up again as he encourages you to wrap your hand around the base of his cock. He feels much warmer than you’d expected—his skin is silken beneath your touch but he’s undeniably hard and that sort of eliminates any sense of him being fragile from the equation.
“It’s gonna be less sensitive down here—and then, up here—” he slides your hand back up, covering your thumb with his own and swiping it just below the head of his cock on the underside. He hisses and you look up in fascination. “That’s the most sensitive part.”
Without further instruction, you do it again, keeping your touch light and watching his face for a reaction. His drawn brows twitch, furrowing deeper for a second, and his lips part. A heavy exhalation passes between them and quickly builds into a breathy laugh.
“What?” you murmur, over-eager to please and very nervous to do something wrong.
“Nothing. Just feels good, that’s all.”
“Don’t laugh,” you pout. Of course that makes him laugh again, and he leans forward to kiss your head.
“I’m laughing at myself, angel. I’m a grown man fighting for my life from a handjob that you’ve barely started. I knew it would be different with you but I didn’t realize it would be this different.”
Heat rises in your cheeks and you look away.
“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better.”
“I’m not lying,” he urges, grabbing your free hand and encouraging you to uncurl your fingers. His thumb traces circles in your open palm, before capturing your entire hand in his. “Do you feel how much softer your hand is than mine?”
You frown, attempting to feel whatever it is that he’s pointing out. Despite the fact that you think he has very nice hands, you realize he’s right. By no means would you say that they’re rough, but you can tell where his gun normally sits in his hands, where his fountain pen rubs against his fingers. “Yeah.”
“Yeah. Anything you do is going to be perfect because it’s you.”
Spencer drops his hand to your leg, rubbing it soothingly. The other moves to cover yours—the one wrapped around him.
“You’re gonna help me, right?” you ask quietly. Some adventurous part of you is very excited about this as an experiment—fascinated by the reactions you’ve already gotten from him and eager to push it.
“I am. Little bit tighter, honey. I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”
You do as you’re told, and he’s murmuring more praise—slowly encouraging you to begin moving your hand with his own. A shaky exhale catches your attention, drawing your gaze to his face. His eyes are, of course, cast downward, but his expression is hypnotizing. Those lips remain slightly parted, and suddenly you wonder if he makes noises like you do. In that moment it becomes your life’s mission to find out.
For a while you continue letting his hand guide your movements, but he keeps things so slow for your sake that you’re getting impatient. You forgo his direction, picking up the pace but trying to keep the rhythm he’d instilled in the motion. His hand slackens around yours.
“Fuck,” he hisses to himself. The hand on your thigh rubs achingly deeper into the flesh. “Angel, what are you doing?”
“I want it to feel good.” Suddenly shy again, you slow down. His hips stutter, which you think may be a sign that it was working. “Am I—was that bad?” Spencer looses a breath, looking almost… frustrated?
“No, I’m just—I’m weirdly close to coming.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Well,” he mutters, “not usually. Mostly it’s embarrassing.”
You giggle, a release of some tension, and begin pumping your hand again. His breath hitches and he finally looks up at you, meeting your eyes with his own lust-glazed ones. Heat pools deep between your legs.
“I want you to come,” you admit quietly as you twist your wrist, brushing that spot underneath the head of his cock again. His jaw literally drops, and a look that is part confusion, part pleasure, twists his features. You see the surprise sparkling in his eyes and it only spurs you to keep talking. “I’ve never seen how you look when you do, but I’ve imagined it. I bet you look so pretty when you come, Spencer. ‘Nd then I would know that I can make you feel good, too.”
“You… you are making me feel good,” he assures you. The way his brow furrows and his lips are parted give you a feeling that’s entirely new. Normally, you’re the one falling apart under his touch—but when it’s the other way around there’s a whole new kind of pleasure in it for you. You feel kind of powerful. Maybe even close to confident.
“Really? I’m not this quiet when you touch me.”
“I’ve ha—ah—had more practice not making noise.”
“But why?” you implore, ignoring the fact that he’s slept with other women and enjoyed the sounds they made, and opting to brush your thumb across that extra sensitive part he definitely shouldn’t have told you about. His hips buck up and he hisses, which is immensely gratifying to you.
“Because I like to listen.”
“What if I do, too?”
In a moment of divine inspiration , you cover the tip of his cock with your hand, swirling beads of pre-come over your palm. Spencer moans and his hips jut up into your grip. It’s a beautiful sound, just as you’d hoped.
“Jesus, fuck.”
You understand why he seems to enjoy touching you so much. It’s so rewarding to watch as his breathing picks up and pleasure contorts his face—to watch him get messier and messier and lose his composure a bit more with each stroke of your hand. It’s so simple but Spencer looks at you like you’re exercising some arcane deviant power over him and he’s not sure he should be enjoying it as much as he is.
Distantly you think about how it felt when he had his hands on you—and then, in clearer focus, how it felt when he went down on you. Both were perfect, but something about his lips so gentle on the most intimate, vulnerable part of you had felt like ascension. Maybe it was the emotional component, or maybe it just felt fucking good. Regardless, it seems an irresistible thought.
You keep stroking him until his head is lolling on the back of the couch as he groans.
“Spencer?”
“Yeah, baby?”
He sounds so destroyed it makes you clench around nothing. Without any indication that you’re going to do so, you stop touching him, and the speed with which he lifts his head again is almost comical. Immediately, while he’s utterly defenseless and desperate, you ask, “can I use my mouth?”
His eyes widen, and then shut, as he processes your request with a tiny shake of his head—probably trying to clear the haze of pleasure from his mind before he answers.
“Honey,” he rasps eventually, opening his eyes and smoothing a hand over your hair, “you don’t have to do that just because I do. That’s not why I do it.”
“But I want to,” you murmur, shy and mildly embarrassed by what feels almost like a soft rejection. “I don’t think I could do anything, like, mind-blowing, but… I want to try.”
Your face is hot by the end of the sentence, and you can’t meet Spencer’s eyes as his fingers twitch over your hip. A quiet moment passes—but it’s short-lived.
“Okay. Go ahead, baby.”
Wide eyes dart up to his.
“Really?”
Spencer smiles fondly, brushing an invisible speck from your cheek.
“I don’t think I’m capable of turning that offer down. Not when it’s you.”
“Okay—um, should I just—” Spencer watches on, finding your sudden enthusiasm completely adorable as you scoot off of his lap and gingerly kneel in front of him. Your eyes are big and glassy as you look up at him, hands set politely on his knees. You squint suspiciously, eyes darting between his face and his cock, now about as hard as it’s ever been due to your toying. He knows it’s probably intimidating for a girl who has never seen one in real life, and he feels kind of bad about it. You do terrible, wonderful things to him that he doesn’t understand. “Wow. So... it looks bigger from down here.”
“Please don’t try to choke yourself,” he instructs hurriedly, leaning forward slightly. “I really don’t need you to do that. It’s fine if you can’t fit it all, I just—” he exhales shakily. Spencer is most definitely strong-willed but he can’t pretend like the sight of you on your knees for him, inches from his aching cock for the first time isn’t impacting his cognition. Most importantly he doesn’t want to make you feel pressured. He’s trying to not let how badly he wants this show in case you change your mind.
Spencer watches as you psych yourself out—wilting like a thirsty flower.
“But what if I’m bad at this?” you mumble, hands curling into loose fists atop his legs. Spencer pushes your hair back, tucking it behind your ears.
“What’s your worst case scenario?” he asks. Your answer is immediate.
“That I’m so bad you make me stop halfway through.”
Spencer can’t help but laugh again.
“I’m sorry—I just… honey, you are really underestimating how profound your effect is on me. I just almost came from a minute long handjob. I can assure you that I won’t make you stop halfway through because I’d rather not have your mouth on me. That is… that’s just not going to happen.”
You lean your cheek against his thigh. He might actually pass away.
“Will you tell me if I’m doing something wrong?”
“Honestly, as long as you don’t bite, you’re in the clear.”
Your eyes squeeze shut and your lips pull into an embarrassed little smile.
“Great. Thank you for that invaluable advice.”
“Of course,” he smiles. It fades slowly as you take a deep breath and look up at him, obviously steeling yourself, before leaning forward and taking him in your hand again. He watches with bated breath, repeating no sudden movements to himself over and over as your hand moves up and down a few more times and your head lowers.
You delicately, so lightly trace your tongue from the base of his swollen cock to just underneath the leaking tip, mapping a vein, and his hips buck as you take him into your mouth experimentally. Only the first few inches fit but the sight of your lips wrapped around him, the way you’re looking at him is so unbelievably erotic Spencer knows he won’t last very long.
From a purely technical perspective—he knows he’s gotten objectively better head. Still, something about the way you’re so delicate with him, so soft and timid in the way you lick and kiss and take him into your mouth has him fighting not to come already. Maybe it’s wrong, but knowing that he’s watching you do this for the first time in your life is obscenely arousing. The idea that you’ve never trusted another person this much; that you’re letting him be the one to help you navigate something as new and as important as sexuality. The more he thinks about it, though, the more he realizes: it’s not your inexperience that turns him on. It’s just you. Everything you do is so undeniably you—he recognizes your mannerisms in every tiny motion, in every glance, and it’s killing him. You’re like a dream as you look up at him with big nervous eyes, (no, really, he has had this dream) and he remembers he wants to be reassuring you—not pondering life and human connection.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, groaning and hips twitching as your cheeks hollow, wrapping his achingly hard cock in soft gentle warmth so sweetly it feels taboo. “So good, baby. So gorgeous like this.”
You whine around him, receptive as always to his obsequious praise, and he notices the way your hips wiggle as you seek friction. God, you must like this a lot. Spencer gathers your hair into a makeshift ponytail, resting his hand on your head as you begin to bob it. That, he wasn’t prepared for. He’d have been satisfied with just kitten-licks and suckling but he won’t complain about this. It’s slow, and so intentional as you keep watching him for feedback cues. Ever his observant girl, you’re constantly paying attention. Aware of his reactions. He needs to keep telling you you’re good or else you’ll assume you’re terrible.
“Over-achiever,” he whispers through a little smile as you down even more of him.
Spencer is for the most part a kind and gentle person. For better or worse he is also a man, and he can’t help but fantasize about getting you all teary and drooly as he holds your mouth open and sees how much of his cock he can push down your throat. But again—kind. Gentle. So when you get a little over-zealous, attempting to sacrifice your comfort for his pleasure, he pulls your head back slightly. “That’s far enough, angel. That’s—fuck. God, you’re good at this.” The words are thoughtless, muttered to himself more than you as he watches through a haze while you look up at him with glassy, half-lidded eyes, slipping him in and out of your warm mouth, a little faster now as you gain confidence.
You whine desperately around him, like you’re the one nearing orgasm and not him. The sound of your pleasure as you suck his cock makes him dizzy. His hips buck, pressing him a little deeper into your mouth. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he exhales. “Slow down, baby. I’m—” a louder moan from him like you’ve never heard as he thrusts shallowly turns you on profoundly. He’s so much more vocal than you’d have imagined—sonically and verbally. He breathes out a quick, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” pulling your hair slightly, and you’ve never wanted to touch yourself more but you know you can’t focus on both. Instead you work on making him come—you can worry about you later. He says your name, with an authoritative edge to his tone that makes you throb. “Honey, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna come—”
You swirl your tongue around the top of him like candy and he’s done for. Spencer tries to pull out, which only results in cum both in your mouth and on your face. The orgasm is his strongest in recent memory, and he grunts, watching your lips part and a little squeak escape as he comes all over your face—but you keep stroking him all the while. Once he’s 90% sure it’s over, he falls against the back of the couch, breathing heavily and looking down at you through hazy eyes. Oh, he’s going to feel terrible about this in a few seconds—but right now you look fucking perfect. Your eyes are wide, nervous as his essence drips over your face and down your neck—he groans when you swallow cautiously, averting his eyes to the ceiling lest he do another thing he regrets.
“Baby, I am so sorry,” he mutters, forcibly clearing the haze of orgasm from his mind and sitting up, fixing his pants and looking around before locating the box of tissues on the side table. “I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” You look up at him attentively as he wipes himself from your face as gently as he can.
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t ask you first. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Spencer guides your head around by your chin, wiping your jaw and lips.
“It’s okay, Spence, I—”
“No, it’s not,” he cuts you off, trying to at least turn his guilt into a learning experience for you. He’s not deluded enough to think someone like you will stay with someone like him forever, because sometimes he does things like that, and he’s reminded that there are certainly people out there more deserving of you. At the very least he can clarify that nobody should ever do what he just did to you. “It’s really not nice to do that to someone.”
“Do you care what I think at all?”
Spencer freezes, finally forcing himself to look you in the eye. Despite the fact that he’s mad at himself, he’s sure it’s coming across as being directed at you. And he knows you’re sensitive, especially about this kind of thing.
“Of course, I do, baby. I’m sorry. Do you want to come back up here with me and tell me what you’re thinking?” he murmurs, cupping your jaw. Hesitantly you nod. The tissues end up on the table—which he will be thoroughlywiping down later—before you crawl back into his lap from the floor. Spencer helps you settle against him, hoping he hasn’t messed this up irreversibly. He keeps his voice quiet as he rubs your leg. “What were you going to say?”
“I was going to say,” you begin, “that it’s fine, because you’ll remember to ask next time. And because… I kind of liked it. I like when—when you do stuff like that.”
It’s a miracle he can hear you with the way your voice drops into an almost-whisper and you’re hiding against his shirt.
“Like what?” he murmurs. Although he’s not sure he’ll be able to handle the answer.
“Like… I don’t know. Like you can do whatever you want to me. Like I’m literally yours.” Each word makes you cringe further, but Spencer has to try hard to maintain a cool facade as he processes this. If he’s going to try and be chivalrous, you’ll have to move away from this topic—this revelation—immediately. Thankfully, you seem eager to move on. “So… how did I do?”
He almost laughs. It seems exceedingly obvious how you did, but as per usual, you require verbal reassurance.
“That was really good, baby. You did well.”
You blossom.
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t lie.”
“Was I the best girl out of all of the other girls?”
I wasn’t in love with any of the other girls.
Just barely, he manages to stop himself from saying it, pinwheeling his arms on the edge of a very steep verbal cliff. The realization that he’s been in love with you for a while hits him like a truck. But he can’t tell you that right now. He should wait until you’re less vulnerable.
Fuck.
He really wants to tell you right now.
“Actually—don’t answer that,” you decide, while all of this happens in his head in less than a few seconds. “I want to go back to pretending I’m the only girl you’ve ever seen in your life.”
“You’re the only one that matters,” he offers, relieved to express at least some portion of the much bigger truth. Then he frowns. “Not that the other women I’ve met don’t lead important lives. I actually know a lot of incredibly influential and intelligent people who are women. I have deep respect for all of them. Am I helping or making it worse?” he rambles. You giggle. He has his answer. “What about you? How do you feel?” he asks after a moment, tenderly, lowly, stroking your hair as you lean against his chest.
It takes you a moment to deliberate, fiddling with the fabric of his shirt.
“I feel good. I, um… liked it a lot more than I would have thought.”
“Well, that’s good. Much better than if you had hated every second of it.”
You hum in agreement, and he waits for you to say whatever you’re holding back. It comes sooner than he’d have anticipated.
“I feel bad about the times before. How did you just… go to sleep after? Were you not, like—insanely turned on? Not that I’m, like, irresistibly sexy, or whatever—you know what I mean.”
Spencer smiles because he knows you can’t see him.
“I wasn’t doing it to pressure you into feeling obligated to reciprocate, I guess. My line of reasoning was that it would be less intimidating if I didn’t even present it as an option until you wanted to try.”
“Oh.”
Spencer thinks he sees where this is going.
“Why?” he asks, leaning back and encouraging you to look at him. “Are you insanely turned on?”
“Wh—that’s—I didn’t say that!”
Spencer can feel how warm your cheeks are as he presses his lips to the side of your face.
“You can tell me if you are,” he murmurs, all smiley as he moves to kiss your lips. “If you want something, you need to ask for it. I’m not a mind reader.”
“Yes you are,” you grumble. “That’s literally what behavioral analysis is.”
Not quite true, but surprisingly, he doesn’t feel the need to explain to you the semantics of what he does for work right now.
“What got you all excited?”
“You know what,” you mumble, trying to look away again. Spencer doesn’t allow it this time, gently grabbing your jaw.
“Yes, I do. But I want you to tell me. If you want me to make you feel good, this is how you’re going to convince me that you deserve it.”
You whine wordlessly, looking at him with those big, lust-glazed eyes.
“You wanted me to teach you how to use your words, right? This is it. I’m giving you an opportunity. If you don’t want to, that’s okay. Maybe we can take a nap, like you said earlier.”
“No! I liked—um, I liked all of it. I didn’t know if I would, because I was really nervous. But when I first—you know—and you got all quiet… it was like you couldn’t even talk for a minute. I was kind of proud of that. Because normally nobody can ever get you to stop talking.” Spencer narrows his eyes incredulously, a small smile tugging at his lips. But he doesn’t interrupt—not when it seems you’re finally starting to get more confident in your words. “And I really liked the noises you made. I think that was my favorite part. I liked when you pulled my hair back, and how you spoke to me. And when… when you got me messy and I had to swallow it. I really liked how it felt because I couldn’t think of anything else, just making you feel good. I really wanted to… make you proud, I guess. Is that weird?”
Spencer shakes his head no, a fond smile on his face when your eyes meet his again.
“No. It’s a pretty normal thing to feel when you’re nervous and wanting to impress someone you care about. And I would have been proud no matter what, for the record. You were being very brave.”
You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, watching him expectantly. Spencer should have known you’re too needy to truly absorb anything he says to you right now. Which is actually pretty cute. Everything you do is endearing to him.
“Stand up.”
You frown.
“But—”
“Just stand up,” he demands calmly, preferring to think of himself as firm and not bossy.
You do, looking rather annoyed and confused as you plant yourself in front of him.
“Why?”
“You are so full of questions.” His hands slip up the side of your legs, under your skirt, and hook in the waistband of your underwear. Spencer looks up at you meaningfully and you nod, swallowing.
As he pulls down, Spencer can literally feel the resistance of the fabric clinging to your soaked core. Under his touch the skin of your thighs is warm and soft. He wants to feel it on either side of his face, he wants to hear you whine as his stubble rubs against it, he wants to feel it clamp around his wrist, he wants it between his teeth and he definitely wants it pressing against his hips as he—
But no.
There will be time for all of those things—especially the last one—later. For now, he’ll reach between your legs just to see—
“Oh, my god,” Spencer half-chuckles, half-groans, upon feeling how wet you truly are for him. He drags his knuckles from your dripping entrance up over your clit, pinching very lightly and earning a squeak from you which he ignores. “You really did like having your mouth full of me, huh?”
“I told you,” you breathe, visibly relaxing some as he continues to play with you for a moment. Then he pulls his hand away again, patting his thigh.
“Sit.”
“You want me to…”
“Yes,” he says, simply.
“But is it not going to… am I not going to mess up your pants?”
“You are even more neurotic about messiness than I am. I can wash them, honey. Come here.”
Spencer guides your hips over his thigh, watching your pretty face twist with uncertainty as you fully settle on him. Fuck, he can feel your warmth through the fabric instantly. Already he’s getting hard again.
“What am I supposed to do?” you whisper, bunching his shirt in your fists. Spencer slides your skirt up higher, revealing the way you’re nestled against his thigh. He spreads you a little further apart, exposing more of your clit to the material underneath you. Immediately you press against him—he watches the delicate flesh rubbing gingerly against him and his grip tightens ever so slightly.
“All you have to do is rock back and forth. It’s easy.”
Already you’re starting to do it—but he guesses it’s like earlier where you don’t even realize it’s happening.
“But… I wanted your mouth,” you admit, quietly, slinging your arms around his neck and burying your face there.
“Do this for me first. Just get yourself off like this one time and then you can have my mouth. You said you wanted to help me feel better because I’m tired today, right?
“Yes,” you mumble, squirming over him.
“Well, there are a lot of days when I get back home and I’m tired. I’m gonna need you to be able to get on top of me, just like this, and make me feel better. And I know you don’t know what it feels like to have something that deep inside of you yet, but it’s gonna be a lot. Even once you know how it feels to have me inside when you’re underneath me. I need you to practice for me right now so you’ll be ready, okay?”
You could come from the words alone. You nod, dazed with need as you roll your hips in a circle, pressing his thigh against your clit.
“Back and forth, baby,” he murmurs, guiding your hips forward with his hands locked around them. “Back and forth, just like this…”
You moan quietly, shamelessly, eyes fluttering as you look down and watch your clit dragging over the darkening fabric. It’s easier if you isolate your hips, grinding down without moving your legs or upper body at all.
“It feels really good,” you whisper under your quickening breath.
“Yeah? Does it?”
“Mhm.”
“Good, angel. You look like you know what you’re doing.”
It’s audible now, quiet and wet and dirty.
“I don’t,” you breathe. He sucks in a breath of his own, stilling your hips with fingers pressed deep into your flesh.
“Sit up, baby.” You really wish he would stop making you stop, but you don’t want to keep going in case he needs you to quit—so you rise slowly, thighs trembling as you kneel. Spencer groans at the strings of your arousal momentarily connecting your core to his pants before they snap, getting your inner thighs wet. There’s a dark, very wet patch over his thigh, shining like glass. He thumbs over your slick clit absentmindedly as he looks up at you like you’re a miracle. “You’re fucking soaked. I’ve never seen you like this. Is this all from making me come?”
You nod feverishly, hips grinding against nothing in search of friction. He sits you back down on his leg, allowing you to sloppily find your rhythm again. Spencer bounces his leg lightly and you cry out softly, buckling forward. His arms wrap around you, still pressing you down against his thigh as you rut against it.
“You’re sweet. Maybe I should have known how much you’d like it when I came all over your pretty face. You really like hearing that you did a good job, huh? I bet you like it even more when I prove it to you.”
You moan a “yeah,” barely processing his words.
“My good girl even swallowed on her first try. Took it so well. And now look at how you’re taking this. You’re gonna love riding, baby. Just going to be another thing you’re good at as soon as you try it.”
“Spencer,” you gasp, overwhelmed by the praise. He’s bouncing his leg at regular intervals and everything is so sensitive.
“I know it’s harder to finish this way, but just one time, remember? And then you can have my tongue for as long as you want. You are my only plan for the day. Just give me one like this.”
But it’s not really harder to finish this way. Then again, you’re so turned on you could probably finish if a breeze hit you just right. Regardless, the thought of him going down on you again pushes you even closer to the edge.
You don’t know how much time goes by like that, you rubbing against him like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do, him pressing up into you until the pressure is so taut it snaps. There’s no time to warn him, but you suppose you don’t really need to. You writhe against him, caught between wanting to keep going and not being able to take more stimulation. He lifts you up just slightly, trying to separate you from his leg. You exhale deeply as your body relaxes, already close to dozing off against his chest.
“We can’t have you tapping out just yet. I still have to fulfill my end of the deal.”
In the end, he fulfills it three times over, and you end up showing your appreciation in kind one more time—much slower and more comfortably in his bed. He gives you plenty of time to learn what he likes, taking your teasing and coquettish explorations like a champ and never so much as tightening his grip in your hair. Turns out, you don't exactly spend the day doing nothing.
And you do end up taking that nap after all. Just... much, much later. And with less clothing on.
YOU'RE TOO SWEET FOR ME | Spencer Reid x Sunshine!Reader
Request: @avis-writeshq says -
HELLO HELLO jumping on your 2k celebration reqs because 2K OMG SO DESERVED ‼️🫶
may i perhaps request a spencer reid x fem!reader fic please 🥹 maybe him post prison w new reader and she follows him around everywhere because she’s just instantly enamoured to him 🤭
thank you so so much lovely and congrats again !!!
Description: thirteen years in the fbi and ten weeks in prison does a number on Spencer, only when he arrives back in the office he meets the sunshine rookie that seems rather taken with him.
word length: 2.6k (this really ran away from me)
warnings: post-prison Reid, slightest age gap, Spencer dealing with coming home from prison, gun shooting?
authors note: hosier's new song 'Too Sweet' + post-prison reid is a need, not a want.
He smelled her french vanilla perfume before he even knew she was there. But then again, it was all he could smell the minute she waltzed into the office with a tray of coffee, like someone had stuck a sweet dessert in the oven and baked it on full.
“Good morning!” She chirped, winding an arm over his shoulder and setting down a take out cup and a little chocolate donut on his desk, “Pen said you like chocolate, and I mean who doesn’t like chocolate, right?”
She was potent when she was so close to him, and in one single breath he caught a whiff of her shampoo, before she had flitted over to her side of the desk that sat opposite his, where Morgan once sat. Noticing his hesitance, mistaking it for discontent she paused, almost spilling her own beverage over the potted plant she kept by her keyboard, scrambling to set it on the surface.
“Y-you do like chocolate right? I mean they had strawberry too, I can switch yours with JJ’s, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind-” She splurged, and her face was much too worried considering it was a matter of a donut, particularly considering he was already eying up the way the thick chocolate was melting in the pastry bag.
“Chocolate is great, I love…” He held up the bag to read the label with squinting hazel hues, “Cocoa Caramel delight,”
He had never heard of it.
He had never even seen this brand, but he wanted to quell her nerves even in the slightest. The BAU didn’t have the funds for a new keyboard, let alone time to send her to the ER if she ended up spilling her coffee over her hand.
She seemed convinced, and he offered her a small smile, not exactly his most enthusiastic, but then again he hadn’t been much of a morning person since he’d come out of prison. He liked quiet, he liked a moment to himself before Penelope called them into the round table for briefing. But she was sweet, too sweet perhaps for the dark nature of their job.
He could already see it chewing up her perky disposition and spitting her right back out within a year. It happened to the best of them.
But she smiled back at him, a million watt grin that made him think maybe he was being a little cruel. She was still brand new, still trying to make friends and he remembered how hard he tried when it had been his first few weeks on the team. He turned his gaze away from her in shame, reading the way she’d written his name on the cup in a pink sharpie, framing it with two doodle hearts.
She all but skipped away, sensing he didn’t feel like talking much anymore, and he heard Emily exclaiming she was ‘A caffeine angel sent from the heavens,’ as she handed her the drink. He watched her braided hair disappear down the hall as she bounced over to Penelope’s lair.
He picked at the cocoa caramel delight with a kind of self loathing he was familiar with, the french vanilla still a saccharine sugar in his nose.
-
She caught him again; though this time he felt her bristle past his arm, watching the bullets pierce the target paper with an accuracy that only came from fourteen years of practice.
“Do you reckon you could teach me how to do that?” Her cadence was light and airy, and he had to stop himself from jumping, from slamming the butt of the gun into her nose on reaction, because he knew she meant well, even though she had no idea how damaged he was.
He was still out of sorts from having to look over his shoulder at every second of the day, and he was surprised he was holding it together so far. He supposed shooting the shit out of a target helped.
Because it was just her, looking at him with soft eyes and a smile that could start wars, and he knew she had no idea the effect she had on the walls he’d tried so hard to build in prison.
She must have mistook his look for annoyance, because she was quick to fumble with her own loaded gun, taking a step back in retreat, worried that she crossed some line she didn’t know he’d drawn.
“Or I could get Luke to show me, I didn’t mean to bother you, I just am really a shit shot and I know that’s pretty useless in the field-” It wasn’t until he flicked the safety on and took a step to follow her did she look at him again hopefully.
“No, I’d be more than happy to show you,” He cleared his throat, setting his pistol in its holster and stepping behind her as she lined herself up for the fake body meant to resemble an unsub, “We all have to start somewhere. Show me your form,”
She raised her arms up in front of her, aiming for a few seconds for the spot in the centre of the chest cavity, her finger reaching up for the trigger.
She shot once, her face hardened for the first time he’d ever seen, and they both watched the paper rip about half a foot down the unsub’s leg.
“See, in my head it’s hitting dead centre and then by the time I shoot it’s wiggling all over the place,” She explained, scratching her neck and frowning at the paper body, “I don’t suppose unsubs are willing to stand still and wait while the rookie figures out her shot,”
“Your hips are perfect, wide stance means you get more stability against the ricochet,” She tried not to simper at his words, or the way he sidled up behind her, his hands coming up to her shoulders as if he’d known her for years, as if JJ hadn’t told her how much he hated other people’s germs, “It’s in your shoulders you’re losing balance, try relaxing a little,”
But she couldn’t not when he was breathing down her neck, rubbing those long fingers over her shoulder blades trying to get her to straighten out her posture, hoping he couldn’t feel the way her chest rattled with nerves.
“Relax,” He reminded, trying not to chuckle when he felt her shake her arms out as a means of hiding the way her skin had warmed under his rough touch, “You know, my unit chief taught me how to shoot. I wasn’t at all good at it when I first started,”
“Oh really?” She asked, her breaths feather light as he reached around her and adjusted her grip on the gun, “H-he must have been a good teacher,”
“He was the best,” Spencer agreed, brushing off the fact she was all but putty beneath his hands, “Three steps for the perfect shot; front sight, trigger press, follow through. Always keep your head forward, always keep your dominant finger ready, and wait until you’ve shot to drop your stance,”
She looked up at him in admiration, and her soft smile was back as his own musk of laundry detergent and chamomile soap encompassed her as his arms did.
He brought one of those big hands to the back of her head, moving her with gentle ease to look back at the target, a slight chuckle in his voice as he spoke: “Focus, what’s step number one?”
“Front sight,” She echoed him, fixing her shoulders with determination as he dropped his hands and stepped away from her. Taking a deep breath, she murmured to herself under her breath the next step as her forefinger rested over the trigger. She pulled it after a moment of courage, and froze in spot as she watched it hit where the stomach would sit.
Not a perfect shot, but certainly a lot better than she had been doing.
Her eyes widened behind the thick protective glasses, and her hands became fists above her head as she squealed in delight.
“Did you see that- did you see!” She yelled over the sound proof ear muffs they both wore, and he was quick to grab the gun out of her swinging arms, clicking the safety on for her before she could end up blowing a hole in the ceiling.
“Very good, give it a few months you’ll be a natural,” He complimented with a smile as she clapped her hands in glee, buzzing on the spot as if she’d chugged five energy drinks or doubled up on her coffee for the day.
He tried ignoring the way his chest warmed seeing her so happy because of him, especially when she looked at him like that.
--
“You said you needed those files, Dr Reid,” She’d appeared again, like she always did, and he had barely enough time to look up from the paper he was already inspecting before he was hit by the perfume again, and he looked up to see two bright eyes watching him hopefully. Her arms were piled high with easily a box full of folders he had asked Anderson to find for him, and he saw the way she strained slightly to keep them held tight.
“Jesus! Let me help you,” She prayed he couldn’t feel the way her heart thumping against the manilla folders as he leaned over to take them out of her grasp, the way her eyes fell to his light smattering of facial hair as his lips were little more than a few inches from hers. Even when his hands brushed hers, and he seemed to realise she was staring, watching her scramble to look somewhere else other than his amused eyes, embarrassed he’d caught her, “Thankyou. And just call me Spencer,”
“Thankyou,” She echoed, shaking her head with a girlish smile on her face, her cheeks warm with humiliation, “I mean you’re welcome, any time,”
For the sake of her self preservation he waited until she turned around to smile to himself, pretending he didn’t see the way she muttered under her breath, or that she almost walked straight into the filing cabinet on her hasty exit out of the office.
“Seems like you have a shadow,” Emily’s voice met him as he heard her heeled footsteps approach, and they both watched their newest team mate almost bump right into JJ as she kept her head down, stroking down her hair nervously, “She was super excited to meet you when you were away, said she went to one of your guest lectures you did with Hotch a couple years ago,”
His brows shot into his hairline, something warm flourishing in his chest when he saw her look back to see the two of them watching her, and she immediately darted for her seat for an excuse to turn her back to them.
Spencer smiled again, running a hand through his curled locks as if he was trying to thing of something else other than he large grin that had over come his features.
She certainly was charming, in an incredibly girlish way, and he wasn’t the only one who thought it. He hadn’t heard Penelope giggling so much since Morgan had left, nor did he miss the way Rossi and Emily watched her darting around in the field, chasing after her as if she needed on of those leashes people had for toddlers.
Or the way Luke had had to talk her out of bringing a stray cat back to the BAU just two days ago because ‘it looked sad and lonely’.
She was only eight years his junior, and yet he felt like the job had made him too hard, too mature, too tough against a softness like hers.
Girls had never really been interested in him, at least not for him as Spencer Reid, not as SSA Dr Reid. He had the occasional fling, even Maeve in the grand scheme of things had been a budding romance at best, and just the thought of Cat Adams viper-like eyes had him shuddering.
He barely wanted anything to do with women at the moment, at least that was what he’d told himself every night he’d been fighting for his damn life in prison.
But it was almost too easy to feel this way about her, like he couldn’t drink in her sweet smell or even sweeter voice fast enough, or bathe in her gaze that melted like rich chocolate when he took a glance her way.
He didn’t bring it up with her until they were the last few people filing out of the office.
“I can drive you,” She chirped, almost dropping the contents of her bag everywhere as she rooted for her car keys, and before he could protest, because it was like all he could see not was how eager to be around him she was and he wasn’t too sure he could keep himself from opening pandora’s box, she jingled her keys, that of course had crochet bluebells hanging from them and all but danced past him into the elevator. “Come on, you can have shotgun,”
“I’ll be the only passenger, doesn’t that mean I automatically have shotgun?” He asked, following behind her as she stood in the elevator with a beaming smile, her finger clicking the ground floor button a bunch of times even though it made no difference how fast the doors closed.
“Well, yeah, but it’s going to be the best shotgun you’ve ever had. I’m talking you can be Miss Daisy and I’ll be your Morgan Freeman,” And as if her spirit was infectious, he shook his head with a hidden chuckle.
There was a minute of silence between the two as she played with a loose thread on her cardigan, and it was then he took the chance to ask her the question that had been burning on his lips all day.
“You didn’t by any chance go to University of Pennsylvania, did you?” Spencer asked, noting the way her eyes fell to the floor and how she licked her lips nervously.
“Yeah,” She replied cautiously, fingers clenched tightly around her keyring, “I know it’s not Caltech, but it was pretty good-”
“Didn't you see my lecture with Hotch?” He asked, and his smile widened tenfold when her hands slapped over her cheeks that burned with horror, moving quickly up to cover her eyes, “Little birdy told me you were quite excited to meet me-”
“Oh, Emily,” She groaned, burying her face in her palms, avoiding his teasing expression like the plague, “I knew, I knew she was going to tell you, I’m surprised she didn’t tell JJ first, unless she did and our whole team know I was some crazy girl who liked the FBI agents so much she switched her major,”
“You switched your major for me?” He asked incredulously and he only laughed harder, one of the first times since he’d come home, when she groaned louder, turning away from him entirely.
“Shut up, I did not swap my major for you,” She bit back, and she finally met his gaze, her expression an embarrassed wince, “I just… liked the material. You were very compelling,”
“Did you have a poster of us?” Spencer wanted to stop teasing, knew he was being a little cruel, but how could he resist when she shriek in between laughter, shoving his shoulder with mortification.
“No,”
“Did you kiss Hotch’s picture before bed like a crazy fangirl?”
She gestured to him vulgarly as they left the elevator and headed for the car park, and it made a huge difference to the usual adoration she watched him with, but maybe, he thought, it made him like her even more.
“No more shotgun for you, you’re going in the trunk like an old rug,” She snapped, though he could tell she was still horrified by the way she avoided his delighted hazelnut gaze.
“Like an old rug?” He feigned hurt, but when they sat in her car, she finally looked over at him with something vulnerable and yet affectionate, like he’d seen her for all she was worth. He reached over the console to squeeze her hand gently, not missing the way her palm clammed beneath his and she struggled for words, so he continued for her, “That’s really no way to talk to your idol, you know,”
Spencer swore his chest felt lighter than it had in months watching her laugh like that.
i think i died bcs of cuteness then got resurrected solely bcs of it AAAAAAA i just love love sunshine!reader and post-prison reid so much 🤭🤭🤭 THIS IS SO GOOD
a/n: continuation to this, but you don't necessarily have to read it first! all you need to know is reader got shot protecting maeve, and both survived. spencer has been in love with her the entire time.
“Have you called Maeve?”
She asks it on a beautiful, rainy day, about five weeks after the event in question. She’s a little too nonchalant about the whole thing, has been from the start- Spencer’s been correcting for that. He’s been treating her like something fragile, a beautiful glass figure that was almost shattered. This is something he knows irritates her, but how can he not?
He tries not to think of it, but the memory of her in a hospital bed, bandages over her abdomen, the wooziness of giving her blood. He can’t help his caution, now. People assume, quite often that Spencer was unaware of the fact he’s in love with his best friend. Like it was something he didn’t know, didn’t have to live with.
Spencer can be oblivious about a lot of things, but being in love with the person he’s shared a desk with for 4 years is not among them.
“No,” he replies, looking up at her as she sits down, handing him the cup of tea she made him. They’re at his apartment. She’s been cleared for desk work, but Spencer had been nervous about the whole thing. They’ve fallen into a rhythm of her going to his apartment after work, and for how determined he is to tell her how he feels, he’s not really able to pluck up the courage.
“Spence,” she sighs, “You have to call her.”
“I did! When it happened, I called her. We talked. We just don’t talk anymore.”
She furrows her brow in an adorable way, and Spencer’s heart threatens to fall out of his chest. He’s been playing a game of she loves me, she loves me not in his mind for the. Past few weeks.
Took a bullet to see me happy. She loves me.
She stirs her ceramic spoon, the clink of it against the mug fills the silence. She bites her lip, clearly disappointed with his response.
Wants me to call my not but kind-of ex. She loves me not.
She’s wearing this blue floral dress, and he is trying not to stare at where the fabric has ridden up, kissing the skin above her knee. She’s got lipstick on, and he tries not to read into how she’s sitting so close to him. Except he is kind of reading into it.
Before she got hurt, he had tried to shove this feeling down- tried to ignore the swoop of his stomach when she walked by, or when she gave him a compliment, or when she let him do a card trick for her. He tried to shove down how much he fucking hated it the one time she had a date pick her up at the office.
She’s just easy to be in love with. She writes little smiley faces on post-it notes and leaves them on his desk, and when the whole Emily thing had gone down, she’d spent weeks taking care of him through her own grief.
She’s sitting on his couch. Five weeks ago, she was half-dead in a hospital bed, and now she is on his couch, in a beautiful dress after returning from the job they both share.
He does not want to call Maeve.
The comfortable silence turns tense as the episode of Doctor Who plays in the background, and he’s still a little gunshy- she’s breathing, she’s okay. He feels creepy, but he lets his eyes close for a moment so he can hear the sound of her breath, to know it’s still there.
“Spencer,” she says, after she pauses the show, and he turns fully to face her, “I am okay.” She grabs his hand, and he takes a couple of seconds to process the touch as she places it over her own wrist. ‘I am fine. They fixed me up. You are allowed to stop worrying.”
Her tone is even, but intentional. She’s giving him permission, as if his presence is some guilt-driven notion that’s stopping him from getting what he really wants. It’s true, though, that he doesn’t always believe she’s okay. Notices how she’ll wince when she bends a certain way, and the scar by her eyebrow is healing well, but he still searches for it in her face.
He savors the feeling of the soft skin of her wrist under his touch, running his fingers over the junction of her hand and wrist with delicate affection. How she hasn’t figured out he’s in love with her is anyone’s guess.
He wonders what it would feel like to kiss her there.
“I know I can call her,” he manages to say back, meeting her warm gaze in a maybe too honestly in love glance, “I’m where I want to be.”
“Before I got hurt, you picked out an outfit, you asked for advice on dating, Spencer. You did that. I just-“ she sighs, moving her hand from his grasp and pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, “The piece of you that wanted that is obviously still there. You don’t have to spend a Friday night with me in your apartment because you feel guilty that I got shot.”
“You’re not here because I’m guilty-“
“Then why-“
“You’re in my apartment right now because I am in love with you, and if you’re out of my sight for more than twelve hours than it’s like I forget that you’re still alive. That you didn’t get yourself killed before I ever got the chance to actually tell you.”
He’s not yelling. Well, he’s kind of yelling. Talking loudly, anyway. Her eyes widened and he’s hyperaware of how close she already was, is. She smells like lilies and her, and it’s all so present. She could have died. She might have never heard it.
She’s heard it now, he supposes. All the weeks of agonizing, notebooks he’s managed to fill in the last few weeks trying to figure out a way to say it to her that could charm her into loving him back- all gone. He’s told her, now.
All the cards are in her hands.
Her doe eyes almost sparkle at him, her head tipped to the side in a fond, loving gesture, and he wants to kiss her, wants to feel her faded-lipstick pout against his mouth. He wants his I love you to turn into I can have this.
“Spence,” her voice is a trembling, insecure thing. One half of his mind wants to rage at him- there’s no way she’s going to tell him she loves him back, that someone like her could ever want someone like him. But the other half, one that seems dangerously like hope- she took a bullet for him. She didn’t even think twice. “You’re in love with me?”
It’s like it’s not even him who replies. Some bitter thing takes over his voice and speaks for him.
“How could I not be? It’s you.”
It’s then he notices, that oh, she’s tearing up.
A beat passes, and Spencer sucks in a deep breath before rambling an absurd amount.
“You don’t have to- We can still be friends, obviously, you know that. But we can, I just- I needed to tell you because when you were in that hospital bed and you’d never heard me say it, I just couldn’t live with you never knowing. But now you do, and you don’t feel the same, and that’s okay-“
He doesn’t get to keep talking, because she grabs him by the collar of his shirt and kisses him. She’s warm and beautiful and her hair brushes up against his cheek and there’s something in him that takes over when he moves to cradle her head between his hands, both desperate to keep her in his grasp and savor the moments he gets to hold her. She tastes like cherry chapstick and something completely undefinable.
When she pulls away after a moment that feels entirely too short, heavy lidded eyes meeting his in affection, and Spencer thinks he’d like to do that for the rest of his life.
“I love you too,” she says back, and he commits it to memory, the sound of her so-sweet voice wrapping around the words he’s fantasized about hearing since the first time she smiled at his joke about philosophy. “I’ve loved you a really, really long time, Spence. I just thought I lost my chance, you know with- with everything. I never really thought I had one.”
He can’t even speak, really. He doesn’t think he can wrap his head around the fact that she felt like he wouldn’t like her back.
It doesn’t feel like a concern, now, when he leans in to kiss her again. She smiles into him, and Spencer memorizes the feel of her waist encircled in his arms, when he realizes that this is the heart he is able to hold without limits.
She loves me too, he thinks. She is safe, she is okay, and she loves me back.
On the following Monday, when Morgan sees the two of them with linked hands before Hotch gets to the office, he doesn’t say anything.
Summary: Spencer told you he was breaking up with you, but you simply told him no.
Word count: 1.4k
You have been fighting for almost an hour now, both of your eyes bloodshot, and breathing heavy. You don’t even remember what you were fighting about. It started with the dirty dishes in the sink, and then it all spiraled down to you not understanding him and you trying to prove a point.
“It’s not what I meant Spencer! All I’m saying is that you should not push me away when things get rough!” you told him, clearly frustrated.
“You don’t understand!” he replied exasperatedly. “Then make me understand, Spencer. You can’t just—”
“Let’s break up,” he interrupted you, his voice shaking.
You looked at him now, completely hurt as tears started to threaten in your eyes. You knew this was the biggest fight you two had during your relationship, but you did not expect him to ask you for a breakup.
“What did you say?” you asked him, almost whispering.
“I–I said, we should break up,” he replied, his eyes not looking at you.
“No,” you answered him determinedly. You two always had fixed and talked things out. He might hurt you with his words, but you know your Spencer is still there.
“What do you mean no—”
“I said no, I am not breaking up with you Spencer,” you replied steadily as you tried to wipe your tears.
“Is it hard for you to understand that I want to break up with you?!” he spoke loudly, his last-ditch to completely push you away.
“You’re just saying that because you want to push me away Spencer and I’m not letting you do that. No, I am not breaking up with you. Let’s talk again after a week and if you really want a break up then tell that to my face again,” you added weakly as you walked away from him to go to your shared bedroom.
You finally grabbed your suitcase and shoved in a few articles of clothing. He didn’t even try to stop you from leaving.
“I’ll be staying with a friend for a few days. I–I’ll see you again after a week,” you told him before walking out of your shared apartment.
—
Three days had passed since that fight with Spencer. You had been staying with Emily during those days and you’re so glad that she didn’t ask you a lot of questions even though you came knocking at her door in the dead of the night, crying hysterically. Emily knew it had something to do with Spencer since you briefly told her about “Spencer” and “trying to break up with me” on the first night. But after that, she didn’t pry anymore and instead tried cheering you up by telling you about her escapades in Atlantic City.
It’s also been three days of hell at work during the course of the break (you do not know what to call it since it is not actually a breakup when it is one-sided) since both you and Spencer are actively trying to avoid each other. Despite that, you still try to be civil with him when it is about the case. Again, fighting with him is terrible, but losing the job you always dreamed of because of the said fight is different. You were thankful that the days at the office had been light today because you can’t really deal with another serial killer while nursing your breaking heart.
You looked at the clock now that says 5:00 p.m. Finally. You whispered to yourself as you cleaned up the pile of folders on your table. You also started packing up your things. You are so ready to crash into Emily’s couch and wallow again in sadness. But before you can even finish packing, you see Spencer now, in front of your desk, shuffling awkwardly.
“Can I help you with something?” you inquired casually, trying to cover up the bundle of nerves getting into you. It was only the two of you at the office now and you didn’t even notice it.
He’s not trying to break up with me officially at the office, right? You thought to yourself.
“Can we—can we uh talk?” he replied softly, his eyes still cast down at his feet.
“Uh, yeah. Sure,” you muttered as you fiddled with the folders in front of you.
Silence enveloped the of you. You’re just staring at each other, scared that if you blink, something might change. For a moment, your eyes trailed down at the white tulips he was holding.
“They’re pretty,” you pointed out the flowers, offering him a half-smile.
“I—uh, well. They’re for you,” he mumbled softly as he held out the bouquet in front of you. “I’ve bought you white tulips since I’ve read that these flowers signify apologies and are even seen as a symbol of true and everlasting love. Did you know that in Eastern cultures like Japan, white tulips are often associated with purity, reverence, and spirituality—I’m rambling, am I?” he rambled nervously.
“So are we just gonna talk about the meaning of white tulips?” you asked him now, smiling.
“No! No, it’s not that please,” he replied, his voice wavering a bit. “What I’m trying to say is that… I’m sorry. I blew things out of proportion by telling you those… those hurtful words that I didn’t actually mean. I’m so sorry for hurting you, Y/N and I know what I did was unforgivable but…” he trailed off a bit, crying. “Please don’t go, baby. Please tell me you’re still mine. I don’t want to break up with you, I am… I am so sorry,” he replied brokenly, his eyes glossed with tears.
“I think we’ve already established that I don’t want to break up with you right?” you chuckled, as tears started to threaten in your eyes. And without any warning, Spencer pulled you in a tight hug, one of his arms snaking in your waist while his hands rested on your head. You feel him crying on your shoulders now, as he hides his head in the crook of your neck while he repeatedly mumbles “I’m sorry”. You circled your arms into his waist in return, also crying.
For a moment, you two held onto each other tightly. But then again, you still had to address what happened, so you pulled away from him a bit so you could talk properly. And to your surprise, it solicited a whimper from the man you were holding.
“No,” Spencer sniffled, hugging you even tighter. “I am not going anywhere, baby,” you assured him, as you rested your cheek onto his chest.
“We’re not breaking up,” you added softly, as you patted his back gently to soothe him. After hearing this, Spencer pulled away from the hug a bit, but his arms were still circled on your waist, afraid that you’d disappear from him. You take a good look at his face now, your head tilted slightly as you try to catch his averted gaze and your heart shatters because he looked so broken.
“Spence…” you told him softly, his eyes still not looking at you. "Please baby, look at me," you pleaded. And he almost fainted then and there because of your soft and loving voice. After a few seconds, he finally gave in and looked at you with his bloodshot eyes and something actually punched his gut when you stared back at him, smiling softly, despite the tears in your eyes. “I’m really sorry. I missed you so much,” he whispered as he caressed your face gently.
And without saying anything, you just softly placed your lips into his. That kiss spoke a volume of passion and sweetness that was left unsaid. It was so delicate and warm—it was a million loving thoughts condensed into a moment.
“How are you so good to me?” He asked you as he pressed his forehead against yours after the two of you kissed.
“Because I love you,” you replied, smiling at him softly. “But please don’t try to break up with me again because—”
“I love you more and I would never, never do that again,” he cut you off, before kissing you again to tell you that he completely meant what he said.
And safe to say that throughout the years in your relationship, he never tried breaking up with you again. And when you once tried, he was the one who gave you a definite no this time.
A/N: Hi! Here's my first (late) entry for Reidtober and my first-ever Spencer fic! Please bear with my grammatical errors since I literally wrote this one on a whim. Anyway, hope you liked it!
the queen’s gambit (2020) / this is me trying by taylor swift / little women (2019) / mirrorball by taylor swift / the haunting of bly manor (2020) / supercut by lorde / gilmore girls (2000) / brutal by olivia rodrigo / normal people (2020) / cruella (2021)
How would Namor react knowing that the reader has been keeping a daughter away from him?
THE SOUND THAT I MAKE
Ok ok, but like he’s probably very furious, betrayed, hurt even. His emotions, he doesn’t even try to hide it. Everything that he has never said, comes rushing out of him. The man just straight up hurt a whole lot, and feeling betrayed as well.
But like the moment you show her to him, you could feel his resolves slowly breaking. He just drop to his knees and just trying to reach out to touch her hands to make sure that she’s real. The girl doesn’t know it, but she literally have him wrap around her little, finger.
I don’t think he would forgive you that easily, perhaps it might takes years for him to forgive, but he regardless, he never felt so happy in his life to be reunited with his own flesh and blood.
My heart is with the people of Talokan because from now on they're gonna have to deal 24/7 with Namor talking non-stop, singing praises, literally painting walls and sighing like a ghosted teenager waiting for his crush to call or text him
*kiss to the sea* for Attuma and Namora, my deepest sympathies, you are in the first lines
To be honest, I think Namor and Attuma will be in the same boat because Attuma will be behaving the same with Okoye. And Namora (The only sane person in their group) will be so done with the two of them.
Summary: You don’t like her, this woman who enters his life just as suddenly, just as savagely as she leaves it. You know Matt is deserving of so much more than she gives him, and it breaks your heart.
Warnings: none really. Slight angst with a happy ending.
aaaaaaa this is so wonderful and well-written !! i can't help but compare the love lines here as taylor swift's songs: elektra and matt's love is red (burning, all-consuming and passionate) but reader and matt's love is daylight (healing, kind and accepting) 😔🫶🏼
