earth angel (will you be mine?) (superman x reader)
pairing: corenswet!clark kent/superman x reader
summary: ever since superman crashed through the window of your apartment whilst fighting one of lex luthor’s latest creations, injured and bleeding, he’d become taken with you. maybe it was the partial concussion and broken ribs, but he believed you were the most pretty thing he’d ever seen, and he’s done nothing but think about you since.
tags: yearner!superman, friends to lovers, eventual identity exposure. steady love progression and an awkward confession, but there’s kinda sorta a bit of miscommunication/misunderstanding. once again idk what’s like comic accurate bc i’ve never read them so don’t flame me for anything that’s incorrect lol
warning(s): injuries, blood, mentions of drinking, ref to stalking but in a more joking way, slight sexual implications (?) etc.
word count: ~6.6k
notes: gender neutral reader, no use of y/n, spoilers for superman (2025). i hope y’all enjoy this as much as the last one :) this has been a long time in the making, school was killing me augh;;;; but i hope to write more this summer!
You considered yourself to be an average person.
Rentee of a standard size apartment on the upper west side of Metropolis, owner of an orange cat with a feisty personality, and a steady job as an office worker at a law firm downtown. A smart, easy life. Something simple.
You hadn’t expected all of that to be uprooted at 8:33 p.m. on a random Tuesday.
Your dinner plate rested on the coffee table, your brown and white striped sock-footed feet resting beside it on the smooth glass surface. Your cat, Jonesy, lounged in your lap, purring softly as your fingers found the curve of his jaw.
Your phone was tucked in your free hand, brightness echoing through the darkness of your apartment. The only other light emanated from over the oven in the kitchen behind you.
Your fingers tapped at the screen, mindlessly scrolling through whatever was latest on your Instagram feed — news articles about Lex Luthor’s latest inventions, conflicts overseas, film reviews.
You sighed, dropping your phone into your lap. Rubbing your cat’s head with a soft murmur, you flicked your gaze over to the remote tucked at the edge of the couch, lazily turning the TV on.
You raised a hand to scrub the exhaustion from your eyes, blinking at the sudden emergency news report that filled your vision.
Blue and red streaks flit across the screen, broken up by sounds of screaming and the babble of a news reporter, scrambling to describe the chaotic scene. Superman, again, toe-to-toe with another one of Lex Luthor’s random test subjects. A new, faux human sent to, for lack of a better term, beat Superman’s ass.
You leaned forward, disturbing your cat’s restful slumber as he made a grumble noise in the back of his throat, the little bell on his collar jingling as he stalked away into another room.
You tilted your head, wondering if your eyes were playing tricks on you as Superman was thrown into the front window of your favorite bagel place down the street. He couldn’t be that close, could he?
You were still trying to figure it out when a similar splintering of glass came from your left, followed by the sound of your own distant yell, your thigh bumping against the table leg as you scrambled off the couch.
When the ringing in your ears settled, you peeked around the edge of the couch cushion.
Superman himself, the famed hero of Metropolis — even broader, all of the world — and a frequent subject in The Daily Planet’s prose, had just crashed through your apartment window.
His breathing appeared slow, chest rising and falling unevenly on his right side. You steeled yourself, crawling across the floor towards him, avoiding the broken glass scattered across the pale hardwood of your living room.
Someone you’d only seen in news reports and on your timeline in the form of 30 second video clips, someone you kept tabs on like he was your close, personal friend, was now laying in the center of your apartment.
Your hands met his cheek, shaking him slightly, and his bright eyes flicked open. He groaned, trying to sit up, wincing at the pain in his chest.
“No, no,” you heard yourself murmur. “I’m not sure if you should sit up right now. You might be concussed.”
He let out a noncommittal hum, something soft and pinched, his expression screwing into something much too close to pain for someone you thought was invincible.
“You a doctor?” He managed, raising an eyebrow despite his closed eyes.
“Um, no. Just a.. I’m just an assistant. At the law firm a few blocks from here.”
He hummed, as if the thought was somehow amusing to him. He seemed less.. Superman-ly. More human. It clung to the tightness around his eyes, to the tension in his frame as he let out a loose breath. He sat up slowly, heavy hand resting on your shoulder.
“Just is a lousy word. It’s something people only say when they’re trying to diminish themselves.”
He blinked, the action seemingly taking a large amount of effort as his eyes peeled open.
Your face filled his vision, bathed in half-light. He studied the way your hair smoothed over your jaw, the dip of your nose, the sparkle in your eyes. Concern bit at your expression, the faintest of pricks between your furrowed brows. He wanted to smooth out the crease with the calloused pad of his finger.
He swallowed. Golly.
Maybe it was the ringing in his ears or the throbbing ache between his temples, but he suddenly found it hard to breathe in a way that had nothing to do with getting slammed through a 24-inch window.
You tilted your head, gaze traveling along him with a small twist of curiosity.
“You okay?” You asked.
He raised a hand to his head, still-warm blood pressing to his fingers. He forced himself to nod.
“Yes, yeah — I’m alright. Just..” He trailed off, wiping his fingers off on a torn edge of his suit. His hand was shaking a little, you noticed.
He stood, possibly a little too quickly judging by the way he teetered on his feet, making his way to the gaping hole in your apartment windows. The wind ruffled the blood-slicked planes of his curls, glass crunching beneath his boots.
“I’ll pay to replace.. this,” he said, vaguely gesturing — as if words couldn’t capture the damage. Then, he was gone. A flash of blue and red disappearing into the dark expanse of the sky.
Going back to work for the rest of the week wasn’t exactly easy. Especially not since everyone had seen your apartment practically be decimated by a superhuman on live television.
You weren’t sure what was worse, the pounding headache from lack of sleep — the whistling of wind and cold breezes basically kept you up every night, even with your bedroom door shut — or everyone bombarding you with questions.
By Friday evening, you were positive your head was going to explode. All you wanted to do was kick your shoes off, eat some shitty chinese takeout, lay with Jonesy on the couch, and get wine drunk to forget the massive crater in the side of your living room. Maybe you’d watch some TV, if you really felt like it.
Superman found you halfway through your first glass.
You felt him before you saw him — the steady way the world seemed to go quiet around his form, the sharp edges of your nerves blurring as he stepped into your kitchen.
You had your back turned, hip cocked against the quartz edge of the island, the glass’ spine tucked between your pointer and middle finger like you were holding a cigarette.
“Hiya,” he murmured.
You sighed softly, head leaning back over your shoulder. You couldn’t tell he’d had his shit rocked at all.
His suit looked freshly pressed, his skin free of any blood, cuts, or bruises that had been so prevalent just nights before. It was as if he’d completely healed in the span of a few days. You supposed that was normal for superhumans, not like you’d ever been one to know.
You turned the full way around, leaning back against the counter. Green socks hung low around your ankles, the distinct patterns of hedgehogs with red speckled flowers decorating your feet. Like you were still holding on to some semblance of individuality in a draining corporate world.
“You do that often?” He said, head tilting towards the way the wine glass sat in your palm — completely natural, your hand sculpted for it. His head felt fuzzy thinking about the soft etchings of your skin.
“Old habits die screaming,” you replied.
He frowns just slightly, taking on the air of a dog that had just been denied a treat after its nightly walk.
“Rough day?”
You laughed — the sound was coarse, cut and dry like the sour edge of a lemon. A feeling that made your nose scrunch as you thought about the mind-numbing cubicle you practically lived in. Not only were you running on fumes, but the amount of fruit baskets you’d been given in the last couple of days was painfully laughable.
You’d’ve preferred a raise. Or at least a nicer bottle of wine than what you were drinking right now.
“You have no idea.”
His frown only deepened, the sharp cuts of his dimples sinking into his face like craters on the moon’s face, which was high and bright in the sky right now.
“I’m sorry about your window,” he said quietly. “You know how Lex is, I’m sure. With his..”
You smiled wryly, taking a small sip from your glass. You shook your head, sitting it down with a clink as you regarded him. Your expression was almost curious, like you were wondering what the point was in him even coming back here.
“Yeah, I do.”
Something about nanites, a new form of technology that had never been seen before, you recalled from one of Luthor’s interviews with a local news station a few weeks ago. You’d been half-asleep during the broadcast, but you managed to remember that much.
Technology no one had been able to create up until now, something no one had even come close to mirroring until Lex Luthor dipped his hand into every company and product out on the market.
Now, it was everywhere. Small things, mostly.
Nanite-based coffee machines, household appliances, basic tools. He was working on cars now — claimed that they’d be the safest, most effective form of transportation on the market when they were done. You weren’t sure if you bought it. Something just seemed.. off about it.
If every other nanite-based creation could cause this much damage, even to a superhuman, what would it do to a regular person?
You cleared the thought from your mind. The idea unsettled you.
“Don’t see how what he’s doing is legal,” you remark dryly.
“It probably isn’t.”
Silence settles between you both; the only noise comes from the quiet brushing of wind and the sound of distant planes in the clouds miles above the top of your apartment. You finish off the glass, sliding the wine back into the bottom compartment of your fridge.
“I have an idea,” he says suddenly.
You pause, let out a huff of air through your noise. Almost a laugh, but falling just short enough to sound pathetic. You tug at the edge of your sleeping shorts, red plaid with white accents, shifting to prop one leg against the side of your knee.
“Okay, Supes. Hit me.”
His eyes seem to sparkle in the dim lighting of your small kitchen, an oddly mischievous expression crossing his face for someone routinely seen expressing high levels of empathy and kindness. Saving squirrels from being hit by cars, kids from dropping their ice cream. You guessed he’d alter his path if he saw a worm on the sidewalk, where most people wouldn’t even bother to look down.
“Do you trust me?” He said, almost wiggling his eyebrows.
“I just met you,” you remark.
“Maybe you just met me, but you know a lot about me, don’t you?”
You halfway flushed, eyes narrowing at the implication behind it. That he knew just as much about you as you knew about him. It felt strange to be on the receiving end of constant recognition. Of being perceived in the same way was someone so reputable. You swallowed.
“I do.”
He smiled, dimples creasing his cheeks.
“So you do trust me, then.”
You laughed for real this time, shaking your head. You turned your back to him, sliding your empty glass into the dishwasher, considering the implications of placing your trust upon his shoulders.
“Yes, I guess I do.”
Right as you turned around, he playfully wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close by the waist. Then, he took off through the gaping hole in your apartment wall. You yelped, then closed your eyes, forehead pressed to his chest. You tried not to think about any of this too much.
“Are you crazy?!” You practically half-yelled, voice muffled by the wind whistling past your ears. You squeezed your eyes shut tighter, hands curling sharply around his shoulders, fingers digging into the stretchy fabric of his suit.
“Maybe a little.”
You refused to open your eyes the entire time, even after you felt your feet settle on the ground. He tapped your side with two fingers, head tipped by your ear as he softly spoke.
“Hey, it’s alright now. You can open up.”
You ignored the weird flutter in your chest, your hands flexing by your side as you steeled yourself.
You slowly peeled your eyes open, nose scrunching as the wind whipped at your face, hair sticking to the apples of your cheeks. You were atop the roof of your apartment when you managed to look.
He stood beside you at the edge, his eyes fixed on the darkened horizon when you looked over at him. He looked almost wistful. Like he was standing next to you, but his mind was somewhere else.
“You know,” he murmured. “I miss my parents. Back home. In Kansas.”
You seemed to pause, gaze lingering on the side of his face instead of on the starry skyline. The moon carved out the sharpness of his cheekbones, the deep set of his eyelids, and the smile lines that creased his cheeks, even when his face was still.
“Do you have someone like that? Someone you miss?”
Silence settled between the two of you, your hand raising as you rubbed the back of your neck.
“At one time, maybe,” you answered.
“But not anymore.”
His prying gaze met yours, brows furrowed and eyes softening as he looked over at you. He opened his mouth, intent on replying when you suddenly spoke again, cutting him off.
“It’s my turn to ask you a question now.”
He closed his mouth, expression settling into something equally contemplative and saddened all at once.
“Okay.”
You stepped close, chin tipping upward as you met his eyes more directly, head tilted to one side. He swallowed, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing expressively.
“Why are you really here? Beyond what you say in the news reports.”
He seems to stiffen. Your question was more forward than he was expecting. Sharp, cutting — what he expected from someone with your expertise. Always aiming right for the heart of the matter in the way he’d learned you do.
It only took him a week to have his interest piqued by you, using his personal resources and connections through the newspaper to pull everything he could on you.
You mostly did typical assistant work — communicating with clients, organizing legal files, assisting attorneys with case preparation through research and evidence procuration. It was something that he thought would make his eyes glaze over, or maybe resort to drinking himself.
But, he found more interesting things about you while digging through your work.
You ran your own blog, and you were very, very outspoken about Lex Luthor’s creations and his unsavory legal and ethical practices. You seemed popular for it, too. He hadn’t pinned you as someone who was so.. striking. You appeared and sounded softspoken, but he’d misjudged you.
Still, it almost made him more interested in you.
“What I say in the news reports is all I know. I’m not a secretive guy.”
You raised an eyebrow, clearly not convinced by his words.
“So, your parents sent you to Earth, and the only information you have about and from them is a 15 second video clip in a language no one else can understand but you?” You questioned, and he smiled.
You were a firecracker. He liked it. A lot.
“How do we know you aren’t lying?”
He shrugged, as if to say, ‘you really don’t.’
“Guess you just have to keep on trusting me.”
Silence blanketed the space between the two of you again, thick and sharp. Edged with something deeper. You have to keep trusting him. Not Earth, not anyone else, but you. You opened your mouth to ask something deeper when he raised one finger, digging around in his suit pockets.
“I almost forgot,” he murmured. He pulled a credit card from the inner folds of his suit, from where, exactly, you couldn’t tell. It was black, and sleek. Professional. You wondered how Superman — crime-fighter and Earth’s self-proclaimed protector — managed to have enough money for a card like that.
It wasn’t like justice and kindheartedness paid good in this world. You’d figured that out a long time ago.
He pressed it into your palm, his eyes crinkling at the edges in a mix of melancholic amusement.
“For your window repairs.”
And again, he was gone in a flash of patriotic shades, leaving you standing by the edge of the roof to clamber your way down the fire escape and into the gaping hole in the side of your apartment. You went to sleep with a smile and a curious thought you couldn’t manage to shake.
Weeks passed between the fleeting moment you had on the roof and the dreadful Monday morning you found yourself in. Surrounded by stacks of folders and papers stacked as high as your head, your desk was coated in mind-numbing shades of white, gray, and beige.
You’d been thinking about Superman any time your brain was granted a break, which was almost never. But still, he managed to keep you up at night.
You thought of the gentle way he smiled at every thing you said, the softness in his eyes on that roof when he opened up to you. His words were a shoulder to your struggle, like light shining through the broken cracks of an old home, warming its insides like nothing had done in a long time.
You’d become even more enveloped in him than you had before, digging through every news article, press release, or video of him that had ever touched the internet’s widespread edges, and him you.
Clark sighed. Ordinarily, his mind was laser-focused on whatever article pitch landed in front of him, but he found himself unable to even type a word. His thoughts always wandered somewhere else every time he placed his fingers on the keyboard.
Instead, he found his mind on you. On that slightly drunken, dejected smile he’d seen on your lips. He was focused on your words, on how much your devotion and fire spoke beyond the work that you did.
He found himself drawn to your blog once more, and was surprised to see his name in your tagline instead of Lex’s.
Well, not him, but Superman. So kind of him.
It had been posted in the middle of the night, and read a little more lax than things you had written before. An unfiltered thought. About him. At two in the morning.
A warmth crawled down his neck and below his tie, his mind scrambling worse than before.
“‘Superman is more empathetic than 90% of America,’” the title read. He felt something in his chest awkwardly swell. You thought of him more positively than he assumed you did. You were always anti-Lex, but that didn’t necessarily make you pro-Superman.
You spoke to his heart, referencing times he’d helped everyday citizens — street vendors, business owners, older women who needed help crossing the street. He’d saved animals, both big and small, and even creatures created or sent by Lex to destroy him.
You recognized his emotional depth, how he refused to let a finger be laid on anyone or anything that had crossed his path, or the path of something much more sinister.
He had to click off the post before he finished reading, a flush making his brain swim in thoughts he really didn’t need to be having on the clock. He forced himself back to the other tab, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
He found that the words came easier when he thought about your compliments.
He found you in the evening, happy to see that your windows had been fixed since he’d seen you last.
He tapped his fist lightly on it, eyes fixed on your form through the freshly polished glass. He swallowed, feeling the same flush from earlier curl at his ears and down his neck, disappearing beneath the line of his suit. He inhaled the cold air, attempting to fan the flames that stirred behind his ribcage.
You pulled the window open a moment later, and his gaze couldn’t help but linger on the careful tilt of your fingers on the latch. He swallowed thickly.
“Hi,” he said.
You pulled the window shut behind him, smiling and tilting your head.
“Hi.”
You turned back around to face the kitchen counter. There was a cup of tea atop it, your hand wrapping around the handle of a spoon as you began stirring sugar into it, the silence between the two of you somehow awkward and comfortable all at once.
“I, um,” he stuttered.
You turned around after a moment, taking a small sip of the warm liquid, smoke curling around the curve of your jaw. He wished it was his hand brushing there instead. The thought seemed to startle him, and his eyes flitted along your face quickly, almost like they weren’t sure where to rest.
You hadn’t seen him so.. unmoored before.
“You wrote about me.” He finally blurted. You felt yourself still, suddenly disinterested in the mug cupped in your palm. You blinked — once, twice, trying to reconcile his words with yourself.
“What?”
His throat bobbed as he exhaled, hand meeting the singular curl that rested over his forehead as he tugged at it, seemingly nervous.
“I read your blog, sometimes. Well, all the time, really. You.. you, um. You’re really good.”
You stayed silent, eyebrows raising at him. Him, Superman, had time to read blog posts? He read blog posts about himself, no less? Was he self-centered or insecure?
“And you wrote about me. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I came here.”
He shifted on his feet, unsettled by your silence. You placed the cup down on the counter, arms crossing as you met his gaze. You smiled, nose crinkling up, looking smug in the way that made him feel like he could do something dangerous.
“So, you liked it?”
He nodded furiously. His hand dragged down the side of his face, fingers unsteady.
“It was... I’ve been thinking about it all day. I didn’t think you thought so well of me.”
“Well, it’s hard to think badly of someone who paid to fix my windows. Even if you were the one that broke them.”
He laughed softly, the tension draining out of his shoulders. He smiled at you, and it made an eased, airy feeling prickle in the hollow of your ribcage. He always made you feel lighter, just by being there.
“Speaking of.” You murmured, digging around in the pockets of your bag on the counter. After a moment, you pulled out the card he lent you, and he found himself staring again at the litheness of your fingers.
You slid the black card back across the kitchen island toward him, tipping your head in acknowledgment. You lifted the cup again to take another sip from it, the light taste of green tea lingering on your tongue.
“Thank you.” You said softly, and he swore he’d explode right there. Just spontaneously combust in the center of your kitchen, as impossible as that may be.
“Sure.”
A charged sort of quiet settled between the two of you. You felt your heart press to the inside of your throat, the tension making your pulse go haywire.
After the moment lasted a bit too long, he took a step towards you, maroon boots squeaking against the linoleum. You paused, hand curled around the mug. It was warm beneath your fingers, but not warmer than the heat you could feel permeating from his form as it lingered in your space.
His hand raised, palm pressing into your cheek with a deliberate softness. His thumb carefully brushed along the underside of your eye, his fingertips the temperature of a furnace. You bit into the inside of your cheek, just barely tilting your jaw into his touch.
He took another slow step forward, backing you up against the counter. His eyes briefly dropped to your mouth, words caught in his throat that he wished he could force himself to say. He hadn’t ever been speechless about anything.
When he finally thought he had enough courage to speak, he felt you tug away. You slid away from him, turning around to face the sink, head tipped towards the floor like you were ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” you said quietly.
“I can’t.”
The words felt like they had grown fingers and slapped him across the face, his hand still lingering in the space where you had been just moments before. He missed the feeling of your skin already.
He couldn’t bring himself to form a sentence, his lukewarm confidence running cold. Not a comfort, not even an apology himself.
He took a few slow steps backward, cape fluttering as he turned on his heel and pulled your window latch open, disappearing into the cool night without as so much as a second glance.
You’d spent the whole weekend thinking about your disastrous rejection of Superman’s advances, the guilt rattling through your chest, curling around your heart like a vice. It worsened with every hour that passed, almost enough to make you feel sick to your stomach.
It was another dreadful Monday. It was dreary; a depressing fog had settled over Metropolis’ horizon, one that seemed to mirror the distaste you felt for yourself.
You were amid a stack of particularly boring files, eyes just barely focusing on sentences about a trial happening later that week — you found yourself zoning out as you read about the man’s criminal history, family information, job records, your mind centered on the way Superman had silently left.
You’d downed half a bottle of wine after and passed out on your couch, waking up in your work clothes from the day before. You would’ve been late if it weren’t for Jonesy screaming in your ear about 6:30, complaining about his empty food bowl.
There was a dull aching between your temples by the time you’d managed to take lunch, phone tucked in the palm of your hand. But it didn’t bring you any respite, even though you sought to distract yourself.
When scrolling mindlessly, a news notification flashed at the top of your screen. A name you really didn’t want to see, and certainly not in this context.
Superman had been under fire for his involvement in the overseas war between Jarhanpur and Boravia, and for the torture of Boravian representative Vasil Ghurkos for the last few months. You hadn’t cared about any of that before, because you believed, too, that what he was doing accomplished the greatest good for the most people.
But now he was facing widespread backlash for.. some kind of mass harem mission? What in God’s name did that even mean?
According to Lex Luthor and his team of translators, Superman’s message from his parents had been about colonizing and ruling over Earth all along. Your stomach dropped. You felt your face pale, the air around you chilling like the news itself was able to be felt. Like a tangible thing that shifted the core of the atmosphere itself, forcing your center of gravity completely off balance.
You weren’t sure if you bought it, but you also weren’t sure if you could deny it. It’s not like you spoke Kryptonian to know.
Your lunch suddenly seemed unappetizing. You couldn’t reconcile the thought of the pensive man you’d met on the roof with this version of the superhero America had come to cherish. You couldn’t believe the goldhearted Kansas boy was possibly here for something far more nefarious.
Had he made a move on you in pursuit of something like that? Were you just the first person in a string of future pawns in his mission to overrule the entire world?
Maybe it was right to reject him. That’s what you tried to tell yourself, anyway, but it still didn’t sit right.
Superman sought you out that night, like the news had plastered a beacon above your apartment, pulling him close to you. You were met with a knock while you lounged on the couch, limbs stretched out like a starfish, face engulfed in a pillow.
You raised your head, wary as you saw the outline of his form in the window pane. You hesitated before you stood up, fingers finding the latch of your living room window before your sluggish mind could form a thought. It was only after that you realized it maybe wasn’t the best idea to freely let him into your apartment.
“Hey,” he said softly.
Your eyes found the torn fabric of his suit before you found his eyes, blood still fresh on his paled flesh. You forgot all the hesitancy you were feeling the moment you saw him like that. You were flitting away as quick as you’d come, returning a moment later with a first aid kit. He didn’t bother to tell you that it wouldn’t really help him, because he could see the panic you tried to veil.
“Sit.” You mumbled, pushing him towards the kitchen island, forcing him to sit on one of the rattan stools. His hand found a stray reed that peeked out from its delicate weaving, fingers occupied with it to avoid brushing his hand along your cheek to calm you.
He felt lightheaded in a way that felt unrelated to the blood loss.
“I haven’t seen you in a while.” Your tone was equally as soft as his own when you finally managed to form words, the sentence thick as it escaped your throat. You sounded so hurt, he wanted desperately to soothe it out of you.
“I know.”
You pressed alcohol-soaked gauze to a particular gnarly looking cut, and he bit back a wince. His jaw clenched, eyes hardening as he exhaled sharply through his nose.
“You were in the news.”
“I know.”
“They say you’re here to..”
“I know.”
He paused, his hand meeting the curve of your wrist as he stopped you, thumb pressing to your pulse point. He didn’t need to feel it to know your heart was racing, he could hear it.
“Is that why you tried to..”
You trailed off, eyes downcast. You weren’t sure you could look at him right now. Whether it was because of the news, or because the words felt like molasses in your mouth as you tried to discuss what you so badly wanted to avoid. But how could you?
“What? No! That’s not—” He stuttered, eyes widening.
“You have to know that I didn’t know that’s how the message ended,” he pleaded. He sounded desperate, like he needed you to believe him. Like you were the only one he needed to believe in him.
“The rest of it was lost in transit. I’d only ever heard the first part. I really thought..”
He trailed off, his voice cracking in a way that made guilt weigh heavy in the pit of your stomach. You can’t believe you’d been doubting him just a few hours ago.
“I really thought they sent me here to protect Earth. It turns out I was wrong.”
“Parents are wrong sometimes, you know.” You finally said, gaze downcast, teeth occasionally worrying your lower lip as you plastered bandages over the cuts on his chest.
He pressed his thumb tighter to your skin, purposefully silent.
You swallowed, feeling your throat constrict around feelings that made discomfort settle in the cage of your ribs. It hurt like sharpened glass, pressing against your lungs with an aggressiveness you hadn’t felt in years.
He nodded encouragingly, the pad of his finger softly stroking your wrist. Your eyes closed, and he took it as an invitation to slide his hand further up your arm.
“My parents didn’t want me to work in law. Or move away. But I knew if I didn’t get out when I did, I’d never leave.”
You paused, eyes opening after a moment. You gently spread the last bandage over his skin, fingertips soft and smooth in a way that made his mind wander a little too far. He tethered it back to you when you spoke again, gently drawing patterns into your speckled forearm.
“They don’t talk to me anymore. But it ended up being what was best for me, even if I lost something that used to mean so much to me.”
He tilted his head, watching you closely.
“My point is that.. what you’ve done is more important than what they had meant for you to do. What you did for Earth was all you. That’s who you really are.”
Your hands lingered over the bare skin of his chest hesitantly. The stretchy fabric of his suit was torn and partially tattered, sunken inward in the form of an incredibly large fist. After a moment, he smiled, a bit of tension lingering at the edges of his eyes. You didn’t think someone so strong felt pain the same way everyone else did.
“I knew you’d say something like that.”
You lifted your chin, and he felt his chest constrict at the look on your face. His eyes briefly flicked to your mouth, then down to your hands, and then back up, tracing a triangle with his weighted gaze.
“Still.. part of me was worried you’d agree with everyone else.”
You shook your head. Your hands finally settled on his chest, not to soothe his wounds or spread another bandage on his skin, but just to rest.
“At first I was scared it was true,” you admitted.
“But.. the more I thought about it, the more I realized it didn’t sound like you at all.”
He tried to ignore the way your fingertips felt against him, the way his thoughts went haywire at the sight of you; at the soft, eased sound of your voice. Trying to draw something out from him while also respecting his silence.
“I’ve been keeping more from you. Intentionally.”
You raise an eyebrow, thumbs pressing to the space between his collarbones. He thinks he might faint.
“I’m more than just Superman. I work at the Daily Planet as a reporter.”
You pause, blinking, suddenly recalling a name from the bylines you’d seen so many times. Like the piece immediately clicked in your mind the moment he’d spoken it aloud.
Superman stops foreign creature from destroying downtown. Superman aids Jarhanpur in the wake of Boravian attacks. Superman works with the Justice Gang to take down unknown monster.
All featuring exclusive interviews with Superman. All by Clark Kent.
“You’re Clark Kent,” you finally say. “You interview.. yourself?”
He smiles sheepishly, his hand wrapping fully around your arm.
“It’s not exactly ethical reporting. But, yeah. I do.”
You gesture with your free hand at his face, brows furrowing. You’d seen Clark Kent. At least, in the banners following his stories, and he didn’t look like this at all.
Not like some statue formed from the loving hand of an artist; someone with a perfectly chiseled jaw, the kindest eyes you’ve ever seen, beautiful hair
You stop your train of thought, looking even more confused, tilting your head back and forth, somehow trying to place it. Your thumb presses into your chin thoughtfully. Every moment you thought you got it, his facial features seemed to shift again, sliding out of your hands like running water.
“Hypno-glasses,” he murmurs. “They just.. kinda, alter my face? Enough to keep people from figuring it out. A defense mechanism sort of thing.”
You chew on the inside of your cheek, pretending that the foreign technology made complete and total sense, forcing a nod.
“Right.”
Silence settles for a moment, soft as dust on an old bookshelf. He stares at you with something odd in his irises, a feeling you weren’t sure how to put a name to. You weren’t sure if you could, or if you wanted to.
“Also, I think you should quit your job.”
You blink again, caught off guard by his sudden confession. And the odd change in subject.
When did this conversation become about you?
“It’s true I’ve read your blog posts. But, I pulled a lot more cyber strings to find out things about you.”
“So.. you’ve been stalking me, Wonder Boy?”
He looked defensive, a flush creeping across his cheeks and up his ears. He furiously shook his head, his free hand wrapping around your other arm, pulling you to stand between his legs.
“No! Well, I mean, kind of? But in a totally normal and casual way.”
“..‘Totally normal’ and ‘casual’ aren’t typically used in the same sentence as stalking.”
He sighed, fingertips sliding upward to grasp at your elbows, stilling you. His eyes lingered on your face, following every twitch of your expression like it was the most important thing he’d ever seen.
“Look, I just think that you’re capable of pursuing way more than organizing files for eight hours a day. You’re so smart, and so talented. Your way with words makes for the most compelling sentences I’ve ever read. And I’m not just saying that because you hate Lex and love me.”
You scoff, but soften it with a smile, eyes sparkling in a way that makes him feel completely unraveled.
“It’s love, is it?” You teased, shifting just enough to lean into his grip. He felt something in his chest split, giddiness curling in his stomach. He wants to kiss you so darn bad.
“And, I could say the same thing about your writing too, Kent. Even if you routinely partake in unethical journalistic practices.”
“Oh, come on, now.”
The faintly devilish tone leaving your mouth makes him feel maddened, and his eyes trail back down to your mouth again. He wants to smother the acid off your lips, to soothe that biting little fire he loves so much. Never to douse it, but to ease for a long enough moment to do what he wants to you.
Gentlemanly, of course.
He slowly dances his fingertips up your arm — over your elbows, up to your shoulders, across your neck. He can feel and hear the way your pulse jumps in your throat, and he smiles.
His mouth presses to the skin there first, trailing a line of heat up behind your ear and across your jaw before they meet your lips, smothering your small noise of protest by firmly sliding his own across yours.
He cradles both sides of your jaw with warm hands. It felt like the sun, you thought deliriously. Soft and smooth, like you were laying on a beach. His touch is light for someone with hands the size of dinner plates, and you find yourself loosening every moment it stays on you.
“So?” He murmurs, finally pulling away long enough to intake a soft breath.
“Will you quit your job?”
You laugh, and the sound makes something airy bubble in his chest. He feels so enamored by you, he can’t imagine his hands or lips ever being on someone other than you. You adjust the collar of his suit, touch sliding down to his tactical belt as you pull him off the stool and back towards the couch.
“Maybe tomorrow.”
hi hi hello again !! sorry for the long gap in time between posts;;; this has been in writing/editing for a very long while, but i hope yall like it as much as the last one :)) i plan on dabbling in some joel miller and/or ryland grace soon, so if that sounds interesting to yall i’d love it if u stuck around :b hope yall enjoyed !!!
