summary: when an abandoned baby takes the e.r by storm, and seems to only be comforted by you, jack takes a keen interest in the maternal streak he didn't know you had. (5k)
characters: jack abbot / wife!reader, dana evans, emma nolan, michael robinavitch, whitaker and his ducklings (joy and ogilvie), baby jane doe!!!
contents: grumpy!reader, established relationship, angst, hurt/comfort, humor, not proofread cw for mentions of child abuse (r had a bad upbringing), smut 18+ ft. breeding kink!!
FIC #3 / 20 FOR 20
The smell of fresh coffee clings to the stale air of the empty break room, mixing with the stubborn scent of antiseptic that always seems to follow you and the ghost of Shen’s egg salad that he just had to pack for lunch. You sit slouched in a plastic chair at the round table, with one leg hooked over the spare one at your side, and a clipboard resting on the thigh of the other.
You hope to spend the next hour or so of your shift right here, pretending to stay busy flipping through MRI results and procedure notes until it’s time to go.
“I won’t tell anyone you’re camping out here if you promise to do the bulk of the driving to the cabin tonight,” Jack had told you when you found him in the break room, passing you the mug of steaming coffee he’d made for himself without a second thought.
The caffeine is the only thing keeping you going this far into your shift; along with the fact that you’ll be spending the rest of your Fourth of July with him in his countryside cabin — the furthest from the PTMC either of you has been since you got married.
“How about you don’t tell anyone, and you do the driving?” you propositioned, flashing the man a faux-innocent look from over the top of the rim as you brought the cup to your mouth. The fresh brew singed the tip of your tongue a bit, just enough to jerk your exhausted mind awake.
“Fine…” Jack caved with a slow huff; his first good breath all day. His following words came out slightly muffled as he leaned forward to press a fleeting kiss to your temple before walking on by you. “How much we got left on our sentence, huh? An hour? Two?”
“Sixty-four minutes, but… Who’s counting?”
“Well, that’s plenty of time for something fun to happen.” Jack turned in the doorway to flash you a knowing grin that you met with a tired scowl.
“Don’t jinx it,” you called to his retreating figure.
You’ve given enough of yourself for one night, you think; and after a rather urgent thoracotomy that nearly killed both the patient and you (though mostly in the metaphorical sense), you feel like you’re owed the small break. Now that the day shift is trickling slowly in, you’ve decided to stay hidden until somebody absolutely needs you.
You sink deeper and deeper into the plastic chair, willing yourself into invisibility, until a baby’s cry shatters the sacred quiet.
The high-pitched whine cuts through everything — your heavy exhaustion, your simmering headache, and the steady hum of the emergency department you’ve learned to tune out over the years. You drag yourself from your seat with a distant groan in the pit of your throat, ‘cause you know you won’t be able to relax until you know someone else has got it handled.
You trudge to the door and take a peek down the hallway, if only to say that you did, and find the long corridor bustling with an energy much livelier than you are. When the crowd parts, you spot Dana walking your way with something tiny swaddled in her arms — much too small to be as loud as it is now.
Her eyes light up at the sight of you.
“Dr. Abbot— Just the person I was looking for!” the older woman croons in her usual gritty monotone, with a knowing smile sitting crooked on her mouth. “We got a baby Jane Doe, ditched in the bathroom.”
Your features crumple under the weight of your exhaustion. Your head tips back to groan a long and theatrical, “No…” though your sneakers scuff the floor as you trudge her way despite yourself. “I only have one hour left on my shift— Please don’t make me do anything else.”
“Well, I also got a central line placement in Central 13,” Dana deadpans. “You know, if you’d rather not waste time takin’ care of this perfectly nice baby.”
The swaddled thing fusses when it’s shifted in her hold. Your eyes flit from its scrunched face, round and wet with tears, to the wise look in Dana’s eyes. She grins at your obvious hesitation.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
You sigh and step forward, like a martyr to the gallows. You trade the clipboard in your hand for the baby in Dana’s. She sets the thing gingerly in your hold — a warm and delicate weight between your arms, fitting just perfectly against your chest.
You had done a rotation in pediatrics before you settled on emergency medicine some years back. You know what it means to take care of a baby in the most technical sense, though none of it ever seemed to come totally naturally to you.
You move like a robot accordingly, all tense and methodical. The whining baby settles into your hold with a gentle coo anyway, like a switch suddenly flipped.
“Well, look at that,” Dana hums with an arched brow of amusement. “You’re a natural.”
“You’re evil,” you deadpan.
“So they say,” the woman quips drily, patting you on the shoulder with a warm hand. “C’mon. Show my shadow how to do a proper pedes check-up— Dr. Abbot’s not as mean as she looks, Miss Emma, I promise.”
You flash the young, fresh-faced nurse a polite smile that doesn’t quite meet your eyes before leading her towards the pediatric unit across the way. She’s made of bright smiles, braided chestnut curls, and sunshine incarnate as she scurries just behind you. She’s got a sparkling look in her dark eyes that you’re pretty sure you lost somewhere around your first week of residency.
You pass the workstation with a sort of tunnel vision zeroed in on the vibrantly painted pedes room. You nearly miss Jack standing there, leaning over the desk with his arms folded and his biceps straining against his scrub sleeves.
The silver-haired man briefs a newly arrived Robby on the morning cases and pauses at the sight of you — his whole entire life, cradling a much smaller one in her arms, with an exhausted frown on your face that you don’t bother trying to hide.
Robby traces the man’s suddenly distracted gaze over his shoulder. His brown eyes follow your form, lighting up at the sight of you the same way Jack’s do.
“Well…” the older man croons. “Would you look at that—”
“Don’t,” you cut in sharply, and don’t bother slowing your stride as you pass them.
Jack’s quiet laughter follows you across the room. His eyes do, too, as he drinks up every ounce of you and the tiny thing swaddled in your arms. He finds himself getting drunk on a craving he didn’t know he had until that very moment.
Robby’s dark eyes squint. “Why do I have a feeling that you’re mentally siphoning through a bunch of baby names right now?”
“I always liked the name Milo for a boy. And Iris for a girl— but the missus is pretty allergic to pollen, so I’m not sure she’d go for that,” Jack answers without missing a beat, as though the thought had haunted his head at least once before. He only turns to face Robby again once you’re out of view. “What do you think?”
Robby just scoffs out a laugh. “I think you’re screwed, brother.”
Baby Jane Doe is mostly stable, all things considered.
Physically, she’s perfect. She had obviously spent the bulk of her little life being properly cared for. And, if you had to guess, she spent most of the time being held — if her immediate protest at being left in the warmer had anything to say about it. Her breathy whines fill the otherwise silent room as you perform a routine evaluation with practiced hands. You pay little attention to her annoyed cries and slip into teaching mode despite your palpable fatigue.
Emma hovers just behind you, with empathy glittering in her dark doe eyes. “Gosh,” she sighs. “How sad…”
“Eh,” you hum with a lazy shrug. Your gloved fingers lift the hem of her tiny white t-shirt to check for any bruising on her soft, pale skin, or for any other markers that might indicate signs of infection. You ramble on, half-distracted, “If you think about it, this baby got pretty lucky— If it really was abandoned, I mean. Better to be left here than with a family that can’t love it properly, right?”
Emma’s eyes widen at your cynicism. She can’t shake the feeling that you’re speaking from experience as she swallows hard and nods once in response. “Right…”
The door swings open across the room. The noise of the E.D. swells for a brief moment, before muffling when it clicks shut again a second later. Robby steps in first, with Jack following close behind. The former stands on the opposite side of the warmer and keeps his suddenly softened gaze on the cooing baby before him.
Jack migrates to your side the same way he always does — never as close as he’d like to be while on the clock, but never more than a few inches away from you when he can be.
“What are we thinkin’ here, Doc?” he asks.
“Normal pulse. Normal BP,” you rattle off with an air of indifference. “She’s well-hydrated, too. No visible sign of infection, either — though I guess we can’t rule out a benign virus just yet.”
“Do you think she qualifies for Safe Haven?” Emma wonders from Robby’s side.
You shake your head, lips softly jutted. “No. Either this baby is gigantic, or it’s well past the twenty-eight-day mark for Safe Haven. Worse-case scenario at this point is obviously abandonment. She’ll likely be put in foster care after a full evaluation.”
The young girl’s face falls slightly.
You soften despite yourself.
“But,” you add, if only to make her feel a bit better. “Past experience tells me that her parents might’ve just needed a break. Maybe they— I don’t know— stepped out for a cigarette or something. God knows, I’d need one if I had to take care of an alarm clock twenty-four-seven.”
Robby scoffs a weak laugh and shakes his head. “I’ll get Lupe to make an announcement in Chairs. See if anyone’s looking for her— If you’ll excuse me,” he nods with a polite smile down at the squirming baby below before sauntering out of the room.
The baby jerks when the noise of the crowded E.R fills the room again, startled by Dana’s yelling, who seems to be telling off a rowdy patient down the way. Her wet eyes squeeze shut as her gummy mouth opens to bellow a tiny wail. You reach out to comfort the baby, if only to hear less of the thing, with a methodical palm placed against its frail chest.
It whines for a moment before softening with a contented sigh.
“Look at that… You’re good with her,” Jack mumbles, taking a step closer to peer over your shoulder — until you can smell the coffee on his breath and the musky cologne lingering on his skin. A small smile lifts the corner of his mouth as he watches you with glittering eyes. “Told ya you should’ve gone into pedes.”
You flash him an emotionless scowl. “Don’t patronize me,” you scold.
“Have you guys ever thought about having kids?” Emma wonders with a kind smile, having assumed your marital status from your matching last names and golden wedding bands. She cowers instinctively when your eyes turn to her in sync, fearful she might’ve said the wrong thing. “Or is that super rude to ask? I’m sorry—”
“No, it’s not rude at all,” Jack assures her, reaching to wrap his hands around either end of the stethoscope around his neck. It makes his freckled biceps strain against the black sleeves of his scrubs as his silver head swivels slowly to look at you. Something mischievous swims in his blue-green eyes as he lilts, “We’re just… going with the flow. Right, Dr. Abbot?”
You meet his tightlipped grin with a deadpanned look. The two of you agreed long ago that, while neither of you is totally opposed to having children, you’d also be perfectly happy living a completely childfree life.
But instead of getting into all of that with less than an hour left on your grueling shift — in front of the newest addition to the nursing team, no less — you just nod with an artificial smile.
“Right. Yeah,” you say, already inching back towards the door. The baby starts to cry again a second later, in a series of revving whines that lead to a sharp shriek. You flash an apologetic grimace over your shoulder from your place in the doorway. “You guys have fun with… all that.”
You spend the next half hour finishing up your already-completed charting. You reword, backspace, and click occasionally at your mouse — pretending to work to keep from being bothered, though it isn’t quite as foolproof as you would’ve liked. Whitaker rushes your way with one of his interns in tow, sporting a worried sort of glint in his wide puppy dog eyes that he only gets when something’s going wrong.
“Hey… Dr. Abbot. Are you— Are you busy at the moment?”
“Nope,” you answer in a monotone, without looking up from the bright-white computer screen ahead of you. “And I’d very much like to keep it that way.”
“Well, uh…” Whitaker falters, shifting awkwardly on the other side of the desk. “We— We kinda need you. In pedes.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Baby Jane Doe hasn’t stopped crying since you left,” the woman behind him says, standing several inches shorter than the boy and sporting a heavy pair of glasses and a glittering silver septum in her nose.
Your eyes dart toward the stranger — Joy Kwon, MS3, the badge on her chest reads.
“That was, like, twenty minutes ago,” you say with an incredulous twist to your features.
“Exactly,” she deadpans.
You huff and lead the duo the short distance back to the pediatric unit. The crying hits you before you’ve even crossed the threshold — a sharp, unrelenting wail that adds to the headache you’ve been nursing all day.
You find a lanky, blonde-haired man who eerily resembles Whitaker in the vibrantly painted room, though his badge reads James Ogilvie, MS4. The young med student flashes you a wide-eyed look of horror, holding the writhing baby in a visibly awkward hold.
“Please help me,” he pleads.
You don’t bother trying to hide your apathy as you trudge across the room to close the distance between you. You slip the tiny baby back into your hold, where it settles almost instantly, heavying against your chest with another breathy whine. You rock it gingerly in your arms the way you were taught to. Its wet eyes flutter slowly shut as fat tear drops trail down its reddened cheeks.
Whitaker gestures with a dazed smile. “See? Knew it. Total natural.”
You flash the boy a deadpanned look over your shoulder. “Because I’m a woman? That means I’m automatically a natural-born caretaker?”
His light eyes widen with an immediate panic. Joy tries and fails to hide her amused smile as she purses her lips to the side of her mouth. Whitaker, meanwhile, stumbles over himself to get the words out.
“W-What? No! No, not at all! I just—”
“She’s just messing with you, kid.”
Jack’s voice drifts in as he steps through the door, saving the boy from his own stuttered-out apology. He’s perhaps the only one in Pittsburgh who can decipher your usual monotone from your humorous one, which he was only able to master after years of loving you.
“Oh…” Whitaker says, deflating with a relieved sigh, though his pink cheeks are slow to lose their newfound color.
“Go check on Mr. Alvarez for me, will ya?” you tell him, jutting your chin back towards the door. “You know, since I have to take care of… this thing.”
Whitaker leaves and takes his interns with him, who trail after him in line like ducklings. They pass by Jack in the doorway, who peers at you over their heads with a pair of wide eyes.
“This thing?” he scoffs.
You bounce a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I’m not getting attached to it.”
“It?!”
You huff and adjust the baby in your arms, with one hand resting on its diapered bottom and your other rubbing gently over its tiny back. You sway gently back and forth, far too sweetly for the following words out of your mouth.
“The entire reason I got into emergency medicine was so I could help people without having to deal with all the— baggage that comes with him.”
“Well, babies don’t have baggage, honey,” Jack laughs as he strolls slowly towards you. “They’re brand new— that’s literally their whole thing.”
“Yeah. That’s because the parents give it to ‘em through… years of psychological torment.”
Jack studies you for a long moment with a pair of squinted eyes. “I think you might be projecting a little bit here…”
“I know I am,” you scoff. “Which is why I’d be a horrible mother. ‘Cause I’d just be a mirror of my mom, and our kid would just be a mirror of me, and it’ll just be a whole cycle of… emotionless, unaffectionate women...”
You trail off with a heavy sigh, lifting your gaze from the calming baby to the man towering over you. You find him wearing a much softer gaze than you expect him to. He tilts his silver head to his shoulder, eyes narrowing and lips curling slowly.
“Our kid?”
Your eyes flick away and back again. “…What?”
“You said our kid,” Jack clarifies with a wider grin.
You roll your eyes at him despite the way your cheeks blaze beneath his unwavering stare. “Well, we are married, you know? Who the hell else would I be having kids with— Robby?”
“God, I hope not— Poor kid,” Jack quips drily before leaning in to press a soft, fleeting kiss to your temple. His silver scruff brushes our delicate skin when he pulls away, far sooner than you would’ve liked. “And, just for the record, I think you’d be an amazing mom.”
Something warm flickers in your chest at his words, like embers stoked suddenly to flame. You recoil physically from the foreign feeling, with a grimace twisting your features.
“Eugh…”
“What?”
You shake your head in response, parting from him to set the now-slumbering baby into the warmer at your side. You lay it gingerly onto the blankets before stepping away with your hands splayed out, as if it had burnt you in some way.
“It got too real for a second there,” you mutter with a look of disgust on your face. “I started feeling all… warm and… and fuzzy— I didn’t like it…”
Jack laughs.
“Yeah, that’s what they call happiness, Dr. Abbot,” he jokes in a gritty deadpan. “And I’m glad you’re finally getting to experience it after three whole years of marriage.”
Jack can’t get the sight of it out of his head. You, in the rocking chair in the corner, with the pedes room dimmed to a dull lamplight, cradling a sleeping baby to your chest and looking half-asleep yourself.
“Thought you weren’t getting attached?” he whispered into the serene silence from his place in the doorway.
“’M not,” you mumbled back, head lolled to your shoulder, eyes half-closed. “‘M just using this as an excuse to shut my eyes for a second.”
Something about it all catches him off guard. Not the baby, exactly — he’s seen a thousand babies before — held them, handed them off, charted them like any other patient in a sea of a hundred different patients. They were always temporary things to him, always someone else’s.
But then he sees you — his future, his eternity — with someone else’s baby tucked to your chest as if it had always been there. You had one hand instinctively supporting the weight of her head while your other smoothed up and down her back. And your voice, often edged with sarcasm dry enough to sand wood, had softened into something warm and low and honeyed. And the seemingly orphaned baby, who could cry loud enough to rattle glass, goes instantly still in your arms like it finds sanctuary in you alone.
It does nothing more than pique his curiosity at first — the idea of having kids with you, of how great a mom you would be — which isn’t a completely rare thought, but one that is typically fleeting. But then the thought lingers. Festers. Settles somewhere in the pit of his chest until he can’t breathe without thinking about it.
By the time you’ve settled in the empty cabin, six hours away from the PTMC, the desire has rooted itself somewhere far deeper than he’d like to admit.
Jack, freshly showered, reclines on the clean sheets of the familiar bed, smelling of detergent and time gone by. The bedroom settles slowly into a lamplit darkness in time with the late night. Fireworks crackle faintly in the distance, in mere echoes rolling across the midnight-colored lake outside. The quiet feels borderline suffocating compared to the never-ending chaos of the E.D.
You move through the space as if you had always been there. Jack watches you from his spot on the bed, which gives him a perfect view of you in the adjacent bathroom.
Your hair is still slightly damp from the shared shower, dripping onto the t-shirt swallowing your body whole. Your bare feet pad softly along the tile as you complete the last steps of your skincare routine; your attention flitting between your reflection in the mirror and the video playing on your phone.
It strikes him somewhere deep — swells from his stomach, to his chest, to his throat, until he gets the very sudden urge to cry.
“Should we have a kid, you think?” Jack blurts, as if the question were as simple as asking you if you wanted pizza for dinner.
You still in place in the golden-lit bathroom. Your fingers freeze on your cheeks, mid-swipe of moisturizer, as you flash him a deadpanned glare from the doorway.
“…Do you hear that?” you wonder in a monotone.
“The sound of my sperm dying?” Jack jokes
“The sound of quiet,” you correct before turning away to continue your work in the mirror. “Which doesn’t exist when you have kids. I mean, think about it— We wouldn’t have even been able to come here today if we had a kid. We wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
“Well, that’s just not true,” Jack scoffs, folding his arms behind his silver curls until his biceps strain beneath the sleeves of his black undershirt; the hem rises just enough to reveal the tuft of light brown-blonde hair trailing down into his sweatpants.
His silver scruff brushes his freckled skin when he turns his head. “Parents take their kids places all the time— or alarm clocks, as you so lovingly called them.”
“Yeah, well, not mine,” you murmur distantly as you chuck your crumpled cotton pads into the bin beside the sink. “They always told me that I was the reason we couldn’t afford to do anything. ‘Cause apparently feed and clothing me was such a burden to them— as if I asked to be here.”
“Your parents were just assholes, babe.”
“The crazy thing is, they were actually pretty nice…” you sigh, bare feet padding softly across the floor as you trudge to bed, plugging your phone into its charger on the nightstand. “Just not to me. Like I ruined them or something.”
Jack’s chest flares with a white-hot warmth that makes his eyes sting. “You know that’s not your fault, right?”
You don’t answer him with words. You just bounce your brows and tilt your head, though he struggles to tell if it’s an agreement or not. He shifts on the mattress when you pull the fluffy comforter down to slide into bed beside him, brows lowered as he keeps his unwavering stare locked on your face.
“Is that why you don’t want kids?” he wonders gently. “Because you think you’ll end up like your parents?”
You scoff, kneeling on the mattress until you settle into place next to his reclined form. “Isn’t everyone terrified of ending up like their parents?”
“Sure, but… You’re nothing like them. I mean, I saw you with that Jane Doe today— You were perfect.”
“Well, you have to say that.”
“No, I don’t,” Jack scoffs. “If I thought any differently, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. But I know you’d be a great mom because I saw that today— Saw the rest of my whole goddamn life in that place…”
He trails off with a faraway look in his eyes.
You watch him with a suspicious glint in yours.
“…You really mean that?” you murmur, halfway shy, picking at pills of cotton on the blanket thrown over your legs. “The part about me… You know, being a good mom, I mean?”
“Of course I do,” Jack laughs like it’s obvious, eyes glittering as he peers up at you. “And it’s not like I expect you to change your mind right now— or ever, if that’s what you want. It’s just… Something to think about, you know?”
“Well…” you tilt your head and trail off with a mischievous sort of lilt in your voice. “They do say the best part of having kids is trying for one.”
Jack grins up at you, brows raised to his hairline. “Do they?” he hums lowly.
“Mhm,” you nod.
“Should we test that theory out, you think?” he teases, all giddy like a teenage boy.
You shrug lazily, t-shirt sleeping off your shoulder, pretending to remain uninterested despite the excitement flaring red-hot in your chest. “Well, what the hell else are we gonna do?”
Something about your indifference makes Jack ravenous. It always has. It makes him feel like he’s got something to prove. And there’s nothing he loves more than watching your mask slip, than watching all your attempts to tease him fade into moans you couldn’t hold back if you tried.
You melt for him first, when his long fingers slide your pretty panties to the side, dragging an orgasm from you with an expert hand — and then further when he presses his mouth to the wet spot in the thin cotton, drinking the honey you leak from him until he licks another twitching orgasm from your buzzing body.
Jack’s wearing your slick down to the silver scruff on his chin when he crawls back up your trembling form, massaging his stiff cock through his boxers. “You’re not too sensitive, are you?” he wonders gently despite the proud smile sitting crooked on his face and the honey still coating his tongue.
Your hips buck on their own accord, chasing a pleasure you’re not entirely sure you can take.
“Fuck a baby into me,” you plead in a half-drunken slurs, etching scratch marks long his back in an attempt to ground yourself. “Wanna make you a daddy, Jack— Want feel you leakin’ outta me…”
“Jesus Christ,” Jack huffs, like you’ve just punched all the air out of his lungs. “You can’t talk like that, baby— I’ll cum before we’ve even started.”
He knows it’s just the previous two orgasms talking, ‘cause you’re still on the pill after all — having a baby now is pretty much out of the equation even if you really wanted to. But Jack isn’t in the business of depriving you of what you want. So he gives you all he has for the time being.
He folds your knees to your chest with a pair of wide, calloused hands, keeping your drooling pussy spread for him as he pierces you slow. The head of his cock, glowing red with need, disappears inside your pulsing confines. His throaty groan entwines with your quiet whimpers as your cunt suckles him further in. Once he’s sheathed fully inside, he stills just against you, with the greying thatch of coarse hair above his cock nestled against your sensitive clit.
“Yeah, you feel that?” Jack croons with a breathy laugh, which turns into a moan when your nails rake down his muscular chest. “You’re so full of me, aren’t you, baby?”
Your heavy head nods lazily against the pillow, eyes bleary and wet with desire. They squeeze shut a second later, when Jack’s hips drag back, until only the head of his cock is left inside you. Then he slides back into you, slow enough that you feel every ridge and vein of his cock, and smiles when your back arches off the mattress.
“I’ll give you a baby one day, honey, I promise,” the man babbles, choppy between his measured thrusts. “Fill you up so much it’ll be leakin’ outta you for days—”
You whine, hips bucking into and away from his cock all at once.
“Yeah, that’s it… I’ll get you all round and full… ’Til you’re walking around the E.D… Showin’ everyone what I did to you— how good I make you feel…”
“Please,” you whine.
“Yeah?” Jack coos sympathetically, beneath the wet schlick, schlick, schlick sound of his thrusts inside you. “That what you want?”
You nod, head tilted back and eyes squeezed shut, though the pathetic “please, please, please”’s continue spilling from your kissed mouth.
“Take it then, baby— Take it.”
He buckles down over you, punching into you with shallow thrusts that slowly start to lose their rhythm. He talks you through every inch of your orgasm, which hits you so hard it makes tears swell in the corners of your eyes.
“That’s it, honey. Let me have it,” he murmurs in your ear as your body starts to twitch beneath his muscular one. “Give me all of it, baby. That’s it.”
Your stomach pools with heat a second later when Jack tenses on top of you, burying his groans in his neck as his jerking cock spits thick ropes of warm cum inside of your pulsing confines. He deflates on top of you when he’s finally spent, sticky body melting with yours, until both of you are melting into the tousled sheets below.
“You okay?” Jack asks through panted breaths, muffled into your sweat-slick neck.
You nod wordlessly, swallowing hard as the high fades, and shoving lazily at his bare shoulder. “Get off— I gotta go to the bathroom,” you huff.
Jack slides off your body and falls heavily onto the other side of the mattress. He watches with lidded eyes as you hurry to the bathroom with your thighs clenched together. You clean yourself up inside and return some minutes later to Jack having wiped himself off and tucking his soft cock back into his grey boxers.
“Do you wanna… talk about all that?” he asks with a knowing squint in his eyes.
“Remind me tomorrow,” you sigh, feet heavy as you trudge back into bed.
Jack scoffs a laugh, knowing you’ll likely tell him the same exact thing tomorrow, and flips off the lamp on the nightstand. The golden bedroom delves into a midnight-blue darkness.
His limbs entwine with yours on nothing short of muscle memory when he slides back into bed with you. His long legs slot with yours beneath the covers as he throws a heavy arm over your stomach, folding his free one beneath his head.
Quiet settles over the dark bedroom like a blanket.
“Actually,” you blurt into the silence, catching Jack right before he falls asleep.
“Yeah?” he mumbles, warm breath fanning over your shoulder.
“It’ll probably take about— I don’t know, three or so days for all the results to come back. You know, for Baby Jane Doe’s workup,” you murmur, half-shy. “And we’ll be back to work by then, so… I was thinking maybe we could… Never mind, it’s stupid.”
Jack lifts his head before you can shrink back into yourself, eyes flitting across your shadowed profile. “No, what is it?”
You roll onto your back to meet his darkened gaze with a far more sheepish one. “Maybe we could take her, you know? Just foster her on an emergency basis until we can find her family. Or someone who can foster her long-term. Like a…”
“A trial run?” Jack finishes for you with an audible grin. “Yeah, that’s definitely one way to pitch it, honey.”
You grimace, hiding your burning face behind your hands. “I told you, it’s stupid,” you whine, muffled behind your palms.
“It’s not stupid,” Jack assures you with a quiet laugh. He pries your hands from your face with gentle fingers wrapped around your wrist. “I think it’s a great idea. We can, you know, taste the waters about the whole baby thing and help a kid in need at the same. Sounds like a win-win to me.”
“Yeah?” you hum with a soft wince.
“Yeah,” he nods. “We can look into it when we get back.”
Your chest swells with a sunshine sort of warmth when he settles back into bed beside you, tossing a muscular arm over you to tuck you back into his bare chest. It’s a pure, unadulterated feeling of overwhelming happiness that weirdly makes you feel like crying. ‘Cause only Jack would agree to foster an abandoned baby you found at work not even a day ago; only Jack would see all of you and still love you completely, for a reason you still can’t name.
“I hate when you’re supportive,” you grouse on instinct as you bury your head back into the pillow, even though you mean the exact opposite.
Jack knows this, too, so he just grins into your hair and jokes, “Yeah, I know. It’s definitely my worst quality.”
summary: clark's got a fatal attraction to your tits, but how could you blame him? they're right above your heart.
word count: around 900!
CWs: 18+ MDNI!!!! explicit descriptions of sex, established relationship, lots of nipple play, fem!reader x clark kent, no use of y/n, clark is WHIPPED dude, fluff, some playful banter, silly!clark for the win !!!, some kisses, so sweet it might be sickening.
author's note: i cannot believe i get to kick off this incredible labor of love from both me and my darling girl @thceseus !!! i hope everyone enjoys. i love you one million billion times for reading this. leave your thoughts in the comments and on a reblog (or two. or three.). stay tuned for ivy's entry next weekend ;)
series masterlist
“You’re feeling particularly lazy lately, huh?”
Your teasing words fall on Clark’s jaw while you’re between planting kisses on the sharp bone. His warm skin—golden and glowing in the sunlight cascading into your bedroom through your curtains—floods with a soft pink blush.
He sat up against the headboard and pulled you into his lap almost as soon as he woke up. Third time this week that he’s got you in his lap and doing all the work for him.
“Just…tired, honey. That’s all,” he not-so-convincingly answers. You scoff and sit up in his lap, which conveniently gives him an excuse to grab the bottom of your shirt—his old Metropolis University shirt—and yank it over your head. It only takes one lovedrunk, half-lidded gaze of his at your bare chest for you to understand why he’s got you here.
The first time he did it, you thought it was just a switch up in positions to make things interesting; being together for two years’ll really make you crave different positions every now and then, and you’d put this one in retirement for the last month or two.
The second time? That’s when you noticed he’d spent way more time toying with your tits while you were rocking your hips against his. While you were trying to make yourself come all over his massive cock, he was too busy tonguing your nipples, spreading soft hickeys all over your chest, and whispering praises to you as though they were prayers:
“You’re so pretty, baby. Wish we could do this all day.”
“Wanna stay right here forever. Goodness, I love watching you make yourself feel good on me.”
“My soft, sweet girl. So good f’me, aren’t you? So cute when you come all over me.”
The kicker is that he said all of those things while he was either staring at your tits or pulling away from sucking on one of them; you had just fucked yourself too dumb on top of him to notice.
This time? You’re aware of it. So you plan on having a little fun with it.
“Oh, really? You're tired?” you ask. Scoot up on his lap and straighten your back to get your chest closer to his face. “That’s a bad lie. You don’t get tired, Superman.”
Clark hums and leans forward to press soft kisses on your collarbones and the top of your chest. Licks a thin stripe up the valley of your breasts before sucking your left nipple into his mouth and flicking it with his tongue. Yanks a weird, stuttered, gasp-moan hybrid right out of you.
So much for wanting to tease him.
You tangle your right hand in his hair and roll your hips against his, clearing your throat and steeling your resolve just enough to whimper, “You just wanna play with my tits.”
He pulls off of your nipple with a soft pop. Kisses over to your right one, instead, and on the way there, murmurs one simple word:
“Guilty.”
His teeth graze over your peaked nipple. Just before he can tease it by lightly biting down on it, you lean up to tug his boxer-briefs down his thighs, because two can play at this little teasing game.
His cock springs up and slaps against his stomach. Mouthwatering sight for you. Pure frustration and annoyance for him—he’s so hard that he can barely think about anything. Anything except your tits, at least.
You wrap one hand around his hardened length, slowly pumping it up and down a few times. Clark shudders and his jaw goes slack. Pushes out a breathy moan and squeezes his eyes shut, forehead falling onto your chest while one arm slides around your waist.
He stays there for only a moment, though. His eyelashes flutter against your skin, eyes opening and head lifting back up so he can return to his happy place: Staring at and playing with your chest.
“I just like to appreciate my girl,” he mutters.
“Yeah, well,” you begin, giggling at his rough jolt when you rub your thumb back and forth over his tip. “Your girl likes to be appreciated for more than just her chest.”
He huffs. Lifts his head up so he can look at you, into your eyes for once. Bucks his hips up when you gently drag your fingers up and down the bottom side of his cock just to get him to shudder. It’s not enough for anything—but you’re sure he’ll come if you do it long enough.
“You know I love all of you,” he mumbles. It’s strained. Tense. Just like the tick in his jaw.
“Yeah?”
You laugh at him when he nods. Lower your voice to a whisper and tell him, “Prove it, then.”
When he lurches forward to kiss you, you let him. It’s hard to keep your smile at bay. It’s even harder to keep said smile from interfering with his tongue slipping into your mouth.
While he’s busy stealing your breath from you with that deep kiss, his hands slide up to your chest. He gropes at your tits, his thumbs run back and forth over your erect nipples, and he pinches and gently tugs on them. Your loud whine from the contact has him smiling, now.
“Sorry, honey. Can’t get enough of ‘em. They’re too pretty.”
Pairing: Jack Abbot x wife!reader Word Count: 1.9k
Description: After deciding to foster Baby Jane Doe, the Abbot household faces a sleepless afternoon. As Jack rocks her back to sleep, you both realize the word “foster” starts to feel less like a temporary label, and more like something you wish to erase completely.
Tags/warnings: wife!reader, tooth rotting fluff and Jack being the best foster dad ever <3
Note: I’ve been thinking about this for days!! Something about Jack rocking a baby to sleep just makes me go ✨ Enjoy 🤍
Masterlist
The world is supposed to be fully awake at one in the afternoon. In the Abbot household, it’s the middle of the night.
But poor baby Jane Doe, who didn’t ask to be abducted by two night attendings, couldn't care less about that. She’d opened her beautiful eyes about an hour ago, crying her tiny lungs out until you’d managed to give her the bottle she so rightfully deserved.
You’re just glad it hadn’t woken Jack up. Two days with a baby in the house and now he sleeps like the dead. Which is impressive, really, considering the man spends most of his life getting startled by emergency calls or someone knocking on the call room door he’s taking a nap in.
Now when he sleeps, he sleeps.
Which he deserves, to be honest. Jack had only fallen asleep two hours ago after spending most of the morning negotiating with her to finally (let you) get some rest. He’d taken the first shift without complaint when he saw you dragging your feet after a particularly rough night at the hospital.
Go to sleep, honey. I got her.
And of course Jack did. Taking it the way he takes everything in life. Wars. Patients. SWAT duty. Robby. A nameless baby. You.
No biggie.
So when she woke up, you had slipped out of bed silently. Now, after feeding her in the kitchen and more desperate bargains, you are tiptoeing back into the bedroom with her asleep in your arms.
Sunlight tries and fails to get past the heavy blackout curtains that cover almost the whole front wall. The bed is already calling your name, it looks so soft and you can’t wait to lie next to your husband again. The bassinet is on Jack’s side, since he has more space over there, so you carefully reach it to place the sleeping babygirl on it.
You’re almost there. You can see salvation. You are already on cloud nine.
You’re also too busy imagining the warmth of Jack’s body next to yours, that you don’t notice when your foot catches on one of his crutches, sending it flying against the bassinet in a loud clatter that wakes everybody and the neighbor up.
Oh no. Oh no no no. You had almost cried in relief when her little body relaxed and she finally drifted off just a few minutes ago. You might cry for real now.
The baby beats you to it though. Her eyes open wide for a second before her face twists and she lets out the most piercing cry you’ve ever heard in your entire life.
“No, no, no, sweetheart. I’m sorry,” you panic, immediately bouncing her against your chest. “I’m sorry–shh, shh, it’s okay.”
You try to soothe her, walking away from the bed but it’s already too late.
“What happened?” Jack’s voice comes out low and raspy when he sits on the bed, rubbing his eyes violently before focusing on you. “Did you get hurt?”
“No!” you say quickly, heading toward the door even if your ankle does sting a little. “I’m fine, I just tripped. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
You try to make a quick exit, but she cries harder, squirming in your hold with her little fists going into the air. You bounce her softly, patting her back reassuringly.
“I know, I know you were asleep baby, I’m so sorry,” you whisper, almost at the door.
“Wait,” Jack says before you can step out of the room, fully awake now as he reaches for something next to the bed.
“Jack, no–you don’t have to get up,” you say, swaying in your spot.
He ignores you as he sits on the edge of the bed. He’s shirtless, silver hair sticking up in messy waves, and already halfway through putting his prosthetic on.
“Jack,” you try again, a little louder over the baby’s crying. “Please go back to sleep. I got her.”
He stands up after putting the crutch back on its place, and you take a few steps back as if to keep a distance between you.
“You’re limping,” he points out. “Stop walking.”
“I said I’m fine,” you insist, now in the hallway. “I just tripped over the crutch. I already fed her, it took forever to get her to sleep again, but I swear I can–“
“Honey.”
It’s a simple word. It should not hold this much power over you. Yet it makes you stop right in your tracks as he gives you those impossible, worried hazel eyes.
“Give her to me,” he says–no, he commands. “Please.”
“No.” You try to be just as firm, but your voice is barely audible over the wails. “You were up with her earlier and you’ve barely slept. You need more hours.”
“So do you,” he shrugs, crossing his arms. “Go back to bed, honey.”
“Jack–“
“Bed.”
His voice leaves no room for argument.
Even when you want to tell him that you should be the one up. That you’re the one who convinced him you could do this, that you could open the door to this baby, to this fragile little life you already care too much for. But with the way the sweet girl is screaming in your ear, you’re too tired to keep pretending you have any real authority here.
You sigh, carefully transferring the crying baby into his arms. Jack settles her on his bare chest, keeping a hand behind her head and his arm beneath her body.
“I know. I know, sweetheart,” he coos, placing a soft kiss on the top of her head. “Shhh, you’re okay, I got you.”
Jack begins to sway softly, his palm covers almost her whole back, keeping her little body tucked safely against the warm skin of his neck.
He prompts you to walk inside the bedroom again, and you don’t waste time protesting anymore. Before you know it your body is already sinking onto the absurdly expensive mattress you’re so grateful for right now, as Jack begins pacing the room with the fussy baby.
She’s got some great lungs, you’ll give her that.
“I know that was scary, kid,” he coos at her, “big noise in a dark room, mhm mean crutches…it’s alright, come here…”
You peek from your spot to catch her still kicking and letting out little sobs while Jack shifts her lower, his arm holding her whole weight as he puts her little ear to his chest.
“Listen to my heart, right there, you hear that?” he says, and you can hear the smile on his voice. “Thump, thump, thump…”
His index finger taps lightly on her round belly, matching the rhythm beneath his ribs.
“That’s mine, yeah,” he nods, as if she understands anything he’s saying. “Big, old, grumpy heart. It’s been through a lot, but I like to think it still works pretty good.”
That gets a little laugh out of you. Jack glances at you for a second, since you’re supposed to be asleep already, but he keeps talking to the baby.
“Yours does the same thing, but faster,” he explains, all serious, lifting one hand and gesturing with his fingers. “Because it’s tiny tiny like this. Brand new, working extra hard.”
There isn’t a single thought behind her eyes, but Jack’s voice seems to soothe her enough for her cries to break into small sobs as she listens intently to him.
“Little thump thump thump thump,” he taps her belly faster, catching her attention, and her angry fists finally lower, trying to reach for his hand. “There you go, sweetheart.”
He smiles down at her, moving his hand closer. She starts batting it, her little legs no longer kicking in distress but in awe at Jack’s attention as her crying slowly subsides. You watch endeared from your spot, because yes milk might be great, but there’s nothing Jack’s hold can’t fix.
She’s already so much like you.
“You just wanted a little cuddle, huh?” Jack whispers playfully, swaying her softly, watching her little eyes start to close. “You can sleep now, kid. You’re safe…you’re home.”
You see him lift his gaze toward you, but you close your eyes pretending to be asleep.
Jack just smiles, padding softly across the room toward the bassinet. But just as he’s about to place her down, she lets out a discomfort whine and tenses up in his hold.
“Okay, okay, I won’t let go,” he chuckles, holding her close to him again. “Someone really did a number on you, didn’t they?” he shakes his head, trying to keep his voice steady. “ But nobody's leaving you, kid. Nobody’s forgetting you anymore. Not here."
You bury your face on the pillow, trying to keep your own tears at bay.
“I know living with us might not be easy,” he continues, rubbing circles on her back. “Two exhausted doctors with blackout curtains in every room. Sounds questionable, yeah…but we’re not bad,” he says with a cheeky smile. “Your mom–your foster mom is better than me,” he glances at you, making sure you’re still asleep before continuing, “she’s softer, and prettier…and she’s my favorite person. She’ll be yours too in no time.”
Yup. That definitely got you.
“And for your foster dad…I learn fast, and I don’t scare easily. So if you’re planning on being difficult, you should know we’re still gonna be there for you,” he reassures. “And…maybe one day we’ll take the foster out of it…” he offers casually, like his heart–thump thump thump–is not telling him to just go sign the papers right now. “No pressure, of course…just saying, if you like it here,” he clears his throat, only to smile when he notices the girl has finally fallen asleep in his arms.
He kisses her forehead.
“It’s gonna take some time getting used to being a night crawler, but I think you already got this kid,” he adds in barely a whisper. “Hooah…”
That earns a snort from you, that turns into a sniffle after Jack poured his entire heart out thinking you were out. You suddenly feel his hand on your ankle, rubbing circles to the sore spot you hit the crutch with.
“Sleep, honey.”
“I’m sleeping,” you say, keeping your eyes closed.
“You were eavesdropping,” he says, but there’s no resentment in his voice. That makes you shift just enough to meet his eyes.
The sight of him holding a sleeping baby to his bare chest just makes you want to cry more.
“I didn’t mean to,” you say, wiping your cheeks but he just lifts an unimpressed eyebrow at you. “Okay, maybe I did. But it’s just…I think you’re really good at this.”
Jack only nods fondly, because if he speaks he’s gonna break too.
“I think we got this, we…we got her,” you add.
This time Jack rounds the bed, keeping a hand on the baby’s head so he can lean down and place a soft kiss on your lips. It’s salty, dry lips dancing together with a small bundle between your bodies. Your bundle.
Baby Jane Abbot.
“We got her,” he agrees, lingering for a moment before straightening up to pace around the room again. He’s clearly not letting her go. “Now go to sleep, honey. I don’t want to have to tell you again,” he says in that maddenly authoritative tone.
You bite back a smile, sinking deeper into the covers and reaching for his pillow to cuddle it until he goes back to bed.
“...Jack?”
“Mm?”
“You should charge people for that voice,” you whisper, earning a chuckle from him.
“I think the lack of sleep is getting to you,” he says, lowering his voice when the baby shifts. “Close your eyes. Now.”
With a satisfied smile on your face, you close your eyes only for a few seconds before opening one to peek at him.
“...Can you say that again?”
Part Two
Thank you so much for reading 🤍 feedback is always appreciated!!
The passage of the seasons - Spring defeating Winter
Inspired by a short story in which Spring is embodied by a bring who faces winter and demands every living thing to awaken and fight to conquer a place on earth
clark who always wants a little kiss. it’s exactly as it sounds. in coffee shops and on the tram, across the dinner table and right before bed—when you’re sleeping already, sniffling and snoring, briefly woken by a soft pressure—clark loves to take a kiss. they aren’t long kisses, not often more than a princely peck against your lips or cupid’s bow.
you aren’t sure how you survived them at first, new in love and feverish to be adored, you’d sit there waiting to be kissed. how to woo the sweetest girl in metropolis? kiss her over and over. kiss her tired and sick, kiss her crying at a bad movie, kiss and kiss and kiss, even if she isn’t sure she’s allowed to ask for one. you barely have to lift your chin, those first few weeks.
clark doesn’t adore you less over time. it’s not an issue, he falls for you more everyday and in strange ways, fancies your peach fuzz and your rumbly tummy, considers proposing the first time you almost pee your pants laughing on a dizzy walk home. it shouldn’t be a bad thing, but these kisses, they’re getting disruptive. he needs them between sips of coffee, or when you’re face down in a warm pillow, or in the middle of an inconvenient yawn.
we cannot keep meeting like this, he says through a laugh, the water from your shower wetting the top of his head and slicking his curls to his forehead as he leans in to nab a quick one, the curtain held aside by his shoulder. you’re so shocked you let him have it, your sudsy hand pressed against his clothed chest. sorry, he adds, to your owlish blinking. just needed one last one, honey.
your smile makes a liar of him. he takes another kiss with his hand cradling your cheek, water sluicing down his elbow in a great trickle to soak the floor.
summary: clark has the perfect plan to get to know the love of his life. it consists of eight dates, eight carefully crafted steps, and if all goes well, a happily-ever-after. but when jimmy sets him up on a blind date with you, sticking to the plan turns out to be a lot harder than he thought.
word count: 21k (i’m so sorry… the plot was plotting)
warnings/tags: 18+ mdni, tooth-rooting fluff, comfort, banter, slight angst if you squint, strangers to lovers, idiots in love, slow-burnish, clark’s pov, teacher!reader, reader’s in her late 20s, reader is shorter than clark, reader is skeptical of superman, kissing, cursing, introspection, miscommunication, fingering (f receiving), oral (f and m receiving), multiple orgasms, doggy style, missionary, unprotected p in v, creampie.
a/n: i’ll admit i went a little off the rails diving into clark’s head and writing from his pov. i really took my free will to the next level, but i hope i managed to capture him and his essence. special mention to @sai-int for helping me edit this fic!!! she was so supportive and kind, and made me feel like a professional writer <3 dear angel: you’re a mastermind, and i’m beyond grateful you took the time to engage with my work!!! and thank you all for reading :) likes, reblogs and comments are always appreciated!!!
Over the years, experience has taught Clark that whenever Jimmy labels one of his ideas as brilliant, it’s usually the complete opposite.
Which is why, the moment he approaches his desk first thing in the morning, Clark’s already saying, “No. Thank you.”
“Hello to you, too,” Jimmy notes, rolling his eyes and watching as Clark drops into his chair, adjusting his tie. “You haven’t even heard what I was going to say.”
“I don’t need to, because I have the feeling it involves me in some type of way.”
“Well, aren't you smart?”
“If smart means being your friend long enough to know you, then yes.”
Spreading his arms wide, Jimmy smiles as if he were a kid about to ask for a pony. “Come on, Kent! You’re going to love this brilliant idea I had yesterday.”
Were there a hidden camera in the office, Clark would be staring straight into it right now, like they do in The Office. Instead, he just glances at Jimmy while unpacking his bag. “Your brilliant ideas are never to be trusted.”
“Now why would you say that?”
“It’s just that you always find a way to put me in the thick of it.”
“That’s not true. Name at least one time something like that happened.” As Clark inhales to list a dozen examples, Jimmy stops him by holding up a finger. “Never mind. But you have to trust me on this one!”
Clark blows out his cheeks, peering up at him over his glasses. “Alright. What is it?”
“So there’s this girl—”
“Here we go again.”
“—which is totally your type.”
“You said that last time.”
“But this time I mean it.”
“You said that the time before last time.”
“Well, I’m not perfect, you know? Neither am I a certified matchmaker. This is a hobby, which I do out of pure affection for you.”
“I don’t recall ever asking you to do this.”
Jimmy shrugs, inspecting the coffee Clark had set on his desk as if it belonged to him. “Technically, you did. You said, and I quote: Oh, it’d be nice to have somebody. I’m all alone. I’m miserable.” He drops his voice into a deep imitation of Clark’s, hunching his shoulders in an exaggerated way.
For the record, he hadn’t exactly said it like that. Jimmy just loves being dramatic.
Clark clenches his jaw the moment Jimmy lifts the cup closer to his mouth. “Buddy, that’s mine,” he mutters, though he makes no move to snatch it back.
Completely unbothered, Jimmy takes a trial sip, smacking his lips together as he drifts his eyes shut. “God bless caffeine.”
Clark sighs, leaning back in his chair. “Just because you heard me saying it once doesn’t mean I was explicitly asking you to get me a girlfriend.”
“I still wanna do it,” Jimmy argues. “I’m telling you, that girl’s out there, and it’s my duty as your best friend to find her.”
That last bit has Clark shaking his head. When put that way, what he wants sounds stupid, even childish. The whole relationship thing, falling in love. The white picket fence and the late nights in.
It had been around the time Jimmy introduced his current girlfriend, Molly, to both Lois and him that Clark found it all so endearing he actually snorted and patted his friend on the back.
They were at a bar, drinking with the ease of a Friday night, and despite not being able to get wasted, he felt tingly all over. Perhaps it was because the mere image of love was standing right in front of him, this time personified in a couple he knew.
“It must be nice to be in a relationship,” he had mused, without meaning to say it out loud. It was meant to stay a thought, but it had slipped past his lips, and immediately three pairs of unrelenting eyes were scrutinizing him. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to ruin the mood. I’m really happy for you guys.”
Lois, it seemed, had only heard the first part. “You want to date?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“And here I thought you weren’t the dating type,” Jimmy said, raising his eyebrows and taking another sip of beer. “I mean, you never have any free time outside of work. You’re constantly in a rush. In fact, I’m surprised you’re even here tonight. How would you even manage to fit in a girlfriend with your schedule?”
In moments like those, Clark wished alcohol would have an effect on him. “I’d figure it out. But of course I’d like to be with someone.”
If other people could have it, why couldn’t he? In his mind, he deserved it as much as anyone else. Though again, he wasn’t like anyone else. He wasn’t even a person to begin with. He might look like one, but his DNA was far from normal.
As obnoxious as Jimmy was, and still is to this day, once he got something in his head, it was as good as done. “Babe, don’t you have, like, a hundred friends who are single?” he asked Molly, intertwining their fingers, and she pursed her lips, thinking.
Molly ran a hand through her long red hair, toying with a specific strand. “A great deal.”
Jimmy’s gaze slid back to Clark, a smirk plastered across his features. “Then consider it done, mister. You may start calling me Cupid from now on.”
Fueled by desperation and maybe a little fear, Clark almost choked on his own saliva. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to! It’ll be fun.” Jimmy clapped a hand on Clark’s shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. “You leave it to me, and I’ll set you up with the love of your life.”
That night, promises were made, and days later, Jimmy had put together a PowerPoint presentation, each slide featuring a different woman, along with her job and hobbies.
In the end, Clark ended up going out with several of Molly’s friends and work colleagues. One would think that, with this much help, he would’ve had better luck, but none of those dates were of his liking.
The ones at the forefront of his memory were the following:
Alexandra: sweet, but her ex-boyfriend had cheated on her just two weeks before their date, and she was still in love with him. He spent the entire evening listening to her cry and handing her tissue after tissue. They decided to stay friends.
Casey: tried to convince him to take off his glasses, insisting that they looked ‘unconventional’. She said she often wondered why natural selection didn’t eliminate poor eyesight before glasses were inverted. He faked a call from his mother twenty minutes in and ran to his apartment.
Emma: claimed Superman was a government-made hologram designed to control and terrorize human beings. He didn’t stick around to hear the rest of her theory.
Not just finding someone, but actually connecting with them, was becoming harder than he’d thought. Jimmy often tells him he’s too particular when it comes to meeting new people, although Clark doesn’t consider being meticulous a flaw.
Years ago, he’d come up with what he believed was the perfect plan to get to know someone. It consisted of eight dates, eight carefully crafted steps.
Dates 1 and 2: Minimal physical contact. A handshake or a kiss on the cheek at most, but a first kiss that soon was off the table.
Dates 3 to 5: A real kiss was allowed, but nothing more. Hugging was fine. Still in the getting-to-know-her stage. Visiting each other’s apartments was too risky, though small gestures were encouraged. Conversations could start leaning toward future relationship prospects.
Dates 6 to 8: Resist the temptation to go further. Make sure the other person was as invested as he was. If all is still going well by the eighth date, tell her the truth, and hopefully think about marriage someday.
The problem is that Clark has never made it past the first date with any of Molly’s friends, and it’s starting to get on his nerves. How difficult could it be to find someone even a little like him?
Jimmy snaps his fingers in front of his face. “Earth to Clark. Where’d you go?”
“Sorry,” Clark says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”
“I can always create you a Hinge account—”
“We’re definitely not doing that.”
Jimmy raises his hands in mock surrender. “Alright. But please, you need to trust me on this one. I have a really good feeling about this girl.”
Clark’s expression sours, going poker-faced. “Is it because she’s the last option you have?”
Jimmy clutches his chest, pretending to get offended. “You always think so badly of me.”
Scowling, Clark sighs for the hundredth time this morning, and the clock hasn’t even struck nine-thirty yet. “Can I at least see a picture of her?”
“Nope. It’s a blind date. Exciting, right?”
A crease forms between Clark’s brows. “You can’t be serious. How am I supposed to recognize her if I don’t know what she looks like?”
“That sounds like a you problem,” Jimmy replies, giving a dismissive wave of his hand. “Does tonight work for you?”
“Well—”
“Perfect. I’m so glad you’re not busy saving the world or whatever. I’ll text you the details. And hey, if everything goes according to plan, maybe you can even tell her about… the thing.”
Clark hooks two fingers into Jimmy’s sleeve, tugging until he’s leaning down so they’re eye-to-eye level. “We said we wouldn’t talk about the thing at the office.”
“I know. I just still can’t believe it! You’re Sup—”
“—Super committed to my job? Yup. Love it. I’m a big fan of newspapers,” Clark interrupts, his voice an octave too high.
Across the bullpen, Lois asks, “What are you two whispering about over there?”
“Someone’s got another date lined up!” Jimmy chirps, now popping around behind Clark to give his chair a spin.
“Poor thing,” Lois says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought you were done with those.”
“Me too,” Clark mumbles, palming his cheek flusterdly.
Grinning, Jimmy adds, “I could help you next time, Lois.”
“I’d rather die alone, but thank you.” At that, she strides off, and Jimmy’s mouth downturns, resembling something that looks a lot like a pout.
Before strolling off toward his desk, he gives Clark one final glance. “Just imagine the double dates we’ll go on, CK!”
Clark forces a smile to appease his friend.
Perhaps being single wasn’t the worst fate after all.
While getting ready, he finds himself torn between restless anxiety and utter resignation. It’s a strange combination, to say the least. Both feelings coexist tensely inside him, neither winning out over the other.
You’re ten minutes late to the date, which isn’t much, not really. After pacing the block twice, he’d arrived half an hour early to the restaurant Jimmy sent the location of, hoping nothing in the world would go wrong and force him to abandon the establishment and leap up into the air.
Already, he’s read the menu more times than he can count, memorizing each dish with its ingredients and price. He knows the chicken parmigiana comes with a chicken breast that can be topped with mozzarella, Parmesan, or provolone, and that the garnish—
“Clark?”
His head snaps up from the menu, and he sees you standing there with an apologetic smile, holding out your hand in greeting.
“Hey,” he says, standing so fast his chair nearly tips. He grips your hand, enveloping it, and swallows like his throat has gone dry, suddenly parched. “I’m—Yes. Hi. Hello.”
Golly.
He’s temporarily lost the ability to speak coherently. No longer does he know which letters go together to form the words he wants to say. It’s beyond incredible, the effect your beauty has on him.
You tilt your head, studying him before giving him your name. “Jimmy said I should look for a guy who looks tall even when he’s sitting, but you’re way taller than I expected.” Your nose wrinkles immediately after hearing yourself. “That sounded weird, didn’t it? Sorry. I swear it sounded less awkward in my head.”
A nervous laugh escapes his throat. “It’s alright. I’ve been mistaken for Bigfoot a handful of times now.”
Usually, when he jokes, the response he receives is no more than a polite chuckle. He’s convinced he has no sense of timing, no instinct for delivery, but now you’re genuinely laughing at what he’s just said. It feels authentic, and for him, that’s unbelievable.
Then he realizes he still hasn’t let go of your hand. He drops it like it burns, wiping his palms on his black slacks as he sits again, silently chiding himself for how much he’s sweating.
“I’m so sorry I arrived a bit late. I couldn’t find a place to park.” You hang your purse from the back of the chair as you sit, the corner of your mouth quirking up. “Did I make you wait too long?”
Clearing his throat, he lifts the menu and waves it awkwardly. “I, uh, had plenty of time to learn all the dishes.”
“Then I suppose you’ll have no problems ordering for me.”
He’s left flabbergasted. “But—How?”
“I like almost everything, that’s why it always takes me forever to choose. Trust me, you do not want to be stuck here with me until closing,” you explain, lifting your shoulder in a half shrug.
A distorted echo of his own conscience cuts through his thoughts: who says I wouldn't want that?
Soon you’re talking, the conversation unspooling. You tell him you’ve known Molly since primary school, and that when she initially asked if you wanted to go on a date with one of Jimmy’s friends, you turned it down.
“—So I thought I’d try to navigate the dating world on my own, but months passed without much success and I lost motivation.” You lace your fingers together, setting them neatly on the table. “Then Molly asked to meet, and this time she brought Jimmy, and… well, here I am.”
“I’m glad you didn’t lose all your hope,” he rejoins before realizing the hidden meaning of his words. He steers away from that subject. “Jimmy’s a pretty… chatty guy, don’t you think?”
“He’s great! Plus, I’ve never seen Molly this happy.”
“You’re right. They look good together.”
“And he talked a lot about you. Said some very nice things.”
“Does that mean you know more about me than I know about you?”
“Maybe.” Your eyes wander around the room before returning to his. “Besides, he paid me to be here, so this date better be a success.”
His expression falls. There’s a sudden tightness that creeps into his chest, and he can’t help but blink owlishly. “Wait, did… did Jimmy actually pay you?”
“I’m kidding!” you clarify, stumbling over your words as you lean forward, your knuckles brushing his across the table. His shoulders loosen, and he exhales. You continue with a soft chuckle. “That was my best attempt at breaking the ice. I don’t think I’ll ever be good at jokes.”
“I’m no better. Want proof?”
“Go on.”
“Why are colds bad criminals?”
You lift your brows. “Why?”
“Because they’re easy to catch.”
Propping your chin on your hand, you shake your head with a crooked smile. “That was… terrible.”
“Oh come on, you could at least pretend it was funny.” Clark laughs.
“And lie to you? Never.”
“You’ve crushed my dreams of following my true passion.”
“… Which is?”
“Pursuing a career in comedy, obviously.”
You’re laughing. Again. He thinks he’s never managed to make someone laugh this much in such a short span.
Once the laughter dies down, you offer up another question: “So, you work at the Daily Planet, right?”
He nods. “Mostly reporting. Some articles and interviews as well—”
At that moment, a waitress interrupts before he can continue, carrying a notepad in her hands. After she finishes listing off tonight’s specials, he blurts out both orders: the same dish, because panic takes over. He then asks you to choose the drinks; you settle on water, and he echoes your choice without thinking.
Once the waitress is gone, you continue your thought. “I’ve read some of your pieces—Some of the interviews with Superman, for instance.”
“Oh.” He hums, with an air of shock.
“Sorry. You’re probably tired of people bringing him up.”
His pulse quickens in the blink of an eye. “No, not at all. It’s just that I sometimes forget people are meant to read what I write, you know? It still amazes me.”
“Well, you’ve got an avid reader here.” Your lips curve knowingly. “So… is he cool? Nice? Or does he think too highly of himself?”
That last part catches him off guard. He fumbles with the napkin in his lap, mindlessly tearing it into smaller pieces. “What makes you think that?”
You ponder, wrinkling your nose. “Well, when someone has that much power, it’d be easy to slide into arrogance.”
His voice, when it comes, is so subdued that he can barely hear it. “I believe he takes what he does very seriously. I wouldn’t say he’s arrogant.”
You rest your chin on your palm, studying him. “He’s not so fond of the media, though, right?”
“That’s because some have chosen to distort his image.”
“I see you’re a Superman apologist,” you tease, tapping the table with two fingers. “So tell me: if he’s not exactly approachable, then how did you manage to land all those interviews with him?”
In situations like these, Clark realizes he’s been taking air for granted. How do you know which buttons to push to make him sweat?
“I just…. happen to be in the right place at the right time. That’s all.”
You give him a lopsided grin. “Don’t be so modest! Give yourself some credit. You’ve given him a voice no one else has. I think it’s admirable.”
There’s a fleeting moment when he falls silent, partly blinded by your radiance. He feels as though he can’t look at you properly while speaking, as if he’s staring straight into the Yellow Sun.
It seems almost unreal that you’re here, sitting across from him, breathing the same air, your shoes only inches away from his under the table.
You’re beautiful. And he’s petrified of making the wrong move—of saying the wrong thing and scaring you off forever.
“I wouldn’t say we’re friends or anything like that,” he adds after a beat. “It’s strictly professional. He wants others to hear his side of things, too.”
He isn’t too sure what he just said, too stuck on the fact that he could really be falling for you after knowing you for less than half an hour. It sounds absurd—Gosh, it is absurd. That he knows for sure.
But what role does absurdity play when it comes to love? Aren’t those the very things that can’t be logically explained? The unreasonable acts?
Stick. To. The. Plan. You big poet.
Cutting off Clark’s mental spiral, the waitress timely returns with both of your drinks, placing them carefully on the table. He takes a sip, the water cold and numbing against his throat, though it does nothing for the heat rising in his cheeks.
He sets the glass down. “Anyway, enough about me. Tell me something about yourself.”
“I teach,” you say, your tone softening. “Primary and high school. For my older students, I focus mostly on literature.”
“That sounds like a lot of responsibility.”
Your eyes brighten a little. “It is. It can be incredibly exhausting at times, but I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. Teaching is my calling, you know? What I’m meant to do.”
His lips quirk before he even speaks. “Should I confess then that I haven’t read a fiction book in years?”
“How are you still going on with your life?” You jest, taking a sip of your water.
“I manage just fine.”
“Lucky you, I can recommend you something whenever you want.” It’s like you’re half hoping for a denial, because then you clarify, “Not like I’m forcing you or anything. Not everybody enjoys reading. I’m only saying that if you’re interested—”
Jimmy won’t believe it, Clark thinks, that he set him up with someone who overthinks their words just as much as he does.
His heart sings as he answers, “That’d be nice.”
While you eat, Clark starts memorizing all these details that you mention, storing them in the back of his head:
You’ve trained yourself not to curse, thanks to all the hours spent surrounded by children, though every once in a while a bad word sneaks out, especially when you stub your little toe on the edge of your bed.
He learns that you’re not much of a drinker. You’ll take a gin and tonic every now and then, but you refuse to accept beer, wine, or anything too sugary.
As a kid, you dreamed of being a librarian, and you even worked in one through college.
When the check is paid and his cheeks ache from smiling more than he has in weeks, he insists on holding the door open for you as you step outside.
The moment he turns back, you’re holding your phone out toward him.
“I’d really like to see you again, if you want to,” you murmur, fluttering your eyelashes with a hopeful grin on your lips. “Think you can—Would you give me your number?”
His mouth hangs agape briefly before he shuts it tightly. His eyes gloss over you once more. “I’d love that. Of course. I mean, you’re great, and I think—”
A giggle escapes you as you perceive him to be just as nervous as you are, and you give the device a playful shove back into his chest.
He takes it, pressing each number with practiced delicacy while trying not to waste the little time you had left. He hands the phone back, rocking on his heels, searching for the right thing to do with his hands.
“It was a good first date,” he admits at last.
The silence between you deepens, and then you say, “I’m glad I accepted Jimmy’s offer.”
“He’ll be all over me at work tomorrow.”
You beam at him, your eyes crinkling at the corners. “Tell him I said hi.”
“I will.”
Even so, there’s a part of Clark that doesn’t want to leave. He wants to know more about you, despite having already memorized all those little details you shared throughout the night.
You both have responsibilities, and he knows he can’t ask for too much when you’ve only just met, but he would stay up all night if it meant spending just a little more time with you.
God, he’s already in so deep.
You tighten your grip on your purse strap, slinging it over your shoulder. “Okay, then… bye. I guess I’ll see you around.”
You shift closer, rising on your toes, and judging by the way you’re tilting your head, he’s pretty sure you’re planning on kissing him on the cheek.
He suddenly remembers his plan, panic kicking in before common sense, his hand shoots forward to hold yours, stopping you.
Startled, you slip your hand into his, saying, “A true gentleman.” You give it a firm shake. “Noted.”
“Sorry, I just—”
“Don’t worry.” You offer him another one of your earth-shattering smiles. “Goodnight, Clark.”
He waves, and so do you, but neither of you moves right away. He gestures toward the sidewalk. “I’ll go first.”
You take two steps backward. “Yup. Fine.”
Needless to say, when he’s a block away and risks glancing over his shoulder, he finds you already looking back at him.
“I need all the details!”
“Jimmy, I swear to God—”
“You’re entitled to tell me! I was the one who set you up!”
Clark shushes him, pressing a hand over his mouth. They’re right by the printers, and he flashes an innocent smile at a woman passing by on her way to the break room, concern flickering in her eyes.
“Stop yelling, man!” Clark hisses, his gaze boring into Jimmy’s as he all but slaps his large hand over his mouth. “You’re scaring people, and you have—What the hay, dude?!”
Clark yanks his hand back, staring at his palm in disgust. His skin is wet and sticky.
“Did you just lick me?” Clark grimaces, wiping the saliva on Jimmy’s shirt. “How old are you? Three?”
“I will not be silenced.”
“You’re gross.”
“And I’ll continue to be if you don’t tell me how it went last night,” Jimmy presses excitedly, giving a light punch to Clark’s chest.
Clark sighs, looking around to make sure no one’s eavesdropping their conversation. “I already told you it was fine. What else do you want to know?”
“Did you kiss?”
“What?! No!” Now Clark’s the one yelling.
“Relax. It’s not like I asked if you two reenacted the Kama Sutra.”
A rush of heat prickles at the back of Clark’s neck. The newsroom feels stifling, and he tugs at his collar, aiming to keep his voice even. “Why are you more… unfiltered than usual?”
“Kissing isn’t a sin, pal. Stop treating it as if it were,” Jimmy explains, and with a shake of his head, he drifts toward the coffee machine, leaving Clark even more confused.
He quickly follows after him. “But it’s too early for a kiss. We’ve only been on one date.”
Steam curls from the machine as Jimmy fills his cup. The vapor fogs Clark’s glasses, blurring his vision for a second.
“You notice how you're trying to control the situation? It’s like you want to structure every single thing,” Jimmy says, stirring in sugar, clinking a spoon against the ceramic. “You need to just let it flow. See where it takes you. Forget about that stupid eight-dates thing.”
Taken aback, Clark’s brows snap together. “I don’t ‘go with the flow’. And my plan’s not stupid. I just… put a lot of thought into it,” Clark laments.
“How many times did you shake her hand last night? Five?”
“In my defense, she did it first.”
“Oh! Fantastic. Looks like I’ve found someone who matches your freakiness.”
Clark opens his mouth to argue, but the unexpected buzz in his pocket derails his train of thought. As his heart hammers, he fishes out his phone. His lock screen lights up with a new message from an unknown number.
He can’t help the way his lips twitch upward, betraying him. He’s been waiting all morning for this.
Jimmy leans in, trying to angle the screen toward himself. “Oh, man. Is it her? Tell me it’s her.”
Clark pivots the phone away trying to use his size to his advantage, but Jimmy cranes his neck anyway, squinting at the text that’s popped up:
I really hope you didn’t give me a fake number last night.
Clark’s thumb hovers over the screen, debating his next reply. Out of the corner of his eye, Jimmy remains grinning next to him, taking a long sip of coffee before nearly hollering, “Remember that sexting in public is gross!”
He walks away after that, and a few heads turn in Clark’s direction as he jerks upright, almost dropping the device. “He’s joking, obviously,” he sputters, his head bent. “I’d never do that. You’re all… safe.”
Retreating to his desk, he sinks into his chair, hiding his face behind the glow of his phone screen. He creates a new contact under your name.
Clark: What kind of person do you think I am?
The typing dots appear right after.
You: I barely know you. Why should I trust you?
Clark: I can’t think of any good reason right now.
You: Well, if you want to prove your identity, tell me the color of the jacket I wore yesterday.
Clark: It was blue… and you paired it with a black sweater and a pretty pair of earrings.
You: Your eyes do work wonders.
Clark: It’s the glasses. They take all the credit.
You: But is your memory always this good?
Clark: Only on important occasions.
Your second date comes a few days later at a bookshop café you’ve been meaning to try. Clark’s determined to leave with at least one book under his arm, and after debating his choices with you, he ends up choosing Atonement.
Turns out you don’t talk much. You mostly read, and yet the silence between you feels natural, almost familiar. Most people don’t consider Clark’s quiet nature much of a virtue, but he’s never seen it that way.
He thinks back to his parents on the Kent farm, sitting side by side on the porch. They wouldn’t speak, only stare at the horizon, steady and unflinching.
He wonders if this is how they felt when they were younger, or how they still feel after so many years of being together.
It’s too soon, and he knows it. Still, the thought lingers, stubborn as ever: if that kind of comfort was supposed to take years, why is he already finding it with you?
As with most things in life, Clark has always believed that something very good is inevitably followed by something very bad. After the date, a thousand excuses run through his head, all the things you could say to ghost him.
I don’t think we really connected. Maybe we could just stay friends.
Actually, I’m not single. I have a boyfriend and two dogs in another city, waiting for me to come home.
You’re kind of boring, your relationship with Superman is concerning, and I never want to see you again.
All his doubts fade the moment you text him before going to bed, reminding him to send you his thoughts after finishing each chapter of the book.
The third date happens almost a week later, when both of you finally manage to carve out the time. You’d mentioned a certain movie you’d been wanting to see, and now that it had finally hit theaters, Clark wasn’t wasting the chance.
You’ve taken your seats in the designated theater. The movie, Materialists, won’t start for another ten minutes. You’re devouring the popcorn he bought, tossing kernel after kernel into your mouth, while he steals a handful whenever you pause.
“I didn’t know you liked popcorn so much,” he says, laughing softly at the way you pop them into your mouth.
“I love it, but I’m starving, too.”
“Guess you’ll have to survive on popcorn for now.” He stretches his legs, sinking deeper into the seat. “By the way, what’s this movie about?”
He can't tell you that he got these tickets online while he was in Europe just a few hours ago, and that's why he didn't have time to read the plot.
“A love triangle,” you explain, crossing one leg over the other. “I hope it’s good. I’ve heard all kinds of opinions.”
It starts off promising. When Pedro Pascal’s character, Harry, flirts with Dakota Johnson’s Lucy at the wedding, he spares you a quick glance, noticing how your gaze is fixed on the screen. You partially cover your face each time they get too close.
About halfway through the film, there’s a scene where Harry and Lucy start making out in his apartment. It’s heated, and now Clark finds himself picturing doing the same with you, which isn’t helpful at all.
The safest distraction, he decides, is eating. He dips his hand between the two seats, where the bucket of popcorn should be wedged.
Except it isn’t there anymore. Somehow, in that moment, it’s gone, and instead of buttery kernels, his hand brushes against yours.
Driven by reflex, you jerk it away, nearly jumping in place. Clark turns to you, and an expression of perplexity settles on your features. A thousand thoughts race through his mind.
He wants to say he’s sorry, that he didn’t mean to be so forward, that he was only reaching for the popcorn to derail thoughts of which you were the protagonist.
What he doesn’t know, because that would require slipping inside your head, is that you’re forcing yourself not to turn and stare at him. Every so often your control falters, and you steal a glance from the corner of your eye, grateful for the excuse of being seated so you can drink in his profile unnoticed.
His nose, the soft fullness of his lips, the line of his chin. The way his glasses slip down and he pushes them back up, how the flickering scenes from the film ripple across the glass in short fragments.
He’s everything you ever wanted, and more. Your friends would probably tell you you’re rushing, that you should be more objective, keep a cool head. But nothing feels cool beside Clark. Your emotions turn visceral, heat rises under your skin, and logic abandons you exactly when you need it most.
From then on, it all happens in slow motion.
Your hand goes back to the armrest, palm tilted upward, as though waiting for something from his side. He notices the faint creases of your skin, the twitch of your wrist as you squirm.
The most primal part of him aches to grab your face and kiss you until you’re breathless. But that’s not something he can do, something he should do. It doesn’t go according to the plan.
Instead, he makes the choice to take your hand deliberately. He intertwines his fingers with yours, no inch of skin apart. Warmth radiates from you, seeping into him where you’re joined as his thumb brushes along your knuckles.
There’s a moment when the movie fades into background noise for him, and he can’t help catching every small disruption in the theater. A woman a few rows down chewing with her mouth open. A young couple kissing like the world’s about to end. A phone that buzzes and refuses to be ignored.
And yet, the sound he picks out most clearly is your heartbeat as it drowns out the rest. It echoes in his ears so loud, so frantic, that he feels as if it belongs to him.
Clark tests his luck, as though this were an experiment, and squeezes your hand. The effect is immediate; your pulse stumbles, skips, and the rush of it startles him enough that his knee jerks, knocking into the seat in front and making a stranger yelp.
The man turns around in an instant, forehead wrinkled in annoyance. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Clark swallows hard. He hadn’t meant to hit him that hard. “I’m so sorry. I think I got a cramp,” he whispers, hoping that he’ll take pity on him.
All he gets in response is a grunt, which sounds like a curse, but he couldn’t care less.
He hasn’t been this buried in work in months. If he had to lay the blame on someone, he’d have to call it quits and tell Superman he’s not doing any more interviews.
In other words: no more referring to himself in the third-person.
Defending himself against every critic and headline is one thing, but doing it disguised as a reporter is entirely different.
He’s afraid the people who read his articles will eventually start thinking he’s losing his objectivity. But given the circumstances, and since Lex Luthor appears to be on every TV program calling Superman a filthy martian, it’s not like Clark can stay silent.
His stomach’s been growling for the past hour. It’s officially lunchtime. He should put something in his body before hunger drives him to slam his keyboard against his desk, though the thought of abandoning the draft in front of him makes him itch.
Good gosh. Perhaps he should start writing under a pseudonym.
When he checks his phone, there’s a message from you. You’ve got a long break between classes, and you’re thinking of grabbing lunch. The mere thought of food makes him fantasize about gnawing on anything remotely edible.
Clark: Think I’ll just skip lunch today. There’s so much I have to get done.
He sends the text without waiting for a reply, sets the phone down beside his computer, and goes back to work.
From behind his back, a hand waves a Pop-Tart in his direction, waggling it. A theatrical voice murmurs, “Eat me.”
Clark lets out a laugh, swiveling just enough to see Steve smirking as he leans on the edge of his desk.
“I’m serious. Take it. You look like you need it more than me.”
“It’s fine, I’ll just eat later,” Clark retorts, rubbing at his temples and sinking back into his chair.
Narrowing his eyes, Steve says, “You look stressed.”
“Well, I most certainly am.”
“Is it about all the hate your little friend’s been receiving lately?”
On any other occasion, were he not this tired, he’d have corrected him, insisting they’re not friends. But today, he lets it slide. “It’s draining. Collecting all this information and then—having to ask—”
His own sigh cuts him off. There’s a weight pressing on his chest he can’t shake, and he peers up to stare at Steve.
Steve bites into the Pop-Tart, chewing it with a thoughtful expression. “I wonder if this is the end of Superman.”
Clark tries to keep his voice level. He really does. “What?”
“I mean, he’s constantly being criticized. Sure, most people still like him, think he’s great, but—”
“He’s not gonna stop helping others just because there’s some… bald guy on TV who lives to antagonize him. His entire purpose on earth is to be helpful. It’s what drives him. It’s—He’s not giving up.”
Startled, Steve tilts his head. “Did he tell you all that?”
Clark stammers, “He didn’t, but I—I know that’s what he’d say if I were to ask him.”
After that, Steve appears to have decided to drop the subject, finishing what’s left of his snack. Clark assumes that’s the end of their conversation, which had been long enough to exasperate him anyway, even though he considers himself to be patient.
But then—
“So… I’ve heard you’re going out with this girl.”
“You mean Jimmy told you.”
Steve shrugs. “Same thing in my book. When are you seeing her again?”
Clark stiffens, stretching his arm to grab a pen and rhythmically clicking the end of it. “I don’t know. We’ve both been busy the last few days.”
You? Busy teaching, preparing lessons, and correcting assignments.
Him? Busy juggling two lives. When he tells you he’s exhausted and heading to bed early, it’s often a lie. Later, you’ll catch him on TV, throwing himself at some gigantic creature, and text him a picture of the screen: Unlike you, your friend’s not getting much sleep tonight.
“Got a picture of her?” Steve asks out of nowhere.
Studying him for a moment, Clark draws his brows together. “I’m not showing you—”
“Kent,” a voice cuts through, calling his attention. Nino, the security guard from the entrance, stands a few meters away, and he looks irritated to have been sent upstairs. “There’s someone waiting for you outside.”
That’s weird. “For… me? Are you sure?”
“It’s a girl. Says she’s looking for Clark Kent.” The man’s voice thickens with annoyance. “As far as I know, you’re the only Clark Kent in the entire building, so unless you’ve got a secret twin brother or something—”
Clark’s already rising to his feet before the guard finishes. “Alright, alright. I’m coming.”
He doesn’t expect to see your face when the doors open and the rush of cooler air spills in. His heart jolts inside his chest as he steps toward you, and that’s when it hits him.
He had actually missed you more than he realized. What stage of the plan was he in now?
“What—I don’t—You’re here?”
“I texted you, but you weren’t answering, so I figured I’d just… drop by,” you begin, slightly breathless. “You said you were skipping lunch, and I brought you food, and—”
Looking down, he catches a glimpse of the paper bag you’re clutching. The smell alone makes his stomach rumble in betrayal. “You didn’t have to.”
“I was getting something for myself as well.”
“But—”
You take one step closer, a grin tugging at your lips. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Don’t play that card with me. You know I am.”
That makes you laugh. “Then take this, and tell me if you like it.” You press the bag into his hands, and your fingers brush against his. Neither of you pull away. “It’s a sandwich and fries. I got myself the same thing, so I’m counting on it being good.”
I missed you. I missed you. I missed you. I missed—
“I’m sorry I didn’t check my phone. I just… there’s a lot going on at the moment.” His pinky hooks against yours, and you glance down for an instant. “I wasn’t avoiding you or anything.”
Nodding your head, your eyes twinkle with something he can’t describe. “I know. I didn’t think that, and I—”
You quiet down when a crowd of people interrupts your moment, the murmur of voices overlapping, making you grimace.
“I'd better be going,” you say, jerking your thumb toward the street. “My next class starts in about half an hour, so—”
“Makes sense,” Clark answers, though his words don’t match the way his throat tightens, wishing he could disappear into the crowd with you instead. He massages the back of his neck, scanning the sidewalk like he’ll lose you if he looks away. “I’ll head back inside.”
You sigh, shoving your hands into your pockets. “And I’ll go back to dealing with eight-year-olds.”
Would now be a good time to ask when he can see you again? The thought burns on his tongue, when—
“Kent, are you coming in?” Nino’s holding the glass door open with one hand, and he seems to be seconds away from letting it slam shut.
“Right. Sorry,” Clark murmurs, clearing his throat. “Yeah—Bye.”
He lingers until you vanish from sight before stepping back inside. The moment Jimmy spots the bag, he’s immediately smirking, but Clark walks straight past him, setting it beside his keyboard and reaching for his phone.
You: Want me to grab you something? I’m nearby anyway.
You: Hello?
You: Well, now I’m just getting you food.
You: Would it be weird if I dropped it off at your office?
You: I’m trusting my instinct.
All the while he eats the sandwich, he can’t stop beating himself up for not telling you how much he’d been wanting to see you. He rubs his fingers together, the salt of the fries clinging to his skin, and he gets the best idea he’s had in weeks.
There’s a chance Perry will scold him for leaving earlier than he should, but he’s willing to take the risk.
Hours later, he finds himself at a florist's, buying you flowers. He waits outside your work longer than he expected, watching as each child is picked up one by one.
Eventually, as the last of your students leaves, he watches as you descend the steps. Your face lights up as you catch sight of him.
“Clark?” You’re smiling now, walking faster. Your eyebrows shoot up to your hairline when you notice he’s hiding something behind his back. “What is it?”
You reach out, but he dodges. “Easy there.” He thinks about teasing you a little longer, but the way you’re looking at him makes him weak in the knees, and he brings the flowers out from behind him. “This is my way of thanking you for today’s lunch.”
“Oh my God!” you squeak, taking them into your hands. You bury your face in them, smiling wider. “These are so pretty! Thank you, thank you, thank—”
Before he can react, your arms loop around his neck. Your chest collides with his, and he stumbles back, losing his balance for a brief moment. He circles your waist, lifting you off the ground. You laugh against his ear, the flowers brushing the back of his neck, while his nose sinks into your hair as he breathes in.
How is he supposed to go slow when being with you feels like a dream?
That’s it. He’s gone. Completely head over heels for you. You could do anything to him, tear him apart and piece him back together, and he wouldn’t even try to stop you. He can’t understand how someone who was a stranger just weeks ago can now make him feel a hundred different things at once.
A month ago, if he’d seen you on the street, he would’ve glanced twice and kept walking.
Today, he’s terrified of losing sight of you.
The hug lasts only seconds, but for him, it stretches into years. As he sets you down, he notices how close you are.
His breath comes unevenly as you curl your fingers into his tie. You’re staring at him, deeply, though you make no move, and he offers you a crooked smile.
“I take it you liked the flowers?” he asks, his voice pitched a little higher than usual.
Your answer doesn’t come in words, but in a kiss.
Your lips fit against his perfectly. The kiss is sweet, fleeting, and gentle. You pull away, and he follows your mouth instinctively. You throw your head back, laughing, so that he’s met with your cheek instead.
He noses your skin, eyes fluttering shut. “Are you free tonight?”
For the sake of his sanity, he counts both encounters as the fourth date.
Tonight, you’re having your fifth date. This event marks the end of stage two of his plan.
Everything feels like it’s moving too fast. He has to remind himself that sex is absolutely off the table for a fifth date, even if he’s stepping into your apartment for the first time.
“It won’t happen.” He’s talking to his own reflection now as he fixes his hair in the mirror. “You’re strong. You’re… committed to the plan.” Tapping his finger into the glass for emphasis, he says, “Stick to it. Think about the final outcome.”
This plan wasn’t something he came up with overnight. Its roots go back to when he was sixteen, when his friends first started dating and fumbling through romance—a life he thought was reserved for everyone but him.
Clark believed he was a danger to others if he wasn’t careful. For the longest time, he smothered every feeling that even brushed against love, locking it away before it could grow. He was afraid of hurting someone.
He never quite stopped feeling like an infant in the body of a man, learning his limits piece by piece. He knows he has two arms and two legs, two eyes and a mouth. He knows that when he grips something, it stays there.
But then there are the gifts. The strength, the senses, the heat in his blood; powers he never asked for, but could never escape. With Ma and Pa’s help, he learned how to live with them, though the process was frustrating, sometimes terrifying.
At the age of seventeen, he didn't know what was destined for him. He was just a boy who wanted to hold a girl’s hand without worrying about burning holes in the ground with his heat vision.
He always knew his life would be complicated. He knew finding someone who could stand beside him, someone willing to accept his calling, would be nearly impossible.
That’s why he couldn’t just let things happen. He didn’t trust fate. He didn’t want to wait for love to stumble across him by chance. He had to find it, not wait around for fate to find it for him.
His phone rings, pulling him from his thoughts, and he realizes he’s been standing in the bathroom for almost five minutes. He accepts the call without checking the screen.
“Hello?”
“Well if it isn’t my favorite lovebird. How are you doing?”
“Jimmy, I’m leaving in ten minutes. Be quick.”
“Are you nervous?”
He is, but Jimmy doesn’t need to know that. “Why would I be?”
“You’re finally getting laid!”
Clark stops buttoning up his shirt. “Wait. What? Why are you even saying this?”
“Because—aren’t you going to her place?”
“Yeah. And?”
“Well, do the math, dude!”
“You’re trespassing all my limits. Please, Jimmy.”
“Look, it’ll do you good. Even Superman needs to copulate sometimes.”
“Copulate?! I don’t—That’s it. Goodbye, Jimmy.”
The state in which he arrives at your apartment is far from what he’d hoped. Hair toussled, cheeks pink with windburn.
His hand trembles slightly as he knocks, checking his phone for the fifth time to confirm the hour. He’s not early, nor is he late, but right on schedule.
He’s really doing this, standing outside the apartment of the girl he fancies. He tells himself it’s simple: come in, talk, share dinner, leave within the span of two hours. Easy-peasy.
Only nothing about this feels ordinary. One single line of his plan won’t leave him alone, and it flashes every time he closes his eyes: visiting each other’s apartments was too risky. Now, with his pulse racing and nerves gathering tight in his chest, he knows exactly why he wrote that.
Dear Clark from the past: you were wise beyond your years.
When you finally open the door and invite him in, he has to remind his lungs how to work, forcing in a breath. Crossing the threshold feels less like walking into a room and more like stepping into uncharted territory.
His eyes roam over the portraits on the wall, the small decorations, the ceramic sculpture of a dog perched on a shelf. It hits him only then how desperately he’s been avoiding your gaze.
“You have a really nice place,” he murmurs at last, forcing himself to turn back. It would feel wrong not to.
You surprise him with takeout from a place he’d mentioned once in passing. They sell these wraps you can customize to your liking, and he doesn’t remember ever telling you his exact dream order, but you’ve nailed it anyway.
His has pulled beef, cheese, and a rich dressing that overshadows every other flavor. Salsa slips from the edge of the wrap, trickling down his chin as he takes a big mouthful, and you laugh, cheeks full, still chewing.
“What?” he asks, the word muffled, and it’s almost as if he’d momentarily forgotten the first rule of table manners his parents had taught him. He wipes the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, a clumsy but effective maneuver to deal with the greasy mess on his fingers.
You sip your water, pressing a napkin to your lips. “Since when are wraps so messy to eat?”
“Mine’s about to explode, but it’s worth it,” he replies, and you nod.
You lean back in your seat, scratching your chin in thought. “Hey, remember the other day you said you were staying late at the office?”
Clark hums, his eyes fixed on his wrap. Better to stay absorbed in his food than risk betraying the truth. That he hadn’t spent his Wednesday night typing, rereading the same sentences until they blurred into nonsense.
“Did you manage to finish that article?” you ask, now resigned to using a knife and fork instead of wrestling with your wrap.
“Oh, yeah. I just… had to check some minor details with… my source,” he says, hoping the conversation won’t make the food turn in his stomach.
Lifting your fork, you point it at him. “Let me guess. Does his name start with an S and end with -man?” He doesn’t bother answering, because it isn’t necessary. “Don’t even say it. I already knew I was a mastermind.”
“He told me all about his fight with the Kaiju,” Clark tries.
You chew slowly on a carrot, thoughtful. Your gaze narrows on him. “Do you agree with everything he does?”
Clark nearly bites his tongue. “What—what do you mean?”
“When you’re writing about him, quoting him, making references to all his rescues, don’t you ever feel like… maybe your opinion might differ from what he did? That you might disagree with his actions?”
Why did it feel like tonight you were the journalist and he was the one on the record?
“I get what you’re saying,” Clark answers, straightening in his chair. “But yeah, I agree with what he does.”
You arch your brows. “With every single thing? Really?”
“I wouldn’t interview him if I didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you.” Your tone is teasing, playful, but under it runs a thread of sharp skepticism. “There’s gotta be something about him you don’t like.”
Clark pretends to think, then shakes his head. “Not that I can remember.”
You ball up your napkin and toss it at him, laughing. “Come on!”
“What?” He catches it and tosses it back with no real effort. “I’m being honest. He gets me exclusives, front page spots. What’s not to like about that?”
You click your tongue and wave him off. “See? You’re biased. You’re not thinking straight. If you were, you’d find something unlikeable. Everyone has flaws.”
Clark attempts to shift the focus of the conversation. “So does that mean I’ve got something you don’t like about me?”
You bite your lip, glance up at the ceiling as though calculating. “You could say that.”
His interest sparks immediately. “What is it? Now I have to know.” He scrapes his chair across the floor until he’s sitting at your side, facing you directly. “You’re not getting out of this.”
“I’m not roasting you for free!”
“I’m literally asking you to!”
“Clark—”
“I’ll just keep going until you break,” he teases, leaning in closer. “You’ll get tired of me eventually.”
With him this near, your eyes betray you, flicking from his gaze to his mouth before you catch yourself. Clark notices. Of course he notices. He watches as you squint, weighing whether or not to give in to his persistence.
Finally, you decide to, because the next thing you say is: “You never question him, not even once.”
He had been waiting for you to say something untrue, something easy to laugh off. But your words catch him off guard. He leans back slightly, needing that extra inch of distance to really look at you.
Your gaze softens as if you regret pushing too far. Rising from your seat, you gather both your plates and glasses. “I’m sorry. I was just—I was joking. You know I’m terrible at that, right?”
You’re trying to dissolve the tension, to make it vanish into the clatter of dishes. He can’t blame you for it.
“Yeah, now I remember,” he says quietly, watching the curve of your shoulders as you walk toward the kitchen. “Please, never give up teaching.”
He trails after you. You’re at the counter, cutting squares of the brownie you baked earlier. You take the first bite, humming at the rich taste as your foot taps the floor, and he can’t stop watching the way your face relaxes with delight.
“Good?” he asks, folding his arms. Despite your recent exchange, he can’t avoid getting lost in your beauty.
It’s a fact that you always look pretty, but tonight there’s something different he can’t quite place. Maybe it has to do with the way you carry yourself, more at ease, a little less preoccupied.
You’re glowing, and it has nothing to do with a physical change, but with something harder to name, something more intimate.
You answer his question with a small, “You have to try it,” and then you’re holding out a piece to him, the same one you’d bitten into seconds ago.
His eyes flick to yours, then down to the brownie, then to your fingers, and back to you.
“Come on,” you insist, swaying the piece a little. Your tongue darts out to lick the chocolate at the corner of your mouth. “I swear it’s not poisoned.”
This is the end of him. Who would’ve thought, out of all possible scenarios, that he’d die right here in your apartment?
He inches forward a little, carefully biting into the brownie, hyper-aware of how close his teeth are to your fingers. He braces for you to look away, to break the tension, but you don’t, and neither does he. His gaze stays locked on yours as he literally eats from your hand.
Don’t get hard. Please, just don’t.
“It’s… delicious,” he manages after a beat, clearing his throat. “Can you make, like, a whole batch for me?”
Rolling your eyes, you say, “Sure.” You finish the last bite yourself, brushing crumbs from your fingertips. Then your brows knit together, like a thought just struck you. “By the way, how’s Atonement going? You like it so far?”
He scrambles in his mind for the last place he left off. “I reached the part where Robbie and Cecilia are… well, you know.”
“You mean the library scene?”
“Yeah.”
“They recreated it so well in the movie. I still remember it to this day.”
“I had no idea there was a movie.”
“It’s from 2007. We should watch it someday… or perhaps tonight?”
There’s no way he’s surviving you, not with the way you’re looking at him now, the way you’re leaning back. You tilt your head to the side, the movement shifting your shirt just enough to reveal the faintest strip of skin. His breath catches before he can stop it.
Your lips part slightly, as though you’re about to speak, but the silence stretched instead.
“Darn it,” he mutters under his breath, and he’s sure you’re about to ask what he said, but you never get the chance, because he cups your face and kisses you.
His mouth crushes onto yours, and it takes you a few startled seconds to catch up before you melt into it, fingers clawing at the collar of his shirt to drag him closer. You climb higher, nails raking against the sensitive skin at his nape, and he shudders under your touch.
Without drawing away, he makes a sudden movement and lifts you onto the counter. Your lips break apart for just a gasp, and you’re immediately tugging him back down, kissing him harder.
As your tongue slides against his, a moan dies on his throat, caressing your hips through layers of fabric. He can even taste the chocolate from the brownie you both just shared.
Your legs part instinctively, and he looms forward, fitting himself between your thighs. You feel the unmistakable hardness against you, and the sound that escapes you is closer to a whine. Hooking your ankles around him, you lock him there, grinding just enough to drive him nuts.
Any other man in his shoes would be floating. Ecstatic. But he isn’t, not fully, because beneath the fever of it all lies the stinging edge of guilt.
He’d sworn to himself he wasn’t here for this, that it was too soon. He’d promised. Yet what you two are doing couldn’t be further from just talking.
The back of your head bumps against the cabinet, making you wince, and instantly he adjusts, pulling you tighter into him, angling your body until you’re practically perched on top of him.
His senses are overstimulated, beyond heightened. He swears he can hear the rush of blood in your veins, the frenzied beat of your pulse. Outside, cars pass, sirens wail, horns blare. Tires screech against concrete, and voices rise and fall.
He presses his hand more firmly to your skin, needing to feel the weight of flesh beneath his palm to remind himself that this, what he’s living right now, is real.
He’s here with you, though at the same time he feels like he's everywhere all at once.
The moment your hand slides even an inch lower, this will all be over too fast. He can’t stay still. He can’t think, because doing so would mean putting a stop to this madness. And the truth is, he doesn’t want to. He knows he made a vow to himself, but—
Your phone starts ringing somewhere down the hall. Your room, or maybe the bathroom. Once his ears catch it, it’s not like he can unhear it. That insistent sound drills through everything.
His hands freeze at your sides, his voice coming out rough. “I think your phone’s… ringing.”
Between kisses, you reply, “I don’t care.”
“What if it’s important?”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“But what if it is?”
Finally, you break away, drawing in a long breath. His lips chase yours for just one last kiss before he moves aside to let you slip down from the counter.
Clark takes a step back. The second you’re gone, he’s leaning back against the wall, his head thudding against it. He drags in a shaky breath, noticing how fogged his glasses are, and then his eyes peer down at the front of his tented pants.
In a rush, he drops onto the couch, grabbing the nearest cushion to shield his lap, shifting uncomfortably as he adjusts beneath it. Even though his cheeks feel warm, the guilt burns worse than the ache.
You come back with your phone in hand, shrugging, and you drop it onto the table. “Wrong number. Told you it wasn’t important.”
Sinking onto the couch beside him, your gaze flickers down before you can help.
He drags a hand over his face, desperate to find a way out from your unrelenting stare without having to meet it. “Please, just ignore it. It’ll go down. Eventually.”
“Clark, it’s normal.”
“That doesn’t make it any less mortifying.”
“I actually feel flattered.”
Silence envelops you both. He can feel himself relaxing.
Then you speak again. “I’m sorry. Was that too much?”
His head jerks toward you. “What do you mean?”
“Like… the kissing. I feel like I got carried away.”
“I didn’t think you were too much. I—I liked it,” he admits, scratching the side of his nose. “I think you were able to see that clear as day.”
That has you exhaling a breathy laugh, and he tries to shake off the discomfort weighing down on him.
There’s a question he knows he should wait to ask you. It's been playing in his mind, formulating itself at odd hours of the day. Normally, he's able to suppress it, to file it away in a mental junk drawer, but he must be too affected to tell right from wrong.
“Are you seeing someone else?”
“No,” you answer quickly, a puzzled frown on your face. “… Are you?”
“No.” He also shakes his head to make his answer more emphatic. “But would you want to? See other people?”
“Oh, no.” You keep quiet for a moment, your lips pressed into a thin line. “Why are you me asking this? Do you want to?”
He snorts. “Gosh, no.”
“It’s always a possibility.”
“Trust me, it isn’t.”
“You could want to explore other connections.”
“Are we on Love Island?”
“You get what I’m trying to say.”
In fact, he does. Sliding the cushion back where it belongs, he turns to face you. “I like where this is going.”
What he’d meant to say was: I like you. He only reformulated it at the very last second.
The next time you kiss him, it’s different. Slower, softer as your nose brushes his, and he wonders if he’s still in control of the plan.
You wake up with the flu on the day you were supposed to have your sixth date.
You: I must’ve gotten it from one of my students.
You: I feel like crap. I’m so sorry, I really wanted to see you :(
Clark leaves the sentence he was typing half-written, fingers abandoning the keys. He pushes his chair away from the desk with his feet, staring at his reflection on the phone. The white glow of the computer screen casts shadows across his jaw and under his eyes.
Clark: At least let me cook for you.
You: Nooooooo!!!
You: I don’t want you to get sick.
He wishes he could tell you that you're not passing him any germs; not today, not ever.
Clark: I won’t stay for too long.
Clark: I know a soup recipe my mother taught me. I haven't made it in a long time.
That should be enough to soften you.
You: Alright…
When night comes around, he’s in your kitchen, chopping vegetables on a wooden board. The TV hums faintly in the background, interrupted every so often by the sharp sound of you blowing your nose.
The soup is simple, just as it’s always been. His Ma used to make it for him whenever he was sulking as a boy, a cure for bad moods as much as for colds. He only hoped his came close.
Steam curls upward as the vegetables start getting tender, and he keeps one eye on the pot while stirring. You’re standing beside him, watching the procedure.
“I’m sure it smells great,” you mumble, congested. “I mean, I wouldn’t know, but it looks like it does.”
Clark lowers the heat, sets the spoon down. His thumb grazes your cheek before he pulls you into his chest, whispering, “Come here.”
You let out a disapproving sound, but your body doesn’t offer any resistance as he hugs you. “You’re going to end up catching what I have.”
“No, I’m not.”
“That’s how contagious illnesses work.”
“Turns out I’m the exception.”
His arms wrap around your shoulders, palm smoothing circles into your back. You lace your fingers behind his waist, muffling your face against his shirt with a pleased noise.
“You’re so warm,” you say groggily, like you might fall asleep standing there. He kisses your forehead and goes back to stirring with one hand, not letting you go.
Later, after you’ve eaten and declared that the soup made your stomach feel simultaneously more full and leagues better, you put on a random movie to pass the time. Clark actually tries to follow the plot, but you don’t.
Your attention keeps drifting toward him, more interested in the man sitting beside you than in the film.
“You never take them off?”
“Take what off?”
You say it like it’s obvious. “Your glasses.”
Subtly, he adjusts them out of pure instinct. “I can’t see much without them.”
“Have you ever tried contacts?”
“Oh, no. My eyes are too sensitive for that.”
“Everybody’s eyes are, in fact, sensitive.”
“I can’t handle them,” he insists, shrugging. “They feel weird.”
Another minute passes without you uttering a word.
But you won’t drop it. “Can I try them on?”
“Some other day. They’ll make your headache worse.”
Blowing out your cheeks, you hug a cushion to your chest, propping your chin on it. “You keep talking to me like I’m a child.”
He picks up the remote to pause the movie. “I’m just answering your many questions.”
“Curiosity is one of my best traits.”
“I know.”
“Which is why I keep wondering why I’ve never seen you without your glasses.”
“Because I wouldn’t be able to make out your gorgeous face without them.”
“Touché.” You lean against his shoulder, stifling a yawn. “Let’s save this debate for another night.”
“Want to call it a day?”
“No, I can stay up for a little longer.”
Your eyelids end up betraying you ten minutes later, fluttering shut as your head tips against him, your body pressed firmly into his side.
By the time the credits roll, you’re fast asleep. He takes a slow breath, carefully gathering your frame in his arms, and you stir just enough to mumble something about being fine, but you don’t fight him when he carries you to bed.
Clark sets you down gently, covering you with the blanket, smoothing it over you and tucking it along your shoulders. You sink deeper into it with a soft sigh.
“Clark?”
“Tell me.”
“There’s a spare set of keys on my nightstand—”
He freezes. A key? Sixth date. Sixth. Date. What does this mean?
“—so you can lock the door on your way out. I don’t want to get up anymore.”
Sinking to his knees, he lingers at your bedside for a moment. His hand hovers before caressing your cheek, and then he gives a feather-light kiss to your forehead.
You try to hide from his gaze, but it’s nearly impossible. You bury your face into the pillow. “Stop looking at me like that.”
Clark can’t help the smile tugging at his lips. “Like what?”
“Like I’m dying and you don’t have the cure,” you mutter, peeking through one eye. “I know I look bad, but don’t make it so obvious.”
His brows knit in concern. “You don’t look bad at all.”
Attempting to shove him away, you lift a hand from under the sheets to push at his chest, though he doesn’t budge an inch. “Oh, you’re too sweet.”
“I mean it,” he says, voice steady, eyes holding yours. “You’re beautiful. Can’t you see it?”
The certainty in his words makes your smile falter. You don’t miss the confidence in the way he stares at you, the weight behind his honesty. In a sudden urge of truth, perhaps fueled by your discomfort, you ask him, “Where have you been all my life?”
He can’t think of anything clever to say, because he’s afraid of making a false move.
“Why don’t you try to get some sleep, huh?” His lips brush your forehead again, this time scattering delicate pecks across your skin. “I’ll call you in the morning to check on you.”
You nod, surrendering to exhaustion, your eyes fluttering shut as your body relaxes. “Don’t forget to call me,” you whisper, rolling onto your side to fully face him, curling against the sheets.
He huffs out a quiet laugh. “I promise I won’t.”
When he rises, he stills, watching you without realizing it. Your face has softened into pure calm, the rise and fall of your chest unchanging, your lips parted in a quiet breath. The sight disarms him.
“What are you doing, giving me your keys?” he whispers into the room, as if someone might answer.
He finds them right after that, not daring to make noise, and only exhales once he’s outside your apartment, the door clicking shut behind him.
His first loss shouldn’t look like this.
As he plummets from the sky, body tossed by the Hammer of Boravia as if he were nothing but a ragdoll, Clark tries to frame the fall as a lesson.
All heroes who wear capes face a moment they don’t win. They fall, they falter, but they always get back on their feet.
Sooner or later, that would happen to him, too. Just not now.
He’s driven into the ground once more. He can’t stop it this time, can’t even shift the angle, so he braces himself for whatever comes. His back collides with the pavement, and it shatters beneath him.
The debris pulverizes into dust, thickening the air, and it scrapes his lungs as he breathes. He’s got a rib, maybe two, fractured. He’ll have to check at the Fortress.
All around, screams erupt and people scatter. He’s 99% sure no one got caught under him. A burst pipe sprays water across one side of his suit, and as flexes his wrist, he tries to mask the pain and fails in the process.
Tiny voices start murmuring all sorts of things. Even tinier shadows edge closer.
“Is he dead?”
“He can’t die, you dummy.”
“My dad said he could beat him up.”
A little girl points straight at him, her tone squeaky with awe. “ARE YOU THE REAL SUPERMAN?”
Blinking slowly, Clark realizes they’re all wearing the same clothes.
It’s a school uniform.
He crashed outside a school. Fantastic.
“Kids? What did I say about not overwhelming him back in the classroom?”
Is that your voice? Maybe he’d hit his head harder than he thought.
“But Miss—”
“No buts. Move a bit further away. Give him some air.”
Oh, God. It’s definitely you.
He attempts to sit, but the pain rips through his ribs, pulling a wheeze from his chest. His vision steadies in flashes, until finally, there you are, standing at the edge of the crater, eyes wide.
From high above, the Hammer’s deep voice pours into Clark’s ears, saturating him.
The United States will continue to feel the wrath of the Hammer of Boravia…
“Are you okay?” Your soft voice cuts through the chaos. You descend through the debris, your focus seemingly fixed on helping him. Even though the crowd swells around the scene, you’re the only one moving. “Can you stand up?”
When he looks up, the sights hit him. Dozens of phones are raised, their lenses all aimed at him. Clark swallows, hearing the strain in his own voice when he manages, “Ma’am, you’ve got to get out of here. It’s not safe.”
You shake your head, determined, and you offer him your hand. He takes it, barely, and with your help he staggers upright, your shoulder slipping under his arm for support.
The absurdity of it all. You've been in this exact position before, only last time he wasn't wearing the suit.
The Hammer speaks again, hovering high above, his voice reverberating across the city. “This is your last warning,” he roars, vanishing into the sky, leaving the street shaking.
Clark's instincts urge him to follow him, to continue the fight. But he’s too weak, and as he intends to move, he collapses again, groaning as if his entire body’s crumbling with every effort.
“Don’t force yourself right now,” you scold, slipping an arm under his to steady him. “You can’t… fly in these conditions.”
Of all the people to see him like this, it had to be you. His luck is unbelievable.
The crowd begins to thin, and by the time you help him to a bench, fewer eyes linger. The city seems eager to swallow the moment whole and move on.
Another ordinary day in Metropolis.
He presses a trembling hand to his side, each breath stabbing his ribs as they expand. You stand in front of him, arms folded, watching him closely without taking a seat.
He needs to recover fast, but his strength keeps slipping away.
“So… Superman in the flesh,” you say, tilting your head. “Funny thing. I know someone who knows you.”
“You’ll… have to be more specific than that,” he murmurs, keeping his gaze low, afraid the dizziness will swallow him if he looks up.
“Clark Kent,” you reply, tipping your chin up. “He’s my—well, it doesn’t matter.”
That makes him tense, pulling himself upright despite the pain. “Your… what?”
“We’re seeing—” You stop, narrowing your eyes. “Wait. Why do you care?”
If he weren’t certain the laugh would tear his ribs apart, he’d laugh at the absurdity of it all.
He ignores your question, his gaze drifting past you to the school. Children are filing back into their classrooms. “I wouldn’t want to take up more of your time,” he says quietly. “Your students must be asking for you.”
You follow his line of sight, then back to him, your brows knitting. “I don’t know if you’ll find this disrespectful, but—maybe you shouldn’t have done that thing in Jarhanpur.”
It’s the last thing he needs. Pain gnaws at his body, but the sharper sting comes from hearing you dissect his choices to his face.
He pushes himself up, almost limping, his hand dragging across his shoulder. “Thank you for the constructive criticism, ma’am. But I have to go now.” His eyes catch yours for just a beat. “Stay safe.”
Then he’s gone, vanishing into the sky.
When he checks his phone hours later, he finds a message from you waiting for him.
You: I think now I’ve got beef with Superman. Call me?
Clark gets Jimmy a last-minute birthday gift. A dumb, cheap disposable camera despite the fact that he has tons. But it's the thought that counts, right?
Yeah, blame him. He’s definitely not getting the best-friend-of-the-year award. He had almost forgotten about the whole event, until Jimmy approached him at work that Friday before they parted ways.
“See you later!” Jimmy had said, and Clark had stood there, his eyes locked with his friend’s for a solid half-minute, trying to understand why they’d be seeing each other in just a few hours.
Right. The party.
Clark had forced a smile. “Sure.”
The party’s at the bar where Molly works. This is her night off, but she still manages to score him a huge discount, which is the only reason Jimmy’s picked this place.
The bar’s already buzzing by the time Clark slips inside. He spots Jimmy instantly, his laughter carrying above the noise. Clark shoulders his way through the crowd, tapping him on the back. “Hey, buddy.”
Jimmy turns, face lit up red by the neon bar lights. His grin grows even wider when he sees Clark. “Man, you came! I wasn’t sure—”
“Of course I came. Got you something, but don’t open it yet.”
Jimmy nods, taking the small ‘Happy Birthday’ bag from Clark’s hands. Molly drifts by and he loops an arm around her waist. “Babe, can you put this with the other gifts?”
She says something Clark doesn’t quite catch. A guy nearly barrels into him, waving a tray of free shots. Clark thanks him but refuses to grab one, stepping aside.
For a fleeting second, he thinks Jimmy and Molly are staring at him, but then he realizes their gaze is aimed past his frame. “What is it?” he asks.
He follows their line of sight, and there you are, standing in the doorway.
Jimmy slings an arm around his neck. There’s sweat trickling down the sides of his face. “I know it’s not your birthday, but I also got you a gift,” he murmurs into Clark’s ear. Meanwhile, Clark can’t stop staring at you, waiting for your eyes to find his. “It just arrived.”
It takes you a full minute to reach them, murmuring apologies to the people you brush against. You’re wearing a denim skirt and a long-sleeve top. He reminds himself not to stare too long, not to look at you as if no one else exists.
Clark’s been having a problem. Actually, he has many, scattered across cities, countries—even galaxies. He’s had them for many years now.
But lately, one specific problem has been bugging him, and it’s solely your fault.
Ever since you kissed for the first time, he hasn’t stopped thinking about it—dreaming about the feeling of your lips on his, the taste of you on his tongue, waking up hard and aching. Nearly every morning, still half-lost in a dream, he finds himself rutting into the mattress, moaning your name.
The worst moments are when his phone lights up with your messages. Sometimes you’re up before him, and you send him voice recordings, your voice still thick with sleep. He places the phone on the cold pillow beside him, turns the volume up, and pretends he isn’t waking up to an empty bed.
When he says it out loud, in the privacy of his head, it sounds pathetic. Creepy, even.
And then he texts back, Good morning! Hope you have a wonderful day at work! You’d never guess that just minutes before, he’d been in the shower, stroking himself to the thought of you.
It’s become a ritual now: open his eyes, get out of bed, jerk off, shower, Daily Planet.
At present, you give him a quick hug, and you seem shy, almost hesitant. He understands the feeling, since it’s the same one running through him. The first time you’re together in front of mutual friends. The very friends who set you up.
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
“It was a surprise,” you reply, a delighted smile breaking across your face. Your eyes crinkle at the corners with a playful sparkle. “Are you surprised?”
Your smile is so contagious it gets to him. “Very much surprised, yeah.”
He hasn’t seen you since that morning, since the fight he lost against the Hammer of Boravia. That day he wasn’t Clark for you; he wore another name, another face, a cape heavy on his back.
The urge to kiss you rises fast, blocking out everything else. He lowers his head, holds his breath—
But before he can, Molly tugs at your shoulder.
Clark steps back and watches the two of you lean in, whispering. You glance at him as she points toward the bar, mouthing a sorry.
“You mind if I steal her for a bit?” Molly asks.
He shakes his head, and you catch the small gesture he makes.
With a beer in hand, he engages in small talk with half the bar. He ends up the listener, executing a series of practiced moves, because his body may be there, keeping him present in appearance only, but his mind and heart are elsewhere.
He nods at the right moments, shakes his head in disbelief when needed, parts his lips when the other person’s excitement spikes. Even mutters “Jeez, that’s tough” if the story calls for sympathy.
He slips away from one of Jimmy’s cousins, who probably managed to utter a hundred words per minute, and paces through the crowd. He expects to find you with Molly, but instead you’re alone in a booth, circling the rim of your glass with your finger.
He takes the opportunity and slides in beside you. “Did it hurt?”
You squint at him. “What?”
“When you fell from heaven, did it hurt?”
That elicits a low chuckle from you. “You’re real smooth.”
His shoulder brushes yours as he leans closer. “You having a good time so far?”
“Yeah,” you breathe into his ear, raising your voice over the music. “Even better now that you’re here.”
He doesn’t miss the way your gaze flicks to his lips. He tilts his head, breath grazing your cheek, lashes fluttering—
Someone clears their throat, and you pull away.
Lois slides into the seat opposite. “Kent, I see you’ve decided to invade female territory.”
Under the table, his knee knocks yours. “It’s not my fault you left her alone, Lois. What else was I supposed to do?”
“I didn’t leave her alone! I was just getting more of this,” she says, lifting her drink and taking a sip of it. “So, where were we? Oh, yes! Superman.”
Clark nearly chokes, coughing hard. You rub his back, concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he rasps. “Just choked on my saliva.”
“You should see how flustered Clark gets at work whenever we talk about his most beloved friend.” Lois beams at you, setting her palms down flat on the table.
You let out a quiet laugh. “Oh, I can imagine.”
“He gets pretty defensive,” she presses.
He lifts a finger, calling her attention. “I don’t.”
“You totally do.”
“I just give my opinion,” he counters, raising his brows. “It’s literally our job.”
Lois rolls her eyes, her hair flicking over her shoulder. “Don’t do that. You’re changing the topic.”
“I’m not—”
“What do you think about what Superman’s been doing lately” Lois turns to you, the corners of her mouth quirking up, turning the spotlight on you.
You toy with your glass, your expression dull. “I guess some things could’ve been avoided if done differently.”
“Like what?” Lois inquires, leaning forward.
“The fight with The Hammer of Boravia. Entering a country without first getting permission.”
Clark downs the last of his beer in a single motion. He needs to do something with his hands. At his sides they feel strange, unfamiliar, like they’d only just been stitched onto him a moment ago.
Lois reclines in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest, a smug smile stretching on her features. “This is what I was talking about! He’s dying on the inside.”
“Don’t you think he had… fair motives?” he turns to you, gesturing too broadly. “It’s not like he thought it would make things worse.”
“Well, then maybe he should think twice before acting,” you reply, straightening. “I’m not one of those people that think he’s being dishonest. I believe he wants to do good, but he interfered with international affairs. He knew the authorities weren’t going to give him a medal for it.”
“But he was stopping a war,” Clark insists, his voice tighter than he means it to be.
“I’m not saying what he did was wrong, Clark. Regardless of his intentions, he should reflect on his actions no matter what they are. Everything he does ripples across the planet,” you continue to explain, your eyes locked on his. “He might be morally right, but he has to know any intervention he makes on another country will be questioned.”
A sickness twists in his stomach. Between the thrum of music, the clatter of glasses, the press of bodies, and voices overlapping like static, a dizziness blooms at the base of his skull.
At that moment, Lois cuts through. “He crashed outside a school the other day, didn’t he?”
Your head snaps in her direction. “I work there.”
“And how was he? Got his ass kicked?”
“Excuse me,” Clark begins, adjusting his glasses, “but he didn’t completely get his ass kicked.”
“He was pretty hurt,” you argue, your nose crinkling. “I saw him. I helped him get up.”
As if sent from God above, Jimmy bursts into the booth wearing a birthday hat crooked over his hair. “Okay, enough chatting. Less than thirty seconds until my birthday. Dance floor, now!”
Lois trails after him when he disappears back into the crowd, but you stay seated, and so does Clark.
The countdown begins in the background. His chest is tight, and it would be an outright lie to pretend the conversation hasn’t rattled him. He sizes you up. “I didn’t know you hated Superman.”
You exhale a long breath. “When did I say that? Honestly, what part of what I just said gave you that impression?”
“You took the opportunity to rip him apart.”
10…
“I’m being critical, Clark. We all need to be—even you.”
9…
He can’t control the way his face twists with each passing second. He must be watching you without a shred of remorse, because then you’re saying, “Can we talk like adults without you looking at me like I’ve murdered someone?”
8…
He averts his gaze. Holds his tongue.
7…
You catch your lower lip between your teeth. “Are we really fighting over this—”
6…
“—over Superman?”
5…
“Clark, will you please look at me?”
4…
He does, but stays silent.
3…
“Why do you care so much about what I think of him?”
2…
His tongue feels heavy in his mouth as he intends to speak. “I—I don’t—Can we—”
1…
The look on your face is beyond devastating.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIMMY!
The bar explodes with cheers. Lights dim, the room falling almost entirely into shadow. Even in the half-dark, Clark notices the tight line of your jaw, how tense it is. You don’t meet his eyes when you ask to slide out of the booth to go congratulate Jimmy.
When he rises, it’s slow, like his muscles are made of lead. His legs feel numb, his fingertips burning. He watches you cross the room, sees you touch Jimmy’s back before hugging him briefly.
Molly arrives and folds you into a hug too. You shake your head, adjusting the strap of your bag. A moment later you step back, and Molly turns her attention to Jimmy, arms looping around his neck, pressing a kiss to his lips.
Clark realizes you take that as your exit. You’re leaving without even glancing back at him. Panic flares, and he strides toward Jimmy, interrupting a conversation to pull him into a hug.
“Happy birthday,” he murmurs as he pulls away.
Jimmy smiles, though not fully. “Thanks, man. I appr—”
“I got you a disposable camera, hope you like it, happy birthday!”
Clark rushes out of the bar, nearly stumbling onto the sidewalk in his haste. He scans both sides of the street and spots you nearly at the end of the block.
“Wait!” he shouts.
You turn, startled. “I’m heading home,” you say. Your apartment is only four blocks away.
“Let me walk you.”
It isn’t necessary. He knows you’ll be fine. The streets on a Friday night are crowded, buzzing with life. But the most profound part of his being needs it. He needs it.
You hold your hand up. “Don’t—just don’t,” you say, frowning. “It’s no use.”
“Please, let me.”
“I’m tired.” You rub your eyes, letting out a shaky breath. “I should—My head’s a mess right now.”
He takes a step forward. You’re still too far away. “I just want to make sure you get home safe,” he says, opening his heart to you. “You can kick me out later, but—just let me do this one thing.”
You tilt your head back toward the sky as if searching the stars for an answer. It takes you some time, but you end up sighing, giving a small nod. He jogs up to you, and together you start down the street toward your building.
When you slip the keys into the lock, you ask if he wants to come in for a minute. It goes without saying it won’t be a minute. It won’t be two, not even five.
A sixth sense isn’t among his powers, but he knows that once he steps inside, once he breathes the air of your home and the door clicks softly shut behind him, it will be almost impossible to leave.
The first thing you do is toss your purse onto the counter. He doesn’t move past the doorway. He just stands there in silence, coat still on. His eyes follow you as you turn your back on him, and then you spin around, forcing the confrontation.
“What was that back in the bar?”
The question cuts straight through him. Clark had improvised answers before: quick excuses about why he stayed late at the office, why he never took off his glasses, why Superman, of all people, chose to grant interviews only to a soft-spoken reporter like him.
Yet this is different. What’s about to happen feels inexplicable, and has no easy exit.
“I got carried away,” he finally says, burying his hands in his pockets to prevent you from seeing how hard his skin is burning, knuckles white from balling his fists too tight.
“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What exactly don’t you want me to do, Clark?” You take a step closer. Your lips are trembling, he notices that. “I don’t know what happened there. I don’t know what got you so… defensive all of a sudden.”
In his mind, he compares this moment to the first time he ever saw you. Maybe you were standing at the same distance back at the restaurant Jimmy had picked that night. Maybe you were even wearing the same shoes you have on now.
But everything feels different tonight. He can’t deny it, can’t cover it up with anything.
“I was asked for my opinion, and I gave it, and then you suddenly changed completely. You’re stiff, you didn’t talk to me. You didn’t even look at me.”
Clark struggles to meet your eyes. Every time he does, he sees the lie he’s been weaving for nearly two months.
“Even still, you won’t look at me.”
He knows he’s here to talk. You want answers; you deserve them. But even though he understands that, sees it as rational and appropriate, it doesn’t mean his body comprehends it the same way his mind does.
You continue, each of your words is punctuated by a wild movement of your hands. “Why does it bother you that I don’t agree with every single thing he’s done?” Your mouth opens and closes before you find your voice again. “Last time I checked, I was dating you, not him.”
There are a million clever things he could say, but the only thing that comes out is: “The Boravian government isn’t well intentioned.”
A humorless laugh bursts out of you, almost leaving you breathless. “You’re unbelievable,” you mutter, rubbing your temples. “Did he tell you that?”
“Yes. I asked him.”
“That’s right. You seem to have unlimited access to his knowledge.”
“What are you implying?”
“Does he pay you for the interviews?”
The question made his head snap back, as if dislocated. “You think Superman’s bribing me?”
“I don’t know! You’re just so—loyal to him!”
“He’s not a bad person.”
“Nobody’s said that, Clark! You’re putting words in my mouth. All I said is that he should’ve considered the consequences of his actions.”
“You believe he had the time for that while trying to save a whole country?”
“Why don’t we call him and ask, huh? Do you have his number? Does he own a phone? Does he—”
“People were going to die!” Clark’s shout rips through the room, his throat raw with the effort. Heat surges through his veins, rushing outward until every nerve is thrumming. He feels both more alive than ever and completely paralyzed.
You take a step back, stunned. His voice still echoes in the room, and shame rises in his chest. He’s never known where his breaking point was until now.
“Okay,” you say slowly, steadying yourself. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”
Should he leave? Vanish? Hand back the spare key you offered him one late night?
You continue to stare at him. “There’s something more to this. I know there is.”
It’s over. He can’t undo what just happened, so why not risk the last chance he has with you?
His fingers close around the edge of his glasses, pulling them from his face. At first, you don’t register what’s happening, until your hand flies to the wall, bracing yourself.
“Holy fuck.”
It’s the first time he’s heard you curse.
You blink furiously, chest tightening with every breath. No sound comes out at first.
“You—What? This… this whole time, you—WHAT?!”
“Please, don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out. I’m fine,” you snap between gritted teeth, though your expression betrays you. “I only had one drink.”
“I know.”
“I’m not drunk,” you insist.
“I know,” he repeats, softer this time.
Your eyes don’t leave him, even as your breathing slows. “You look… different. How?”
He holds up the glasses between you. “They’re called hypnoglasses. They—they alter the way people see me.”
You swallow hard after a while, brow furrowed, like you’re working out impossible math in your head. “Were you going to tell me, or are you doing it out of—what, guilt?”
“It was supposed to happen after our eighth date.”
You stop dead in your tracks. “Excuse me, eighth date? Have you been… counting them?”
Something good was supposed to happen tonight. That’s what he’d thought initially.
He feels stupid as soon as the words leave him. “That—You didn’t have to know that.”
“Why after the eighth date? Why only eight?”
“I don’t know! I like even numbers.”
“Clark, I swear—”
“I thought if we got that far, then… then it meant you really liked me,” he mumbles, heart clenching in his chest. “That you liked me as Clark. And then—well.”
Now it’s your turn to be speechless. He pushes forward anyway.
“I care about what you say about Superman because I’m him. I’m sensitive. I speak before I think. I took matters into my own hands because I believed it was the right thing to do, and I don’t regret it. I wasn’t representing anyone except myself.”
His voice softens, almost breaking.
“And for the record, I like you. A lot. I know I’ve never said it out loud, and I know that it’s late for a confession like that, but I think you deserve to hear it.”
He’s afraid you might slide down the wall, that everything he’s said has been too much. That tonight has shifted something in you. He tells himself he’s half-ready to face another loss, and though it wouldn’t be fought with fists, it would still break him all the same.
“Please, just—just tell me you want me to leave and I’ll go.”
“I don’t want that.”
Perhaps he’s heard you wrong. “What?”
“I said I don’t want you to go.”
He can’t answer in any form other than monosyllables. “Why not?”
You gather your courage and step closer, tilting your chin to meet his eyes. “You have to be more careful. I know you’re—bulletproof, but you still need to take care of yourself. Take care of what you do. Think things through.”
“I seriously don’t understand—“
“What I’m trying to say is that—that I like you, too.” You cut him off, voice rising just a little. Those four words undo him. “I—I really do.”
“Even after all this?”
“I guess I’m really stubborn.”
“So… you don’t want me to go?”
“No.”
“You don’t hate me?”
You touch his forearm gently. “I’d never be able to hate you.”
“You don’t hate… Superman?”
“We may not see eye to eye on everything, but that shouldn’t be an issue,” you counter. “We’re both adults. We can deal with it.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Holding his gaze, you whisper, “No. I don’t hate him, and I don’t hate you.”
Clark pulls you into his arms, tucking his chin near your neck. He hugs you with unguarded enthusiasm, your hands stroking small circles along his back. He breathes in your perfume, closing his eyes briefly, as if he could keep you there forever.
“You know what I would hate?”
“What?” His answer is muffled against your shoulder.
“Not knowing more about your dating plan.”
He draws back just enough, still holding you close, your faces inches apart. “Forget about it.”
“Impossible.”
“It’s—not worth it. Trust me.”
“Please, tell me.”
“You’re gonna make fun of me.”
You narrow your eyes, lips curving into a pout. “I promise I won’t.”
For an instant, Clark thinks about changing the subject, but he gives in.
“It consists of eight dates. Divided into three parts—” He cuts himself off when your lips quiver, fighting a smile. “That’s not fair! You’re already laughing.”
You have to bite your lip to stifle your grin. “I’m sorry. It’s just that—you had it all planned. It’s cute.” Your hands slide up to link behind his neck, and a flush creeps across his cheeks. “Okay. You may continue.”
He clears his throat. “Right now, if we count tonight as our seventh date—”
“Are you sure you want to count our first argument as a date?”
“—we’d be in the last stage,” Clark finishes. “Then one more date. After that, if everything went well, I’d tell you the truth, but I—I got ahead of myself. For obvious reasons, of course.”
“Does each stage have… its own conditions?”
“Sort of.”
“Is not touching me one of them?”
“S-sorry?” he stutters, ears going red.
“It’s just that your plan sounds a lot like a chastity one.”
Clark sputters, looking down. “I mean—I never specified such a thing. It’s not prohibited, but—No, I wouldn’t say engaging in that kind of activity was written into the actual plan.”
You hum thoughtfully, nodding. “And would you like it to stay that way?”
“I’m the one who made it, right? So… theoretically… I’m allowed to make a few changes here and there.”
“How interesting.”
His thumb grazes the strip of bare skin between your top and your skirt. “It depends on what you want to do tonight.”
Your chest rises with expectation. You wet your lips, and Clark sees how your pupils expand until they nearly eclipse the rest of your iris’, as if the Yellow Sun had been replaced by an overwhelming moon. “I want it all.”
A tempered heat begins spreading through his limbs. “All as in… all of it?”
“Why don’t you start by kissing me first,” you murmur, rising onto your tiptoes to hover your mouth over his, “and then we just… see it as we go?”
Clark nods as though you’ve given him a concrete assignment that he must now accomplish.
And suddenly, he has a goal.
This is really happening. He knows it doesn’t exactly fit the plan he drafted for himself. If he were following it, he’d wait. But circumstances have shifted.
Again and again, life has pulled the ground out from beneath his careful steps, and strangely enough, he can’t complain.
It’s hard enough to control his own feelings, but trying to rein in someone else’s is nearly impossible. And he can see it, that you want this as much as he does. There’s a yearning, something raw and real, sparking between you.
Maybe Jimmy was right. Maybe he should… go with the flow. At least for once.
RIP Clark Kent’s dating plan. You were a loyal ally through all these years of restraint and abstinence, but your time is up.
Clark kisses you, slowly at first. His hands find your waist, pulling you closer, and the way you kiss him back sends a deep shudder through him. At some point, his glasses slip from his pocket and clatter to the floor, but he hardly notices.
The sweetness doesn’t last. That first careful kiss soon spirals into something more frantic. You tug at his hair, drawing involuntary sounds from him each time your mouths break apart by the barest inch. Like magnets, you find each other again and again, tongues clashing, your teeth knocking into his.
He’s already hard. It hasn’t been long, barely anything at all, and yet his body is betraying him with a raging boner. Every time you brush against him, he shifts his hips back, desperate not to let you feel it. He doesn’t want to push too far or make you uncomfortable.
But you notice, and before you can speak, he blurts out, “I’m sorry. It’s just—you’re… so pretty, and I’m—”
Your lips are swollen, flushed from kissing. “You shouldn’t apologize for being aroused,” you say, the corner of your mouth lifting in a brief smile. “Besides, you’re not the only one.”
You pull away just enough to unbutton your skirt, sliding it down the length of your legs. He stares, entranced, before shrugging off his jacket and tossing it aside with his glasses.
Eyes locked on his, you take his large hand and guide it between your thighs, pressing it lower until he cups you. Even through the lace of your black thong, he feels it: the undeniable slickness clinging to his fingers. You’re wet.
No, scratch that—you’re beyond wet.
His breath hitches at the scent of you. You gasp when his fingertips trace your folds over the thin fabric. “See?” you manage, your voice trembling despite your attempt at calm. “I’m just as—as affected as you are.”
Something in that moment snaps him out of restraint; it’s as if a hand has struck his cheek, jolting him awake.
He devours your mouth this time, pushing you backward until your shoulders hit the wall. His strong thigh wedges between yours, prying them apart and holding you there.
One hand braces the wall beside your head, while the other hooks your underwear aside. He’s transfixed by the sight of you: glistening and inviting in equal quantities.
His fingers skim you at first, his knuckles grazing your stomach as he lifts your top. His mouth wanders down your throat, and you throw your head back, hips canting up instinctively. “Clark—please—”
You sound so sweet, so needy, that he can’t make you wait any longer. He pushes a finger inside, achingly slow, your slick guiding him deeper. You’re tight and warm, and he swears he can feel the pulse of your heartbeat.
You moan, and the sound elicits a groan from him, his mouth ghosting over your jaw as he curls his finger inside you.
“Shit,” you mutter, eyes squeezed shut, hands fluttering helplessly with nowhere to hold on. Not that you could fall, because Clark’s holding you as though the world itself depends on it. He pumps his finger a few more times before easing it out of you, instead focusing on rubbing your clit with earnestness.
He captures your lips again, angling your face with a firm hand on your chin to deepen the kiss. All the while, his ministrations on your clit don’t falter, and you can’t help but whimper.
“You’re—God, you’re killing me with these sounds,” he rasps. You melt against the wall, chest heaving, and he inhales unsteadily, peering down at where his hand moves against you. “I’ve been dreaming about this. About you. I can’t—believe you’re mine.”
He fears that last word carries more meaning than it should, but it’s the only truth he knows. He wants to be yours as wholly as you are his; he wants to give you his time, to learn every last detail of who you are.
You nod as best you can, your fist curling into his shirt. “I’m—I’m yours,” you coo, voice thick with desire. Between kisses, you add, “And… you’re… mine.”
Another moan bubbles up in your throat as he sinks two of his fingers into your heat, stretching you even further. The wet sounds each time he draws them back and forth captivate him.
“Are you close?” he asks, though he already knows, but you still whine in agreement. “Oh, I know. You're shaking so bad. You wanna come?” Your nails rake over his arms, clutching at him. “Alright. I got you.”
He works you toward your peak, and moments later, you break, coming around his fingers. Your thighs clamp around his hand, hips twitching with aftershocks. His own moan muffles against your cheek as he peppers it with sloppy kisses, drinking in every one of your mewls.
When you come back to your senses, you kiss him languidly, your tongue sliding against his. “That was… amazing,” you breathe into his mouth, giggling as you attempt to catch your breath. You tangle your fingers in his hair. “I want to touch you.”
He stills. Clark carries so much pent-up tension that it might work against him. He’s pretty certain that the moment you put your hand on him, he’ll finish embarrassingly fast, and he can’t let that happen.
So instead, he drops to his knees.
Your brows lift in surprise. There are beads of sweat clinging to your temples, and Clark parts your thighs with his hands, positioning himself between them. Your cunt, still dripping, is right before him.
He hears you swallow, suddenly shy with him this close to such an intimate part of you. “You don’t have to—”
“But I want to taste you.” His thumbs spread your folds as his mouth waters, and his gaze flicks upward, asking for permission. “Can I?”
You nod frantically, panting, and he settles in. His tongue slides into your entrance, savoring you, before laving over your folds. He closes his mouth around your clit and sucks with intent, and you can’t keep watching him. It’s too much.
“So—fucking good,” you stutter, threading your fingers in his black curls. Your hips rut instinctively against his face, chasing the friction when he eases back a little. “I don’t—I don’t even want to know where you learned all this.”
Clark slips his digits back inside you, plunging them to the hilt. He’s not used to this loss of control, this need to consume, but he doesn’t know how else to do this. If he stops, he fears you’ll vanish, leaving him to wake from the same cruel dream where he’s helplessly humping his mattress.
“You taste like heaven,” he purrs, pulling back with a string of slick connecting his mouth to your pussy. His hand slides higher, palming your breast through your bra. It’s as if the rawest part of him, which is usually buried beneath restraint, has broken loose, and now he only craves more.
“Please, don’t stop.” Your voice is barely a whisper. Your eyes are teary, and for a moment he worries, but then you look at him, pleading. “Keep—keep going, just like that—”
Your flesh is soft beneath his grip, and he squeezes your thigh, grounding you as his fingers piston in and out of you. His tongue draws the same pattern again and again over your nub, and he can feel your whole frame trembling.
As you experience your second orgasm of the night, you don’t make a sound. Your knees buckle, and Clark has to press you against the wall to keep you upright.
With broad strokes, he continues to drink from the nectar between your thighs, enamored with the taste, the scent, the feel of you.
He lets go only when you tap his shoulder, your eyes half-lidded. He rises, making sure to steady you with a hand at your waist. You cradle his face, wiping the spit running down his chin.
You kiss him, softer than before, standing on top of his shoes. “Why are you still wearing clothes?” you ask, your hand slipping down to tug at his belt. You unbuckle it as you lead him toward your bedroom, and he follows without a word.
He sits at the edge of your bed, touching you wherever he can while you undress him. You pop each button of his shirt with ease, taking your time, leaving a kiss here and there before trailing lower. Your fingers caress his chest, and your gaze meets his.
Your voice carries a strained edge when you speak. “Clark?”
“Yeah?”
You’re looking at him with so much affection he could cry on the spot.
“I—I think—” The words die on your tongue, and after a beat you say. “I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as you.”
His heart stings. For a moment, he’d thought you were going to say those three words he’s been biting back.
Nevertheless, his lips cover yours gently, smiling. “Oh, I have.”
“Yeah? Who is it?”
The answer is simple. “You.”
You stifle a laugh. “That’s very cheesy,” you murmur, kissing him shortly. Your fingers unbutton his pants, lowering the zipper, your eyes searching his. “I want to take care of you.”
He draws back a little, takes a deep breath. Again, he’s nervous, as though you aren’t both already half-naked. “There’s something I need to tell you.” You hum in encouragement, and he clears his throat. “Well, I—Gosh, I don’t know how to say this.”
“Just… say it however it comes.”
“I’m not going to last long,” he admits, heat prickling at the back of his neck. You blink, brows furrowing. “I’m not being modest or anything. I—I just know it. I know my… body.”
You take a moment to think. “And what’s the problem with that?”
“Well, it’s certainly not… what you’d expect from me.”
You shake your head. “You’re overthinking it.”
He swallows, lifting his hips so you can tug his pants down. You sink to your knees on the carpet, kissing him again, your nails scraping lightly at the skin just above the waistband of his boxers.
“I don’t care how long you last.” You lick into his mouth, swallowing his whimper. “I just want you to feel good. That’s all.”
Pressing his forehead against yours before straightening, he observes as you push his boxers down. His cock springs free, unashamed, like every other time he’s thought of you alone in his apartment.
The only difference tonight is that it isn’t his hand that grabs it, but yours.
You stroke him once, tentative, studying every vein. Your mouth hovers over the tip before your tongue darts out to taste a bead of precum, moaning at the taste. Clark fists the sheets beneath him, peering up at the ceiling.
“Hey,” you whisper, urging him to look at you. Your hand glides up and down his length, and you chuckle. “Eyes here.”
Clark plants both hands on the mattress, leaning back, his gaze locked on yours.
“That’s it,” you coo, flattening your tongue along his shaft as your hand works him. “Is this okay?”
“Feels… nice,” he manages, attempting to come up with coherent sentences. “It feels—Oh, Jesus.”
His tip disappears behind your lips, and you suck dutifully, making his thighs twitch. He tries to even his breath, but it comes in rapid exhales.
As you hollow your cheeks, he slides a hand down, feeling the outline of himself through your skin. A choked moan rumbles in his chest when you take more of him, your throat tightening around his length. Seconds later you pull back, eyes watery, stroking what you can’t fit into your mouth.
The knot in his lower stomach is becoming unbearable. At times, his knee jerks with small motions. He can’t remain still, about anything but you and the hot paradise of your mouth.
His eyes flutter shut for an instant, and then you pinch the skin above his navel, startling him back, almost tickling him. You bob your head, trying to keep eye contact, but even you have to take a break sometimes from the intensity.
That’s when your free hand slips between your legs, pleasuring yourself too.
“Oh, baby,” he groans, barely registering the pet name. It only spurs you on, and a little saliva begins to drip from your lips, sliding down the side of his shaft, making a mess in his trimmed hair.
And now he’s close. So close he could come any second. He drags a palm over his face, holding his breath, and—
The pleasure disappears. He blinks once, twice, unsure if he’s lost what was left of his sanity or if you’re having fun edging him.
Sort of breathless, you sit back on your knees, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, and it only takes one look at you for him to know exactly what you’re thinking.
For a moment, he swears he blacks out. He feels as if he’s outside himself, disoriented, like a runner who has to reach the finish line at all costs. Except here, the goal waits between your thighs.
Then the haze clears, and he’s back in the bedroom with you. You’re on all fours before him, back arched, presenting yourself. His hands knead the flesh of your ass, and he gnaws at his bottom lip before the urge overpowers him.
He bends, tongue sliding through your slit and tracing it along your folds, tasting you until your voice breaks, pleading for more.
At long last, the moment of truth has arrived. He fists himself, lines up, and notches his tip at your entrance, slowly pressing in.
Don’t come. Don’t come. Don’t—
“Fuck,” you keen, wriggling your hips, quivering. “You’re—you’re splitting me in half.”
“Don’t… try to rush it.” He pulls back a little to push in again, then pushes deeper, growling through clenched teeth. “It’s gonna take a while, sweetheart.”
He doesn’t miss the way you clench around him. His knees buckle and he has to steady himself with a bruising grip on your waist.
“You like that, don’t you? You like it when I call you those names?” Clark asks, voice rough, desire thick in his throat. “That’s why you’re clamping down on me?”
He watches as you nod, the gesture nearly imperceptible. “Please, move.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he blurts, “Can’t. You’re—really tight.”
“I wanna feel you,” you retort, your hand groping back, searching for his thigh. Your neck twists so he can cast you a glance: you look already wrecked, mascara smudged under your eyes, lips swollen and parted. “It’s okay. You won’t hurt me. I can take it.”
He knows you can. He repeats it all along as he continues to feed you his cock, storing all the noises you make and the responses you have to his touch in his memory.
Once he bottoms out and can’t go any further, when his balls are flushed firmly against your cheeks, he pulls out until only the tip remains, and slams back inside.
The sound alone is pornographic. Your inner walls stretch to adjust to his size, welcoming him in, and you mutter something about feeling him in your stomach.
“Y-you hear that?” Clark asks, voice breaking. To prove his point, he rolls his hips, the obscene squelch filling the void. He does it again, and again, each thrust making your breath hitch. “She’s crying for me. Wants me to keep her full.”
With a whine, your arms finally give out, and your face sinks into the pillow. That change in angle drives him mad. Clark spreads your cheeks wide, watching the way he disappears into you as he ruts harder into you. He pounds against your sweet spot, the room echoing with the lewd slap of skin meeting skin.
Chest flush to your back, he buries himself even deeper, one arm curling around your breasts to pull you upright as he jackhammers into you, giving you no chance to recover before he’s plunging forward again.
“C-Clark, oh my God,” you wail, clutching at him, trying to turn your face to catch his eyes. “You’re fucking big, you’re—you’re everywhere.”
He licks a stripe along your shoulder blades, tasting salt, and then drags his mouth along your damp skin. “You feel so good, baby. So good, so warm—I never wanna leave you.”
His own pace is killing him. It’s too fast, too deep, too erratic, but he can’t stop. He’s far too caught up in the moment to think of a way to make it last. His body, acting on instinct, moves on its own, leaving him behind.
You’ve told him before that you’re on the pill, that it’s safe, but he still needs to hear it again.
“I’m—I’m close,” he whimpers into your ear, twitching, working every muscle he has. “Can I—I’m just—Please, let me. I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you, but p-please.”
“Come inside me,” you breathe, arching your back. “I want it. You can let go.”
And with your permission, he does, spilling inside you. His hips falter, driving in short thrusts as he spills inside you, pumping his release deeper with each spasm.
His heart hammers like it’s going to burst free from his chest, tearing out of his ribs, beating hard against your spine as he clings to you. He chokes on a sob against your nape, mouthing at your hair, feeling a surge of blood rushing through him.
Your body lies flat against the mattress, his last brain cells fighting not to crush you with his full weight. He braces himself on his forearms, the fire in his abdomen slowly ebbing.
He thinks he’s spent, but then another hot spurt escapes him, and he tightens his grip on the sheets.
Your walls flutter around him, and you crack one eye open, trying to glance back. “How are you still—”
“I have no idea,” he replies, nosing your cheek. “There’s probably a Kryptonian anatomy book somewhere that could explain it.”
You chuckle, exhaling as your body softens beneath him, getting comfortable. Maybe you think that’s it, that the two of you will collapse into bed, or shower, or do anything other than keep going at it.
But Clark gets hard… again. He never fully softened in the first place. Now, buried deep inside you, he feels himself swelling again, his length hardening back to steel.
After a couple seconds, you notice it. “Are you—are you hard again?”
“Looks like it,” he husks, hips shifting before he even realizes it. “Feels even better now.”
He’s still sensitive from his first orgasm. He can hardly believe either of you are ready for more, but his body isn’t listening.
You wince when he pulls out, clenching around nothing. You try to push yourself up, but your arms refuse. “What are you doing? I wanted you to stay.”
No answer. Just pure silence.
You twist your neck, brows knitted. “Clark? Is something wrong?”
He’s too entranced by the sight in front of him. His essence leaks out of you, and he surges forward to glide his fingers through the mess, gathering it to smear it along your folds. You moan low in your throat as he pushes it back into your hole, your body greedily swallowing two of his fingers.
“You’re—much kinkier than I thought,” you mewl, and then he presses his arousal flush against your lower back, making you chuckle. “Second round?”
He hums, kissing your neck, then your jaw. In one swift motion, he flips you onto your back, pinning you to the mattress. His lips claim yours as his palms slide down to your breasts, rolling your nipples between his fingers before replacing his touch with his tongue, lavishing attention on each hardened peak in turn.
You rake your nails against his scalp, squirming beneath him. He kisses his way back up to your mouth, biting at your lips.
“I can see you better this way,” he rasps, rubbing the head of his cock through your folds, sighing when he catches your entrance. “You’ll tell me if it hurts?”
Looping your arms around his neck, you tug him closer, kissing him shortly. “I will.”
This position grants him the privilege of watching your eyes widen as he sinks into you, inch by inch, until you’re filled to the brim again. Your nostrils flare, your mouth falling open in silent pleasure. His forehead drops to yours and his eyes roll back, high on the sensation.
He braces both arms on either side of your face, and you lock your ankles at the base of his spine, urging him on. Clark starts a slower rhythm this time, his only focus now to pull you apart.
His balls swing and impact rhythmically against the curve of your ass. You tilt your pelvis on each of his thrusts to help him reach deeper, telling him to go faster, harder.
“You’re so beautiful,” he chants between ragged breaths, whatever thought crosses his mind spilling out unchecked. You’re pinned beneath him, his sheer size overwhelming, like he could consume you whole without much effort. You tilt your head back, turning to putty. “I’d do anything for you. Just say the word and—and I will.”
His eyes fall closed as he inhales deeply, only reopening them once he’s expelled the breath.
“I love you,” he confesses then, voice wrecked, each word punctuated by a jerk of his hips. Any sort of reaction involving coherent speech appears to be beyond you. You just take what he’s giving you, your tits swaying as he pounds into you.
“C-clark, I—” You can’t finish your thought. He can almost see the gears turning in your head, how your face scrunches in ecstasy and the words tangle in your throat. “I—”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say it back just because I did,” he answers, sneaking a hand between your bodies to rub at your clit, circling it with precision. “I just wanted you to know it. I can wait.”
Your breathing staggers. You grab his face to kiss him, tangling your tongue with his. His gaze flicks between your blissed expression and the place where your bodies meet. His own orgasm creeps closer, though he’s determined to wait until you’re there with him.
The headboard keeps rocking against the wall, and you’re murmuring his name like it's the only word you remember of the English language. By the look on your face, he knows you’re close, that you just need a little more pressure for the knot in your stomach to snap.
“I’m gonna get you there, don’t worry,” he promises, rutting harder into you, never letting up on your clit.
“I—I’m so close,” you whine, sucking in a sharp breath, your thighs tightening around his frame. “Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he pants, holding himself on the edge of the precipice. “I’m right here, honey. I’ve got you.”
You come with a cry, shockwaves wracking your body as your walls clamp and flutter around him. Clark follows instantly, shuddering as he spills deep inside you for the second time, his whimpers muffled by your neck.
He doesn’t pull out until he’s sure you’ve milked every last drop. When he finally does, it’s reluctant, wishing there could be a way to live his whole life buried inside you without facing any consequence. He drops onto the mattress at your side, tugging you into his chest.
To his surprise, he actually feels tired. He’s sticky, sweaty, and madly in love with you.
Wait. He told you he loved you while still inside of you.
Romanticism isn’t dead, ladies and gentlemen, because Clark Joseph Kent is the living proof of it.
Your hand traces absent shapes on his chest, your breath warm near his ear. “I think we need to shower.”
“Yeah,” Clark mutters, staring up at the ceiling. “With holy water.”
You both laugh at that, and he holds you closer, stroking up and down your arm. After a while, he realizes you’re not tracing nonsense on his skin.
You’re writing the same letters, over and over.
I. L. O. V. E. Y. O. U. T. O. O.
“Oh,” he breathes, capturing your fingers and tilting your chin until you’re looking at him. Your lashes flutter, your face glowing with a pleased expression. He can’t stop the smile pulling at his lips. “Really?”
“Yes.” You kiss him softly, brushing your nose against his. “I love you, Clark.”
He seals his mouth with yours. “I think we should start saving to gift Jimmy and Molly a trip somewhere nice.”
“That’s your way of saying thank you for setting us up?”
“Exactly.” He gives you another peck. “I’d suggest preparing yourself for the double dates. I’ve already made my peace with the idea.”
The mere thought doesn’t unsettle you in the least. If anything, it only widens your smile, and your eyes crinkle at the corners.
Clark’s duty on Earth had always been clear. He came from a distant planet called Krypton, and despite the circumstances, his life’s purpose was to serve humanity, to make the world a better place.
What he never expected was that, beyond that destiny, he would find someone who would make his time on Earth feel greater than any calling ever could.
Over the years, experience had taught Clark that whenever Jimmy labeled one of his ideas as brilliant, sometimes… he was right.
summary: clark's got a big secret to tell you. too bad he sucks at timing it.
CWs: 18+ mdni!, fem!reader, no use of y/n, new but established relationship, lots of heavy petting, one (1) mention of ass groping, making out, nothing too explicit, reader is able bodied, reader has no idea clark is superman, use of pet names (sweetheart, hun), some cursing but not from clark (obv), i think that's it!
word count: 2.7k!
author's note: this is what i wrote for this ask. i hope you enjoy it, anon!! it's so long for an ask response but i had too much fun writing it. i went silly and easy-going with it. i appreciate you sending in the ask, and i also appreciate you and anyone else who reads, comments, or reblogs!
There’s a newfound franticness in the way that you’re unlocking your front door right now. It’s not like it’s your fault. Clark’s massive body is enveloping yours from behind, hands slipping beneath your blouse, grabbing at your hips, and caressing your curves all while he’s attacking your neck with desperate kisses.
If you don’t get this door open in the next few seconds, you two will end up fucking in this hallway.
While you’re fumbling with your keys and trying to get the right one in your lock, he nips at that sensitive spot where your neck meets your shoulder, his tongue finding its way to the bite to soothe the sting. You gasp loudly and end up dropping your keys, and the way that Clark smirks against your skin when he hears them clatter to the ground only serves to frustrate you even more.
“Clark!” you hiss, although your sharp edge you tried to put forward is softened by the smile on your face.
“Sorry, sweetheart. Just couldn’t help myself.”
You start laughing whenever he pulls away and grabs your keys off the floor. For a moment, you consider asking him about just how quickly he did it; it’s almost like he was a fucking blur. Add another weird quirk to the giant list of them that your boyfriend has.
But before the question can leave your mouth, Clark’s pressing his lips against yours and slipping your key into your front door’s lock. He does it so smoothly and quickly that you hardly register you’re in your apartment until you’re being pulled into his lap when he drops down onto your couch.
How did he turn you around in his arms at the door? How did he pick you up without even the tiniest hint of effort? How did he get you into your living room and on this couch in the blink of a fucking eye?
It doesn’t matter. You don’t feel the need to focus on it when you’ve got his heat and weight all over you.
Your arms slip around his neck and your fingers toy with his thick curls at the nape of it. While your knees dig into the couch cushions on either side of his thighs, you commit the feeling of his lips burning kisses onto your skin into your brain. You tell yourself you’d rather die than ever lose how good his arms feel locked around your waist, how good his hands feel trailing over your back, how good he is at focusing on you and only you.
He’s a homing missile right now, and you’re the target he’s programmed to hit.
You slide one hand down, slipping it beneath his blazer and pressing it against his chest. It’s a thick, firm wall of muscle. An impressive one at that considering he’s never given any indication of being a work-out guy. As you slip it down toward his abdomen, you notice the same, there, too. There’s an added bonus in the way that his stomach is a little soft on top of that built physique.
Shit. Is this a dream? Are you salivating? You haven’t even seen his bare skin. How humiliating.
“Where have you been hiding all this, Kent?”
You tug on his hair, just enough to get him to pull his head out of your neck. He lets out a groan. You could have sworn you felt his hips raise and push against yours for just a moment. You make a mental note: Clark Kent really likes having his hair pulled.
“I grew up on a farm,” he murmurs before he closes the distance between your faces. You can feel the heat beneath his skin when he does it. He’s been turning pink from your compliments since your first day of work.
His hands work on smoothly unbuttoning your blouse, his tongue drags against your bottom lip to beg for purchase in your mouth, and his cologne sneaks its way from his skin and clothing onto yours. Your brain is working overtime trying to not short circuit right now. Being utterly engulfed in Clark Kent is a level of heaven you’ve never reached. This is the first time he’s had his hands on you like this in the month that you’ve been together, and you’re really regretting waiting this long.
How could you have done yourself such a disservice?
Before you know it, your blouse is undone, haphazardly hanging off of your shoulders while Clark kisses you. This deep, slow, needy kiss is making your head spin. Your lips slot together like puzzle pieces; like you’re perfectly carved out from the same piece of wood, like you’re made for each other. And, the way he tilts his head to somehow deepen the kiss—a way to make it more intimate as he wraps his arms around your waist to pull you closer to him—just confirms that.
You’re sitting in a lap you were made to sit in. You’re being kissed by lips you were made to kiss. Your body is being touched, caressed, adored, by hands that your body was made to be touched by.
You’ve never been kissed like this in your entire life. You certainly never thought Clark could kiss like this; he’s so awkward and clumsy and sweet at work, and yet he’s been nothing but smooth and suave and confident ever since you invited him upstairs. You’re not sure who replaced your Clark, but you definitely wouldn’t mind seeing him more often.
A sliver of the man you remember before this one swept you off your feet is found when Clark breaks the kiss so he can push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He sends you a bashful, crooked smile. His cheeks are pink and his lips are a little swollen. Sweetness has laced itself through his face even though he’s looking at you like he could tear through you right here and right now.
You’re panting as you clutch his blazer and stare into his beautiful big blue eyes. How is he not panting, too? He’s breathing so slowly, chest rising and falling with a practiced ease, that you’d never guess that you were just kissing for nearly two straight minutes.
“What’d you do that for?”
“Sorry,” he sheepishly mutters. “I…um—I couldn’t concentrate ‘cause they were sliding down.”
Then he takes your mind off of all those weird thoughts you’re having about him when he connects your lips again.
This time, you get a little farther. Within seconds, your blouse is completely off. Clark’s blazer has been flung onto your floor somewhere, and he’s already testing how quick he can unhook your bra. Your shaky fingers are unfastening each button on his white top at a somewhat steady pace. It’s so hard to do this when he’s clouding your senses, making you all light-headed from stealing the oxygen straight out of your lungs while he kisses you like he’ll never get to do it again.
You were just about to finish unbuttoning his shirt when he breaks away from the second kiss, and, once again, fixes his glasses. Every time you see his fingers giving his glasses attention, you get jealous. How come those frames get to take his hands off of your body? That’s not very fair.
You groan so loudly that you’re worried you’ll get a noise complaint.
“Clark, just take them off.”
Your right hand travels up to his face, fingers brushing against his black glasses frames for a second. Clark’s hand wraps around your wrist. Panic flashes in his eyes and he shakes his head.
“Can’t. Won’t be able to see you if I don’t have ‘em on.”
The frantic worry in his voice would have had you concerned had he not leaned forward and started kissing you again. You didn’t even have a second to think about how suspicious that was. While his lips mould against yours and his fingers play at the waistband of your pants, unbuttoning them and sliding your zipper down, your mind is unfortunately clouded with curiosity and making it hard for you to focus. Not even his hands groping and squeezing your ass can break through that curiosity.
You’re the one who breaks the kiss this time. Clark raises a brow.
“Am I going too fast? I’m sorry,” he mumbles, hands lifting off of you and hanging in the air as if he’s about to get arrested. You dismiss his unnecessary apology. This is the first time he’s had his tongue in your mouth, and you’ve been dating for a month. He couldn’t have gone any slower.
“Why don’t you ever take your glasses off?”
His hands fall to your hips. His body tenses beneath yours. His eyes dart around; you can tell he’s trying to come up with an answer on the spot, here, and it’s got you pressing your lips into a thin, unimpressed line.
“I’m practically blind without these things. It’s not—not practical. To take them off, I mean. What if something bad happens? How will I see it coming?”
“Well,” you counter, huffing at his silly response, “you’re not in any grave danger here. It’s just my apartment.”
“I won’t be able to see you!” he stresses, voice much higher than you’re used to. Nothing ever would have told you that he can get this squeaky.
“I’m so close to you! There’s no way you can’t see me when I’m on top of you!”
Your hands fly up to his face and you grab onto the frames. Clark tries to yank his head away from your prying hands, but it’s too late. You were quick enough, somehow, and you managed to pluck them off of his face. You put them on top of your head, perched on it like a makeshift headband. He’ll have to take them off of you himself if he wants them.
Clark throws one of his big hands over his face and looks down, letting out an awkward, terrified laugh as he says, “C’mon, hun. Stop playing around. Give them back, please. I can’t, uh—can’t see how pretty you are without them.”
You aren’t sure why he said that when you’re the one who can’t see his pretty face at all. His palm is shielding his eyes, taking the form of a makeshift visor. His head is tilted down. But the sliver of skin you do see, right around his jaw and a bit of his chin and lips, looks…different.
You shift on his lap, just enough to lean back and get a better look at him. You still can’t see most of his face, but you’re sure you’re seeing things when his face almost shifts in real time. Has his jaw always been this defined and sharp? Have his lips always been so full? Has his skin been this golden?
“Clark?”
Your voice is soft. Your chest is heaving as your fingers find their way around his wrist. When you try and tug his hand away, he doesn’t budge. You frown.
“You’re being weird. Why won’t you let me see your face?”
Your disarming voice makes him sigh. It’s deep. Heavy. Holding a lot of worry and, for some reason you can’t figure out, a hint of guilt. His other hand, the one not covering his face, hasn’t left your hip. It tightened around it, in fact, the second that you took his glasses off.
“Just…can you promise me you won’t freak out?”
“You’re acting like you’re a totally different person beneath those glasses.” You laugh and dip your head down again, trying to see his face, but ultimately failing whenever he shifts his head down, too.
“I’ll still think you’re cute without them.”
Your attempt to comfort him falls flat. You grab onto his wrist and coo, “Can I see? I won’t make fun of you. I won’t freak out. Promise.”
Another heavy sigh is all you get as a response from your adoring boyfriend. When his hand finally falls away from his face, you realize exactly what he was freaking out about. You haven’t just been sitting on and making out with Clark Kent for the last 15 minutes.
You’ve been sitting on and making out with Superman.
His face is so recognizable that you can’t even mistake this as a doppelgänger situation. This isn’t Clark just looking like Superman; this is Clark being Superman. You’re not sure how his glasses did it, how they morphed his face, but they did it. They blurred his face, making all of his features much softer than the angular reality of what he actually looks like. It’s odd, really. You could always feel how sharp his jaw was or his cheekbones were when you’d playfully grab onto his face, but you thought nothing of it. It makes so much sense, now.
Your eyes are so wide that they might fall out of your head. The way your chest tightens and your breath hitches should probably be of concern. Did the blood drain out of your face?
“Clark,” you whisper. “What the fuck?”
“I know,” he softly replies, “I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, really, but…I didn’t know how to go about it.”
You don’t reply. All you do is stare. Your hands cradle his face, thumbs brushing over his cheeks and fingers sliding beneath his jaw. You trace over his kiss-swollen lips before your hands slide down to his chest. It’s all making sense now. How big he is. How strong he is. How he always fucking disappears! God, how could you have not seen it? How the actual fuck could you not know that your boyfriend, your loving, sweet, dorky boyfriend, is Superman?
“You’re scaring me. Say something?” Clark begs. His big arms wrap around your waist and he leans forward to press a trail of kisses down one side of your jaw. He plants a chaste, quick kiss to your lips, one that you subconsciously reciprocate, one that brings you back down to earth after you’d been lost in your thoughts for so long.
You blink a few times. You look Superman in the eyes, and you laugh. A soft thing, one of disbelief more than anything. He might have a totally different face, now, but those kind eyes stayed the same. A gentle, refreshing tide even in the weirdest, craziest situations.
Still your Clark. Just a new face. At least the new one is just as beautiful as the old one.
“You saved me, like, three or four months ago. When the train I always take derailed while I was on the way to work. Do you remember that?”
“Of course I do.” His answer is steadfast. Oddly comforting. He slides his hands up from your waist to your back.
“Couldn’t let anything happen to the new cute reporter I sat by before I asked her out.”
He’s got a goofy, proud grin on his face. Although that might have been the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard, and it’s got your heart racing in your chest, you choose to fall silent and stare at him. It lasts just a second too long. Gets a little awkward, makes Clark squirm. That’s when you smirk at him and decide to push it a little further.
“You only saved me because you wanted to fuck me? You played the long game. Clever.”
“Oh, gosh,” he panics, shaking his head so quickly that it might just fall off of his shoulders. He blushes, bright red and hot, and you start laughing so hard at him that your entire frame shakes.
“No! Not at all!”
You kiss his cheek, then the tip of his nose, then the corner of his lips. You’re definitely surprised at this revelation, but you don’t hate it. How could you? Your boyfriend is Superman. You’ll worry about the logistics of it later on.
“Can I ask you something?”
He nods. Probably expecting something about the suit, or the way the glasses work, or how he manages to maintain this double life. Those questions will come later. Probably tonight, after he takes you to bed. You clear your throat. Send him a devilish little grin.
“Does this mean I’m the newest member of your secret harem?”
if you made it this far, i love you! thanks for reading. see you in the next one :)
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
please could we see clark getting all happy and giggly when shy!r is giving him loaadssss of attention and affection without overthinking it for once ! :,))
fem, 1.1k
Clark is aware of himself. He is always the tallest man in the room and often the heaviest. His glasses soften the more severe effects of this, but he intimidates people —despite a remarkably genial demeanour. He knows he scared you, once upon a time. Knows sometimes you aren’t sure of yourself.
You aren’t worried for your safety when you’re with him, so Clark worked with that, worked hard, talked to you a lot but never loudly, brought you the smallest of flowers and expressed his wants with linked pinkies or light squeezes, building trust and affection at the same time.
And Clark doesn’t cuss, but fuck, it went better than he ever could’ve imagined. One day your timidity turned to a tentativeness, like you wanted to try with him, just to see how things went. He wasn’t subtle about pursuing you, but he didn’t up and say that he had a crush either, couldn’t ask you for that when sometimes all it took for you to stammer through bad nerves was a cup of coffee placed silently on your desk. But enough cups of coffee and pretty thank yous turned to dinner together in the Planet canteen, then dinner together in better places.
Dinner together at home. In his lap.
(In his lap!!!)
You sort of slumped into his thighs a couple of minutes ago and he’d not thought it through as he pulled you into an arm. It took literally no effort to have you seated there, never does, but most days you waver or apologise before he can hold you as though you could ever be an imposition. “Look at that, you have rice in your moustache,” you murmur, eyes lit up with love as you rub at his upper lip.
“I don’t have a moustache.”
“Stubble.” You scratch the corner of his mouth. “You eat like a baby, you have stuff everywhere.”
He is immediately hot at the teasing. You never tease. “I’m mid meal!” he says, reaching around you to gather another spoonful of rice and sliced pork belly with a Chinese inspired glaze. You helped him make it, and he knows it tastes better for it.
“It’s on your chin, too,” you say.
“Try to sound less pleased!”
He’s lucky rice doesn’t fall out of his mouth. If you’re disgusted by his bad manners, you don’t show it, wiping at his chin and wrapping your arm tighter behind his neck as you kiss his cheek. “You’re ridiculous,” you say, with all the fondness of a compliment.
“Kiss me again.”
You kiss him again. His stomach is molten. He is insanely turned on for such a small thing, and he ignores it because he doesn’t (solely) want this to be a sex thing (unless you’d be interested). You’re being so… carefree. Whatever libido you’ve multiplied in him is honestly overshadowed by excitement, like, you’re so cutesy he needs to gather you up and squeeze you until the feeling abates.
“You are so scratchy, what happened? You never let it grow like this,” you say, still teasing and touchy, your knuckles tripping down his neck.
“I got busy making your dinner,” he says.
“Yeah, right, I’m the one who made the rice, and I made the pork marinade. You just cooked it.”
“That’s what I said. Busy cooking your dinner.”
“Shut up, you did not!” You squirm a little in his arms, the other coming up and trapping him, his empty fork stuck in an upright hand. “You’re not funny, Clark.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
You laugh anyways, worse when Clark takes back control and shoves his fork on the plate, two hands open again to take your back into his hands, big hands, encompassing and dragging you closer until there’s no air between your two bodies, just t-shirts soft from the wash.
“You’re not hungry?” he asks, wondering why you’ve wandered out of your chair and into his.
“I figured I better save you from the embarrassment of a rice-moustache, baby, and you’re distracting me now.”
“I’ll warm it back up for you,” he promises.
You take his face into your hand before he can move, rubbing your nose and mouth into his cheek. He clenches his jaw under the plush little dip of your mouth, lest he moan like a freak and send the whole boat tipping over. You laugh breathlessly.
Clark’s halfway to a white out and your giggling makes it a thousand times worse. You kiss his tight jaw again quickly before going back to your nose rubbing. “I love you.”
He laughs. Giggles. “I love you too.”
“So much.”
“So much they don’t have a word for it,” he says, clasping the back of your neck in his hand gently, encouraging you to stay right where you are for as long as you’ll allow it. “Didn’t even know I could love someone like this.”
Your breath warms his skin. “Me neither.”
“But with you it’s all just–”
“Perfect.” You sink until your face is in his collar, your hands braces on his shoulders, barest caress of your fingertips against the underside of his jaw.
He takes an indulgent sniff of the top of your head.
“My dinner really is gonna be cold,” you say.
“I know. I can make it fresh, if you want.”
“Would you do that?” you ask.
Clark would climb a mountain with bare hands. He’d hike Mount Everest, from the chilly bottom to the frozen top, ten times over. If that was what you asked him to do. If it meant you’d end up boneless and giggly in his lap for no discernible reason afterwards. It’s so nice to see you free of your own inhibitions.
“Baby, I think I’d grow the rice myself if you wanted me to.”
“You’d look good as a farmer.”
“Yeah? Should’ve seen me back home, bubby. I’m a total hick. Grow you whatever you want.”
You lift your face up, all smiley and light as you turn your head, your lips at his ear. “From the sticks? That how you put on all this muscle?”
He wants to cover you up in bubble wrap. He wants to lay you out on the table and kiss every inch of your stomach, your thigh, your knees. Even your elbows. Maybe tonight you’re feeling blithe enough to let him.
clark request! maybe an insecure!reader branches out and buys cute underwear to try on for clark... can be fluffy Or smut! your choice my queen!!!!!!!!! 🫶🏻
thank you for requesting! ★ fem, 2.1k
cw suggestive themes
The noise Clark makes when he sees you is a shriek, but that’s getting ahead of things.
There are many wonderful aspects to having a boyfriend. Being doted on, kissed and hugged and cared for, it’s all worth the awkwardness of being known. But! That does not mean the awkwardness is no longer awkward. It’s borderline painful.
It starts one night (or, another night, down the line, when Clark has already complimented your slight plain panties with little adornment) laying in bed beside him. You’re wondering if Clark would want to fuck you and if there is a less strange way to ask then how you’d proposed it the last time you wanted him with a whispered question. He’d very obviously been into it, but you’re not stupid to the world of sex, only shy —there are subtler methods of seduction that you and Clark can enjoy together. Clark himself can be terribly seductive, usually by turning a small kiss into a better one, or occasionally suggesting ways to warm you up that don’t involve clothes after showers. He’s always charming, and kind, and surprisingly dirty-mouthed in murmurs (though he never calls you anything worse than perfect, and he doesn’t cuss). You are gosh darn gorgeous in his lap.
The spurring thought isn’t particularly sophisticated. Clark’s stretched out beside you with his shirt riding up and his sweatpants low on one hip and he looks sexy. That’s all it is. He’s hot, and he isn’t putting a ton of effort in, but you know that the underwear he’s wearing beneath his sweatpants are expensive and fit him well. He takes care to look good.
You think about your white plain panties, and begin to debate how you can make him think like this about you. You know Clark finds you beautiful, if not for how often he tells you, then the simple basics of a relationship.
Clark could have anyone and he chose you, so you’re not not beautiful in his eyes. But you probably aren’t sexy. And you realise that, despite the little trip of nerves at the idea, you’d like to be. Maybe you can present yourself to Clark in something nice for once to wind him up.
Maybe you can pull this off.
You spend time with your heart in your mouth at Victoria’s Secret. Clark calls you while you’re there having just gotten out of work. He likes to know where you are, only to know, for mild peace of mind and the curiosity that comes with loving someone. It’s alright. You like knowing where he is, too.
“Where are you?” he asks warmly.
“Did you call me earlier?”
“Yeah, I was thinking about you. It’s alright, I didn’t have anything important to say, I was just stealing a break.”
“Oh, okay, good. I’m at the mall. King’s Arcade. Just… clothes shopping.”
“Great, can I come meet you?”
You squeeze the phone, turning away from the lingerie you’d been eyeing in a rush as though Clark will catch you immediately. “Sure,” you say, slightly breathless, “how far are you? I can come meet you at the front?”
“No, don’t worry about that, I’ll come find you, I’m like five minutes out. What store are you in?”
You turn back to the polka dot panties with the lettuce hem and the tiny black bow and its matching bra decisively. There’s a Bath and Body Works right next door. “By the candle shop,” you say, snagging the panties in your size. Baby steps.
You pay for the panties and shove them with the receipt in your bag as Clark turns the corner.
He squeezes your hand in hello. Asks if you’re thirsty and buys you a drink. Then you sort of follow one another around for a bit until Clark spies your lack of clothes and encourages you into a store with your style in the front window.
Could he get any more perfect? (Yes! He pays for the two things you picked up, swiping his card before you can get yours out of your purse like he’d been waiting with it between his fingers.) You flush all over thinking he’s seen the panties in your rush to get your purse out and ruin his plans, which doesn’t help.
“I’m sorry if I undermined your independence, but you have to let me pay for you sometimes. It’s more for me than it is for you,” he says, having noticed your displeasure, your joined hands swinging gently.
“You didn’t undermine my independence, Clark.”
“Is that sass? Are you sassing me?”
You recognise his teasing as something that could spiral out of your control and try to duck away, but Clark pulls you right back in.
“You’re being mean to me,” he says into your cheek.
“You’re mean to me!”
“I’m not trying to be!”
Giggly and content, you make your way out of the mall, the short walk to his apartment becoming dawdlingly long. You’re tired as you shuck out of your shoes. Clark palms briefly at your back before throwing himself ahead. “I’ll make dinner,” he says.
So he does. You eat dinner with your heel pressed to the top of his foot, and share an ice cream for dessert from the same bowl with two spoons.
You shower first. Clark kisses your cheek when you return to the bedroom wrapped in a towel, eager for his own, and leaves you with pajamas he’s laid out including a simple pair of pink panties and a soft bralette for sleeping. Just a suggestion, never expected, which is good. You swap the panties out for your new polka dot ones and get dressed, fix your hair, laid up at the top of the bed scrolling down your phone by the time Clark comes in dripping wet. He sits down on the end of the bed, taking the towel from around his shoulders to scrub at his curls.
Even his back is rippled with muscle, the skin tight as he leans forwards.
Okay. So. Your seduction was mainly panties-based and you’re not sure how to show Clark that they’re new without initiating. The point was that he’d see your new panties and the effort you’re making and start salivating in a more casual situation. You should’ve waited to get dressed until he was in the room, but it’s too late now.
Clark tips backwards, his hair hanging in wet, dark coils behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“Huh?”
“I had a funny feeling about you.”
Or he’s using his super senses for personal gain. “I’m fine, just thinking.”
“Yeah?” he asks.
You shuffle down the bed to be closer. “I had this idea…”
Clark spots your timidity a mile out. Usually he’d reach to comfort you, but perhaps there’s more in what you’re not saying, because he bites down a smile that’s surprisingly amorous. Maybe he’s just wires-crossed, what with his lack of pants. “What was your idea?” he asks quietly.
What to tell him? You nibble the inside of your lip.
“It’s okay, you can tell me,” he says.
“It’s not working out how I imagined.”
Clark’s eyes go wide. “What’s not working out? Me and you?”
“No.” You smile at him, then shrug diffidently. “I was trying to be cute, I guess, but I didn’t–”
“Sweetheart, you are adorable,” Clark says, twisting so you can see the defined ridge of every abdominal muscle, better to see you, and better to look at him.
Your mouth goes dry. All you can think of is how you want him to see your new panties, and instead you’ve trapped him in reassurances.
“You’re perfect,” he says, grabbing your knee. “You don’t have to try to be cute, you’re already the cutest girl I know.”
Well, cute was a cop out. Saying sexy out loud felt silly in the moment. This is the messiest of messes.
You let your head hang, defeated. Morose. “Thank you, Clark.”
You are kissed and cuddled, left dampened by his wet hair.
You aren’t brave enough to ask Clark to watch you strip, nor are you eager to stand in the middle of the room and do it. The panties feel soft but too warm all night, every shift a pull of elastic against your skin. You’re a little wet and a lot warm, wanting Clark but not knowing how to ask, and he’s so worried about your self esteem that he doesn’t try to kiss you long enough to let you respond and prompt any action.
It gets to the point where you’re thinking a white lie is in order. You let your heart calm down, and then you get out of bed pretending that you’re gonna turn up his AC. “If that’s okay?”
Your asking helps trick poor Clark. “Obviously you can,” he says, frowning at you where you linger by the door. “You don’t have to ask stuff like that, baby, just go ahead and do it. This is your place too.”
It’s really not, but you like how he says it like he believes it, offering him a bright smile. You practically skip to his thermostat and mess with things, then shuffle back far more calmly, stopping again in the door.
Clark lays against two plush pillows, sheets down, t-shirt ridden up to show his abs again, like he’s trying to drive you crazy. He turns his head against the pillow, brow nearly quizzical at your hesitation.
“What?”
“It’s so hot, do you– am I weird if I strip down?”
Clark sighs, pained again. “What did I just say? This is your place, as good as. Treat it like your own home.”
You take your shirt off first, meandering toward the bed, then pause to shuck it on the bed. Clark picks it up and folds it, but you can see him slowing in your peripherals as you hook your thumbs in the waistband of your pants and bring them down your thighs. You bend to grab them, but then you have nothing to hide behind, dropping them on the bed and climbing back where you’d been, legs up and knees pressed together.
This is when Clark shrieks.
It’s like– quite girly. You imagine he’d make a similar noise when winning the lottery. Multiple lotteries.
“Baby, what are you wearing?” he asks. “Oh my gosh!”
He sounds so, so happy, you are immediately hot from top to toe. “What?” you ask, failing to maintain even a semblance of calm.
“Can I see?” he asks, gentling. “Please?”
You let your legs fall flat without rush nor reluctance.
Clark peers down at you like this is deathly important.
“They are so– you’re so sweet, look at those, you’re so pretty,” he breathes. “When did you get these? I’ve never seen them.”
“Uh. Today, actually.”
“Yeah?” Clark goes to touch you, then hesitates. “Can I?” he asks.
“Of course you can, Clark,” you say, trying not to fall into whispers, “this is your place.”
He grasps the curve of your hip and the silky fabric of your new panties, pressing it down to see the front of you, the bump of your cunt hugged by softness, better displaying the polka dot pattern and the lettuce edged hemming that kisses your inner thighs and tummy.
“I’d say something about your joke if there was enough blood left in my brain,” he says, then blanches, “I mean– darn, you’re so pretty, I’m being too much, I’m sorry.”
“I got them for you. Wore them for you. It’s okay if you like them.”
Clark Kent looks close to tears.
“I love them,” he says, “you are the most beautiful thing, and this is–” He swallows. Shakes his head. Maybe Clark’s laying it on thick, but if he is, you like it. “This is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me. You really got them for me?”
You turn toward him slowly, letting your leg fall onto the other, and covering his hand with yours to press slowly to the apex of your thighs. “I got them for you,” you confirm. Your heart races, but your voice doesn’t tremble. You’ve wanted him to touch you for hours. “Something fun.”
Clark feels the warmth there under his fingers and closes his eyes, groaning quietly, right from the depths of his chest. “You’re gonna kill me,” he says.
You move very gently against his hand. “Please don’t die right now.”
His eyes flutter open, pupils like dimes and a pretty pink flush spotting up his neck. “I almost don’t wanna take you out of them.”
“You could pull them to the side?” you whisper. “I mean– if that’s– you know, if that’s not weird.”
Clark pulls you in for a kiss before he can make any more agonised sounds, the rush of his deep sigh slipping into your mouth as he widens the kiss, his tongue a sudden heat.
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
hey lovely hope you’re doing well!! was wondering if we could get a clark hurt/comfort fic, maybe of him and reader having an argument and she accidentally flinches and clark being absolutely horrified and groveling on his knees to apologise. just some real soft and gentle clark cause we love soft and gentle men in this house 🤍
sidenote: love your writing, always excited to read whatever you post xx
thank you for your request :⋆ fem, 1.2k
ambiguous themes of past abuse
It’s not about politics, or your interrelationship dynamics. It’s not about chores, or work, or money. The argument started when Clark was in a bad mood and you a worse one, and nobody called time out, so you’re fighting and getting angry at each other for sounding cruel, and Clark just– he laughs. He laughs at you. You’re saying, “I don’t understand why you’re making this into an argument when we both know you’re not prepared to listen to me,” and he laughs loudly and sharply. He is suddenly very tall.
His hand hits his belt buckle and the sound makes you flinch. It’s not as full-bodied as it could’ve been, more a cringe into yourself with your head snapping sideways and downward. You don’t keep your head down, you straighten up and clench your thighs, eyes squinted nervously at his hand, and his belt.
You do not believe Clark would ever take that belt off and hurt you with it. Clark wouldn’t lay a finger on you. He couldn’t. It’s not how Clark Kent was built to function. Your heart skips, though, and he goes very still.
“Is that funny?” you ask.
“What– of course not.”
His voice has lost all of its colour. Any anger or annoyance has gone pale, leaving him with a voice like a man in the sun, parched for water. He clears his throat, his eyebrows pinching down again into a shade of fury you really don’t like.
He softens again.
It’s not his fault, but you’re on edge. You cross your hands over your chest and fawn, because you– you don’t know, Clark won’t hit you and you know he won’t hit you but you don’t want him to hit you, which comes first.
“Can we just forget about it?” you ask, eyes flitting again to his belt.
“Jesus Christ, sweetheart,” he says, and he turns around and heads into the kitchen.
When he comes back less than ten seconds later, he’s not wearing his belt, and your eyes begin to feel hot at their stems.
His hands are at his sides, not raised but obviously empty. He crosses the room and stands in front of you, and he takes your face into his hand slowly. You’re inclined to let him. You love him, dramatically but also intrinsically, and it means you trust him even when your brain sees a pattern it shouldn’t have. You feel silly, and his gentle action lets your heart rest.
Clark really wouldn’t hurt you.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“For what?” You match his volume, and his weak tone.
“Sorry beyond words.”
“It’s okay, Clark. You just– I don’t like to be laughed at, you know that.”
“It was cruel, but it’s not why I’m sorry now. Gosh, can you forgive me?”
You don’t have time to think of the answer as his hand lowers, his thumb rubbing your cheek, and Clark takes a knee in front of you. He’s so tall it doesn’t actually make him small, but it puts him at eye level now, and his agony is plainly written. He looks so guilty. You aren’t sure what to do in the face of his reaction. You squirm back in your seat but cover his hand on your face to keep, worried he’ll pull away.
“You can’t laugh at me,” you say, your voice growing tight as though there’s fingers pressing against your windpipe, “you know I can’t stand it, you made me feel stupid.”
He squeezes his eyes closed. “I’m sorry.”
“We need to be able to talk about things without it turning into such a mean argument, Clark. I’m sorry, too, for not stopping it.”
“Honey, you’re right, but you– you know you just looked at me like you thought I was gonna hurt you, right?”
You fall silent.
Clark’s eyes are squinted in pity, or softness, or a place between those two things. “I didn’t mean to scare you, and I wasn’t trying to emphasise anything to you, not my belt, and not my stance, none of it. I never, ever meant to scare you, and I’m so sorry. I never want you to feel scared like that when you’re with me.”
“Clark…”
“What, honey?” he asks, still so quietly.
It always feels like this, feeling cornered, explaining why. If you accept his apology you admit that he’s right, that he scared you, that your brain found a pathway and followed it to failure.
You will not cry. You bite your cheek so hard you taste blood, because this will not become a thing. “Clark, it wasn’t like that.”
“Baby, I saw you. I could see how much I worried you.”
“No,” you say, your jaw tough like you’ve been chewing on cud all day, “I just wasn’t expecting the noise.”
He is quiet for long enough to make you nauseous.
His hand slips down your cheek, retreating in a half-curled fist on your thigh. Any other moment, you’d expect him to sound incensed, he gets so passionate, but right now his voice doesn’t go above a murmur. “I’m sorry I got mad at you, and I’m sorry you were mad at me.”
You wish he were sitting on the sofa. Let you fold into his lap, cry against his thighs. This is now how you’d like to be positioned, yet Clark seems insistent he stay there just below you, patient and quiet if squirmy, wanting to say more and worried he’ll overwhelm you.
You know your Clark.
“Do you think you’d hit me?” you ask softly.
“Never.”
“You swear?” you ask, like it does anything at all to be promised.
Still, Clark rubs each of your thighs nicely with the flat breadth of his palms. “I swear. I shouldn’t have let myself get agitated, and I was careless. I know you need a soft touch– please, just listen.” You close your mouth. “You need a softer touch sometimes, it is not a shameful thing to need. I didn’t say it to embarrass you.”
“Well, what if you did hit me, Clark? It’s not like I could stop you.”
It feels mean after you’ve said it, like the insinuation that he’s going to do just that, hurt you because he can and you can’t stop it, but Clark doesn’t take it that way, he just lets his hands travel up your legs. He’s sunken further into the carpet, reduced and reduced until he’s practically got his forehead on your knees.
“I won’t let anybody put their hands on you, least of all me,” he says quietly, his eyes just a little wet.
You say sorry the only way you can—you press your face to the top of his head and breathe in the smell of his hair. “I know you wouldn’t,” you say.
“I won’t laugh at you again.”
“Laugh at me, Clark, what does it matter? What a stupid argument.”
Clark is sorrier than he needs to be, maybe. While he did make you flinch, it wasn’t that your nervous system held any evidence against him, it was pure fight or flight at a bad time. You ask if he can sit on the couch, if you can curl into his lap, and Clark doesn’t make you feel bad for needing to be touched nicely while your heart flips up and down.
He doesn’t wear a belt for days, until you tell him it’s alright.
You confess your affections to an unsuspecting Superman, but your best friend Clark can’t know about your crush, okay? You’d die of embarrassment. (Or, Clark falls in love while Superman does most of the wooing.) fem, 8k
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
You never thought you’d get to talk to Superman. You've never been in that kind of danger, and you never hoped to be. You hadn’t wanted to talk to Superman because you know this is weird. You can’t have a crush on someone you don’t know. It’s idol worship, a celebrity fixation, and Superman is the perfect target. You’re not alone in loving everything about him —it’s easy. You aren’t ever confronted with the bad in his good.
And then he’s standing in front of you with his hands braced on your shoulders, and there’s blood running down your face from your temple and you’re crying, because it hurts, because you’re in the panic of your life and not sure what to do next.
He frowns at you with an unwavering gentleness.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “take a deep breath, ma’am. Deep breath.”
“It’s bl– bleeding.”
“I know.”
You shudder through tears as Superman brings his cape up and rips. It startles you, sending fat tears plinking down your cheek. You hold your breath as he brings his scrap to your face, dabbing the wetness from your cheeks before turning the fabric and holding it to your temple firmly.
You gasp painfully under his touch, desperate for air.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his voice a new shade, “it’s alright, you’re going to be fine, I promise. I’m gonna press this to your head, and we’ll see if we can get this bleeding stopped. As soon as it does, I’ll take you down and we can get you some real help.”
You nod, skittish as a scared deer, eyes as wide as they’ll go to follow his movements. It doesn’t hurt any more than the injury itself as he presses down on your head wound. He sighs in sympathy anyway. A broad hand spreads behind your back, familiar in a way, or maybe it’s the way he’s talking to you now. Like he knows you as you know him.
The photos of him online don’t do him justice.
“It’s not bad. I know it hurts, but,” —his hand finds your shoulder, squeezes lightly— “it’s because it’s so high up, alright? They always bleed more. It doesn’t mean this is anything to worry about beyond fixing you up and getting you some pain relief.”
“You– you’re real help.”
He holds your gaze. “Yeah?”
You wonder if he can feel the heat of your blush. It’s all over. He’s lucky your head wound doesn’t start spurting. “Yeah– yeah, I– Superman.”
His smile is everything. “What?” he asks patiently.
“I’m a big fan of– of yours.”
“You are?”
“You’re so brave,” you breathe out in a rush, though it hurts your head. “So brave. And– and…”
“Sorry,” he murmurs, putting a little more pressure on your temple. “Thank you for being a fan. All I want is to keep everyone safe.”
“You’re so gentle with everyone, even the aliens, and– you’re pretty…”
“Pretty?” he asks, pure surprise in his voice, his hand falling off of your arm.
You wince. “Yeah. Yes. Handsome. Sorry, you must get told that so much.”
“It’s okay. I won’t hold you to anything you say. You’re injured, after all.”
His teasing tone pretty much flies over your head. “No, I’m not lying. I mean it. You’re really lovely, and what you do, it makes you lovelier, it does–” You nearly choke on your enthusiasm. He has to know.
“Don’t get wound up, I’m sorry. I believe you. Let’s try to stay calm.”
Your head is aching in a new way, now. Less the sting of a wide cut, more beating, like a whirl in your own brain twisting and shaking, dizziness alive behind your eyes and threatening to knock you over. You clutch at Superman’s arm and he knows what you need, slipping his free arm behind your back before you can collapse.
“I don’t usually get crushes on people,” you inform him. “But it was hard not to get one with you. You’re even nicer than I thought you’d be.”
“It’s easy to be nice to you. Easy as breathing.”
Superman hugs you. You swear he does. But when the concussion begins to clear up and your confusion wanes in a hospital bed outside of the battle zone, you realise that he was holding you upright. Superman doesn’t know you, he never will, and you’re okay with it in the grand scheme of things. If you had to meet him, you’re glad it was while he was keeping you safe. He really is a good guy.
—
A week later, Clark Kent is waiting for you at the doors to the Daily Planet.
“Are you sure you don’t need more rest?” he asks, forcibly removing your handbag from your shoulder to carry himself.
“I’m sure.”
“It’s okay if you need more time to recover. You’re still wearing a dressing.”
“It’s a bandaid, Clark, and it’s to hide the scar for now, it’s–”
“It’s still a wound.”
“It’s fine! You saw it, you know it’s fine.”
Your overbearing best friend had surprise-visited you the day after your injury despite a text to tell him to stay home. You’re fine. It was a cut and the mildest concussion you could’ve had. You didn’t throw up, or collapse, you’d simply gotten confused and bled all over Metropolis’ finest super hero until his hands were more red than white.
“It looked awful, it still does.”
“It looks fine. Even the nurse said it was a small cut, in an unfortunate place.”
“Very unfortunate.”
You follow him to the elevator bank with a frown. “Clark, you don’t have to sulk.”
“I’m not sulking! I just don’t see what’s wrong with staying in bed for now.”
“I have stuff to do, babe. I have to work. I have to move forward, it barely hurts anymore.”
He likes being called babe, simpering accordingly. “Well, you’re sitting down all day. Doctor’s orders.”
“Show me your oath and I’ll consider it.”
“Please?”
He looks like he could cry. Not that he will, but like he could if you keep saying no to him. And despite all your grievances with being treated like you’re fragile now, you decide to take it easy, if only to give Clark the peace of mind. “Okay, sure. You can wait on me all day.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Clark’s your best friend because —no matter how much it might confuse you— he seems to really love you, maybe from the moment he met you. You started at the Daily Planet and he took to you like a duck takes to water. Everything you said made him laugh, every recipe you wrote was one he had to try. And you figured it was something boys tend to do, right? Pretend you‘re interesting until they get what they want from you, but Clark’s never asked for anything else, loving you wholly and expecting nothing in return.
You let him swing an arm around your shoulders, a mirror of himself those few nights ago where he’d come shaky and sorry to see you. He apologised for not being there when you got hurt, as if he could’ve stopped it.
“I’m sick of working already,” you say.
“Then let’s go home.”
“Clark. I’m being conversational.”
“Don’t tease me,” he pleads, sounding all sudden and whiney. You squirm out of his arms to poke his side. Gets more solid by the day. Idiot boy.
“Have you been working out?”
“Can you stop?”
“Can I stop? You’re a nightmare.”
Clark threatens to superglue you to your deskchair, but he titters around you hopelessly all day.
—
You’re laying on the gravel roof of your apartment on top of a sun lounger, trying to decide if getting some sun is worth all the noise. Beeping, birds, cars, doors, the wind, this high up and occasionally curving through buildings to kiss your skin —noise, noise, noise. Your phone is ringing while you ignore it, desperate to get through the last chapter of your book without interruption. You have thus far been foiled, and figured nobody’d be able to find you up here.
The quick, awful zip of a high impact sounds somewhere close. You nearly topple from your lounger, a hand pressed to your chest, your heart racing near painfully at the surprise. You whip your head to the horizon looking for smoke, but there’s nothing. For a few minutes, you can’t hear anything at all.
The shape of him descends before your mind can catch up. Then, he’s there in one piece. A touchable dream, Carol Ann Duffy at work and torturing you in passing. You’ve seen a ton of photos of him, hundreds, videos of girls recording to ask him sweet questions, and you’ve never seen him smile so shyly. You shiver violently down your arms, but Superman isn’t here to hurt you.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“You were?” you ask.
“I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”
You sit up properly. The book in your lap makes a crunching noise that you happily ignore. “I’m fine. I’m fine, did you– You’re here to see if I’m okay?”
His smile strengthens. “Is that okay?”
You stammer, “Of course it’s okay!” A flush rises from your chest to your cheeks as he stays there. He’s not leaving until you answer. Holy fuck. “I’m great, Superman. All healed up.”
“Are you sure? You still have–” He gestures to your bandaid.
“It’s to keep it clean in the daytime. I take it off before bed.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No, of course not.”
“Why of course not?”
Your heart makes a funny pulse. Handsome isn’t the right word for him. There’s something special about it, otherworldly, literally, the cut of his jaw somehow sharp and soft at once, his pert nose, his eyes gone light in the sunshine and framed by dark lashes that beg to be touched. You imagine running a fingertip along them, gently brushing them up for no reason at all, and he narrows his gaze at you in your silence. The shorts you’re wearing have you worrying you’re underdressed in his eyes. They’re pajamas, pink with black polka dots and edgings. You’d had the forethought to wear a short-sleeve rather than a vest lest one of your neighbours find themselves up here with the same quiet idea. Superman’s fully clothed in comparison.
His boots look formidable next to your puppy dog socks.
“It doesn’t hurt,” you promise, half-lying and uncaring. Superman saved you. He’s perfect, so your head doesn’t hurt.
“You seem a little flustered, is all.”
“Oh. Oh, well, it’s hot out, and I’m not like, super used to being in your company. Or any company, um, like yours.”
“You’ve never met a metahuman?”
“No, never.”
“We’re just like everybody else.”
You laugh.
“No, really,” he says, idling toward you, red boots treading the gravel down flat. “I’m just like you, you don’t have to be nervous.”
“Sorry.”
“Now what do you have to be sorry for?”
You laugh again, a giggle you’d never admit to. He’s strangely intimidating; a presence, but not an imposing one.
“What are you reading?” he asks, nodding to your lap.
“Oh, uh. Uh, it’s called The Ocean?” You straighten up the book to show him the cover. “It’s good, uh, the main character is a young boy who wants to find his father, I think it’s supposed to be a take on The Odyssey,”
“Why is he looking for his father?”
“He’s missing after a terrible war. It’s one of those ones that hurts the entire time but the ending has wrapped it up so nicely, it was worth it.”
“Maybe I’ll read it, too. You look like someone who has great taste.”
“You can borrow my copy.”
Superman’s gaze narrows again. “You’re finished?”
“Yeah, I finished it before you got here.”
He waits in the quiet. You’re sure he’s going to call you out for your lie. It's not as though a Kryptonian truth-radar would be outside of the realm of possibility.
Superman finally smiles. “I promise to bring it back,” he says simply.
“Sure. Well, take your time.”
—
How long can it possibly take a superhero to read one book?
You shouldn't be thinking about it again. Poor Clark is sitting in the corner of the couch with your feet stuck under his thighs, telling you about the grocery store widow who asks him for help to take her groceries out to her car whenever she sees him. She’d spotted him at the produce section today and dibsed him, and Clark doesn’t mind (though she leaves her car at the back of the parking lot no matter the weather). In fact, Clark doesn’t bring it up to complain. He’s sympathising with her, how lonely she must be.
You try to shake Superman from your head while Clark is talking, but the thoughts of him won’t budge.
You’d made a fool of yourself on the roof. Superman had taken your book to be polite. He probably won’t come back.
“Hey.”
You lift your head.
Clark’s looking at you. Big blue eyes in a classic face, the line of his glasses dark and heavy against his brow. They trace your expression, searching for the misery you’ve failed to hide, until he finds it in the creases of your eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is weak with worry.
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“It’s really not.”
“It definitely is. You can tell me about anything, you know. Or you don’t have to tell me, but I’ll be here for you no matter what. Some food for thought.”
“Food for thought. Eat this, Kent,” you say, jabbing him at the top of the thigh with your heel.
Clark grabs your foot. “Come on. I know something’s wrong, and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me, but…” He lets your foot smack down into the top of his thigh to grab his tea instead.
“Isn’t that cold?” you ask.
“It’s tepid,” he allows after a sip.
You laugh, so he laughs. It’s a lovely sound.
“Again. Again, you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but I’d listen if you wanted me to.”
“Don’t try and make out like you’re not keeping secrets.”
Clark goes slack-jawed. “Sorry?”
“You don’t tell me everything. I know exactly where you disappear to all the time.”
“You do?”
You climb up on your knees and settle in front of him. You’re wearing those pink polka dot shorts like you were on the roof with Superman, in hopes they’ll summon him to you like a talisman. Clark presses his lips together, watching you closely as you take his face into your hands.
“You’re dating Lois Lane,” you say.
His fingers dust your elbow. “What?”
“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you? Plus, you’re busy all the time. You’ve cancelled movie night three times this month, did you know?”
“I’m sorry–”
“I’m not. I’m happy for you.”
Clark shakes his head. “But Lois and I… I mean, not for months. We were almost something, I think, but no. Not for a while.”
You let your hands fall off of his cheeks. “Oh. Sorry, Clark.”
“Don’t be. I should’ve told you, but it was new and then it was over.”
“You should’ve told me,” you agree, “but I sort of get why you didn’t. I’m your girl best friend. That’s a thing.”
“You’re my best friend,” he promises, no ‘girl’ prefix necessary. “That’s not why it ended, Lois isn’t like that. It was… we disagreed on so many things. Looking back, I think she was right about most of it.”
“Well, she’s a girl.”
“That she is. You’re all the same, aren’t you? All dazzling.”
He says it with an earnestness that reminds you of the other half of your friendship-equation. Clark’s your best friend because he loves your work and your jokes and your company, and you’re his best friend because he’s good as gold, inside out, just awfully lovable.
“You’re ’dazzling’ too,” you say. “You are.”
Clark offers you his mug of tea. You take a sip for something to do.
“Not that cold,” you murmur.
“I never realised you were such a liar.”
“I don’t really lie to you, Clark.”
He leans up to kiss your head, chaste against your purpling scar. “I know.”
—
“So, this book–”
You jump hard enough to send your groceries five different ways, oranges and kiwis for Clark flying up in the air. They never hit the ground —Superman catches them in two hands.
Your loaf of bread lays cradled in his arm like a baby.
“Fuck,” you complain.
“I’m sorry.” Superman laughs at you. Laughs. “Sorry. But this book, is there a sequel?”
“What?” you ask. Superman tips your groceries into your waiting paper bag.
“I think I need a sequel.” He pulls The Ocean from a pocket and squeezes it unkindly. “I think it ruined my life.”
“There’s no sequel. But–” don’t spoil the ending for me, you almost say. “Did you enjoy it at all?”
“It was good. Do you read a lot, or are you down to the real heart-achers?”
“Uh, I guess. Well, no, I used to read more, but I didn’t have time for a while ‘n now I’m usually too stirred up to settle down.”
“You cook.”
You blink. “You googled me?”
“No, how could I? But I did see you on the third page of the Daily Planet. You have a little author’s window. You made pumpkin pie.”
“For Thanksgiving weekend, yeah. They only ever put me near the front or on the main page of the website if it’s the holidays.”
“Is that true?”
You shake your head. Not to say no, to say, let’s not talk about it. Silly insecurities are unnecessary conversation. At least, they are with him.
Someone gasps from behind you. With one comes a few. The people near the crosswalk are starting to notice Superman’s tall figure standing in the sun, and though you’d wish he’d managed to hide in the shadows, you admit to yourself that there’s nowhere else he could ever be. He looks right in the sun.
“Do you want to come with me?” he asks.
Do you want to go with him? What the fuck does he think? said in your head ecstatically, not a lick of derision against him. Your excitement nearly blinds you.
“Yeah,” you say, practically mumbling, wanting to come off nonchalant and instead sounding painfully shy, even to your own ears.
“Yeah?” He offers an arm. “Come here.”
Your charmed little laugh makes him grin. “Alright?” he asks, locking an arm around you vice-tight.
“Where are we–”
The air leaves your lungs in one fell swoop. There and gone, breathless and weightless in tandem.
The sky is more than blue when you’re in it.
There’s nothing you can say about it. You’re terrified Superman is going to drop you, you can hardly breathe from the sudden speed at which you’d been taken up with him, but beyond that, there’s nothing to say. Wordless, endless sky. Blue, blue—
“It’s not as scary as you think, right?” he asks, his head angled down to yours.
“I expected you to have to shout. I don’t know why.”
“It’s windier in the air, but we’re close. I don’t need to yell.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t get many groceries.”
“You aren’t heavy.”
You’re delighted. “This is a paper bag, you realise! I’m surprised it didn’t explode the second you got me up here!”
“I’ll be careful. You’re precious cargo, and you deserve a better experience now than the one you got when you first came up here with me.”
“I don’t remember much of it.”
“That’s okay. I do.”
You should feel ridiculous, but strong arms hold you steady. Blue eyes like someone familiar pour over your face, as though they need to see you clearly, with all this perfect light. Your few groceries are squeezed between your chests as you squeeze him by the neck, desperate for the extra security, that he won’t simply let you go, and have you fall.
“This is amazing,” you breathe, your eyes sweeping down to take in beautiful Metropolis beating away beneath you. The cars look like ants. The buildings cast shadows you’d never noticed from the ground.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s something.”
You glance up to find him still staring at you.
The girls on SuperClub would never, ever believe you if you tried to tell them what passes between you, then. (Not that you frequent SuperClub. Often. You see it while scrolling, and you tend to scroll past it with a fond eye roll.) They wouldn’t believe that Superman brings his hand to your head to touch your temple, as though your small scar is a personal affront to him. They wouldn’t believe the way that he pauses when you shudder. Wouldn’t believe how he lets his fingertip tumble down your cheek, or the soft incline of his head. The slightest kiss of his eyelashes meeting in the very corners of his eyes as they almost close.
“Don’t feel guilty, please,” you say.
“What?” He sounds as though he’s woken up from a nap.
“About what happened. It wasn’t your fault that I got hurt. I wanted you to know that. You saved me.”
Superman lets the distance between your two faces grow. “I…”
“If this is what that is, if you feel like you owe me something, well. You don’t… I don’t know you, Superman, but sometimes I think I do. It’s like… someone I've met before? I can see your bleeding heart.” You offer a brash smile. “But I’m just fine. You promised me that I would be, and I am.”
“You’re not making this any easier for me.”
You shift in his grasp, his hair tickling you and the little hairs on your arms.
“I’m not a very easy person,” you say.
Superman presses his nose to your cheek.
“I think you’re giving me tachycardia,” you whisper.
He hears it. Doesn’t answer for a while, and when he does, it’s to neither of the things you said before.
“Let me take you somewhere new,” he says.
—
A day later, Clark asks if he can bring you dinner. Like and unlike himself, to care enough to ask but to forgo his usual boisterous lack of respect when it comes to taking care of you. Clark recognises that you like to be cared for aggressively. That you want someone to care so much that they won’t stop at the first hurdle. You want someone to take it at a sprint, and Clark’s a show off loser-dork who likes taking care of you.
He meets you at the door, where you show him your small picnic basket kitted with two plates, knives, forks, and a hidden dessert. “Too hot in my apartment,” you say.
“What’s wrong with the AC?”
“It’s leaking.”
“I’ll take a look at it. What happened to that fan I got you?” he asks, his fingers at your wrist trying to steal the basket.
“Oh, Clark, can’t you just leave me alone?” you plead.
He laughs like a kid. “I love when you do that.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, is it sarcasm? I don’t think that’s apt. Whatever it is, when you act like that? You’re really convincing. It’s funny.”
“I can be funny.”
“I know, that’s what I’m saying. You’re really funny. Can you do it some more?”
“Now it’s not natural, though.”
“Please?”
“Leave it alone, Clark. You’re such a beg.”
He laughs again. It peters off to a quiet you’d like to live in. His takeout bag rustles, your picnic basket rattles, his fingers brushing the back of your arm as he follows you down the street to the wooded path.
There’s a small park not far from your apartment that’s been divided into two halves. The playground for the neighbourhood kids, and the picnic tables made of strangely shaped wood. They’re all rounded. One table is shaped like an ‘S’. Another like a filled in ‘8’.
You sit at the one furthest from the playground, coincidentally shaped like a ‘C’. “For Clark,” you say, pleased.
“Adorable.”
You set up your plates, dividing up the food squarely. Clark had the wherewithal to bring two cans of soda and a big bottle of water. He asks which one you want, cracking it open accordingly. “Gonna pour it into my mouth, too?” you tease.
“Do you not want me to be nice to you?”
And the night slips away. You eat your takeout at the picnic table and linger until your legs are numb. The grass around the park is damp, but you sit, and you shoot the breeze until the sun starts to go down. It must be hours out there together.
Clark takes his jacket off and spreads it over your shoulders. “This is your only bad trait,” he says happily. “You never tell me when you’re cold.”
“I’m not that cold.”
“Sure you’re not. Look, come here,” —he pulls you bodily into his side, his voice turning silky as angora— “you act like you’re such a plague, like– I don’t know, like I wouldn’t wanna know that you’re cold.”
“I don’t act like that.”
“You do. You could rely on me for more, you know? I want you to lean on me.”
You lean on him.
Clark presses his nose to your temple, his glasses digging into your skin.
And you think, I know you.
But you don’t know why.
—
Clark can't believe this is happening again.
He woke up this morning with a scary yet firm plan: he’s going to get himself together, pluck up what he has in the way of courage, and be honest with you about Superman. If only so he can stop lying to you. He should’ve told you months ago that he was Superman. Hell, he might’ve told you from the moment he met you, that’s how sure he was that he’d love you. As a friend —his best friend, half of his life. There’s this ease, like he’s known you for far longer than he truly has, like he could know you for the rest of his life.
And lately.
Oh, lately. Clark can’t get a handle on things. He hadn’t realised he was falling in love with you, isn’t even sure that’s the way to describe it; far from a sharp plummet downward into love, this has felt like a slow and steady ascent, but now suddenly he’s at the mountain top and the air is thin, and he’s looking for you, aching for relief, and you’re sitting in the snow with your book and your shy smile, cross-legged, just waiting for him to get there and open his cowardly mouth.
Or that’s what he’d like to think.
Fact of the matter is, Clark would like to kiss you. Hold your hand, have your head rest on his shoulder. He’d like to pull you into his lap and squeeze. Clark could die happy if he got just one shot at it, no matter the outcome.
He knows he won’t lose you, but he’s worried you don’t want what he wants. He’s gotten so close to having you, he’s not sure he can take being any further apart than this.
Clark takes the tramline to the rich part of the city with the best florist. There are buckets and buckets of flowers; orange tiger lilies and white orchids turned green in the sun; roses as big as his fist, unfurling; sweet peas kissing pinkest camellias all tangled up with baby’s breath. He chooses the sweet peas. They really are sweet, their hemmed edge petals curling in and nearly blue. They’re beautiful. He can see them in a glass on your nightstand by tonight if he’s lucky.
It’s on the walk to your apartment (tramline too busy to risk, lest your flowers get hurt) that the trouble begins.
The light goes out.
It doesn’t make logical sense. He’s outdoors. It’s the early morning, the sun should be shining for hours to come.
He looks up and finds a singular dark rectangle over Earth.
It blots out everything, disapears the clouds, turns the blue sweetpeas in his hand a tired shade of grey.
Clark wonders if he should’ve told you how he felt when he had the chance. Then, he leaves his glasses, his jacket, and his sweetpeas in the hedgerow at the park with alphabet picnic tables and throws himself upwards into the sky.
—
What emerges from the spaceship (and it is a spaceship, made of an element humans aren’t want to touch) are creatures shaped like spinning asterisks, wisps of their angel-white bodies bending the shadows they’ve cast down onto Metropolis. It’s like smoke.
The dark makes it hard to breathe.
You sit huddled in your bedroom looking out through the window, despite a desperate urge to hide somewhere further inward. Sirens echo throughout otherwise quiet streets, discordant wailing that wavers for long, sharp minutes. There had been screaming and crying and the splintering sounds of glass. It’s not —not unseeable, out there, but anyone with poor vision will find themselves stranded.
You open your phone. Your theory is that the aliens have been able to dampen sound as well as sun, leaving the battlefield dangerously quiet. Clark’s not answering your texts because he never has his phone, but you’re sure he’s out there somewhere. He told you he was coming. The last message he sent this morning blinks at you from the bottom of your screen: Coming by soon if you’re not busy, do you want me to bring breakfast?
You’d said, just some eggs please if you want eggs
You’d said, hey, are you safe? What’s with the dark?
You’d said, clark please text me back right now, I’m freaking out, do you need me to come get you?
He won’t answer the phone. Outside, up in the sky where it’s darker still and the white shadows have begun to ripple, the occasional red beam of heat slices into whiteness, turning it to shadows again. There are two sets of red if you watch carefully. Green light flickers at the ground.
And Clark Kent is out there all alone.
You crawl to your shoes under the bed and put them on, pajamas and all. Clark’s blue hoodie lays on the back of your deskchair. You shrug it on.
He’s gonna lose his entire mind if you do find him out there. Can friends ground you? Because Clark’s going to ground you. But you’d rather be grounded than all alone.
—
Superman groans into the floor, his tongue coated in dust.
He has far better vision than a person feasibly needs. He wore a pair of glasses once that are supposed to approximate what it’s like to have legal blindness, and he’d felt suddenly, achingly sorry for the human race. But then he’d found the glasses stand beside it with all their different prescriptions and shrugged it off. Humans are brilliant. He’s in awe of their persistence, their resilience, and their strength. He knows he can find it in himself to go on because they can, too.
He has better vision, and still he finds himself batted away from the entities like a bothersome fruit fly.
“Krypto?” he asks into the smog.
His borrowed dog flies at him with impressive speed, pressing his snout straight into a bruise.
“Ow!”
Krypto snuffles and hits at his arms with both paws.
“Krypto, stop! Jeez, stop. You’re such a pai– Ow! Get off.”
Krypto nibbles his shoulder.
Clark forces himself to sit up. At least he hasn’t killed the dog. Kara would probably eviscerate the planet country by country if something happened to her dog, not mentioning the aliens that started this whole thing. And he is good at bringing the suit when Clark needs it.
He rubs at his eyes and drags himself to his feet, back aching, eyes like sand. Nothing is healing because he can’t feel the sun, but he’s not too hurt. He can take a bad landing. He can take twenty of them.
“Krypto, stay.”
Krypto tilts his white blurry head.
“You’re not helping.”
Arf! Clark rolls his shoulders and shoots back into the air.
Krypto stays down, for now.
Clark takes a lap through the air, searching for signs of life with his ears. The eery quiet is beginning to fill with catastrophe.
“Clark?”
He stops dead in the sky.
“Clark?” you call, ten miles below him, shouting all clipped and scared. “Clark Kent! Are you out here? If you can hear me, call back to me!”
He says your name.
“Clark? I’m here!”
Clark looks up into melted-sugar shadows as they begin to curdle and makes a choice. Damn the aliens, they can have the sky, so long as Clark gets to keep you safe.
He has to keep you safe.
—
You’re watching a shadow plummet toward you when the sky opens up into shards of Technicolor. Concentrated around a single point of red and blue and moving so fast it turns puce.
—
There’s a scene in The Ocean where the main character realises his father has been dead before the beginning of the book. Dead for years. He goes searching for him because he’s scared to be alone, brave enough to realise it, and young enough to misunderstand the danger of the world. He treks sandbanks, ferries favour, turns in promises and follows the footsteps of a man long dead across the world. Clark told you once, privately, quietly, in a moment that immediately panicked him, that his parents had adopted him, and that his birth parents had left him with a letter after they both died.
What did it say? you’d asked.
To be good.
You find your copy of The Ocean cradled in familiar hands. You recognise its secondhand cover, the bends in the front where a previous owner had tented it for a long period of time. The spine is loose and lax with age. The pages are yellow with time.
Clark is sleeping quietly in the plastic-wrapped chair beside your bed. He doesn’t have a bruise or cut. He doesn’t look anything like Superman had as he’d flung himself at you, two seconds too late, his body a shield against an explosion that lit your body with fire and colour alike. The whole world had been red, and then yellow, and suitably blue. There was pain.
Not a darkness as people often say. Just hurting and now this.
You take a scary breath. Hitching and pained, you search for comfort and find none of it. There’s a needle in the back of your hand secured with a teddy bear wrapping. The sheets have been drawn to your chin and choke you as you try to sit.
After a moment of struggling, you sink back and try for another breath. Deep, aching breaths. You do it until your lungs burn, these awful, stringing breaths, eyes to the ceiling and fighting the spots of nothingness that cloud your vision.
“Hey,” a soft voice says, softer hand pressed to the curve of your neck. “Oh, hey, sweet girl, hey… it’s okay. The pain won’t last, they gave you a little more morphine a few minutes ago, it’ll kick in.”
“Uh–”
Clark makes a sound. “Oh.”
You let your eyes slide to him. He’s checking his wrist where it’s resting on you.
“I was sleeping for a long time, I… Honey, I’ll get a nurse.”
“No,” you breathe.
“Yeah, honey, I’ll get a nurse,” he repeats, stroking your neck with his thumb. His eyes are their usual calm blue, bearing down into your own with an emotion that’s somehow palpable and implacable. “It’s no good, you being in pain like this. I’ll come right back.”
“Clark, don’t go,” you whine.
It’s like the world has been placed heavy on your head.
Clark offers you relief. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Tell me what’s hurting, and I’ll fix it.”
You shake your head at him. Fuck, nothing hurts. It’s not pain you’re being smothered in.
“Okay,” he murmurs.
For a while, you don’t talk. Clark stays stooped over you, too tall and careful anyhow to stay out of your light. He holds your cheek, rubbing at skin with his thumb until it’s tickled into numbness, your body begging you to move away from his touch and your brain knowing you can’t. You’ll never duck away from his fingertips ever again.
Where he’d been unhurt, he isn’t unharried. His hair is in a complete disarray, curls in places pulled straight and greasy behind his ears. His face is pale. His eyes flicker obsessively between you and your monitor, as though he can decipher the information it displays. He must see something there that he trusts, sitting down again in the chair dragged quick and easy to the side of your bed. His hand stays at your face. He’s long. It’s simple work.
“You read The Ocean,” you whisper.
“I read all your annotations, too,” he tells you, turning his hand to run it down your cheek, his fingernails especially silky against the line of your jaw.
You turn your face toward his touch. Your eyes flutter closed as he indulges your deepest fantasy.
“I didn’t–” Oh, you can’t say it. You hadn’t meant to want him like this. You hadn’t known he was Superman, and isn’t that awful? Something cruel. Your best friend kept a worst secret.
He doesn’t rush you.
You’re ready to try again a few minutes later. His fingertips have started to draw a flower into your neck.
“I’m embarrassed that Clark knows what I said to Superman,” you say plainly.
“Superman didn’t tell Clark anything,” Clark says. His voice is light in contrast to your hesitancy.
“But you know it all.”
“I know you,” he agrees.
“I’m really… sorry. I’m sorry, I–” You search for his touch and he immediately cups your cheek again. “Clark, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come out looking for you. I didn’t realise you could look after yourself and I made things worse.”
“Do you even remember?” he asks.
Mildly. You’d woken once before and found a less fixed Clark covered in blood above you. A part of you had understood that it was Clark, even without his glasses, and a different part knew it was Superman. Then things had blurred, half-replaced by a memory of his hand behind your back in the middle of a meadow halfway across the world, that beautiful quiet valley where the water had been ice and the grass emerald velveteen under your legs.
In the dream, Superman (and this had been real until it wasn’t), turned to you, and said, with Clark’s dorky intonation, “That’s seriously beautiful, huh?”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“But–”
“You don’t. I won’t argue about it with you. You have no apologies to make, you did everything right and nothing wrong, and I lied to you, and I got you hurt, and…” He has the gall to pink in the cheeks, like you’ve taken the skin between your knuckles and pinched. “I wasn’t honest with you about my feelings. I almost kissed you as Superman, and that wasn’t fair.”
“You really are… him?” you ask weakly.
“Yeah, I am.”
Clark sits up as a doctor opens your room’s door.
“Everything okay?” she asks. When she sees you awake, she smiles broadly. “Hey, you’re up! Can we get you some dinner now?”
“You skipped breakfast,” Clark tells you.
“I was awake for breakfast?”
“Barely. We had you on some pretty gnarly painkillers,” the doctor says. She adjusts her white coat. “I just wanted to check in with your nurses and your lovely partner here that you hadn’t thrown up again.”
You flush. “I’m fine.”
Clark simply rubs your chest like a wave of his hand against your heart.
“I’m worried you haven’t gotten enough sustenance this past day, but we try not to hook you up with too many things,” the doctor explains, “much better for you to settle and then eat. And to drink some water!”
“I don’t feel very hungry.”
“The painkillers you’re on can make some people feel quite sick. But try your best, okay? I’ll come back after dinner to see what we can do about those broken fingers.”
You follow your arm down to your hand. Your pinky and ring finger on the non-dominant hand have been splinted but not casted.
“Oh.”
The doctor takes her leave, abandoning Clark to your questions.
“What’s wrong with me?” you ask.
“You got concussed again. It made you sick, and your hand is very nearly broken, but they think it’s just your fingers from the look of your x-rays. And you have a long cut.” He puts his hand on your stomach gently. “Here. Almost as long as your arm, but it’s a surface cut. You landed on debris. I’m sorry, my– honey. Sorry.”
You can’t fight the chills or your bewilderment. “What for?”
“I didn’t get to you fast enough.”
“Clark.” Your mouth is dry. He’s pretty. Your head goes round and round and aching and then with a dash of clarity, the world snaps back into place. Your hospital room is empty and bright, with a vase filled to bursting with sweetpeas in pride of place on your nightstand. There are voices drifting in from the hallway, and Clark is handsome even as he tears himself apart. The silver lining his bottom lashes doesn’t go unnoticed. “I’m okay, babe.”
He laughs wetly.
“I’m fine,” you promise, quieter now. “How couldn’t I be? You’re so gentle.”
Clark finds your hand, pulling it to his forehead, his body bending forward like a marionette on loosening strings. He shakes his head vehemently, his grip on your wrist tight but far from cruel.
“You’re gentle,” you promise under your breath, “I told you that before, didn’t I? You’re kind, and brave, and– it’s not your fault I went looking for you.”
“I should be comforting you. I should be helping you,” he whispers.
“You won’t catch me crying on your shoulder twice, Superman.”
His head flinches up, like he’s realising for the first time that you know who he is.
Whatever he sees in your face helps him to settle down. He curls long, thick fingers around your hand. You can’t help noting how adversely tender they feel while he holds your hand.
“What did you think of the book?” you ask finally.
“I didn’t know you liked to read,” he says.
You shrug. Let your head fall back into a thin pillow, wondering how you might go about getting a better one, and beginning to feel the effects of the painkillers they’d been talking about. “It’s not like it’s the most alarming secret, between us.”
He lets out a wounded whine. “Why do you hate me?” he asks.
“You’re due some hazing.”
“Can’t you take pity on me?” he asks.
You curl your fingers around his where they’d otherwise been limp. “I’m not really half as cool as I’m trying to act, Clark.”
He sulks beautifully. “I think you’re lying to make me feel better.”
Only a little.
—
Being cool around Clark Kent lasts about as long as the morphine does. The reality is this: Clark Kent —best friend extraordinaire, sweetheart farm boy who’s vetted all your worst ideas, held your hair back in the smallest toilet in Metropolis bar history after a too-happy happy hour, knows all your holey socks and questionable medical queries— is Superman.
And Superman?
He’d been courting you.
The word is antiquated and accurate. Superman had been cautiously courting you with his sparse visits, shy and brave at once, brash but remarkably put together. It is after you know the truth that you realise Clark had been not so secretly courting you simultaneously.
“Is that why you were bringing me dinner and stuff?” you ask, lured into the conversation by accident, now deeply curious.
“No. I did that stuff before I wanted you. It was hard to sort the feelings into boxes, like– platonically, I’ve loved you since you came into the office with your miserable laptop and– and romantically, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realise until I tried to kiss you and you wouldn’t let me.”
“Sorry?”
“I tried to kiss you, and you thought it was a pity kiss.”
You hold him by the shoulder. “That was real?”
“Do you dream about it?” he asks knowingly.
“It was really going to be a kiss?”
He softens. Clark, big on your smaller couch, in his pajamas with his hair finally washed again and your hand in his lap, rests his shoulder into yours with a long-suffering sigh. “Best kiss of your life,” he promises.
“Prove it.”
“What?”
It’s been four days since the hospital and Clark is horrifically chaste. “Do you not want to kiss me?”
“You know I do.”
“So kiss me.”
He pinches your chin. “If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve just taken one,” he tells you, looking you straight in the eyes.
“From Superman?” you ask with a little scoff.
He moves his head from left to right. “From me,” he says.
There has been so much to tell him. So little space to hide from him. Lines of books you’d underlined for him, lines for Superman, for both of them. The guilty way you’d watched Clark Kent take off his shirt at the public pool in summer heat and the loop of Superman under your thumb as you’d fallen asleep scrolling SuperClub. You’ve been more honest with him than you’ve dared to be previously.
Clark has repaid you in kind.
Did you know, he’d confessed, when you were still grody from the hospital and he’d demanded you let him stay, that night, that everything I’m good at is because of the sun? I can function without it. I can store up the energy in my cells and I don’t need much to stretch it far, but without the yellow sun, I’m just like you?
How could I know that? you’d thought. Why are you telling me this? you’d asked instead.
I want you to know.
Clark loves the sun, you realise now. He turns his face up to it often, soaking it in silently. He gets this look whenever he stops to take it in. Perfect contentment. Trust, that it will make him feel better.
Clark tilts his chin against yours, nudging your face gently inward, giving you the shortest glimpse of that content stretched across a smile as it presses into yours.
You hyperventilate your way into an open-mouthed, gasping sort of thing, and find Clark a fiercer kisser than you could’ve imagined. All those daydreams about Superman saving you from another day copyediting your own messes, you’d never thought to picture the boy sitting at the desk across from you, how his hand might slide behind your neck like water. How he’d take the breath from your lips and offer his own in a shaky, wanting gasp.
Superman, breathless under your touch. No one would ever believe you.
“Did you want me to tell you how it ends?”
You break away from him, panting, vaguely confused. “Sorry?”
“The Ocean? You never finished it.”
“Oh. Maybe you can read it to me. You know, afterwards.”
Clark grins. “After,” he promises, leaning down for another kiss.
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
thank u Bec for proofreading ur brains are irreplaceable <3 and thank u everyone else for reading!
summary: clark looks sinfully good in his work attire, and you're far too feral for your own well-being.
tags & cw: 18+ MINORS SEE YA, fem afab reader, established relationship (married), the sloppiest of sloppy toppy, deepthroating, slight power exchange, clark whimpering because....well yes, grinding, m and f orgasm
wc: 5.6k of PURE CLARK WORSHIP (you're welcome)
a/n: CLARK UPDATE IS HERE!! it should go without saying that I am a SLUT for men with tucked in shirts, especially when they look like clark fucking kent. y'all seriously can't grasp how fucking feral that look makes me...well, actually, this one shot was born from that horniness so maybe you can, but I digress. anyway, I hope you guys, uh, get as much out of reading this as I did writing it! ☺️
want some more clark content? Check out my clark masterlist!
The evening had started innocently enough.
Clark had gotten off early from the Planet, beating you home and surprising you with a clean apartment and dinner on the stove by the time you walked through the door. He greeted you as he always did, a kiss pressed to your lips, soft smile warm and welcoming as it moved against your mouth. Your eyes were glued to him instantly, like a moth to flame, as he helped you out of your jacket and pressed another sweet kiss to your temple.
While Clark was oblivious to the way your stare followed him around the kitchen, you could think of nothing but the size of his shirt—2XL, fuck—as it stretched across his chest.
Because he was still wearing it. The shirt. The godforsaken Oxford.
Surely there was some sort of scientific, biochemical explanation as to why your nervous system went haywire whenever Clark was in this getup (which he commonly was, it was his work attire for god’s sake)—white Oxford, black slacks with matching cap toes. Cuffs undone, rolled to reveal tantalizing wrists and forearms. Shirt tucked in, because for some unknown reason it was inexplicably more attractive than the unkempt, casual veneer that the untucked look gave off.
His behavior certainly didn’t help, either.
Seeing your husband in his element—his domestic element, that was—did irreparable damage to your insides. You were content to watch him putz in the kitchen, head resting in your chin as he talked to you about his day. Tonight it was something about Jimmy’s failed date last weekend…you think. You aren’t really paying attention. The sinful way his Oxford looks tucked into his work slacks has your undivided attention.
God, those thighs. They’re so massive it’s practically a sin—you want to suffocate between them. His broad shoulders and chest need their own zipcode. And something about his hair after a long shift at work…he didn’t have Superman duties tonight, but his curls are wind-mussed from his stroll home. You adore his glasses, but without them he just looks so…sophisticated. Mature. Good enough to eat.
The thought has you absently gnawing on your lower lip like some kind of sex-crazed fiend.
“—and I told him that’s a bit of a stretch, but what do you think?”
I can think of something else you can stretch.
“Honey?”
You blinked. “Huh?”
He’s turned over his shoulder to look at you, stirring the pot of soup on the stove. Totally oblivious to the way you were blatantly ogling his ass.
“Jimmy’s date, Stephanie? That she’s probably an ‘astrology’ witch, not an actual, like, ‘casting spells’ witch?”
“Oh, uh,” you struggled to recall what he’d been talking about. “Yeah, no. I agree. That’s a bit of a…stretch.”
Blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You didn’t hear a thing I said, did you?”
You were quick to deny it. “No, no. I was listening.”
His mildly amused expression said he didn’t believe you. You watched as his eyes dropped to the poorly concealed grin on your face; you were still chewing on your lip, and there was no mistaking your intent as your gaze moved painstakingly slowly down his body.
Clark took a deep breath.
And turned back to the stove.
Hm. So he was playing coy tonight, then.
“So…your day was good?”
God, his back was truly glorious. You wanted to drag your nails down his shoulder blades as he fucked you into the mattress. Listen to the headboard shake. Grip the downy curls at the nape of his neck as he sucked bruises into your skin.
“I mean…I’ll, uh, I’ll take the silence as a yes?”
How sweet—his voice trembled a bit as he stirred the pot on the stove. Were you making him nervous? Yes, yes you were, you realized with a triumphant grin. You kept quiet, but the silence was deafening.
“You know, Lois was telling me about this cool new art exhibit that’s opening downtown—” the chair scraped across the hardwood as you stood up, “—and she thought you’d like it, since the paintings focus more on realism as it was portrayed in the Renaissance—”
Standing behind him, your forehead could rest just between his shoulder blades—Clark was massive. You looped your arms around his waist, hands finding the two front pockets of his dress pants and sliding into them casually. He didn’t turn to look at you, but you felt his acknowledgment of your presence in the way his spine straightened.
“—so I was thinking we could stop by, maybe next weekend? I know my folks wanted to come visit soon—”
“Mhm. Sure.”
“—but it would be a great little outing! Maybe Ma and Pa would want to go with us?”
You kissed the back of his neck. “Clark.”
“You think they would like it, right? I mean, maybe not Pa, you know how he gets with pretentious people. Not that all artists are pretentious! Just some of the more modern—”
“Clark.”
“Yeah?”
You stood on your tiptoes to nip playfully at his earlobe. “Turn around.”
He obeyed immediately, looking down at you with wide eyes that were anything but innocent. Oh, he absolutely knew what your intentions were. It was unfair—how perfect your Clark was. So beautiful, so big, so tempting that you couldn’t and didn’t want to hold back any longer.
So you didn’t.
The kiss was filthy. Apparently, way filthier than Clark had been expecting, as he let out an adorable squeak of surprise when your tongue immediately sought out his own. His large hands braced on your hips, squeezing tightly as yours slid up his chest before settling on the collar of his shirt. You allowed a moment of silent mourning for the absence of his tie—you loved to drag him around by it, yank him down to your mouth.
But god, the feel of his strong hands—hands you knew could effortlessly lift you onto the counter—made you voracious with need.
You broke away from his lips, leaving him breathless (despite knowing that, realistically, he didn’t need the air, which somehow turned you on even more). Your lips and teeth painted a path across his strong jaw, down the sides of his neck, up behind his ear. Clark melted under your touch, shifting you two slightly over so he could lean back against the countertop rather than the stove. His breath caught when you bit down particularly hard beneath his jaw, desperate to leave a mark that would only last for mere minutes.
“Jesus, sweetheart…” he breathed, hands still gripping your hips as you damn-near attempted to mount him against the kitchen counter.
You pulled back, hands cradling his jaw as you met his eyes, pleased to find them equally as feral as you knew yours looked. “Kiss me,” you said desperately, not giving him time to answer as you smashed your mouths together again.
“I’m…trying…to…hmph!”
He hadn’t been expecting your wandering hands, one of which was presently cupping him through the cotton of his slacks.
“I want to suck you off,” you stated, breathy and bold.
Clark, as you expected he might, made a desperate, whimper-like sound that rumbled from the back of his throat. It almost sounded pained, but you knew him better than that.
“Oh, gosh. You do?” were the half-surprised words that eventually stumbled out.
You almost laughed, barely concealing it behind a grin that you were certain he felt against his lips. You slid your hand lower, squeezing around his balls as you licked back into his mouth. This time he broke the kiss, head thunking against the cabinets as a tremor ran through his body, hips jerking against his will.
“Yes, Clark. I want it so bad.” You let your voice drop into a whisper against his neck as you squeezed him again, “I can feel how badly you need em’ emptied.”
“I—Geez Louise, okay.”
That one made you laugh, a teasing chuckle that you cut off by drawing him back down to your lips. Seeing him this caught off guard was giving you a strange power-trip; your husband was no blushing virgin, but he definitely wasn’t used to you being so vulgar with dirty talk. Usually, surprisingly, it was the other way around—Clark could get you flustered so easily, especially when that deep voice of his was in your ear whispering praises and showering you with affection. And if he used his Superman voice? You were a goner.
It seemed that tonight, however, you had turned the tables.
“Let me help you, baby,” you murmur, rubbing all over the hard length of him. “I can feel how much you need it. It’s making me so wet just thinking about it.”
His protest is weak at best. “Th-the soup…it’s…gonna burn…”
“Put it on simmer.”
You gave him no more time to argue, knees hitting the floor hard enough to bruise. You could tell as much based on Clark’s soft, rushed “baby, careful,” but you were too busy salivating thinking about getting his cock in your mouth to care.
His dress shirt was ripped from his pants, and the sight of his lower belly heaving under your attention was almost enough to make you actually start drooling.
Fuck, you could lick along his happy trail. No, wait, you could, so you did; messily licking and kissing and practically making out with that gorgeous Adonis belt of his, descending lower till you reached the line of his slacks.
Not expecting the heat of your tongue, Clark gasped above you. He was beautifully flushed, eyes saucer-wide and lust-blown. His hands hovered innocently above your shoulders, adorably unsure of where you wanted them as he let you take the lead.
“Golly, honey, what’s gotten into you?”
“This damn shirt, that’s what,” you panted, raking your eyes up his body before locking on his face. It was an effort to force yourself to slow down, wanting to take your time with him despite your ravenous desire to touch touch touch.
Clark looked somewhat mesmerized. “I w-wear these all the time—”
“Exactly.”
He had already tented his slacks, something that your eager cunt was quick to notice as it fluttered between your legs; you forced yourself to stay focused, sliding the black leather of his belt through his pantloops torturously slow.
“Hmm. This the Armani one I got you for Christmas?” you grinned slyly at him.
Clark nodded dumbly. Your eyes dropped to his Adam’s apple as it bobbed in his throat. “Mm…mhm.”
The belt thwipped free and instantly your mouth re-attached to his waistline.
“Open your shirt for me, baby,” you requested breathily. He immediately did as you asked, breath already coming in pants as you watched his fingers tremble to undo the buttons.
Holy shit. He looked too good, Oxford hanging open, glasses tucked into the breast pocket, hair a mess, eyes glazed over. If you didn’t know better, you’d say he looked tipsy at the sight of you.
You continued nipping along his scalding skin as your fingers hooked beneath the waistband of his slacks. You pulled them down so slow that they caught on the ridge of his cock, making his breath hitch before you tugged them just low enough to give you access.
He was desperate and swollen beneath his black boxer briefs, and honestly if you weren’t so turned on the sight might even be a little comical. But alas, you were fairly certain you were soaking through your own underwear, head empty save for thoughts of your husband and his perfect body and his sweet voice and the reverential look in his eyes.
Clark’s hands finally leapt to cradle your head when you leaned forward to nuzzle his clothed erection like you were in heat, mouthing along the fabric and feeling him twitch between the thin barrier of his boxers. Your hands moved to cup his heavy balls again, squeezing gently and earning you the first groan of the evening.
He shifted his weight, hips twitching with thinly-veiled restraint, and it sounded like his brain was short-circuiting. “I– you– hon, you…you don’t have to—”
You pulled back far enough to send him a quirked brow. “You want me to stop?”
Bless his soul, Clark hesitated for a millisecond, piercing blue eyes glued to your face, breathing hard; as if he was really considering it. Then, slowly, he shook his head.
No.
Your grin was wicked. “Didn’t think so.”
“But only if you really wan—”
“Clark Joseph Kent,” you cut him off. “I don’t want anything coming from those pretty lips except my name and the sounds of you feeling good. Got it?”
His head knocked against the cabinets again, eyelids fluttering. “Golly…yes ma’am.”
That shot between your legs faster than a lightning bolt. You sighed in satisfaction as you resumed your exploratory touches, fondling him over his boxers as he fought and failed to keep his breathing level.
You eventually pulled the elastic of his boxers halfway down his stupidly hard cock, exposing little more than the flushed-red tip. Mischief on your mind, you placed chaste little kisses along his sensitive frenulum, relishing in the way his breathing stuttered.
“H-honey,” he rasped.
You looked up at him with eyes of pure sin. “Hm?”
His voice broke around a whine, “please don’t tease.”
Arousal burned between your thighs, in your blood, in your ears.
It was tremendously rare that Clark let you go down on him—he was a giver at heart, both inside the bedroom and out of it. You’d lost count of how many times he’d come, totally untouched, humping the bed like a dog as he made you come over and over on his tongue or fingers.
It was all incredibly flattering, but what truly did it for you was knowing that he liked getting head; loved it in fact, but was entirely willing to shove aside his own pleasure for the sake of yours.
But, much like your adoring husband, sometimes the lines of your respective pleasure intersected; sometimes sucking him off was what you craved, and it was more than enough to satisfy you. No matter how many times he argued that “no, honey; it’s different—it’s easier for me to get there than you,” you aggressively denied it in a vehement desperation to make him feel even half as good as he made you feel.
Which was why you cherished every opportunity to get your mouth on him, and also the reason you didn’t tease him half as long as you probably should’ve as punishment for making you wait to do this again.
His fingers twitched atop your head when you finally dragged his boxers down, freeing his massive cock that flinched against his abdomen. You wrapped a fist around him, offering a few firm strokes as you sought out his eyes.
“You have such a beautiful cock, Clark.” He trembled. “It’s so pretty, and so, so hard for me.”
“Gosh, sweetheart. S’all yours,” he said, voice breathy and uneven. “Please, just—”
“Just what?”
“Just…touch me.”
You tightened your fist on the next upstroke. “I am touching you.”
Oh, how you loved to watch him squirm. “You…you know what I mean—”
“I’m not sure that I do.”
You watched the look on his face when he realized you were going to make him beg for exactly what he wanted.
Clark wasn’t one for profanities, but he sure made your name sound like a curse as he shifted above you, frantic and needy. “Please, I- just…don’t keep teasing me like that—”
You only hummed, letting spit dribble from your mouth onto his leaking slit to loosen the glide of your hand over his dick, which was actively throbbing in your hand. “Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”
His eyes rolled when you suckled gently on his tip. “B-baby…don’t make me beg you to—”
“Say it, Clark. Just tell me.” Your free hand returning to fondle his balls is what finally did it.
“Your mouth!” he blurted at last. “Pleasepleaseplease. Just put your mouth on me. N-need it so bad—”
“Okay. Was that so hard?”
You were true to your word, swallowing as much of him as was humanly possible in one go, a move Clark clearly had not anticipated given the groan that bellowed from his chest and the way his fingers curled in your hair. When you looked up at him, he was slack-jawed and breathing like he’d run a marathon, chest heaving beneath his open shirt.
Much like the rest of him, Clark’s cock was huge—not, like, disproportionately huge, but enough that it was a struggle to take him even on your best days. Clark knew this—hell, he’d spent years married to you and had long since learned how to prepare you for him—but it was a struggle no less to take him as far down your throat as you wanted to.
But given the heavy manner in which he was already breathing, you were determined to deepthroat him tonight, even if only for a few seconds.
You inhaled, forcing yourself to suppress the gag in your throat as you did your best to take him as far as your body would allow.
“Baby,” Clark was whining sharply, “oh gosh, baby. That…thatfeelssogood b-but please be careful—”
As if on cue, your throat unwillingly constricted around him as you gagged, effectively cutting Clark off with his own groan. You could sense the concern in him without even needing to see it on his face; in an attempt to distract him you suctioned your mouth, dragging his cock out halfway to lave your tongue along its sensitive underside, tracing the pulsing vein that wrapped around his shaft.
It worked like a treat as his hips jerked, lower pelvic muscles twitching directly in your line of sight as he shuddered.
He was so fucking perfect you could hardly believe he was real, that he was your husband who loved you and came home to you every night and cooked you dinner and helped with the laundry and wanted to take you to art museums because he knew you loved them.
“You’re so pretty,” he breathed down at you, incapable of not praising you when you were treating him like this. The praise washed over you, and if your underwear wasn’t soaked before it sure as hell was now. “Gosh, honey. D-don’t know what I did to deserve this, but…”
You pulled off of him to catch your breath, but kept your hand pumping him lazily. “Just being you,” you breathed. “It’s just you, Clark.”
For some reason this seemed to affect him more than you thought it would, his eyes swelling with a sudden surge of affection that one might not normally expect when giving a blowjob.
But your Clark was a teddy bear at heart, his innermost parts soft and gooey and sweet like melted chocolate. Even in the midst of lust he didn’t know how to turn that part of himself off, and you never wanted him to.
You let your saliva drip down onto the wet length of him, holding his gaze and watching it re-glaze with unbidden desire. His eyes fluttered when you squeezed just beneath the tip, letting your tongue do the rest of the work as it circled his frenulum.
“Yesss sweetheart,” he hissed, breath stuttering. “That’s…oh, honey. That’s so good. Gosh, you’re so perfect.”
His praise forced a low whine from the back of your throat, the sound vibrating over his length and making him shudder. He relaxed his hold on your hair, running his fingers through it in a gesture so frighteningly tender that you momentarily forgot you were actively sucking him off.
“Mmm…I know you like it when I talk to you like that. It’s all true, you know. You’re so perfect for me.”
Feeling encouraged and oddly heartwarmed, you slowly built the tempo back up, taking him down halfway and jerking off whatever didn’t fit with your fist. You got unapologetically messy with it, knowing the vulgarity of your actions would spark something feral in Clark because, yes, he is still a man, and the sight of his wife slobbering all over his dick with absolutely zero shame was definitely emptying his brain.
If you were honest, it was surprising both of you how obscene you were being; but if the wetness between your thighs and the state of his cock were anything to go by, there were certainly no objections.
One hand continued to grope his balls, swollen with need and begging for attention that made Clark whine deliciously when you massaged them. Your other hand finally moved to grip the wrist of the fist that was still ensnared in your hair, tugging on it so as to encourage him to guide your movements.
Clark took your wordless command in stride, leaving you to wonder when exactly the power dynamic had shifted, and also why you were completely content to let it happen.
Actually, you knew the answer to that.
Clark’s dominance had always been gentle; far sweeter than what you might’ve expected from the Man of Steel. He was so good to you that you were almost always willing—perhaps even subconsciously—to hand over the reins during sex. Even though this encounter had started with you in charge, it became obvious as his hand fisted gently in your hair, guiding your movements over his throbbing dick, that things had changed, even if he was content to let you believe otherwise.
Thankfully though, he didn’t stop whimpering for you, which you were eternally grateful for.
“S-so pretty. You’re so beautiful. Mmm. Takin’ me like this, makin’ me feel so good.”
On the next forward motion, you slid as deep as you could, attempting to deepthroat him yet again and this time succeeding. Your nails on his thigh were enough to reassure him of your comfort, so Clark held you there, his grip firm as he panted down at you.
“Gosh, honey. Look at you.”
You retracted for air, messily tonguing around his sensitive tip. “Use me,” you demanded, voice just this side of raw from the intrusion of his cock. “Please, Clark, please.”
“Honey,” there was worry in his tone, but also underlying need. His cock throbbed in your hands. “Are you…are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t, I promise,” you soothed, peppering kisses up and down those massive thighs of his. “It’s nothing we haven’t done before.”
“I know, but…” he trailed off, brows furrowed, hesitation tight across his face.
“Clark,” you said sternly. “I’m asking you to. Please?”
His breathless nod was all the answer you received before his fingers tightened in your hair. That alone was enough to have you moaning in preemptive bliss, letting your jaw go slack, tongue lolling out of your mouth. Clark teased your lips with his head, tapping it gently against your tongue as you shifted your weight around on your knees. Your poor pussy was desperate for attention, your entire body wrought with energy like a live wire.
When he finally pushed his cock into your mouth, it was with a low groan that sent what you would equate to an electrical current between your legs. Staying true to his word and your demand, Clark readily took control, moving your head back and forth, back and forth, nice and slow at first. But his need eventually won out, as it so often did with you, and soon thereafter he was panting as he guided your hot mouth over his cock, hips building a rhythm that matched the bobbing of your head.
“O-oh, honey. That’s- mm. So fu–” he broke off on a low moan when you hollowed your cheeks on the next stroke. “Yes baby, suck it like that. Gosh, y-you’re so pretty and perfect like this f’me…”
Your hands stroked up and down his powerful thighs, squeezing every so often just as a way to stimulate other parts of his body. Clark regarded you with an admiration only he was capable of, even with his cock shoved halfway down your throat.
“My beautiful wife. You love worshipping this cock, don’t you sweetheart?”
The unexpected filth of his words draws a moan from your chest. Clark hums, obviously satisfied at the sensation it provided around his dick. And then he fucking grins, something just shy of smug as he listens to your little mewls.
“Mhm. Yeah, I know you do, hon. Got yourself all worked up for me, desperate to use that pretty mouth.”
Clark’s pace began to pick up, his hips getting sharper in their movement as you made a conscious effort to keep your throat loose. Saliva was dripping down your chin, escaping from the sides of your mouth; the sounds his cock was making between your lips was lewd, succeeding in winding you up even more as Clark started to chase his pleasure.
You sucked around him a few more times, nails biting into his slacks as you silently urged him along. The noise that came out of him then was strangled. “Oh…sweetheart, I’m close,” he stammered, tugging on your hair in warning as his hips kept pumping. “I- honey, m’gonna come– gosh, can I– where do you wan’ me to—”
The simple fact that you ignored his warning was sufficient enough of an answer.
This realization is what seemed to push Clark over the edge, a beautiful shudder wracking his wide frame as he came with a whimper so sharp and so whiny that you almost orgasmed too, your pussy so swollen and aching with neglect that you involuntarily clenched your thighs. Clark’s grip on your hair tightened just a fraction, guiding your mouth over his pulsing dick. His eyes were blazing down at you, the frantic expansion of his lungs making his chest rise and fall beneath his open shirt. His signature Superman curl had fallen in front of his eye.
You swallowed everything he had eagerly—and there was a lot to be had—making pleased little noises as his come slid down your throat.
“Ohhh, gosh, yes,” Clark moaned in relief. “Mm. Mm, that’s so good. Oh, gosh. You’re too good to me baby.” His fist finally went lax in your hair, fingers soothing through it in reassuring caresses as his hips moved in tiny thrusts, seeking that last bit of sensation. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Then he was guiding you to stand, hands gentle yet insistent on your shoulders. You stood, unable to help the satisfied little grin on your face as you tucked him back into his boxers and readjusted his pants. You bit your lip as the zzzip of his pants being done up filled the space between you. You gave his crotch one last little tap, a smug grin of your own forming on your face.
Clark was still a little spaced out, lips parted as he watched you with hooded eyes. You gave him a peck on the nose, and it seemed to break whatever trance he was in. He fell forward, hands cradling your face, and kissed you deeply.
Knowing he could probably taste himself on your tongue reminded you of your own insistent arousal, and you moaned into the kiss, struggling to keep up.
“Thank you,” he said when he finally allowed you oxygen. He pressed his forehead into yours, “you’re incredible, sweetheart. If I had known my dress shirts affected you this much—”
“Oh, don’t act all innocent,” you said. “You absolutely know what they do to me.”
His mischievous little grin confirmed your suspicion. “Okay, yeah. Maybe I have somewhat of an idea.”
Clark kissed you again, his hands travelling down your sides to rest at the hem of your own work slacks. You couldn’t help the way your body arched against his; his question was clear.
“Let me…?”
“If you want to.” It was a stupid thing to say, really.
“Of course I want to, baby.”
You yelped in surprise when he lifted you effortlessly into his arms, backing you up until you were seated on the island counter. Now at eye level, you could more thoroughly enjoy his handsome dimples as he smiled softly before leaning in for a slow kiss.
“Least I could do is return the favor after that.” His voice dipped low in a way that made your gut tighten with need. He was dangerously close to using that voice. “Besides, you think I didn’t notice how tightly you were clenching your thighs, sweetheart? And even if I didn’t, you forget that I can smell how much you need me.”
“Fuck, Clark…” you whined when his fingers ghosted between your legs, rubbing along the seam of your slacks.
“Mmm, that’s it. Bet you could come just from this, huh?” He pulled back just enough to watch your expressions, blue eyes alight with desperation and something far deeper. You could feel his breath across your cheek. “Just some pressure, baby? Yeah? Does that feel good? You’re so worked up for me, honey.”
You couldn’t form a coherent thought. It was like a switch had gone on off in Clark in some lust-addled, post-orgasmic glow. Honestly, screw him for being this irresistable; for making you so goddamn easy for him. Didn’t this start with you seducing him? You were such an easy lay when it came to Clark that it would’ve been humiliating if you hadn’t been married for several years.
He added his whole palm now, giant hand pressing up and down the length of your searing center, palming the entire area of your sensitive clit. It was simple pressure—something firm and real to grind your pussy against, and it was making your head fuzzy with the pleasure of it. You were certain he could feel some of your wetness beginning to seep through the fabric, which was only slightly mortifying—your panties were definitely a lost cause if that were the case.
Perhaps more unbelievable was that yes, you were indeed about to come from simply grinding on his hand between two layers of clothing. Your fingers flew to the bicep of the arm that wasn’t currently flexing between your legs, nails digging into the white sleeve of his Oxford, making you remember just exactly what had gotten you into this predicament in the first place.
Your greedy eyes honed in on your husband, in such close proximity to you; his broad shoulders and strong chest, the soft suggestion of farm-built muscle peeking between that godforsaken shirt. Embarrassingly, seeing his uncuffed sleeves is what pushes you over. Something about the delicious blend of professional and unkempt; the implication of propriety that came with his pristine office attire contrasted against his unruly curls, perspirated face, and borderline slutty forearms.
“G-god, Clark, m’gonna co– I–” You try to warn him, but it’s pointless.
Clark leaned down, free hand caging you into his body as it rested on the countertop beside you. He nuzzled his face into your neck so that his words were a breath right against your ear. “Come for me, Mrs. Kent. Just like that, baby. Let it happen.”
You shook against him, a broken cry falling from your lips as your body finally found its peak. Clark worked you through it, lips pressing kisses against your neck between words.
So good, baby. There we go. You’re so perfect. I love you so much. That’s it, honey…breathe through it, let yourself feel good.
He continued to hold you, hand finally stilling when the twitch of your hips signaled the dip into oversensitivity. You withdrew him from your neck when your pulse had somewhat settled, cradling the back of his skull. Now, it was your turn to smile at him, sated and lazy, fingers scratching soothingly at his nape. Your kiss was finally slow, almost chaste, nothing more than a tired exchange of gratitude.
“The soup,” you halfheartedly mention when you part.
“It’s simmering, it should be fine.” Clark had already preoccupied himself with hugging you as close as physically possible. Almost subconsciously, your legs wrapped around his waist, inviting him closer as he sank into your embrace against the countertop. Your body bowed backwards slightly as he leaned into you, making you giggle at how cuddly he always got post-coitus.
One of his hands rose to your neck, absently stroking the front of your throat in a tender caress. Worry colored his next words. “I didn’t hurt you, right?”
“No, baby,” you reassured him, hands running the length of his back. Your heart swelled with warmth at the concern in his voice. Clark, your gentle giant—capable of crushing planets and he was worried about a little deepthroating. “I would have told you. You know I would’ve.”
He hummed, and though you could tell he wasn’t totally satisfied with your answer he also trusted your word.
“I love you.” He rubbed his face against your neck affectionately and you squirmed at the feel of his five o’clock shadow.
“You better,” you teased, running your fingers through his inky hair. “Though, to be fair, you could probably get me to do just about anything as long as you’re wearing this shirt. Tucked in, of course. Cuffs undone, hair a mess. God, Clark. How are you so perfect?”
He smothered your neck and cheek with kisses, drawing another giggle from you. “Well. I don’t know, but I feel the same way about you, if it’s any comfort.” Clark inhaled sharply, “especially when you wear that one dress. The one with—”
“The open back?”
“Mm. Yes.”
You laugh, ruffling his curls before pecking him on the lips. “I love you so ridiculously much, Clark Kent.”
“That’s good,” he kissed your nose. “Because I was lying. The white bean and sausage soup is definitely burning.”
