pairing. clark kent ⟡ 𝒇. reader genre. friends to lovers. sexual tension. smut.
after a brutal event leaves clark weak and poisoned by kryptonite, you follow strict orders to rush him to his parents’ home — the one place you’re certain no one would find him at. a safe house.
word count. 5.1k words warnings. men in pain !! men in pain !! sexual tension. clark worrying about oc. he smells and hears her arousal bc of his super senses giggles. smut. oral (fem!receiving) MUNCH CLARK. fingering. unprotected + rough sex. size kink. tummy bulge. he puts a fucking pillow between the wall and the bed frame. they have to be very quiet. BIG COCK CLARK. squirting.
✶ inspired by events from — SUPERMAN (2025).
ana’s notes. i know this isnt anything jungkook related but .. im going through something rn with this man. i shouldve never fucking watched this movie. some details are improvised bc i lowk dont know shit abt superman (i was always more of a marvel girlie) so if theres smth in here that doesnt make sense for his character .. please just PLEASE JUST DONT OKAY. okie !! enjoy ♡
Clark Kent was a very reserved man.
Even at the office, he rarely had much to say. If someone asked about his day, he’d answer with something short — a few words, never a story. He never flaunted his accomplishments or fed off the praise. Where most of the department reeked of overbearing bragging and egotistical bastards, Clark kept to himself. He was private. Content with staying out of the spotlight.
Even as friends, you knew only fragments about him. How he liked his coffee — black, bitter, not even a pinch of sugar. That he didn’t have an Instagram, Facebook, or any kind of digital footprint beyond an email address.
And then, of course, there was the part you hadn’t known.
That he was Superman.
He hadn’t wanted you to find out — you could tell by the way he stammered and lied through an explanation the night you confronted him about it. But Clark Kent was not nearly as subtle as he liked to think he was, and you were far too observant. He was conveniently missing whenever Superman was needed. Once could’ve been a coincidence, but every time? No way.
Over time, he was okay with you knowing. He trusted you.
You were his friend. And friends trust and help each other.
Which was why you had helped him get all the way here — to his parents’ home, a beautiful farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. It was quiet. Safe.
You’d been to Clark’s apartment in Metropolis many times — a high-rise with floor-to-ceiling windows, glossy black marble tiles, and simple, modern furniture.
It couldn't have been more different from the warmth of his parents’ farmhouse in Kansas. Here, the floors were scuffed wood, every step creaking faintly, and the whole house carried the scent of timber with a soft undertone of cinnamon. Memories were painted on the walls — framed photographs of smiles, family trips, and holiday dinners.
Clark’s parents were the kind of people who opened their home to you as if they’ve been waiting for you your whole life, their kindness effortless and genuine. It was a home that radiated comfort and care, and suddenly it made sense why Clark was so well-mannered and grounded. He’d grown up in the center of it all.
His childhood room was left untouched. Band posters and old movie prints clung to the walls, their corners curling. A shelf in the corner displayed trophies and figurines that had clearly been handled and loved. For all that he was, Superman, the man who could save the world and never expect anything in return, there was something disarmingly ordinary about this space. About him.
A low groan from behind you broke through your thoughts.
“You’re still here,” Clark murmured from the bed, his voice low and hoarse. He was lying down, one hand pressed over his ribs like the pressure alone could hold him together. The suit still clung to him, faint streaks of dirt and ash dulling the bright colors. The Kryptonite’s grip had loosened, his veins back to their normal color, but he was still weak. The sun was already setting. He’d be fully recovered by morning.
“Did you want me to leave?” you asked, turning just enough to meet his gaze.
“I- No!” His head lifted slightly, urgency in his tone. “I’m just… surprised.”
There was something behind that word. Not shock, exactly, but disbelief — like he wasn’t used to someone waiting for him to recover. Like he’d expected to wake up alone.
You crossed the room, the floorboards creaking under each step, and lowered yourself into the chair beside his bed. His eyes followed you, searching your face, as if he was waiting for you to change your mind.
“How’re you feeling?” you ask softly.
“Pain,” he replied, a faint, breathy chuckle escaping before his eyes slipped shut. The sound was quiet, but it still carried that small thread of warmth you’d learned to recognize in him.
“Holt said you should feel fine in the morning, once the sun starts coming out,” you told him, keeping your voice gentle, like anything louder might press against his headache.
His gaze flickered, something unreadable in it before he looked away. “I wish you’d stayed in Metropolis,” he murmured, his voice low but edged with frustration. “You’re safer there.”
You shook your head without hesitation. “No.”
“Yes,” he said, more firmly this time. The softness in his tone gave way to steel, the same voice he used when there was no room for argument. “You could’ve gotten hurt just by being seen with me. If something happened, I-“ His jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t have been able to save you.”
You leaned forward slightly, catching his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t,” you said, your tone steady but gentler than your words. “Stop stressing yourself out, Clark. You’ve done enough. You should get some more rest.”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he shifted against the pillows, wincing a little. His hand fidgeted with the edge of his cape, eyes flicking to you and then away again.
“I, uh… I don’t…” He paused, licking his lips. “I don’t really like sleeping in the suit. It’s- uh- kinda uncomfortable. I was just… wondering if- if you could maybe… help me? Just with, y’know… the top part.”
“Y- yeah, sure,” you stammer, pushing yourself up and moving closer. Because you’re his friend. And friends help friends.
You help him sit up slowly, his breath hitching with a groan as his ribs protest the movement. Carefully, you reach behind to detach the cape, your fingers brushing the fabric with a softness that contrasts the roughness of the moment.
Then your hand finds the zipper at the back of his suit. You pull it down slowly, deliberately, revealing inch by inch of his creamy pale skin beneath — smooth, vulnerable, so human.
Clark’s eyes flutter open, meeting yours for a brief second before they close again. The silence between you stretches filled only by the soft sound of the zipper and his shallow breaths.
You help him pull the suit off his arms, the fabric sliding away to reveal his upper body — bare, exposed, impossible to ignore. His chest is broad and muscular, every line defined, almost unreal in its strength. The same goes for his biceps, thick and strong. Suddenly, your own nerves flutter, caught off guard by the closeness, the unexpected weight of this moment.
You steady the back of his neck as he leans back against the pillows, low groans rumbling from deep within him.
“You sure you don’t want me to… take it all off?” you ask quietly, the tension between you crackling like electricity.
If the room weren’t so heavy, if Clark wasn’t in so much pain, he might’ve thrown out a teasing, flirty comment about you trying to get him naked. But tonight, none of that comes.
Instead, he looks at you — eyes searching, silent, as if he’s trying to say something without words. Like he wants something he doesn’t quite know how to ask for.
“If you’re okay…” he murmured quietly, his voice soft, almost hesitant.
You gave him a small, reassuring smile, your fingers lightly tugging at the edge of the suit. He lifted his body as much as he could, every moment careful but willing — doing what he could to make it easier for you.
You kneel at the foot of the bed, fingers working at the heavy boots until they come off one by one with soft thuds against the floor. Then, with a firm grip, you take hold of the suit and give it a swift tug, the fabric sliding away until he’s left in nothing but his boxers.
On any other day, the situation might’ve been awkward — but tonight, he’s too worn down, too sore to care. His head stays against the pillow, eyes half-lidded, breaths slow and shallow.
You keep your gaze steady, careful not to linger, and carry the suit to his closet. The weight of it settles onto the hanger with a soft rustle, the deep blue and red now looking strangely still without him inside it.
“Goodnight,” you murmur, turning toward the door. But before your hand even reaches the knob, he calls your name. “Yes?” you turn back.
“Don’t go back without me,” he says, his eyes pleading in a way that makes your chest tighten. “Stay here for now. With me.”
You look at him fully this time. His body is bare, save for the thin stretch of fabric covering his hips. You’ve never seen Clark like this — stripped of the cape, of any clothes at that. It isn’t weird in a seeing your family member naked kind of way. It’s… different. Raw. It makes you nervous in a way you don’t want to think too hard about.
“I’m not going anywhere, Clark,” you tell him softly. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”
You reach for the door again, but he calls your name once more.
“Yes?”
His lips curve faintly. “Thank you.”
You smile back. “Of course.”
Because friends help friends.
Clark awoke with a start.
The pain in his side had eased to a faint ache, and the heavy fog of fatigue was gone. The room is dim, lit only by the warm glow of the nightlight on the nightstand.
His mouth was dry. A glass of water sounded perfect.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he got up and reached for the robe hanging on his closet door. The soft fabric brushed against his skin as he shrugged it on. Then, with slow, careful steps, he made his way toward the door, moving quietly as he descended the creaking staircase.
He walked through the dark with ease — even half-asleep, his steps were quiet and calculated — but he flipped the kitchen light on anyway. The soft hum of the bulb filled the silence. He grabbed a tall glass from the cupboard, filled it from the fridge, and downed it in one long swig, the cool water sliding down his throat, washing away the dryness.
“Clark?”
Your voice was soft, groggy. He turned as you padded into the kitchen, rubbing your eyes with the back of your hand.
And then he saw what you were wearing. His sweatshirt — the gray one, hanging loosely on you, sleeves dangling past your fingertips — and pajama pants cinched tight at your waist, the legs pooling around your feet.
“Hi,” he said, the word coming out softer than intended.
“Why are you awake? What time is it?” you asked, coming to stand beside him at the kitchen island, tugging the long sleeves of his sweatshirt — his sweatshirt — over your hands.
He noticed. And for a second, he forgot how to breathe.
“Almost three,” he murmured after glancing at the clock. “I don’t know — just woke up. Can’t sleep.” His sigh was low, weary, as he leaned onto the counter, elbows braced, thumbs fidgeting like he needed to keep them busy.
“What’s wrong?” you asked softly, searching his face.
“Nothing,” he said too fast. Then let out a small groan as he rolled his shoulders — and you caught the grimace of discomfort on his face.
“C’mere,” you said with a knowing smile, motioning him closer. “Let me help.”
He hesitated, a faint smile ghosting over his lips — as if to say you don’t have to do that.
But you were already moving behind him, resting your hand on his shoulder.
The robe was loose, soft beneath your palms, parting slightly as he shifted. You could feel the heat of his skin even through the fabric. He was broad, solid, so much bigger than you; your hands looked almost delicate against him as you kneaded at the hard line of muscle beneath his shoulder blade.
“Yeah, right there,” he groans, throwing his head back as you press your thumbs into a stubborn knot in his shoulder. The sound is low, unguarded — almost inappropriate for something so innocent.
You press your lips together, heat rising in your cheeks. His robe has slipped just enough to bare more of that solid shoulder, warm under your palms. You feel every twitch of muscle beneath your tiny hands, every breath he exhales as he leans heavier on the counter.
“Better?” you murmured, digging your thumbs in a little deeper.
“Mhm,” he said, the sound deep, almost a growl in the back of his throat. His head tipped forward, giving you more access.
Your thumbs worked lower, along the edge of his shoulder blade, and you felt the faint shift of his breath — slower now, heavier.
“You’re tense,” you whispered.
“Yeah,” he said, voice hoarse, “you have no idea.”
You cleared your throat, swallowing.
“Alright,” you murmured, stepping back before you got carried away. “Let’s go back to bed.”
He didn’t argue — just pushed off the counter lazily and obediently. The robes knot at his waist had slipped slightly, a slight peek of his chest and the line of his collarbone. Your eyes darted down before you could stop yourself, and you snapped them away just as quickly — but not quickly enough. He saw you.
You turned on your heel, making your way out of the kitchen, pretending you hadn’t been caught looking. Behind you, his mouth curved, faint and knowing, and he followed behind you.
Clark could smell you. Not just the faint trace of soap on your skin, but something stronger, intoxicating — the subtle tang of arousal that hit his scent with every shift of your steps. His jaw tightened. You were just causally walking, but he could hear the faint, wet sounds between your legs.
“Here, come sleep in my room. I’ll take the couch,” he insists, acting like he didn’t know your dirty little secret.
“No, it’s fine-“
“Please,” he cuts you off gently, a quiet firmness in his voice. “Ma and Pa get up super early anyway. I wouldn’t want them to wake you up.”
You press your lips together, trying to argue, but his earnest expression makes it pointless. Finally, you sigh, smiling despite yourself. “Fine.”
His own smile is softer, lingering just a little too long. “I’ll walk you up.”
You climb the creaking stairs, Clark right behind you. Every step is weighted with tension, a quiet electricity that makes your pulse race.
You reach the room and begin to speak. “Clark, I-“
But before the words can form, the door swings shut behind him. The sound echoes sharply in the quiet house.
Then his lips are on yours. Rough. Hungry. No hesitation. Your heart skips, your knees go weak, and the air between you shimmers with everything that’s been simmering for hours.
He pulls back just slightly, just enough to catch his breath, but the tension in his body is still taut. Pink lips, flushed cheeks, hair falling down his forehead, and those blue eyes darkened with something raw and hungry — lust, need, something you’ve never seen from him before.
He waits. Silent, expectant. Waiting for words you don’t have. Waiting for you to say stop, or a Clark, you’re reading me wrong — but none came.
Instead, your hands find the back of his neck, gripping him, pulling him impossibly closer. His lips meet yours again, feverish and demanding. Every inch of him pressed close, every gasp and low groan filling the space around you. You don’t pull away. You can’t.
He groans against your lips, words muffled but urgent. “Could smell how wet you are,” he breathes, “wanna feel it.”
You don’t pull back. “Touch me, please,” you murmur, guiding his hand. His fingers, much larger than yours, slither inside his your pants. He slides a finger up your folds, warm and slick, and you shiver against him.
“C- clark,” you moan, breath shaky, pushing your hips further into his hand.
The house is quiet, his parents asleep down the hall. Nothing exists outside the room — just the press of lips, the taste of each other, the wet, delicious sound of him touching your sopping pussy.
“Can I taste it, too?” he asks, lips and kisses trailing down your neck.
“Yes,” you moan, shivering. “Please.”
Without another word, he sinks to his knees, hooking a finger into the waistband of the pajama pants you’d stolen from him and pulling them down. You step out, bottom half bare, your panties gone in the washer with the rest of your clothes.
He looks up at you, holding your gaze, and then leans in closer. His tongue flicks out before he takes the first careful lick of your sensitive clit. His eyes flutter shut, lashes brushing his cheeks, as he tastes the sweet, wet arousal that’s been coating your inner thighs. You gasp, already hypersensitive, nearly collapsing at the slightest touch, knees weak from the rush of pleasure.
“So sweet,” he whispers against your clit, mostly to himself — but you can hear it, and can’t help smiling through your breathless moans.
Your fingers thread through his raven curls, brushing the strands from his eyes so you can watch his face. His brows are knitted tight in focus, lips and tongue working you over like he’s starving for it.
“Oh, god,” you moan, voice cracking. “Fucking hell.”
He hums low in his throat, the vibration shooting straight through you. His hands slide up, cupping your ass, pulling you harder against his mouth until his face is buried so deep it feels like he’s trying to breathe you in — like he wouldn’t mind suffocating there.
His eyes flutter open, locking on yours as his lips seal around your clit. The heat of his tongue makes your knees weak, and then — oh fuck — he moves one hand from your ass and slides a finger inside your sopping hole. Just one, but with how big his hands are, it feels like so much more.
You’re grateful for how wet you are; it lets him push in smoothly, his finger gliding in and out with ease while his mouth works your clit.
You can’t tear your eyes away from him. Your mouth falls open in a silent moan, breath coming fast.
“You like that?” he murmurs against you.
You nod frantically. “Fuck, M’gonna cum already, you’re so fucking good at that.”
He smiles against your clit, a low sound rumbling in his throat. Then, cruelly, his mouth disappears, his finger still stroking inside you but slower, lighter, just enough to drive you crazy.
“Clark,” you whine, breathless. “Wh- what are you doing?”
“Wanna hear you beg for it,” he says, voice low, almost a growl. His finger curls, hitting that perfect spot, and your legs tremble.
“Please,” you gasp, hips grinding down to chase his mouth. “Please, Clark- I need you-“
Instead of finishing what he started, Clark pulls back abruptly, sliding his fingers out of you — leaving you achingly empty. You whimper at the loss, hips lifting instinctively, but he’s already grabbing your waist and laying you down flat against the bed.
His chin glistens, but he doesn’t bother wiping it. The robe slips from his shoulders with a careless tug, revealing nothing but hard planes of muscle and smooth, golden skin. You take a shaky breath as he pushes your knee apart with ease, positioning himself between your thighs like he owns them.
You let out an audible whine. He’s taking far too long on purpose, and he knows it.
“Hold on, baby,” he murmurs, low and steady, sinking onto his stomach. His fingers find your clit with maddening precision, spreading your slick over every swollen inch before sliding back inside, stretching you deep. “Just wanna make you cum first… before I fuck you.”
His fingers start to scissor inside you, stretching you open, and you can’t help the moan that slips out — soft, but loud enough to make Clark cautious. Quickly, his free hand grabs the hem of your sweatshirt and yanks it up to your mouth.
“Bite down,” he orders, pushing the fabric between your lips. You obey instantly, teeth sinking into the cotton, your muffled sounds vibrating against it. “That’s it. So good for me.”
Then he’s back down, tongue sealing over your clit. The sensation is sharp and overwhelming, and your legs try to clamp around his head on instinct. He doesn’t let you — his arm hooks around your thigh, holding it wide open with effortless strength, practically hugging your leg against his head as he devours you.
You moan into the sweatshirt, muffled and ragged, hips bucking involuntarily into his mouth as your body trembles with need.
He groans low, mouth pressed to your clit, fingers pumping relentlessly inside you. The friction, the slick heat, the press of his mouth — it all coils tight inside you until you can’t hold back.
Your walls clench around his fingers, gripping him, legs instinctively squeezing shut as the heavy wave of euphoria crashed throughout your body. Your chest rises and falls wildly, and your moans spill out muffled but desperate, through the fabric he shoved into your mouth.
He drinks you up thoroughly before pulling back, lips glistening, dimples peeking through as he licks them. His fingers slip out, and he sucks them clean as well, tasting your arousal like it was the sweetest treat.
He climbs back up, pressing himself face to face with you, and carefully pulls the now-wet fabric of the sweatshirt out of your mouth.
“You’re a dirty man,” you tease, breathless.
“Didn’t hear you complaining a minute ago,” he replies, leaning down to press a quick, teasing peck to your lips. “You want more, or should we just go back to sleep?”
You bite your lip, suddenly shy, the memory of what just happened making your stomach flutter. “Want you,” you murmur, voice soft but certain.
He smirks before leaning down, kissing you so gently it has you weak, tongue exploring yours as if trying to memorize every curve. He pulls back with a final, teasing peck, holding himself up above you.
Then, with one swift tug, he strips off his last piece of clothing and tosses it aside. His cock bounces free — flushed pink, thick and standing tall, almost smug about the way it makes your breath hitch.
Kneeling over you, he strokes himself slowly, eyes locked on yours.
“Clark,” you say, voice stern but trembling.
“Yeah?” he murmurs, a soft moan escaping him.
“You’re so… big,” you admit, eyes wide.
“You can take it,” he replies, calm but commanding.
“No, I don’t think I can,” you whisper, heart hammering.
“Yes, you can. C’mon,” he urges, lowering himself closer, teasing the tip against your clit.
He pressed just enough to mix your slick with his pre-cum, dragging it along your folds, and the feeling in the pit of your stomach returns, sharp and insistent. You don’t even think about pulling back anymore.
“Ready?” he murmurs.
You hesitate, then nod anyway, heart pounding.
He smirks and taps his tip against your pussy a few times, making you jolt, before finally pushing it inside. Just the head slips in at first, the stretch sharp but addicting.
“Good?” he asks, voice low.
“Y- yeah… just- just go slow,” you breathe, fingers clutching the hem of your sweater like a lifeline.
Clark nods, obeying, easing inch by inch. The intrusion burns and thrills all at once. He’s not just long — he’s thick, every bit of him prying you open, molding your body to fit his. You’ve never taken anything like this, not even your little friend sitting in your drawer beside your bed back at home.
“You’re so warm and tight- fuck,” he groans, eyes fixed on where you’re joined, watching every slow inch disappear inside you.
Your hand slips down instinctively, pressing against your stomach as he bottoms out with a deep, shuddering breath.
“God, you’re gonna split me in half,” you manage, half joking, mainly serious.
Clark lets out a low chuckle, eyes squeezing shut like he’s hanging into control by a thread. “You got it. Just… give me a second.”
The thin layer of sweat on his body glows under the dim lighting, tracing every line of his chest, his abs, those massive arms you secretly wouldn’t mind being in a headlock by. You stare, unable to look away.
“You okay?” he asks, voice ragged.
“Mhm,” you hum, still pressing where you can feel him through your stomach.
You can feel him through your stomach.
“Alright,” he says, opening his eyes again, gaze dark and steady on you. “Gonna move now, okay?”
You nod frantically, fingers fisting the sheets on either side of you, bracing for what you already know is about to be the ride of your life.
Clark pulls out slowly, painfully, then eases back in with less resistance this time. You’re dripping, slick coating him, smearing over the tops of his thighs with every deliberate push. It’s so warm, so wet, every nerve screams at how good it feels.
“Go faster,” you breathe, voice shaky.
His eyes flick up to yours, brows raised. “You sure?”
“Yes,” you moan quickly, pressing your lips together, trying to stay composed.
He pounds into you harder, setting a faster pace, and the flimsy twin bed groans against the floorboards with every thrust.
You tug at the hem of the sweatshirt clinging to your overheated skin, desperate to peel it off.
“No,” he snaps, catching your wrists. His eyes are dark, hungry. “Keep it on. Wanna fuck you in this.”
He fists the sweatshirt though, yanking it up just enough for your tits to spill free. They bounce with every thrust, and his hand is on you instantly — rough, possessive — squeezing like he owns them.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice low and filthy. “In my clothes. My bed. Taking my cock like you were made for it.” His hand drags slowly down to your waist as he leans close, his chest flush against yours. “Should just make you mine already, huh?”
You can’t even speak — he’s so big, stretching you to the point of insanity, every thrust knocking the wind out of you. It’s almost feral now, the pace, the way the twin bed screeches across the floorboards, springs crying out with every slam. The headboard keeps smacking against the wall, a steady rhythm.
Clark didn’t lock the door. If his parents wake up and come down the hall to investigate, you’ll both be caught — sweaty, naked, and guilty. The thought only makes your stomach flip harder.
“Fuck,” Clark grits out, suddenly stilling inside of you. One hand cradles your head as the other yanks a pillow out from under you. He shoves it between the headboard and wall, eyes flashing back down at you. “Pussy so good, gonna get me in trouble.”
“Clark, M’so close…” you whisper, breathless — too breathless to say it louder, or you’d scream it.
“Yeah? C’mon, baby,” he growls, rocking his hips rough and deep, “wanna feel you cum around me.”
The knot in your stomach tightens to something sharp, electric — not just release, something bigger, heavier. Your brows pinch together, sweat slick on your skin, and you bite your lip hard to keep from crying out.
“M’gonna cum- c- cover my mouth, cover my mouth!” you squeal, the words tumbling out high and panicked.
Clark’s large hand slaps a hand over your mouth, his palm broad and warm, and you grab his wrist instinctively, your fingers not even reaching around it.
Your body seizes up, clenching around him, so tight it nearly drags him under with you — and then it happens. A sudden rush, a warm spray, your release spilling out uncontrollably, soaking his stomach, his thighs, the sheets.
Clark chokes out a moan, eyes blown wide at the sight. “Fuck…” His hips stutter, fighting for control, watching every drop. It’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen — and he’s already thinking about how to make you do it again.
You scream, drooling into his palm, but he couldn’t care less — if anything, it spurs him on. He keeps pounding into you with a ruthless rhythm, chasing his own high. And when the squirting doesn’t stop, when your pussy somehow clenches even tighter around him, he finally pulls out with a guttural curse. His hand works his cock in rough, urgent strokes until hot ropes of cum spill across your stomach, getting on the sweater as well.
He pulls off of you with a long, ragged exhale, chest rising and falling rapidly.
“I don’t want to boost your ego” you murmur, still catching your breath, “but that was my first time doing that.”
“Huh,” he breathes out, eyes wide. “Really?”
“Well,” you tease, a small smirk tugging at your lips. “No one can be hung like you are.”
He chuckles, shaking his head, a faint pink tint creeping across his cheeks.
“God, Clark,” you breathe, glancing down at the mess, “now it’s gonna be obvious when I change clothes.”
“Hey, you made a mess too!” he whines, tugging at the rumpled sheets.
“You think we were being too loud?” you ask, tilting your head as you watch him wipe away all the fluids with the sheets he was going to wash anyway.
“Definitely,” he says with a grin, voice teasing as he gets up and looks for his robe somewhere on the floor. “Maybe we should just leave now… save ourselves the embarrassment.”
You smirk, shifting on the bed. “You might have to carry me this time, though. Just got my world absolutely rocked by Superman down there.”
He freezes for a second, then chuckles, fumbling for his robe and tying it back around his waist. “You did not just call my dick Superman,” he says, shaking his head, still chuckling.
You only hum, shrugging the sweater off and heading to his dresser to find clean clothes that don’t have his cum on them!
“Uhm…” he starts, fiddling with his hands like he can’t decide where to put them. “I… I wanna make things right. The whole… hook up stuff isn’t really my thing. So, when we head back to Metropolis… I was wondering if you- like, maybe you’d wanna go out for dinner, or stay in and I could cook for you instead? Or, um, if not that’s totally fine, I get it! We can just stay friends, act like nothing happened-“
“Clark,” you cut him off, walking toward him. “You just fucked the living hell out of me, and now you’re all shy?”
He laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck, eyes darting everywhere but yours. “Sorry… so? What do you think?”
You nod, smiling. “I would love that. Honestly, I’d be pissed if you wanted to just stay friends after fucking me like that.”
He chuckles, sliding a hand around your waist to slap your ass. You squeal a little too loudly.
“Shh!” he hisses, leaning closer, smirk tugging at his lips.
You playfully swat him with the shirt in your hands. “You really underestimate your strength, you know that?”
Summary: Clark likes his editor, even if she's a little mean to him.
Word Count: 12.1k
Content: 18+, smut, clark is a disaster and a yearner, reader is a little mean but clark is into it, piv sex (wrap it before you tap it), oral (f!receiving), clark whimpers, light angst, reader is described as having hair, no use of y/n
Link to Sequel: Six Months
To Read on AO3
Masterlist
Daily Planet, Metropolis - 9:47 AM
The hustle and bustle of the newsroom is already well underway by the time Clark Kent makes an appearance. The way-too-big gray suit that he wore at least once a week is crumpled, the coat nearly hanging off his shoulder as he tries to make sure he hasn’t lost any of the papers that are haphazardly hanging from his open bag while balancing a cup holder with four cups of coffee from the nice coffee shop down the road.
Other employees step around the frazzled man as he makes a beeline for his desk, flashing smiles and good mornings to everyone along the way. He’s stopped just shy of his destination as Lois Lane pops out in front of him, eyes heavy with exhaustion, as she eyes the paper cups before plucking the one with the most sugar listed on the order sticker. “Thanks,” she mumbles as she turns around, making her way back to her desk, muttering some stuff under her breath about having to rewrite the byline for her article again.
Clark barely has time to stutter out a ‘you’re welcome’ before he realizes the missing coffee cup has caused the cup holder to begin to tip sideways, the other three coffees teetering dangerously close to disaster. Clark can already see the next two seconds flashing before his eyes: spilled coffee and the exasperated look from everyone around him.
That is, until a perfectly manicured hand shoots out from behind him, deftly swiping the cup holder from him before all of the cups spill over. He follows the hand to its source, landing on your face… your very stern, eyebrow cocked in disbelief, face. “Seriously, Kent?” you ask with a scoff as you set down the holder onto his desk.
He feels the burn up the sides of his neck to his ears as he stammers, clamoring to put his bag down and straighten out his suit. You look nice today, he notes. You look nice every day, even as you stand before him, scowling. All he can think about is how pretty you look and how mesmerizing the red of your lipstick is.
“Y-yeah, sorry,” he finally apologizes, snapping to as he realizes you were waiting for him to respond. “The fight with Superman this morning ended up shutting down the A-Line, so I had to walk.”
You don’t even try to disguise the way your eyes roll at his excuse. “Superman, of course,” you mutter under your breath before raising the manila folder you were holding. “Here are the edits for the article you gave me yesterday, and remember, you still owe me the draft for the Crane case.”
“Geez, let the guy breathe for a second before jumping down his throat as soon as he gets in,” Jimmy Olsen comments with a grin as he saunters over, grabbing another cup from the holder on Clark’s desk. He pats Clark on the shoulder with a faint ‘thanks, man’ all the while pretending you’re not glaring daggers at him as he falls into his chair, sipping happily on his coffee.
You point the folder at Clark, who stands there awkwardly as you turn your fury to Jimmy. “He wouldn’t need a chance to breathe if he got here on time like the rest of us,” you fume. Jimmy holds his hands up in surrender, sending a sympathetic smile to Clark before ducking his head and turning back around to face his monitor. As much as Jimmy loves Clark, he was not going to put himself in front of your wrath for him.
When you turn back to Clark, he at least has the decency to look apologetic, hunched in a way to make himself appear smaller, and the corners of his lips pulled into a remorseful smile. You curse his dimples silently in your mind. “I was hoping getting you a coffee might soften the blow of me being late… again.”
You look down at the two remaining cups and see your name written in Clark’s chicken scratch handwriting with a wobbly smiley face drawn next to it. The sticker with the order on it displaying that he’d gotten you your favorite from the shop down the road that you loved to go to whenever you managed to pull yourself away from your desk for longer than ten minutes. That is to say that it is a luxury around here.
Your eyes narrow and lips purse for just a moment before you shove the folder into his chest, and he scrambles to catch it before it hits the ground. “I’m serious, you better have it to me by six P.M., Perry has been on my ass about it,” you assert before plucking your coffee from his desk and turning to walk back to the editor block, the click of your heels like a siren song that has his eyes following after you trailing up your form before settling on your plush backside before he realizes what he’s doing and looks away quickly, suddenly very interested in the broken ceiling tile above his desk.
He hears a snort of laughter and glances back over at Jimmy, who is not even attempting to hide his shit-eating grin. “What?” Clark asks.
Jimmy shakes his head in disbelief. “Dude, you have it so bad.” Clark dares to look confused as to what Jimmy is referring to. He motions to you and Clark can’t help but to sneak another peek at you as you’re stopped in the middle of the bullpen talking to one of the summer interns, the stern brow you’d had with him has softened as you’re inevitably explaining something you have already gone over at least twice with her before with far more patience than you ever afforded Clark.
Clark doesn’t even realize the dopey smile that works its way onto his face as he stares until Jimmy snaps his fingers. “Yeah, see! That!” He points at Clark’s face, which has now settled into what could only be described as a pout.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clark insists.
Jimmy groans as he spins in his chair. “Just ask her out already, the worst thing she could say is ‘no’.”
Clark’s brows furrow. “Actually, the worst thing she could say is ‘you’ll be hearing from HR’.”
Lois rolls out from behind her desk, looking a bit more chipper than five minutes prior, cup of coffee still securely in her hand. “Fired for sexual misconduct would look really bad with future employers,” she teases.
Clark gives her an exasperated look, and Jimmy waves his hand at both of them dismissively. “I’m telling you, there’s no way she’d say no or report you to HR.”
“Jimmy, I hate to break it to you, but she cannot stand Clark,” Lois informs.
“Yeah, she can’t—” He whirls around to look at Lois, a distraught look on his face. “What do you mean she can’t stand me?”
“Clark, you’re always submitting drafts to her late —” “Yeah, because I get really nervous and end up re-writing it like five times before I give it to her.” “— You’re also always showing up late for work—” “I can’t help if the city is attacked and an entire subway line gets shut down!”
Lois gives him a sharp look, and he swallows, something unspoken between them that Jimmy at least doesn’t pick up on.
“Listen, some women just aren’t impressed with the whole… naïve farm boy vibe you got going on,” Lois finishes with a shrug. “Don’t take it so personally.”
Clark looks to Jimmy for some backup, and luckily, the redhead takes pity on poor Clark, coming to his friend’s rescue. “Lois, I respect your opinion on this matter as a woman, but trust me, she may seem like she’s not impressed, but—”
“Oh, don’t even give me that she’s playing hard to get spiel,” Lois rolls her eyes with a disbelieving smile on her face.
“—But, I think she’s playing hard to get.”
“Oh my god, you’re both HR violations waiting to happen,” she chides before taking another sip of her coffee.
“Aw, c’mon, look, you made him sad.” Jimmy gestures to a very downtrodden Clark, who is simply staring in the general direction where you had disappeared back into the editor block with a visible frown on his face.
Guilt creeps up Lois’s spine, and she sighs. “Listen, if you really like her, then just ask her out already and spare us having to endure the puppy dog looks.”
“There ya have it,” Jimmy nods. “Lois Lane approved office romance.”
Lois lets out a bark of laughter as she and Jimmy dive into their own conversation, leaving Clark to his thoughts. He drops into his seat, starting to look over the edits you’d handed him. The amount of markups on the page doesn’t even surprise him. Bright blue ink scratches out entire segments of sentences, circling others, neat handwriting tucked into the margins explaining each cut and need for clarification.
The first article you edited for him had been even worse. There was more blue penned onto the page than black printed ink. You had torn his article into shreds, the one he had shyly placed into the tray on your desk after he had tried to email it to you, only to be told you only accepted printed copies of drafts, something none of the other editors requested.
(Lois would later tell him that you preferred having something physical in your hands when you edited, and she’d made the same mistake in her first week)
He had been so proud of that article when he’d handed it over. Less so when you’d given the folder back to him with nothing more than a raised eyebrow before walking back to your desk, it took all of five minutes before he’d shown up in front of you, the marked-up draft crinkled nervously between his hands, clearly upset by the sheer amount of edits.
You had stared at him, unblinking, as he stammered all over himself, waiting until he talked himself into an awkward silence before saying anything. Dealing with uppity journalists who took personal offense to edits was nothing new to you. “If you don’t make the edits, then I won’t approve it and it won’t go to print,” you’d said simply. “Unless you’d like to make an argument for the run-on sentences?”
There wasn’t any malice in your voice, and that was the moment Clark realized it wasn’t personal, it was just your job, and you were not just good, but great at your job. He must have been as red as a tomato by the time he turned and fled back to his desk with his tail tucked between his legs.
He made the edits, and when Perry walked by his desk the next day, he was complimented on the pacing and tone of the piece. It didn’t make the front page… not even second or third, but it was his first article in the Daily Planet.
You had even smiled at him and congratulated him on his first article when you were making your rounds that morning.
That was where this inconceivably tiny, bite-sized crush started.
Because even when you shredded his article into pieces, his heart sang at the tiny compliments left in the margins.
‘Good pacing here.’
‘This passage really shines.’
‘Beautiful.’
And of course, it doesn’t help that you are pretty. Walking around the office with your face done up and hair perfectly styled in outfits he doesn’t think he has seen a repeat of since starting here almost three years ago. He always feels like a mess in front of you, especially when he comes in late (which is often) and sees you standing there, arms crossed, looking like you want to go up one side of him and down the other (which you have before).
There is also the fact that you hate Superman.
Well, maybe hate isn’t the right word.
Strongly disapprove of?
He remembers the first time a clip of Superman played while you all had gathered in the newsroom. When everyone else was oohing and ahhing at Superman’s heroics (which Clark may or may not have been preening a bit at), you stood there, sipping at your overly expensive coffee with such an unimpressed look.
“Just what we need, another jackass in tights wandering around.”
Clark deflated at that.
While you never explicitly said you disliked his caped alter ego, you definitely never had anything kind to say either. The articles he submitted to you about Superman? If he had gotten those edits when he was a freshman in high school writing for the Smallville High newspaper, he would’ve never written another article again.
Entire paragraphs marked for deletion or simply ‘TONE’ in all caps next to specific passages. The worst had been when you crossed out a sentence and just put ‘No’ next to it in the margins.
“It’s a feature, not an op-ed, Kent.”
It was brutal. Even Lois couldn’t help the grimace whenever she happened to catch sight of those drafts, her and Jimmy saluting Clark when they knew he was walking over to the editor block to submit a Superman article to you.
Despite that, he looked forward to seeing you every day. You had become the person he looks for the moment he enters a room, without him even realizing it.
So much about you and the way you move through the world has been noted and categorized by Clark.
He loved the moments when he caught you while editing, two or three pens stuck in your up-do because you kept forgetting you’d placed them there and grabbed a new one each time, chewing on your bottom lip as you carefully marked up whatever draft you were working on.
He loved how you took care of the people around you in your own, sometimes standoffish, way.
“Have you eaten?” You’d asked him one day, his second year of working at the Planet. It was late, and it was just you two and a handful of others in the office working towards deadlines that were creeping far too close for comfort. He’d been having the hardest time with the beat Perry had assigned him and had worked through his lunch and any subsequent breaks.
“O-oh, I don’t really have money to order out right now,” he said, almost embarrassed. He’d just paid rent, which meant he would be living off of cup noodles and breakroom coffee until next week when his next paycheck hit.
You glanced up at him from your phone that you were tapping on. “I didn’t ask if you had money, I asked if you’d eaten,” you replied pointedly before returning your attention to your phone. “Beef and broccoli, yeah?” You confirmed, and he was a bit stunned but managed to nod in response. Warmth rolling through his chest that you remembered his food order. “I’ll get those eggrolls you like, too.”
“I can pay you back next week,” Clark offered, and you just waved your hand at him, not looking up from your phone.
“I’m not worried about it, Kent.” You walked off, calling out to the others in the office that you were ordering food, leaving Clark’s heart to simmer in your wake.
He loved how unafraid you were. How confident you were in your convictions. There weren’t many people at the Planet who would go to bat against Perry, but you did constantly. So many times, he’d walk into the newsroom to see you two having a screaming match about whether or not an article should go to print.
“We are not printing this!”
“Oh, come off it, Perry, if you want to play it safe, go work for Newstime Magazine!”
The article almost always went to print. Not without a lot of griping from Perry, and you never were smug about it. Satisfied, yes. But it was about journalistic integrity. It was about publishing articles that no other company would touch with a ten-foot pole due to the fear of backlash because no one else would do it. There were many other employees at the Planet who shared the sentiment, but you were consistently the one who fought for it, loudly.
So yeah, Clark Kent had a crush on you because why wouldn’t he? And maybe Jimmy was right, and he should ask you out.
(Or maybe he was wrong and Clark would be looking for a new job by Friday)
By the end of the day, he decides he will ask you out to dinner. Hyping himself up in the moment as he starts to finish the article that he has already rewritten twice now.
Except he doesn’t end up asking you out at all. Instead, it is five P.M., and he stands in front of your desk, freshly printed draft clutched in his hands as he watches you type away at something on your monitor.
You don’t even look up at him, and he knows that you know he is standing there.
Time stretches on for what he could only imagine to be an eternity, and he can feel his heartbeat in his throat as he waits until, finally, you push back from your desk, turning to face him. “Is there something you need, Clark?” The eye contact you make sends his heart sputtering, but the way his name rolls off your lips has his knees so weak he almost falls against your desk in a heap. Your gaze flickers down to the papers in his hand. “Is that the Crane case draft?”
“O-oh! Yeah!” He says dumbly, and when he doesn’t do anything but continue to stand there, you blink, briefly wondering if he’d suffered some head injury in the last few hours.
“Can I… have it?” you question, brows furrowed in confusion as you stare up at him.
You watch a flush creep up his cheeks, and he practically slams the folder onto your desk. “Y-yeah, of course! I’m sorry it took so long to get to you, I was having some trouble with one of the sources and…”
“I’ll have the edits to you tomorrow morning,” you confirm. “Try to get here on time, Perry wants this to run for the evening issue.”
He nods, pushing up his glasses as they slide down his nose, and pretends not to notice as you follow the movement. “Don’t worry, I’ll be on time, I promise.” You stare at him for a pause before turning back to your computer, muttering something akin to ‘I’ve heard that one before,’ and Clark is struck by the way the setting sun backlights you, wisps of gold brushing against your profile. His heart his hammering in his chest as he tries to will himself to say something, anything else to you.
“Okay, bye.”
Not that.
“Have a good night,” you call out, not looking up from the screen.
Clark shuffles away, already mentally beating himself up as Jimmy appears behind him, bag swung over his shoulder. “That was rough to watch, buddy.”
“Shut up,” Clark groans as he grabs his things from his desk. “I don’t know why there’s such a disconnect between my brain and my mouth when I’m around her.”
“Hey, I get it, man,” Jimmy nods. “She is scary, but in a really hot way—” Clark’s head snaps up, and he gives Jimmy a sharp look because he knows Jimmy’s reputation. “Relax, relax. She’s all yours, I can assure you. I think she’d eat me alive.”
As Clark follows Jimmy to the elevator, he glances back over his shoulder, seeing you still sitting at your desk as everyone else has begun to pack up for the night. You give a smile and bid another editor goodnight as she tells you not to stay too late.
He knows you will anyway.
As they step into the elevator with a handful of their coworkers, all conversing about their plans for the rest of the night, Clark decides that tomorrow he will definitely ask you out.
He does not end up asking you out tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after, as a matter of fact. Every single time he resolved himself to doing so, he felt the words turn to mush in his mouth the moment he saw you.
Once, because you had been standing with Lois in the breakroom, laughing in a way he’d never seen before, the snort of laughter so uncharacteristic and unexpected, he had walked straight into the mail cart, sending envelopes and parcels flying all over the place.
The second time, he had gone into the archives to grab some old records to reference for a story he’d been working on, and turned the corner to see you up on a stool, half bent as you tried to wrestle with a box buried on the shelf. Clark could only focus on the swell of your backside in the tight slacks you were wearing and didn’t even register that you had turned to him.
“Clark? Help, please?”
Whatever words that came out of his mouth were unintelligible as his body went into autopilot, grabbing the box you’d been battling with ease, nodding like an idiot as you thanked him before turning on his heel and walking out, completely forgetting about the entire reason he’d gone in there to begin with.
The third and final time, you weren’t even doing anything special, just sitting at your desk, humming along to the desk radio you had quietly going, sorting through papers. Clark was determined this time. He’d spent the entirety of last night rehearsing what he was going to say, all the while fighting an interdimensional creature that was terrorizing downtown.
He had approached you with confidence, and then you’d turn to face him, lips wrapped around a cherry lollipop that one of the secretaries had given out as extras from her daughter’s birthday party over the weekend.
Whatever confidence he had rapidly warped into panic as words fell out of his mouth in a jumble. Indiscernible and certainly not a sentence asking you to go to dinner with him. He stood there as you stared up at him, and he could see the stain of the lollipop on your lips and tongue.
“Clark, what?”
And then he made some sort of noise and, with haste, fled the vicinity, leaving you there blinking, wondering what just happened.
It is that afternoon that he hears you in a quiet conversation with Lois as he is once again unjamming Printer 4. You perch on her desk, leaning close to whisper to her, completely unaware that Clark can hear every single word you say.
“I think Clark has a concussion,” you inform with a solemn look on your face.
Lois almost laughs at that, but keeps her face trained in faux concern. “Why do you think that?”
“I don’t think that man has said a coherent sentence to me this entire week,” you explain. “He’s basically resorted to communicating with me in grunts like a caveman.”
That has Lois snorting with laughter, trying to hide the smile with her coffee cup as she takes a sip of the lukewarm liquid that’s been sitting on her desk for the better part of the morning. “I can assure you he does not have a concussion.”
You give her a pursed look, clearly not believing her. “Then what is his deal?”
It is at this moment that Lois makes eye contact with Clark from across the newsroom. He feels the dread build up in him as a smirk tilts its way onto Lois’s face, and he can almost see the exact moment the thought formulates in her head.
And then the building shakes, lights flickering as a deafening ‘boom’ echoes from somewhere outside. Silence settles in place of panic, as everyone listens with bated breath, hoping it was nothing to be concerned about, perhaps just some construction down the road. Until the second explosion rocks the building, and then chaos erupts.
People are scrambling all over. Clark sees you grab Lois and push her towards the stairwell, yelling at the gaggle of people who are trying to file into the elevator. “Are you idiots? Use the stairs!” That gets them moving, and Clark is moving with everyone else.
As you all get to the ground floor, you can see the source of the explosions, Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, and Hawkgirl are fighting some idiot on a hoverboard who keeps tossing explosives around like he’s giving out candy on Halloween. Another one detonates, and a building down the street crumbles from the explosion. Debris and dust are scattering through the streets as people run from the epicenter of the fight. Cops are trying to divert traffic away, and the wail of ambulances approaches.
It’s pandemonium.
“C’mon, Kent, move it!” There’s a hand on his arm, and he looks down to find you pulling him along. The crowd around you is a shifting sea, but you’re firm and steady beside him despite the chaos. He realizes he’s going away from where he needs to be, but he lets you pull him anyway.
And then an explosion hits from somewhere above, and suddenly the air is filled with dirt and smoke, and the crowds push forward even as people sputter and try to regain their bearings. You lose your grip on Clark after getting knocked around by the surge of people, and that’s when panic sets in for you as you stop amidst the mass of people, shouting for him. “Clark?” You don’t see his massive form in the crowd of people, and your throat constricts. “Clark?!”
Someone behind you pushes, and you keep moving because it’s either that or be crushed by the swath of people. There’s a barricade another block down, and by the time you make it there, the crowd has begun to disperse, and there’s still no sign of Clark Kent. You feel nauseous as you think of the plethora of things that could’ve happened to him, though the thought of him lying dead in the street with people rushing over him is at the forefront of your mind.
You ask people as they rush by you.
“Excuse me, have you seen a guy, about this tall?”
“A man, curly hair, and glasses?”
A sonic boom cuts through the chaos, and people cheer as Superman flies onto the scene. You don’t, though. Your phone is in your hand as you search for Clark’s number, which has been unused until now in your contact list. It rings once, twice, all the way until the voicemail picks up.
“Hey, you’ve reached Clark. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”
You hang up and try again, ignoring the tightness in your throat when it goes to voicemail once more.
“Hey, you’ve reached Clark. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get—”
You feel your lip wobble. And again.
“Hey, you’ve reached Clark. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message—”
With Superman coming to their aid, the heroes make quick work of the lone villain. You barely notice that the crowd has waned as the heroics come to an end. Instead, you’re pacing under the awning of a building, being met with Clark Kent’s voicemail message again and again each time you call him.
You had already called Jimmy and Lois, both of whom hadn’t seen their friend, though Lois tried to convince you that he was fine. You couldn’t help the worry that nagged at you.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” Someone asks from behind you.
You whirl around, pulling the phone from your ear, and you can’t even help the wide-eyed look that appears on your face. Superman himself stands before you, bathed in the light of the setting sun that creeps through the skyline of Metropolis behind him. He’s bigger in person, you realize. Broader than you thought he’d be.
“Ma’am?” There’s concern on his face when you don’t answer.
“Yes,” you reply quickly. “Yes, I’m sorry, I’m fine.”
“Hey, you’ve reached Clark. I can’t come to the phone right now, but—.”
You look back down at your phone and press the ‘end call’ button, biting your lip.
“I’m looking for Clark,” you tell him. “Clark Kent. You know him, he’s interviewed you before. He was beside me, and then an explosion hit above us, and I lost him in the chaos, and I can’t find him, and he’s not answering his phone—” Your voice cracks, and you don’t even notice the way Superman’s face crumples with it.
“Hey,” he calls out softly as he steps closer. You feel a warm hand on your shoulder, and you look up, your eyes meeting an earthshattering shade of blue. “It’s alright,” he assures. “I’ll find him. Why don’t you go home and rest? I’ll make sure he’s okay.”
You shake your head. “No, if something happened to him, I—”
“Nothing happened to him,” he promises. “I’ll find him, and when I do, I’ll make sure he calls you, how about that?”
You want to be stubborn. You want to tell Superman to shove off. But you’re tired, and there’s a burn in your lungs from all of the dust and smoke. Gripping your phone harder, you shove the edge of it into his chest, and he looks a bit surprised, if not a little amused by the action. “You make sure he calls me,” you order, and there’s a fragility in your voice that Clark doesn’t think he’s heard before, despite the way your jaw is set. You’re putting on a brave face.
A soft smile spreads on Superman’s face. “Yes, ma’am.”
An hour and a half later, just as you fit your key into the deadbolt of your door, your phone rings. The name ‘Clark Kent’ flashes across the screen, and pure relief floods you as you pick up on the second ring. “Clark?”
“H-hey,” his soft voice comes through the other end, and you never thought you would be so happy to hear that Kansan accent. “I’m so sorry, I left my phone at the office and I finally just went back to get it.”
“Are you okay?” you ask as you close your door behind you.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay,” he replies.
There’s a pregnant pause between you two. You think you should say ‘okay’ and hang up, not draw out the conversation any longer than it needs to be. But you don’t. The bizarre want to hear his voice some more, tugging at you in a way you’ve never experienced before. “Don’t think you get to be late to work tomorrow just because a couple of buildings on our street exploded,” you tease, breaking through the tension of the quiet.
He laughs, and even though you’re silent, he can tell you’re smiling too. “Wouldn't dream of it,” he says.
“Goodnight, Clark.”
“Yeah, goodnight.”
Clark surprises you the next morning by not only arriving on time, but arriving early. He’s so early that it is just you two in the newsroom. The shock is written on your face as you spot him walking from the elevator while standing at the copier, eyes wide and mouth agape.
He gives a shy wave, cheeks dimpling as he smiles at you. “Good morning,” he calls out.
What he does not expect is for you to grab the stack of papers off the copier and march towards him, smacking him repeatedly with the pile of papers. “You can’t just disappear like that during a crisis!” He doesn’t flinch as he is hit. You don’t even notice how gently he’s looking down at you, too busy giving him a piece of your mind like you always do. “Like, what the hell, Clark? I thought something happened to you!”
You run out of steam surprisingly quickly and meet his gaze. “I really am sorry,” he whispers, and you take a moment to study his face and the blue of his eyes, and you’re struck by a thought that leaves your mouth dry.
Clark is handsome.
“Don’t do it again,” you warn, giving him one final half-hearted swat to the chest that has him giving you a laugh that leaves you lightheaded. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
He smiles and nods, and when you go to leave, he can feel the end of the moment between you two rapidly approaching. He doesn’t want it to end. “Would you wanna go out to dinner with me?” he asks before he can even think long enough to get nervous about it.
You blink once, then twice as though you’re not quite sure you heard him correctly. “Dinner?”
He nods, swallowing the lump in his throat.
“Is this a date?”
He nods again and can feel his palms begin to sweat.
“Yes,” you say after a beat. He grins, dimples and all, and warmth spreads through your chest, a feeling you’re hesitant to embrace.
“Friday? Seven P.M.?” He asks.
“Gino’s?” You suggest, a lilt to your voice that isn’t normally there, and he’s mesmerized by the look in your eye as you do, by the way you’re trying to disguise the smile that itches at your face. He nods, leaning in a bit. The papers in your hand are a shield between you two, and you step back. “Don’t be late.”
“I won’t be.” He wouldn’t be.
Gino’s Italian Restaurant, Metropolis - 7:43 PM
He was late.
You didn’t miss the sympathetic looks the hostess and waiters sent you every time they passed by your table for two, which was occupied by one. Your glass of wine was nearly empty, and the bread basket was alarmingly full despite the hunger that gnawed at your insides.
You had been trying not to glance down at your phone for the last half hour, knowing that if you had gotten a text, the screen would light up. However, it had remained dark since you sent Clark your last message, asking where he was.
With one final swig, you empty the glass, catching the eye of the waiter, waving him over. “Can I have the check, please?” you ask.
After paying for your singular glass of wine, once you were out in the cool breeze of the summer night, you finally recheck your phone. The absence of any new message sent a trill of fury through you, only amplified by the news report notification about Superman fighting some gigantic monster in midtown.
“Great,” you grumble. “Let’s hope they don’t knock out the T-Line this time.”
The trek home takes far too long with people getting diverted away from the kaiju battle, and the pleasant buzz you had from the glass of wine had long since worn off as you shove through your apartment door, flinging it closed behind you as you kick off your pumps, breathing in the relief for your aching feet.
You’re desperate to get out of the dress you’d squeezed into (after spending far too long debating what dress Clark would like better on you), but the desire to get absolutely shitfaced after being stood up by your coworker was overwhelming. And that’s how you found yourself lounging on your balcony, watching Big Blue himself battle an enormous alien creature from across the city with nothing but a bottle of chardonnay to keep you company.
You stay there until long after the light show ends, just taking sips from the bottle every so often, sitting in your sorrow. Honestly, you don’t even know why you’re so upset. It’s not as though you even liked Clark all that much; you were just looking forward to a free meal.
Like, yes, he was objectively good-looking, and yes, he always remembered your coffee order. And, yes, maybe you prodded him just a little more than you did others because you liked watching him get flustered.
But you didn’t like him.
(You could have, though)
A loud knock at your door startles you from your thoughts. Your bare feet pad against the floor of your apartment as you softly step to your door, peeking through the peephole, finding none other than Clark Kent himself standing outside of your apartment.
If you were any other person, you might have just ignored the knocking, letting him stew in the silence, but you were not any other person, and with half a bottle of chardonnay in your system, you want nothing more than to give him a piece of your mind.
When you rip the door open, Clark looks at you wide-eyed and sputtering. “I’m so—”
“Oh, absolutely not,” you interrupt, shoving your finger into his (startlingly firm) chest. “You have a lot of nerve, Clark Kent.”
“I know, I know, please just let me—”
“Let you what? Explain? Explain how you left me waiting at Gino’s for forty-five minutes for you? Explain how now at—” You lean back to glance at the microwave clock in your kitchen. “—9:57 PM, nearly 3 hours after we were supposed to meet for our date, you show up at my door expecting to grovel at my feet for me to what? To forgive you?”
“No, that’s not it, please just let me explain,” he begs.
You don’t, though. “You made me look like an idiot.” Your voice is soft, and there’s vulnerability, the bite you had seconds prior, leaving your body rapidly. You can feel the way your throat tightens, and the pit in your stomach feels like it could swallow you whole. You hate feeling like this, feeling this small. Clark looks at your eyes and realizes they’re tinged red and clouded with unshed tears. He wants to throw up. “You made me feel like an idiot.”
“I’m really sorry.” His voice cracks, and it looks like he wants to reach out to touch you, but he doesn’t.
“Me too,” you say back, tone empty and despondent.
“I got you these.” He holds out a lightly crumpled bouquet that’s been hanging limply at his side this entire time. You stare at it. It wasn’t one of those grocery store bouquets, no, this one is full of your favorite flowers, clearly and explicitly curated for you.
You blink back tears and grab the bouquet, holding it close to your chest. “Thank you.”
“You look really pretty.”
“I know,” you whisper. “Goodnight, Clark.”
He doesn’t say anything as you shut the door, your gaze catching your reflection in the hallway mirror. It’s almost pathetic, you all dolled up with a bouquet of all your favorite flowers, looking like you were a moment away from the dam breaking.
And then there’s a burn at the back of your throat that you can’t ignore, and you can’t help as the tears finally fall from your eyes, you suck in a deep breath on instinct, feeling the sob try to wretch out from you. You don’t know that Clark is standing on the other side, jaw clenched, nostrils flaring as he blinks away his own tears.
The weekend passes by horridly fast. As much as you had wanted to waste away and lament about the date that never was (that you would definitely not admit you had gotten your hopes up for), you would not let being stood up consume your entire weekend; they were a precious commodity after all.
So, after spending Friday night ugly crying into your pillow, you pulled yourself together by Saturday morning. You went out to a boozy brunch with some of your college friends, took yourself on a walk around the park to enjoy the sunshine, and spent some time in your favorite bookstore buying books that you promised yourself you would read and not let sit untouched on your bookshelf like the entire neglected pile of others.
By Sunday, you were feeling better. That is, until you were getting ready for bed Sunday night and the dread hit you.
You spent the night tossing and turning, feeling like you wanted to crawl out of your skin at just the thought of having to see Clark again. By morning, it took a generous application of concealer to hide the bags under your eyes and a heavy pep talk in the mirror to even think about stepping out your door.
As with most Monday mornings, as soon as you walked into the bullpen, it was a cacophony of chaos, but at least it was chaos you were familiar with. You make your way to your desk, offering halfhearted greetings, and feel slight relief as you settle into your seat, hoping that work will keep your brain busy enough not to let the anxiety ruin your day.
Then your gaze fixes on the paper coffee cup placed in front of your keyboard. Your name is written in a familiar chicken scratch handwriting. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you swivel in your seat, looking back at the writer block to see that Clark Kent is already sitting at his desk. Hunched and fidgeting with a stack of Post-it notes as he catches your eye. His mouth tilts up into an uncertain smile.
You purse your lips, a scowl forming on your face as you grab the coffee cup, maintaining unblinking eye contact as you proceed to drop it directly into the garbage can next to your desk, and then you spin back around.
Clark grimaces. “Yeah, I deserve that,” he mutters as he looks back at the blank Word document that’s been taunting him since he got in this morning.
It wasn’t any surprise how quickly word got around about Clark’s spectacular failure. Steve had walked by his desk after the morning meeting, giving a ‘womp womp’ that made Clark nearly snap the pencil he was writing with.
“So, let me get this straight,” Jimmy slides over, munching on some yogurt and granola. “You finally ask out the woman you’ve been pining after for who knows how long, then proceed to miss the date entirely without texting her that you wouldn’t be able to make it, and then show up at her apartment with flowers, thinking that would make up for the complete lack of communication?”
Clark sighs. “Yeah, that about covers it.” His voice is muffled as he buries his face in his hands.
“Buddy,” Jimmy starts. “You really fucked up.”
Clark groans, leaning back in his seat. “Yeah, Jimmy, I know.”
He didn’t even want to look over at Lois because all she kept doing was sending him looks of disappointment the whole morning. She had stopped by your desk this morning with a grin on her face that quickly morphed into a look of horror as you recounted Friday night’s events.
Even Cat, who was usually all honeyed words with Clark, had been giving him the stink eye.
Honestly, though, no one else could make Clark feel as bad as he made himself feel about the whole thing. He had spent the weekend agonizing over how badly he had messed up with you. The sound of you crying on the other side of the door replaying in his head like his own personal version of hell.
He even called his parents.
“Oh, Clark, honey,” Martha soothed. “You wounded that woman’s pride, you just gotta give her some time to cool off.”
“I don’t know, Ma, I think I really messed this one up,” he said, pinching at the bridge of his nose as he felt the telltale pressure of tears building up.
“Now, Clark, no problem worth fixin’ is ever easy.” He couldn’t see them, but he knew Pa was nodding along. “If this girl is everything you’ve made her out to be, she’ll come around.”
The week passes by, and you coming around is nowhere in sight. Every cup of coffee he left on your desk went directly into the trash, the bouquets of your favorite flowers were pawned off to the secretaries, and the lunches were donated to the breakroom on a first-come, first-served basis.
When he went to drop off drafts for you to edit, you pointedly ignored him. To your credit, the edits you made were not as harsh as he’d thought they’d be in light of everything, though there was an apparent lack of any compliments in the margins that he always found himself looking forward to reading (and re-reading).
“Why don’t you come out tonight?” Lois asks on Friday morning. You give her a look, knowing the standing invite for Friday night drinks includes everyone in the office. “C’mon, he won’t be there, he never shows up.”
You pause, chewing at the inside of your lip, internally hemming and hawing. “I’ll think about it,” you finally concede, which is enough to get Lois to grin, a little pep in her step as she makes her way back to the writer block.
Friday afternoon, Jimmy comes sauntering over to you like a cat that got into the cream. He plants himself on your desk, ignoring your look of indignation when he crumples a few drafts you were working on with his ass. “Check out these photos I just finished developing,” he says as he spreads a handful of photos of Superman in front of you. They’re remarkably clear, some of the best pictures you have ever seen of Big Blue. “I was testing out that new lens I just got.” They were from a fight earlier this week in uptown.
Despite your frequently voiced objections to Metropolis’s favorite hero, you give Jimmy a hum of approval, picking one up to closer inspect it. “These are pretty good, how’d you get such a good shot of him in the air?” you ask.
“Climbed up a light pole,” he informs nonchalantly, grabbing some M&Ms from the candy bowl on your desk.
Your neck snaps to look at him. “James!”
“What?” He shrugs his shoulders. “Gotta do what it takes to get the shot.”
You let out a huff. “Unbelievable, you’re gonna break your neck one of these days.” You continue to sort through the photos, setting aside the ones you know Perry will submit for the front page.
“Haven’t yet,” he says, cheekily popping a few M&Ms in his mouth with a wink.
The final photo is a zoomed-in shot of Superman’s face. He’s smiling down at a few children who have gathered around him in the aftermath of the battle, a familiar softness to his face. You straighten up a bit, holding the photo closer to examine it.
“What’s up?” Jimmy asks when he sees your shift in posture.
You feel like you’ve seen it before, the blue of his eyes, the gentle tilt of his lips hinting at dimples, but the rest of the face is… wrong.
Maybe you’re losing it.
“Nothing,” you reply. “Really great work, Jimmy. Perry is definitely going to run this on the front page.”
Jimmy gives a grin.
You end up at the bar, thinking it might be good for you to let your hair down, literally and figuratively, for the night. Lois lights up when she sees you making your way through the Friday night crowd, and Jimmy has a drink in your hand before you even get a chance to sit down.
You’re listening to Cat go on and on about the guy she’s seeing, and given the debacle of the last week, it should annoy you to hear someone gush about their dating life, but the giddiness on Cat’s face is infectious so instead you sit there resting your chin on your hand with a smile on your face as you nod along asking all the appropriate questions.
It’s loud in the bar between all the people and the music playing, so you barely register the bell above the door ringing. You do, however, clock Jimmy turning to Lois and saying, “He never comes out.”
Instinctively, you turn in your seat, immediately locking eyes with Clark. He looks like he just left the office, suit coat slung over his arm and tie loosened. He’s moving through the crowd towards you, not breaking eye contact as though he’s scared you’ll disappear if you do, only to be intercepted by Lois. “Hey, Clark,” she greets, a tight fake smile plastered on her face. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Uh, yeah, well, not a lot going on tonight, so I figured I’d come… socialize,” he says lamely. You don’t see the flat look that Lois gives him.
Both of them look back at you. You catch Lois’s eyes and give her a little nod of your head, calling off your (very effective) guard dog. However, she narrows her eyes at Clark in a silent warning before returning to her conversation with Jimmy, who had been watching the entire exchange while taking a very long sip of his fruity cocktail.
Clark takes the empty seat next to you. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asks, fidgeting with his tie.
You stare at him as you play with the straw of your nearly empty cup, unabashedly tracing the slopes and contours of his face. He shifts nervously under your gaze, and you can’t tell if the flush creeping up his neck is due to you or the stuffiness of the bar. You still don’t say anything as you lean forward, and he’s too stunned to move away as your hand reaches out, fingers pressing through the curls hanging on his forehead, brushing them back into a tidier position, spending maybe a bit too long smoothing back the sides. The caress of your nails against his scalp sends a tingle down his spine, and his breath gets caught in his throat.
You don’t say anything for too long, just maintaining eye contact with him, like you’re searching his eyes for something.
“Vodka cran,” you say, resting back into your seat, and Clark wonders if you found what you were looking for.
His ears are red, and he quickly turns to the bartender to wave them down and grab you another drink, getting a soda for himself. Conversation flows between the two of you in a surprisingly easy manner, given the events of the past week. Work-related mostly. Clark is doing a better job of not stumbling all over himself, something he’s silently patting himself on the back for.
“You’ve been on time all week,” you note. Clark tries not to focus on how your lips wrap around the straw or how your gloss has stained the plastic.
“Yes, ma’am,” he confirms, the gentle lilt of his Kansan accent slipping through.
You fall silent for a moment, looking at him with such clarity in your eyes that it’s almost startling, and Clark can’t help but feel like he ground your entire conversation to a halt with just two words. “I’m gonna head out.” And then you’re grabbing your purse, tossing a few crinkled bills onto the bar as a tip before standing up.
“O-oh, okay,” Clark stammers, disappointment creeping up in him.
You’re about to step away until you glance back over your shoulder at him. “Are you going to walk me home?” You ask as though that had been the plan all along and he had just forgotten.
He blinks owlishly at your question like he’s not sure he quite heard you right. “Y-yeah!” He scrambles up, nearly knocking over his barstool, and you both head out after bidding your coworkers a goodnight. Lois cocks an eyebrow at you, but you just wiggle your fingers in goodbye.
Jimmy is giving Clark some waggling eyebrows with an enormous grin on his face that Clark is pointedly trying to ignore.
The walk home is quiet. The cool summer air is refreshing on your skin after sitting in the humidity of the bar, and the couple of drinks you had have left you a little light in the head, though it’s not an unwelcome feeling; you figure you’re going to need some liquid courage tonight anyway.
When you arrive at your apartment building, Clark walks you up to your apartment. You still don’t say anything as you take out your keys to unlock your door, and Clark swallows the lump in his throat, already preparing to say goodbye. “You coming in?” You question as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, as you step into your apartment, leaving room for him to follow in after you.
“I—” He looks like a deer in the headlights. “You sure?”
You give a nod, and he steps in, albeit hesitantly, closing the door behind him. As soon as it clicks shut, you’re on him, hand pulling at the tie loosely around his neck, jerking him forward despite the other hand firmly on his chest pushing him back until he hits the door with a thud.
He looks shocked, face flushed and pupils blown wide as he doesn’t know what to do with his hands that hover at your waist but do not touch. You’re leaning up and he’s leaning down, gaze darting back and forth between your eyes and your lips. He thinks the strawberry smell is your lip gloss, and his heart won’t stop beating symphonies into his ribcage.
He doesn’t cross it, though, the invisible boundary that’s between you, even when he feels your breath fan against his lips. “I’m giving you the chance to be honest with me,” you whisper like it’s a warning, your voice husky in a way that has his insides twisting and turning.
“Okay,” he says softly.
You don’t move away as though you’re afraid he might try to run if you do. He can hear your own heart hammering in your chest. You’re nervous, he realizes. “You’re Superman.” Your tone doesn’t suggest it’s a question. It’s a statement. You know he’s Superman, and you’re allowing him the opportunity to be honest with you about it.
“Yes.”
Your heart rate speeds up. “That’s why you missed our date.”
“Yes,” he breathes like it’s painful to remember.
You finally blink, breaking eye contact to look down, lashes fluttering against your cheeks. “You really like me?” This one is a question. This one you’re unsure about.
Clark’s hands finally find purchase at your waist. The boundary between the two of you is barely hanging on by a thread. “Immensely.” Your grip on his tie loosens, and both hands are pressed gently against his chest. It wouldn’t take much; he would just have to lean down another inch or two to bring the whole thing crumbling down, but he doesn’t. “How’d you figure it out?” he asks.
“Your eyes,” you murmur like it was an evident thing, “—and your little… Midwestern-isms.”
He can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. Oh, he was in so deep. “My Midwestern-isms?”
“’Yes, ma’am,’” you mock with a bad accent, not at all what he sounds like, and you bite your lip to hide your grin. “How does it work? Your face is… different than Superman’s.”
“The glasses,” he informs, tilting his head. “They’re hypno-glasses, make me look a little bit different, just enough.”
Your hands surge upward before you even know what they’re doing, stopping just shy as you look to Clark for permission, and he nods. As you take off the glasses, it’s like his face comes into focus when you never even realized it had been blurry before. Edges sharpen and define, his nose a little straighter, lips a little fuller, jaw a little squarer.
Moreover, he stands differently when the glasses come off. His shoulders rearrange, and he’s taller now, more confident… broader.
Superman.
“You know everything is starting to make sense,” you ponder as you set the glasses on your entrance table, fingers playing with the collar of his shirt. You’re still standing close, his hands on your hips, not allowing you to wander too far from his orbit.
“Yeah?” Even his voice seems crisper, deeper now.
“Mhm,” you hum, “—you’re constantly being late, disappearing whenever some crisis pops up…” You laugh a bit. “I’m actually kind of mad at myself for not realizing it sooner.”
“I thought you might’ve thrown a shoe at me or something,” he admits.
You pull back, giving him an incredulous look. “What?”
“With you not liking Superman and all,” he elaborates. “Figured you would read me the riot act, at least.”
You scoff, rolling your eyes. “It’s not that I don’t like Superman.”
“Oh?” Eyebrows raise on his forehead. “First time I’m hearing this.”
You shove him, lightly, though he doesn’t move, solid under your touch. “It’s this… dependency we have on him—you,” you correct. “Superman—you—you’re not our savior, and we shouldn’t rely on you to fix every problem or to always show up. We should be able to stand on our own two feet.”
“But I want to help,” he insists, and you see it in his eyes, the earnestness in them. It’s so… Clark. “When things get hard and the world needs someone to lean on, I can carry that weight.”
“And what happens when you need someone to lean on? You may have super strength and can fly and shoot lasers out of your eyes, but you’re still—”
Human.
He doesn’t pretend the implication doesn’t crash around him like tidal waves.
You pull away a bit, not out of reach, not with his hands still wrapped around your waist. “Who’s going to carry the weight for you?” There’s sincerity in your question, and he doesn’t know how to respond because he doesn’t have an answer.
“I—”
You bite your lip as if you’re uncertain whether you should say the next part aloud, nervous to speak those feelings into the universe. “I can,” you say softly.
“I couldn’t ask that of you.”
“But I want to help.” You throw his words back at him, and he’s at a loss for what to say. “You don’t have to carry it alone.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out, and he’s looking at you like you hung the moon. He wants to kiss you so bad, but he’s afraid of being the one to cross that line.
“Clark.”
He doesn’t know if there’s a sweeter sound than his name on your lips.
“Just kiss me already.”
Except maybe that.
He’s surging forward in the next moment, mouth hot against yours. The barrier is dust between you. He tastes like the remnants of the sugary soda he’d ordered at the bar, and a quick swipe of his tongue against your lips confirms that your lip gloss is strawberry flavored.
You walk backwards, unsteady but confident, hands firmly tugging him along by his shirt, all the while not breaking the kiss that has your brain in a dizzy fog. You can’t help the giggle that escapes as you bump into your destination, the couch, causing your teeth to clatter together.
Clark smiles against your lips as his hands lower, gripping at your thighs as he lifts you off the ground so effortlessly that it has you letting out a quiet ‘oh’. His deep laugh goes straight to your core, and he settles onto the couch with you on top of him, your hands running through his hair, gripping it in a way that has him giving a low groan.
“Is this okay?” he asks in between kisses as though you’re not actively grinding down onto him.
A whimper escapes you as his hard-on catches the seam of your pants just right. “I will actually kill you if you stop.” The normal bite of your tone has given way to desperation. Clark’s entire body warms at that.
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmurs into your mouth, hands wandering to your ass, pressing you harder down onto him while bucking up into you. He leans back for a moment, placing another peck on your lips as his fingers start making work of the buttons on your blouse. When your cleavage comes into view, accentuated by your bra, something plain and practical, you hear Clark let out a shaky breath followed by an ‘oh, golly’ that has you a giggling mess on top of him. He grins, grabbing hold of the side of your neck as he pulls you back into a kiss. “You’re so pretty.”
You nip at his bottom lip. “I could tell by the ‘oh, golly,’” you tease, though your smugness doesn’t last for long as Clark has you on your back against the couch pillows a second later.
You watch reverently as he unbuttons his shirt, shrugging it off before pulling off his undershirt. He’s like a peacock, the way he fluffs up as your mouth goes slack, seeing what he was hiding underneath oversized button-ups and baggy suits for the last three years.
“Jesus Christ,” you breathe. “What the fuck were they feeding you in Kansas?”
He shakes with laughter as he leans back down, slotting himself in between your legs so he can reconnect your mouths, hand sliding up your side to palm your breast, not waiting long to slide underneath the cup of your bra. You arch up into him as his thumb brushes against your nipple, moaning quietly into his mouth, a sound he eagerly swallows down.
He trails kisses to your cheek, down your neck, spending a bit more time nipping and biting there when you give a shaky gasp. He continues down, pressing kisses to the top of your breasts, before trailing down to your ribs to your stomach until settling right above the waist of your pants.
You barely register him unbuttoning your pants until he drags them and your underwear down in one fell swoop. You cant your hips, letting him take them the rest of the way off, trying not to giggle as he throws the heap across your living room. A problem for tomorrow you.
Self-consciousness pricks at your brain as he spreads your legs, fingertips biting into your thighs, and in the glow of the moonlight streaming in through your apartment windows, you watch him lick his lips as he stares down at you, suddenly, any self-doubt fizzles away. One hand trails up your inner thigh to your core, spreading you so he can take in more of the sight. “You’re so wet,” he murmurs before he bends down.
A breathy moan escapes you as he licks a stripe up your center. “Fuck, Clark.” That eggs him on, and he swirls his tongue around your clit in a way that has you reaching down and gripping his hair. There’s a finger prodding at your entrance and then two that are curling into you at just the right spot.
Your chest heaves as you sink further into the couch, eyes fluttering to the back of your head as your apartment is filled with the obscene noises of Clark eating you out, groaning as he mutters about how good you taste. The feeling of his spit mixed with your own liquids trailing down your ass is overwhelming, and then he sucks at your clit in a way that has your toes curling.
“Clark, please,” you beg. You can feel the band at your core tightening with each swipe of his tongue and thrust of his fingers.
He pulls back slightly, now three fingers deep, hitting a spot inside you that has you seeing stars. “C’mon, sweetheart,” he coaches. “Cum on my fingers.”
Your breath hitches at mild-mannered Clark Kent telling you to cum on his fingers. He dives back in with enthusiasm, which is all it takes as your hips buck up into his face, and he gladly lets you grind against his mouth, especially with the sounds you’re making as you tighten around his fingers. His fingers continue pumping in and out of you as you ride out your orgasm, his name on your lips like a prayer as his lips greedily drink up all you give him.
He leans back, cheek resting against your inner thigh as he watches you catch your breath and give a little whine when his fingers don’t relent, tugging on his hair. A grin works its way onto his face, and he takes pity on your overstimulated self, pulling his fingers out as he presses a kiss to your thigh before crawling back up to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his tongue as he licks at your bottom lip.
Your hands find purchase on his shoulders, drawing him deeper into the kiss, and you can feel the heavy weight of him against your thigh.
“Good?” he asks as he draws back from you, breathless.
“I think I blacked out at one point,” you respond, still feeling a little lightheaded, which is only exacerbated when he grinds his hips against yours and nips at your neck. “Now take your pants off.” You order as you push him back, propping yourself up on your elbows.
“Bossy,” he teases as he stands, unbuttoning his slacks, letting them drop to the floor. You don’t even have time to register anything else when he pulls down his briefs, and you can only stare with your mouth wide open and brows raised high on your forehead at the size of him. Clark looks a bit uncertain. “Is this okay?”
You surge to your feet and pull him down into a kiss. “It’s always the quiet ones,” you murmur more to yourself as you push him back onto the couch with no resistance and climb up onto his lap. He practically whimpers when you grind onto him. “Seriously, what the fuck were they feeding you?” You question against his lips as you slot yourself against his cock. Naked against him, you really take in how large Clark is in every capacity.
His hands have settled on the globes of your ass, letting you take the reins as you move your hips against his, the wet friction has him moaning into your mouth. “You feel so good,” he breathes. “Thought about this so much.”
“Yeah?” You ask. “Thought about me on top of you a lot, huh?” He nods and tilts his head back as you jut your hips against just at the right spot. You kiss down his jawline, whispering into his ear. “What else have you thought about? Stuffing me full of your cock?”
He stammers a bit, his brain short-circuiting at your dirty talk, and heat spreads up to his ears. “Y-yeah, thought about how good you’d look with me inside you,” he admits.
You reach down between you, grabbing hold of him, and his hips stutter up against your hand, moaning at the feel of your soft skin against his cock. The next thing he knows, you’re sinking onto him and he’s committing the hot, wet heat of your pussy to memory. The burn is expected given his size, and you whine with each inch of him you take.
Clark is a whimpering mess beneath you, brows furrowed in concentration as he tries not to move, letting you set your own pace, though the iron grip he has on your waist is going to leave bruises tomorrow. “So good, so good,” he repeats as he presses kisses into your shoulder. “Gosh, you’re so tight.”
You let the ‘gosh’ slide, given how full of him you are right now. It’s almost overwhelming the size of him, and just when you’re sure you’ve taken him all, you feel yourself slide down another inch. “Christ, you’re so big,” you whine, and you can feel his cock twitch inside of you at that.
“You can’t just say that,” he practically begs, voice cracking slightly, and he’s so tense, you can feel how taut all of his muscles are beneath you.
It’s sweet relief when you feel him bottom out in you and you stay there for a moment, letting yourself adjust, the stinging pain of the stretch not unpleasant, and when you feel more confident you’ve adjusted, you give an experimental thrust of your hips that has you both gasping.
You give another, and you can practically hear Clark grinding his teeth together, and then you raise yourself up, thighs shaking, before slamming back down. Your hands find purchase on his shoulders as you set a rhythm, a little sloppy at first as you lean forward to mash your mouths together, Clark whispering praises against your lips.
Every now and then, he leans back to take in the sight of you bouncing on his cock, completely hypnotized by the sight of your pussy swallowing him and the noises you make each time he bottoms out in you.
The rubber band begins to pull tight in your belly, and your thighs wobble, the rhythm faltering. “Clark.” It comes out as a plea. “Fuck me.”
Whatever restraint Clark has snaps at your words. One hand reaches up, grabbing hold of you by the back of your neck as the other digs into your waist, and then he’s forcing you up and down on his cock, hips jutting up to meet yours halfway, setting a bruising pace that has you keening, “Fuck—” you gasp out. “Oh god, I’m gonna—”
Your orgasm rips through you before you can even finish your sentence, and you feel like you’re drowning in the sensation as the world turns to white noise around you. “That’s it, sweetheart, you’re so good for me.”
Clark doesn’t even give you time to come down from your high as he manhandles you off of his lap, the sudden emptiness is jarring, but it doesn’t stay that way long as he bends you over the couch, hefting your ass into the air and sliding back in.
“Such a good girl,” he groans as he resumes the hard thrusts that have you gripping the back of your couch for dear life. The only thing you can focus on is the delicious slide of his cock into you, and you think you feel tears gathering at the corners of your eyes.
You’re whining, overstimulated as all hell, already feeling another orgasm beginning to bubble to the surface. “Clark, oh God, fuck—” You’re arching your back, and he hits it just right. “Ohmygod.”
A loud ‘smack’ echoes through the apartment, and you barely even register the sting on your ass cheek. “Gonna give me another one, baby?”
“Mhm,” you whine pathetically into the couch cushion. Body shaking, just trying to keep yourself up, though Clark is doing most of the heavy lifting. He reaches down, fingers circling your clit once, twice, and that’s all it takes as you buck back into him, a long, breathy moan escaping you as you cum again. It feels like every nerve in your body is on fire, and you think you’ve forgotten how to breathe.
You barely register him asking, “Where do you want it?”
Your mouth automatically babbling out, “Inside—fuck—cum inside me.”
That has his hips stuttering before he buries himself to the hilt, groaning lowly, and you can feel the warmth spread inside you. You’re both frozen like that, breathing heavily, and then Clark pulls out with a low hiss, gathering you up in his arms before collapsing back onto the couch, you cradled on top of him, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.
“Jesus Christ, farm boy,” you finally breathe after a moment of silence, and you can feel his chest shake with laughter. You tilt your head up to look at him, and he captures your lips with his before pulling away, reaching up to caress the side of your face, tracing the contours of your cheekbones with his thumb.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes, and you feel your heart stutter in your chest—a feeling you welcome with open arms.
“So, if I agree to let you take me out to dinner again, think you’ll show up this time?”
He grins. “Yes.”
The weekend passes in a blur of tangled limbs and soft confessions. You tease Clark about all it took was you on top of him to get him to talk to you in full sentences, finally. He stammers and blames you for being so pretty.
On Monday, when Clark comes in late, he does so with a cup of your favorite coffee, and you give him a hard time, despite the smile on your face, with no real bite to your words. Clark is on the receiving end of some light teasing from Lois and Jimmy, who, quite frankly, are relieved they won’t have to deal with a pining Clark any longer.
(They quickly realize, though, that even being together, he still stares after you as you flit about the newsroom, possibly looking even more lovestruck)
And when he submits his next Superman article to you, you still tear it to shreds. The peck on the cheek you give him as you hand him back the draft makes him feel a lot better, though.
summary: clark kent doesn’t do well with jealousy- never has, probably never will. mentioning the gross regular at the upscale bar where you work seemed harmless. but when clark shows up with a sheepish smile and tense jaw, you realise it probably meant more to him than you thought.
clark kent x girlfriend ! reader
themes: jealousy, jealousy, jealousy! domestic fluff, established relationship, very subtle nods to smut, with some scott miller thrown in!
You shouldn’t have told him.
Well, okay- that’s slightly dramatic. Of course you should have. You did the right thing; if it was the other way around, and a girl at the Daily Planet made it her personal vendetta to be on your sweet, bumbling boyfriend’s radar for three weeks in a row, you’d want him to tell you.
It was the right thing to do.
The only thing to do.
Right?
“Right.” Clark echoes mindlessly, his eyes drifting far away from you in a way that makes your heart ache and your eyes narrow.
He’s always too sweet, your Clark. Always too polite, too hesitant to tell you how he really feels.
On this occasion, you let him off. Figure it’s better to let him sit in it, cool off, before continuing the inevitable conversation of So, what are we going to do about it? a lot later.
There’s nothing you can do, unfortunately. It makes you feel helpless and stuck and very, very angry at the world- but at the end of the day, Scott is a customer. A paying customer. One that smacks his gum a little too loud and looks you up and down every chance he gets, but a customer all the same.
You wonder what business he has plaguing your hotel bar three (nearing four) weeks in a row now. You’ve never seen him before. Nobody comes to the Regis for a casual drink unless they’re there on business; a key to one of the overtly expensive rooms tucked in the back pocket of a slack trouser.
Scott isn’t a guest. Nor is he a bar regular. He is just a very annoying man, with a very smug grin, and a very disgusting entitlement to your sweet, uncomfortable attention.
Your shift tonight starts at 8pm.
Usually, Clark gets home just after six, and he brings you a bagel and a smoothie and doesn’t let you have them until you reach up on your tiptoes and press glossed lips against his. He doesn’t usually let you plate it up yourself, either; he perches you carefully on a bar stool and does it for you. Everything bagel (extra cream cheese, light on the salmon) on your favourite plate, the paper straw in your drink swiftly replaced by a glass one with a heart.
“You’re one bagel away from turning into one.” is a teasing joke he likes to say often, eliciting a sweet little eye roll from you and a light laugh.
You’re treasure, Clark says. He makes it known to you too, through kisses and cuddles and pecks on the cheek that you have to fight against to eat your bagel. And when you’ve finally finished your food and slurped up the drink, that’s when he can have your full attention, every bit of it, before you have to get ready and he happily drives you to work.
You don’t typically work this late. It’s a one-off, some big business event on the top floor that’s lasted a week longer than expected, meaning a whole week more of missed dinners and missed plans and overall, missing your boyfriend.
So when Clark texts you at 5:30pm, a sweet rambling of apologies that end in a very flustered So sorry, baby. I’ll make it up to you when I pick you up at 1. Love you. You can’t find it in your heart to be upset with him. You just hail a cab and slot inside, fingers drumming mindlessly on your exposed lap.
The uniform could be a lot worse, especially for a bartender. The Regis is a five-star utopia of crystal chandeliers, polished silverware and bellboys that are addressed only by their surnames- you’re almost glad to have only the responsibility of popping open a four-hundred dollar bottle of wine every now and then.
Even so, you keep a firm grip on the bottom of your pencil skirt, sleek black pumps clacking against the linoleum floor.
It’s busy. Much busier than a usual Thursday evening, but you convince yourself you don’t mind. More room to be busy. More things to do in the time you have to kill. Bartending isn’t your dream job by any means, but at the moment it pays for all the good things in life- you could have it a lot worse.
You think of Clark. Sweet, handsome, beautiful Clark, who is probably working so hard at his desk right now that it makes your chest ache. Brows furrowed, pen gnawed at and forgotten between his beautiful plush lips. You imagine the way he types; thick fingers soft and precise, the backspace bare because he always seems to know exactly what to say. He doesn’t make mistakes- you’ve seen him write in person. He just makes whatever’s lacking… better.
Naturally, your stomach flutters at the thought.
Sam greets you with bright eyes and an even more radiant smile, blonde hair falling in waves past her sharp shoulders as you walk towards her and reach for a glass to polish.
She’s beautiful, Samara; with her big blue eyes and pointed chin and great knack for conversation. She’s also the only one you can call a true friend here, so you like to keep her very close.
“You’re late,” she jokes, sharp elbow digging softly into your own. “How big was that bagel?”
Faux offense floods your features, “I’m right on time!”
“Late for you,” she nudges you playfully, head nodding towards a part of the bar you can’t quite see from where you are. “Your man beat you here.”
“Ha-ha,” you deadpan immediately, eyes beginning a roll, “Very funny. You’re on Scott duty tonight.”
“Wha- no!” the realisation is quick to dawn, “No. Absolutely not. I was on Scott duty last night.”
“Mhm. That’s the price you pay for making that joke,” you’re dramatic about it, a heavy sigh you don’t mean falling from your lips.
“What joke?”
“The he’s my man joke,” you fold your arms, half-polished pint glass forgotten on the counter. “It’s dumb and not funny.”
A smirk falls on her lips then, eyes falling away from, “Wasn’t a joke, dummy. Your man is here. Your real one.”
You’re about to bombard her with even more confusion- lest you actually check yourself and come eye-to-eye with the irritatingly vainglorious Scott Miller- but she’s called away by the ding of a kitchen bell quicker than you can stop her.
With an amused shake of your head, your eyes scan the otherwise empty tables; the polishing cloth almost falling from your grasp when your eyes finally settle on the delicious sight a mere ten steps away from you.
Clark.
He isn’t back at the Planet at all, surrounded by his too-small desk and countless pictures of you in neat little gold frames, sipping sludgy coffee from a chipped work mug.
Clark is here; right in the middle of your workplace, his blazer slung carefully over the back of his chair, the rich wood ever so slightly creaking under his ginormous frame. He practically dwarfs his laptop; all 6’4, 240 pounds of superhuman beef.
His briefcase sits gingerly on the floor next to his feet, polished leather a lovely chocolate brown that matches his sensible loafers. Your body relaxes at the mere vision of him; this Kryptonian God that practically kisses the ground you walk on and would tilt the world on it’s axis just to fit your needs- here, on a work night, undoubtedly for you.
It’s almost an innate reaction, the two steps forward you take. And it’s also very Clark to sense you on a whole other plane, because his head tilts up like a puppy ready to play, blue eyes roaming the bar.
They find you almost immediately as a breath catches in your throat. Together three years, one month before your fourth and still, the way he looks at you makes every moment feel like the first.
He lifts his arm up to wave, no doubt refraining from being a full distraction. He knows his mere presence is enough to knock you off balance completely.
You’re about to do the same, the warmth in your chest threatening to burst, when-
“Usual, sweetheart. Make it neat, no ice, yeah?”
The invisible capsule encompassing you both collapses. There’s a voice; a deep, daunting, degrading voice that has the power to contort your expressions into one of pure disgust in milliseconds.
You smell him before you see him, all seventy-four spritzes of his overpriced Hugo Boss cologne. The scent of that minty clump of rubber he seems to always chew on follows soon after, as he winks at you and adjusts the cap on his head.
StormPAR, it reads. You shudder. It’s scarily fitting for a man capable of turning the sunniest of days into a cyclone.
You freeze, goosebumps rising along your shoulders. Clark is out of sight, but you can picture him perfectly in your mind.
Alert. Tense. Maybe even frowning slightly. Your heartbeat falters- not from fear, but irritation at the man in front of you. Clark doesn’t know that. He’s probably listening anyway, waiting for that moment when your pulse skips a beat just a little too long, so he can rush to your side with a concerned smile and a cold shoulder pointed towards Scott.
Still sweet. Still gentle. Still very much Clark.
Except what happens next is something you never could have predicted.
You give a small nod, lips pursed in a tight line because exactly three weeks ago, you shot him a kind smile that he immediately took as an invitation to try and get more out of you.
It’s dirty. It’s disgusting. It’s StormPAR’s poster boy for disaster- and yet, here he is, your only customer at the bar. Unfortunately, you don’t have much of a choice.
You reach for the whiskey, trying to keep it together for the ten seconds spent pouring and mixing. It’s not the usual Johnnie Walker or Jack Daniels favoured by suited businessmen; this is something expensive, Japanese, its name foreign and sharp. The glass is special, polished long in advance, kept apart from the rest of the dishwasher-bound crockery.
You slide it over to Scott without your eyes ever meeting his. He grins and it’s toothy and wide, and in another lifetime you might visually find him not vile- but in this life, he may as well be a fire-breathing dragon with a venomous bite and even worse gaze.
The knocks the whiskey back in one. The glass staggers alongside the table towards you, so quick that you just about manage to block it with a startled elbow.
“Another, princess.” he winks.
Clark tenses. You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s probably standing stiff, brows furrowed, pupils pointed over his glasses.
“Make it two, actually. Got nowhere to be now that you’re here.”
A grimace fills the lower half of your face. You’re about to turn away to pour the next glass, but the sound of a different voice altogether stops you.
“You always talk to people that way?”
It’s warm. Familiar. It’s a megaphoned version of the one that whispers in your ear late at night, gentle and patient and slow and always accompanied by a baby or a hon; a voice notorious for both talking you through it and providing you gentle comfort right after. In this instance, it’s still a blanket of comfort, but in a very different way; something soft and safe thrown over a very icy situation.
Clark slides onto the stool beside Scott like he has every right to be there. Your mouth practically falls open.
His shoulders are relaxed, hands loose against the bar. Whatever article had his full attention not even five minutes ago is completely forgotten now, lost in the shut laptop behind him. Ink lines the grooves of his palm, fresh from attempting to amend print far too soon.
There’s no tension in him at first glance. He doesn’t look angry, though you know better than that.
Scott’s eyebrow raises as he turns toward him.
“What’s it to you?”
Clark can take him. Easily. Beneath that bashful gaze and blinking blue eyes is a man who is so used to protecting you that it comes second nature to him. If it comes to that, you know he wouldn’t hesitate.
Clark hums softly, like he’s considering Scott’s words. Then he glances at you, a silent check-in without uttering a single word, and something in his expression changes. It’s not soft nor does it harden- it doesn’t even twist inside out.
You realise then and there that the outcome of this situation is entirely dependent on you. It relies on what you want him to do, what exactly you want to happen- unfortunately, you’re too tense right now to give him any sort of clear signal.
“It’s not complicated,” he says, turning back, voice still mild. “Just need to watch your tone.”
There’s no bite in his words, but it’s louder than his initial statement. The times you and Clark have argued are very few and far between, but not once has he raised his voice at you or spoken with his tongue dipped in venom.
Hearing it for the very first time is slightly exhilarating.
Scott leans back, sizing him up, “Didn’t realise she had a guard dog.”
Clark smiles at that, lips curving upwards in the kind of smile that should belong on a farm under open skies and humming cicadas, not here under dim bar lights and repetitive jazz music.
“She doesn’t,” he says easily. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then-“
“She’s a lady. You don’t speak to a lady like that.”
It throws Scott, just for a second. Enough for the bravado to falter, for the narrowed eyes under the cap to soften around the edges. You find yourself watching them both, this intense silence growing and filling the air with a thick tension.
Clark doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t even square up; someone built like your boyfriend doesn’t need to.
He just sits there, as calm as the saxophones acting as background noise between you, one hand resting against the bar like he could stay all night if he had to.
“Look, man-“
“You’re gonna stop,” Clark interjects gently, somehow still polite- only now there’s something unshakeable threaded through it. “You’ll ask her right, or you won’t ask at all.”
The air tightens. And Scott scoffs- but it’s weaker this time, eyes flicking between the two of you before he grabs the edge of the bar and pushes himself up. “Whatever, man.”
He doesn’t ask for another drink.
He doesn’t even look back at you as he stalks off- head slightly hung, eyes darting this way and that in quiet anticipation of witnesses.
You both watch him go for a moment. It’s only until Scott turns the corner, gives one last fleeting glance your way and ducks his head out of the double doors that finally, a soft exhale leaves the man beside you.
When Clark turns back to you, it’s like the tension was never there. It’s just him again.
Gentle Clark. Sweet Clark. Yours.
“You okay?” he asks, his voice so low and careful it reaches deep in the pit of your stomach and twists in the best way. A big, warm hand reaches over the counter and rests on top of your own.
You can’t help it; you smile.
“Thank you.”
His eyebrow raises. “You never need to thank me for taking care of you.”
Maybe tomorrow, you'll kiss him a little longer before taking a bite of your bagel.
i owe you all a massive apology - i have had the most insane couple of months, and i cannot wait to share it all with you very soon :')
for now, thank you so much for still being here and for reading💋🖤
after an arguement with your boyfriend, clark kent does the unthinkable. he doesn't come home, doesn't kiss you goodbye and doesn't return until its midnight and you've fallen asleep on your sofa. good job, clark still has the goodnight kiss to redeem himself.
clark kent x fem! reader
themes: accusation of cheating, lack of trust in this relationship (on both ways- also wrong, reader and clark are just miscommunicating idiots) jealous clark, angst, mainly angst, but fluff ending! (inspired by this request)
masterlist.
it starts with a sandwich- well, two of them.
jimmy had caught you standing in line at the cafe, smiled a sweet tune and before you could stop him, his phone had pinged with that familiar apple pay notification that caused you to awkwardly blush, thank him appropriately and then proceed to run away.
you were just on a quick lunch break, heading out to pick up something for you and clark when your co-worker cornered you. jimmy is nice, he's friendly- a little bit weird sometimes but you've never felt afraid of him- this little crush he has on you just seems very sweet and that's all it is. a little crush.
and all seems well enough when you return back to the daily planet. you find clark still hunched in the same position you left him in, head buried into the glare of the computer screen. and when he feels your fingers run through his hair, tugging at the sensitive spots he loves, he lifts his head upwards and shoots you a look of pure adoration and it melts right through you.
"hey baby," he murmurs fondly, and from where you're perched up on the side of his desk, he drags you straight into his lap. you've never been big on pda but something about clark kent- your 6'4, 200lb hot nerd of a boyfriend has you doing a lot of things you usually wouldn't do. you lean into his embrace for a second before placing your hands on his chest, patting him gently.
"come on, munch time- you need to get something in you or you'll crash out," and you make work of unwrapping his sandwich. and when he sends you that lazy smirk, like he's biting back his laughter at his own joke, your eyes widen and clamp his mouth shut with a hand over it swiftly.
"do not," you whisper, blushing a violent red, "say what i think you're about to say," and he muffles an innuendo against the back of your fingertips before pressing a kiss to the hand smothering him. you let go when it looks like he's going to behave himself and make a move to stand.
"eat," you pat his shoulders gently, "i'll swing by when you're done," and he furrows his brows, gripping your waist and drawing you to him.
"stay," he mumbles into your stomach, hugging you as he's still seated in his chair. you slide your fingers through the soft curls of his hair again and he leans back, sighing in bliss.
your sweet sweet moment is cut in half- literally sliced when the voice of jimmy olsen grates at your ears and you wince as you feel your boyfriend tense below you.
"hey kent! you should join us next time, enjoy the sandwiches- my treat!" he hollers as he strolls past clark's desk, sending you the biggest grin you've ever seen stretched on his small face and you groan. when he disappears from view, you open your eyes at clark, hoping to find a teasing grin but there's nothing there. literally nothing, just a glare of pure steel focused on the mark where jimmy has left, scorching the spot with a burning disdain.
"clark," you start slowly, grabbing his chin to face you upwards again. he looks away begrudgingly and into your nervous eyes. "we've been over this, jimmy is a friend- our friend!" and part of you feels annoyed that this isn't the first time you've had to remind him.
"friend is a stretch, i hate the way he looks at you," he grumbles, swiftly moving the sandwich with his pen- not even his finger as though it would kill him to touch it- and straight into the bin. a startled gasp leaves you as your eyes widen in shock at the outright revenge and you tap his chest lightly.
"clark!"
"what?" he stares at you and you cross your arms in a protective stance.
"jimmy is just a friend- we've been over this!" you whisper exasperated, aware that you're still at work and in public.
"he's a boy," clark rolls his eyes, "and he looks at you like i look at you," he growls with a pointed glare. you scoff, it's just a crush! a silly crush jimmy olsen has that you liken to a puppy love, knowing damn well that no one on planet earth would dare make a move on you with your absolute hulk of a boyfriend by your side.
"i don't get this way about lois and you spend a lot of your time with her," you counteract, you've abandoned that bit of jealousy long ago but in this moment, right here and now it feels only right to throw something back in his face- give you some bit of stance to face clark on with.
"that's different- you love lois!" you do, she's one of your best friends and an incredible journalist.
"and you like jimmy-"
"no i don't- i tolerate him and he's a fucking loser if he thinks he's got a shot with you, so no."
"clark," you moan, this all feels really childish and a waste of your short unpaid lunch break that could spend just eating a sandwich and kissing your boyfriend silly, "are you really jealous right now?"
"no," and he's stubborn with it, "i just think he's disrespectful like i'm right fucking here," he rolls his eyes, and when you take a step back out of his hold, he doesn't exactly reach for you- which hurts even more.
"clark, we've been over this and i'm getting real sick of repeating myself, there's nothing between us," you complain, "do you not trust me?" it's a light-hearted remark, sarcastic as it leaves your lips but you wish you could take it back once you see your boyfriend's reaction- or lack of thereof
he stills, frozen in his seat. it takes him a beat longer to reply but that beat is all you need to scoff, you detach yourself from him completely, mouth gaping open. "you really don't fucking trust me?" and it's a little louder than you'd like as the betrayal drums along your chest, matching the erratic beat on your heat and pounding in your head. there's just too much going on, too much to feel.
you're sure you've caught a few stares because clark is up in a second, gripping your wrist as he leads you to the privacy of the stairwell. you snatch your wrist back when the door slams and face him with a quiet fury, "oh my god, you've got some fucking nerve, huh?" you spit back, the anger at not being trusted pound in your veins.
"what?" he raises his voice back, he's tried to contain himself but it's too late- the stress of this article, the slimy look jimmy olsen sends your way and the betrayed glare you slice him with is overstimulating, he's loosing control.
"you don't trust me, i fucking knew it," you heave a heavy breath to yourself and his nostrils flare out air in annoyance. you've not let him speak this entire time but maybe that's the problem- he's not exactly composed himself to reassure you that this has all just spiralled out of control. but the fire you spit carries a heavier heat and clark detects this immediately.
"that sounds like you've got something to get off your chest, go on," he pushes, "lay it on me huh?" and you scoff at how big of a delusional idiot he's being, careless of your feelings and how he makes you feel so small, like you're the one with the problem. and the thing is, you can meet his fire immediately, if clark kent wants a problem- oh boy, you'll give him a problem.
you take the steps to close the distance, your fury fighting in the air as it wraps around him whole. you don't mean to increase the intensity but you need to make sure that this next sentence hits his ears and his ears alone,
"then why'd you tell lois about superman before me?" and its thundering how his heart roars in a panic.
"what?" he breathes, and you nod in fierce determination.
"you heard me," you return without skipping a beat, "you can accuse me of cosying up to jimmy- a baseless accusation by the way- for a good journalist that you are, you are a fucking idiot," you roll your eyes, "but lets talk about trust huh, why did lois know before me?"
"because she was smart enough to figure it out! we've been over this!" his restrained shout is met with a click of your tongue as you take a step back, sizing him up with a look. its also an echo of your earlier defense- you've been over the jimmy crush saga plenty and clark still worms it back up
"are you saying i'm not smart enough?" you drawl, annoyance bubbling in you and burning you whole. "first i give some loser the time of the day and now i'm too dumb, you're really winning boyfriend of the year, kent," and it should stop him at how you've addressed him by his surname. he's never been kent, he's always been clark- your clark.
but he's stubborn as he is tall and pushes back, cornering you into the wall, "you are twisting my words," he hisses, "and it's not like i wasn't going to tell you eventually."
you place a hand on his chest, not lovingly like you usually do but to stop him. you're not about to be backed up against the wall for a fight you did not start.
"and how was i supposed to know that?" you speak, "am i supposed to just what-" and the glint in your eyes is murderous, "trust you?" you squint and clark knows there's no way out of this for now.
he stands, feet apart holding his head high, and you scoff knowing you're the one who's going to have to break, to level this or you won't come out of this alive.
"look," you breathe but he still hasn't looked at you, "we're going to go back inside, we're going to carry on our day like the professional working colleagues that we are, then we are going to go home and you're going to tell me what the fuck is really going on, because this has spiralled out of control," you wait to hear clark's stoic murmur of approval, like he usually does when you reach the height of an arguement but it doesn't come.
"clark?" you pull him out of his thoughts and force him to look at you. "look honey, i'm sorry, i've said some nasty things in the moment and i know we've been over the lois drama- i shouldn't have brought it up again," and it's true, part of you is over it- you argued over it back months ago where you didn't take clark back after weeks of grovelling. it was petty you know, but you just needed some ammunition with all the jimmy nonsense he was gunning at you.
your phone lights up with an alarm, signalling the end of your lunch break and your stomach cries at the wasted time which you've not even had the chance to eat yet. "listen baby, we'll talk about this at home, yeah?" when you realise he's not going to give you a reply other than a singular nod, you plant a kiss on his cheek, heading back onto the floor and straight to your desk.
you don't miss the small smile lois lane sends your way and you return it back. this isn't her fault in the slightest and she's been nothing but the best of friends to both you and clark. you almost hate yourself the tiniest for dragging her into that ugly arguement in the stairwell, but being accused by your boyfriend after dating him for an entire year for being untruthful wasn't exactly on the board for your tuesday lunch time plans.
the rest of the day ends in a blur, you focus on your article and at how your grumpy lover sits a few desks away, hardly looking in your direction. five o'clock hits and you get ready to pack up all your things in your bag, the still packaged sandwich from earlier sits there like a painful reminder and you stick it in the small fridge under your desk for tomorrow's lunch. in this economy, you're not about to lose your boyfriend and your lunch, god what a wreck.
and when you walk past your boyfriend's desk you're met with pure emptiness. your tote slouches in a growing fatigue on your shoulder, already carrying the weight of tonight and then your eyes settle on a yellow post it, blinding in your vision.
"needed some space. you take the car, drive safe."
and you scoff, crumple it up between your fists and dump it in his bin alongside the pesto and mozzerella sandwich from earlier. the keys are hidden in his top drawer and you snatch them in a wave of annoyance- less anger than before and make your way to the parking lot.
the drive home feels a lot slower without your boyfriend humming along to the songs, interlocking your hands across the control panel and telling you off handed comments about his day. you sit in silence, unbothered to connect your phone to the bluetooth mode and just drive and drive and drive.
you don't go home immediately, choosing to clear your head and his fuel tank before you land at your apartment door.
it's seven pm and the house is untouched, you got off work two hours ago and there's still no sign of clark. as soon as you've set foot through the door you drop your tote to the floor and shrug off your coat, letting it land wherever next to your bag before dragging yourself to the sofa.
there's no messages on your phone, no inkling of where your other half is and it hurts you. this is classic clark behaviour, clark who runs away when things get hard and he doesn't know what to do- the only difference is, and you feel it with every tick of the clock hands that warn your ears, he's never not come home like this.
seven pm turns to eight pm and then to nine, and somewhere along the lines where you try to sit up and wait for him, sleep decides to take you in an easier feat and when you close your eyes, clark is still the one you see and call home.
. . .
you don't hear the turn of locks, or even the soft sound of shoes shuffling at the door. sleep has been kind on you and taken the exhausation out of your system, gently lulling you to a clearer conscious and its only when your airborne you begin to stir.
"clark?" you murmur, the sleep heavy in your voice it kind of comes out as a grunt.
"hi, honey," he whispers, careful not to be too loud. his body is warm against yours, he carries you like a baby, your head is up against his chest as your legs have wrapped around his waist. one of his arms comes across your back and the other just at the back of your thighs. your body could remember every single sensation he's ever sent you by heart, that you relax into his touch, melt into the warmth because in his arms you've never felt safer.
he takes you into your bedroom and lies you on top of the bed, onto your side before he leaves to change and joins you on the other side. the lights are off, and there's something unresolved in the air- clark hoped to apologise tonight for being the biggest idiot on the planet but seeing you asleep on the sofa? waiting for him? god he deserves longer to wallow in his regret and pity.
"clark?" you call out for him in a mumble and he softens, guilt filling his blood in every vessel, pumping like its trying to break free.
"babydoll, i'm sorry," he breathes, the apology lingers in the air before you speak again, slightly more awake but still tired.
"you didn't come home," you whisper, rolling over to face him, "you've never done that before," and the silence that follows is thick. he reaches out to brush a rogue tendril of hair out from your face and behind your ear. your mouth parts open at the touch, a look of sadness wavering over your features and he closes his eyes, wincing.
"i needed some space," he starts and you interrupt him.
"you couldn't have called? or texted? or passed by my desk and just let me know? i'm your girlfriend clark, if you need space you can just trust me to respect it," and its that damn finnicky word all over again. trust. clark does trust you more than anything, than anyone, he was just a gigantic jealous idiot who let his mouth run quicker than his brain could catch up and reprimand him.
" you're right," he speaks low, "you're right. i should've let you known but a large part of me was fucking embarrassed of how i acted. i'm ashamed i even implied the worst of you," he closes his eyes, hiding from his earlier regret, "i do trust you, with my whole life i just- oh god, i'm just a dick and i'm sorry, i'm sorry for even raising my voice at you earlier god, who does that? and the jimmy thing was immature, i know you'd never be dishonest with me i just got wrapped up in it and unfairly took it out on you," somewhere during his spiel, you've lifted a hand to his cheek, cupping it softly.
"thank you for being honest with me now," you mumble and he takes the cue to move closer to you, bodies almost touching.
"and you have every right to still bring up lois- if it bothers you still, we can talk through it again and again if that's what you need then that's something i'll keep being sorry for," his reply is earnest, he mustve practised it on the way home, you think and you nod slowly, sleep creeping in on you.
"clark honey, couples fight-"
"i don't want to," he counteracts immediately and you just start groaning until he gets the hint to stop speaking and let you finish.
"i said couples fight," you repeat yourself firmly, "i said some mean things to, like i didn't mean to call you an idiot but i did, so i'm sorry-"
"i believe you called me a fucking idiot," he teases and you level him with a stony look.
"okay wise guy, you also tried to call me a cheater,"
"which i apologise profusely for, it was incredibly disgusting of me to even insinuate that-"
"and then i forgive you," you lazily return, "we'll talk more on this tomorrow i'm tired, clark."
"okay," he surrenders, he can wait for the morning to come and make it up to you properly, apologise and grovel when you're alert enough to understand the weight he's trying to lift from you. "you know that i do trust you though right? i didn't mean-"
"clark," you whine, throwing your leg over his and borderline climbing on him, using him as your pillow and trying to find a good spot for you to fall back asleep. "i know that and i said we'll talk about this tomorrow, go to sleep," you beg.
he lands a kiss to your temple and murmurs a goodnight and you pause with a frown.
"kiss me goodnight properly," you moan and he does, letting his lips press to yours a moment longer than usual, melting in all the words he doesn't know to formulate but hopes you can feel it burn through him and you hum in approval.
you nestle into his hold, he wraps you up tighter, putting you in your favourite position which is having your ear pressed up against his heartbeat as your body rises and falls with the soft breaths of his chest. he thinks you've finally fallen back asleep again before he lets out a final sigh, but then you're mumbling- to yourself more likely and clark tries to bite back the laugh this time.
"jimmy olsen, you know," and it comes out as a sleep filled, drooling mumbling scoff, "couldn't have at least given me more credit and said bruce wayne." the chuckles escape him and he knows you're not even going to remember that you believe you could've bagged batman tomorrow- but hey, you managed to get superman on his knees so there's real strong potential.
tomorrow comes and clark is going to do everything he can to make it up to you, and that includes secretly killing jimmy olsen before breakfast.
riya saying hi: hii 🥺 my sole purpose in life feels like its to provide clark angst and when its requested- i fear i may have to step up and prove myself LOL anyways, i hope you enjoyed this, it was based off a request i linked at the top if you want a little more context. to op, i hope this is similar to how you expected it- again, i don't really take requests i get nervous and overthink everything and think im a piece of shit, but i did like this idea so didn't mind it. hope you liked & as always please let me know what you think! if you ever wanna say hi, come say hi- my inbox is always open! except to those loser anons who correct my grammar and try and remind me to include "x reader" as a tag; here's your reminder to actually check my tags because i do!!! get off my page!!! ugh sorry for the rant, enjoy the clark! because i dont actually have anything planned for him next so who knows where the wind will take me, love ya!!! xxx
YOU AND CLARK AREN'T DATING; you're just superbly close friends and co-workers. but actions speak louder than whatever excuse either of you make up, and theorizing about your supposed more-than-platonic feelings has caught like wildfire in the bullpen. god forbid work spouses exist...
aka the five love languages through the eyes of the daily planet staff.
pairing. clark kent x fem reader
content. mundane happiness and hopeless romanticism. implied closet sex and jimmy tweaks out. colleaguebffs2luvs. in a world of boys he's a gentleman... 6.3k
WORDS OF AFFIRMATION with perry white
"I second that," Clark Kent chirps, tucking his chin down as if trying to make himself less obvious.
Perry resists the urge to roll his eyes. Of course Kent seconds your pitch—he's practically your yes-man-slash-work-wife at this point. You exchange furtive grins, and Perry's sure that if he peeked beneath the conference table, your adjacent feet would be kicking each other.
Ridiculous, this is. And a little endearing, but admitting it out loud would be the equivalent of self-immolation.
"Well, I don't," Perry snips, tapping the ashes off his cigar into the little souvenir tray Lois got him from Nebraska. To this day, he still doesn't know what she was doing there, other than partaking in the general mischief that comes with embodying her brand of investigative journalism.
He decides that he quite likes simpering as you and Kent eye each other with begrudging disappointment diffusing across your faces. "Now, let's move on to the op-ed."
The pages pass by without much interjection from you or Kent. A new fusion bakery opening in Queensland Park is elected for the main feature article, and the room is unanimously for Lois' new expose being sent to print.
Then comes the topic of the front page.
A nervous energy almost vibrates in the air as everyone grips the edges of their laptops (and legal pads, but that's only Kent being old-fashioned) a little tighter.
At his core, Perry is a journalist. And what is a journalist without a little drama?
Which is to say: he loves to bring up page one during the morning conference. If Cat knew, she would call him a closet chismoso, but Perry knows himself well enough that he doesn't need to be told.
"Well," Perry waves his hand with an expectant look, "what's the main story?"
Arms shoot into the air, fingers twitching to get his attention. He almost chortles to himself in the same way he does every day. Really, he can't get enough.
It's his update on who hates who and which icy relationships have thawed over night. It's when Cat and Steve butt heads over the top spot in the paper despite being thicker than thieves last week. It's when Jimmy and Ron debate over which photographer is best for the cover photo.
Plus, it's ultimately beneficial to the staff. To establish a healthy workplace, people need to be honest with each other. It's communication without fear of judgement, because everyone is being judged.
So, the layout editors air their grievances in the chaos, snapping about lonely lines and uneven margins. So, the two representatives from the copy department get heated with the journalists over cleaning up their grammatical errors.
And when tomorrow comes, those things will be fixed up and the entire paper's work ethic will be uplifted. At least, that's sixty percent the reason why the front page pitch is so important.
The other forty percent is him genuinely enjoying the spectacle of a roomful of trained journalists savagely tripping each other for the sacred print space.
Lois wads up a wrapper, sticks a cotton-candy lollipop in her mouth, and throws the crumpled ball of wax paper at a ground reporter whose ears are practically expelling steam, much to Perry's delight. Then she jumps out of her chair and struts out the door, posture all smug with her article having a guaranteed print space.
She's turning out to be a wonderful journalist to work with, Perry thinks.
"Wayne Tech winging on flying cars—Clark Kent exclusive, six hundred words!"
The din is snuffed out by your pitch. Kent's breath seizes in a squeak, shoulders bunching up under his ears and eyes trained on the suddenly fascinating table.
Good lord, these two.
Perry really needs to set limits on you sitting next to each other during conferences. One way or another, either one of you never fails to cut short his daily dose of healthy drama.
"It's good," you say, keeping your hand high in the air. "Intriguing. Clark took the picture himself and it's wonderful. I think a second printing is very possible."
Kent sinks a little more into his chair, so deep that his secondhand suit looks like a bag and Perry's sharp eyes almost don't catch the blush creeping up to his curly bangs.
"Thinking is not certainty," Perry says, putting great care into gruffly talking around the cigar in his mouth. "Second prints are for the Meteors winning the Series. Or Batman revealing his identity. If people want to read about Wayne, they'll flip to the business page."
You twist your mouth and mutter to Kent, miffed, "Don't listen to the chief, you're better than the business page."
"What was that?"
"Nothing, Mr. White," you blurt, snapping back to the head of the table. A couple giggles float up from the other journalists.
Kent tentatively raises his hand. Great Caesar's ghost, they're trying again. "I'm giving away an interview opportunity with Superman."
The room explodes. Phones are wagged in Kent's face, people are crowding around the very tight corner where you sit. Kent presses closer to you, and Perry tries not to blow his own gasket at eleven in the morning.
He shouts, "Quiet!" just as Kent says, linking your elbows together, "To her. Superman said there's no other journalist with integrity and wit he'd rather have write about him."
Perry glares down the length of the conference table, working the end of his cigar between his molars with a vengeance. He would be dishonest if he said he wasn't interested. It's rare for Superman to accept interviews with anyone that isn't Kent, and Perry is all about the hero's true story.
You turn to Kent with wide eyes, hissing, "Since when?"
"...S'posed to be a surprise," he mumbles, scratching out something on his legal pad with faux sullenness. "But I agree..."
A grin blooms on your face, all fond and totally worth talking to HR about—but Perry isn't that strict of a boss. You look like you're about to jump onto Kent for an embrace before Steve, two chairs down, whisper-shouts: "Get a room."
Perry guesses that he'll have to chalk this up to Superman's will, and not you and Kent's exhausting—and frankly, charming, but nobody will hear that—tag-team of compliments. "Superman, top of the page."
Everybody groans, and twenty laptops snap shut in defeat.
"But chief" —protests an intern whose ambition far outpaces his mediocre talent.
"Now, get out, and don't call me chief!"
QUALITY TIME with lois lane
"No, Lois, you're seeing things."
"I'm seeing things? Says the one who can't even see that Clark is practically her boyfriend," Lois needles, squinting at you. She props her palm on her kitchen counter—well, to her best ability, because she...forgot to tidy up before the New Year's Eve party. She's a busy woman, okay?
"Yes!" you exclaim, shucking off the bottlecap on the apple cider. The pop of trapped gas sounds more like a mini firecracker with how much unnecessary force you use.
Someone calls—sounds like Jimmy—over the din of the countdown broadcast playing from her radio and everyone else's voices, "Uh, you guys okay?"
"It's nothing," you respond, then turn back to Lois with your knuckles lightening around the neck of the bottle. Hissed, "I mean—yes, you're seeing things, and no, we're just friends."
You punctuate your denial with a grouchy 'seriously' and a frown.
The derisive chuckle that leaves her mouth is nearly automatic. Really good friends, she thinks. My fuckin' ass.
For god's sake, she's Lois fucking Lane. She's damn right about every hunch, unless the Earth has suddenly flattened and turned upside down. Even then, she would get to the bottom of it and find the culprit to be Mxyzpltk.
"Oh, okay," she says, setting the trap for you to fall for her prying. "So I suppose that defending each other's pitches is nothing?"
"It's what good coworkers do."
"And what about the coffee incident? You basically kissed."
Well. That's an exaggeration.
A few weeks ago, Lois had been tapping her foot and tugging at the strap of her watch as she waited for Clark to dash into the bullpen with her order. She was getting antsy—you, she, Clark, and Jimmy typically take turns going on morning coffee runs, and since it wasn't her turn, she couldn't get her necessary dose of sugar early enough.
"He's not usually this late," you said, eyeing Lois' unnerved twitching with concern. Of course you know when he's on time, she thought. "I'm gonna look for him."
Of course you're going to look for him. It was fairly obvious that you knew him, were tuned to him a little too well to be just friends. You just...had a connection that was unlike any other.
Lois watched with irritation itching at her neck as you scurried toward the elevators. Just as you turned the corner, Clark rushed out with his specs askew, and she's pretty sure that he was the one who shrieked in shock.
You ended up with coffee and caramel whipped cream—Lois lamented the loss of her frappe—sticking the front of your blouse to his button-up shirt. It was pretty compromising, considering your faces kind of smashed into each other as you slipped on the floor.
Clark had broken your fall, an act so predictable that Lois' first instinct was to roll her eyes, and she did upon seeing how his face was two seconds away from whistling like a kettle.
But anyways. You definitely touched your lips to somewhere on his face, even if it wasn't intentional.
Your brows stretch upward with your heavy sigh, reluctant to dredge up the embarrassing memory. "It was an accident. Besides, we didn't basically kiss, it was more of an almost kiss..."
Lois almost leaps off the counter at that bone of a suggestion, but she schools herself so you don't catch on. "So did you kiss after?"
"No!" Your voice is pitched. You unstack six plastic cups and march to the freezer, yanking the door open and briskly shoveling ice into each cup. "Remember? We were in the office the whole time, we couldn't have kissed without everyone seeing."
You tack on with quick blinks, which does nothing to save face, "Hypothetically. Because we're not like that."
"Mhm." It's impossible to hide the fact that she's not convinced. At all. "But you were wiping each other down with Jitters napkins..."
"Shut up," you grumble, kicking the freezer shut.
"And tapping your shoes together during pitch meetings...and sharing sources...and watching shows when you have nothing to write. With less than six inches of space between you," Lois mulls, tapping her chin as she airs out your laundry list of couple activities.
You groan dramatically, tipping your face to the weathered ceiling as you divvy up the bottle of cider. Like everything, you have an excuse locked and loaded. "Clark has a small desk."
She blinks at you innocuously, like she just remembered you're here with her. Teasing, "Oh, I know. Your desk is so much bigger, but you never use it."
Clearly, you aren't buying her act.
"Fine." Lois throws her hands up and pushes off the edge of the counter. She scoops up two cups in each hand, holding them by the rims, as she struts out of the kitchen.
Then, two steps from the doorway and mutters loud enough for only you to hear, product-disclosure-in-commercials style, "But still, that's screaming attachment—"
You snatch up a battered dish towel and hurl it at her, but Lois has already sauntered out of range by the time the towel slaps against the wall.
Steve has dragged one of the armchairs closer to the coffee table, where the board game has been set up; his dilute torbie Persephone curls in his lap with her paws tucked under her fluffy belly. Clark is opposite of the couch, on the carpet, and Cat and Jimmy are making space between each other on the cushions.
She passes a cup to everyone but Clark, who says nothing. He's (probably) automatically assumed that you've got it, to which Lois mentally files into 'actions they can't deny without Freudian slips' for later.
She settles between Cat and Jimmy, whose questioning looks burn into the sides of her head. They have a conversation in microexpressions; Cat's meticulously maintained brows twitch in various areas; Jimmy tips his mouth here, then tilts it there, dips it down, and points his lips; and Lois rolls her eyes so much that Steve gives her a weird look.
She shakes her head at the sports editor, and he shrugs, apparently dropping it. Poor Steve, he's never deciphered their silent language of pointed looks and weird faces.
You pad out of the kitchen with annoyance still etched between your brows, but it softens when Clark pats the space to his left on the carpet. Really softens, to the point of being unrecognizable.
You stride over with all the light in the world. You sit with your legs criss-crossed and your knee bumps against his thigh, and a small, fond smile blooms on Clark's face.
Which obviously means nothing. But it surely has to mean something when you keep giving each other fucking tips during gameplay.
It’s throwing Lois off, honestly. She’s not even mad that you’ve practically turned a longstanding tradition in this little group into a cute quality-time moment with your not-boyfriend—she’s pissed about the not-boyfriend part.
Everyone would be so much happier and at peace if you just admitted your feelings.
Clark ends up winning, which—of course he does. Regardless of collusion, he’s fucking ruthless when it comes to board games.
(Notably, he doesn’t betray you. Lois nearly flips the board over.)
Later, after the countdown reaches zero and you and Clark keep each other at a bashful arm’s distance, Jimmy comes up with the brilliant idea of assigning you both to dish duty while everyone else cleans up the rest of her apartment.
As she’s passing by to throw something in the trash, Lois catches the two of you making quiet conversation by the sink.
It’s all soft laughs and sincere glances that stay, shoulder bumps and inside jokes with suds up to your elbows. Clark’s washing, and you’re drying, and the smoothness of how he passes the dishes to your hands with lingering fingers makes Lois unironically imagine your wedding invitations.
‘Mr. & Mrs. We’re-Just-Friends-Until-We-Weren’t — RSVP & Save the Date!’ Ugh, she can feel the texture of the goddamn cardstock and the silver embossing of the words already.
Next time, she’ll hurl a sprig of mistletoe at you and hope for the best.
GIFTS with cat grant
Cat is, like, a hundred—no, a hundred and twenty—percent sure that Clark is heads over heels in love with you.
Okay, literally everyone at the Daily Planet thinks so, except for you and Clark, because you're both either just clueless as hell or hiding it. If you are, you’re very good actors.
The latter as a concept stirred in her mind in the middle of a conversation she had with Clark last week, which went along the lines of: what kind of gift would a woman love for a very special fifth anniversary…of friendship?
Clark went over the fact that for your past four anniversaries, he’d scrounged up the money for some very thoughtful displays of affection, but Cat had already latched her claws into solving his plight faster than she could say ‘go Meteors.’
After all, she’s always had a few ideas on beating:
dinner at a nice Italian restaurant (year one)
the really nice sweater you wear to work on Fridays, your favorite day (year two)
three-day tickets to a coveted Meteors v. Griffins series—and the Meteors swept those Gothamite assholes (year three)
a perfume that spent nine months as a tab on your laptop, and he’d somehow discovered it even though you let no one else near your workstation (year four)
But now Clark wants to outdo himself this year. As Steve would say, he needs to knock it out of the ballpark, because your not-relationship has been going on for five years.
That’s literally half a decade, so she gets why Clark is so hung up on getting you a gift for the ages. She can’t imagine how he’ll fare when the years hit double digits, though.
But now they’re here, strolling through Metropolis’ famed luxury department store on a Saturday afternoon, and their hands are painfully empty.
Cat has dragged him through a real wringer from nine to twelve. They’ve been through Prada, Dolce, YSL, Dior, Chanel, Bottega, Hermès, McQueen, Miu Miu—it would probably take ten whole minutes to list all the stores they’ve hit.
Whatever. The point is, Cat’s jasmine matcha latte from a small business is in dire need of a refill, Clark’s hair is literally straightening out with misery, and they haven’t got a whiff of your perfect gift.
“I just” —Clark tongues the pocket of his cheek, brows scrunching as he considers the sleek tile floor, and fishes for the right words— “none of this stuff really works, you know? I feel like I’m buying friendship instead of celebrating it.”
Oh, yeah. Celebrating friendship for sure, Cat thinks. God, she should pitch this true story to a movie studio and start building her own media empire.
“Well, there’s still a few stores we haven’t seen,” she says, breezy. There has to be something sparkly enough for you—maybe a necklace, or a neat purse. “Gucci’s at the end of the mall, but we should take a little break, don’t you think?”
He’s beyond overjoyed, instantly melting at the prospect of some rest. “Please.”
They end up where they started: a quaint Japanese café on the outskirts of the food court, which is more like a pact of beige, higher-end establishments and Instagrammable shops.
Cat’s sipping on her fresh jasmine matcha latte with regular ice and less sugar and trying to post a picture of it to her story; Clark is glancing around the shop, likely feeling out of place with how he’s working his thumbs over his knuckles. He’s ignoring the black sesame milk tea with agar boba sweating rings onto the table space before him.
A pop song drifts from the sound system, and layered over it is the chaotic din of the blenders and whisks being firmly tapped against bowls, and there’s the faint sound of video game music coming from the cute, aesthetic claw machines in the corner, and—
He’s staring. He keeps staring, practically boring holes into games that are customized to fit the beige-green, zen color scheme of the café.
“Is…there something wrong?”
Cat half expects him to say something along the lines of a lamp looking weird. She doesn’t expect him to murmur: “Togepi.”
“Sorry?”
He snaps his attention back to her, suddenly lighter with a realization he hasn’t voiced. “We’ve…been watching Pokémon.”
Oh. Yeah. Another thing to add to her list of totally not weird or suspicious activities: you’ve been blatantly watching shows together at work. Lois complains about it incessantly.
“And that claw machine…” Clark trails off, almost in a trance as he shoots up while fumbling for his wallet.
“What about it?” Cat asks, dogging on his long strides to the little corner stuffed with machines. A glass box full of colorful plushies innocently sits before them.
Clark taps his finger against the pane, and she follows the invisible line to a small, cream-colored foot sticking out of the tangle of other Pokémon. “She loves Togepi.”
And before Cat can stop him, he feeds a five-dollar bill into the claw machine.
She has never seen him possessed like this.
“How do you even know that’s a—Topi? Togipi? There’s only a foot!”
“I just know,” comes the patient answer. Must be the journalist’s instinct. He wastes a turn trying to move one of the plushies out of the way. “Shucks…”
“Clark, it’s impossible,” she laments, shaking her drink to stir up any particles that have settled. “Even if you do manage to clear everything on top, it’s still rigged to make you lose.”
“Nothing’s impossible, Cat.” He says it in that same tone Superman would take if someone doubted his ability to save an entire country. But that’s a strange thought, because there’s no way Clark could be Superman.
To punctuate it, the plushie atop the supposed Togepi—it’s yellow, so it could be Pikachu, but Cat’s knowledge is ultimately limited—topples into the chute. Clark pumps his fist in celebration and mutters about psychic ducks and two more turns remaining.
That’s just about the only lucky occurrence they stumble upon. Half an hour later, he’s fed at least twenty dollars into the reader, Cat’s accompanied by what Clark calls Psyduck, Oddish, and Riolu—all of which you supposedly find adorable—and the Togepi is too round for the claw.
“Last one,” he swears, cheeks ruddy and blue eyes all earnest as the machine eats up a one-dollar bill. She made him stop using fivers a couple turns ago in an attempt to wean him off. “I know she’ll adore it.”
Indeed you would. Cat can’t wait to see the astonished look on your face once you find out how much effort he put into starting a collection of your favorite Pokémon plushies for you, and out of a claw machine too.
He twitches the joystick with the utmost care, positioning the claw over the Togepi that has revealed itself after a harrowing hundred-something attempts. Clark goes a little to the right, inspects, then a little backward, and just a jolt to the left.
He runs out of time in his adjustments. Of course he does. Another shucks almost falls off his lips, but he bites it off at the sh-uhhhh because the tines of the claw stick. They fucking stick and like a miracle, Togepi tumbles into the chute.
Cat nearly screams. Clark lets out a little squeak of satisfaction and squeezes that damn egg-looking thing so hard that he might as well be pretending it was you.
“You’re the best, Cat,” he grins, all lopsided and grateful and heart-eyed at the success of his endeavors to please you.
She loads the other plushies into his arms with an equally big smile, albeit a little exhausted. “It’s all you, genius.”
“Still, you helped me out a lot,” he breathes, shoulders slumping with relief. “If you need anything, I’ll do my best to help you too.”
Cat considers it and thinks of all the secret cataloguing she’d been doing as they searched for a luxury gift you didn’t need in the end.
“Well…I might need help with carrying a few shopping bags.”
ACTS OF SERVICE with steve lombard
“Woah,” Steve awes, gaze fixed on the rash of red-pen edits marking up the proof copy on your desk. He leans against the desk divider. “Who’s bitching ‘bout your article? Is it Marcus? I’ll beat his ass for you.”
You laugh a little, no doubt imagining Steve whaling on that pesky intern whose ego far outsizes his ability to actually write. For god’s sake, Marcus is one ‘snarky comment using the wrong context of a word’ away from being thrown off the top of the big bronze planet on the roof.
And he does that often. Steve’ll be the first to tow his ass up the staircase.
“It’s actually Clark’s,” you clarify, turning your head to reveal the red pen tucked behind your ear. You're petting a cream-colored pillow in your lap—never mind, that's Clark's nerd plushie. “And I’m helping him edit.”
Steve blinks. “Shit, really?”
“Yeah, really.” You flash him a weird look, like you think he’s lying to you about something. “Steve, we do this all the time.”
“We?” he presses, smoothing his fingers over his mustache—a nervous habit when he’s in disbelief.
“Yes, Clark and I edit each other’s articles,” you say, slowly. “Did—did you not know that?”
“N-ope.” Extra emphasis on the front of the word. Before, Steve didn't really notice things that aren't sports-related; he knows that you and Clark definitely have something going on, but it's exclusively informed by word-of-mouth from his other co-workers.
But now, courtesy of Lois' advice, he's treating this like a baseball game. Right now, you're at bat and Clark's on a base, and you're trying to advance him toward making a run; aka, you are performing an act of service to make your not-boyfriend's life a little easier.
See, he's pretty observant once he frames his surroundings in an athletic context.
Last month, the Daily Planet was shorthanded because you were out sick. Though they were facing a penalty kill (the Metropolis Herald had poached an exclusive scoop you were supposed to get, and the chief was not happy), Clark still clocked out of work a little earlier so he could bring you soup like any good teammate would.
And two weeks ago, you did the equivalent of a jersey swap for your five-year friendship anniversary. He'd given you the egg-looking plush you're squeezing right now—you'd gasped and squeezed it flush to your chest—and you'd surprised him with a double-sided cassette mixtape you spent days learning to make.
It's really sweet and romantic. He also wishes Lois hadn't given him that tip, because watching the two of you dance around your true feelings has been exceptionally excruciating.
"Anyways," you're saying, and Steve blinks back to the present, "he has mine on his desk right now—no, don't peek, I don't want to see how much work I have to get done."
Too late. He's already teetering on his tiptoes to catch a glance of your article proof on Clark's desk, which is noticeably missing its usual occupant. It is...on the side Steve knows is meant for the 'done' work, complete with a smiley face scribbled on a blue sticky note.
"He's done with it."
Your groan sounds tortured, especially when you tack on a hand dragging down your face. "Great."
Eyes heavy with resignation, you click through your computer to navigate back to your document, grousing under your breath about needing to use up your PTO, even though it's only April. Then, like a switch has been flipped, your frown breaks into a smile.
"What?"
"Nothing," you say quickly, still letting the grin linger. "Just—he didn't have to."
Steve cranes his neck around to stare at your screen. "Huh."
The document is already marked up with a hundred suggestions, all of which you only need to resolve with a tap of the mousepad. Editing made easier. Clark just went ahead and transferred the proofs, knowing you'd be reluctant to go through all the changes manually.
He even left little encouraging comments on what he really loved about your article. Awww.
"Fuck, he really didn't have to," you breathe again, settling into a pensive mood as you cover your mouth with a hand. You turn to Steve with your eyes shining brighter than they have the entire week. With plaintive admiration, "He's already got so much on his plate and he's doing this shit."
"Is...that bad?" Steve asks, smoothing the ends of his mustache.
"No, no." Shaking your head, you begin to double-check all the suggestions before you resolve them. "It's just—Clark's always helping me out and I wish I did more to help him."
He decides to take the leap—reservations against meddling be damned. "Well, maybe that's just how he loves you."
You flash him a dubious look, brows all cocked at skeptical angles and mouth flattened into a line.
"I mean, maybe he likes doing this for you, just like how you always speak up for him during pitch meetings." Steve speaks quickly, almost afraid that you're going to wave him off if he stops. It's only been a month since he started picking up on your attraction to each other, which is ironically unsubtle to everyone but you and Clark.
The torture is enough to make him break his pact against interfering with the game, for god's sake.
"Jeez, you got each other gifts for your friendship anniversaries. You—you're really close and spend your free time together watching shows. He looks at you like you're the reason the sun exists, kid. If Clark Kent does not love you, well," Steve pauses to thumb at the crease between his eyebrows with a sigh, "I'll have to drag him up to the roof and hold him over the edge until he realizes it."
Tucking your lips in, the heads of your brows tilt up to a fretful angle. Your gaze darts all around your desk, from the ridiculously round Pokémon egg sitting in your lap (you've taken to idly patting its head while you puzzle over your word choice), to the pile of Styrofoam cups Clark brings you tea and coffee in, which sit in the trash can under your desk.
You blow out a steady stream of air as you mull it over. "Wow, that's...a lot to process, but—"
"Hey." Clark cuts in like a ball driving into deep left field, practically croaking out the last vowel when he sees the worry lingering in your expression. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah," you chirp, flashing a quick smile at him. "Just, I didn't expect you to finish so quickly."
He stumbles over his breath and returns the smile, albeit like some shy bastard and not a guy who's going after your heart. Scratch that, he already has your heart. "No, no—seriously, it's okay. I needed, uh, to get another cup of coffee so I got you one too."
Another Styrofoam cup is set next to your monitor, so gently that the steaming liquid inside doesn't make a single ripple. Very fancy schmancy of Clark Kent, Steve thinks to himself.
You beam at him with some bashful glow lighting up your eyes. "With sugar?"
"Half a packet, just the way you like it."
"Thanks," you whisper, and your eyes loiter on him even after he gives you two dorky thumbs up and walks back to his desk; he nearly gets leveled by a stray chair, and you chuckle softly when he rights himself and pretends nothing happened.
Steve gestures furiously at the cup and whisper-shouts, "I'm tellin' you!"
You let out a dreamy sigh and rub your knuckles against your face so hard that wrinkles form on your forehead. In half-disbelieving breathlessness, "Holy fuck."
PHYSICAL TOUCH with jimmy olsen
"Oh my god, I can't look," Jimmy squeaks, shoving his face in any direction that doesn't involve looking at you or Clark.
Rather, you and Clark, standing near the back wall and speaking to each other very seriously with your arms crossed and bottom lips practically fraying with how often the two of you are worrying them.
"Jesus Christ, Steve, why would you do that?" he says in a pitched voice. Steve rolls his eyes and continues yanking the lace into his Rawlings baseball glove, which is fresh out of the sporting goods store and probably won't see even a second of use.
"He set things in motion, Jimmy," chides Lois, voice low. She works her jaw back and forth, trying to get a feel for your far-off conversation. "Good man, Steve...wait, I think Clark's blushing."
Cat squeals in excitement, heels clicking lightly on the floor with the little shimmy that accompanies it.
Jimmy tries to make a point by staying turned around, but he hesitates for a second before really committing to the bit. After all, he's had to endure just as much anticipation as the rest of them.
"They're on the other side of the floor, Lois."
"Nonsense, they're definitely getting together today."
Cat blows an airy raspberry and inspects her fresh gel manicure. "Well, it's a good thing I got these babies done yesterday. This is an occasion that calls for a photoshoot."
Then, she slams her ridiculously strong hands onto his chair and wrests him around to watch with the others. "Turn around, Bartholomew Olsen, you're gonna miss everything!"
"Never should've told you my government name," he mumbles, dropping his cheek against his hand.
You tilt your head and nod slightly in understanding as Clark palms his nape—his skin is almost sunburnt with how red he's turning—and explains something to you. Hopefully his feelings, because who knows what Lois would do if you proved her wrong and didn't 'get together' by the end of the workday.
(Probably plan a party and lock the two of you in a supply closet.)
Jimmy groans and reaches back, fumbling for the pair of binoculars he keeps in his desk drawer for emergency purposes. You never know if you need to spot Superman in the midst of a battle with interdimensional beings of destruction.
"Good idea," Steve appreciates, and he darts away to get his own.
The corners of your lips tip up quietly, affectionately, the longer Clark speaks (he better be confessing, dear god), and soon enough, you're inching toward him with a knowing twinkle in your eyes. Clark leans closer to hear what you're saying, and with a cheeky smile, you whisper something that flushes him scarlet.
He buries a short laugh into his broad palm before taking the last step and squeezing you into his arms. You rock and sway slightly, to the rhythm of your own tune; your hands smooth over the back of his suit comfortingly.
Clark presses a sweet, fond kiss to the crown of your head and lays his cheek over it to seal the deal. One of his hands is splayed over the back of your shoulder, and his thumb rubs circles over the blade. It's tender enough to be a bruise, and he looks like he knows it with the stupid, uncontrollable, lovesick chuckling that's shaking his wide shoulders.
Cat gasps, perhaps a little too loud.
Enough to be incriminating, for sure, because you break apart with matching frowns. Steve, who's just come running back with his own binoculars, turns tail and skitters back to his desk.
Based on his poor skills at lip-reading, you might be saying something like, "Are those fucking binoculars?"
Clark is probably correcting you: "Fudging, and yeah, what the hay?"
You shake your head with a derisive snort before Lois roughly shoves the binoculars down and forces him to duck down.
"The fuck are you doing, this is a covert operation," she hisses.
"They spotted us—there's no point."
Lois pokes her head up and scowls. With a hint of grousing in her remark, "Shit, they ducked into the archive closet."
She turns to him with narrowed eyes and a quicksilver glint of revenge in her smirk.
"No, no, nononono—"
Ten tense seconds later, Jimmy presses his ear against the wooden door of the archive closet with great care. Lois forced him to toe off his shoes because they squeak on the floor, so now his socked toes are wriggling in an attempt to adjust to the unforgivingly cold tile.
Christ, this is a humiliation ritual in itself.
"Please, Clark," you're sighing. You giggle in time with Clark's low chuckle, and is that...?
He thinks you might be kissing passionately among other suspicious sounds that aren't muffled by the door, and Jimmy turns back to Lois with a pained, begging expression. Please, please, please give the signal to extricate himself. He's very sorry for not being discreet about spying on you.
He also did not know Clark Kent had that dog in him, but that's a conversation for another time.
With a frantic sort of enthusiasm, Lois flaps her hands in an effort to signal him back. He almost slips like a Looney Tunes character, complete with cartoonish sound effects, as he scurries across the marble floor in his socks.
(Fuck-ass athletic socks and their 70% polyester blend. Mark his words, he's switching to wool next winter.)
"Holy shit," he puffs, heart thundering in his chest from the near-death experience of running at work without shoes. Blood rushes to his face, making him feel gross and sweaty, "Oh my god, Lois, they're up to diabolical shit in there!"
"Keep it down!" she scoffs, fisting the back of his neckline and pulling him behind the desk.
They crouch there for a few minutes, peeking over the edge to watch the door; Jimmy mutters under his breath, recapping the (supposed) illicit consummation of your new romantic relationship in the archive closet.
When the coast is somewhat clear, the panel of wood cracks from the frame by an inch. It pauses for a moment, but soon enough, the hinges squeak and...
You and Clark emerge, hardly managing your not-so-secret glances without bursting into fits of giggles. The stupid thing is, you're both neat.
As in, probably-weren't-having-sex, fooling-the-whole-office, no-stray-hairs-or-wrinkled clothes neat.
Fingers interlocked—so tightly that Jimmy's half-afraid one of you would float away if you so much as loosened up—you tug Clark to his desk with a soft, contented smile. The man is blushing, an honest-to-god deep pink that disappears beneath his collar.
"Huh." Lois squints as Clark pulls a chair up next to you and logs into his computer. The familiar tune of the Pokémon intro wafts through the air quietly. With a tinge of disappointment, "Yeah, I think they were just pretending—you practically sauntered up like fe-fi-fo-fum."
"Shut up!" Jimmy presses his fingers against his eyelids and takes five seconds to breathe. "I did not saunter."
"Whatever, choir boy," she mutters wryly. Then she bites her lip, cheeks twitching in the way that tells him she's trying to strangle a smile before it blooms. "'Sides, I think they figured themselves out."
Jimmy snaps his gaze back to Clark's desk.
The corners of your mouth are quirked up with all the warm fondness in the world as he presses a sweet, reverent kiss to your knuckles, right over where your hands are still joined.
"Idiots," Lois grouses with a small but amused shake of her head.
Jimmy grunts in agreement. "Took them fuckin' long enough."
notes: been a minute since my last clark fic im on my 9th life LMAO
++ please lmk if u enjoyed, comments & rbs are greatly appreciated <33
synopsis; where the reader has a crush on Superman and Clark at the same time, unaware they are the same person.
an: I just had a lot of fun with this one honestly. There's a few silly moments here and there where i just wrote whatever tickled my fancy.
You weren't one for celebrity crushes. The idea of falling for someone you had never met had always seemed weird to you, but now, you understood. You could see the side of the girls falling over themselves for Elvis or preening for Matt Dillon. Because you were down bad for metropolises' one and only Superman.
Right now you were sat in the office grinning at your computer like a mad woman. You were watching a video of superman on YouTube, and wow...he sure was something.
"What's got you smiling like that?" Clark's voice rolls over you, snapping you out of your thoughts.
"Nothing." You slam your laptop shut, and instantly feel as if you've been caught in the act of doing something you shouldn't. But there's nothing wrong with watching a news report on your laptop. Nothing wrong with rewinding a few times just to see the dimples Superman has when he smiles. Right?
"She's got a crush." Jimmy calls from across the office, teasing.
Clark's brow furrows, "On who?" his voice deepens, almost as if he's concerned for you, though you don't know why he would be.
"I don't have a crush." You counter, but you can feel warmth creeping up your neck, heating your ears. Even if the others in the office can't see it, you know you're embarrassed.
"She has a crush on Superman, I've seen her watching videos of him constantly this week."
"Jimmy! Shut your trap!" you throw your pen in his direction, and it hits him directly on the forehead.
"Hey!" Jimmy makes an attempt at throwing the pen back but you dodge expertly, wheeling yourself out of the line of fire in your office chair.
"You have a crush on Superman?" Clark asks, and there's a small smile creeping onto his lips. He's going to make fun of you, you know it.
"It's not a crush." You defend, though you know too well that it is. "I just think that he's cool." You keep your gaze locked on the papers at your desk, hoping to defuse the conversation.
"Cool, huh?"
You don't answer him, and that in itself is all he needs to know.
-
The next day Superman saves three young kids from a three story fall, and you watch the reports fly in. Hero, savior, wonder. Words used to describe him as he brings the kids to safety on the sidewalk. The event is caught from multiple different angles, and you watch every one you can find in your researching, feeling your heart well with pride. But you don't know him, never have, so why do you feel so attached?
Clark pushes his way into the office twenty minutes later, never on time, and you look up from your laptop to smile at him. He smiles back, and his dimples flash, triggering a resemblance to something in your head.
"Morning," He greets, and the tone of his voice washes over you. He's happy today, and walks tall as he makes his way to the desk.
"Morning." You say it back almost instinctually, but you're stuck on the fact he reminds of you someone. The dimples. Superman has dimples. God, you're so down bad that you're seeing him in everything. You worry you're losing your mind the next time Clark grins at you, and again you see the similarity to the man you're obsessed with. Clark Kent looks like Superman, just a little. Not really. Who are you kidding?
You're just seeing what you want to see, which is a more attainable version of your celebrity crush. Still, you can't stop yourself when you say "I have never noticed those before." Clark turns to you, and you clarify. "Your dimples. I've never noticed them before."
It's as if you saying that short circuit's something in Clarks brain as he fumbles for a response. "I've always had them." He ends up blurting, as if you don't know that now. Then after a moment, his voice softer, like he's gone shy, "Do you not like them?"
It stuns you a little, because of course you like them. You've always had a thing for guys with dimples—superman included—though you can't say that to Clark. He's your coworker, your friend. "No, I do. I like them. They're cute." And you mean the words you say. Because Clark's dimples are cute, and so is Clark.
You're in serious trouble now. A crush on Superman, a public figure you may never meet or even see in person, is one thing. A potential crush on your coworker. Bad, Bad, BAD.
-
A week later and you wake up sweating. And not from any nightmare, no, from a very, very good dream. A dream about Clark. You are absolutely fucked.
“I'm sure it's not as bad as you think.”
Lois is trying to calm you down, but there’s nothing she can do. You are fixated on him, on your coworker Clark Kent. You'd called her after much deliberation on the topic, and after a near panic attack you decided you needed her expert council.
“I’m having dreams about him Lois! And they’re not PG rated!” You’ve got your head in your hands, leaning forward with your elbows on your knees. Deep breathes, in and out. “Every time I see him, I'm gonna think…god, you know what I'll think about.”
Three days ago Clark had brushed past you in the break room, a hand on your back as he reached for the coffee machine. And you’d shivered at the touch, his touch. His hand was warm, gentle and big. And you’d be damned if you could forget about it. And he apologized profusely as if he'd felt your shiver in his heart, "sorry, i didn't mean—that was out of line, sorry."
You hadn't known how to tell him that it was perfectly alright, perhaps even more so than that, for him to touch you. In fact, you wanted him to, and that was something you hadn't felt in a long time.
"What the hell am I gonna do?" you manage to look at Lois across from you now, and you know that she has no reasonable answers for you.
"Maybe tell him how you feel?" she offers, which is a totally unreasonable answer, just as you'd suspected.
"He's my coworker! I see him every day, and if he rejects me I'll have to change my name and run off to a whole new country."
"I don't think he'd reject you." Lois says, and there's a knowing smile on her lips. But you don't quite catch her drift.
"You're right, he's too nice to turn me down. He'd go out with me out of pity, we'd date for years and then finally when we're old and dying he'll say "it's not you, it's me." and—"
"Woah, okay stop." Lois has taken a few steps forward and is crouching in front of you, her hands on your knees.
"Did it ever occur to you that he might like you back?"
"No. Well, maybe. I don't know."
Lois just smiles at you, and pulls you in for a hug. She's used to you, to your out of control thoughts, and she squeezes you tight. "It's going to be fine, it's just Clark, not the end of the world."
-
A day after that conversation, and it sure does feel like some kind of hell. Sitting across from Clark is like torture, especially when he looks at you over his glasses, smiles brightly. Those dimples. Damn him.
There's only one thing for you to do. One thing that can fix the landslide of thoughts. A dive so deep down a rabbit hole of Superman media that no man will ever compare. Yes, that's reasonable right?
You pull open your laptop, and type 'Superman' into the search bar. Videos and images of the man fill your screen, articles and interviews with him popping up in every corner. But there's a haunting presence surrounding so many of them. Interviews with Superman, reported on by Clark Kent from the daily planet. Articles about Superman's latest saves written and edited by the one and only. You peek over the top of your laptop screen, and find Clark with his head in his own work.
His curls fall effortlessly into his eyes, and you wonder how he can see anything he's reading at all. A sigh leaves your lips, blissful and dreamy, and you don't realize you do it until Clark looks up at you.
He blushes when he catches you already looking his way. "Everything okay?" he asks, and you allow the sound of his voice to envelop you for a moment. It's a voice that sounds familiar, not in the sense that you've heard Clark speak so many times before, but almost like you've heard a similar voice spoken by someone else. Someone with a cape and very similar dimples.
"Yeah," you can feel your brows pulling down into a frown as you look at him. "Yeah, everything's good." you've never been good at masking your feelings, and now must be one of those times, your expression the dead giveaway.
"What's on your mind?" Clark rolls his office chair closer to your desk, his paperwork long forgotten. You turn your laptop around to face him with an unknown confidence.
"You know Superman, right?" you watch as Clark's eyes scan over all the articles he's written about the hero in the past, before he nods with hesitation. "Yeah, sort of, I mean professionally speaking."
You don't know what comes over you then, but the words spill from you before you can properly think them over. "Can you get me in contact with him? Unprofessionally speaking?"
You're unsure if what you're implying is landing right in Clark's brain, but he seems to short circuit at the words. He readjusts his glasses, and grabs at his tie, as if to loosen it. "Yeah, uh, sure. What did you want to talk to him about?"
You turn your laptop back to face you, and begin typing something new into the search bar. "If I asked nicely, do you think he'd grab a coffee with me?"
Clark nearly chokes, or at least you think that's the case considering the strangled noise that escapes his throat. "You want to ask Superman on a date?" the words sound tight, and stressed coming from him.
"Maybe?" you glance up from your screen to note the look of shock that covers Clark from head to toe. His entire body language has changed, and it makes you shift in your seat.
"Do you think he'll turn me down?" you say at last when Clark fails to offer anything further in the way of conversation. Your question seems to tug him out of his stupor, though he's still sitting up straighter than usual, as if he's walking on thin ice that you can't see.
"I don't think anyone could turn you down."
-
Clark is reeling. He can’t quite believe it. You want to ask him on a date. Well, not him exactly. Superman. Who is also him. Fuck, this is getting complicated.
Clark had been falling for you for months now, unbeknownst to anyone in the office, and he had to admit that when he heard of your crush on Superman originally, he got a bit of a kick out of it. A confidence boost. Until of course he realised that it wasn’t really him, Clark Kent that you wanted.
It’s weird to feel jealous of yourself, but that’s exactly how Clark feels. The feeling of “what does he have that I don’t?” Is strange when you have everything said other has.
Still, Clark puts you in contact with ‘Superman’ because for him, it’s impossible to say no to you. I mean how could he? Every time you smile at him his knees go weak and that day when you told him his dimples were cute? He hasn’t stopped thinking about it since.
So somehow, Clark is all done up in his ‘superman’ attire, ready to go meet you for coffee. But how does superman even have coffee? Should Clark get the same order he always does, or will you catch on if you recognise he has the same tastes?
Still, despite his doubts, he refuses to stand you up. He meets you outside the daily planet, standing tall just like he always tries to do when in this suit.
“Hey.” you greet him with such a wide smile, one that lights him up from the inside out, and he thinks in that mere second that maybe he doesn’t need the sun to heal, maybe he just needs you.
“Hello.” He extends a hand, formal despite the circumstances. “Clark has told me so much about you.”
“I was just about to say the same thing.” You answer, taking his hand to shake.
“So, shall we?” Clark gestures down the street, toward a coffee shop that he happens to appear at almost every day.
“We shall.”
-
For the most part, the date goes well. You talk about a plethora of things, and he makes jokes that have you red in the face with laughter. But there is something missing, shoes you don’t think even a superhuman man can fill.
Right now, you’re on the roof of a building taller than any tree, with the one and only Superman, looking over the city you love so much. And somewhere in that city, is a man you can’t stop thinking about. And that man, surprisingly enough, isn’t the one right beside you.
“What’s on your mind?” The voice covers you, smooth like stones washed up on the shore.
You look over at Superman, a singular curl coming loose in his hair from the wind that passes by. “You’re beautiful.” You tell him, before you can so much as think it over. “So beautiful, and kind, and funny, and a great listener.”
“Why, thank you.” He starts “I think of you the same way.” You know he means it, and that’s what makes it harder to say the next part.
“I’m going to sound like an asshole right now,” you preface, “but I know someone else, that is beautiful, and kind, funny, and a great listener. And he has these dimples that are just the cutest, and his eyes are so gentle and dreamy–“
Superman cuts you off, albeit politely. “I have a sneaky suspicion I’m being rejected right now.”
It makes you sick in your stomach to have to do it, but you nod, “I am so sorry.”
Superman is quiet for a moment, and then he smiles, soft and understanding. “It’s okay. But if you don’t mind me asking, who exactly am I being rejected for?”
You pause, and you know Superman isn’t pressuring or guilt tripling you in any way. You feel safe, and comfortable, to tell him the truth. Maybe that’s why he’s such a hero.
“Clark. Clark Kent.”
-
Clark’s heart stops in his chest. At least it feels that way when his name falls from your lips.
“Clark, like the Clark who set up this date?” The words tumble from him laced with confusion and doubt that isn’t an act. He almost says "who me?!" but manages to stop himself just in time.
“Yeah.” You heave a sigh, one that sounds heavenly and princess like. “Don’t tell, but I think I’m obsessed with him.”
That almost makes Clark break character. He can’t believe it. You like him, really like him, and he has a fucking shot after all.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you this. It’s rude, and mean. We’re on a date and I’m talking about some other guy, what is wrong with me?
But Clark wants to know more, he’s begging for it internally. “No, no it’s fine. He seems like a nice guy.”
You smile subtly, staring off at the city around you. “He really is.” Clark is just about ready to pump his fist into the air.
"Why don't you ask him out?" he says instead.
You're quiet, and when you turn to face him the look in your eyes is anxious, unsure. "Because he might turn me down, and I don't know if I can handle that."
It's like a sucker punch to his gut, "I don't think anyone could turn you down." he mutters, losing himself in the look on your face. He watches, as your expression changes, shifts from one of nerves to one of confusion.
"He said the same thing." it's almost a whisper but he catches the words, despite the breeze trying to carry them away.
"Who did?" his own response is quiet too, as if you're telling each other secrets you don't want the air to hear.
"Clark. He said that exact same thing to me the day I asked you out."
-
It all comes together then as you stand there staring at Superman. His dimples, the curls in his eyes, the voice you know so well, the humor that is so familiar and kind. The touch of his hands, warm and gentle and big.
It's like a fog has lifted and you're unsure how you never saw it before. "Oh my god," you take a step back, wanting to cower in the corner from shame. You just gave the most embarrassing rom-com speech about Clark Kent, to Clark Kent. "Oh my god," you say again, your eyes scanning over every inch of the man before you. Superman. Superman. Superman. Except it's not is it? It's Clark, it's so clearly Clark that you feel stupid.
"What?" there's panic on his face, and you watch as he realizes that you know. That you see through him. "Oh," it hits him, and you watch as he also takes a step backward.
"You're Superman." you say, and it seems absolutely idiotic considering he's standing right in front of you in the red and blue suit, a giant yellow 'S' plastered on his broad chest.
He stays quiet, watching you closely. You take a step forward, and he stays utterly still, like a deer in headlights.
"You're Clark." you just needed to say it out loud. To fully convince yourself it's true. And it is. As soon as you say it, Clark—no superman—nods.
"Surprise?" he says it warily, daring for a soft and cautious smile.
-
Shortly after that conversation you beeline it out of there, promising to meet Clark later that night to really talk it over. But for now you need to sit with your thoughts, figure things out, and come to terms with the fact you just told the man you might be falling for exactly how you feel without knowing it.
To think you've had feelings for the same man twice, thinking that he was two different people? You have a type.
But you can't seem to get over completely exposing yourself and your feelings by rejecting Clark—for Clark. You pace back and forth in your apartment for an hour, maybe even two, before there's a knock at the door. You've run out of time.
"Hey," you groan as you open the door for him. He's in normal clothes now, out of the Superman suit, and he looks so unbelievably good. The white button up, the dress pants, the hair. His curls are set free, and you can almost feel your pupils dilate at the sight.
"Hey." his voice is soft, so gentle, so him. "How are you feeling?" there's genuine concern in his eyes, his fingers flexing at his sides as if he wants to reach out but refuses too.
"I'm okay, I guess. It's a lot."
He nods, and glances around your apartment, he's only been here once before for a staff party you held at your place last Christmas. He sat on the couch with you for most of the night, watching Jimmy dance offbeat to music you had coming from your tv. You think that might have been the first spark you felt for him, though you didn't know it at the time.
"So, about what happened on the roof."
As soon as he says it you want to crumble to the floor in shame. You keep yourself upright, though it's a struggle, as he continues, though he doesn't miss the way you wince at the topic of conversation.
"Did you mean what you said?"
You feel nauseous, but you nod. "Every word."
-
Clark can't help it. He tries to stop himself, but the smile grows, crawling across his face and clinging there. Stuck. "You said you were obsessed with me." he says through the smile, teasing, remembering.
He watches as you look away from him, your embarrassment endearing, sweet. "Did I say that? I don't remember saying that." the words tumble from you but he knows you're partly joking. You know just as well as he does what you said before.
He wants to laugh, wants to spin you around like a Princess, but he just takes a singular step forward, still grinning. "I distinctly remember you saying it." he adds, unable to take his eyes away from you. He's thrilled, excited, but also a little nervous. What if he made this all up in his head? What if it's just all one amazing dream?
"I'm a little obsessed with you too. For what it's worth." He adores the way you look up at him, the furrowed brows, making way for a smile of your own.
"Just a little obsessed?"
He feels the heat rising up his neck, "A completely normal amount of obsessed, I think."
That's the moment he reaches out, taking one of your hands in his own. He's hopeful that you won't pull away, be repulsed by the fact he isn't as human as you once thought he was. You stay with your hand in his own, and give his fingers a squeeze of reassurance before you speak again.
"So," you lower your head a little, "how many times did you laugh at me behind my back when I was watching videos of 'super-you' in the office?"
He pretends to think it over, look up at the ceiling contemplatively. He remembers those times, where he was almost jealous of himself. It feels so silly looking back now.
"Only once or twice." he answers, after a moment. "How many times did you almost figure out it was me?" He's been wanting to know since this afternoon, since you called him out. But there have been times in the past where he thought you already knew, where he thought maybe you were waiting for him to tell you.
"The dimples almost gave you away." You reach a hand up to touch his face, and he has to resist the urge to close his eyes in contentment. He nods, only slightly, not wanting you to move your hand away from his jaw.
"Unfortunately that is something I don't have much control over."
His eyes scan over every inch of your face, committing this moment and each of your expressions to memory. The smile lines and the way your eyelashes flutter. The purse of your lips as you try not to laugh. The lips he has a very strong urge to kiss right about now.
"I still can't get over the fact," he starts, "that you rejected me, for me." he leans in a little bit closer, as he says it, just to tease, and he revels in the roll of your eyes.
"Shut up, Kent." you say, right before you push up and close the rest of the distance between his mouth and yours. It's a not a perfect kiss, and his nose bumps with yours as he tries to hold you up to his height. He also can't stop smiling, so that doesn't help matters, and it might just be the messiest, most awkward kiss he's ever had. But it's also the best one. Because he's never felt this amount of joy before, never felt so at home in someone else's house, in someone else's hands.
So when you pull away, bashful and laughing, he brings you back in for one more.
Reblog and comment pretty pretty please!!
CLARK KENT TAGLIST: empty
GENERAL TAGLIST: @heliads @candywh0r3 @caplanreadss @s00buwu
warnings: minors dni(18+) — full nelson position, dumbification , dirty talk, sweet but rough clark <\3, slight breeding kink as always with that man grrr woof woof, also not proofread >_<
It’s definitely a stretch.
His big strong arms holding and cradling the backs of your legs, muscles flexing around the soft flesh of your thighs as he pulls your knees up to your chest.
You feel your bottom half bend in a way it never has before, the base of your spine stretching and almost aching at the pressure of being spread and bent so wide. But you fear you already may be too far gone to even worry about that anymore.
Clark thrusts up into you at a steady pace, thick cock pressing and pulsing against your tight and gummy walls. Brushing and kissing your sweet spot with every movement, bullying your poor cunt as he stuff you full.
A gush of wetness rushes out to coat his fat cock with each thrust, your mixed arousals glistening in the dim light as it runs down your thighs and covers his abs. The obscene position fills the room with a faint shlick sound as his hips hit your ass over and over.
You whine, feeling the muscles of your legs tighten from the pleasure. Your toes curl and eyes roll backward, hands grasping onto him as your fingernails dig into his skin, clinging onto him while you try to stop your legs from shaking.
His hold is tight yet gentle as he cradles your back into his chest, creating a steady rhythm as he tries to spread you wider with each thrust.
His hands move to hold you by your calfs, thick fingers massaging the tense muscles softly as to make you feel more comfortable. Ever the lover boy even when he’s fucking you silly.
His breath is hot and heavy against your cheek, moans spilling out as both low rumbles and hight pitched whines. You feel them crawl up his chest and out of his throat, making you feel the rumble of them through your body as they sending shivers down your spine.
His hips jolt your half-limp body up with each thrust, rubbing your back against his chest.
He’s so warm, body growing sticky with a sheen layer of sweater that melts onto your own skin. Molding him closer and closer as he continues to bottom out (or up?) into you.
You swear you start to feel light headed, lips trembling as incoherent pleas tumble past your lips. Tears run down your cheeks as your moans get louder each time his fat tip pushes itself against your cervix.
“I got you baby, ‘ve got you.” Clark whispers breathlessly into your ear, kissing the tears on your cheek away. His voice is raspy, the timbre of it low in a way that makes you tighten around him.
You whimper, throwing your head back to rest along his shoulder. Your eyes shut, chest heaving as you try to catch the breath he continues to knock out of you.
But it’s no use, not with the way he keeps talking.
“Good girl baby, such a good girl. Taking all of me.” Clark whispers, lips mapping over your face with soft kisses. You weren’t too sure, but you swore you could also feeling him licking your tears away too.
“Told you it would feel good, yeah?”
His grip on one of your legs loosens, hand moving to hold your own in his before you realize he’s making you grab that leg up by yourself. A whimper leaves your lips at the silent demand, turning into a full moan when you suddenly feel his thick fingers start to rub at your sensitive clit.
“C-Clark!” You gasp, legs instinctively trying to close themselves together at the rush of hot pleasure. It sends a thrill up your spine, making you writhe and your toes curl.
The grip of the hand still on your leg tightens into an iron hold at your movement, certain to leave tiny bruises as Clark keeps you spread open for him.
“N-no baby, gotta keep em open for me.” His words come out in a low growl, the movement of his hips not faltering even once.
“Or do you wanna do it? Play with your pussy while I keep you open? Would that feel better honey?” His voice is coated in sugar, smooth and sweet like rich honey as if he weren’t saying the filthiest things to you.
You whine in response, quickly shaking your head. All thoughts leave your brain as feeling starts to take over, leaving you at the mercy of every sweet sensation that runs up and through your veins.
More tears start to fall from your cheeks, too dumb to even form words anymore as Clark’s once careful and steady thrust begin to get harsher and more erratic.
Soon enough, he’s got you bouncing on his cock.
His own legs are spread wide, knees bent for a better stance and grip as he relentlessly thrusts up into you.
The room smells of sex, the sound of your mixed moans and the soft plap of him fucking up into you fills the space.
His thick cock slides in and out with every motion, twitching and pulsing inside of your dripping cunt.
“Like when I use you, baby?” Clark hums against your skin, all sense gone out the window as he feels you tighten around him.
“Course you do, wouldn’t be gripping me so tight if you didn’t.”
You want to cry, to moan out and reply ‘Yes, baby. I love when you use me, please don’t stop!’
You want to beg for more, to tell him to stuff you full over and over but, but your tongue is heavy in your mouth. Brain fuzzy and your vision hazy as all you can do is manage out small broken whimpers.
You tighten around him again, the familiar pressure in your lower tummy starting to build. Your muscles tighten, legs tensing as you feel the wave of pleasure your peak brings start to hurdle towards you.
Your hands grip at his biceps, squeezing them in warning as you feel yourself start to tip over the edge.
“Got you, baby, I got you.” Clark replies knowingly, a guttural moan escaping him.
“Come all over your boyfriend’s fat cock baby. Let ‘im fill you up sweetheart.”
Thank you for reading </3!! Comments and reblogs are v much appreciated! If you have any insights please leave them kindly!
a/n: sometimes i forget i can just write smut then im like oh yeah… then i get embarrassed posting it LOL!! I was also gonna mix this in with some mirror sex but im saving that for something else 😛😛
Your washing machine breaks, and Clark Kent—perfect, helpful, devastatingly kind Clark Kent—immediately offers his. The same Clark you've been pathetically avoiding because being around him hurts too much when you're this gone for him. But it's late, it's raining, and he's being so characteristically sweet about it that you can't say no. What could go wrong?
Your washing machine is dead. Not 'making a funny noise' dead, but utterly, stone-cold silent. You’d pressed the power button three times, a desperate little prayer on your lips, before accepting your fate. A mountain of laundry sat mockingly in its basket.
You’re staring into the abyss of your empty detergent bottle (another problem) when your phone buzzes on the counter.
Clark: Heard a suspicious amount of cursing coming from your apartment. Everything good?
Your fingers hover over the screen. It’s mortifying. You should just not answer. All your efforts to distance yourself from him, to slowly ease his warmth out of your life, will be for naught if he gets even the slightest sense of you needing help. Clark Kent doesn’t ignore cries for help. Clark Kent swoops in, with his gentle smile and strong, broad shoulders.
Clark Kent makes it hard for girls like you to get over him.
But if you don't answer, he’ll probably show up at your door to investigate, which would be much, much worse.
You: My washing machine has passed on to the great appliance store in the sky.
His reply is almost instantaneous. A small bubble with three dots appears and disappears before the message lands, and you hold your breath.
Clark: Oh no! Problem solved. My machine is your machine. Come on over whenever.
Shit.
You: Thanks, but it’s OK! I’ll just hit the laundromat. It’s late and I don’t want to bother you.
You’ve already put on your jacket and are hunting for your keys, a grim determination setting in. The walk will be cold. It will be annoying. But it will be blessedly, wonderfully Clark-free, so it’s a small sacrifice in the long run. Your thumb hesitates over the power switch on the machine. Might as well give it another shot. You jab the button with your index finger.
The phone screen in your hand lights up with his name.
He's speaking before you've finished getting the phone to your ear. "You don't honestly think I'm letting you go out at 11pm in the freezing rain to sit at some laundromat by yourself, do you?"
"I..." What were you going to say again? He's turning the concerned voice on and your stomach is flipping. "It’s not raining that much." It is. You can hear the distinct tink-tink-tink of water hitting your windowpane.
"Okay. It’s not freezing rain. But it’s still late. And that laundromat is… not the best. Lois was just telling me about an article she’s editing about how many streetlights are out on that block."
Lois.
The name lands like a small, smooth stone dropped into your stomach. Of course. Lois. Beautiful, brilliant Lois who makes Clark laugh in ways that light up his entire face, who writes the front-page articles and has the world at her fingertips. Who Clark is undoubtedly, irrefutably in love with, if you had to guess. Maybe they’re even together now. You've been so busy avoiding him that you wouldn't even know.
"I’m not gonna be able to focus on my work if I’m worried about you," he continues, blissfully unaware of the small, quiet devastation he just caused. He’s weaponized his own kindness, and it’s ruthlessly effective. "Please?"
You lean your forehead against the cool surface of your dead washing machine. He could convince the moon to come crashing down into Earth with just one well-placed "please", you think.
"You working on something?" you've moved on to stalling for time.
"Don't change the subject. Grab your laundry and get over here before I come drag you myself."
You're a goner. "Clark."
His laugh is bright and warm and reminds you of a lot of what you miss about him. "Come on," he coaxes, and the gentle, cajoling tone is going to make your heart leap straight out of your throat and into his hands. "I’ll order us some pizza. Or have you eaten already?"
"Don't get me pizza," you protest. "You need to work."
"I need to take a break anyway. I’ve been staring at this screen too long. I’ll be braindead if I don’t take a break soon."
"Then have a break. You don’t have to share it with me. I don't want to impose."
"Alright," he says, and you hear the telltale squeak of his desk chair as he gets to his feet. "Then I'm coming over and dragging you and your laundry across the hall."
"Clark!"
"Y/N!"
You laugh despite yourself, despite the way your stomach hurts. He's too good, too much, too kind. You can't keep up. "Okay, okay," you say, your shoulders slumping in defeat. "I'm on my way."
︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶
"Come in," he calls before you can knock. Of course he heard you coming.
You push the door open to find him tidying up the living room, shoving papers into neat stacks and fluffing couch cushions. He looks up when you enter, hair falling across his forehead in that way that makes your fingers itch to brush it back.
"Sorry about the mess," he says, though his apartment is immaculate as always. "I wasn't expecting company."
He's wearing his flannel pajama pants and a soft t-shirt, glasses on. You'd have a hard time figuring out whether this or the suit is worse on your heart.
"You don't have to clean for me, Clark. It's just laundry."
"I know, but..." He trails off, running a hand through his hair. "I guess I wanted things to be nice. It's been a while since you've been over."
You feel a stab of guilt at that. You can't explain why you haven't been over in so long. You can't say, I have a ridiculous crush on you and need to save whatever is left of my dignity by keeping some distance between us.
So, you say, "Oh... yeah." Like an idiot.
"I missed seeing your face around."
"Did you?"
It's out before you can take it back. Clark freezes, then turns to look at you.
"Of course I did." There’s something like hurt behind his glasses. "Why would you say that?"
"No... I didn't mean..." you stammer. You want to go hide in a closet somewhere. "That sounded weird. I'm sorry. Just forget it."
Clark is still studying you with that puzzled, concerned look, but he eventually lets out a little huff of a laugh. "I’ll never understand how you don’t realize how much people like you around."
"Maybe I'm just fishing for compliments," you say in an attempt to play it off.
"Mm," he hums, taking your laundry basket with such ease one would think it was full of cotton balls instead of two weeks’ worth of dirty clothes. "Well, you're welcome to fish here anytime."
You follow him to the tiny (immaculately clean) laundry nook. It's not a room so much as a closet off the kitchen, with much less space than you need for a successful Clark Kent avoidance technique. If he stays to chat, you'll be standing no more than an arms' length apart at best, and you're not sure how that’s going to work for the duration of a full cycle.
"Have you eaten?" Clark asks again. He's leaning against the doorframe of the laundry nook, watching you with an easy sort of patience as you start to load the machine. The space feels impossibly small; you have to keep reminding your lungs how to do their job.
"Yeah," you lie, your voice tight as you untangle one of your t-shirts from a pair of jeans and pray that you didn't throw anything too embarrassing into this basket. "I ate."
"Liar. I can hear your stomach from here."
You freeze, utterly mortified. He’s just joking. Probably. "You cannot."
"I can," he insists, a grin spreading across his face that makes your stomach do a nervous little flip. "It’s telling me very sad stories about an empty fridge." He pushes off the doorframe, taking a single, deliberate step into the nook. The fluorescent bulb above flickers once, as if startled. He fills the space completely, blocking the light from the kitchen.
Your hands are suddenly clumsy. You become hyper-aware of the contents of your basket—the worn-out state of your favorite pajamas and, god forbid, your underwear. You try to discreetly bury a pair of frankly embarrassing floral underwear beneath a towel while he leans over your shoulder.
He’s reaching up, his body twisting around you to open a small cupboard above your head. The soft cotton of his t-shirt presses against your shoulder blade as he stretches, and a warm cloud of something clean—laundry soap and fresh air and just him—envelops you. You hold your breath, your universe shrinking to the inches between you, the faint scent of his shampoo, and the solid wall of his chest at your back.
He pulls back just as you think you might pass out, holding out a bottle of detergent. He’s completely, devastatingly oblivious to the five-alarm fire he just started in your nervous system, it seems. His expression is open, friendly, his gaze searching your face. You'd like to curl up inside the washing machine with your laundry and go on a spin cycle right now.
"Laundry detergent for your thoughts?" he asks, offering you the bottle like he hasn’t just driven every rational thought from your head.
You look down at the bottle, trying to remember how words work. "My thoughts are boring."
"That’s impossible." He unscrews the cap for you before passing it into your hands.
You take it, but he doesn't move back. You can see the flecks of green in his blue eyes behind his glasses.
You turn back to the washer, desperate for something to do with your hands and a way to escape his gaze, but your mind has gone completely, utterly blank. What comes after adding detergent? Cold wash? Warm wash? What exactly are you supposed to do with your arms, your legs, your shoulders? How do people even stand normally?
"Let me get that," he says, gently, quietly. His hand brushes yours as he takes the bottle, and he’s pouring the soap in, setting the bottle aside, twisting a dial. The washer rumbles to life, filling with water, and it feels like the air in the tiny nook is being sucked out through the pipes. He closes the lid and turns to look at you. He's so tall you have to tilt your head up to see his face properly.
"There," he says softly, like he's accomplished something monumental instead of just starting a load of laundry. "All set."
You nod, acutely aware that you should probably leave the nook now, give him space to escape back to his work. But your feet seem rooted to the spot, and Clark doesn't seem to be in any hurry to move either.
"So," he says, leaning back against the dryer, arms crossed. The position makes his t-shirt pull slightly across his chest, but at least now he's a full arms' length away from you. "What's really going on with you lately?"
Your heart stutters. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. The avoiding me thing. The way you practically sprint in the opposite direction when you see me in the hallway."
"I don't sprint."
"You do a very fast walk," he says with a small smile. "It's actually pretty impressive. I didn't know you could move that quickly."
Despite everything, you find yourself fighting back a laugh. "You're ridiculous."
"Maybe. But I'm also right." He tilts his head and looks at you for a long moment, like if he focuses hard enough, he can figure out what's going on inside your head without you having to say it out loud. It's an unsettling feeling, as if he might somehow peel back all the layers of your walls and see your pathetic little crush sitting at the core.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asks.
Your heart sinks. "No, Clark, you haven't done anything wrong. Jesus." You run a hand over your face, letting out a sigh. "That's not—you're just—"
He's just perfect. He's kind and patient, he helps an elderly woman carry groceries back to her apartment every Thursday night. How do you tell someone like that that it feels like dying every time he mentions the coworker he's clearly in love with?
"We're good," you finish weakly. "You don't have anything to worry about."
He gives you a look that says he doesn't believe you for a second. "You just hate being around me?"
"Oh, yes. I hate you. Absolutely despise you," you joke.
"Hmm."
"Repulsed," you're holding back a laugh now. "Completely repulsed by your very—"
Clark takes another step forward, and whatever words were in your mouth evaporate. The laughter fizzles, turns less playful and more nervous as he invades your personal space like he's been doing your thoughts, 24/7, for maybe a solid year.
Playful Clark is almost worse than kind Clark. Kind Clark can fill your stomach with butterflies, sure. Kind Clark will stay on your mind, will fuel daydreams of late mornings and gentle hands, but you've built up a tolerance. Playful Clark—bold Clark—might actually shatter the very carefully maintained equilibrium you've worked so hard to create around your relationship with him.
"...face," you manage to squeak. He's much too close and much too comfortable, taller than you've ever really allowed yourself to consider.
What a terrifyingly wonderful feeling. If he leaned down, if you got on tiptoes...
"Clark," you say. The word is a weak warning.
He doesn't move, but his eyes flicker down to your lips and back up. You can feel the blush creeping over your cheeks. "What?"
"Clark."
He's smiling. "Y/N."
You can barely hear your own voice over the roar of your blood in your ears. "Are you just... gonna stand here?"
A small, breathy laugh escapes him. "I don't know. I'm enjoying the view."
"Clark."
His smile widens. "It's not my fault. You're cute when you're flustered."
"Stop. I'm not flustered."
He leans in a fraction closer. "So, I could get closer?"
He knows. He absolutely knows. And you know that he knows, and he's playing chicken. "Clark," you whisper, a final warning. If he gets any closer...
"Y/N." He mimics the tone of your voice. He's trying to tease, but he can't keep the soft, warm edges from creeping into it, the gentle affection he can never hide.
Clark Kent wants to kiss you, you think, distantly, as his nose brushes yours. As a big hand reaches up and cradles the back of your head.
"Is this okay?" he asks, breath fanning over your lips. And god, if that isn't just about the death of you.
The air has solidified, turned to glass, and it's lodged in your chest. "Clark."
"Can I?" His fingertips are warm against the base of your neck. The contact sends electricity racing up and down your spine. "I'm tired of waiting for you to catch on."
"Me catch on?! My biggest problem is that you, Clark Kent, you are the most—"
He's kissing you. He's laughing against your lips as he's kissing you, and your mind has been reduced to a collection of sparks going off in a vast expanse of darkness.
"You're so oblivious," he's saying, his lips moving against yours. "You're the most oblivious person on the planet. I swear."
"I'm oblivious? You're—"
But he's kissing you again—this time more insistent, less patient, a little bit needy and a whole lot of something you can't name, but you want to drown in. Any argument you might have made melts under his touch, vanishes like dew on a sunny morning and leaves nothing but this in its wake.
"I hope your machine is dead for good," he murmurs against your lips.
Your answer gets lost somewhere in the shape of his mouth and the warmth of his hands.
