i loved her first
summary: your father did everything for you. because of it, the men in your life had called you spoilt, unreasonable, a girl with unrealistic expectations. after years of heartbreak and disappointment, you start to believe them- until clark kent proves that love can be gentle, steadfast, and safe enough to let yourself fully trust it.
clark kent x fem ! reader
themes: tooth rotting fluff, whatever the opposite of daddy issues is, clark being so sweet and domestic. princess treatment, reader being oh so wonderfully loved, very feel good. enjoy! xx
Your father would do anything for you.
From the second you were born, you had zero need to lift a single finger. Your shoes were always tied. Ice cream always scooped. When the rhinestones started falling off your favourite bejewelled headband, it was replaced within a matter of minutes.
By the age of fifteen, you had your own personal chaffeur. He'd drive you around the block with a big grin and a janky car that rattled when it turned, while your mom watched proudly from the living room window.
He loved her too, of course. So very much. Sometimes, they'd go about their day and you'd just smile and watch them; how he spun her around the kitchen table, the giggles that fell from her lips, the open bills forgotten on the table right next to them. None of them mattered. They ceased to exist the second they laid their eyes on one another.
He'd kiss her cheek, ruffle your hair, call you both his best girls.
You told yourself it was a love you wanted one day- when you were a little bit older maybe, when the right man finally came along. Your father showed you best how a woman should be treated; made it so that princess treatment wasn't a 'luxury' to you, nor would it ever be.
It was a god-given, fully expected birthright.
However, little girls had to grow up sometime.
So when twenty-two finally came, and you packed your bags and headed off to the big city of Metropolis- your father's tearful wave accompanying the faint smell of smoke that always clung to him in the hug goodbye- you simply didn't have it in you to prepare for the dangers ahead.
"You call me if you need a thing," he said gruffly, though the tears in his vision contrasted his voice completely. You nodded, falling into yet another tearful hug, "Don't be a stranger."
You tried.
But- as expected- life took over. You got busy. You'd still call, but visited far less frequently.
And the downside to previously having such a loving dynamic followed you right through adulthood.
The deadbeat boyfriends that you trusted, the almost-fiancé that only wanted a ring on your finger for the status. They took your naivety as gospel and used it to load their pistols of incompetence; missed dinners, connections to their exes, coersion.
How could they be so awful, when your father had only ever shown you the kind side to men? How did you accumulate so many horrible dates, land in so many awful situations that would have the man who raised you barrelling down the freeway with narrowed eyes and anger emcompassing every acceleration?
Your first situationship wasn't real. It was experience.
Your first ever boyfriend didn't like you. He liked the idea of you.
And your second boyfriend-turned-fiancé had none of the qualities you wanted in a partner. So when he came home one day, excited over colour swatches and bouqets for a wedding you just couldn't envision- well, you broke it off. Right then and there.
Because he'd never proven himself, not really. And you needed that proof like your very existence needed oxygen.
He never opened doors for you, never bothered to memorise your coffee order. The vanity you bought months and months ago sat untouched, collecting dust at the corner of the room because he'd promised to put it together one day and just... never did.
Your father would have. He would have driven the whole twelve hours down to central, just to get his hands on a hammer and a nail, and you'd be powdering your face in a fresh mirror within minutes.
So, you took a leap of faith and ended the three year relationship. You moved out into your own studio apartment right in the heart of Metropolis, a few blocks away from all your favourite places.
You thought, maybe love just wasn't for you. Perhaps there was something wrong with you that meant nothing human would ever measure up. Or perhaps, you winced, you truly were as spoilt as your many exes had accused you of being.
"Daddy's girl." your first one had scoffed.
"Ain't ever gonna land a good man with that attitude," the second one spat.
"How... but... I-I did everything right." the third lied tearfully.
But then, just when you started to lower your expectations and announce to the world that you were finally giving up on finding the perfect man, you met him.
Clark.
Clark Kent.
And everything those horrible exes had tried to convince you that you were flew entirely out of the window.
He was soft, sweet. You both met on a rainy day in July, the water warm and faint, making everything smell like fresh air and ozone.
"Oh! I'm sorry-" you blushed, your body bumping against his as you failed to watch where you were going.
"No, no- that's alright," his smile was kind. Patient. The type of smile to base a frequent daydream off of. "Please, after you."
"Thank you."
He'd held the door to the café open for you to walk inside, watching quietly as you claimed your seat in the corner of the lobby before going up to order yourself a drink.
Clark got his first. He paid for yours in advance, tipping the barista 40%, before slipping unannounced straight back out of the door.
When you finally decided on an oat milk vanilla latte, he was gone.
The second time you met him, the key to your apartment had jammed in the lock, and you'd gone back down to the lobby to ask someone for help.
And for some reason, the kind man from the coffee shop was right there; only just about to get in the elevator, when he caught your eye and once again, let you in first.
You were neighbours, would you believe? A few floors apart, sure, but living in the same building regardless.
What were the chances? You made a mental note to thank him for your coffee another time, hopefully on a better day under happier circumstances.
"How's your morning been?" he asked you politely.
On a good day, you typically wouldn't overshare- it was just super unfortunate that he happened to catch you on a very, very, very bad day.
So naturally, you told him everything.
How the wind had ruined your hair the very second you stepped out of the building to go to work; how none of the emails you'd sent made any sense, and how your lunch was gross despite the fact that you always got the same thing. Then finally, how you came home absolutely exhausted and still, your key got stuck- with nobody in reception willing to lend a helping hand.
"It's a couple hundred dollars for a locksmith," Clark's eyebrows raised, in a slightly stunned way that would have had you blushing if you weren't already so frustrated. "I'm not one, but... I could take a look? If you'd like? I grew up on a farm, and we had these old fashioned keys that'd get jammed all the time... I know my way around a keyhole."
You tried not to let the surprise on your face show. You didn't have to beg, plead, barter for this man to help you out- he just did, wanted to, for seemingly nothing in return.
And you weren't even acquiantances, let alone friends. He owed you nothing and still, came to your floor and jimmied the key right out. No struggle, no sighs of exasperation to make you feel bad- just a pleased smile and a twinkle in his beautiful blue eyes.
"There," he grinned, plopping it in your palm carefully, "All fixed."
You thanked him, weak at the knees. It was then that you realised just how gorgeous Clark really was- if it wasn't the baby blues, it was the smile, the dimples in his cheeks and the impressive way his shoulders filled out the dress shirt he wore.
But most importantly, he was kind.
That just made him all the more stunning.
You ran into each other for a while. Often in the elevator, and afterwards he'd walk you to your door like it was midnight in Gotham. Never asking to be invited in, just happy to speak to you for an extra twenty seconds of his day.
When you did eventually muster up enough courage to ask him to come inside, you had no idea what you were in for. Truly.
Because that one cup of decaf coffee turned into multiple. It turned into dinner under the lowlight of your apartment (a thanks for the coffee he'd bought weeks ago) and another dinner a couple of weeks later at Clark's penthouse (a thanks for your thanks for the coffee he'd bought a month ago), right at the top of the building you both shared.
Naturally, it turned into something more.
A drawer at his, a space at yours. Two toothbrushes in both bathrooms, one tube of toothpaste. Your mugs began to invade his cupboard space, amended articles with his neat handwriting filling your coffee table.
So when Clark asked you to be his girlfriend four months after your first official date, of course, you said yes. Because by then, you already knew.
He wasn't like the others. They were boys, silly little things that knew nothing of what it meant to really, truly love someone.
But Clark did.
He remembered everything about you, not even just the important stuff like what you didn't like and what you loved- he remembered the exact way you liked your clothes folded, your skincare routine, how you hated cobblestone paths because it made your footing uneven. You were a carefully penned article, one that he was determined to memorise.
Clark never made you feel like you were asking for too much. If anything, he made you feel like you deserved it all and more.
The bookshelf arrived on a Tuesday afternoon.
It came in a flat-packed cardboard box that was nearly as tall as you were, dropped unceremoniously in the hallway outside your apartment by a delivery man who barely spared you a glance before disappearing back into the elevator.
"Delivery for ya, little lady."
You stared at it for a long moment.
Clark was working late at the Planet. He had texted you that morning, a bunch of emojis clouding his gentle words of, Don’t wait up, honey. Perry’s got us chasing three different stories today.
You told him to take his time. Said you’d order takeout, enough for him to come home to, and curl up with a book.
Instead, you dragged the box inside.
It started innocently enough. A pair of scissors slicing through packing tape. The rustle of protective styrofoam that went everywhere and made you huff. Instruction manuals unfolding like complicated maps written in languages you only half understood.
"God." you muttered miserably, narrowed eyes glaring at the box with vice.
By step four, you were sweating.
For step six, you had somehow assembled two panels backwards. Step nine wasn't any better, because that was when the screwdriver slipped in your grip and your knuckles slammed hard against the unfinished wood.
You hissed, sucking in air through your teeth, blinking rapidly as tears pricked your vision. A thin line of red blossomed across your skin.
It wasn’t even the pain that made your chest tighten. It was the echo of a memory.
A different apartment. A different box. A different man sighing loudly from the couch while scrolling through his phone, irritation dripping from every exhale as you asked, softly, if he could help you assemble the vanity he’d promised to build weeks ago.
In a minute.
After this game.
Why can’t you just do it yourself?
It had taken you three weeks of gentle reminders and swallowed pride before he finally assembled it- muttering the entire time like your request was a personal inconvenience. Only to drop to one knee a couple of months later, claims of you being the love of his life dripping from his mouth like venom.
The screwdriver clattered from your hand. You tried again anyway, because who else was going to do it?
Clark found you sitting cross-legged on the floor when he finally came home, surrounded by wooden panels, scattered screws, and instructions wrinkled beyond recognition. The bookshelf leaned precariously against the wall, uneven and half-assembled like it might collapse if someone breathed too hard.
The smile on his face dropped, gaze trailing down your arm to your hand, wrapped clumsily in paper towels speckled pink.
He froze in the doorway.
"Honey?"
You looked up, offering a sheepish smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. "Hi."
His eyes flicked between the blood, the mess, the lopsided shelf, and something inside his expression shifted. Not anger- never anger with your sweet, careful Clark- but a quiet, wounded confusion that hit you harder than you thought it would.
"…Why wouldn’t you ask me to do it?" the softness in his voice made your throat tighten.
You shrugged, suddenly fascinated by the carpet fibres beneath your fingertips. "You were working. I didn’t want to bother you."
Clark set his bag down slowly, carefully, like sudden movements might shatter something fragile between you.
"You’re never a bother," he said gently, kneeling in front of you. His large hands hovered near yours before carefully taking your wrist, inspecting the cut with such delicate concentration it made your chest ache. “Does this hurt?”
"Not really."
It did. Just not in the way he meant.
So, you explained it to him.
The string of bad exes. The sighs of annoyance that used to follow your requests like thunder chasing lightning. The vanity you once loved and now hated because it took weeks of quiet grovelling just to convince someone who supposedly loved you to build it.
The slow, creeping shame that made you believe asking for help meant being difficult. Being high maintenance. Being too much.
"I just..." you winced, "I just got so used to my dad doing everything for me. I'm sorry."
Clark listened to every word.
"You never have to be sorry for that," he told you gently, reaching a warm hand out to soothe you. "All it means is that you grew up knowing what real love looks like."
You went quiet for a bit, not really knowing what to say back. Never in your life had you told a man about your dad and been met with anything other than an eye-roll or a raised eyebrow.
"I’m not like them," he then said, softly.
You swallowed.
"I said I’d take care of you," he continued, his thumb ghosting across your knuckles with careful tenderness. "Let me take care of you."
There was no arrogance in it, no possessiveness. Just quiet certainty, like gravity. Like sunrise. Like truths that simply existed without needing to be proven.
And then, because your ever-loving boyfriend was Clark Kent, he kissed your injured hand like it was the most natural thing in the world before standing up, rolling his sleeves to his elbows, and assembling the entire bookshelf in under thirty minutes.
"Take a seat, baby," he cleared the couch of instruction manuals and nails for you, "Relax for me, okay?"
You didn’t question how he managed it so quickly. You just watched him, warmth blooming in your chest like something long frozen had finally begun to thaw.
It reminded you of home. Of laughter spilling from kitchen walls, smoke clinging to familiar flannel, strong hands that had spent your entire life making the world feel softer around the edges.
And maybe that was why the next step felt less like a choice and more like destiny.
Meeting your father was… inevitable.
Terrifying for both of you, but inevitable.
Clark ironed three different shirts before settling on the blue one you told him brought out his eyes. He rehearsed greetings under his breath. He even brought flowers for your mother, even though she’d insisted repeatedly over the phone that it wasn’t necessary.
"We just want you both here, safe!" she chirped happily. Even so, you still felt like throwing up and Clark was still ruffling a nervous hand through his unruly hair.
Your father opened the door with that same familiar scent of cedar clinging to him, his pose rigid, still protective, still the safest place you’d ever known. He sized Clark up in less than three seconds.
Clark extended his hand immediately.
"Sir," he nodded slowly, "it’s an honour to finally meet you."
Your father gripped his hand firmly, gaze sharp but not unkind. When he spoke, you felt your boyfriend loosen up a little, though the dread was still apparent in the way he stayed a respectable distance away from you.
"Any man willing to drive six hours just to make sure my daughter doesn’t travel alone already gets a few points in my book." your father replied.
Dinner was loud. Warm. Filled with overlapping stories and constant laughter that bounced off the four walls you'd grown up in. You watched them carefully, nervously, but it didn’t take long before your shoulders relaxed.
Because your father refilled your glass without a word.
And Clark draped a neatly folded napkin across your lap, a soft smile brushing your lips before he turned back to your mother’s story.
When your plate ran low, your father quietly spooned more onto it, telling the story of the day you were born as if the two moments were on- care and memory intertwined.
And then Clark, silently, took the cherries from his own dessert and placed them on yours, his fingers brushing yours just enough for you to notice, your favourite part of a favourite thing now doubled.
Together, wordlessly, seemingly without noticing- they moved around you like two steady orbits around the same sun.
By the end of the evening, you wandered toward the living room while they insisted on washing up. You meant to help, but your footsteps slowed when you heard your father’s voice through the kitchen doorway.
He handed Clark the final dish, water dripping from his hands.
"I know you’re a good man," your father said quietly. "And I trust you’ll take care of her. But please… if anything ever changes. If you ever feel different… don’t hurt her."
Silence stretched for a moment.
"Just bring her back to me."
You peeked around the corner just enough to see Clark swallow, his shoulders straightening with quiet resolve.
"Yes, sir," he said, steadily.
"But please... believe me. I would never hurt her. I wouldn’t even think of it."
Your father nodded once, satisfied. You pressed your hand against your mouth, blinking rapidly as emotion swelled behind your ribs.
And Clark was right. He never hurt you. Never even came close.
Not even when he finally told you he was Superman.
He confessed on a quiet evening, glasses set carefully on the coffee table between you like a confession waiting to breathe. His voice trembled in a way you’d never heard before, words tumbling out in uneven fragments about responsibility and fear and how loving you had become both the bravest and most terrifying thing he’d ever done.
You listened. You watched the man you loved stand before you stripped bare- not of strength, but of certainty.
You forgave him before he even finished explaining.
Because deep, deep down, you believed that you had always known.
Maybe not consciously. Maybe not in ways you could put into words. But the late nights, the impossible saves. The way he sometimes looked at the sky like it was calling him home, the sirens that alerted him more than they should.
You loved Clark Kent. And in turn, you were also in love with Superman.
It didn’t change the way he warmed your side of the bed before you climbed in, or how he held all eight grocery bags in one hand and yours in the other. It didn’t change the way he still insisted on tying your shoelaces if he noticed they were loose, dropping down on the busy pavement just to provide you some ease.
If anything, it only deepened your understanding of how extraordinary it was that someone capable of carrying the world still chose to come home and carry you, too.
Years passed.
The love- as well as the space- that you both shared, grew.
Two apartments turned into just one, and that one apartment became a four bedroom house just outside of the city; one bought with a nursery and young child's bedroom in mind one day.
Your wedding day smelled like fresh flowers and nervous anticipation.
Your father’s arm trembled slightly where it linked through yours as he walked you down the aisle, though whether from emotion or age, you couldn’t tell. You clutched him tighter, grounding yourself in the steady rhythm of his steps.
Clark waited at the altar, eyes glassy, smile already breaking across his face like dawn spilling over the horizon. His good friend Jimmy sobbed into a napkin, Lois right next to him hissing to pull it together- though you could see it too, the glossiness in her piercing blue eyes.
Halfway down the aisle, your father leaned closer.
"I loved you first," he whispered, voice thick with unshed tears.
"I know," you whispered back, hoping for a joke, hoping for a threat towards the only man in the world you knew he'd ever approve of. Anything to ease the nerves, the dread of everyone's eyes on you.
But instead, your father nodded towards where Clark stood, voice barely a croak.
"And now, he gets to love you forever."
Your chest squeezed painfully, beautifully, as he placed your hand into Clark’s waiting one.
Clark held it like something sacred, irreplaceable, something he would protect with everything he was and still had yet to be.
Your father pressed a kiss to your forehead before stepping back, pride and heartbreak and joy colliding in his eyes all at once. When the officiant began to speak, and you caught Clark's eyes boring so lovingly into your own, it was then that you fully realised.
You were never impossible to love.
And it was never that your expectations were too high.
You were simply raised knowing what love looked like when it was done right- when it showed up without being asked, when it stayed without being begged, when it took care without making you feel guilty for needing it.
Clark never tried to compete with the love you grew up with. Never tried to make you feel smaller for wanting it to last forever. He never asked you to unlearn the gentleness your father built your world around, or reshape yourself into something easier to hold.
Instead, he treated it like something special, something worth protecting. Something worth proving, day after day, that it could exist outside childhood memories and smoke-scented hugs goodbye.
And in the end, he never tried to stand where your father had. He simply stepped in beside him, honoured- ready to continue the love that raised you.
i cried a little while writing this. hope you're all doing amazingly !! so so happy to be back xx
