please do not repost my writing anywhere, with or without credit to me. I want to control where my writing goes and where I choose to put it. Please respect the fact that my writing is mine and I want to do with it as I please.
Here’s a gentle reminder that all my portrayals of real people are pure fiction. I obviously don’t know any of these people personally (as much as I wish so). My point is not to pretend that I know them, it’s just my brain that likes to go into every direction and imagine things that really, might not be true. Understand that the characters you’ll read about are mostly faces and names claims.
Oooo girl you just opened the floodgates. Can I pls request a Clark x reader where she’s a literal fallen star (like in Stardust)? I just think it would be cute if he was with someone who could create starlight and help heal him since the sun is just a star yk.
At The Beach, In Every Life
Request: Hear me out, Clark Kent x childhood sweetheart!reader. Like, they grew up tgt on the farm and stuff!!
and: Oooo girl you just opened the floodgates. Can I pls request a Clark x reader where she’s a literal fallen star (like in Stardust)? I just think it would be cute if he was with someone who could create starlight and help heal him since the sun is just a star yk.
Hi! I hope you don’t mind that I combined your requests. This is my first time writing for Clark! Bare with me while I get the hang of writing his character. Sorry it took me a while to get to these requests, I had a ton of ideas but wasn’t sure how to put them together. I think I did alright, hopefully you like it. Thanks for sending in requests! Enjoy :)
(Warnings: none? maybe a little angsty towards the end, not proofread well. let me know if i missed anything)
—
It was laughable, really — how you and Clark came to meet. Star crossed lovers, in the literal sense of the words.
When the ship Clark was sent to Earth in crashed on the farm, it brought down half the sky with it. Meteors, scrap metal, chunks of kryptonite…and you. A fallen star, ripped from your own orbit by Clark’s ship as he fell to Earth. While he landed in the Kent’s backyard, you landed in the next door neighbor's yard just down the road, a small plot of land nestled between the Kent’s and Lang’s. Lucky for you both, a meteor shower seemed to cover both of your arrivals to everyone in Smallville, other than your adoptive parents with matching craters a hundred feet from their homes.
A pact between your parents and Clark’s was made once they discovered both of your arrivals, their fear slipping away the second they realized you both were nothing but babies who couldn’t even hold your necks up on your own yet.
Your parents would keep Clark a secret, his parents keeping you a secret. As far as the town knew, your joint arrival was nothing more than a mere coincidence, two babies adopted within a week of each other. Clark’s parents claimed infertility, having waited a bit too long to have kids of their own, while yours claimed you as a distant relative, recently orphaned by a car accident. It was never questioned by the people in town, and it was the truth you both grew up knowing. No one knew the truth about you and Clark’s true identities except both your parents and each other.
Clark was a remarkably normal child. So close to human, so like everyone else you knew, that you forgot most of the time that he came from a different planet.
The first time you realized he was different was in elementary school when your entire class was sent home with the flu. Every student, even the teacher, spent a few days at home with a nasty temperature, chills, a cough, and a runny nose. They could barely get out of bed, let alone make it to school. Every single student came down with it — all except Clark and you.
It could’ve been a coincidence, sure. But as you thought about it, you realized you had never seen Clark sick. Not once, in the entire time you’d known him. And more than that, you’d never seen him injured. The kids your age were nothing but runny noses and scraped knees. There was always some sort of bug going around, or a plethora of colorful bandaids on the playground.
But Clark?
Not a mark on him. He always seemed to skirt any sickness or injury. So, while the other kids were sick and bedridden, he was having a mini vacation to himself. And Clark was never one to pass up on the opportunity to eat ice cream in bed.
That week also happened to be the first time Clark realized you were different.
Having those days off of school, you and Clark had nothing to do. Smallville was already boring enough on a regular day. With your parents off at work and all your friends laid up in bed, you had nothing better to do than make the trek through the fields connecting your house to Clark’s. You spent all day together, running around and getting up to no good.
It wasn’t often you went to the wreckage site of either of your crashes.
Your parents forbade it, filling in the holes with dirt and sod to keep you out of it. They made it clear that it wasn’t somewhere they wanted either of you visiting without their permission, and on an average day, you would have listened. But you were bored…and the pair of you together was a recipe for disaster. So, you went.
You had barely made it within a few feet of the crater when Clark stumbled, stopping in his tracks as he hunched over.
“Clark?” You asked, your voice full of worry. “Are you okay? Feeling sick?”
It was clear by the look on Clark’s face that this was as much a foreign feeling to him as it was to you. “I…I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should go home,” you said, taking his arm to help prop him up.
Clark let out a groan, swaying on his feet. It was only when a green reflection embedded in the grass caught your attention that you realized what was happening. Kryptonite. The one surviving substance from his home planet that was the sole thing on Earth that could weaken him, or even worse, kill him.
You didn’t even think about the fact that you were being exposed to radiation not unlike the sun’s. All you cared about was getting Clark back to the house so he could heal.
“I thought your parents got rid of all of this,” you huffed, hooking his arm around your shoulder so you could make your way home. “You’re heavy.”
Clark let out a huff, leaning into you as you walked him home. “Maybe you’re just weak.”
You wanted to laugh, but you couldn’t. He wasn’t getting any better.
It was at least another half mile back to his house, and you found yourself wishing it was the flu. The flu didn’t require radiation from the sun to cure it. And, to make matters worse, the sun had just gone down. It was enough that it would still heal him, it would just take more time. He was in for a night of pain and weakness until the morning when he could soak up the rays, and the thought of him tossing and turning in bed was more than you could handle.
As you got older, learning to manage your powers became a lot easier. But when you were young, they were all over the place. The more emotional you got, the less control you had.
You were panicking so hard hauling Clark back to his house, you didn’t even realize you were glowing. It wasn’t until he started to straighten up, the crease in his brow smoothing over that you could see the glow you were emitting. If it was anyone else, they would’ve been running and screaming by now. But Clark just looked at you with a look of awe on his face, the pain slowly seeping from his body.
It wasn’t like you were the sun. To heal, Clark needed access to yellow sunlight. But the sun is also a star, and your biological composition was close enough to bridge the gap between the two. As you clung to him, too concerned for his safety to notice, you’d been slowly but surely reversing the effects of the kryptonite.
He stood up straight, easing himself from your grip as you both continued your walk back to his house.
“I feel better,” he murmured, tired but grateful. “Thank you.”
You just nodded, keeping your arm linked with his.
—
Thankfully, Clark didn’t get injured much in his teenage years. While Clark found it generally easy to coexist with society, it was a lot more complicated for you.
Even though you grew up on the neighboring farm and it was all you had ever known, there was something in you that still longed for the sky.
Smallville wasn’t exactly known for its light pollution. On nights when it was really clear, all the stars shined bright in the sky, twinkling just out of reach.
You didn’t like to talk about it much. Sometimes, Clark would ask about what you remembered from your life in the sky. But you never had much to say, and he never pushed. As he got older, he’d go for flights at night. It wasn’t often he got to use the full extent of his abilities, and he loved the freedom of it. You’d watch from your porch, nostalgic and envious. Clark was the kind of person that made him incredibly hard to be mad at. It was only when you got jealous that you’d get close to being upset at him.
On your sixteenth birthday, you woke up to Clark tapping on your window. Your eyes widened as you realized he was hovering, at least ten feet above the ground.
You unlatched the window, sliding it open slowly as you winced at the creaks it made. “What are you doing here? Someone will see.”
Clark only smiled, offering a hand. “Come on.”
“What?” You asked, exasperated. “Are you crazy?”
“It’s your birthday,” he murmured, turning on his best puppy dog eyes.
God, you were a sucker for those eyes.
With a sigh, you took his hand, letting him lead you onto the window ledge. He hooked one arm around your waist as he helped you stand, letting you grip his other with your free hand. If your nails digging into his arm hurt at all, he didn’t show it.
“Clark, I swear to god. If you drop me…”
Clark playfully scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I’m not gonna drop you, idiot. Come on. Hold on tight.”
“Clark—”
“Sorry, what was that?” He asked, covering your mouth with his hand to muffle your scream as he pulled you off the ledge. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
You clung to him, eyes shut tight. You could feel him chuckle as you pressed your cheek into his chest, gripping onto him for dear life. He held you a bit tighter, adjusting his grip as he slowly lifted you into the clouds.
“Open your eyes. You’re missing your present.”
“Piss off,” you spat, feeling the rumble in his chest as he laughed with your face buried into his shirt. “Are we high? It feels like we’re high.”
Eventually, Clark slowed his ascent, coming to a stop as he settled in the sky. He had taken you up past the clouds, high enough that any onlookers wouldn’t be able to see you through the smog. It was only when he gently coaxed your head out from being tucked in his chest that you cracked an eye open, your mouth opening in shock.
It was beautiful.
The stars stretched as far as you could see in every direction, twinkling and sparkling. You couldn’t help but smile, easing your grip on Clark’s arms.
“Oh…”
“Like it?” He asked, a hopeful grin on his face. “I was worried all day because of the rain that it wouldn’t clear up. But it’s beautiful out.”
Clark couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. You looked so happy, settled into him as you gazed around. He held you close, grinning ear to ear.
Clark always found it easy to make you happy, but he knew there was something missing. Even though he had no memory of it, he sometimes missed the life he could’ve had. He tried his hardest, but he knew he’d never be completely content. And if he felt that way, still able to use his abilities and acknowledge where he came from with his parents, then he couldn’t imagine how you felt.
You couldn’t fly — you could never truly go home.
Your parents didn’t like to talk about where you came from. As far as they were concerned, you were a gift, and that was that. They weren’t as open as Clark’s parents were with him about him coming into their lives. Clark got an earful about it every time they’d shut it down when you tried to talk about it. He was really your only outlet, and he hated the look on your face when you’d come to him, tears in your eyes. He’d give anything to fix it, and more often than not, he did.
“Clark, this is beautiful. I can’t believe you get to see this all the time. Look at this view!”
Clark just smiled, still unable to tear his eyes away from your face. “Oh, I’m looking.”
—
Clark’s first true heartbreak was towards the end of high school, after he had to officially turn down Lana Lang.
They’d had an on and off thing for years, and she was really the only girl that he’d ever had any real interest in. Clark was never one for little crushes, never mentioning them to you like you’d hear the rest of the boys in your classes do. He was always more focused on school and his home life.
Lana, to her credit, managed to squeeze her way past all that and into his heart.
But he had a big secret — and she knew it.
Despite wanting to be with her, he just couldn’t find it in himself to truly commit. Loving him was dangerous. He was too powerful, and too many people could use the ones he loved as a weapon against him. He just couldn’t stomach the thought. It was bad enough that you and your parents knew, the handful of people in potential danger already keeping him up at night. But Lana, too? He just couldn’t do it.
Lana was just as frustrated as he was. From a distance, Clark was perfect. He was kind to everyone, and quite the gentleman to her. He made good grades, kept up with his responsibilities on the farm. He was a little nerdy, sure, a little awkward. But he had potential, and she saw that.
Except he’s get cagey when she got too close. He’d make excuses and disappear, or change the subject when she got even remotely near finding out his secret. There was something big he was hiding from her, and she couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t completely honest with her. And one day, it all caught up to them. They had to call it quits.
You found him that afternoon after school, at his crash site of all places. His mom had been worried sick, calling you when Clark didn’t come home from school. You made up some excuse on his behalf, telling her he’d be home for dinner. It didn’t take long to find him there.
When he was upset, he’d go to one of two places. To you…or to where your lives interlinked for the first time.
He was sat in the dirt, resting his arms on his knees. You didn’t have to get close to be able to see that his shoulders were shaking, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. The sight broke your heart.
You carefully walked around him, kneeling in front of him. “Clark?”
He just stared at the ground, too embarrassed to look up. His knuckles had gone white from clenching his fists together. You just huffed, gently taking his hands in yours.
“You’ll hurt yourself,” you chastised, running your thumbs along the back of his palms. “Clark…Clark, look at me.”
If there was one thing about Clark, it was that he was a sucker for you. Just like you couldn’t resist those puppy dog eyes, he couldn’t resist that gentle and loving tone in your voice.
He slowly raised his head, sniffling. “…You heard?”
You nodded, reaching up to wipe away a stray tear. “I did. I’m so sorry, Clark.”
It was like you could feel his pain. Your parents always joked when you were kids that you felt each other's pain. That something must have happened in the crash to link you together, because you were basically each other's other half. When you’d fall and scrape your knees on the playground as a kid, Clark would subconsciously walk around the farm with a slight limp all day. When he’d have a bad day at school, his chest burning from keeping it all in, you’d convince yourself (and your parents) in a panic in your kitchen that you were the youngest person ever to have a heart attack.
From the way your chest was tight and you felt the unexplainable urge to want to burst into tears, you knew Clark must’ve been feeling the same way. It was awful, and you couldn’t take it.
You squeezed his hands, trying to scrounge up an ounce of happiness to somehow transfer it from yourself to him.
If you could feel each other's pain, it would work with joy, wouldn’t it?
You couldn’t help it when you started to glow. You were clutching his hands so tight, the feelings stirring in you so visceral, that you just couldn’t keep it together. You’d gotten very good at managing your abilities, but Clark always seemed to bring them out of you.
It was a faint glow, no brighter than the porch lights that were waiting for Clark back home where his mom had dinner ready for him.
It seeped out of you, slowly encircling him like a warm blanket. Clark watched with soft eyes as you ran your thumbs along his knuckles, your brow furrowed in concentration. No words were said as you stayed together in silence, your knees pressed into the dirt as you met his gaze. Your glow encased you both, fluttering around your joined hands. Light bounced off the high points of Clark’s cheeks, a warm look in his eyes as he peered down at you through his glasses. Finally, his shoulders relaxed.
You let out a small gasp as the pressure in your chest started to ease, finally able to take in a good breath.
You barely had a second to relax before Clark was pulling you up out of the dirt and into his arms, pressing his face into the crook of your neck. You let out a soft laugh, hugging him tight. Clark was always an affectionate guy.
He’d take a good hug over a winning lottery ticket if it meant he’d get to keep a feeling like this.
“Thank you,” he muttered into your neck.
You chuckled, running your fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You made it better,” he was quick to correct you, his grip never letting up. “You always make it better.”
You hummed, keeping him close as long as he’d let you. “Always will.”
—
When it came time, you followed Clark to Metropolis, where he got a job at the Daily Planet.
You didn’t blame him for wanting to leave. He was called to do bigger things, and for that, he needed a bigger city. Smallville was—as the name implies—small, but it suddenly felt microscopic when he packed his bags and moved to the city. Like a cage, closing in on you every step you took. The entire town was full of memories of you and Clark. Everywhere you turned, the ghost of him was there. You promised Clark on the day he left that you’d do your best to live your life for yourself, in whatever way made you happy. It was conditional upon the promise that Clark would call every day and visit when he could. You both tried and failed to hold back tears, your dramatic goodbye enough to break even the noble and strong Mr. Kent. So much so that he secretly went out and bought you a plane ticket, safe and ready for you if (and when) you were ready to branch out on your own.
You lasted a week before you were at Clark’s door, your life savings in your pocket and half the month's rent in your hand. Years later, you still lived together.
Clark managed to get you a job down at the Daily Planet with him as a secretary and part time photographer for Perry White, his boss. He flaunted your ability to stay organized and work well under pressure, going as far as to mention that you had a working relationship with Superman, who somehow only seemed to pose for shots if they were yours. He, of course, redacted the part where he’d be the one to give you briefings on the couch in the evenings before he’d go be a hero the next day. Perry also liked your ability to keep Clark on a leash, who he valued as a reporter but wanted to throttle as an employee. Your shots of Superman, combined with the way you ran the office floor like the Navy, was more than enough to get you hired.
“You’d leave the house without your head if she wasn’t there to make sure it was still on your shoulders, Kent,” Perry would muse when Clark would show up to work for the third time that week with a crooked tie and a flustered look on his face as he finally managed to make it to his desk. “She beat you here and still had time to grab you a coffee. Don’t you live ten feet from each other? Learn to hustle.”
Clark would grin, a bashful look on his face. “What can I say, sir? She’s the wind beneath my wings.”
Perry just rolled his eyes, dropping files onto your desk for you to organize as he headed into his office. “And the fire lit under your ass, thank the Lord.”
—
Much to your apprehension, Clark had fully accepted his identity as Superman and was a regular figure amongst Metropolis.
Clark fought enemies you never could have even fathomed back in Smallville. He was part of domestic and international disputes, a constant topic in politics, and the face of the metahuman race. He made nationwide headlines every day, being the subject of them across major outlets. Sometimes, he was even the one to write them. His self given interviews frequently made it onto the front page. Everyone in the city—and the world, for that matter—knew Superman’s name. But at home, with you?
At home, he was just Clark.
Your brave, sweet, and silly best friend from the farm, who believed in Santa Clause and the tooth fairy long past what was considered the acceptable age to still believe in such things. You were the only person in his day to day life that got to see who he truly was. He’d let the mask drop when he was around you.
One night, you heard the balcony door slide open and close. You checked your phone only to see that it was long past midnight, which could only mean one thing.
Sometimes, when Clark was done with whatever battle it was that he fought that day, he’d simply walk past your room down the hall to his. Sometimes. Other times, his steps would stop just before getting to your door, like he was standing there in his full costume debating on whether or not he should bother you. More often than not, he’d cave and knock.
Tonight, he’d chosen the latter.
It never got any easier — seeing him in pain. His abilities meant that he was incredibly resilient, damn near indestructible. But sometimes, he’d come home bruised and bleeding. You’d gotten very used to patching him up, picking up the slack from the sun being down. You’d actually gotten quite good at it. Blood and sweat was easy. Manageable.
Tears and heartache were not.
Nights like tonight were the hardest. Whatever happened out there on the streets, Clark didn’t want to talk about it. He’d tell you about it later, when he was in the right headspace. For now, he just wanted to be. He just wanted to soak up being in your presence. You worked in silence, a soft glow pooling in your palms as you checked him over for injuries.
When you finished and went to lower your hands, he caught your wrists before you could pull away. You didn’t say anything as Clark gently guided your palms back to his cheeks, closing his eyes as he leaned into your touch. He let his hands settle on your wrists, his grip on you tense as you cradled his face.
You sighed, rubbing his cheek. “Clark…”
“Please,” he whispered, too afraid to open eyes for the fear that he’d start crying. “Just a little longer.”
You could only nod, running your thumbs along the tops of his cheekbones. You stayed that way for a while, sitting together in silence tethered to each other. That familiar sting behind your eyes and burn in your chest settled, and you knew that Clark was feeling it too. There was nothing you could say that would help. You knew that. Nights like these were brutal for you both.
But, even though there was nothing you could say, there was something you could do.
You concentrated hard, letting light and warmth seep into his skin. A faint glow enveloped him, and Clark didn’t need to open his eyes to know that you were healing him. The immediate relief he felt deep in his chest was evidence enough.
There were no words to express the gratefulness Clark felt in moments he shared with you like this. He could try all he wanted, but nothing would encompass how much he loved it. It was his favorite point in any day.
He let out a content hum, sighing in relief. “I feel better when I’m around you…like, literally.”
You paused, your heart stuttering in your chest. “Hmm?”
“You take care of me,” he continued, finally glancing up at you. “You make it all feel less heavy. You patch me up, you hold me together. You keep me sane.”
“It’s not much—”
“It’s everything.”
You gently rubbed his cheek, your heart pounding in your chest. You felt like you were flying. You wondered if he was feeling the same way. You continued to envelop him in a soft glow, and he leant into the warmth of your touch like a cat in a windowsill on a sunny afternoon.
You make everything better.
Words you’d heard from Clark before but never quite got used to hearing.
“Sometimes, that’s what I think I’m for.”
Clark’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”
You smiled at the little crease in his brow, continuing to comfort and heal him.
“I think that’s why I fell from the sky that night. I was alone until you crashed into me. I didn’t really have a purpose. I just existed. But then we collided, and I think we still haven’t untangled from each other completely. There’s bits of you in me that I’ll never get rid of, and I’d never want to.”
Clark let out a soft gasp as you spoke, his eyes glassy. He didn’t speak as you continued, his hands settled gently around your wrists.
“I’ve always wondered what my purpose was being here. I think I’ve finally figured it out. You were sent here to do good. To be a symbol of hope, to inspire, to take care of people. But who’s looking after you?”
You reached up, gently brushing his hair back and out of his face. He let you, never once looking away.
“You were sent to a planet with a yellow sun. The sun is also a star, like me. You heal from the sun. You may be incredibly resilient, but you’re not totally invulnerable. You’re more human than everyone thinks. Maybe you need a little extra, sometimes. And maybe that’s what I am. A little extra.”
Clark let out a breath, his shoulders slumping. You could feel your chest tightening again, a telling sign that emotion was building up inside of him. His eyes were glassy, unshed tears pooling.
“You deserve to feel good, Clark. It’s an honor to make you feel better. It was an honor to share the same sky, and it’s been a privilege to share a life with you.”
Clark couldn’t take it anymore. His lips were on yours before you could take another breath, his hands coming up to gently cradle your face. You were quick to respond, letting him lead. You could taste the salt from his tears that finally fell, and feel the hitch in his breath as he sighed into your mouth.
He held you like you were made of glass, as if you were one harsh breath away from shattering.
It was perfect.
He finally pulled away to catch his breath, resting his forehead against yours. There was a faint tremble in his hands as they cupped your cheeks, and you brought yours up to cover his.
“You’re the best part of me,” he murmured, running his thumb along your cheek. “The part I could never live without. The only part that matters.”
Clark tilted your chin up, his eyes full of adoration and love as he finally gushed everything he’d been feeling for you for years.
“It’s you in every life. If I hadn’t accidentally found you in the sky that night, I would’ve kept looking till I did. I would look for you in every life.”
You were so happy, you could faint. You couldn’t stop smiling, leaning into his touch. You couldn’t contain your glow if you tried. Your light was beaming through the room, surrounding you both in a warm and bright blanket. Unbridled joy flowed out of you and into him, and he couldn’t hide his smile either. You reached up, gently wiping his tears. He mirrored your actions, and you realized you were crying too.
You squeezed his hand tight. “In every life?”
Clark’s soft laugh was like magic to you, beautiful and bright as he nudged your forehead with his.
“Every single one.”
—
A/N - Hi! Not in love with the ending, but I figured I made you wait long enough for me to post this, so it’ll do. Still getting the hang of writing Clark’s character down, so bare with me. Thank you so much for the requests, I hope you liked it!
This concept was so cool and interesting! The idea of a fallen star, turned into a person, luckily finding another star boy and making their ways around a world that isn't designed for them, is just adorable. I love poetic shit like that. I want more poetry about our boy Clark, please 🥺
You like to rush things. Clark takes things slow until he can’t anymore. (Or, you attempt to seduce your coworker in a series of little skirts, and while Clark falls in love with all of you, the skirts don’t hurt.) 4k words, fem.
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
It’s mildly manipulative, what you’re doing to him. Subtle seductions stretched far and wide between weeks of work, your eyes alighting a moment too long on his lips and his neck and his arms.
You don’t flirt. That’s important. You don’t tell him how handsome he looks when the cold has rosed his cheeks. Won’t mention the poor fit of his gray suit, how it’d look far better on a bedroom floor, or draped across a bathroom stall. Nothing severe. You’re… teasing him.
For no reason, really. It might be frustration, but wow, wouldn’t that be introspective? You know you could never land a guy like Clark, so you pretend. Blah blah blah, it’s all very boring and your skirt is very short.
Alright, it’s not that short. It’s the illusion of the thing. The idea that he could get a glance at something, even though the skirt has an inner lining.
You’re not, you know, obvious about it. Clark might not be looking. But you place your hand on the counter as you reach up with the other for a mug, and you know there’s a stretch of thigh on show if nothing else, heat of a real or imaginary eye on the backs of them as you sigh softly. You genuinely can’t reach.
You settle back on your heels and turn to find Clark not too far away. “Hey, would you help, please? If you can reach it.”
You can’t glean any overt interest from his expression, but he says, “Sure,” with warmth on his lips, like he’d gone to say something else and let it fizzle out.
Clark opens the cabinet door wider and reaches in for a pink mug. It has ‘sweetheart’ written on the side in white, textured font, though the script is elegant.
“Here, sweetheart,” he says.
You laugh, mostly to see his satisfied smile. “Thank you.”
“Can I make it for you?” he asks.
Clark could hang you upside down and shake you for spare change if he wanted. “You know how I like it.”
Teasing aside, you spend the afternoon sipping at your coffee with Clark a desk away, Lois adjacent, listening to the click of tens of keyboards and the scritch of shuffled paper on the edges of desks. You work on your small cooking column in relative silence. Three recipes a week, minimum. If you do especially well, Perry lets you slide a conversational piece across his desk for reviewing. You’ve had a couple on the third page. Clark has taken the front page again this week —an exclusive interview with Superman about the Jelly-Mecha that attempted to swallow the WGBS building.
You’re leaning back with a leg over your knee, your eyes dedicated to the little clock in the corner of your monitor, when somebody hooks the empty chair in the desk beside yours and wheels it over. Clark is sitting next to you before you can protest, a dark-sugared donut in his hands.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Are you sharing?”
“Obviously.” He grins, pulling the donut in his hands apart. Sugar crumbles down into his lap, and the smell of it erupts between you. Apple-cinnamon, miraculously warm when he presses it to your fingers.
“Thank you.”
Your quiet doesn’t perturb him. He matches your tone, “Yeah, don’t mention it.”
“Where’s this from?” you ask, taking your first bite.
He takes his own, covering his mouth with his hand as he answers. “Beanies.”
“That explains why it’s still warm.”
He shrugs. You don’t get what it means but you don’t care to argue, savouring each mouthful of dough and sugar. You lick the crumbs from your fingers and the corners of your mouth. Clark ate his own half fast, ‘cos he’s a giant with an appetite you envy and revile; in your most humble opinion, it is both impressive and audacious to watch Clark house a BLT in half a minute.
“Was that good?” he asks quietly, his eyes on your shining fingertips.
You wipe them on the edge of his napkin. An achy heat eats at your stomach. “You’re spoiling my appetite.”
“Do you have big dinner plans?”
“Huge! I’m testing something new tonight. Snow mountain garlic and pea risotto, for health week. It’s not particularly healthy,” you confess. “But snow mountain garlic has all these supposed special properties. Doesn’t matter if it’s true, though.”
“Why not?”
You like his tone. “It has more allicin. That’s what makes it taste good.”
“Allicin is antibacterial,” he says.
“Brilliant. Antibacterial risotto.”
He holds your eyes for a moment, his own big and especially blue behind his straight frames. “I hope it goes well,” he says.
It’s a measured sentence, like he’s crafted each word carefully as he said it.
“I’ll bring you some if it does.”
“I’d like that.”
You hide how warming it is to be spoken to like that, carrying the feeling home with you to unravel against the stovetop. If you try harder than usual to make a good meal, it is nobody’s business but your own, and Clark’s, who sits waiting and ready at his desk the following morning.
“Clark Kent on time?” you tease, letting the handles of your handbag fall into your elbow. “Who would’a thought we’d ever see the day?”
“I can be punctual,” he promises.
“Can you? Aren’t you on probation?”
“That wasn’t for tardiness, it was for sick days, and no. I’m no longer on probation.” He smiles with white, shy teeth, a peek of them from between his lips. “I’m on the straight and narrow.”
You imagine the hardness of them against your own lips as you lean in for a kiss, for a split second. The clack you’d inevitably make as your teeth knocked into his, as you hooked your arm behind his neck and dragged him down to you for some light force.
“‘Cos you’re a good boy,” you murmur, mumble, more to yourself than him (though he is definitely meant to hear you).
Clark’s face is still. His hands less so, a fist curling against his thigh. His smile is remarkably genuine. “Coffee?”
Calling Clark a good boy might be flirting. Or not! What’s important is the way it softens him for the working day. How quietly awed he sounds as you unveil a Tupperware container full of risotto for him. He tells you it’s good between big bites. You want to nibble on him, taken by the curve of his bicep each time he brings up his fork, and the tip of his tongue darting out to catch a grain of rice. He’s killing you. You’re dying at the Daily Planet.
Dramatics aside, he compliments your risotto egregiously, returning the Tupperware with a pristine shine. You don’t play short-skirt with him for days.
When you do, the skirt is a delicate thing that isn’t as short as you’d expect considering the name of the game, but it’s nearly sheer. Standing in the right light, your hip smushed to the pillarway near his desk while Jimmy tells you about a new kind of giant slug they found living in West Africa, you assume you’re displaying what you’d seen in the mirror that morning. Given enough sunlight, the lavender fabric of your skirt goes translucent. Anyone in looking distance can make out the barest hint of your legs, their shape, a shadow of your thighs and the neat little underwear you have on beneath. You aren’t trying to harass him, but, this is Metropolis. It’s not the most conservative place when it comes to fashion. It isn’t much different to wearing a pair of daisy dukes.
It’s not entirely a sex thing. It’s to feel sexy, sure, as an arm to feeling beautiful, desired. You want to know that Clark (handsome, kind, beautiful Clark) sees it, that he wants it, even if it’s a fleeting flash of lust and nothing else.
And Clark —he doesn’t notice. Doesn’t say a word about it, doesn’t clench his fist or take in a sharp breath.
You decide you like that just as much and return to your desk, happily ashamed.
—
The pasta you made yesterday is far better today. The mushroom sauce has soaked into the fusilli. With a scratching of fresh cheese, you lay it over a fresh bowl of rocket and watercress, coat the entire thing in lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and flaky salt, and eat it enthusiastically behind your computer.
“That smells amazing.”
You lighten at his dulcet tone. “It’s pretty good. D’you want some?”
“I’m trying to keep you fed, sweetheart,” Clark says, placing down your ‘sweetheart’ mug and a small plate, “not the other way around. Thank you.”
His thank you is diligently gentle. He must work at it, to sound so docile. It has to be practised.
The small plate homes two cupcakes. One has golden cake with a great dollop of fresh cream and cut raspberries atop it, and the other looks like a darker flavour. Ginger? The buttercream is thick and caramelised, with cookie crumbs between its peaks.
“What have I done to deserve all this?” you ask.
“You don’t have to do anything at all. It’s your afters. Your dessert.”
“I haven’t done anything?” you ask.
He shakes his head kindly. “It’s inherently deserved.”
If he’s charming or teasing, you can’t tell.
His eyes fall from your face. You get distracted by his details, the clean hills of his cheeks, his dark brows, sweet mouth and a sweeter nose broad enough to take a kiss or two, and you almost miss the stroke of his gaze lingering on your collar. His fingers twitch. “Can I?” he asks.
You follow his finger. One of your straps has fallen down, leaving the simple pale elastic of your bra alone. You couldn’t have faked it better. “Sure,” you say under your breath.
Clark hears it regardless, slipping a fingertip up your arm, a backwards tumble that threatens to send tattle-tale goosebumps over your skin. He hooks the strap under his fingers and brings it over your shoulder, pulling at it enough to make your eyes widen. Then his touch is gone, leaving a strange sensation in its place.
“You’re dressed really pretty, today,” he says.
You smile at the joke before you’ve said it. “As opposed to every other day,” you say.
“This is beautiful. You look beautiful.”
You duck your head. Sincerity in the face of your sarcasm inspires an amazingly dizzy feeling in the stem of your neck. You have to force back a smile.
“Thank you, Clark. I’m… glad you think so,” you say eventually. There’s emphasis there for him to take or leave.
You can see his hesitation, then, a palpable pause while he makes a decision.
“It’s a nice skirt,” he says quietly.
There’s nothing imposing in his tone, but there doesn’t need to be. He isn’t tall, dark, and handsome, he’s incredibly, scarily brilliant. He’s smiling at you like you’ve given him a compliment.
“It’s a little brave,” you say.
“Bravery suits you. Anyways,” —he touches your arm briefly— “don’t let me keep you. Eat your lunch. Hopefully your coffee won’t be too cold to enjoy when you’re finished.”
You wish he’d press you up against a wall. He did notice the skirt. He has the self control to leave it alone, or at least to wait for you to bring it. And… yeah, that’s working for you, actually. Really working. You stood in the sunshine to give him an explicit view of your legs and he brought you cupcakes to say thank you.
—
Apparently, there are limits to Clark Kent’s self control.
You’re lavishing in Centennial Park under a gorgeous sun. It’s barely seventy two degrees, a tame heat for July in Metropolis, and yet the sun is hitting you just right, kissing at your skin, leaving you sated and heavy under its weight. Clark has rolled up his sleeves (a contributing factor, perhaps, to the contentness you’re carrying) and loosened his tie, sitting where you’re laying down, a sweet hand held to your knee. Today’s skirt is a bias-cut midi dress made of a dark sage green. There are bell-sleeves like petals and a neckline you aren’t worried about, not when he’s guarding you like this. You shift on your back to better feel the sun on your face, and he pulls the skirt along the inside of your thigh. Keeping it in place to protect your modesty, setting every nerve-ending you have aflame with pleasure.
“Tell me if you feel too warm,” he says.
“I’m not worried about the sun.”
“What are you worried about?”
“Oh, the usual. That some weird space creature is gonna break the atmosphere and kill us,” you croon.
He delights in your tone, his thumb sweeping a line into your leg. “I won’t let anything kill you.”
You’d kissed his cheek in the elevator because the line of his nose had looked rather unkissed, and his cheek had been the politer option. You hadn’t expected the quick turn of his head, or the complete lack of nonchalance about him as he’d smiled and laughed and pressed that same cheek to your temple as he’d hugged you with one arm.
So now you’re here in the park because you hadn’t wanted him to stop touching you. The summer dress wasn’t part of your seductions but it seems to be working all the same. You’re hoping you’ll get a kiss of your own to settle the score before the sun goes down. With where his hands are resting, you aren’t sure where you want one most. One hand on your thigh, one on your knee, his body turned to you like it’s the natural thing to do. He could be generous and give you a kiss beneath both palms. You think you’d quite like that.
“Do you worry about that a lot?”
“Hm?”
“The aliens… The space creatures, do you worry you’ll get hurt?”
“Not really. We have a great protection detail, don’t we?” you ask.
He’s quiet for a bit. “What do you think about him?”
You don’t ask, Superman? Of course he’s talking about him. “He’s extremely handsome.”
Clark laughs boisterously and shakes you by the leg. “Alright. Knock it off.”
“Or what?”
“Or nothing. Just knock it off.”
He makes everything sound so satiny.
“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he adds.
“Promise?”
Half a joke. Clark pushes his glasses up onto his nose and finally leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your elbow where your arms are crossed over your chest. “Yeah. I promise.”
You let him walk you home. That night, one of the star-shaped superaliens appears in the air near your apartment and then there’s a breathless Clark on the line asking if you need some company. You tell him no, ask if you can see him tomorrow when the dust settles, and he promises you that his Saturday was all yours. He actually says it, says, “I think you could ask me for anything after today and I’d try to do it for you.” He’s laughing to diffuse the weight of it, but you take it to heart.
A Saturday turns to Sunday. A week turns to two. You and Clark trade careful kisses anywhere but the mouth and he doesn’t mention your little skirts. You keep wearing them, especially the velveteen lavender one too sheer for summer, layered over a short silk underskirt to protect your own wits. You’ve seduced him (have you?) but now you’d really like to keep him.
It’s a Tuesday morning with little to give. The air is already warm, the tram platforms are full. You commute to the Daily Planet for another day of dedicated journalism.
Jimmy begins the morning with praise. “I made your honeycomb macarons. I actually made them.”
“And?”
“And? They were amazing! You’re such a goddamn genius,” he says.
He gives you a macaron from a tin shaped like Yoda. The cookie is sweet with that perfect, delicate crunch, and the honeycomb ganache is better than your own. You take another one from his tin, giving him a congratulatory pat on the elbow. “They’re amazing!” you say, shells and honeycomb pieces thick in your mouth.
“What’s amazing?”
You remember where you are urgently.
“I made macarons,” Jimmy says.
Clark doesn’t make fun of his pride. “Really? That’s awesome, man. Can I try one?”
You swallow the lump in your mouth, washing it down with a quick swig of coffee.
“Morning,” Clark says.
“Hi. Good morning.”
“Hi,” he says, fond. “How has your day been so far?”
You lick your lips without thinking, sweetness lingering in the stick of your lipgloss. “It was good, yeah. The tram was hot.”
“You look good.”
Jimmy wrinkles his nose. “Guys, we talked about this.”
“‘Bout what?” Clark asks, finishing his macaron in one bite.
Jimmy is kind enough to roll his eyes and leave it alone, wandering off with his tin clutched to his chest. Clark rolls his eyes too, a secret gesture that has you laughing through your nose.
“You do look good,” he says again.
You look down in mild bewilderment. “It’s laundry day.”
You’re in a pair of black slacks that threaten to slip off your hips at any moment and a button up that should be tight to the waist but unfortunately isn’t. You’d saved the outfit with a necklace and a handful of jewelled rings, but it’s nothing like the stuff you’ve been wearing as of late. Of course he’d notice.
“This…” He raises a hand to your hip but doesn’t touch.
“What?”
His thumb presses to a slip of skin so small you hadn’t noticed it was visible. His brow creases like he’s been burned, yet his hand remains where it is. After a heavy second, he squeezes, and he says something too quiet to hear to himself.
“Clark?” you ask tentatively. “You okay?”
“You have no clue… no clue what you do to me.”
His eyes are all on you. Deep, indigo-blue.
Heat leeches up your neck. Your heart capers suddenly. “What do I do to you?” you ask, your tentativeness turned to silk.
“Don’t.”
“What do I do, honey?” you ask, nearly whispering now. “I don’t have a clue, right? So tell me, then, what I do to you?”
“What am I supposed to do?” His fingers adjust against your hip. “Why would you do this here?” Clark’s voice breaks with a put-upon heartache. He’s still smiling. “What am I supposed to do, here?”
“Take me somewhere else.”
His hand falls away from your hip. You can feel where his fingers had shaped your skin for minutes afterward, following him with a poorly faked casualness to the elevator.
He hits the button for the basement as you step in.
“I think they’re still printing,” you say. The mock-up copies get made in the basement, and it’s an all day affair. “It’ll be as busy there as it is–”
No sooner has the elevator started moving than Clark is hitting the emergency stop.
“Clark!” you say.
“Can I kiss you?”
He doesn’t laugh. You lean away from him to take in his long body, his grey suit and red tie and the wetted run of his bottom lip. He has honeycomb in the very corner of his mouth.
You raise your hand to wipe it away.
“Yeah, okay,” you say, tilting your chin up slowly.
Clark grabs two great, heaping, greedy handfuls of your back, long fingers spread out and guiding you in for a kiss you aren’t expecting. There’s genuine hunger there, your teeth clicking as you’d always imagined, a voracious sort of meeting that quickly gentles. He lets out a sigh against your lips and melts against you like a stick of butter over a flame, lax, a hand traversing upward and over and– and his mouth, his kisses are these open, warm mouthings you meet with a stammering heart. This isn’t the slip of control you’d imagined it to be.
Clark’s kissing you without an ending in mind. You can feel it in the tenderness of his open palm, seemingly laid to sleep at the small of your back.
“How long does that work?” you ask in a murmur, your lips happily stung.
“I don’t know. I’ve never done that before.”
“Really?”
“When would I have had reason to try?” Clark asks, cupping your cheek in his hand. “You’re so pretty.” He steals another quick kiss. “Do you know that?”
“I can’t believe this is what got you to crack,” you laugh.
His eyebrows pinch. “What?”
“This,” you gesture to your clothes. “Of all the things I’ve worn.”
“I don’t understand.” Though it’s dawning on his face quickly. “Oh. You– The… Oh.”
His neck goes all shades of rose.
“Sorry,” you whisper.
He tips your head back nicely. “For what? I would’ve cracked anyway. You could’ve worn anything, but… The little purple skirt, that was for me?”
You press your flushed face to his chest, arms crossing lazily behind a strong neck. “Clark…” you mumble.
He digs his face into your neck to kiss the softness beneath your ear. You’re surprised he doesn’t whine your name back to you, what with the mood he’s in, but Clark’s got a propensity for sweetness that won’t quit.
“On purpose,” he whispers, vindicated. “I knew it.”
The elevator chugs back to life.
—
You are delightfully, blissfully human. There comes a time when you need saving, and it just so happens that Metropolis brags its very own (and very only) Krypton superbeing. One minute you’re being squeezed in the fist of a raspberry-furred mega fox thing, and the next you’ve been freed and grabbed and propelled through the air in arms that feel oddly familiar.
“Miss, are you okay? Miss? Miss, are you alright?”
You look down at the ants of your city and nearly puke up your dinner. “Oh my fuck,” you squeeze out.
“I’m sorry! I’m taking you back down. There’s a girl, breathe in for me. Deep breaths.”
You can hardly breathe at all, but your shallow breaths earn you a thank you and a proud pat on the back. Your legs are shaking so hard at touchdown that Superman has to physically arrange them beneath you, his arm glued to the small of your back when you list unsteadily.
“You’re okay,” Superman assures you.
His little curl is ever so darling. “Like Clark’s,” you say unthinkingly, wrapping the short strands of hair around your finger.
“Are you alright?” he asks, generously ignoring your moment of delusion.
“I thought I was gonna die.” You blanche, glancing back over your shoulder for signs of the megafox. “Fuck.”
“Everything’s fine, now. I promise you.”
You take a deep breath. Superman holds you by both shoulders, forcing you to copy a second, deeper breath, then a third.
“Good girl,” he murmurs.
Too much like Clark. “My boyfriend, he was–”
“Everyone’s safe.”
You let out a shaky breath. The last of your panic ebbs from your shoulders. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, thank you. For saving me. Thank you so much.”
“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” he says. His voice goes bendy and weak.
“I really do. If I died in this skirt, my boyfriend would never forgive me.”
Superman gives you an appraisal, up and down. Heat flares in your stomach and refuses to cool as he smiles. “Wouldn’t wanna ruin a skirt like that,” he says knowingly.
You shake your head, not without fondness.
All boys are the same.
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed <3 and thank you Bec for reading it twice at different times
I feel like I keep saying "Oh this is so cute!!" but honestly, it is. But also, this was so well written, light-hearted but also believable, with the right amount of details and the right amount of fun, without making it silly.
summary: when Clark can’t make it to the fortress, Krypto brings him to you
pairing: clark kent x female reader
word count: 2.2k
warnings: typical injury/kinda recovery warnings, blood, broken bones, etc. not much else. reader is mentioned have hair once. no other descriptions
a/n: sigh another fic the next day, that’s when you know i’m obsessed. here’s a lil idea i had as soon as i saw the opening scene. if you're new here cause i'm pretty much known for bucky barnes fics, I love angst so that's kinda my lil niche. hope that's okie!
oh and I loved @sharknutz idea of Clark calling the reader sunshine so yeaaa I had to try that out <3
masterlist | send requests
You were never a very light sleeper, per se. It wasn’t like you were waking up with each creak of the floorboards or gust of wind. But you never were one to sleep fully through the night without waking up just once. Clark had this little joke; he could always count on an extra cuddle sometime around 2 am. What could you say? You always slept better with him by your side.
Tonight, sleep proved to be a challenge. Clark had been gone for hours, off handling what you think you heard as some underground group of metahumans terrorizing the capital of Wales? After a while, you couldn’t find it in yourself to watch the news. Sue you, but the constant sight of your boyfriend smashing into concrete and brick buildings wasn’t how you wanted to spend the evening. It never was easy, knowing every time he left in that cape, there was the slightest chance he wouldn’t return. The habit of flicking on the television, just to become distraught and overwhelmed, and turning it off only to cave and flick it on again, consumed your evenings.
The bed was cold, feeling larger than normal without Clark’s large frame claiming more than half the bed and hogging the blankets. Your feet fluttered under the duvet, trying to shake the nerves and unease that engulfed your body. He should’ve been back by now, slipping through the door with a smirk and some half-funny quip about his injuries; it never was all that funny to you. You knew he needed to stop by the fortress first if he was hurt, recharge and heal, and maybe check on Krypto before flying back. Still, it was 4 am, and the news declared the situation to be handled by 1 am.
The thoughts swirling in your brain halted when a crash and the sound of shattering glass echoed through the living room. You jolted upright in bed, stumbling quietly out from the sheets and reaching for the steel pipe you had stashed under the bedframe. Clark always thought it was ridiculous, offering to get you a bat or something, but the pipe was found with your first apartment, and you’d had no issues in all your years since in Metropolis, maybe it was a good luck charm.
You slowly inched to the door as you heard grunts mixed with the sounds of stumbling feet and soft pounding. Any bit of drowsiness you had managed to build up while lying in bed was gone. If you needed to escape, the front door was in the kitchen, which was right next to the bedroom. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Unless they weren’t human.
Before you could continue to spiral and plan your first mode of attack, the familiar sound of a bark bounced up the other side of the door.
“Krypto?” you asked hesitantly as you lowered the pipe. The grading sound of that familiar yelp continued, confirming your suspicions.
You placed the pipe on the bed before slowly pulling the door open. You couldn’t even greet the superdog before he latched onto the hem of your shorts and tugged you out of the room.
“Hey, buddy, slow down,” you said as you stumbled behind him, trying not to fall. Something was wrong; the high-strung and chaotic pup you had come to know well was never this focused. He dragged you to the living room before letting go of your shorts with a bark. The white dog rushed over to the window- that’s when you saw.
The large bay window was shattered, exposing the crisp air of the early morning. Glass was strewn across the hardwoods. Lying face down in the middle was Clark. He looked wrecked, bruises covered the sharp angles of his cheekbones, and blood dripped from his lips and soaked parts of his hair. His arm twitched slightly, letting you know there was something damaged beneath the suit. He looked awful. The haunting rattling from his chest was the worst, filling the silent room and pounding in your ears.
“Clark!” you said, rushing to his side. As carefully as possible, you slipped to your knees, being sure to avoid the bits of glass that surrounded the scene. Your hands began to shake as you reached for him, scared to do any further damage. You rarely saw him like this, and if so, it tended to be through news footage.
“Honey, hey,” gently, you tried to turn him off his face and onto his back. He cried out at the movement, but his voice quickly turned to a whimper. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
He didn’t respond, just fluttered his eyes open and glanced up at you. Through the blood on his lips, he still flashed you a smile. Your heart stuttered.
“Hi baby,” he said, through bloody teeth.
“Clark, honey, what are you doing here?” Your voice was frantic as your hands hovered over him, afraid to touch anywhere.
“…needed to heal,” he said, trying to lean up into your touch, but the movement just brought more pain.
Delicately, your hands moved to cup his face, softly brushing a bit of glass from the sable curls that framed his face. As your fingers grazed the dark bruises by his eyes, you couldn’t help but notice how he relaxed under your hands.
Krypto leapt up onto the couch beside you, crawling up to the front and watching as you tried to figure out what to do next.
“Why…why didn’t you go to the f-fortress?” You asked. He hated how he could hear the tremors in your voice, hated how visibly distressed you were. He hated that he was the one to cause it.
He tried once again to lean upright into a sitting position. This time, you grabbed him and quickly propped him against the couch. At this angle, it seemed the airflow in his lungs was strengthened.
“I…too far,” he said, his bright blue eyes fully opening and meeting yours. “I couldn’t…make it. I got as far as outside the city but...”
Your hands moved slowly down from his neck to his chest. Through the thick blue fabric, you could feel the cracked bones of his clavicle and sternum. Your breath caught in your throat as you tried to relax.
“Then why …? Clark, why did Krypto bring you here? I can’t—I can’t fix this,” you said, your words spilled out in an almost incoherent ramble. Your panic stilled for just a moment as you felt Clark’s hand softly reach up for yours, guiding it to his chest where your palm felt the steady thumping of his heart.
“I told him to take me home,” he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
A soft sigh left your chest; you couldn’t place what it was, perhaps it was a mix of surprise or relief or even resignation. Those words were everything you wanted to hear. You wanted nothing more than to be his safety, his place to go and feel protected. If he wasn’t battered on your living room floor, those words would have driven you to kiss him silly.
Your hands came to rest on his neck, tenderly keeping his weary head up as you focused.
“Okay… okay, love,” you said, nodding to yourself as your thumbs brushed softly along the dips of his cheeks. Your eyes darted around the room, trying to remember where you placed the first aid kit. You began to rise from your spot beside him, hoping to find some hydrogen peroxide and gauze to clean out the gash by his hairline. A strong hand on your wrist held you back.
“Don’t… please stay,” he said, his brows curling up as he pleaded his case.
“Clark, I need to get stuff to clean you up…we need to fix you,” you said, brushing back some curls to get a look at the wound.
“The sun will be up soon… I’ll be fine,” he said. “Please, just stay, sunshine.”
Your hands moved to cup his face once again, gently leaning in to place a soft kiss to his temple.
“Please, I can’t see you like this. Just let me make you better?” you asked.
Clark always knew his biggest weakness was kryptonite, but somewhere along the way, that changed. Somehow, it became you. He never could deny you, say no, or dare to not put your needs or wants before his own. It didn’t matter if it was inconvenient or difficult or even impossible; if it was for you, he’d make it happen. He could see the fear and devotion in your eyes; he knew the sight of himself was crushing you. You needed comfort, you needed to feel useful, as if somehow you could make it all okay for him. He knew he’d be fine with a few hours, but if you needed to patch him up, then so be it. Who was he to say no when you asked?
“Yeah… of course, baby,” he said, his hand gingerly squeezing yours before letting you go. With a relieved sigh, you rushed to the kitchen. You didn’t miss the needy sigh that left his lips at your absence.
Krypto dashed from the couch, following you through the apartment as you checked your cabinets. You carded through the bathroom until you gathered everything you’d need. Rushing back to Clark’s side, you could feel the pounding of your heart begin to slow. Words ran through your mind, repeating like a mantra as you tried to compose yourself. He’s okay, he’s alive, he’s here.
You spilled your medical stash along the rug as you returned to his side. You gently began to wash out the first cut you saw. You stretched over him as you worked, kneeling but no longer resting on your legs as you found the best angle to wash out the wound. Your hands worked quickly, stopping the bleeding before applying butterfly plasters to close it.
Somewhere lost in your mission, you noticed the weight of the superbeing below you melting into your chest. Clark’s head rested safely against your chest. His good arm wrapped around your thighs, keeping you as close as he could with the strength he had. The sound of his breathing still left you shaky, but his sighs of content helped.
By the time you had finished, the sun began to creep its way over the sky-high buildings of Metropolis. Warm light filtered in through your apartment, casting deep shadows before banishing them with a brighter day. Your hands gently shook Clark.
“Love, sun’s up,” you said. His strength was returning, but he still had injuries only the yellow sun could fix. He slung his arm around you and helped you pull him up as you moved him over to the window.
You did your best to hold him still and steady as the bright glow of the sun coated his body. You were never around when he took his time to heal; you never saw the way he thrashed and cried out at the pain. As much as it killed you to hear his whimpers, you held him firmly, using what little strength you had as a human to keep the god-like man in your arms upright.
With one last cry, Clark sagged back into your arms. You struggled to keep him rooted, but he soon caught himself. You watched as he drew in deep, long breaths, air finally filling his lungs without the eerie rattle you’d never get out of your head. His hands gripped your arm and hip. His arm was straightened out, firm and taut once again. With one last breath, he stretched back up.
“Are-are you okay?” you asked, your hands once again moving around in search of any surprise injuries you may have missed. With a soft laugh, Clark took your hands and pressed a kiss to your palms. He pulled you in closer, cupping the back of your head and slipping his fingers through your hair.
“I’m fine, sunshine. I said I would be,” he said, pulling you close and resting his forehead to yours. “You took care of me.”
You nodded at his words, falling into his chest as your arms wrapped tightly around him. Calloused hands stroked your hair and held you to him as he placed kisses on the top of your head. You peeked around Clark’s large frame to see Krypto stretched over the couch, his tail thumping at the faded leather as he watched you both.
“I’m glad Krypto brought you to me,” you said, resting your head back over Clark’s heart. The steady beat filled your ear and soothed any anxieties that settled in your bones.
Clark rested his chin atop your head, sighing softly as he squeezed you gently, “He brought me home.”
---
I hope you liked it! kinda quick and eh but thx for reading <3
summary: it's obvious to everyone at the daily planet that y/n and clark have an unspoken thing going on. one late night at the office might just be what they need to stop dancing around it.
pairings: reader x clark kent (superman2025!)
warnings: honestly no warnings! just some fluff! enjoy!
It’s Monday morning when the elevator dings and Clark Kent steps into the Daily Planet bullpen, coffee in one hand, tie slightly crooked like he was in a rush or maybe just landed from saving someone on the other side of the city.
The second his eyes land on her, his entire face lights up.
“Morning, Y/N,” he says, already heading toward her desk.
Y/N smiles instantly. Soft, warm. The kind of smile she can’t help when it comes to him. “Hi, Clark. Rough morning?”
“Only until now.”
He leans against the front desk, one elbow propped like he always does, casual and relaxed but completely focused on her. It’s early still and the newsroom is only just beginning to wake up behind him, but to Clark, it’s like she’s the only person in the room.
“Did you do anything fun this weekend?”
“Mmm…” Y/N hums thoughtfully. “Laundry. Watched a movie. Made banana bread and then ate almost all of it by myself. So, yeah. Wild times.”
Clark smiles, tilting his head. “That sounds amazing. What movie?”
“27 Dresses. Again. I’m predictable.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He pauses for just a beat— just enough. “Did you hang out with anyone or…?”
The question hangs in the air like a feather, light but intentional. Y/N swears her heartbeat skips.
“Just me and my cat,” she says, praying her voice doesn’t shake. “Who is very judgmental of my taste in men, by the way.”
Clark laughs, head tipping back. That soft, Clark Kent laugh that starts low and easy and always makes her stomach flip.
“Smart cat.”
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, cheeks burning. Her smile wobbles but doesn’t fade. He glances toward his desk but doesn’t walk away— not really. Instead, he starts walking backward, still facing her, his grin easy and boyish.
“Okay, well… I’ll try to be productive, but if you need anything— brownie taste testing, banana bread reviews, moral support—”
“You’ll be the first I call,” she says, grinning.
He salutes her with two fingers and turns around just in time to narrowly avoid colliding with Jimmy, who swerves around him like he’s used to it.
Y/N watches him go, heart fluttering, hands curled against the edge of her desk like she needs something to ground her.
Then—
“You cannot be serious,” a voice says directly in front of her.
Y/N startles and whips around to find Cat standing at the other side of the desk, iced coffee in hand, jaw practically on the floor.
“That kinda felt like an HR violation.”
Y/N’s eyes widen. “What?”
“The tension, Y/N. The giggles. You’re basically the plot of a Hallmark movie. You just need a snowstorm and a dead cell phone.”
Y/N opens her mouth to deny it, to say anything, something, but before she can say a word, Lois strolls by with a stack of folders, completely unbothered.
“Please,” Lois says. “Even I ship it. And I have a heart made of coffee and sarcasm.”
Y/N buries her face in her hands as both women walk off, laughing between themselves.
The phone rings. She reaches for it with shaky fingers, still burning with embarrassment, and answers in a voice much calmer than she feels.
“Daily Planet, this is Y/N… how can I help you?”
She sets the phone back down gently, biting back a smile. Just before she looks away, she sneaks one last glance toward the bullpen.
Clark is already looking at her.
He doesn’t look away.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆
It’s just after noon when Y/N walks into the breakroom with her lunch, only to find Clark already there at the table with his tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, glasses slightly crooked, reading something on his phone.
He looks up and lights up.
“Hey!” he says, scooting over instinctively to make space beside him. “I was hoping I’d see you.”
Y/N’s heart stutters. “This is the only breakroom in the building.”
“Still,” he shrugs, like that doesn’t matter. “Doesn’t hurt to hope.”
She takes the seat beside him and pulls out her tupperware. Before she can even open it, he’s already peeking at it.
“What’d you bring today?”
“Just a salad,” she says. “Trying to be healthy. Which is why I also packed cookies.”
Clark grins. “Balance. I respect it.”
He opens his own container— some kind of sandwich and a bag of fruit. The moment her fork hits her salad, Clark casually reaches over and plucks a baby carrot straight out of her container.
“Clark!” she gasps, half laughing, half scandalized.
“You can’t just open with the good stuff,” he says, chewing innocently. “You’re setting yourself up for a carrot heist.”
“Oh really?” she raises an eyebrow, and then, without warning, snatches a grape from his fruit bag.
He stares at her, mock betrayal all over his face. “You’ve crossed a line.”
“We’re at war now.”
They dissolve into quiet giggles, bumping shoulders, passing food back and forth like kids in a cafeteria. Every time Y/N looks at him, he’s already looking at her. Every time he laughs, it lingers too long.
Across the room, Lois walks in carrying her own lunch bag and stops in her tracks at the sight.
Jimmy enters right behind her, sipping a smoothie, nearly collides into her.
“What’s— oh. Wow.”
They both stand there, watching Clark and Y/N like they’re an interactive romcom being screened live in the breakroom.
“This is getting hard to watch” Jimmy says.
“I know,” Lois says. “they’re still in the ‘accidentally flirting and sharing lunch like an old married couple’ phase.”
Jimmy frowns. “How many phases are there?”
“Too many,” Lois mutters. “I swear to god, if he doesn’t ask her out soon, I’m calling Cat and staging an intervention.”
Back at the table, Y/N leans her cheek into her palm, smiling as Clark tells her a story about how he got caught in the rain on the way back home last Friday.
“I’m serious,” Lois says. “We’re days away from full blown mutual pining collapse.”
Jimmy slurps his smoothie. “Should we make another powerpoint?”
“Oh, we’re way past powerpoint. It’s time for Clark to step up.”
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆
An hour after lunch, the office is back in its usual controlled chaos— phones ringing, keyboards clacking, reporters speed walking across the bullpen. Perry is out on a client lunch, which means the energy in the building has shifted just enough to feel a little more relaxed.
Y/N’s back at her desk, typing up something on the computer, when she senses movement from her left.
She glances up and sees Clark sneaking behind her desk like he owns the place.
“Clark,” she warns, already grinning, “if Perry sees you, you’re gonna get yelled at again.”
“He’s out at lunch,” Clark says, grinning smugly. “Perfect window of opportunity.”
“Perfect window for what, exactly?”
“Conversation. Bonding. A brief but meaningful escape from my job.”
Y/N shakes her head, biting back a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
Clark leans over the back of her chair, peering at her monitor. “What are you working on?”
“A calendar of everyone’s birthdays. We just got those new interns. So I need to keep track of who gets a cookie cake and who gets a fruit tart.”
“You take this job way too seriously.”
“And you are very nosy for someone who doesn’t even sit on this side of the building.”
He starts picking up random things on her desk— tapping her stapler like it’s a piano, spinning her pen cup, rifling through her post it notes.
“Clark!” she swats at his hand, giggling. “Stop touching things!”
“I’m just investigating,” he says innocently. “Very official Daily Planet business.”
“You’re a menace.”
“I’m curious.”
He picks up a tiny knit frog keychain from beside her monitor and holds it up. “What’s this?”
Y/N snatches it back. “That’s Gerald. Don’t disrespect him.”
Clark laughs, full and bright, and she smiles despite herself, cheeks warm. They’re close enough that their arms keep brushing. He rests his elbows on the back of her chair like he’s settling in.
And then, of course, the elevator dings.
They both freeze.
Out walks Perry, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, lunch to-go bag in one hand, squinting like he already knows he’s about to be disappointed.
Y/N reacts on instinct.
She grabs a stack of random folders from her inbox and thrusts them into Clark’s hands like it was planned all along.
“Here are the folders you asked for, Clark,” she says quickly, voice sweet. “Thank you for reminding me! I completely forgot about it.”
Clark blinks. Looks down at the folders. Realizes what she’s doing a second too late and in his rush to look casual, he trips over the side of her chair.
Y/N slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.
Clark catches himself on the desk, somehow still holding the folders.
Perry stops in his tracks, glares at the two of them.
“I can’t leave you two alone for one hour? One?”
Y/N blinks innocently, still seated, hands folded like she hasn’t been conspiring all day. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Chief.”
Clark opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries to give a polite, professional smile while holding a folder upside down.
Perry sighs heavily. “Get back to work.”
He stomps toward his office. The second his door shuts, Y/N leans forward and in a fit of giggles whispers, “You almost took me down with you.”
Clark leans back in, whispering, “Gerald was nearly a casualty.”
Y/N bit back a smile, shaking her head, and Clark just watches her with that soft, helpless smile that says he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆
The sky’s already dark when Y/N slides into the booth beside Lois. Cat’s across from them, looking like she stepped out of a Vogue cover shoot— heels off under the table, martini in hand, halfway through her story about a man named Marco who apparently did not know how to properly hold chopsticks.
“So then, he orders the sashimi platter like he knows what he’s doing,” Cat says, gesturing wildly with a fry, “and stabs the tuna with the chopsticks like a weirdo.”
Lois snorts into her glass of red wine. Y/N lets out a soft giggle, leaning her cheek against her hand, fully wrapped up in the story.
“And I said, ‘If I wanted someone to mangle fish in front of me, I’d have gone to an aquarium with a toddler.’” Cat pops the fry into her mouth, smug. “Check, please.”
Y/N smiles, warm and easy. “You’re ruthless.”
“I’m efficient,” Cat corrects, picking up another fry. “Which is more than I can say for certain people’s love lives.”
Lois doesn’t even blink. “Oh, here we go.”
Cat leans forward. “Y/N. Doll. Be honest. What’s going on with you and Clark?”
Y/N groans, sinking lower in her seat. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Y/N—”
“I mean it. We talk. We laugh. We eat lunch together. And then he goes home and I go home and that’s it.”
Cat raises an eyebrow. “He leans on your desk like he’s a model in a perfume ad.”
“He walks backward to keep talking to you,” Lois adds. “That’s insane.”
Y/N shakes her head, half-laughing. “He’s just like that. He’s nice.”
“Sure,” Cat says. “But he’s not like that with anyone else.”
Y/N doesn’t respond.
Lois nudges her shoulder gently. “What’s going on in your head?”
Y/N stares at her water glass. Twists the ring around her thumb.
“I’ve worked here for a year now,” she says quietly. “A whole year. And he’s never once asked me to hang out outside of work. Not on a weekend. Not even after hours.”
Lois frowns.
“If he liked me,” Y/N continues, “he would’ve done something by now. Right? I mean— if he wanted to… he would’ve.”
There’s a pause. Cat puts her drink down.
“Y/N,” Lois says gently, “Clark doesn’t go out with me and Jimmy unless we bribe him with pie and drag him out by the sleeves of his flannel. I’ve known that man for years. You think he’s out at karaoke bars making weekend plans?”
“He’s a literal recluse,” Cat chimes in. “He’s sweet, sure. Friendly. But that whole leaning on your desk, sharing his lunch, almost tripping over himself when he sees you thing? That’s just for you.”
Y/N blinks.
“No really,” Cat says. “He’s not like that with anyone else. Everyone sees it. It’s honestly a miracle Perry hasn’t fully banned him from walking up to reception.”
Lois smirks. “You should see the betting pool Jimmy started.”
Y/N’s quiet. She stirs her water with her straw and keeps her eyes down.
But her voice is small when she says, “I just don’t want to get my hopes up.”
And that’s when Cat reaches across the table and taps her hand.
“You’re not imagining it,” she says softly. “I promise.”
Y/N doesn’t answer. But there’s a look in her eyes now. Hope creeping back in, whether she wants it or not.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆
The week had gone by with business as usual. Now it’s Friday morning, phones ringing, keyboards tapping, reporters rushing across the bullpen. Y/N’s sorting through interoffice envelopes when Perry strides over with his signature coffee and deadline scowl.
“Y/N,” he says, not even stopping as he passes. “Need you to stay late tonight.”
She blinks. “Tonight?”
“There’s a package coming in late. Important. Needs to go straight into my office and get locked up. I’ll leave you the key.”
She squints at him, raising an eyebrow. “What kind of package are we talking about? Alien egg? Blackmail? More novelty mugs?”
Perry stops. Turns. Gives her the look.
She lifts her hands in surrender. “Okay, yeah. Fine. I’ll stay.”
“You didn’t really have an option,” he says, already walking away.
Y/N watches him go, lips pursed, eyebrows high.
A familiar presence appears beside her— Clark, coffee in hand, sleeves rolled up, tie slightly loose like always. He leans on her desk, eyes flicking after Perry with an amused smile.
“What was that about?”
Y/N huffs and crosses her arms. “Apparently I’m babysitting a mystery package for Perry tonight. He wants me to stay until it’s delivered and lock it in his office.”
Clark tilts his head. “Weird.”
“Right?” she sighs. “There goes my Friday plans.”
His eyebrows lift, interested. “Oh? What were your plans?”
She doesn’t even try to make it sound impressive. “I was gonna start a new show. Maybe paint my nails. Eat something terrible for me. Classic Friday night self care.”
Clark grins. “Sounds pretty perfect.”
She shrugs, clearly frustrated. “Well, was perfect. Now I get to sit in a half lit office waiting for a secret government briefcase or something.”
He’s quiet for a second. “I can stay with you.”
Y/N blinks. “What? No, Clark, oh my god, no. You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “But I can. And I want to.”
She softens. “Clark. It’s Friday. You’ve had such a long week. Go do something fun.”
He laughs. “I was just gonna sit on my couch all night, but I guess I’ll reschedule.”
She glares playfully, tilting her head. “Are you sure?”
And it’s that voice— gentle, almost a whisper, paired with those wide eyes and the faintest pout. He’s helpless.
Clark leans in just a little, grinning. “Yes, I’m sure. Plus… I’ve heard weird things happen around here at night. Can’t leave you alone with the ghosts.”
Y/N giggles, shaking her head. “You’re such a dork.”
“And yet, here I am. Your brave, ghost fighting dork.”
She rolls her eyes, cheeks warm. “I’m making you cookies after this.”
“I accept your offering.”
They both smile, soft and lingering. Neither of them says it out loud, but somehow, this little moment feels like the start of something.
Something more.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆
The sun’s dipping lower outside the tall windows, casting golden streaks across the bullpen. The office is buzzing with weekend energy— chairs scraping against the floor with urgency, everyone packing up for the weekend.
Y/N’s at her desk, finishing up the last bit of data entry, when her work besties Cat, Lois, and Jimmy stroll up together—coats on, bags slung over their shoulders, mid-conversation and laughing.
“Okay, but tell me why the bartender gave him my number,” Cat says, flabbergasted. “He couldn’t even pronounce ‘prosecco.’”
“You attract chaos,” Lois replies flatly.
“It’s called charm,” Cat shoots back.
Jimmy’s snorting into his scarf. “Wait— is this the one with the bad tattoo?”
“Oh, we’re not even halfway through the story,” Cat says, smug. “But first— I need to know what you two are doing tonight.”
She points between Lois and Jimmy.
“Trivia night,” Jimmy says, holding up a finger. “At that one bar with the disco ball.”
Lois shrugs. “We get free fries if we win. Or lose. I actually forgot which.”
Cat gasps. “Oh, I love that place— Y/N, you should come!”
Y/N straightens up, surprised. “Oh— I can’t. I have to stay late.”
Lois raises an eyebrow. “What, like, work late?”
“Yeah, Perry asked me to wait for some package. I have to lock it in his office or something.”
Cat blinks. “What kind of shady mystery package needs after hours babysitting?”
Y/N just shrugs. “Something deeply confidential, I’m sure. Definitely not a box of new Planet merch.”
Jimmy squints. “He’s really making you cancel your Friday night plans for a package?”
“I was gonna start a show and paint my nails, but, you know…” She trails off, trying to sound casual. “Stuff happens.”
Cat tilts her head. “So you’re just… staying here? Alone?”
Y/N opens her mouth to respond, but then—right on cue— Clark walks past with two sodas in hand. He pauses at the desk and holds one out to her.
“here,” he says with a grin. “Thought it might be a long night.”
“Thank you,” Y/N says softly, taking the can from his hands.
Clark smiles at the group, gives a little nod, and walks off toward the bullpen like nothing is out of the ordinary.
Silence.
Then—
“Ohhhh,” Cat says slowly, eyes narrowing.
“Interesting,” Jimmy murmurs.
Lois doesn’t even blink. “Just go ahead and tell him your ring size already.”
Lois shrugs. “If this were a romcom, we’d be in the third act.”
“I’m just saying,” Cat grins, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I expect a full update by Monday morning. If there’s not at least one romantic rooftop moment, I’m staging a coup.”
Y/N hides her smile behind her coffee. “Goodnight, guys.”
They all leave, still teasing, still laughing and Y/N turns back to her desk with a soft flutter in her chest and a blush she knows they saw.
She looks toward Clark across the bullpen, already setting up his desk and moving files he definitely doesn’t have to go over.
And all she can think about is the fact that he stayed.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆
The bullpen is quiet now. Phones silenced. Lights dimmed. The energy of the day long gone, leaving behind the soft hum of a city winding down outside.
Y/N flips the laminated “BE BACK SOON” sign over and sticks it onto the counter. Beside it, she places a tiny silver desk bell with a handwritten note taped underneath:
“Please ring to notify staff (just me).”
She gives the bell a soft tap—just to test it—then smiles to herself and grabs her soda.
Across the room, the glow of Clark’s computer screen lights up the corner by his desk. He’s pulled a second chair beside his just close enough that their knees will probably bump. And he’s scrolling through HBO Max, sleeves rolled up, tie no longer on his neck.
He looks up as she approaches, and his whole face softens.
“Hey,” he says. “Pizza should be here any minute. Just put on whatever show you were planning to watch tonight.”
Y/N melts. Actually melts.
“You really didn’t have to do all this,” she says, voice gentle. “Seriously.”
Clark shrugs, still smiling. “Well… I wanted to.”
She stares at him, heart thudding in her chest.
“I know you’d do the same for me,” he adds, like it’s the simplest truth in the world.
Y/N swallows, throat suddenly tight. She sits down beside him— close, because the chair was definitely placed intentionally— and leans over to reach for the mouse, fingers a little shaky on the keyboard.
Clark leans back, relaxed, content.
And Y/N can’t help but glance sideways at him as she scrolls, her heart full, her mind buzzing.
He stayed. He ordered pizza. He pulled up her show. He noticed.
And now, in the soft hum of the quiet newsroom, as the cursor hovers over the first episode, all she can think is,
If this isn’t something… then what is?
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆
The screen still glows in front of them, the second episode long over, the third one paused on the title screen. Neither of them has noticed.
Y/N’s laughing, cheeks flushed, as she tosses a grape into the air.
Clark leans back in his chair, eyes focused, mouth open just slightly to catch it.
It lands perfectly. He crunches it triumphantly and throws his hands in the air like he just won Olympic gold.
“That’s four in a row,” he says through a grin. “I’m unstoppable.”
Y/N snorts, tossing another grape into the bowl. “Who would’ve thought you’d have great reflexes?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Offended that you’re surprised.”
“Sorry, farm boy,” she teases, nudging his knee with hers. “You just don’t give off ‘grape catching champion’ energy.”
Clark laughs again, eyes crinkling, and for a moment it’s just that. The warmth, the ease, the closeness between them.
But then the conversation shifts. Naturally. Softly.
Clark’s voice lowers just slightly as he asks, “Do you think you’ll always stay at the front desk?”
Y/N leans her head against the back of the chair, her smile faltering but not fading. “No,” she says honestly. “I don’t think so.”
He watches her carefully, gently. Encouraging without pressure.
“I have a degree in communications,” she continues. “Didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it at first. Still don’t, most days. But…”
She sits up straighter, eyes a little brighter now.
“I want to do something that matters, you know? Something meaningful. I want to help people. Make the world better— even a little.”
Clark’s quiet for a moment, but not because he doesn’t know what to say.
Not because he thinks it’s dumb, but because he’s in awe.
“That’s… amazing,” he says, and he means it.
Y/N shrugs a little, brushing it off. “I mean, I know it sounds kind of idealistic.”
“No,” he says firmly. “It sounds like you.”
She looks at him, soft and a little stunned.
“I want that too,” Clark adds. “To make a difference.”
She tilts her head. “Is that why you got into journalism?”
He hesitates. Just for a beat.
Because the real answer is
Yes. That and flying halfway around the world to pull people from earthquakes and floods.Yes, because he has to, because if he doesn't, then who will?
But he smiles gently and nods. “Yeah. That’s a big part of it.”
She beams. “Well… you’re doing a good job.”
Clark laughs softly, almost shyly. “Thanks.”
“No, I mean it,” Y/N says, turning fully toward him now. “You’re a really great writer. I always look forward to reading your pieces.”
Clark’s smile grows, the tips of his ears turning pink.
“Your interviews with Superman,” she adds, “those are my favorite. You do such a good job capturing his… humanity. Like, he’s not just this untouchable hero. You make him feel real.”
That one hits him square in the chest.
He swallows around the lump in his throat. “That means a lot. Really.”
They’re sitting closer now. Their knees brushing. Shoulders turned in. Faces only inches apart.
The overhead lights are dimmed, but the soft glow from the computer screen and the city lights outside wrap around them like a secret.
Clark looks at her like he’s memorizing her.
Y/N looks at him like she’s never felt safer in her life.
And just for a second, neither of them moves.
The office is silent, all that can be heard is the hum of the city beyond the windows. The paused episode still glows faintly on the screen, but neither of them is looking at it.
They’re looking at each other.
Clark, with that soft, unwavering gaze.
Y/N, with a heart that feels too big for her chest.
Her voice is barely above a whisper when she says it.
“Your eyes are so blue.”
Clark blinks, a little startled by the quiet honesty of it, but then he smiles, slow and gentle, like she’s just handed him the sun.
“Yeah?” he murmurs.
She nods, cheeks warm. “Like… ridiculously blue. It’s honestly unfair.”
He huffs a soft laugh, and for a second it’s all playful. But then he says—
“Your smile,” he tells her, voice dipping just slightly. “That’s unfair.”
Y/N blushes, ducking her head down, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her sweater. She’s giggling a little, biting the inside of her cheek, clearly flustered.
Clark watches her. Warm, steady, completely gone.
Then, gently, he reaches out and tilts her chin up with two fingers.
She blinks at him, eyes wide, lips parted.
And he leans in. Slow. And kisses her.
It’s soft.
Short and sweet.
A little unsure at the edges.
But when they pull apart, Y/N’s already smiling.
She doesn’t even hesitate— just reaches up, slides her fingers behind his neck, and pulls him back in.
This time, the kiss is fuller. Real. Her other hand slips over his heart. His rests on her waist. They melt into it, breath hitching, giggling quietly between kisses like they can’t believe it’s finally happening.
When they break apart, their foreheads touch.
They’re glowing.
Breathing the same air, grinning like idiots.
“I can’t believe—” Y/N starts, but she’s cut off by Clark’s nose bumping hers, and they both laugh.
And of course–
The bell at the front desk rings sharply across the empty bullpen.
They jump like they’ve been caught.
Clark instinctively straightens up. Y/N covers her mouth, wide eyed.
“Delivery,” a voice calls from the elevator area. “Got a package for a Perry White?”
Clark looks at her. She looks at him.
And they burst out laughing.
The bell echoes once more as Y/N and Clark round the corner from his desk. There’s a shift now. Like something in the air between them has changed. Every glance is softer. Every brush of fingers feels electric.
They’re quiet as they walk side by side toward the front, but Clark’s hand hovers for just a second before settling gently at the small of her back.
Y/N’s heart nearly trips over itself.
The delivery guy is already waiting, clipboard in hand and a large, mysterious box on the counter.
Y/N steps forward to sign, her voice just slightly higher than usual when she says, “Thanks so much. Sorry about the wait.”
“No problem,” the guy shrugs, handing over the pen.
Clark stays close, warm and steady at her side. She signs quickly, hands it back, and the moment the guy walks off, Y/N turns to lift the box just to find Clark’s already got it.
“Clark!” she gasps.
“What?” he says innocently. “You’re off duty now. Consider me your very tall assistant.”
Y/N shakes her head, lips tugging into a smile. “You’re so annoying.”
“And yet, you just kissed me,” he teases.
She bites back a laugh, blushing furiously.
They walk together down the hallway toward Perry’s office, Clark carrying the box like it weighs nothing, his free hand brushing hers every few steps.
“So…” Y/N says, glancing at the box. “What do you think it is? Please tell me it’s not another singing wall clock.”
“Oh no,” Clark says seriously. “I’m hoping for a cursed typewriter. Or maybe alien coffee beans. Something to spice things up.”
“Alien beans that give you superpowers,” Y/N nods. “But only for thirty minutes. And only if you drink them iced.”
Clark grins. “Dangerous.”
“Very.”
They reach Perry’s door. Clark sets the box down gently as Y/N fishes out the office key from her cardigan pocket.
He watches her with that same quiet affection.
And when she opens the door, they carry the box in together. Shoulders brushing, laughter still lingering between them.
Everything’s the same.
And nothing is.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆
The night is quiet outside the Planet. The streets are calmer now, city lights casting a golden glow over the sidewalk. Down near the employee lot, Clark and Y/N walk out together, side by side, but slower now. Hesitant.
They come to a stop near the entrance.
Neither of them says anything.
Y/N clutches her purse with both hands, fishing blindly for her keys. Clark’s standing a little too still, like he doesn’t want to move yet. The air between them is warm but thick with something new.
She pulls her keys out. Fumbles with them.
“So…” she starts, looking up at him, voice light. “I guess I’ll see you Monday.”
Clark opens his mouth— then shuts it.
Y/N offers a soft, slightly nervous smile. “Unless, you know, Perry needs another after hours package guardian.”
Clark laughs quietly.
Then after a second–
“Y/N,” he says, stepping forward just enough to close the space between them. “Do you… want to go out with me tomorrow?”
Her breath catches.
He’s still smiling, but it’s a little unsure now, like he’s bracing himself for the answer, heart on the line.
And Y/N?
Her whole face lights up.
“Yes,” she says, almost too quickly. Then softer, “I’d really like that.”
Clark’s grin widens, that quiet, beaming kind of happy like the whole world just clicked into place.
They turn toward the lot, starting to walk toward their cars. But after only a few steps,
Y/N pauses.
Turns back.
And before he can even react, she grabs him gently by the collar of his shirt, pulling him down into another kiss.
Clark’s hands immediately settle on her waist, grounding him, pulling her just a little closer.
This kiss is full. Sure. No shyness left. Just them, wrapped up in a week’s worth of laughter and months of almosts.
When she finally pulls away, her hands still resting on his chest, she looks up at him with a teasing smile.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Smallville.”
Clark’s eyes are wide, stunned, lips still parted.
She walks away like it’s nothing. Calm, composed, a complete contrast to the chaos she’s just left behind in his chest.
He watches her go. Watches her unlock her car. Watches her glance back once and wave before getting in.
And all he can do is stand there, dazed, smiling like an idiot under the streetlight.
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, and 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. You 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 yet 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, well, 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.”
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, but 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, but 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, but 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 taking him in. “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, but 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 and 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 next 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. 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. Slow 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 yo, 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!!)
That is peak soft Superman and I loved it to bits. Mind you it took me 3 days because I kept getting interrupted and because it's #superlong, which is a pain when you're reading on Tumblr because if you close the page, you have to scroll all the way back to where you semi-remember you were at, but oh my god. I loved it so much. This part got me good too:
Lex has studied Superman so much that he knew he would collapse in his good boy attitude about the dog. He knew he would literally flip a table over it. So what did he do?
Just took his lil stupid mug and didn't even flinch. This man is not scared. He knows what he has in front of him and he's ready to push every damn button he can to show the world he's right.
summary: you survive the metropolis museum and just really miss clark. its a shame you have to settle for a disappointed superman instead
content: a lecture from superman, clark kent is silly, everyone's in love!!
As it turns out, the building toppling into the museum was kind of Superman-bait.
You figure this out on your hospital bed, the gash on your arm freshly wrapped in bandages and gauze. You're embarrassingly winded after all those lung tests, and are still seeing spots from when you had a light shone into your eyes. Though her work is done, the nurse who did it is hovering over your side, her eyes fixed to the TV.
“There’s a major development in our story involving the Metropolis Museum of Art,” one of the newscasters begins, her tone rehearsed in that way all people on TV speak. “We have just received word that the collapse of its neighboring building, an empty but newly built office complex, was caused by an explosive placed on its fourth floor.
“Officials believe that this device was planted to distract emergency services from the bank robbery in the Central Business District. While it is still unclear how much money was stolen, early estimates suggest losses upwards of seventy-thousand dollars. Bill Rossi is on location with the details. Over to you, Bill.”
The screen cuts to a man in his mid-forties, his mustache thick and his lips pressed thin. There’s a few awkward seconds where he stares into the camera before smiling. “Thank you, Linda. Eyewitnesses believe that this may have been the work of some metahumans, with some reporting seeing ‘a blue figure with a laser gun’ blowing a hole in the side of the building…”
Your focus wanes as the camera pans over to the bank, blue goo dripping down where a wall used to be. First responders rush across the screen, walking through the wreckage of it all.
You wonder again why you chose to live in Metropolis over Central City.
You’ve never been so excited to see the steps out of the metro.
Your arm aches like crazy and you really just wish you could call Clark, but your phone fell out of your purse sometime when you were being rushed to safety.
It’s hard not to believe that this isn’t another example of the universe punishing you. You wanted a Clark-free day, and it’s what you’re getting.
Instead, you’re forced to settle for his freaky doppelganger, because Superman is leaning against a streetlight a few feet away from your metro exit.
The sentence sounds insane to even think about, but it’s a fact. He waves and grins at the few people who pass by, who beam smiles back at him. You get the urge to prod at his dimples, which are made even more pronounced by the upturn of his lips.
You weren’t lying when you told Clark that you thought Superman was great. As you walk past him, a kid wraps herself around one of his legs, and he crouches down to talk to her. The girl’s dad trails behind her, looking just as starstruck as he speaks with the hero about the thunderstorm that hit Metropolis last night.
Superman seems so genuinely happy about getting the chance to talk to everyone, and you find it surreal that he’d saved you just a few hours ago. You can’t wait to tell Clark about your first meeting with his not-friend.
Superman’s gaze lands on you, and you feel your heart break free from your ribcage.
He’s just as striking up close, the sweetness of his face offset by the intensity of his eyes. A frown flips his features, and he kindly excuses himself from the conversation he’s having before he…
Huh. That’s funny.
Superman starts walking somewhat in your direction.
You turn your eyes forward and keep walking. His gaze is so intense, you almost feel bad for anyone who’s ever been on the receiving end of it.
The rich timbre of his voice drags your thoughts away from your walk. Distantly, you hear, “Excuse me, I need to speak with you.”
Your steps falter ever so slightly, but you continue walking. You resist the urge to be nosy and look to see who Superman is flagging down, instead looking in your purse to make sure Clark’s dumb paperweight is still inside. You hadn’t checked if it’d cracked in the commotion, and you feel a little sick at the thought. You’d almost died for this thing, after all.
“Ma’am?” Superman says again. This time, he’s right beside you.
For the first time since you’ve gotten discharged from the hospital, you stop moving.
You hadn’t had much time to really look at Superman earlier. He’d flown you out of the museum and said something a little rushed and frantic — maybe a ‘get to safety!’ — before he was hurrying back inside to save more lives.
As you stare up at him now, you have a little more time to really look at him. He sounds beyond upset, but he’s just as gorgeous as he is on TV — a fact that you’ll be sure to leave out when you recount this to Clark.
You turn around to see if someone is standing around you, and frown when you come up empty. The only person on this half of the street is you.
“Oh. Hello, Superman. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were talking to me.”
“I understand. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve been meaning to speak with you,” he says, his hands falling to his hips. His eyebrows are knit together in what looks like… disappointment. You can’t help but feel like you’re in trouble.
“Okay,” you say, drawing out the last syllable. You can’t quite tell if the hospital was thorough enough in their concussion screening. “Do you mind if we do this while we walk? I really need to get back to my apartment.”
“Of course.” His voice is so agreeable you find yourself getting a little distracted. He redirects you by kindly gesturing ahead, and you find yourself leading Superman back to your home.
“Would you like me to fly you there?” he offers. “I’m sure it’d be a lot faster.”
“No, thanks. It made me a little sick last time.”
It’s not that big of a deal to you, but Superman’s frown seems to worsen. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it could make people feel like that.”
“Don’t be. It was either that or getting crushed by a falling building, right?”
Your joke seems to fuel Superman’s bad mood even more. You walk a little faster, letting him lengthen his strides.
“That’s actually what I wanted to speak with you about.”
“The museum?”
He nods, and when he turns to look down at you, the edge of his cape brushes your arm. The fabric is impossibly soft.
“When I found you, it seemed like you were walking further into the building. Is that correct?”
You wrack your brain to the moments before you were taken out of the building. Had it really only been three hours ago? It feels like it’s been a week since then.
“Well, kind of. I wasn’t trying to, like, run into the flames or anything, but I was picking up something I’d dropped. And it just happened to be further away from the door.”
The vein on his forehead seems to twitch. “Do you understand how dangerous that was?”
Your head throbs similarly. “Sorry, what?”
You aren’t sure you’re hearing him right. Is Superman… trying to lecture you?
“I feel the need to ask you what you were thinking,” he says, completely serious. “You were putting your life at risk.”
“I was hardly in danger.” You only half believe that, but can’t find it in you to agree with him. He’s somewhat hijacked your walk home, after all. “It was only an extra few seconds that I was inside the building. And, did it really matter? You were there to save me, anyway.”
“And I’m glad I was.” Superman says, his eyebrows bunching together. “Who knows what could’ve happened if I wasn’t there? Those seconds could’ve been the difference between life and death.”
You frown, but don’t respond. He’s stopped trailing slightly behind you and is now walking alongside you, absorbed in his rant.
“What could’ve possibly been so important that you were willing to risk your life for it?”
Someone gives you an odd look as you pass by. You can only imagine how weird this looks: Superman arguing with a civilian in the middle of the street. It definitely isn't something you see everyday.
Or any day, actually. You've never heard about Superman lecturing someone on proper emergency response before.
“It was a paperweight.” The admittance kind of hurts. It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud. “A Superman paperweight from the museum.”
He blinks, his eyes widening a fraction. He stutters out something, and you tilt your head, confused.
“I need you to understand that what you did was incredibly stupid. You can not and should not be putting yourself in danger for— for a thirty dollar piece of glass!”
You’re impressed at how accurate his price guess was, but irritation still flares up in your chest, souring your mood. “No offense, but you can save the lecture for someone who needs it. I’m not an eight year old.”
He holds up a finger to correct you. “Clearly, you do need it—”
“You’re not my friend or my boss,” you say, just like an eight year old, “so I appreciate the concern, babe, but I think I’m fine.”
Superman’s steps falter. His eyes glance upward. Then, they shift somewhere to the left of you. Your eyes widen as the apples of his cheeks pinken with blush.
The shiftiness, the glancing away and then around before back at you… you’ve seen it all before.
Superman has the exact same reaction to the nickname as Clark.
His doppelganger, the same man who looks just like the superhero when his glasses are off. But that couldn’t possibly mean…
No.
There’s no way.
Are you seriously considering the idea that Clark is Superman? Just because they get embarrassed the same way?
You’re being ridiculous. Superman’s name is Kal-El, and he’s some guy from Krypton. You’ve read Clark’s articles about him, the ones he’s written after interviewing him.
Interviews only Clark seems to be able to get.
You must be concussed. You're definitely just confused.
Superman continues to rattle off words at you, almost pouting with how frustrated he is. The words enter in one ear and out the other as you take him in.
From a distance, he and Clark look similar enough. They’re around the same height and have the same hair color, and the strands free of gel even seem to curl the same way. They share perfect dimples, and even though Clark hides in those baggy suits of his, you’ve seen him in those nice t-shirts he has. There’s no hiding that frankly, he’s built. Just like the man speaking with you now.
But Superman shows his face. All the time. He’s not like Batman or The Flash with their masks and hidden identities. Superman is a real man from Krypton, who probably goes home to his massive superhero lair under the city. Not your little apartment complex by the park.
But… there was the blushing. The way Superman knew exactly how much the paperweight was — the same paperweight Clark complained was too expensive. The way he knew just what metro stop you’d be getting off at, and his odd interest in your safety.
Your head is reeling.
“—I don’t have to be your friend or your boss to be worried about you,” Superman says when you tune back in. You stare blankly at the outline of his back. Could this really be Clark? “It’s up to all of us to look out for each other. The job doesn’t just fall to the people we know.”
Superman walks alongside you a little too naturally, like he’s done it a million times before. He even interrupts his rambling to remind you to watch your step when you pass by the sidewalk with the broken slab of concrete. The way he leads the charge back to your apartment is like second nature.
“So, I’m sorry, if you didn’t want to hear this, but it was very important to me that I spoke with you about this,” Superman says, gesturing very seriously.
At the end of the street, you let your steps slow, gaze fixed on the man as he continues to speak.
He’s frowning when he says, “I’m sure that you have plenty of people at home that care about you and worry about your wellbeing. So, when you act recklessly like this, you’re not only—”
Without a spoken direction from you, or with you gesturing in any way, Superman turns on his heel and leads you around the corner. Right in the direction of your shared apartment.
You grab the back of his flowing cape and tug.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t do much. He staggers back a step, but you think it’s more to do with the shock of you pulling him back, rather than any show of your strength. Superman whirls on you, startled. You step forward until your chests are nearly an inch apart, staring directly into his eyes.
“What—”
“Clark Kent,” you hiss under your breath. “You must be very proud of yourself.”
His features blow wide with shock. He blinks owlishly, surprise swimming in his blue eyes. “W-I’m not… What?”
“Oh, come on, farmboy.” You lean back to cross your arms, frowning. “I can’t believe all it took was one conversation with you in your costume to figure it all out. You couldn’t have at least pretended not to know where our apartment was?”
Superman — Clark — pulls you closer by your shoulders, holding your injured arm very gently. He throws a few glances around the empty street, like he’s checking to see if there really is no one around. It's only when he’s certain the area is clear that he coughs and lets you go.
“That’s a pretty big assumption,” ‘Superman’ says, his voice taking on an even more authoritative tone. “And one that’s untrue.”
“Superman.” Your voice softens as you say it. He stands up straighter, like he’s trying to make himself even larger than life. “You can hide under that cape all you want, but Clark Kent is going to bleed through no matter what.”
He opens his mouth, about to protest, but you continue.
“You still blush when I call you ‘babe,’” you say, watching his face light up with embarrassment. “And you still nudge me twice to switch spots so you can walk closer to the street.”
“I—That’s… you can’t…” His lips flatten into a line, frustrated, while he wrestles with what to say. When he grimaces, it looks all too familiar.
It does nothing but make you more sure.
The man in front of you is your best friend. There’s no doubt about it.
A second later, the urge to argue leaves him.
He drops his voice to a whisper, and you finally hear it for the first time today.
There’s no Superman-tone-of-voice when he speaks, no puffing out of his shoulders, or a dazzling smile meant to put scared people at ease.
He’s just your Clark when he asks, “Can we talk about this at home?”
(For the second time in one day, Clark takes you flying. This time, he makes sure to go a lot slower.)
“Krypto,” you echo, slumping back against his couch cushions. “You named your dog Krypto.”
Clark looks the picture of innocence in front of you, your knees knocking together where he sits in front of you on the ottoman. He’s since changed out of the Superman suit at your request — the sight of the symbol on his chest was making for a very distracting conversation.
As you look at Clark now, in a pair of jeans and one of his old Hanes t-shirts, you have a hard time believing the words he’s saying. He looks like any old person you’d find on the streets of Metropolis while he explains the powers and the flying to you.
Maybe you should’ve made him leave the suit on.
“He’s not even mine. I was just… dogsitting.”
“No wonder you refused to tell me what his name was.”
Clark smothers down a smile. “A bit on the nose, isn’t it?”
“Hmm. Just a bit.”
You take another sip from the glass of water he gave you. He’d told you that you were only allowed to ask questions if you’d finished the cup, but you know he’d answer no matter what.
“The whole thing with the yellow sun is pretty crazy,” you add thoughtfully. “If you photosynthesize, does that mean you’re kind of like a plant?”
“Well, I don’t photosynthesize, so, not really.”
You make a noise that’s between a scoff and a laugh. “You said, and I quote, ‘the Earth’s yellow sun is the source of my powers.’ That sounds a lot like photosynthesis to me.”
It’s kind of endearing how seriously he takes your half joke. He perks up at the chance to explain something. “Plants don’t have powers, the last time I checked, but I understand where you’re coming from. They’re converting light energy to chemical energy, but—”
Clark trails off when he looks over at you, and you don’t bother with hiding the smile on your face.
“...You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you? So you don’t have to hear the rest of my lecture about your safety?”
“There’s more?” You try not to sound shocked when you say it, but you do. “And it’s not my fault you’re so easily distracted, Superman. All I did was ask you if you’ve been faking being asleep all this time. You were the one who wanted to go into the specifics of if it’s really necessary for Kryptonians to eat food or take naps.”
He mumbles something like, “It was a really good question, actually,” before he replaces the empty glass you’re holding with his own hand. He tugs you up from the couch and you trail behind him dutifully.
You swipe over his calloused palm and squeeze until he has to let go.
He moves to the fridge and you watch him intently from your new seat atop his counter. You really like Clark. You find yourself charmed by most things he does, whether he’s hunched over his laptop working or filling up your cup.
He presses his side against your left thigh when he hands it back to you. “Here you go.”
You feel warm. “Thanks, superstar.”
Clark’s eyes shine. “That’s going to be right up on the list of nicknames with farmboy, isn’t it?”
“Oh, you bet. I’m trying to decide which one I like better.”
“I’m partial to both, I think.”
“That’s good. I like Big Blue, too.”
“I’m sure Green Lantern will be stoked to hear that.”
You lean heavily on his shoulder, and he curls an arm around you, taking care not to disturb the bandages around your bicep. Usually, you’d find the silence in the room discomforting. But there’s something so natural about being in Clark’s apartment, letting him bring you glasses of water and teasing him about whether or not he’d classify as a plant.
He squeezes your side and you let out a pleased sigh.
“Hey,” he teases. “You wanna explain why you were at the museum and not halfway to Civic City earlier?”
Right. You’d almost forgotten that you’d lied to him about that. Your chest pangs with regret.
“I was buying you a gift.” You gesture back in the direction of his front door, where you left the piece of glass by his key dish. “Remember? The ridiculously expensive paperweight?”
“Yeah, I remember.” His voice is light, but you recognize this sidehug for what it really is.
Clark is softening you up to get you to confess. And the worst part is — you think it’s going to work.
“What was the occasion, though?” he adds, very nonchalantly.
“No occasion,” you answer quickly. You squeeze your eyes shut and try not to lean too close to him. “It was just because.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s real sweet of you.”
“Well, you’re a sweet friend.” You press your lips together firmly to try and resist the urge to spill your guts to him. “You don’t believe I’d buy you a gift just because?”
Clark laughs. “I believe you. But I also know that’s not the case right now. I notice a lot more than you think.”
“Yeah? And what are your supersenses telling you, Superman?”
He seems amused. “Well, I can hear the sound of your heart beating a little faster.” He brushes your hair away from your face to look at you better. “You blink more often when you lie, and you try not to look at me as much. But you also don't like eye contact when you're embarrassed, so sometimes it's hard to tell. I usually can though."
His words have pulled the rug out from under you, and he can tell.
You’ve never felt so… seen before. You notice all of Clark’s weird quirks because you really like him, and honestly have for a while. You never once expected that he’d been doing the same for you — taking note of your tells and habits.
The little smile on his face grows. “You’re not the only one who knows the other person so well.”
You can’t help it. You poke at one of his dimples, and his warm laughter curls up inside your chest.
“Whatever, detective.”
“Are you going to tell me, then?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll pay for your coffee next week,” he bribes.
“You do that anyway,” you point out. “I’ll tell you for free. As long as there’s no dinner pancakes for the next two weeks.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Deathly.”
He crosses his arms in front of his chest while he mulls it over. The idea is very serious to him, apparently.
After a few seconds, he says, “Alright, fine. No pancakes. Now get talking, superstar.”
Your lips press together while you look at him, and his eyes remain on your face even when you glance away.
The feeling of his gaze feels like little pinpricks on your skin. You wonder how much of that is Superman, and how much of that is Clark.
This entire situation is just so embarrassing.
“I was avoiding you,” you admit, dropping your voice to a whisper.
The words sound harsh, but he seems to take them head on. His head tilts. “Why?”
You whack his shoulder. “Did you forget the part where I joked about wanting to be in Superman’s harem? And then immediately told you that you were the spitting image of him?”
Clark’s lips turn up into a closed-mouth grin.
“You freaked out, and then I freaked out, so I assumed—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, cutting off your rambling with a hand on your thigh, “I wasn’t freaked out by what you’d said. I was worried you’d put it together. About me being Superman. You’d never seen me without my glasses on before.”
You frown. “My first thought when I realized that you looked the same wasn’t that you were Superman. I was more annoyed that you looked cute with or without your glasses on.”
Clark flushes red. You preen.
“My glasses,” he says, like he’s just remembered something. He pats around his collar until he finds the frames, the temples tucked into the neckline of his shirt. “I forgot to tell you. They’re Hypno-Glasses. They kind of mess with your head. Trick you into thinking I look a lot different than I actually do.”
He slips them on, and your lips part.
It’s just like it was last night. The difference on his face is there, you just can’t pinpoint where, or how.
You urge Clark closer until he’s standing between your legs, your gaze transfixed on his face. His eyes go a little crosseyed with how close you are, the remnants of his blush still lingering on his cheeks.
You hold onto the frames and push them up slightly, until they no longer obscure his features.
It’s so weird. It feels like your eyes are straining, but when you blink, the tension is gone, and Clark’s face changes.
“Woah.” It’s all you can manage to say.
He looks a little shy under your attention, which is funny when you consider the fact that he moonlights as a public figure. “How different do I look?”
You hum, letting the glasses slip back down his nose bridge. Your touch lingers on his shoulders. “Not too different. It’s kind of like… like when Catherine upstairs got her haircut. Your face is the same, but it’s also managed to change everything.”
His eyes dance over your face, and you find yourself a little self-conscious. You wonder just how well he can read you with his enhanced senses. Your hands feel clammy.
“Sorry, it’s hard to explain. You already know you still look cute, if that’s what you’re worried about,” you add.
He smiles to himself, his eyes cast downwards. “I’ll sleep a lot better tonight, thanks.”
“You’re always welcome, Clark.”
His line of sight trails down to something by your side, and he stiffens. “Your arm.”
You glance down and see what he’s so worried about. The cut on your bicep has bled through the bandages slightly, a small blot of red blooming there.
When you look back up at Clark, he’s already digging through the cabinets over the sink.
“What’re you looking for?” you ask, raising your voice over the sound of various cleaning supplies being knocked over.
His head pops back out, a white box in his hands. “This.”
It’s a first aid kit, which he drops down next to you on the counter. A thin layer of dust flies up, and he waves it away with the back of his hand. Clark cracks open the container and begins to take stock of what’s inside, his face screwed up in thought.
“Hey, Superman,” you say, leaning over on the counter to look through it with him. It’s full of all the medical supplies you could ever possibly imagine. “What hospital did you rob for this?”
He raises an eyebrow at you, reaching for something towards the bottom. “I bought this myself, actually.”
“I thought the big yellow Sun helps you heal.”
“It does.” He answers you absentmindedly, squinting at a small packet of… something.
You pick up a yellow tube on the top of the pile. “Then who’s the Neosporin for?”
“You.”
Clark gives you about five seconds to let the words sink in before he says, “Ha! Here it is.”
It’s a roll of bandages. He gestures for you to stick out your arm, which you do without a word. You feel dizzy.
“Sorry—this is for me?”
“Yep.” He’s winding another thin layer of the material around your arm again, looking very concentrated. He frowns, rewraps a section, then continues again when he’s satisfied. “Do you remember that time you almost cut your finger off chopping onions?”
“That’s an exaggeration. The cut was hardly that deep.”
He laughs. “Well, it made me realize that you’re… a lot more fragile than I am. So I got this in case you ever really did hurt yourself.”
Clark had gotten all of this for you. He’d bought all of these things that he’d never use himself, just in case you’d ever need it.
It feels like you left your heart in the sky while soaring a thousand feet over Metropolis. You fight down the lovesick look threatening to take over your face.
“The man said at the hospital that a little bleeding is normal,” he explains. “I’ll just have to add another layer of bandages and then apply pressure, and then the bleeding should stop. We’ll have to go back if it’s still bleeding after half an hour, though.”
“The man at the hospital,” you repeat. “You were at the hospital?”
Clark freezes where he’s applying firm pressure to your cut. “Superman may have passed by today.”
“While I was there?”
“Maybe. You might have been. It’s a big hospital.”
You think you’re on your way to falling really in love with Clark Kent.
You pass him a piece of medical tape, which he uses to seal the bandage neatly. He takes care to press it down flat, making sure there aren’t any creases. He’s awfully committed to the task, glancing over the wrap, testing your circulation and seeing if it’s too loose.
“I was really worried, you know,” he says, after checking the bandage for the fiftieth time. It’s obvious that it’s secure, but he seems to need something to do. “I didn’t recognize it was you until after I got you out of the museum. And I almost didn’t believe it.”
“Oh, Clark, I’m sorry for lying about where I was. I was embarrassed by what I’d said, but I also just needed…”
Things you can’t admit to him.
“…I guess I wanted to be alone today.”
He seems to wilt.
“The paperweight was an apology gift,” you admit, a little ashamed. “I felt so bad not talking to you. I was going to go down to the park and eat lunch, but I was really just thinking of you the entire time.”
Clark’s smile doesn’t meet his eyes. “I know that I worry, and I’m not going to apologize for that. I worry because I care about you. But I am sorry if I… make you feel coddled. I don’t mean to, I just want you to be okay. So if you—you ever want space, or a day to yourself, I understand—”
“No, Clark, that’s not it at all,” you answer unthinkingly.
“It’s not?” He looks beyond confused. “What is it then?”
You hadn’t thought this far into the conversation when you responded to him a second ago.
How do you even begin to explain this to him? Sure, you avoided him because you were embarrassed, but you also avoided him because you were scared. Scared of your feelings, scared of wanting to be more than friends, scared of what that’d do to your friendship.
But this is Clark. You refuse to let him think he’s done something wrong for even a second. You have to tell him the truth, even if it means humiliating yourself all over again.
“Well…” you begin, unsure. You resist the urge to bury your face in your hands, unable to take the look on his face. He’s so earnest. “You’re my best friend, if you couldn’t tell already.”
“Uh oh,” he jokes, tapping your side. “This can’t be good.”
“I don’t want space from you. That's kind of my problem.”
“Why would that be a problem?” It’s such a genuine question that it makes your heart ache. “I love spending time with you, too.”
“It’s ‘cause I really like you, Clark. I like you so much I got scared and told you I was leaving the state. I like you so much I thought a day away from you would make my feelings more normal. I—I like you so much I spent thirty dollars on a stupid paperweight for you!”
He looks winded. You watch his eyes widen with each word, and your stomach churns anxiously.
“Honestly, now that I think about it, you could’ve gotten that paperweight for free, right?” you ramble on. He’s staring at you, his mouth parted in surprise. “I mean, you could've just flown in dressed as Superman and probably asked for one.”
“It’s not the same, though.” The soft lilt in Clark’s voice makes your head spin. You’re momentarily distracted by him caressing the skin of your thigh, but he makes sure you’re looking at him when he says, “It means more because it’s from you. Someone who I also like. A lot.”
Oh, you think to yourself.
“Oh,” you say out loud.
Clark’s amused. “Do you really think I let just anyone drool on all my sleep shirts?”
“Wow.” You dig a finger into his chest, your face heating up. “Who knew Superman was such a dick?”
“I thought I’d have to watch a horror movie all by myself tonight,” he says, a teasing smile on his face.
You thread a hand through his hair, and he leans into your touch. You’re shaking a little. “Maybe you’d actually be able to finish one without me there.”
He beams at you, practically shining. “But then who’d be there to grip onto my shirt and make me turn on all the lights?”
“Hmm. Dunno. She sounds very reasonable, though.”
”Very.”
“The night isn’t over yet, Clark,” you remind, hand sliding down his chest. “We can still watch that horror movie.”
His eyes light up, his gaze flickering over your face. “I actually had something in mind.”
“Clark, fuck—oh my god.”
He smiles, pressing a tender kiss to your jaw.
“Holy shit,” you gasp out. “You’re actually fucking crazy.”
His arms tighten around your sides, and you think you’re clutching onto him so tightly it’ll draw blood.
“When you said you had ‘something in mind,’ I didn’t think you meant something like this!”
Clark tilts his head. He looks down.
All the way down.
From the top of one of the tallest buildings in Metropolis.
You wouldn’t be surprised if you walked right into a flying bird at this height. The concrete ledge he's lowered you down onto feels halfway to crumbling.
“Hey, you’re okay,” he says, aiming to soothe. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
You give him the most incredulous look you can muster. “Clark, you know I trust you with my life. But what are we doing up here? Besides raising my blood pressure, that is.”
He laughs again, the slight breeze biting his cheeks. “If you’d unlatch yourself from my neck, you’d be able to see.”
“I’d also be able to fall one hundred stories to my death.”
Clark exerts no effort when he turns you in his grasp, despite your death grip on him. He spins you around in the direction of the city, and you hold your breath, afraid to breathe wrong so high up.
In front of you, is the most gorgeous sunset you’ve ever seen. The horizon is lit up in a smattering of gorgeous purples and pinks and oranges, and you gasp.
“Oh,” you say, relaxing in his hold. “I thought you were doing this to mess with me.”
Clark smiles into the crown of your head. “As if I’d ever do such a thing.”
You really like Clark. You can’t believe you ever thought you’d be able to wish away your feelings for him.
“I’m returning that paperweight if you drop me, by the way.”
“Oh, honey, please, anything but that.”
You kiss Clark Kent in front of the Metropolis sun until your knees buckle and you nearly slip off the building ledge.
Thankfully, he makes sure to pick up where you left off when your feet are on solid ground again.
Ivyyy @supermans_wife
OH MY GOD OH YMG FOD OH YMG FODKD
roe @gothamsurvivor
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
oomf are you okay
Ivyyy @supermans_wife
↳ replying to @gothamsurvivor
IM AT MY FRIENDS HOUSE AND JUST LOOKED OUTSIDE OF THE FUCKING WINDOW AND I SAW SUPERMAN MAKING OUT WITH SOME GIRL ON SOME ROOF WHAT THE HELLLLLL
not carly @c4rlycane
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
that was me sorry ❤️we’re asking you to please respect our privacy at this time
JustinIT @justinit04
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
Holy shit are you serious lmfao
Ivyyy @supermans_wife
↳ replying to @justinit04
I AM NOT KIDDING.
attachment: [supermanhasagfthisisnotadrill.jpg]
🍒 @iluvtheflash
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
His tongue is definitely down her throat… DELETE THIS NOW PLEASEEEE
[CLOSED] SUPERMAN IS CUFFED 😭😭 @ sup3rman
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
Excuse me ma'am, not to be disrespectful or rude but could you please take post down. That is my sister who was killed by a metra train. And it this post is very disrespectful. Idk who you are or if you even know her but I need you to take this down please.
D4RKNESS @FILLTHEV0ID
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
#Supershit getting a girl before me 🥀
star | 8 days until s2!! @ robintruther
↳ replying to @supermans_wife
Thank you ivy I actually can not wait to list your account and this photo as my thirteenth reason
BONUS:
Clark pokes your side, voice rough with sleep. “What are you doing?”
You look up at him through the glasses you stole from him. They really do absolutely nothing — they’re just a magical pair of blue light glasses.
Clark’s pretty as a picture laying on your bed, the rising sun painting his back golden. You press a kiss to his arm, the closest part of him you can reach.
You smile. “Nothing. Just catching up on some Superman hate posts.”
notes: clark the people's prince thank you for bringing back the concept of #RealMen. let me know if u had a blast i know i did!!!
summary: you see your friend clark without his glasses for the first time. he looks… oddly familiar
content: clark kent invents what it's like to be a gentleman time and time again. reader finds herself in trouble quite a bit lol. title from superman by tswift of course. divider from hyuneskkami ♡
Addy19 @Addison_Malii
Anyone else in Arkham District hear the evacuation sirens turn on and off? Was that a test or should I be running for my life lol
Mark 💸 @markusup
↳ replying to @Addison_Malii
That’s what you get for living in “Arkham District” bro 💀💀💀
cait (old acc got hacked…) @batmanslawyer
↳ replying to @markusup
don’t speak on arkham district with metropolis in ur bio lmfao. i hope ur insurance covers ur house the next time superman drops a building on ur ass
Mari ♡ @mightycrabjoysluvr
↳ replying to @batmanslawyer
superman haters can not be real. like damn do you guys hate joy happiness fun and rainbows too
cait (old acc got hacked…) @batmanslawyer
↳ replying to @mightycrabjoysluvr
are we forgetting the fact that he’s an ALIEN from KRYPTON? i don’t care how hot he is i will take batman over him any day
Mari ♡ @mightycrabjoysluvr
↳ replying to @batmanslawyer
a vigilante defender in my replies shitting on superman… i have really seen it all. bookmarking this tweet for when the police finally catch batmans ass btw
“—you want some?”
“Hm?”
Clark sinks into the couch next to you, his weight tipping you closer in his direction. The edge of the bowl in his hand prods your side.
“You really shouldn’t hold your phone so close to your face. You’re going to wreck your vision.”
You finally look up at him, unimpressed. “Didn’t know you believed in old wives’ tales.”
“It’s not a myth!” He insists. “Put your phone down. We’re putting the movie on, and I know you’re going to complain when you don’t understand what’s happening—”
“I don’t complain, you liar.”
“—but you do, and then you’re gonna beg me to rewind. But then you’re gonna fall asleep and ask me to rewind it again, but I won’t want to because I’ve rewatched the same part five times—”
“That’s never happened before,” you lie blatantly. It happened last week and he won’t stop bringing it up. You toss your phone somewhere onto his couch and ignore the look he’s giving you when you take the bowl from his hands. “You made popcorn? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Clark laughs, the sound full and warm. He drapes a throw blanket over your laps — one of yours that he stole from your apartment — and hands you the remote. “I did. You were too busy scrolling.”
“Sorry.” You make yourself comfortable on his couch, pressing yourself into his side and stretching your legs out onto the ottoman. “I was busy doing some very important things.”
“Such as?” he asks, watching you flick through his TV subscriptions. “Oh, come on. We aren’t watching that one again.”
You frown as you click past one of your favorite movies. “I was just looking at it.”
“I’m sure.”
You kick at his ankles and watch the dimples crease on his face. It’s hard not to stare too long at the way he looks in the golden lighting from the TV. The blue of his eyes seems warmer.
“Whatever,” you grumble. “You can pick. As long as it’s not that trashy zombie show you like.”
He takes the remote from you, leveling a look at you from under the frames of his glasses. “It’s not trashy.”
“We can agree to disagree, babe.”
You fight the urge to laugh. You aren’t sure Clark realizes it, but he has the same reaction to that nickname every time — he looks up at the ceiling, and then away from you as the blush creeps up his neck. It’s even easier to see when his face is lit up like this, his sweet face tinged pink.
The two of you scroll through the movie and show selections in relative silence after. You’re sitting close enough that you can nudge him in the side when you want him to skip something, and he does so with only some complaints. You make it all the way down to the romcom section before he breaks the silence.
He coughs. Then asks, “So, what were you doing on your phone? Texting someone?”
You hum absentmindedly, inspecting the movie thumbnails. “I was reading through some Superman hate posts, actually.”
It’s not the most accurate description of what you were doing, but you say it just to get a rise out of him. Clark would never admit it, but you’re almost one hundred percent sure that he’s a secret Superman megafan.
There’s a look that he gets in his eyes whenever he reads something about him. It’s hard to place, but it kind of looks like he’s a little kid again, his entire face lit up with emotion.
But if he really is as big of a fan as you think he is, you have no idea how he’s so blasé about all those interviews he gets with him. Clark Kent really is one of the most interesting people you’ve ever met.
He looks at you sideways, glancing away from the TV. “You were,” he says, less of a question and more of a statement.
“Kidding. Kinda. You know what people are like. Your friend’s famous, you know. People are going to scrutinize him no matter what he does.”
Clark clears his throat and his eyes dance back to the screen, but you know he’s only half paying attention to it now. “And you… do you agree with them? With what people say about him?
Something in his voice is odd. You sit up against the couch to look at him properly, though all you can see is his side profile.
On the screen in front of you, he clicks past the titles the second they load, uncaring of what he’s scrolling past.
“I think Superman’s great,” you say honestly. You speak slowly, trying to gauge his reaction. The only change in expression you get is the slight twitch of his mouth. “Don’t know why people complain so much about someone who saves lives. Like, who cares if he’s from Kirpton?”
“Krypton,” he corrects.
You smile. “Right, sorry.”
The slight tension in his shoulders release. “You really think he’s great?”
“Yeah.” You slip the remote out of his hands and click play on the first movie you recognize. Surprisingly, Clark doesn’t complain. “He’s gorgeous, too. You think you could introduce us? I hear his harem has quite the waiting list.”
He laughs, tossing the blanket back over your leg where it’s exposed. “He’s not my friend, and there’s no harem. And hopefully, you won’t be meeting Superman anytime soon.”
“Why not? Don’t want to mix your friend groups?”
He nudges your side, relaxing into his cushions again. His arms cross over his chest, and you try not to focus on the way his biceps pull against the sleeves of his shirt. “No. If you ever run into Superman, it probably means you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be.”
The two of you sit quietly with the weight of his words. Sure, he’s right, but you’re sure a totally normal Superman interaction isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
You wonder if the superhero has a favorite coffee shop. And how he would even order from it if he did. Would he wait in line? Maybe he’d have a priority lane specifically for him on the roof.
“Wait, what?” Clark’s voice cuts into the silence. His features have scrunched up in confusion. “When did we agree on watching this?”
“It’s Saw.”
“I can see that.”
“I chose it when you were too busy talking.”
“You sure you want to watch this one? You remember what happened when we watched The Exorcist, right?”
“The lights went out, Clark. What was I supposed to do, not scream?”
“I was sitting right next to you. Nothing was going to happen. If anything, we’d get possessed together.”
“That’s so not funny. As long as nothing supernatural happens, I’ll be good with this one, I swear.”
He blinks at you.
“I swear.”
You wake up drooling on Clark’s t-shirt.
Thirty minutes into Saw you were holding onto his arm so tightly that he put you out of your misery and put on National Treasure instead. The last thing you can remember is Nicolas Cage asking for lemon juice before the comfort of Clark’s shoulder became too much to resist drifting off.
You untangle your legs from his to sit up properly, a different movie playing in the background. Much like you a few seconds ago, your friend is fast asleep, his head leaning against the armrest in a way that can’t be comfortable.
His glasses are askew now, resting politely on his chest. You worry about the chances of them getting squished and leave them on the side table for him to find.
It’s only then, when you’re staring at the black frames on the wood, that you realize something silly.
You’ve never seen Clark without his glasses on.
He often talks about how his bad eyesight is why he’s so adamant about wearing them. You’ve asked him once before about wearing contacts, and he’d said something about how he has sensitive eyes and didn’t like them much.
You don’t mind at all. He looks very gorgeous with them on, and you find it very cute how they fog up when he gets flustered enough.
You’re grateful for the light of the TV, because it means you can still somewhat see Clark’s face. You rub the sleep from your eyes to look at him, and—
Huh.
You wonder if it’s normal to look this different without your glasses on. Sure, they can sometimes change the size of a person’s eyes, and losing a significant feature on anyone’s face is bound to make them look a little different, but…
Clark looks different. Still familiar, but undoubtedly different.
It’s weird. The changes are so subtle you wonder if you’re hallucinating. The differences are written clear as day on his face, but it feels impossible to put them into words.
Is it the shape of his jaw? You don’t remember it always looking so carved, and you would know, with how often you look at him. Maybe it’s the shape of his mouth.
Something in the back of your mind twitches, like a memory begging to come to the surface. It’s a slight tension against your skull, a pressing feeling trying to nudge you in the direction of something.
You have no idea why you do it, but your hand moves without thinking. Your fingers thread through his hair, the same way you do when you tease him for looking like he’s just rolled out of bed in the morning. As you do it, the features of his face shift just so, and…
Woah.
Clark doesn’t just look familiar.
He looks exactly like fucking Superman.
You pull your hand away so quickly the joints in your arm protests. Clark shifts underneath you, his eyes twitching as he rouses from sleep. He pats the fabric of the couch before he feels you under his hand, and he squeezes your thigh when he does.
“You alright?” he mumbles, voice rough with sleep. “What’re you doin’?”
“Nothing. I just woke up.”
The sentence is true in more ways than one. It feels like you’re seeing Clark’s face for the first time. How had you not noticed just how much he looks like the same man that saves the city for a living?
He blinks himself awake, and it’s like your heart flips. Staring at his devastatingly long eyelashes, it’s like everything becomes ten times clearer.
You weren’t hallucinating — he looks just like Superman. It’s uncanny.
He pats you as he sits up, still clearly in the last dregs of sleep. His words slur together when he asks you, “What time is it?”
“Uh,” your eyes search the couch for where you’d ditched your phone earlier, and you find it on the floor next to the ottoman. It’s covered in spilled popcorn from the bowl that must’ve fallen off Clark’s lap during the night. “It’s two.”
The reminder is enough to make you yawn, and you rub your eyes to clear your vision. He leans over to the side table to get the lamp, and the room is filled again with warm light.
“Geez,” Clark says. “My neck hurts like crazy. Is your back okay?”
You turn back to face him, and with the lights on you can see him a lot better. His glasses are back on, and he…
Looks absolutely nothing like Superman anymore.
You must look a little surprised, because he stops massaging the back of his neck to scan you with his eyes. “Is everything okay?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Superman without your glasses on?”
The words land awkwardly.
Clark laughs, but it’s not real. He scrubs his hand over his jaw. “What?”
“You…” It feels like you’ve said something you really shouldn’t have. “You just look a lot like him.”
“Oh,” he says. His hand rises to adjust where his glasses sit on his face. “That’s funny.”
If he really thinks so, you aren’t hearing much laughter from him.
You aren’t sure why he’s so unsettled at the thought. Based on the limited information you have about him, Superman kind of seems like the perfect guy. He’s kind, selfless, great with kids, and…
Oh no.
It’d been such a brief stint in your conversation — there’s no way he remembers it. It’d been a joke, albeit one wrapped in underlying truth.
“He’s gorgeous, too. You think you could introduce us?”
Clark is one of the most rational people you know. It’s no question that he knows you were kidding about that — hell, he’d laughed — but your technical confession is enough to make embarrassment rush through your entire body.
He seems completely upended by your comparison between the two of them. You stand abruptly, suddenly wishing you were anywhere but here.
“It’s late. I should go back to my apartment.”
It’s not far. Few people in the world live closer to Clark actually, with your apartment being directly below his. When that dog he’s fostering is running around too much, you can hear his footsteps scurry above your head.
(Oddly enough, you’ve never actually seen the dog in person, and Clark refuses to tell you what his name is, but you’re pretty sure he’s real.)
The furrow Clark gets between his brows is so deep you wonder if it hurts. “You don’t want to take the bed?”
You slip your phone in your pocket and start looking for where you’d kicked off your shoes. “No, it’s okay. Your neck deserves a break from the couch,” you say, busy checking underneath the kitchen table.
There’s nothing there. You wonder if it’d be weird to leave without them.
Clark places one of his broad hands on your lower back before he passes your shoes to you. He is so irritatingly perfect it borders on unfortunate for you.
“Thanks,” you say, quickly. You’re even faster to slip them on, uncaring of the way the heels fold uncomfortably inward.
“Hey. Hey.” His hand encircles your wrist when you turn away from him. He’s frowning, eyes darting over your face like he’s looking for something. “Are you okay? You know I don’t mind taking the couch.”
The smile that softens your expression is real. “So selfless, Clark Kent. I just want to sleep in my own bed tonight. Thank you, though.”
He tries one last time. Glances furtively at the door, like he’s hesitant to let you go. “It’s late.”
You feel evil. It can’t be ethical to turn down Clark when he looks like this, sleep mussed and soft and a little worried about you.
“You can watch me walk to the elevator if you’d like.”
“I’ll walk you downstairs,” he offers instead, opening his door for you and stepping out. “It’ll help me sleep better.”
Looking at him waiting for you in his pajama pants and his wrinkled shirt, you wonder how you haven’t proposed.
But when he leans against the doorway of your apartment downstairs, smiling at you with sleep in his eyes and telling you to get some rest, you come very close to it.
Your friendship with Clark Kent kind of started the same way — with him taking you home.
The Daily Planet is a block away from your office building, a much smaller structure with just enough windows that you can watch the next world-ending threat from anywhere inside. Once, you got to watch Superman save an entire floor of people in the building across from you before some creature gutted half the skyrise.
You’ve witnessed enough extraterrestrial villains to not be too surprised when you see them on the news, or catch a glimpse of them in real life.
The one thing you didn’t expect, though, was to run into one from this planet.
It’s late when you’re walking to the metro after work. You’re barely half awake, exhausted after dealing with some data issue that had you and a few other people on cleanup duty late into the night.
You’re digging around in your purse, searching frantically for your phone. To make a bad night even worse, you come up empty.
“Shit,” you say under your breath, stopping to press your fist to your forehead. You remember it vividly, now. You’d left it on the counter when you’d cleaned up the cup of coffee you spilled when you were dead on your feet.
You let out a few more curses under your breath as you continue walking, hoping that you didn’t throw out that old alarm clock you found in your closet.
It happens a few minutes later, and it’s nothing like in the movies. There’s no anticipatory music, or a suspicious sound that makes you turn your head, or the hair on the back of your neck standing up. You’ve walked down this street countless times before, one well-lit by the street lights and store signs, and felt safe every time.
The universe gives you no warning. It only lets you make it three blocks before someone seizes your arm and tugs you into a damp, dark, Metropolis alley.
You don’t have time to scream. A hand, grimy with sweat and something else clamps hard over your mouth, muffling any sound you could’ve let out.
Your back presses into the rough brick of the alley. You recognize where you are immediately — a small deli that you and your coworker frequent. You don’t know how you’re going to tell her that you’re never coming back here ever again.
“I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. And you’re not going to scream, or lie to me, because I will stab you.” The man’s voice is thick and gravelly, almost as sharp as the blade he presses into the give of your stomach. “Nod if you understand me.”
You jolt when he presses hard enough to nick your skin. The nod comes immediately after.
“You’re going to give me all the money in that purse of yours, and your phone. I need your phone.”
You glance over to your purse where it sits on the pavement. It must’ve fallen when he’d pulled you into this alley.
“Take it,” you say quickly, voice wavering with stress. You aren’t going to fight with this man over chump change and your lip balm. “You can have all of it.”
He ducks down immediately to reach for the purse, and sniffs out the money quickly. He shoves the few pathetic crumpled bills into the pockets of his worn out jeans, before turning his attention back to the inside of the bag.
You swallow, glancing towards the entrance of the alley. He wouldn’t chase you if you made a run for it, would he?
There’s a sickening crack as your stuff hits the floor, and your daydream is crushed. The man is shaking his head, pressing his hand to his forehead, mumbling to himself in hushed tones.
You press yourself further against the wall, like the extra inch of space between you will save you.
“Your phone. I need your phone.”
Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth. You know he won’t believe you. You’ve never been more scared to speak.
“Did you hear me?” His voice shakes uncontrollably, his eyes narrowed to near slits. “Your phone. I need… You have to give me your phone.”
“I don’t have it with me,” you choke out. Your hands curl protectively in front of you. “I forgot it at work.”
He turns the knife back at you, though his hand wavers. Spit flies from his mouth and onto the ground in front of you. “You’re a liar.”
“I’m not lying, I swear. I swear. Please, you can take whatever I have—”
Another voice pierces the silent street, one firm and so authoritative that both of you turn to look.
The man doesn’t waste another second. He turns and flees down the dark alley, taking the few things of worth in your purse with him. You don’t feel strong enough to move until he’s completely gone from your sight.
The adrenaline crash doesn’t take long to set in. Your head feels light, like it’s filled with helium. You think that’s why you don’t notice yourself walking directly into the other person there with you.
The universe had been the reason why you’d gotten mugged, but the universe also brought Clark Kent into your life.
You had caught glimpses of him at your shared apartment all the time, your similar schedules meaning you often left for work and came back around the same time. He’d held the door open for you a few times, and you’d seen him help some of your neighbors with their groceries before. You’d always known he was nice, but you had no idea stopping crime was on his list of talents as well.
After he’d saved you from that man in the alley that night, he’d walked you back to your apartment.
He did the same the next night. And almost all of the nights after that, too.
It didn’t take long for the two of you to become close friends, and for your lives to start merging together. You’d invited him over for dinner as a thank you, and it slowly turned into a regular thing. You soon found yourself splitting your time between your apartment and his.
You really like Clark, and can barely remember life in Metropolis without him.
That’s probably why it feels so terrible to ignore him.
[4:29] farmboy kent: I’ll be running a little late today
[4:29] farmboy kent: White sent us out to Park Ridge and the train back is delayed. I’ll be by your building around 5:20
[4:33] you: No problem!! also no need to swing by today. my cousin invited me over to hers so i’ll be in civic city until late
The message is marked as read a few seconds after you send it, making the next few minutes agonizingly long.
Around 4:35, Clark finally starts typing, only to delete his message. A minute later, he continues again.
[4:38] farmboy kent: Ok. Be safe
[4:39] farmboy kent: I’ll pick you up at the station later
[4:39] you: Are you okay with that? i’m not sure when i’ll get back
[4:40] farmboy kent: Of course. Text me when you know what time your train will get in
You feel like a dick pressing the thumbs up reaction on his last message. What kind of person lies to Clark Kent?
You aren’t even sure why you do it. It’s probably the lingering embarrassment from last night — it was the closest you’ve ever come to telling him how you feel about him.
So… maybe a Clark-free day is what you need.
You can’t remember the last day you’ve spent without seeing him at least once. On your days off from work he’d come by after his shifts, and even on days that one of you were busy, you would still show up at his place to say hello.
No wonder he makes you crazy. You haven’t had a Clark Kent detox since the day you met him.
Surely all good friendships need time apart, right? You’ll just spend a day by yourself and when you see him again tomorrow, you’ll be back to normal. There won’t be any more slips where you compare him to one of the most gorgeous people you’ve ever seen, or where you tell him he’d be a great husband, or something friendship-ending like that.
It’ll be good for you. Tomorrow will be a great, much needed, neighbor-free day.
You’re buying a paperweight for Clark when a building falls on top of the Metropolis Museum of Art.
The remorse from your little white lie followed you through every second of your Clark Kent boycott, effectively ruining it. Your plan was to head down to the park and enjoy the weather, but you found yourself making a quick detour to the souvenir store inside the museum.
You’d come here with him a few months ago, and he’d seen the paperweight and loved it. It was a little glass sphere depicting Superman flying over Metropolis, and he’d almost bought it before reading the price tag. The guilt following you around now was enough to choke a horse, and you decided that it’d make for a great apology gift.
(Not that he was aware you were apologizing for anything.)
The crash of the building sends plumes of dust into the room, coating everything in a haze of white. The emergency sirens start their crying almost immediately, joining in what sounds like the actual crying of children on an after-school field trip.
You cough to clear your throat and find that even the air is saturated in thick dust, the cloud becoming even worse as more debris drops from the ceiling.
The roof of the museum is clearly trying its best, but it seems like the entire structure groans in protest. One of the overhead lights hangs precariously above your head, and you take a few healthy steps back from it.
Distantly, you can see the blinking red light that marks the exit. The cashier you were talking to a second ago makes a mad dash for it, ducking under a fallen beam while she does. Hordes of people crowd by the door as everyone rushes out, eager to flee.
The sun shines through the gaping hole in the museum made by the other building, and through the light it offers, you see it on the floor— the gift you’d gotten Clark.
The little paperweight sits sadly on the tile about five feet away from you.
If you weren’t afraid of inhaling too much dust, you would’ve groaned. There’s no way you’re abandoning the thing after all this trouble you’ve gone through to get it.
Against your better judgement, you move further from the exit to go and pick it up.
In the end, though, it doesn’t matter.
There’s a strong gust of wind and a bright flash of light, and you’re outside again.
When your feet hit the pavement, you resist the urge to vomit. It feels like your stomach has been flipped inside out and then put back again. The dizziness makes you double over, but you’re braced by a pair of firm hands around your forearms.
You’re halfway through a mumbled thank you when you look up.
You blink a few times to clear your vision. When nothing changes, you’re forced to wonder if you hit your head somewhere in the museum.
Standing in front of you, with his perfect hair disheveled and windswept, is Superman.
notes: theyre both losers LOL. thank u for tuning into my fic lmk if u enjoyed! :) i do have a part 2 planned bc i think clark kent deserves to be kissed
Something about Clark makes your head hurt. (And something about Superman is strangely familiar.) 3k words, fem.
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
“Good morning.”
A stress ball goes careening off the edge of your desk as your body catches up. “Fuck,” you breathe, twisting in your seat to find the Daily Planet’s most puppy-eyed journalist towering over your desk. “Clark! You scared me.”
Your whisper-shouting amuses him. He smiles, creasing a small wrinkle in the corners of his eyes, pretty pink mouth too much to deal with. If he notices you looking and then looking away, he doesn’t show it.
“I’m sorry,” he says, not sounding too sorry.
“Are you?”
“I’m so sorry. Really. What’s got you so, ah, immersed?”
You click the minimise button on your open window, clearing your desktop before he can spot your shoddy workmanship. “Nothing.”
“Sure. I believe you. Do you want a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
He lingers. Your office skews toward casual dress but Clark’s hardly the first to wear a proper suit, skinny black tie against a solid backdrop. You’d quite like to grab it, hoisting him downward, and you know you’d never do it, but the thought is nice. Your face and neck warm with it.
Clark’s smile is soft and yet endlessly indulgent, like you’ve given him what he’d sorely wanted. “I can help, you know. I’d love to help you with whatever it is that’s making you all… cagey,” he says.
“You’re always helping me.”
“That’s not true. I couldn’t help you move.”
You wave a hand at his wincing. You hadn’t asked him to, and you hadn’t minded when he cancelled at the last minute. “I’m just happy your ma was okay.”
“I’d still like to make it up to you.”
“How?”
His smile is crazy. Magnetic and tempting and sickening, too, nausea a pit in your stomach that blooms the longer you stare at him. Sometimes, sometimes, Clark smiles at you in this quasi-specific way and you think —you. I know you.
And then a headache comes like a knife between your eyes.
Clark startles at your hard flinch. “Migraine again?”
“Not a migraine.”
“Then what would you call it?”
“A shooting pain? They don’t last long enough to qualify. Jimmy says so.”
“What does Jimmy know about headaches?” Clark asks, voice taking on a silky quality that threatens to send shivers down your back. He hesitates in front of you, taller and taller as the moment stretches, before he bends at the waist to touch your forehead. “Sorry, can I just– is this okay?”
“Sure, but, what are you–”
His hands are warm. “You don’t feel hot. What did the doctor say?”
“I didn’t go.”
“You didn’t go?” His softness turns stiff. “Why wouldn’t you go? Sharp pains like this aren’t normal. Why wouldn’t you go and get that looked at? You already made the appointment.”
You shift away from his hand. It would be easy to meet him where he is right now. You could tell him that it isn’t his problem nor his business. That you didn’t wanna get looked at and ignored, again. You woke up this morning and couldn’t hack it.
“I didn’t feel like it,” you say, not without care.
“You didn’t feel like it.” His eyebrows rise. His thumb strokes over the curve of your eyebrow as he pulls his hand away to straighten his glasses.
“That’s what I said, yeah.” You laugh at his parroting. “I’m fine. It’s not so bad when I’m at home. I figure maybe it’s the computer screen.” You let him stare at you in his sternness until you start to feel too much like a bug under a magnifying glass. “If I send you this bit on one-pan carbonara, could you just– read it for clarity? And cross out whatever sounds ridiculous?”
“I doubt anything sounds ridiculous, but I’m happy to read it.”
“Thank you, Clark.”
“You’re welcome.”
He takes a seat at his desk across the way, forcing you to turn your chair away from your computer to see him. You pretend to watch the TV, eyes flicking carefully to his back, waiting for a sign that he’s found a mistake in your article that needs changing. You’re caught on the dark curl of hair kissing his jacket when he tips his head back to meet your eyes, like he’d known you were staring the whole time. “This is great,” he says. “It’s nice, I love the anecdote at the end, you aren’t overwhelming the reader but there’s a clear set of directions and you explain it well.”
“Oh. Thank you. It’s not like there’s much to explain, really.”
“Sure,” he says, always sure, so easy for him. “But for somebody who’s never cooked alone before, I think this is a nice starting point. I might try it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you can judge me on it. We can put your instructions to the test.”
You laugh through a smile. “You can’t make carbonara?”
“That tone you’re using wasn’t one I picked up on in the article.”
At the end of the workday, when you’ve exhausted yourself mapping out your next week of online columns and the sun has turned Metropolis into a baking puddle, Clark catches you on the way out and walks with you to the end of the block. “So,” he says, knocking his glasses up his nose with a rushed hand, “are you free tonight?”
“Why?”
“To help me with this carbonara.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes, please. I could use your guidance. I don’t think I even know what to put in a carbonara.”
“You do. You’re lying.”
He smiles. “Yeah, I’m lying. Come help me anyways?”
Grocery shopping with Clark is weirdly nice. He makes you laugh; he smells amazing when you stand beside him picking out fresh herbs, a cologne that lingers but you can’t place; he carries both bags from the store to his apartment, and makes it look like easy work.
—
“Okay?”
Things with Clark are so new they’re barely anything at all, but there’s an exclusive sort of sweetness to him as he slides a coffee onto your desk. You raise your chin to meet his eyes, dark behind darker glasses. Blue eyes, you know, but less piercing than you’d imagine them to be.
“I’m okay.”
“How’s your head?”
It actually really hurts, now he’s mentioned it. “Fine.”
“Well, it’s decaf.”
“Spoilsport.”
“But it’s just the way you like it, otherwise.”
You raise your brows and take a showy sip, visibly judging his performance. The flavour hits the back of your throat, but after a rough swallow, you realise it’s probably the nicest cup of joe you’ve ever had. “That’s perfect,” you tell him, voice all scratched up and awed as he peers down at you.
He really looks like someone else, sometimes. The more you think about it, the worse your head hurts, so you push the thought from your mind. “Thank you, Clark. This is really good. Do you– is this, like, a hobby?”
“What, making coffee?” He deliberates with a shrug. “Not really.”
“You’re just naturally good at everything, then.”
“Of course not, I’m… I practised. I wanted to make it how you like it.”
You lift your shoulder before his hand comes down to squeeze it. He handles you so easily, and so kindly, that a little brashness like this makes all the difference. His thumb works into the bone of your shoulder and it nearly-not-quite aches as it brushes its way up to the side of your neck.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks quietly.
You tell him you are. The workday goes like any other, you send him what you’re working on, Clark sends you back a sweet comment. He asks you if you’re busy on the way out, and you agree to go grocery shopping with him so he can attempt your recipe for honey-roasted peanuts under the watchful eye of a professional.
“It’s not complicated, Clark, you just blanche your peanuts–”
“Raw ones?”
“Yeah, well. You can use the pre-cooked ones, but they’re not as nice. Then you make your glaze, honey and butter and a little bit of sugar, you read the recipe–”
“Yeah, I read it, I just know you can make it better than I can, and I need the excuse to spend time with you. Which you know,” he says, holding the door for you as you go.
It’s sitting on his kitchen counter with the smell of honey-sugar thick in the air that Clark kisses you for the first time. You’re wondering if this is real, if the handsomest man you’ve ever met genuinely wants you, and he’s sliding a hand up your thigh with a gentleness that tickles. “Hey,” he says simply.
“Hey.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For helping. For not laughing when I burned the butter.” His hand coasts to your hip, opening and then pressing into softness unabashedly. “For… letting me be a coward, for this long.”
There’s a headache brewing square between your brows that you fight to ignore. They’re awful lately, shooting pains that don’t end unless you close your eyes.
“This isn’t cowardice,” you say, because it’s unbelievable that he wants this, and if he doesn’t kiss you soon your heart’s gonna fall into your stomach. “Just the run up.”
“Yeah.” He grins. “I like that. The run up to a good kiss?” he asks. His voice has gone small and weak. You don’t mistake it for nerves. This is something else entirely.
You close your eyes. It’s all the answer he needs. Your mouth falls open slowly against his as he tilts his head, as his body tries uselessly to slot between your thighs. You sigh a half-protest and he murmurs sorry into your open mouth.
You don’t get another headache for days.
They come back to bite you, though. Superman spent the morning playing on TV, fighting a water monster that threatened to drown an elementary school with gelatinous gloop. Clark texted you an apology of all things a few hours ago when he realised the water monster had flooded 110th street, stranding him in a bakery. Your pastries are dry! he’d promised.
He rolls into work halfway through the day, when Superman and the Justice Gang have successfully boiled the water monster off in another shocking display of heroism. They’d blocked him into a glowing green box with Superman and a triangulation of Mister Terrific’s flying robots, amplifying his heat division and filling the box with boiling steam. Superman had been unaffected, as usual.
Clark looks red in the face, ridiculously sorry as he presses a kiss to your cheek and a brown paper bag against your chest from behind. “Hi,” he says, “how are you?”
You preen into his kiss. His nose lingers against your cheek. “I’m fine.”
He smells weirder than he usually does. You sniff him curiously, promoting a warm huff of a laugh and another kiss to your cheek. “What’s up?”
“You smell different.”
“I do?”
“You’re not wearing any cologne.”
“I guess I’m not. I was in a rush. Did you eat?”
“Yeah, we had sandwiches.”
“Did Jimmy pay again?”
“He did not. He offered.”
He pulls you back to his chest. “He did.”
“You’re not actually jealous.”
“It’s polite of him,” he says, falling into that little voice that makes you wanna ask him to take you home. What is his problem? He’s 6’4, he’s wide, he has no business baby-voicing you and you’re eating it up ‘cos you know it isn’t put on. He gets sweet when he’s comfortable. You make him happy.
“You’re smiling,” he accuses.
“Nope.”
The headaches persist. Clark is this shining bright spot of goodness in your life, even if he kisses you rather impolitely when the office clears at hometime, even when he disappears at strange times. He always texts, so. There’s a hundred different reasons as to why he’s late for work, or cancelling a date last minute, and he makes it up with flowers and apologies out of the ears.
Superman gets busy on the news. You feel a bridge there, something about something about Clark Kent. A migraine hits before you can figure it out.
It’s a few weeks after your first kiss, and you spend the morning flicking through photos of you and Clark. He likes taking them, holding your phone out in front of you both. “Smile!” he says, kissing you fondly when you oblige. You’re thinking about getting a couple of them printed for your photo album, though that might doom the whole thing, really, an early jinx, so for now you settle for thumbing through them with a big smile. Your head’s been hurting some since you woke up. You blame Clark for surprising you with a too-early FaceTime, sheets pulled up to your nose.
To make up for waking you, he promises to bring groceries. You’d written a recipe for creamy mushroom eggs a few days ago that he swears he can make so long as you’re watching.
You struggle out of bed when you hear him knocking. He’s grinning at the door, three paper bags hoisted in arms that have no business being as shapely as they are, his hair wet with rain and curling against his forehead.
“Oh, no, it’s raining?”
He leans in to peck you, paper bags crinkling sadly between your chests. “Not much.”
His obvious lie makes you laugh, which has him stealing another kiss from the apple of your cheek.
“You okay? How’s the head, today?”
“It’s fine.” It’s protesting, actually, angered by your movement.
“Why don’t we go sit you down, huh?”
“I don’t know why…”
Clark guides you to the kitchen, shelving the paper bags on your small table and shepherding you into a chair at the head of it. “Why what?”
You chew your lip.
“What?” he asks patiently.
“It’s like they get worse when you ask me about them. Maybe it’s psychosomatic? I’m sorry, I don’t mean– you don’t make them worse, Clark–”
But doesn’t he? He’s looking down at you and your headache is blistering, that single black curl against his forehead as his glasses slip down a damp nose. He’s wearing a blue hoodie and light wash jeans and it’s stirring and it hurts your head.
“Oh,” he says quietly.
“It’s not you, Clark.”
“It might be.”
“What?”
He bends slightly to see you. Your eyes throb in their sockets as he watches you, clearly thinking, the cogs behind pretty eyes turning slow.
Clark brings his fingertips to your cheek. “You’ve always been very observant.”
“Have I?”
“Of course. You’re so smart, you have an eye for detail, the small things, all the most important parts. That’s why you’re good at what you do, right?”
“I don’t follow, Clark.”
“Your headaches are the worst at work, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And since we’ve been dating, they follow you home, too.” You’re worrying that this is the breakup when he raises both hands to his glasses. “It’s my fault. Or, it’s down to these.”
You stare at him wordlessly.
“It’s– Four. Made me these, they all did, to obscure my identity. So I could have a normal life.”
You’re feeling pretty nauseous, as things go. Maybe you’re having a stroke? That’s how these happen, sudden, strange feelings in your hands and garbled speech. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be speaking in riddles?
Clark strokes your cheek again quickly, fingers going back to the arms of his glasses before you can savour the touch, and he works the black body of them down his nose and off.
You squint at your almost-boyfriend. He looks different without the glasses. Paler.
Then he straightens up and the pieces click firmly into place.
Your lips part. He folds his glasses into the front of his hoodie, crossing his arms over his chest to follow.
“I know it’s a lot to take in.”
“How are you… Your glasses– and they– the headaches?”
“I don’t know. They never told me there’d be side effects.”
“Who’s they?”
He smiles rather boyishly, considering. “The bots, at the Fortress of Solitude. Four never mentioned that it could hurt you. I’m sorry about that.”
Superman is looking down at you with big blue eyes and Clark Kent’s pretty mouth. That you’ve kissed. You’ve kissed superman.
“Can you stop frowning? You have a nicer smile,” you say finally.
He wants to do as you’ve asked, but his expression stutters. “You’re not mad?”
“About what?”
“About– about what? About my secret.”
You’re not sure you can say ‘Superman’ out loud. “Either I’m having an aneurysm, or you have, like, the world's biggest burden on your shoulders. How could I be mad about that?”
“What is wrong with you?” he asks. Clark-man (wow!) grins sudden and sweet as he loses his straight-backed posture, bending down again, looking for your hands where they live waiting at the ends of your arms for his touch. “I’m a metahuman. Hell, I’m not even human. I’m from space. You’re being unbelievably cool about this.”
You settle into your chair with a tired smile. “My headache’s gone for the first time in months.”
He pulls your hand to his chest. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, completely. Who knew it was you the whole time? Should’ve stayed away. Just, I couldn’t manage it.”
He kneels at your feet. “Is it really all better?” he asks.
The relief is nothing you’ve felt before. The first absence of pain after weeks of pinching agony.
Clark pulls the glasses off of his hoodie and throws them over his shoulder. They land with a crack in the kitchen sink.
“Don’t you need those?” you ask.
He takes your face into a big, big hand, smiley and shy as he pulls you down to meet his mouth. “Not for this,” he promises, breath warm on your lips and your tongue as he takes the lead. The kiss goes hot and heavy as honey under summer sun, blistering, and searchingly slow. He kisses better without his glasses. You shuttle the thought away for a later date and let yourself sink into the heat of his chest.
—
“I thought Superman didn’t have time for selfies?” you croon sometime later, sated and steady with a warm body behind your back.
Clark hums into your hair tiredly. “Huh?”
“You always make us take photos together.”
“Well, that’s different. With you, I’m usually Clark.”
“Usually?”
He kisses the top of your ear. “Yeah. Guy you just met? That was Superman. But otherwise, I’m just Clark.”
You groan as he laughs, giving it your best attempt at wiggling out of his reach to punish him for the cheesy line. Strong forearms cross over your stomach to pull you right back in.
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
thanks for reading!! hope you enjoyed!! and thank you becs for proofreading quick before I posted !!
I hadn't even thought about this and now it makes so much sense!! I think I, too, would be having awful migraines because of the glasses, seeing how my headaches are already persistent for absolutely nothing. This was cute. 10/10, would recommend lol
Clark stays the night for the first time. fem, 3k. [explicit]
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
“Are you bringing the briefcase?”
“What’s your obsession with the case?” Clark asks.
You shrug, tipping your head back to give him a better view of your eyes, widened in a mock-doe ogling, like he’s the biggest, brightest thing in your universe. It’s not that far from the truth.
“I like the case,” you confide, bedroom eyes and a fresh coat of lipgloss waiting to be kissed off, ‘cos you know he’s too much of a gentleman to do anything about it. And because it’s nice, so nice, to see the way his face splits into a smile. He’s like sunshine bearing down on you.
“Then it’s coming with me. Go get your coat, Peitho.”
“Who’s that one?” you ask.
“The goddess of persuasion…” —he leans down to breathe your air, just for a bit— “…and seduction,” he finishes, kissing your nose quickly. “Get your coat. Let’s go.”
You collect your things into your bag and put on your coat. Clark presses a hand to the line of muscle between your shoulders, leading you out of the Daily Planet and toward the tram. You take it down to the station on your block, and Clark convinces you to double back for the greengrocers. Or, he grabs your hand and pulls you along, citing a deep need to find some snow mountain garlic. You make a boy risotto once and he thinks he calls the shots.
Your love story with Clark isn’t exactly convoluted. He made you coffee and brought you out in the sun to watch ducks in Centennial Park. You’d teased him with delicate outfits and long stretches, had occasionally brought him dinner. And it isn’t a long story, either. It’s been, what, three weeks? Nearly four? Too long to be this nervous, and yet. Clark squeezes your hand as your heart trips for the third time in as many minutes, caught on the sharp cut of his jaw and his messy curls. He doesn’t say anything as you weave between tight aisles looking for the specialty foods, but you get the sense that he knows you’re nervous.
“I can’t believe you remembered where I got the garlic,” you say conversationally.
“It’s rare, right? From the Himalayas.”
“Did I tell you that, too?”
“Your article, honey,” Clark says, his eyes tracking the jars of preserves and a row of open-basket offerings. “Single clove, golden… ah-ha!” He lets your hand fall to grab a paper bag and the tongs buried within. This basket has a plastic covering over the top that clicks and folds upward, releasing a heavy scent.
“Careful, Clark, it’s like, a billion dollars per pound.”
He shakes his head, unworried. “How much do you need for the risotto? Tell me when. And don’t short it.”
You decide not to short it —you’ll pay. But when you and Clark get to the counter, baggie of garlic, fresh oregano, ginger stems and tangerines dumped unceremoniously onto the counter by the cash register, he bats your hand away with the most aggression he’s ever shown you and offers the clerk his card.
“I don’t like mean Clark,” you murmur, squinting in the sun as Clark shepherds you back outside.
“No? You should get used to him.”
“Didn’t peg you for a bully, Kent.”
“I’m not.” He swings an arm over your shoulder, careful not to hit you with the groceries (what a loser!). “I could never bully you, you’re too nice. And who will make my dinner, if you’re upset?”
“So funny.”
“I know,” he says against your cheek. Your skin warms under a prim kiss. His lips part and the wet of his tongue doesn’t touch you, but you can feel it regardless, the humidity of his breath rolling over your skin.
“Off!” you demand.
He grins and takes back his arm. “Off,” he says, looking very much like he’d like to kiss you again. It’s awful how palpable the need is on his face. You ignore it as best as you can, too worried he’ll get you home and kiss you against the door, fumbling blindly for a bed he’s never seen.
He’s less desperate than you’re making out. In fact, if Clark wants to seduce you is anyone’s guess. He holds your hand down the street to your apartment building, laughs lightly when you tug him behind the staircase toward the back, and holds your handbag while you rummage for your keys without protest.
He places his case, your bag, and his shoes at the side table on the way in. You try to see your trimmings through his eyes, hand on his arm to balance as you pull off each of your shoes. You like the process of it, your fingers in his muscle, his eyes on your knee as you bring your foot up behind you, and your fingers as you slide them into the back of your shoe to tug it off. You like the sound they make as they topple to the floor, and the way you slip across the floor as Clark gathers you up for a hug right there in the door. His hair makes a sound as it falls around his face, Clark burying his nose in the side of your head. You hold his back. Feel for ridges. Find thick layers of fabric in the way.
“Wanted to do this all day,” he says.
If it weren’t so endearing to be wanted, you’d laugh. Clark doesn’t make you guess about his affections. He’s unlike anyone you’ve ever met, if only for his honesty. His earnestness.
You duck your head into the curve of his neck. “Smell nice,” you mumble.
“Are you tired?”
“No… You’re… putting the moves on me.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” His laugh vibrates at your temple.
“Can you make me dinner?”
He pulls away from you to hold your face. “Yeah, I can make you dinner.”
The plan had been Clark would come over and you’d make dinner, considering your expertise. A chef’s column for the biggest news outlet in Metropolis doesn’t come easy. You’re good at what you do. And that risotto had been half the reason Clark fell in love with you, if he’s to be believed. (Though he doesn’t say love.) (The other half a thin, pale skirt.)
Clark is a quick study. Your cooking lessons have helped him some. It’s nice to see him in your kitchen, waving a wooden spoon at you as he talks, stripping out of his suit jacket and rolling up his perfect white sleeves.
He gets broth up his arms and on his tie. You stand in front of him with the heat of the stove kissing your side and carefully work the knot from his neck.
“Kiss?” he asks.
You use his tie to guide him down.
—
Clark brought his pajamas in the briefcase.
He made you garlic butter and pesto by hand, plated up your risotto with a kiss. He hoisted your legs into his lap when you’d started to falter during the movie and he’s rubbed them until you’d dozed, and now he’s in the shower, having taken his pajamas and his shower things with him. His shampoo had been macadamia and argan oil.
And his pyjama pants are blue.
He rolls into your room with wet hair slicked to his neck and roughly towel dried at the front, blocking the TV with his height, a pair of socks still held in his hands. “I put my clothes in the laundry. Is that okay?”
You’re hoping you hadn’t left your delicates at the top of the bin. “Yeah, of course it is. I’ll wash them before bed, they’ll be dry again before morning.”
He shrugs. “I brought slacks for tomorrow.”
“How much fits in that briefcase?”
“You’d be surprised. Move over?”
You shuffle to one side of the bed so Clark can sit down beside you. He seems large against your headboard. You trace the curve of his neck to a relaxed jaw. There’s no stubble there when you run over his skin with your fingers, but there’s a teeny-tiny spot of blood under his chin. You wipe at it until it comes off. “I’d kiss it, but I’m worried it’ll get infected.”
“Kiss me anyway,” he says, lifting his chin. His collar is tacky with water.
You lift yours in turn to reach, lips pressing with the utmost care to his chin as he wraps an arm behind you. You can’t see the cut, but you worry you’ll hurt him if you aren’t careful, and he feels your hesitation under his hand.
“It’s okay. You can’t hurt me,” he says, like this is normal to say, like it doesn’t have your heart cradling itself in the heat of your stomach.
You kiss him again, then his neck, the column of it solid beneath your lips. You wait there with your nose tip digging in, but he doesn’t say anything.
A small gasp floods from you as he grabs you by the waist and pulls you into his arms, on top of his legs, long and lithe and dipping the mattress underneath him. Your face falls flat against his collar, warm to damp, startled but far from unhappy by his sudden show of strength. He closes his arms around you and hugs you. In a moment, his nose rubs itself against your cheek in a nuzzle. It’s animalistic only in the sense that it’s without thought, his nose rubbing into the same spot over and over again.
He doesn’t moan, but nearly. The sound he lets out is one of relief. Like you’d evaded him all day, and this is a victory.
“Is this the part where we start telling each other secrets?” he asks.
“Are you okay?” you ask softly.
“I didn’t know how badly I needed this.”
You needle your arms behind his back to hold him, too.
“Do you…”
“What?” he asks.
“It will sound like I’m flirting, and I am a little, but it’s a genuine question, okay?”
“Alright,” he says. You can tell he’s not about to laugh at you, which is nice.
“Do you work out?”
He smiles against your cheek. “Some. In the morning, when I can. I lift weights.”
“I know that– I realise it’s a silly question. I don’t think people tend to look like you naturally.”
“Is this still part of the genuine question?”
“No, this is the flirting.”
“Oh, gotcha.” He knocks under your chin lightly.
You look up to let him kiss you.
He makes another wretched sound, like the beginning of a groan half-smothered by your mouth. Clark parts his lips, turning his head to the side, the taste of him pressed into your tongue as he breathes you in. It is incredibly foreign to be breathed in while you’re kissing, but Clark pulls at your back like he’s worried you’ll move away, feeling and breathing, sudden fingertips tumbling down your back.
“Where are you going?” he whines.
“You’re tickling me.”
“On accident. You really are Peitho, you know. She’s cunning and cruel when she wants to be.”
“Don’t pressure me.”
“Now that’s not funny, is it?” he asks, grinning as you lean down slowly.
“Let me feel your heart.”
You press your fingers to his pulse. He lets you count the beats, says, “That’s sixty seconds,” like he’d known you would struggle to time it with your fingers.
“I think you’re dead at a hundred.”
“What’s that mean, doc?” he murmurs.
You stroke his jaw with the flat of your nail. Not teasing —thinking.
“I think I need to shower, too,” you say. He knows why. His eyes go lax behind his glasses with fondness. “Okay?” you ask, tapping his glasses with your nail gently. “You can clean the smudges off of your glasses while I’m gone. How’d they get this dirty, that’s crazy.”
He rubs the small of your back with pressure. “I think it might’ve happened when I tried to get my face in your neck. And your ear. And, you know, your head.”
He sounds delightfully bashful. It begets another kiss.
You lose time in his lap. Really, you’d stay. But you need a minute in the shower to breathe through your nerves, and Clark is remarkably in touch with feelings, so he kisses you and sits up to encourage you away. “Go on. I’ll be here.”
“Don’t look through my stuff. Promise?”
“Sure,” he says, like a liar.
You come back some twenty minutes later in your nicest pointelle pyjamas, skin slicked with a tiny bit of body oil and lotion atop it that smells of figs, ‘cos it’s the only one Clark’s ever mentioned liking aloud. He doesn’t skimp on compliments and loves to tell you that you smell good, but the fig one, the first time he smelled it, stopped him cold side by side on a couch in the coffee shop by his apartment. “What is that?” he’d asked.
Your smug smile drops. “Clark,” you breathe.
He pulls your teddy bear by the back and makes him wave. “Hi, honey.”
“You found Charlie.”
“You were hiding him.”
“He was tastefully placed on my desk.” Where you’d hoped he wouldn’t be seen.
Clark pets Charlie’s downy head. “How could you hide him? He’s lovely. He told me–”
“Charlie didn’t tell you anything, he’s my teddy.”
“Since you were young?” he asks.
Charlie’s all worn around the armpits, the fur kissed anxiously from his cheeks. “I’ve always had him, yeah.”
“I think I’d be remiss not to tell you that you look beautiful,” he says, “and Charlie says the same.”
“Don’t talk through my teddy.”
He presses Charlie to his chest like he’s a baby.
“He loves you.”
It turns your heart. You’d been ready to lay back in his lap and have him kiss you dizzy, tucking curls behind his ear to whisper saccharinely into the shell of it, but you’re thinking now that you want to curl up with him and find that box of chocolates he’d given you last week (for looking oh so morose for all of five seconds, apparently) to share. Have him rub your arms as you pretend to watch a movie.
“Okay. Okay, come and hug me,” you say, leaning against your desk expectantly.
Clark is up in three seconds flat.
—
You wake with a start.
There’s a shape beside you in bed, turned toward you, so close to you that you struggle to see him beyond the dark curls of his hair against your flowered pillow case.
He has freckles on his shoulders. You hadn’t seen them last night in the dark, or even in the lamplight Clark begged for, just to see you, of course I want to see you, you’re beautiful like this, and they surprise you. There’s a handful of them across the hills of his shoulders. Barely any at all, but enough to kiss.
He feels your mouth and wakes up quicker than you’d wanted.
“Shit,” he says, grappling backwards for his glasses on the nightstand.
“Clark?”
“Sorry.” When he turns back to you, he’s wearing his glasses again. You frown.
“What’s wrong?”
Your stomach hurts. Like, hurts, the explanation loaded in one fell swoop. He slept with you and he didn’t mean to stay because he hadn’t ever meant to stay–
“No, sorry, nothing is wrong.” Clark clears his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I wake up badly, sometimes.”
“Was it me?”
“No.” He smiles like you’re the sun, blinking sleep away lazily. His eyelids and mouth are both puffy with it. “No, of course it wasn’t you, come here. I slept well.”
You’re aware, then, of his missing shirt, the way your thigh slides between his as he pulls you tight to his chest.
Just like that.
You press your face to his shoulder, rather than let him see your expression. The night before comes back to you in a heated rush, every soft touch and softer kiss. You shudder under his tracing patterns.
“Can see you better like this,” Clark says, bringing his hand to your cheek to angle you in the sunshine.
You’re too tired to move, but you want to be kissed. Fortunately, your boyfriend is as generous as he is kind, and he promises to do all the hard work. “You can make yourself comfortable, honey,” he murmurs, turning you onto your back with an easy strength.
You cover your mouth with your hand.
Clark can see your smile regardless. “So pretty,” he says quietly, kissing your chest, glasses slipping down his nose as he cranes his neck further. “God, you’re perfect like this.”
“You didn’t kiss me good morning,” you murmur, mostly to tease him.
“I will.” His hand finds the pulp behind your knee. “I will. I promise.”
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
thank you for reading!! this was two requests (here and here) put together thank you both<3
summary: an office romance sounds good in theory but what happens when it goes according to theory?
pairing: fem!reader x corenswet!clark kent + journalist!reader x journalist!clark kent.
trope: office romance + coworkers to friends to lovers.
genre: fluff + some angst + slow burn romance.
warnings‼️: crude language + minor alcohol consumption + near-death experience + misogynistic remarks towards reader (from a jealous coworker who’s also a man r we surprised) + idk shit abt journalism.
A knock sounds at your already open door, causing you to pause your typing and look up.
“My office in five.” Your boss and an editor-in-chief— Perry White— commands.
You send him a nod and he’s on his way back.
It was a chill day until the cloud of quiet chatter evaporated and was replaced by a thick blanket of excitement.
“What is going on out there.” You curiously mutter.
You think about entering the crowd but you decide against it as you remember your initial task.
Perry may be a fair boss but his agitation takes on several forms, you do not wanna be caught on the receiving end of it.
You knock on his door and open it.
“Alright, Kent— oh. Here she is.”
You can’t see how this ‘Kent’ guy looks but he’s definitely a little over 6 feet. His gray coat outlines the broadness and muscly look of his back.
Damn, he’s kinda big.
He turns around and the only thing you can think of is Squidward whining in frustration, Oh no, he’s hot!
His eyes are a remarkable shade of blue, a lovely bunch of black curls sit atop his head, and his skin reminds you of the nice sand accompanied by the local beach.
Kent’s sporting a pair of black framed glasses and he’s the handsomest “nerd” you’ve ever seen.
You hope your ogling isn’t obvious.
“L/n, meet Clark Kent. Kent, this is Y/n L/n.”
This Greek god of a man shakes your hand and it’s warm. So. Warm.
He smiles and goddamn it is beautiful. It’s so perfect with all his perfectly straight, perfect shade of white teeth.
AND HE HAS DIMPLES?! HOLY FUCKIN’ SHIT!
“It’s nice to meet you.”
And of course, an attractive voice that matches his equally attractive face. It’s deep and confident and you’re crushing so hard on him right now.
“It’s nice to meet you, too.” You calmly say.
“Get acquainted well because you’ll be showing our new guy here the ropes. Starting now.”
Your heart drops down to your ass and you retract your hand.
Of course this had to happen to you.
“Oh, okay.”
It was in fact not okay but it’s not like you had much of a choice in the matter.
You exit first and are met with so many faces outside the office. Comically, they all look away and pretend to do something important.
Now you realize why there was a crowd earlier, because of the handsome new guy.
You ask him to wait for you while you go grab some things from your desk.
“Okay, Clark—”
You’re gone for literally 1 minute and the poor guy’s already being swamped.
There’s a blonde girl, bit of a ditz. Twirling a strand of hair while giggling over something seriously unfunny.
She’s accompanied by a guy who’s much shorter in comparison to Clark.
He’s yammering away about how he’s always wondered what it’s like to be on a farm…
“I mean, I was at one for the DP but they didn’t have much internet so we couldn’t cover much. And the smell?” He shuts his eyes and wrinkles his nose in disdain. “I can’t imagine how it was for you, man.”
You watch in horror as he takes a sniff, yes; a sniff at Clark and hums, “You smell great, though! What is that, uh, aftershave. Or sum’?”.
Clark responds with a nervous laugh at his sudden proximity. “It’s Polo by Ralph Lauren. Uh, the blue one.”
“Whaaat?” The guy laughs in surprise.
Clark folds his lips inwards and raises his brows in an awkward manner.
What do you say to that? Truly.
What an idiot, you cringe internally before coming to his aid and kicking off his first day.
It’s the end of Clark Kent’s second week. He’s a great addition to the Daily Planet team and you have to say, he’s really nice.
His first few days were spent showing him around. Perry’s office, your office, the newsroom, break room, copy room, mail room, bullpen, so on and so forth.
You were sure Clark could use a better mentor but he thought otherwise. ‘You’re a good teacher, I like learning from you.’ He said.
He was very quiet at first, kept to himself and didn’t approach anyone unless he absolutely needed to.
You were the only person by his side almost every hour he worked so it made sense to just go to you.
The more you talked to him, the more he got out of his shell.
A friendly relationship blossomed and soon, he was a willing participant.
You like to drink something in the morning while you work and you didn’t realize Clark took a mental note of that.
Since your first week together, he’s brought you something everyday.
“As much as I appreciate this, you’re not the drink guy.”
You were worried he thought you’d expect him to do this all the time now but he denies the notion.
“Oh it’s no big deal, I pass by a cafe on my way here so it works out. Plus, I know the owner so I get a discount every time I go.”
You smile at that. This little tradition has become an essential part of your day, it’s how you start it. It’s also special to you because it’s just for you.
Your crush on him grows by the day but you can’t help it! It’s so hard not to like this guy.
He’s still a bit shy at times but you think that’s part of his charm, and he’s got you good. He’s just Clark, a sweet guy from a small town with big arms dreams.
“So, what are the plans for today?”
He asks this everyday in hopes of going on a side quest with just the two of you.
Alas, that doesn't happen nearly as much as he'd like but at least he still gets to see you whenever he likes.
“Today, we’re going to a meeting.” You answer as you quickly send out one last email.
You grab your purse and Clark brings his notebook to the conference room.
He pulls out a chair for you and you smile gratefully, whispering a ‘thank you’.
Perry and the other senior position holders make their way in and take their seats.
“Alright, let’s get started.”
Perry announces that at the end of the meeting, there will be a spot open for another editor-in-chief.
Instantly, there’s hushed chatter of who can be nominated to fill the slot.
You’re positive you hear your name among the many different routes of conversation. You don’t notice Clark glancing at you when he hears it, too.
“L/n.”
You feel everyone’s eyes on you and want to fuse with the chair you’re sitting on.
“She’s our most talked-about reporter and has been here for almost three and a half years. How she’s doing better than most of you at this table, I have no idea. Great work, Y/n.”
You purse your lips in an awkward smile at the jab towards everyone else layered between your praises. “Thank you, sir.”
Clark allows his lips to be pulled back in a small grin, unable to hide his happiness for you.
You know some people in the room are envious of you and are incapable of witnessing your success, but you’d be damned if you let them ruin this moment for you.
The rest of the meeting goes by smoothly and it’s time for Perry to announce the new editor-in-chief.
“Of course, it came as no surprise for us to come to unanimously nominate Y/n L/n as one of our new editors-in-chief.”
You know you should be happy and a small part of you is relieved that your hard work paid off, but you’re not entirely sure.
You’ve only been here for 3 and a half years and this is a huge promotion.
Are you ready for this? How do you know you’re ready? When do you know you’re ready?
You force yourself to get out of your head and express your gratitude.
“Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.” You smile as you shake their hands, accepting their approval.
You still had some time before accepting the offer but it felt like you had to take it.
The reality is: you don’t know what you want.
Most of the people leave but some stay behind.
“Congratulations, Y/n. You definitely earned it.”
Remember the envious people that were mentioned earlier? This guy— Mark Callahan— is one of them.
He sticks his hand out for you to shake but you clock his underlying tone.
“Thanks.” You smoothly move past him to the door with Clark following.
“Bitch.” He mutters to himself.
Clark stops dead in his shoes. “What did you just say?”
Mark smirks lazily and the few of his dastardly henchmen eye you with jealousy.
Your eyes are a bit wide, lips agape at his sudden change in attitude. “Clark..?”
This is Clark Kent. The shy, dorky, kind of an aloof guy with long legs, a killer smile, and a nice heart.
You never thought he could get mad. You haven’t even see him annoyed up until this very moment.
Mark takes a step towards you but Clark is quick to get in between you and him.
He pokes his tongue into the side of his cheek and chuckles. “Relax, man. I’m not gonna hurt your little girlfriend.”
Clark steps forward, his height giving him the upper hand as Mark’s ego forces him to maintain eye contact, even if he has to tilt his chin up a bit.
“You couldn’t even try.” He softly yet subtly mocks.
Mark tightens his jaw and you can feel the tension growing.
You tentatively reach out and put a hand on Clark’s shoulder. “We need to go.”
He maintains eye contact with Mark for a moment longer before budging and walking out.
Clark’s jaw is set and you see the faintest twitch of the muscle, his face stern and hand sweeping his curls.
He holds the elevator for you and you gulp nervously.
“What… was that?” You dare ask.
He assures you it's nothing but you can feel the intensity of his annoyance radiating off of him. It fills the elevator when you step in.
You don't know how badly his blood boils at the thought of someone being so casually disrespectful towards you.
His hands were clenched tightly, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. He forcefully wipes his hands on his trousers and tries to cool down.
You let that go but can’t let go of how badly he gave you the butterflies.
You couldn’t even try.
That part replays in your mind.
It was the way he said it, like he was so sure of himself.
He was obviously putting Mark in his place but for you? He did that for you?
Your lips fold inwards to conceal the squeal (read: scream) that's begging to be released.
As the elevator arrives at your floor, Clark extends his arm for you to get out first then follows you out.
Chivalry isn’t dead?!
You don’t know much longer you can contain yourself.
“Hey, Y/n?” Clark calls out.
You swiftly turn around on your heels. “Yeah?”
He stares at you for a moment, like he’s gathering his thoughts carefully.
He has so much he wants to say. Every time you thank him for bringing you your morning drink, he wants to say, you deserve nothing but the best. He wishes to say how beautiful you look everyday, how smart you are when you're feeling doubtful.
Instead, he holds it all in and says something a friend would say. It doesn't mean anything less to you, he knows that. So he says something so kind, it leaves you with heart eyes.
“You deserve that promotion.”
In all the time you’ve spent here, not many people have said anything like to you.
There’s the fake compliments said out of spite. You’ve already gathered a mental list of who fits that category.
Then come the words of encouragement, said by a select few genuine people. Perry and your best friend, Lois are— were the only members of this group.
Clark being an addition to this list is obvious, it was only a matter of time, but it means so much coming from him.
You blink and feel lightweight.
“Thank you.”
He gives you that award-winning smile you love seeing so much and is on his way to work.
You feel distracted as you work, cheesing like a kid every now and then when his words ring in your mind.
You deserve that promotion.
Resting your head in your palm with your elbow extended in a comfortable position, you sigh dreamily; staring blankly at your loading computer screen.
“L/n.”
You immediately straighten your back and set both hands on the keyboard, suddenly irritated with how slow the network on your computer is.
“Sir?” You acknowledge him by poking your head out from behind the screen.
“Good work on the Stenson article,” He shows the newspaper bundled in his hand. “It’s gotten Star’s attention.”
You’re impressed with yourself. “Oh.”
He angles his head down to where he can see you through the space above his glasses. “You okay?”
You nod in a way that is more convincing yourself of what you’re saying than him. “Mhm. Just, uh… surprised because they’re our rivals.”
Knowing The Daily Star has its eye on you is a bit unnerving but what kind of opps would they be if they didn’t?
He hums in thought. “Well, I thought I’d stop by and let you know.”
“Right. Thanks.”
You track his movements until you’re sure he’s gone and smack some sense into yourself.
“Focus, Y/n. Focus.”
You are invited to attend a conference in Washington, D.C. along with a few handpicked journalists.
As you await for the plane's landing, your mind wanders back to the new guy. You wish Clark could’ve came.
You just think he would’ve had so much to learn and experience, nothing else…
A rattle echoing through the jet brings you out of your thoughts.
The captain makes an announcement but you feel like something’s off.
It’s the reporter in you, a 6th sense.
Another shake and now everyone’s a bit nervous, worried looks painted across their faces and yours.
You open the flap to your window and see nothing but soot. Dark gray matter surrounds the jet and it’s so thick, you can’t see past it.
You start to smell it soon and so does everyone else.
“What’s that smell?”
“It smells like… like smoke?
“Is something burning?”
The captain makes an announcement telling everyone not to panic but of course, that ironically sets off an opposite reaction.
Oxygen masks drop down and you don’t waste any time grabbing yours, but the dread spreads all over you when you take a deep breath in.
Suddenly, the jet jolts forward and it feels like you’re diving into something. It’s going headfirst into the direction of the ground so quickly and you can’t make sense of anything.
The passengers frantically scream and descend into chaotic paranoia as they hold on to dear life.
Your heart pounds in your chest, threatening to jump out.
This is it, you think. This is how it ends for you: in a freak accident.
You close your eyes in fear and hope the impact crushes you so quickly, you don’t feel anything.
A quick and easy death is a death that is most favorable.
Suddenly, you feel the aircraft being lifted up. The speed of which is swift yet steady, unlike the previous moments when it felt like you were falling to your deaths.
You don’t dare look out your window in fear of it all being a figment of your imagination but someone else does.
“We’re… we’re saved.” Someone calmly informs.
The plane is set down on the ground and the doors open up automatically.
Your eyes widen when you see a man in a blue suit and red cape step onboard.
He’s kind-looking. The steely blue eyes somewhat familiar, maybe it’s his aura.
“It’s alright, everything’s okay.” He smiles and you’re taken aback with how eerily familiar the action is.
“Is everyone alright? Nobody hurt?”
Everyone shakes their head simultaneously as if in a trance, left and right.
He nods in consideration. “That’s good. You all can step out now, it’s safe.”
Nobody moves. No one can! They’re still trying to wrap their heads around this miracle.
There’s this man— in a cape, no less— and he’s asking if everyone’s okay from what could’ve happened.
There’s no doubt in your mind that somehow, he is singlehandedly responsible for saving you all.
Someone in front dares to speak everyone’s mind. “You saved us.” They say as they make their way to him.
The mystery man looks at the passenger with a humble look.
He puts a comforting hand on their shoulder and escorts them out, everyone else following suit.
Everyone else but you. You’re frozen in a whirlwind of emotions, mostly shock.
You’re so out of it that you don’t even notice him coming up to you, his striking blue eyes steady on your form.
“Are you alright, ma’am?”
You whip your head up at him and realize you’re the only one onboard the plane.
“Umm, yeah. I-I think.” You furrow your eyebrows as you feel your foot stuck in a comatose position.
“Can you stand?” He gently asks.
You go to stand up from seat when a sharp pain shoots through your ankle.
A quick breath is drawn from your teeth and he notices immediately.
“Your ankle.”
“Yup.” You hastily grit out.
He looks at you in contemplation for a moment before doing what he has to do.
“Do you mind if I carry you out?”
You pause your unsteady breathing and look up at him through your lashes.
I didn’t hear that.
“Uhh…”
There is a right answer but you don’t know if it’s the answer.
He’s strikingly handsome, so unfairly dashing.
He’s looking at you with those kind eyes and waiting patiently for your word.
“No. No, I don’t mind.” You clear your throat gingerly.
The soft curve of his lips make you feel a bit at ease for a moment.
He holds his hand out for you to take and gently pulls you into him when you do, wrapping that arm around your back. He bends down to hook his other arm under your knees and lifts you so effortlessly, you feel yourself swoon at his display of strength.
Your brain goes quiet and you can’t think about anything else but him. You’re starstruck by him.
Is this a bad time?
He looks straight ahead as he walks towards the open doors but the slight curve of his lips gives the impression of a soft smile.
Soft gasps and wide eyes paint the picture of surprise and you’re immediately flushed so deeply into embarrassment.
The man holding you doesn’t say anything but he silently shares your opinion.
As he walks down the ramp, you look anywhere but at him and the very obvious audience in front.
The symbol on his chest catches your eye and you’re analyzing it. It appears to be a red diamond encasing a capital letter of the same color, an ‘S’.
You wonder what it stands for, what it means to him.
People make room for him as he walks to a spot where you can comfortably rest.
You can feel everyone’s eyes on you and it bothers the hell out of you, but you bear with it for the moment.
He finds a bench within the stagnant ocean of people and sets you down on it, an apologetic expression framing his face.
“I’m sorry.”
You peer up at him in surprise. “For what?”
He sets his hands on his hips, subtly tilting his head to the left and you see behind him the wandering eyes and gossipy mouths.
You snort softly, shaking your head lightly at their antics. “It’s not your fault. They’re just… trying to figure out what just happened.”
He nods, turning back to the plane with a determined look.
“The ambulance is on its way.” He says as he turns back to you.
You nod, not wanting to look away from his eyes.
The air is thick with so many unanswered questions left unasked, but your throbbing ankle takes a frontseat to it all.
This man is a miracle in the flesh and he’s filled your mind with so much curiosity, you don’t know what to do with it.
“You’re gonna be alright.” He says it with such confidence that you believe him.
And he’s gone, flying upwards into the air and in a direction one can only point to.
People crowd the spot he just stood in and stare up in awe at the phenomenon: a man just flew right to the sky!
What a headache and headline this is going to be.
Your ankle was as swollen as an orange, thankfully like the ones that are really small and are known as ‘Cuties’ or whatever the hell.
There's a brace on it to keep from hurting as much but the swelling's still got a long way to go.
You're currently icing it as much as you can before it falls off when you hear a knock on your window.
You hold your breath and lean out a little, trying to hone in on the knock.
Was it real or a part of your imagination?
It's when you hear it again that you decide, nope, totally real.
You move slowly, setting the ice pack on your dresser before carefully moving your leg and setting your foot down on the floor.
Eventually, you make it to your window and look through the blinds to see what could be causing that noise.
You softly gasp. “Holy shit.”
It's the guy from earlier, the same man who (may or may not have) saved your life. And he's floating, literally standing on air.
You pull your blinds all the way up and open your window, not hiding the shock on your face as you stare at him dumbfounded.
He titters softly, finding your reaction amusing. “Can I come in?”
You wordlessly step aside with your mouth slightly agape, not really grasping the gravity of the situation.
He flies right into your bedroom while you budge the window back down and close the blinds.
With his back turned against you, you take this chance to make yourself look more put together. Your hands find their way into your hair and subconsciously pat down your body to press the fabric of your clothes as flatly as possible.
He’s studying your room and now you’re even more self-conscious even though it’s relatively tidy.
“I’m sorry for showing up here unannounced.” He says as he turns around to face you. “I hope I don't come off as a stalker.” He snorts softly.
You laugh along, nervous. “I was just icing it before...” You trail off, making a gesture towards the window.
He nods, clicking his teeth. “Ah, right. Sorry, once again.”
You shake your head. “No, don’t be. It’s okay.”
You move to sit back down on your bed and continue icing your ankle.
“You left your purse.”
He reveals the black purse to you and you gasp at the revelation, so relieved as you thought you were going crazy looking for it.
“Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.” You say as he chuckles softly and hands you your purse.
“No, don’t thank me. Just doing what’s right.”
Something about his words makes you pause. The familiar syntax reminds you of someone who’d do what he just did.
You don’t even look inside to see everything in order because oddly enough, you trust it is.
Your grin makes the man in front of you feel strangely victorious.
“Not many would do what’s right.”
He squints his eyes and tilts his head to the side, as if to disagree. “I think we all deserve a little grace every now and then.”
“You have faith in humanity?”
You don’t mean to start a conversation about the moral dilemma of being human but his response intrigues you.
“I do.” He answers with such confidence that you believe him.
“At least that makes one of us.” You look back down at your hands applying pressure to the pain.
“Why don’t you?” He asks with genuine wonder.
You tilt your head at him, intrigued. “Are you really asking me that?” You squint your eyes playfully. “I’m an investigative reporter. I’ve seen and heard things that have made me come close to quitting.”
“Why haven’t you then?” He cheekily asks with a smirk of his own.
You're taken aback with his playful wit exuding a flirty vibe.
You'll bite.
“Because even though my job can be draining, I still love what I accomplish.”
He's delighted with your reasoning, appreciating your love for the game.
“Well said.” He nods.
You tilt your head up, the reporter in you wanting to talk to him more.
“Your turn.”
He raises an eyebrow at your proposed question.
“What do you do?” You ask.
He clicks his teeth lightly. “Well, you’ve seen me fly. I can hear well over the distance and lift very heavy things, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He knows that’s not what you’re asking, you know he knows that.
You smile, shaking your head at his quips. “As in your occupation, Mr..?”
He stands with a knowing smile. “I’ll tell you next time.”
You blink, startled by his suggestion. “Next time?”
He walks towards your window and you follow, opening it for him.
“Until next time, miss L/n.” He says with a wink,
And he's gone.
You're left staring at his fantastic display of power, soaring into the night sky before he disappears into the clouds.
You've never been this fascinated with anything before, but he isn't “anything” or “anyone”. He's a phenomenon, man with great power.
You don't see that often.
You wonder who he really is, where has he been all this time? What's his story?
So many questions, so little time but you'll hold him to that promise of a next time.
“Next time.” You murmur in confidence that he'll find you again.
Lois enters your office with a particular pep in her step, a knowing smile on her lips as she sees you.
You don’t look up from your work as you know there’s nobody else that can enter your office that way. (even perry knocks, lois)
“Sooo?” She asks, strangely enthusiastic.
“So.” You reply uninterested, flipping through pages.
She stares at you like you know what she’s talking about before bombarding you with questions.
“Who is he? What’s he like? Where's he from—? Wait, he’s human, right?”
Your eyes widen just a fraction before you dial it down.
You can't tell anybody about your encounter with him. At least not until you've had some questions answered.
A hurried breath is pushed past your lips, your eyebrows furrowing in annoyance at your friend’s prying form.
“No comment.” You say plainly, not indulging her.
Clark walks by with a new drink of the day and sets it down on your desk, a sweet smile on his face.
“For you.”
You know those certain people who just have you on automatic smile as soon as you see them? He's quickly becoming that person for you.
“You are such a nice guy, Clark.” Lois shakes her head in amazement.
She can't believe men like him do, in fact, exist.
That causes a noticeable blush to coat the tips of his ears and spread thinly across his cheeks.
He's humble. “I appreciate that Lois.”
This tradition is a declaration of friendship, a bond he claims to regard just as much as you do.
A sip of it simultaneously warms your heart and reawakens the butterflies lying dormant in your stomach.
“I agree.” You softly smile. “You’re committed to keeping up with this.”
He looks down and pushes his glasses up with an index finger, clicking his teeth together shyly. “Well, I’m no guy in a cape.”
There he goes downplaying his efforts and staying humble, as usual.
“How’s your ankle?” He asks as he eyes it.
You look down like you just remembered. “Oh, yeah, it’s fine. The swelling’s gone down a lot so I’m good to come back.”
Lois watches the news on one of the tv’s in the room play a clip someone managed to record of said guy fly up into the air, departing with a sonic boom.
She leans into Clark a bit, looking straight at the tv with that same damned topic on her mind. “Clark, do you think he’s handsome?”
He clears his throat lightly, sniffing as he tries to figure out how to answer that wild question. “Well, I— uhh… um— he’s, he’s… conventionally attractive.” His tone gets pitchy at the end, like he's asking, not telling.
“Lois.” You sigh.
“What? He’s so cute guys, I don’t know why no one else is talking about it.”
You take a peek at Clark and find quite a bit of blood rushing to his face.
“Clark, are you alright?”
“Huh— yeah. Yeah, no, I-I’m good! I’m fine, it’s just uhh… hot.” He nods, trying to look convincing.
Lois doesn’t miss a beat. “He’s hot.”
“Oh my god.” You groan.
“No, like, seriously.”
And it’s your fault for knowing how serious she is.
“Do you guys think he’d go for me?”
“Oh, yeah. For sure.” You nod with a fake smile. “He’d be all over you.”
She bursts out laughing, her focus on the poor guy in your midst. “He’s as red as his cape.”
You turn your head to see and it’s true, he’s super red in the face and just refuses to make eye contact.
“I’m just gonna go… do that thing Perry wanted.” He sends you girls a quick nod and smile before basically running out of y’all’s presence.
You watch him go and find his vulnerability endearing. He’s not afraid to show his feelings but like in typical Clark fashion, gets a little embarrassed when he does.
She purses her lips apologetically.
You shake your head at her. “Lois, if you were a man...” You raise your eyebrows and push air out in yet another sigh.
She takes your lack of words as a sign to contemplate the idea, then says, “You’d be my first target.” with a nod and serious look.
“Get out.”
You hadn’t anticipated your savior to be the subject of fascination so soon. Later on in the afternoon, in fact.
“L/n, you’re a firsthand witness. What do you think?”
Everyone’s eyes are on you as they wait for you to tell your story. You haven’t felt this nervous since your interview with this place.
You clear your throat a bit, feeling your nerves on fire.
“I believe he stopped the plane from crashing.”
You don’t need to be a telepath to know what they’re all thinking: you’re fucking crazy.
Of course, that’s an impossible thing to do but not everyone in this room was there.
“You think… he was responsible for saving everyone that day?” Perry asks, intrigued by your line of reasoning.
“Yes. He came onto the jet and immediately asked if everyone was alright, if anyone was injured.”
A few people murmur in doubt but you continue.
“I sprained my ankle somehow and he offered to help me off and took me to an area where I could wait for an ambulance.”
They eye your gloved ankle, unimpressed. (it’s not like you’re here to knock their socks off anyway)
“He helped you off the jet? How?” Someone asks.
“He, um… carried me out.” You quietly say.
The atmosphere shifts and you can really feel and see just how shell-shocked everyone is.
“He carried you out?!”
“As in, in his arms? You were carried out in his arms..?”
You immediately jump to your defense. “I’m not sure why and, or how that matters.”
They’re incredulously adamant about it. “How come? You’ve not only had a conversation, but also came into close contact with him—”
“And that’s where your focus lies?” Perry cuts in.
You look at him in thanks and he nods in acknowledgment.
“I dunno.” A board member sighs. “Some mysterious, muscular man coming to save the helpless woman story won’t run headlines.”
You scoff in disbelief. “Excuse me?”
Perry feels a headache coming on.
“You asked about my encounter and I told you. I’m not here to be a headline.”
The man who thought of that “brilliant” idea is coated in embarrassment, feeling annoyed at receiving the heat.
“Anyone have any useful ideas?” Your boss asks with his thumbs pressing down on his temple.
There’s some chatter about this man and how he managed to save the plane, if he did. Some even discuss if he’s capable of being a potential threat to the country.
“You’re dismissed.” Perry says with a pointed look.
You leave with your head down and jaw tight, coming to sight with Mark.
“Excuse me.” You drop the hint of ignoring him but he doesn’t care.
“Going somewhere?” He asks with a smug expression.
You still push past him, only for him to turn around and tail you.
“Yeah. Some of us have jobs to do.”
You don’t care how you look and/or sound.
You just got reduced a damsel-in-distress by a board member while your boss ignored him. Granted, he stuck up for you when it came time but he also dismissed you like you weren’t needed anymore.
Mark pokes a tongue into his cheek, his frustration with you at its boiling point. “And what’s yours? Playing hooky with Superman?”
You don’t know whether to be offended or question the ridiculous choice of name for the man, first.
You choose the first option as it’s the most relevant.
“What did you just say to me?”
He smirks like he just found a pressure point on you. He takes a step closer. “You heard me.”
He actually thinks he's got you this time.
“What, got nothin' to say now that Kent isn't here to save you?”
All that annoyance you were feeling just know? Yeah, that's amplified by a thousand now that he brought that up.
“I can stick up for myself, and I definitely won’t take any shit from you.” You spite. “If I took that promotion back then, you would’ve been fired and on your ass in less than a minute.”
You're pulling rank but it isn't rage-bait if it's true.
He's seething now. A vein protrudes from his forehead and he inhales deeply to try to keep himself together as much as possible.
“Oh, I know how you got that promotion.” He spits that venom so carelessly with the most malicious intent.
You squint your eyes in suspected belief.
Mark continues his verbal assault.
“Yeah,” He nods. “It wasn't that hard to figure out why the old man favors you so much.”
You were right, it had been what you were thinking.
The envy in him has always given off a strong stench, he literally gives the evil eye to those better than him in every way possible.
At your loss of words and hurt expression, he smirks before delivering what he thinks is the final blow. “I’m willing to bet you slept your way to the top.”
In this very moment, you realize you don’t have to listen to his shit any longer.
Your strike his face, open-handed; hard. A powerful smack resulting in a red handprint on his blanched face.
The ear on that side of his face rings piercingly loud and in his disoriented state, nearly collapses onto the floor.
A chorus of sharp gasps and sound grimaces snap you out of the adrenaline-fueled rage consuming you.
It seems that you’ve gathered quite a crowd of spectators. The horrified look on your face isn't nearly enough to convince your innocence to anyone just joining now joining in.
“What the hell is going on out here?” Perry's voice booms.
You shakily inhale, meeting his accusing gaze and you watch as he tracks a path between you and Mark writhing on the floor.
You fight the urge to roll your eyes at his pathetic acting.
“Get in here. Right. Now.”
With your chin up, you walk right past the whimpering mess on the floor; your heel almost crunching his fingers if it weren't for his reaction time.
You know you shouldn't be the one to feel embarrassed but there's still a part of you that does.
After all that you've put into this place, some overzealous, whiny little piece of shit wants to humiliate you by attempting to slutshame? In this day and age?
You huff in exasperation of being on your way to overstimulation by the very quick turn of events.
You're already sat when Mark comes in and Perry shuts the door, but not before yelling at everyone to get back to work.
You feel your victim to your far right, not wanting to sit down.
“Sit down, Mark.” Perry says before looking at him quizzically. “And why are your hands covering only one side of your face?”
You bite back an explanation and a smirk.
Mark doesn't say anything but instead opts to show, he drops both hands hesitantly to his sides.
Perry's reaction is nothing short of priceless. He thinks about exclaiming but when side-eyeing you and carefully assessing your careless reaction, he clocks it.
“I was counting on you being bitch-slapped one of these days but I was not expecting you to be dumb enough to try her.” He dryly chuckles in half admiration and half disappointment.
“Sir? You're actually siding with her right now?”
You close your eyes and mentally prepare to be fired.
Perry’s expression is that of a Don’t try me and Mark actually takes it seriously this time.
Wonder what’s the difference in you giving him that look and Perry…
“What happened, L/n?”
You open your eyes nervously and take a breath, preparing yourself to speak your truth.
“I slapped him… because he accused me of sleeping my way to the top for the promotion.”
There’s about a few seconds of silence before Perry speaks up.
“What.” He just says but it’s his tonal shift that makes Mark sweat.
“W-well, I just said that in the heat of the moment.” He chuckles nervously. “I didn’t mean that—”
Perry pinches the bridge of his nose to try to calm himself down. “I have no tolerance for this kind of behavior, Callahan. You know that.”
Said boy clears his throat and sniffs. “Y-yes sir, I do—”
“Then why did you do it?” Perry’s eyes bore into his with such intensity, it makes you a bit uneasy as well.
Mark opens and closes his mouth trying to come up with an answer to that obviously rhetorical question like a fish.
At his lack of words, your boss scratches his forehead. “Here’s an easier one: what did you think you were accomplishing by demeaning her character like that?”
Still no answer.
He puts a finger on Mark's chest, pressing into it as he says, “I’ll tell you. She is your superior because she, unlike you, gets it. She gets this job, what it means to be a reporter.”
His condescending tone towards the other male isn't unheard of but it sure as hell surprises you a lot.
Mark tightens his jaw and turns his head to look at you in malice. “With all due respect, sir, you should understand why I said that.”
“I don’t have to understand a goddamn thing.” His gruff voice reverberates through the walls, causing you to straighten your back.
Perry then carefully and slowly says, “Get the fuck outta here, you’re fired.”.
Mark dares to speak up even now. “But, sir—”
“Right now!” The older man barks his orders and like the sad little puppy Mark is, follows one last time.
When he leaves, Perry sighs and turns to sit down in his chair. He pours himself a drink, offering one to you.
You stare at him wearily before declining but he pours you a drink, anyway.
He silently takes a sip, prompting you to do the same and you feel the smooth, mellow taste of Brandy.
He groans, satisfied with the drink.
You set your glass down, feeling your nerves becoming slightly undone by the aftertaste.
It’s momentarily quiet, the awkward silence now comfortable.
You’re the first to break it. “Am I being fired?”
This is apparently funny to him because he laughs. Yes, he wheezes before giving in to the chest-laugh every man his age has.
You awkwardly chuckle along, not knowing if that's the right move.
He sighs in satisfaction once more.
“Y/n,” He begins warmly. “I can't fire you after that shitshow.”
Anyone else would think that statement was made in fear of being seen as an asshole who doesn't stand in solidarity with women but not you.
Perry White can put on a show of being a bitter old man but now's not one of those times.
“You did what you had to do and since I'm being honest,” He leans in a little like he's about to share a secret. “I'm glad you gave me a reason to kick his ass out.”
That brings a soft smile on your face, one that expresses your gratitude.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”
“Most bosses wouldn't give a fuck.” The word rolls off your tongue with such smoothness, you forgot to code switch.
He takes no mind and instead lets you talk informally, he gathers you deserve that much.
“I'm not most bosses.” He wittily replies with a wink and tight-lipped smile.
“No, you are not.” You say with an appreciative nod.
You ignore everyone that didn't need your help for the remainder of the day.
As Mark took the walk of shame, it made you feel a little better when you saw people who you've never spoken to give him dirty looks and shake their head at him in disapproval.
Even though he got at least half of what he deserved, you still felt the aftermath of his words. They stung and it just made you think, how many other people feel that way?
You drowned yourself in work, you felt as if you're now obligated to work twice as hard.
Then you hear him.
“Y/n?”
You move your head from your hand and look up above your computer, spotting no other than your trusty colleague and friend.
“Clark, hey. What’re you doing here?”
“Hey, I was just about to ask you that.” He says with a boyish smile and points at you.
You smile back instinctually. “I'm just finishing up some stuff, meeting deadlines.”
“Ah.” He nods.
You eye the time and decide to save what you have left, planning to resume tomorrow.
“I was doing the same.”
You put on your jacket and grab your purse, walking out with him.
“This late?”
Poor guy, you hope he doesn't have a workload as big as yours if he's staying until almost 2 am.
“Yeah.” Clark sighs tiredly. “Perry gave me Mark's last assignment.”
You pause locking your office door, not expecting that answer.
Clark pretends not to notice.
As you enter the elevator (before clark, of course), you make light conversation.
“So ready to go home to my bed.” You tip your head back close your eyes, letting yourself rest for a moment.
“For real, I was about to fall asleep at my desk if it wasn’t for you.”
Both of your eyes open. “What do you mean?”
“I thought I was the only person here but then I saw your lamplight on so, I figured why not fight it for as long as I can.”
Had he stayed this long for you?
“Clark…”
You feel guilty and why wouldn’t you? He was basically waiting on you to call it in and stood by the entire time.
“It’s okay! No harm done.” He insists.
He was actually meaning to go home the same time you were, so he could talk to you.
He knows how pathetic that sounds but he'd rather be a pathetic man with a crush, even if that sounds elementary.
Instead, he opts on telling a half truth. “I needed the extra hours anyway.”
You turn to face him. “You did?”
Uh oh. He wasn’t supposed to say that.
Stupid sleep-deprived brain making him say things he’s not supposed to.
“Yeah, cause my research and work ethic is different from Mark’s.” He purses his lips and nods lightly.
Though he may look confident on the outside, he’s freaking out on the inside.
What was he supposed to say, the truth? Yeah, I was out late saving the planet one country at a time. That kind of stuff tends to get tiring if I have to wake up on time, ha ha ha.
He hopes you believe him and don’t inquire any further so he won't have to come up with another lie.
You hum before yawning lightly. “Makes sense.”
Clark watches you cover your mouth with the back of your hand and notices how you close your eyes when you yawn.
He also notes that you're really comfortable around him. You don't think twice about saying certain things in front of him.
He likes being the reason you let your guard down, he does the same around you.
You can see him staring into the side of your face so you turn your head, meeting his warm yet intimidating stare.
Your lips automatically purse into the friendliest awkward smile you have and he returns the sentiment.
You both then look away simultaneously. You look up at the countdown whereas he looks down on the shining metallic floor.
There’s still 25 more floors to go before you meet the garage parking lot.
The atmosphere grows a little awkward but is forgiven as there’s a shared understanding: you’re both fucking exhausted.
Though, there is something Clark wants to talk to you about.
“Y/n?”
“Hm?”
He hesitates for a moment, his mouth opening then closing as he thinks about how to bring this topic up.
“I heard about what happened.”
You slowly turn your head to him wordlessly, waiting for him to continue.
He stares back at you and you notice how blue his eyes look under fluorescent light.
“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, affected by the outburst as anyone else who gave a damn.
You’re touched.
“You don’t have to apologize, Clark.” You say as you look down at your shoes, suddenly growing shy of his eyes.
“I know,” He says. “But I care.”
The sentiment doesn't go unnoticed. Your lips turn up appreciatively.
“I know that as a woman, I'll be undermined at times but that was seriously a low blow.” You vent. “Even for him.”
Your disappointment isn't hard to assess. Even though you knew he'd be the one to say something like that, you still would've liked to be proven wrong.
Clark feels for you, you shouldn't have to feel alienated by your colleagues.
“I'm sorry nobody spoke up. I would have.”
“I know.” You say. “Thanks, Clark.”
“Of course. Anytime.”
You think about how nice it is of Clark to say this but you’re reminded of his absence prior.
“Where were you today, by the way. I barely saw you.”
He lies straight through his teeth. “I was out running some errands.”
He was actually stopping a country from getting actively bombed but that’s a story for another time.
“Perry still giving you the Miranda treatment?”
He chortles at your reference. “What can I say, I make a great Andrea.”
“You do. Who’s your Emily?”
You both take a moment to think about this.
“I got nothin’.” You say.
Clark agrees, although he’s come up with an alternative approach.
“There’s Mark, but he’s more Emily to your Andrea.”
You make a motion to wrap your hands around your neck and pretend to choke yourself.
It gets a good laugh out of him.
You blow a soft raspberry. “I just want my Nate. Without the “I'm insecure and feeling jealous because my partner is having it better” part.”
You look up at him and say without thinking, “You’d make a great Nate.”
You’re so tired, very exhausted from the day taking a toll on you, which explains why you’re just saying random shit.
Clark feels hot, like his whole face is on fire. He chuckles bashfully, very obviously failing at trying to not let that affect him so much.
The elevator dings and you both look up, finding the doors to open and reveal the garage parking lot.
“So, what do you mean by that? Exactly.” He furrows his brows and pushes his glasses up.
You step out, feeling all of your nerves turn to ice as you realize the weight of your words. “Oh, you know. You'd be a supporting and secure boyfriend.”
He's stumped, left watching as you walk to your car.
You wave goodbye before getting into your car and he returns the gesture.
You turn to face him, walking backwards. “Good night, Clark.”
He feels the blood wash over his heart like the ocean returning to shore.
“Good night.” He murmurs fondly.
“Dude, this is a terrible idea.” Jimmy scolds. “Your worst one yet, and you barely have those!”
But Clark isn’t listening, he’s already made his mind up.
“If I like her as a man then I have to respect her as Superman.”
Okay, that was a bar, Jimmy concedes.
“Besides, she wouldn’t tell anyone.” Clark adds.
Of course you wouldn't tell anyone about Clark’s identity, he knows that.
“I know that,” Jimmy sighs. “But think of your relationship with her as Superman from a journalistic standpoint.”
Jimmy just wants the best for his best man, he wants Clark to really think about this.
“She won’t let her bias for you stop her from doing her job, even if that means asking questions you can’t answer directly.”
Diving headfirst into something like a romantic relationship without going over the logistics is bound to crash and burn.
But it’s you, the same woman who understands him. You see him, know him. You’re not one to hide how comforted you feel when he’s around, he literally hears your heart rate when he dotes on you.
You must feel the same way. Right?
But how would you react to this? Would you still feel the same? Would you still view him as the same Clark who goes out of his way for you?
After some careful consideration, Clark comes to a conclusion.
“Okay.” He says.
Jimmy closes his eyes in relief, sighing at the fact that his friend chose his mind over his heart.
“I’m going to tell her everything.”
Jimmy slaps a palm across his forehead all wide-eyed, not believing he got bamboozled this way.
He now has to watch his best friend throw everything away for the ruzz (reporter huzz).
Clark feels a weight lifted from his chest at this decision.
He's always wanted to tell you but his moral obligation was to this planet, regardless of what his heart wanted.
He walks to your office, stopping just before the door to check on his appearance. He moves his head to the side, inspecting his hair. He then fixes his tie and glasses.
Satisfied with himself, he knocks and waits for your approval.
“Come in.”
Clark pokes his head in comically.
Your eyes flit up and when you see him, giggling at his silliness. “Hey, you.”
His chest warms at the sight and sound of your delight.
You seem so easygoing, truly content when you smile or laugh. Do you know that?
His takes in your face.
Your hair shines from the light, cascading down your shoulders and framing your head nicely.
Your eyes are on him and every time you look at him, he feels as though he can tell you anything. And though they're beautiful, his favorite part about your face have to be your lips.
You're a very expressive person so your words and reactions make up everything about you.
He loves seeing them pull you into a smile and laugh, especially when he's the reason. It’s like a reward seeing you joyful because of him.
He's momentarily distracted by the sight, always on the verge of forgetting his objective as soon as your pretty lips move around.
You say his name like you're in the middle of something.
He blinks, shaking himself out of his daydream. “I'm sorry, what? I was not paying attention, I'm sorry.”
It's refreshing to see a man apologize so much but it feels weird coming from him.
“It's too early for this, I know.” You jest kindly. “I was asking what can I do for you?”
“Oh! Right, why I'm here.” He chuckles, embarrassed.
Get it together, Clark he warns himself mentally.
“I, um... I wanted to ask you something.”
You lean your elbows on your desk, giving him your undivided attention. “Sure, what's up?”
He walks to your desk, taking out a sticky note folded in half. He hands it to you.
I have something I want to talk about, meet me in the mailroom? Lunch on me ;)
You can't with this guy sometimes. Asking you to lunch via sticky note?
“That is seriously the cutest thing ever.” Lois coos.
You've been smiling since he gave the note to you, grinning at him as he walked out of your office.
You even did a celebratory squeal before containing yourself.
“Isn't it?” You giddily ask. “Ugh, he's so cute.”
Lois nods in agreement, wondering when she's gonna find her own Clark Kent.
“What do you think he wants to talk about?” You ask.
Lois looks at you bewildered. “What do you mean? Isn't it obvious?”
You stare at her expectantly, blinking.
“Oh my god.” She groans. “He's gonna tell you how bad he wants you, Y/n!”
“He is?” You say, hopeful.
She nods ecstatically and spins you around in your chair to face her. “Think about it. You two have been dancing around this unspoken attraction between you for how long?”
You instantly give her a time period. “Almost a month.”
“That was rhetorical.”
“Oh.” Your lips pull to the side, sheepishly. “Sorry. Continue.”
“The point is, he obviously feels for you. It was just a matter of when he’d get the balls to make the first move.”
You nod along, finding her logic unarguable. “Okay. Okay, so I just walk in and tell him—”
“No, no, no. What? Don't do that! He's the one asking you to come over so let him go first.”
“Right, right.” You blink. “Let him go first, you're right.”
Lois puts a sympathetic hand on your shoulder. “You're nervous, and that's okay. Just breathe, be calm, cool, and collected. You're Y/n L/n, investigative reporter at the Daily Planet.”
“I’m Y/n L/n, investigative reporter at the Daily Planet.” You repeat like a mantra.
Lois smiles encouragingly, being your best hype-woman. “You’re fucking amazing.”
You close your eyes and blindly trust her. “I’m fucking amazing.”
“You’re the baddest bitch here and you know it.”
You blow air deeply, feeling yourself relax a bit. “I’m the baddest… bitch here and I know it.”
“Fuck yeah, you do!” She exclaims and you find yourself smiling, shaking your head at her theatrics.
You fucking love this girl.
“You got this, okay? Don't think too much, it'll feel natural once you let him talk.”
You feel like you’re about to get in the boxing ring with everything that could go wrong.
“Go get him, tiger!”
It's lunchtime and for the first time in history, you're not hungry.
You can't even think about eating out of anxiety.
You walk towards the mailroom and suspire when you go to twist the door handle.
You're immediately met with the dreamy pair of eyes you were hesitant to see.
You shut the door behind you, none of you want to be the one to move first.
“Hi.” He hums.
“Hi.” You say, equally as soft.
He clears his throat lightly and gestures you over, some sandwiches and sodas decorating the table.
“Panera?” You say with glee.
His lips pull back at your reaction. “Yup.”
You reign in your excitement, remembering why you came here in the first place.
“So.” You hint subtly.
“Sooo.”
You tilt your head at him, narrowing your eyes playfully at him. “Sooo, what'd you have to tell me?”
He clicks his teeth. “That's the question.”
You tip your head back and half-whine, half-laugh. “Oh my god, stop baiting me!”
Clark finds humor in edging you on like this, how often does he get to see you so highstrung?
“Okay, okay, alright.” He airily chuckles. “I'll stop.”
You blink patiently, the remnants of a grin on your face.
He soughs, building up the confidence to tell you how just much he feels for you.
“Okay.” He licks his lips, meeting your gaze.
He's caught, mesmerized by the way your attention is on him. He doesn't realize just how heavy his stare is until he watches you squirm.
“Clark..?” You call out to him thinking he's spacing out.
“Sorry.” He says on default, though he's not really apologetic for anything at all.
You're just so—
“Beautiful.”
Your breath catches in your chest and he's mortified.
“I, I just said that... outloud.” He stammers.
You watch him scramble for a way out.
“I'm sorry— not that you aren't beautiful, which you are. You so are.”
He cringes at himself and you hold back a simper, finding him so endearing.
“I just, um... Alright, here's the thing.” He claps both hands together softly.
“Mhm.” You nod, furrowing your eyebrows and to show you're just as serious about what he has to say.
“I... I have, uh— wait, no. That's not right.” He mutters to himself.
You come closer, standing right in front of him. “Clark.”
He looks down, stunned at your proximity and stops babbling.
“Just say it.” You coax gently. “Whatever it is, I'm sure we can work through it, together.”
Together. He thinks about the good ending, the one where you do end up getting together.
As you look up at him with those kind eyes, he feels everything he has to say come right out.
“I can't stop thinking about you.” He confesses.
You blink, startled by this even though you were expecting it.
“I like you, a-a lot, and I have so much to tell you.”
Clark's eyes flit between yours, desperately searching somewhere for you to feel the same.
He hears your heartbeat skyrocket, he feels your hands shake slightly from the adrenaline. The smell of your perfume thickens the air and he can't get enough. He can almost taste the color of your lips with how close they are.
He gulps, growing jumpy from your silence.
“Say something, please.” He whispers.
Another moment of quiet, not voluntarily. You're just trying to find the right words.
“I... I feel the same.”
That familiar megawatt smile graces his lips and you feel the tables turn, you in his previous postition and he in yours.
“I have for a long time.”
His eyes crease at that and he can't help the laughter bubbling out of him.
You laugh with him, not believing this is happening right now.
“You have no idea how long I've been holding that in.” He tells you, leaning on the table behind him.
“Not longer than me.” You suppose.
His eyebrows quirk up, silently asking you to go first.
So you do. “Since you started bringing me my daily dose of energy.”
He hums.
“Now, you.”
He looks at you with the fondest expression ever, you hold yourself back from kissing him stupid.
“Since my first day.” His voice thick with honey.
Your eyes soften and though he's won, you don't take this as a loss.
“Seriously?”
You don't mean to be so anticlimactic but how else does one react to feelings of romance being reciprocated?
As if Clark Kent couldn't get any more attractive, he takes your hand with the utmost care and rests it right on top of his heart.
“Can you feel that?” He asks while gauging your every little microreaction.
It speeds up gradually as your hand connects with the fabric of his shirt, pure electricity binding you together.
You nod, involuntarily fighting the tears you sense.
“Aw, don't cry.” He cradles your face in his hands and you close your eyes, overwhelmed by his affection for you.
“Come on, let me see you.” He ducks his head down, trying to catch your shy eyes.
When you finally do, he smiles so brightly that you swear it's like looking directly into the sun.
“There she is.”
You chuckle weakly, sniffling once.
He lets go of your face and can't resist the temptation of not touching your arms. He rubs them up and down a couple times, feeling goosebumps arise in their wake.
“Can I have a hug?” You ask, looking back at him through your lashes.
He feels his heart stop right there, that look sends him over the edge and you don't even know it.
Clark wordlessly leans down and pulls you in, his strong arms wrap around your waist comfortingly while you reach up on your toes.
You rest your head on his shoulder and feel your hearts beating under each other so passively, a sigh escapes the confines of both your mouths simultaneously.
Something about this feels like déjà vu, like you've been in a similar position.
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
“Remember that conference I was supposed to go to in DC but got cancelled because the jet almost crashed?”
He pulls away with a straight face, hiding the absolute chaos unfurling behind those eyes. “Yeah..? Why?”
You look at the door then back at him. “I haven't told anyone about this but afterwards, Superman came by my place.”
“What? No way!” Clark gasps.
You nod cooly.
“So, what happened? What'd you guys talk about?”
You tell him how he stopped by to return your purse but something has been bugging you since. “I just don't know how he got my address.”
“Oh, that's easy.” He doesn't feel like playing this game anymore, too many sweats. “I know where you live.”
You’re perplexed and then some because what does that mean?
“What are you saying?”
He puts both hands on your shoulders and gives you a riddled look that says, Come on, think about it. You know what I’m saying.
A lightbulb turns on in your head but it can’t be. There’s just no way you’re thinking what he’s thinking.
You’re too flabbergasted to say a word. You just stare at him, open-mouthed and wide-eyed as you say it out loud.
“You’re… you’re— you,” You chuckle dryly, your head spinning a bit. “You’re Superman?”
He doesn’t give any indication of agreeing with you but his silence does.
Clark’s trying to get a read on you.
You then cover your mouth with both hands, muffling an excited ‘Oh my god!’.
He feels reassured.
“You’re Superman!” You whisper-scream.
“Yes. Yes, I am.” He nods while checking the door to see anyone coming in.
You just stare at him in wonder, taking this all in.
It all makes perfect sense.
Who else would be selfless enough to protect those who can’t protect themselves? To have integrity is the most Clark Kent trait you can think of.
You know Clark has a big heart but this? This is next level.
“Why are you telling me this?”
He looks at you like the answer to that is simple, which to him, is. It’s always going to be simple if it involves you.
“I don’t want to start this on a lie.” He reveals as those damned blue eyes fixate on you.
You can fly right now.
He leans in ever so slowly, tracking any detail on your face that may give away the impression of not wanting him in your space.
When he finds none and is absolutely sure, he puts a hand on your cheek and asks, “Can I kiss you?”.
“Yes.” You sound softly and it’s as if a prayer has been answered.
Your eyes flutter shut and he parts his lips for you, you anticipate them to be just as soft and lush as they seem.
He believes he’ll finally be able to understand the languid nature of your mouth and decipher its meaning.
Sparks fly when you make contact, it strengthens the electricity that makes your chemistry.
The kiss is a breath of fresh air, the kind that blows in quietly; peacefully.
He’s sweet, undoubtedly so. His palms hesitantly splay across the curves on your waist. You smile at the soft touch and he does as well.
Your hands are on his chest and you can feel every pulse, flutter, and pang of his heart.
You think it’s poetic; the influence you have on his heart, both figuratively and literally.
He rests his forehead on yours and you look up at him from under your lashes.
He’s about to speak up when he hears something, something you don’t. His ears perk in the direction of the distressed sound and he turns his head apologetically.
“I have to go.” He regretfully informs.
You reach up to kiss his cheek and rid him of guilt. “When you come back, I’ll be right here.”
Clark hugs you once more and asks, “You’re my hero, you know that?”.
You chortle and respond with, “Is that Superman talking or you?”.
“Both.” He pulls back with a kiss on your hairline, winking at you with a cheeky grin.
He runs out the door and leaves you with the ghost of his touch and words that form a sappy smile on your face.
Superman may be the world’s hero, but Clark Kent is yours.
summary: recovering from kryptonite poisoning back home in Kansas leaves your relationship with Clark a bit confused. you’ve always been his rock- his best friend. but now, back on the farm, maybe there was always something more
pairing: clark kent x female reader
word count: 2.5k
warnings: spoilers!!! don’t read if you don’t wanna be spoiled you’ve been warned! just a lil hurt/comfort fluffy fic, friends confessing feelings type shit, reader calls clark ‘starboy’. um reader makes the first real move cause Clark is a bashful lil gentleman and too nervous
a/n: guyssss i’ve been gone for a while i’m sorry. i’m in the home stretch with my master’s thesis. but i just saw Superman and i’m a mess so here you go! it's my first time writing for the character so I'm still getting a feel. it's short and quick but i hope you enjoy!
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Your hands gripped the rough blue fabric of his suit as firmly as you could manage. Fingers trembled as you struggled to pull him up from the seat in the craft. His body slumped into the cushions, refusing to budge as you shook him gently.
“Clark, hey, wake up.” You tried your best to keep a steady and confident tone, but your voice betrayed you, “Let’s go, hun. We’re here.”
His eyes fluttered open slowly and glanced around, somewhat confused by his surroundings. The daze left when he looked up to be met with your bold eyes. Your hand softly combed through his ink hair, resting at the crook of his neck.
“Hey…” he said, his words slurred and dreary. You looped your arm under his and around his back, tugging as he slowly pushed himself from the seat.
The thud of his boots filled the craft, bouncing off the walls as they revealed the limp and stutter of his steps. His weight was all-consuming, with Clark leaning heavier into your side than he wished to admit. With each laboured breath, each wince and grip from his hand on your hip, your heart clenched. It was too close of a call, too lucky were you that you had pulled him out from the portal. What if you were a second later? What if the kryptonite had finished the job? What if you never saw him again?
You reached the ladder down from the craft. Slowly, you helped him down each step; his normal speed and agility were wiped away as he teetered down the stairs, balancing into your side. The sound of feet crunching thick, tall grass filled your ears. Looking up, an older couple stood at the foot of the ladder. Soft eyes, worn but kind faces, calloused yet gentle hands—the Kents.
The man you assumed to be John rushed up the steps as you reached the bottom. His large hands and strong arms opened to take some of Clark’s weight off you. Martha stood aside, watching with worry creased into her forehead and the wrinkles around her eyes
“He needs to rest, he’ll be okay,” you said as the four of you slowly made your way inside.
“Thank God,” Martha said, clutching a small gold cross strung from her neck.
“i.. c’n walk…” Clark, the ever self-dependent and strong man, tried his best to shake off the help. His feet attempted to carry his weight. But a small dent in the ground had other plans. His foot caught, causing him to stumble and slip from your grasp.
“Woah, hey!” You slid to his front before he could fall from John’s hold and hit the ground. You gently pushed him back up, your hand tenderly brushing a curl from his forehead. “Don’t scare me like that, starboy.”
Even in his delirious and weakened state, Clark couldn’t help the smile that stretched across his face. That damn smile, the one that had somehow found a way to make your knees buckle. You miss the glance exchanged between his parents.
Once inside, you awkwardly laid him into his bed. The kiddish sheets contrasted with the vibrant blue and red fabrics of his suit. The worn blue headboard popped against the stained wood panels lining the walls. His large frame spilled over the small twin bed, and you found yourself wondering how the Kents ever kept up with his growth as a child.
His hair was slick with sweat, and he was exhausted from the strain of reaching the farmhouse. John’s hand rested on Clark's forehead as he eased him into the pillows. Clark’s mumbling filled the room as he tried to relax, the comfort of his parents overwhelming him.
“ma… they sent me here t’ kill p-people,” his words were broken as he stammered. The sound of Martha gently shushing him sang through the room.
You stood back, giving the family space. You didn’t want to intrude, he was their son after all; you were just his friend. If that was all you were, then why was your heart still pounding?
Your eyes roamed over the room, taking in the intimate setting you never thought you’d see. Clark was so private with his parents, so protective. No matter how close you were, that side of him always felt closed off to anyone else. Anything to assure their safety.
The room was scattered with toys, which you guessed were from his early years, just the few that a teenage Clark might have found too much fondness for to toss. Posters from bands you had always given him grief over, old sports trophies, blankets you guessed Martha had made him over the years; it was a room that showed a remarkably humble and mundane childhood that shaped him into the man he was.
Clark’s mumbling called your attention back over to the bed. His words were slightly panicked and rushed, and his half-lidded eyes began to dart around the room.
“where’s…. where’s y-y/n? y/n…” his hand weakly stretched over the sheets as if trying to feel for you.
“She’s right here, sweetheart,” Martha said. Her kind eyes glanced over to you, giving you a welcoming yet sad smile that beckoned you over. His fragile hand took yours and placed it along Clark’s arm, moving from her spot beside the bed to let you sit.
Now at his side, your hand gently stroked his arm and shoulder, working your way up to the silky curls at the nape of his neck; the ones that he couldn’t smooth out no matter how hard he tried. No matter how much comfort you took in having him there, you couldn’t quite push down the bile rising in your throat at the feeling of his dark raised veins along his neck, the painful reminder of how close he was to leaving you.
“I’m here,” you said softly, as if it was just for him. It was.
That damn smile was back, slightly lopsided and shaky from exhaustion, but just as striking as ever.
“mmm… good,” he said as his eyes finally slipped closed.
You sat there for a good while, your hands gently resting at his side, keeping an eye on him as if you were his sole protector while he was gone to the world. You’d never seen him so small, so vulnerable- as small as a 6’4” alien could be.
John’s hand stayed resting at Clark’s head, pushing back his sweat-soaked curls as he tried to relax from the ordeal.
“Don’t let him fool you, he’s just a softy. Especially when it comes to Clark,” Martha said, patting your back as she walked over to her husband. Her eyes watched intently as your hands continued to tremble around Clark’s, unable to let go. She smirked before ushering John out of the room. You heard the faint mumblings of he’ll be okay, he’s got her as they left.
You couldn’t find it in yourself to leave his side, not after he was almost lost to you forever. An hour or so passed before sleep finally overtook you as well. The peaceful look on Clark's face was the last thing you saw before drifting off, your head resting on his side as your arm stretched across him.
-
A continuous, soft tapping against your thighs stirred you awake. The bright Kansas sun spilled in through the blinds and danced across the room. The angle was different than when you dozed off. Rather than lying perched beside the bed, you found yourself staring up at the ceiling with sheets surrounding you. Clark.
Of course, he moved you to his bed.
The thumping continued, and you finally looked down, taking in the sight of Krypto lying cozy across your body, his face mere inches from yours. The tapping of his wagging tail made you giggle as you slipped from the handknit blanket Clark had wrapped you in to scratch behind his ears.
“Good boy,” you said.
The old door creaked on its hinges as you slipped out of the room and down the hall. Your feet padded softly across the tile til you reached the kitchen. Martha stood at the stove, gently pouring a cup of coffee and spreading a thick red jam across two biscuits. You tried to be quiet, wishing not to disturb her morning.
“Morning, dear,” she said before turning to you. You wondered if Clark’s enhanced hearing was something he just learned from his parents because you swore she had it too.
“Morning, Martha,” you said.
“Oh, dear, call me Ma,” you smiled at her words and nodded, walking over as she handed you a cup of coffee. The warm mug filled your hands, and for the first time, they weren’t trembling anymore.
“Thank you for letting me stay the night,” you said.
“Don’t even mention it!” she said before returning a jug of milk to the fridge. While you took a sip from your mug, she stepped over and placed a hand once again on your back. “Thank you for bringing him back to us safely.”
Before you could respond, she nodded her head in the direction of the window out the kitchen door.
“He’s out front,” she said. You gave her a thankful smile before resting your drink on the counter and slipping out the door.
The fabric of your skirt swirled around your legs, long blades of grass pricked at your calves as you waded through the field to reach him. Clark leaned against the rickety wooden fence, watching horses prance and whinny. Your hand gingerly patted the soft snout of one of the horses standing along the fence before you found your way to his spot.
You stood beside him, a comfortable silence falling between you. The sound of the horses filled the air, harmonizing with the low buzz of the bees. You could help but notice the worn flannel stretched over Clark’s arms and back, how the faded jeans he wore had heel bites that revealed the dark brown of his leather boots. It always seemed to slip your mind that he was a country boy through and through, except for those times when his Kansas accent would slip out, it always seemed to happen when you took the last dumpling at dinner.
“You really gave me the bed?” you asked, watching the horses trot around the pen.
“What kind of man would I be if I let you sleep on the floor?” he said.
“The kind who needed rest ‘cause he was poisoned…” You said with a giggle, but he knew you were serious. He simply shrugged, a casual smile on his lips.
He moved to stand closer to you, leaning forward on the fence and finally looking over at you. His hands wrung as he looked you over. For a moment, you thought maybe he was nervous, like you made him anxious.
You leaned on the wood with him, your shoulder nudging slightly into his. Your hands hesitated before a gust of courage helped you take his and stop his fidgeting. A placid sigh slipped from his lips as that damn smile came back.
“You scared me, starboy,” you said.
A blush burst across his face. Once, that always seemed to appear at the sound of that nickname. Perhaps yesterday he was too out of it, but today that blush was back in full swing.
He stepped closer to you, leaving little distance between your bodies. His hands gingerly played with yours, turning it over softly and tracing the lines on your palm.
“...I know, I could tell,” he said.
Oh.
Your free hand moved delicately to the soft flesh at the crook of his neck. Slowly, your fingers traced along the thick veins under his skin. The dark, bluish black hue they were only a few hours before had subsided, leaving them to blend in with the flushed pink hues of his skin. You could feel the flutter in his heartbeat and the way his breathing stuttered at your hands. Neither of you said a word; he just let you feel what you needed, letting you reassure yourself that he was there. That he was okay and wasn’t planning on leaving you.
“Clark…” you said, looking down to avoid his gaze.
His hand slid up to your chin, guiding your eyes back to his with a kind smile. A low hey slipped from his lips before his head ducked closer to your height.
“I wanna say something, something that feels crazy… and if it is, tell me… cause I’ve been feeling this for a while now…. and-and if it’s crazy just-” you stopped his rambling.
“Say it,” you said.
He bit his lip, and you tenderly pulled it from his teeth. The blush on his cheeks grew stronger as he let out a thankful huff and tilted his head. He had a bad habit of subconscious lip biting, one that often resulted in a gash along his lower lip from his strength. You tried your best as often as you could to stop the habit, to keep him from harming himself in any way.
“Something feels different with us. You’re my best friend, my favorite person, and… lately I’ve been feeling things I shouldn’t feel. Things a friend shouldn’t feel and I…” your eyes widened as he spoke, his words stammering as her nerves took over. He spoke with a speed that revealed his nervousness, one that was uniquely Clark. “It’s not fair to you, me wanting more, feeling more. But I do. I think I love you, y/n.”
He didn’t break your gaze, but that didn’t hide the fear of rejection that was clear on his face. It was obvious; despite lying helpless in a pocket dimension with kryptonite just a day ago, despite being weakened and exhausted in his childhood bed the night before, he had never felt more vulnerable or exposed than this moment.
You were quiet, probably for too long. He finally broke eye contact, ducking his head away. Your hand caught his face gently, brushing along the soft stubble that grew along his sharp jaw.
Before he could speak again, you were leaning in. Your lips pressed against his. He moved in tandem with you, his arms wrapping around your waist as he held you close. It was soft and intimate; you had imagined kissing Clark so many times, but you never could’ve predicted just how blissful it would feel.
His grip on you tightened as he leaned further in. Somewhere in the moment, you felt your feet lift from the ground. Your arms wrapped firmly around his neck as you deepened the kiss, nipping softly at his lower lip.
When you finally pulled back, he rested his forehead to yours. His arms held you safe and secure to his chest as the two of you hovered over the fence. Your hands slipped to card through his curls.
“I love you, Clark,” you said. He sighed with relief, giggling tenderly as he pressed a kiss to your temple. “Promise me you’re not going anywhere?”
“I promise, sweetheart,” he said. You leaned further into his arms, finally relaxing in his presence. He was here, he was safe, and he was yours.
“Now, could you please put us down, starboy?”
---
this was quick and cute but I hope y'all enjoyed ;)