caturdwy - Tumblr blog

caturdwy · 17 days ago

Text

mystery of love

pairing: clark kent (superman 2025) x reader summary: clark is light in ways the world doesn’t always notice. he makes breakfast for dinner, reads to you when you’re sick, peels oranges like his mom used to, and sunbathes on the fire escape like a houseplant that loves way too hard. he doesn’t say “i love you” until the light is just right and you’re wrapped up in him like a second skin, but he shows it every day in the way he stays. inspired by the orange poem by wendy cope. (or alternatively: 4 times he showed you he loves you + 1 time he says it) listen to the playlist here. word count: 11.1 k. oops. i swear this was only supposed to be 8k words but unfortunately, i'm insane. content warnings: 18+ mdni, fem!reader, established relationship, piv sex, character study, dom/sub undertones, switching (reader and clark take turns domming/subbing), marking kink, hair pulling, big soft men who are whipped for you, soft but kind of unhinged sex, size kink (clark picks up the reader/pins them down), nipple play, unprotected sex, oral (fem!receiving), outdoor sex (sex against a tree), face riding, public sex, use of pet names, tooth-rotting fluff, my love letter to midwest summers!

Your boyfriend photosynthesizes.

Well, that's the joke, anyway.

You’ve said it so many times now it might as well be printed on a T-shirt. My Boyfriend Is Solar-Powered! in Comic Sans. Or maybe Papyrus. Whatever will annoy him the most. Haven't really decided yet.

It started out as a throwaway line, one of those things you kind of just say when you’re half-awake and fully-annoyed because he’s hogging the sunny spot in the kitchen again like a smug, six-foot-four housecat with insane shoulders and even more insane bedhead.

But the first time you said it—like, actually really said it—he was standing by the window, shirtless, holding his coffee in that chipped blue mug that says "My Son's a Smallville Elementary Grad!" and somehow survived a farm, a college dorm, three apartments, and a move cross-country.

The light was doing that thing it loves to do in the morning, all golden and warm and syrupy, catching on his collarbones and the slope of his neck like he was painted by fucking Michelangelo. He had one hip braced against the counter, the other leg crooked, like someone told him to look as unintentionally hot as possible while waiting for the kettle filled with your guys' tea to boil.

You blinked at him, still clutching your own mug and not yet caffeinated enough to regulate your mouth, and said, “Do you ever feel like… like a plant?”

He raised an eyebrow. Blew on his coffee. You can see the way his breath fogs up slightly, that super breath of his doing just enough to cool down his coffee to the perfect temperature. “That a dig?”

“No. It’s just. You—" You waved vaguely in his direction. "Well, you just kinda look like you’re charging.”

That got a huff of a laugh. “What, like a phone?”

“No,” you said, and grinned into your mug. “Like I said, a plant. Like you're photosynthesizing.”

After that, it became a thing.

He always smiled when you said it. Looked down at himself, half-amused, half-embarrassed. “I mean,” he’d say, “you’re not wrong.” Or: “Someone’s gotta keep the plants company, y'know?"

But he never corrects you. Never laughs it off like it’s ridiculous.

Because it isn’t.

You’ve seen the truth of it, slow and subtle and layered in all the small things. The way he’s just a smidge lighter on his feet after a sunny day, how he runs warmer, more golden, like someone turned the saturation up to a hundred. The way his voice softens, deeper, when he’s been in the sun too long. The way the shadows under his eyes seem less sharp after just an afternoon spent lying on the roof, pretending he’s napping when you both know he’s just... breathing.

And the bruises. That’s the part he thinks you don’t see.

You do.

They heal so much faster when he’s been drenched in the sun. You’ve watched the inky blackish-purple fade to this sickly yellow in the span of a couple hours and tried really, really hard not to stare.

You’ve said nothing when he limped into bed one night after a particularly difficult battle and rolled out of it the next morning like absolutely nothing had even happened. Sometimes he winces and pretends it’s nothing. Sometimes he… forgets to pretend.

And still, you never say that’s not normal out loud, even though it’s not. Because he isn’t. Not in the way that matters. Not in the ways that make you love him.

You love him like a long exhale. Like a secret that’s safe with you. Like the song you play on repeat in the car, the one you never get sick of, even though it makes your throat tighten every time.

Sometimes it’s peaceful, like when your ribs finally uncages and let someone else in for the first time in your life. But sometimes, sometimes it's just so fucking devastating.

Because he’s Clark. And Superman. And most importantly, he's yours.

And it feels too big. Too fragile. Like trying to hold water in your hands. You want to keep him safe, but you also want to keep him. The real him. The him that leaves you sticky notes that say “eat something, please” and walks around humming old Mighty Crabjoys songs and insists you don’t have to fold my socks, seriously, who folds socks?

But you lie awake sometimes watching him breathe, thinking to yourself, How do I love someone that belongs to the world?

And the answer is: you just do. One day at a time. One morning at a time. One sunlit moment in the kitchen at a time.

That Monday morning, it’s the same as always.

You pad into the living room half-asleep, dragging your feet and wearing one of his T-shirts that hits you mid-thigh. He’s already up, standing barefoot by the window, coffee in hand, arms folded loosely across his chest like he’s holding himself together in case he gets pulled apart again later.

Pause in the doorway. Watch him for a second. The way the light pools around his ankles. The way his shoulders lift, just barely, when he hears your steps.

He doesn’t turn.

“Guess what,” you say.

He smiles, small and crooked. “Hmm?”

You cross the room. Slide your arms around his waist from behind and press your face between his shoulder blades, where the sun’s been warming him for at least half an hour.

“You’re glowing again,” you murmur. “Must be that high-potency sunlight. You hogging the sun again?”

He laughs, the sound low and warm. “You caught me.”

“You’re a danger to local crops,” you whisper. Feel the goosebumps rising underneath his skin. “The corn’s jealous.”

“Oh no. Not the corn.” He turns a little, just enough to look down at you. His eyes are so fucking blue at that moment. “Should I apologize to the corn?”

“Absolutely. It’s your fault they can’t compete. You're literally the reason why Iowa's GDP is going down.”

He leans in. Brushes a kiss to your temple. “I’ll draft a formal statement for them later.”

You stay like that for a minute. Him holding you. You pressing your nose into the slope of his back, breathing him in—sunshine and laundry and that faint green note that’s uniquely Clark. Like basil, or clean leaves. Like something still growing.

And you think: This is the part he doesn’t say out loud.

This is how he tells you.

Not with words. Not yet.

Your boyfriend photosynthesizes. And maybe it’s not the kind of love you can pin down, or explain, or protect. But it’s real. It’s alive.

And you love him.

And he, quietly, completely, loves you back.

(He hasn’t said it yet. But you don’t really need the words to know.)

Clark shows you he loves you in ways so small, they’d be easy to miss if you didn’t know how to look for them.

But you do. You catch them in those quiet little corners of the day.

The way he folds down the corner of your book before you can reach for a receipt or a pen. The way he touches your wrist, not yanking, just there, when you step into the street without looking. The way he makes a soft sound of protest—ahem, maybe more like politely exasperated—when you try to carry six grocery bags at once like you, too, are invincible.

And then there’s the orange.

You’re curled into the couch, one of his sweatshirts swallowed over your knees, watching—but not really, to be honest—some long-winded documentary about volcanoes or Icelandic horses or some other quietly majestic subject that definitely feels at odds with your mood. The narrator has this super calm, soothing British lilt and the lighting is very National Geographic: all muted blues and wide drone shots and crashing waves. You haven’t really spoken in close to at least half an hour.

Clark doesn’t push. Never does.

He just lets you sit in it, whatever it is, as long as you need to.

But eventually, he nudges your ankle with his socked foot, like a hello, and when you glance up, he’s setting something on the coffee table with a kind of shy precision.

An orange.

Already peeled.

Not just peeled. Sectioned. Arranged.

It’s kind of ridiculous, how careful it is. No torn rind, no mangled wedges. The peel’s just laid out like a ribbon, one continuous spiral that speaks of time and gentleness and someone who took this seriously. Each segment is placed on a napkin, still glistening with juice, like a little offering.

You blink at it.

Then at him.

He’s pretending to watch the TV, but his body betrays him. His shoulders just slightly angled toward you, eyes flicking sideways like he’s checking the weather.

“I didn’t know if you were hungry,” he says after a beat. Like he’s not sure he’s allowed to say more. “But it’s one of the sweet ones.”

Your throat does something stupid. You reach for a slice and hold it for a second, too long, then pop it into your mouth.

It’s still cold from the fridge. Bright, juicy, perfect. Like summer broke through the haze in your chest.

You make a noise you don’t mean to. Something between surprise and relief.

Clark shifts, trying to look casual, but you catch that familiar smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I was gonna ask if you wanted one,” he says, still mostly facing the TV, his face painted in blue. “But you looked kind of… I don’t know. Stuck. So I figured I’d just do it.”

“You peeled it for me?”

He finally looks over at you, eyebrows lifted. “Well, yeah.”

And somehow that—that—is what catches in your chest. Not the orange, not the care. The way he says it like it’s obvious. Like of course he did. Like there’s a whole world of things he would do just for you without even needing to be asked.

You swallow. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” he says, shrugging a little. “But that's kind of the point.”

You don’t say anything for a minute. Just reach for another slice.

When you bite into it, something in you loosens. Maybe it’s the juice. Maybe it’s the tenderness.

Clark, watching out of the corner of his eye, shifts a little closer and says, voice low, “When I was a kid, my ma used to 'em for me.”

You glance over. He’s staring at the documentary again, but the way he says it, it’s not for the Icelandic horses on the screen.

“She knew I hated the sticky part,” he goes on. “Didn’t like having all that juice on my fingers. So she’d do it before school. Wrap ‘em up in plastic, tuck ‘em in the corner of my lunchbox next to whatever sandwich she made that day. Tuna on Fridays. Always with too much mayo.”

You smile, just a little. “You were a picky eater?”

“Not picky,” he says defensively. “Just—just particular. I didn’t like when my food touched.”

“Mhm.”

“I was seven!”

You laugh, and he finally looks at you, sheepish and warm.

“She used to write little notes sometimes too,” he adds. “On the napkin. Stuff like ‘remember your science quiz’ or ‘you’re stronger than you think.’” He scratches the back of his neck. “Sometimes just a heart. Sometimes that was enough.”

You watch him as he says it, and you think, Of course. Of course you grew up like that. With kindness taught into you like table manners. With love folded into your lunchboxes.

“And now,” you say, voice subtle, “you’re the one peeling oranges for someone else.”

He shrugs again. “Only for you.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“I mean it,” he says. “Everyone else can deal with the sticky fingers. You get the napkin and everything.”

You press a slice into his hand before you can talk yourself out of it.

He pauses, then leans forward and bites it from your fingers, playful but gentle. A little juice escapes down the corner of his mouth. He licks it away without breaking eye contact.

It shouldn’t make your heart ache. But it does.

“Thank you,” you say quietly.

“For the orange?”

“For the orange. And the napkin. And, you know. The general care and keeping of me.”

He smiles at that. Tilts his head toward you until your shoulders brush.“Well,” he says, “you’re pretty high-maintenance. Comes with the territory.”

You scoff, gently ebow him. “I am not.”

He raises his brows. “Okay. Yesterday, you made me reheat the tea because it was two degrees below your ideal sipping temperature.”

“That’s not high-maintenance. That’s just me having standards.”

“Sure,” he murmurs, bumping your knee with his. “And your standards include expertly peeled fruit on Tuesdays, apparently.”

You roll your eyes, but your smile gives you away. “I just mean…” You trail off, unsure how to say it without sounding too serious, too much. You chew your lip, watching the way the light hits his profile. “I hope,” you say softly, almost to yourself, “you never stop doing that.”

He leans his head against the back of the couch, close enough that his shoulder brushes yours. “What, feeding you citrus?”

You huff out a laugh. “You know what I mean.”

He doesn’t answer for a long moment. Then he says, simple and sure, like the truth it is:

“I won’t.”

You don’t even really remember texting him. You think you might’ve. Maybe. Who knows.

In the middle of your 2 a.m. sick delirium, burning up and freezing at the same time, with every single cell in your body screaming and staging some sort of mutiny, you vaguely remember opening your phone with bleary eyes and typing something half-coherent.

A string of emojis. A sad face, a skull, a wilted flower. Vomit emoji. You might’ve hit send. You might’ve just passed out mid-thought.

Either way, Clark’s there when you come to.

He’s on the floor beside your bed, cross-legged, slouched a little in that way he always is when he’s trying to make himself smaller than he actually is. He’s doing this thing he does similar to when he's reading out his first drafts—voice low and even, a little scratchy like he hasn’t used it much today, or maybe just because it’s the middle of the night and the Metropolis is quiet for once and so is he.

You blink, once, twice, groggily, and he doesn’t even look up as he says:

“…and then I told Jimmy that if he was going to hide in the cafeteria instead of facing Eve, he should at least clean up after his brooding, because no one wants to sit next to a scone that’s been glared at for thirty minutes."

That's when you make a sound—half a groan, half a breath—and he glances up.

“Oh,” he says, smiling. “Hey. You’re awake.”

God, you swear your head's a pressure cooker. Your throat feels like someone lined it with sandpaper and regret. You’re pretty sure you’re covered in sweat, and not in a sexy, cinematic way, but more in a swampy, bedraggled, my skin might never be clean again kind of way.

And yet here he is, reading from what you now realize is his work notebook.

Not even a novel. Just… Clark, narrating his week.

“God,” you croak. “I think I’m dying.”

Clark shifts immediately, one knee bent, his hand brushing against your arm like he’s checking for tremors. “You’re not dying,” he says gently. “You’re just sick. Classic human stuff. I Googled it to make sure.”

“You Googled my flu?”

“Yeah. Also called my dad.”

Your lips twitch. “Of course you did.”

“He said tea, soup, and don't try to touch your toes.”

You blink at him slowly. “I wasn’t gonna—”

“I didn’t think you would. But he insisted.”

He presses a glass of water into your hand. Holds it there, actually, like you might forget what to do with it. You sip slowly, mostly because he’s watching you with the intensity of someone monitoring the nuclear launch codes. His hand stays curved behind your back the whole time, steady and warm, his thumb sweeping once over your shoulderblade.

“Still tastes like shit,” you mutter, grimacing.

“That’s just your fever lying to you,” he says. “Give it time. I brought supplies.”

Which is how, ten minutes later, you’re propped up like a limp marionette with three pillows, wearing one of his hoodies, while Clark, bless him, is rumbling around in your kitchen making the world’s most dramatic instant ramen.

He hums while he works, something mellow and vaguely twangy—something that sounds like wide-open spaces and Sunday mornings and the kind of radio stations that only exist halfway between here and Kansas.

When he brings the bowl back, he sits on the edge of the bed and feeds you, spoon by spoon, blowing on each bite first like he thinks you might scald your tongue.

You watch him through a fever-glazed blur. “You’re really committing to the bit.”

He raises an eyebrow. “What bit?”

“The Florence Nightingale… Florence Kent thing.”

He grins, bashful. “It’s not a bit. I just… I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Your stomach flips. It has nothing to do with the soup.

“And also,” he adds, “I brought a book, thought you might like something to listen to in the background.”

You blink at him.

“I figured I’d read to you once the soup’s done. Unless you’d rather I make more toast. I could do toast. Or try. I mean, it’s technically one of the few things I can’t mess up.”

You take the spoon from his hand. “Baby.”

“Yeah?”

“Sit down before you vibrate out of your flannel.”

He obeys instantly, because Clark is nothing if not obedient when you sound just a tiny bit bossy and ill. You laugh a little. Then cough a lot.

When you stop hacking, there’s a glass of water in your hand again, and he's looking at you like he’s trying to mentally calculate your temperature based soely off your pupil dilation. You wave him off until he settles down again, until his work stories blur into white noise and you feel yourself drifting.

Later, when the room is dark except for the glow of the bedside lamp, and your fever’s burning lower, no longer trying to boil you alive but still leaving your limbs really heavy and wrung-out—you stir, blink groggily, and find him exactly where he’s been all day: back on the floor, this time leaning against the bed frame like he’s trying to become one with the carpet.

There's a book in his hands.

You squint. “Is that… Star Wars?”

He doesn’t look up right away. Just flips a page, calm and unbothered, like this is a completely normal Wednesday night activity. “Yeah. From a Certain Point of View. It’s like… like—little side stories. People on the edges of the main stuff. Background characters getting the spotlight. I thought you might like it.”

You blink slowly. “You’re reading me Star Wars fanfiction.”

Clark glances up, grinning. “Not fanfiction. It’s licensed content.”

“Clark.”

“It’s from Jimmy.”

“Clark.”

He holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, it’s kind of sanctioned fanfic. But it’s good. There's one from the point of view of Obi-Wan’s ghost and it made me emotional.”

You try to snort, but it comes out more like a croak. “You’re such a nerd.”

“Says the person who cried over an R2-D2 Lego set last Christmas.”

“That was a very moving gift and you know it.”

Clark reaches over to adjust your blanket, tucking it up under your chin with careful fingers. “I just thought it might be nice. Something familiar. It’s kind of like comfort food, but for your brain.”

You look at him—really look at him—glasses askew, hair flattened on one side from the couch pillow, sweatshirt stretched over his broad chest like it was never meant to fit a man built like a brick wall—and feel that weird, awful feeling twist in your chest again.

The one that always comes when he’s like this. Sweet and earnest and just slightly off-center in a way that makes your whole life feel gentler.

“Thank you,” you rasp, voice hoarse but sincere.

He shrugs, like it’s nothing. “Don’t mention it.”

Then, after a beat:

“I was gonna read the one about the cantina bartender next. He has some very strong feelings about the music.”

“. . . Okay yeah, you're weird.”

“Exactly.”

He closes the book for a moment and reaches for your hand under the blanket. His fingers wrap around yours, warm and firm and callused at the knuckles. He squeezes gently.

“I know I’m not good at this,” he says, so quietly you almost miss it. “The taking-care-of-people thing. Not like my dad was. He used to bring orange Jell-O and put those cold cloths on my head when I got sick. He'd sit with me and hum old country songs like that could fix it. And sometimes, it kinda did.”

You squeeze his fingers back. He looks at your joined hands like they’re something fragile.

“I don’t really even know all the right things,” he continues. “But I’m gonna stay right here until you feel good again.”

You swallow. Your throat aches. Your heart does, too, but in a different way.

“Clark,” you whisper. “You’re doing perfect.”

He gives you this look—hazy and overwhelmed, like maybe he needed to hear that more than he thought. He leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead, cool and steady and grounding.

“I got you,” he murmurs. “Always.”

He reads until your breathing evens out again, then switches to humming—barely there, just a thread of melody tracing the shape of the room. He doesn’t move from his place beside your bed.

You don’t think he even blinks when you stir, reaching a hand out for his. He’s just there.

So you dream of a cantina bartender with strong feelings about the music. Of a man with dark hair and horrendous posture and the kindest eyes in the galaxy, carrying soup and picture books and the whole weight of your heart like it’s not heavy at all.

It was supposed to be a date.

Like, a real date. One with proper shoes and napkins that aren’t made of recycled drive-thru material. A night where neither of you had to sprint, lie, cover for the other, or show up late with leaves in your hair because someone, cough, got caught helping rescue a tour boat from sinking off the coast of Maine.

Just dinner. Just one Thursday evening. A normal, honest-to-god, pre-planned, mildly fancy dinner.

You’d even made a reservation at that Italian place ou guys have been meaning to try.

Clark had combed his curls with what looked like actual intent and buttoned his shirt all the way to the top, then unbuttoned one (just one) like he’d read about the concept of casual in a book. You caught him practicing his posture in the hallway mirror before you left.

“Do I look like I own a belt?” he’d asked.

“You do own a belt.”

“Right, but do I look like I believe in it?”

You had rolled your eyes. He’d kissed your forehead. You’d both agreed, silently and aloud and silently again: This time, it’s gonna stick.

Just dinner.

Just you and him.

Just—

The sky, it turns out, had other ideas.

You’re only two blocks from the restaurant, your heels clicking rhythmically against the sidewalk. He’s saying something about dessert—about how he’s never actually had crème brûlée and how suspicious he is of any food that requires a blowtorch—and you’re about to tell him that he’s a coward and has terrible, horrible opinions when he—

Flinches.

Just slightly. A twitch, more than anything. Like someone tugged on the collar of his shirt from behind.

You stop. Narrow your eyes.

“Kent.”

He stills, then winces, and it’s over. The wind picks up just enough to ruffle his jacket and toss a strand of your hair across your lip.

“Baby,” you say, dragging out the vowels like you’re preparing to scold a dog who’s eyeing the Thanksgiving turkey.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know. I know. I just—there’s something happening in Hob’s Bay. I think it’s Parasite again.”

“Parasite?” you repeat, like that somehow makes it better. “The guy who eats energy and punches holes through cement walls like graham crackers?”

Clark winces again, guilt washing across his face like rain.

“I can take you home first,” he says quickly. “I’ll be fast. Twenty minutes. Tops.”

“You said that last time,” you remind him.

“Yes, but this time I mean it with—” he pauses, trying to sell it, “—I mean it. I've got improved time management skills. I’ve been working on it, I swear. I downloaded a calendar app.”

“Oh my god, Clark.”

“I even color-coded it!”

You cross your arms. “Clark.”

“I swear on my mom’s ceramic cow collection.”

“…The one on the microwave?”

“She dusts them twice a week.”

You sigh, but you’re already unhooking your arm from his. He’s practically vibrating now, trying to stand still. There’s a flash of green in the far-off clouds.

“I liked this dress,” you say.

“I love that dress,” he says, almost reverent. “I’m gonna come back and ruin it for you in much better ways.”

A beat. He realizes how that sounded. “I mean, like—because of pasta sauce. And maybe dancing? gosh, I’m terrible at this—”

You laugh despite yourself. Even as the first drops of rain start to hit your shoulders. “Go, Kansas.”

He kisses your cheek. Then the other. His hands linger against your face a half-second too long, his thumbs warm even through the chill.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says, quiet now. “Promise.”

Then he’s gone.

“I know,” you reply to no one in particular, because you do.

You spend the next hour curled on the couch in the dress you never got to wear properly, the hem slightly damp from the rain and your eyeliner gently betraying you. The news cycles through static, then footage of Clark shielding a crowd with a dented bus stop sign like it’s a riot shield, eyes glowing faintly, shoulders squared. Calm. Measured. Still gentle, even in a fight. You eat a sleeve of saltines out of spite.

He texts you twice:

CLARKY <3: STILL FIGHTING THE SLIME GUY. HE’S YELLING ABOUT “THE SYSTEM” SO I THINK THIS IS POLITICALLY MOTIVATED. CLARKY <3: ALMOST DONE. PLEASE DON’T FALL ASLEEP. I OWE YOU SO MUCH CREME BRUILALAE 🍨

You don’t reply. He needs to focus. But you do leave the kitchen light on.

It's past ten when he gets back. He lands with a whisper on your fire escape—so quiet it takes you a second to realize he’s there. You’re already in pajamas at this point.

He taps gently on the window.

When you slide it open, he’s dripping. Suit ripped at the collar. A graze on his temple that’s already healing. Mud on his boots. Eyes wide and sheepish and a little desperate.

“You’re late,” you say.

“The Italian place was closed,” he says, holding up a crumpled brown paper bag like an offering. "But I brought dumplings?"

Your stomach betrays you with a loud growl. Fucking saltines. He smiles, relieved.

“They’re from that place you like,” he adds quickly. “The one with the crab rangoon that makes you make weird noises.”

You cross your arms. “You think you can just bribe me with steamed buns and flattery?”

“Yes?” he tries.

“…You’re not wrong.”

You step back to let him in. He shrugs off the cape, moving slower than usual. His shoulders dip lower. His steps drag a little. The exhaustion sits in him like weight.

“Sit down,” you say.

“I can—”

“Clark. Couch. Now.”

He obeys without question, settling into the cushions like a man unraveling. You grab a towel and a hoodie from your room—one of his—and toss both at him. Then you disappear into the kitchen.

After a beat, he calls after you: “I missed you, by the way.”

You don’t answer right away. Just finish plating the takeout, dividing the dumplings and the sticky rice and the rangoon with practiced ease. Your apartment smells like warm ginger and garlic. Familiar. Safe.

When you bring the food over, you find him curled sideways on the couch, legs too long, towel around his shoulders like a cape. He grins when he sees the plates.

“You forgive me?” he asks, hopeful.

You hand him a rangoon. “Chew before you talk.”

He does. Then says, with a mouthful of crab: “I really did want it to be a normal night.”

You look at him. At the tired, good man who flew across the city to keep someone else’s world from breaking. At the one who brought you dumplings and rainwater and apologies on the roof of his tongue.

“I know,” you say.

He finishes chewing, then leans forward, chin on your shoulder, voice curling around the edges. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

You snort. “You say that now that I’m in fleece pants with soup stains.”

“I stand by it,” he murmurs. “Always.”

You let him curl around you then, dinner plates on the coffee table, reruns of I Love Lucy playing low in the background. He eats with one arm around your waist. You steal his dumplings when he’s not looking.

Later, when you’re both too full and too warm and too tired to move, he says it again.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

You nudge his leg with your foot. “You already are.”

He hums, pleased but tired, and lets his head fall back against the cushions. “Still wish I hadn’t missed dinner. Not the food. Just—being there. With you.”

There’s a smear of sauce near his mouth when you glance over him. He’s so unbelievably warm around the edges like this—like the fight’s finally bled out of him and he’s just Clark again. Your Clark.

“You always say that,” you murmur.

“Because I always mean it.”

You reach up, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. He goes quiet. Doesn’t blink. Just watches you like he’s trying to memorize the moment.

There’s a beat where neither of you speak. The kind that hums with the weight of something unspoken, blooming slow between you. Then, without moving your hand, you ask, “You gonna let me kiss you now, or are you still trying to be polite?”

That gets a smile. A real one. A little crooked, a little shy.

“You can do whatever you want,” he says. “You always could.”

So you lean in.

The kiss starts off like a warning.

Your mouth brushes his—brief, firm, no room for questions, not really—and then again, slower this time. He makes a noise, deep in his chest, something caught between relief and surrender.

When your fingers slide into his hair, he tilts into it instinctively. His hands stay right where they are, just one at your waist, one braced uselessly on the couch cushion like he’s reminding himself not to move unless you ask him to.

He huffs something like a laugh when you pull back for a breath. “You’re terrifying, you know that?”

You smile. “Flatterer.”

His hand on your waist shifts slightly, pulling you in closer. Not rough. Not needy. Just—anchoring. Your knees bracket his hips and you kiss him again, open-mouthed this time, licking into his mouth like you’re starved and this is your first taste of real food.

And Clark lets you.

He lets you kiss him with all the frustration of the ruined date and the tension of waiting and the affection that’s been building in your chest for weeks, maybe months. He meets you where you are—mouth pliant, eyes closed, his breathing slowly unraveling under your hands.

“You always come back like this,” you whisper, teeth grazing his jaw. “All apologies and those puppy dog blue eyes and your make-up take-out. Like I wouldn’t crawl across glass to have you.”

He exhales, sharp and shaky, like your words hit a nerve. His hands tense slightly at your thighs, just for a second, then relax again. He doesn’t try to flip you, doesn’t shift to take control. Just looks at you.

“I mean it,” you murmur, kissing just under his ear. “You come in, wrecked and kind and too damn good, and I’m supposed to what? Sit next to you like my skin isn’t trying to crawl off my bones just to get to yours?”

Clark swallows. “You—” His voice is rough, halting. “You can have me.”

He says it so quietly you almost miss it.

“You already do,” he adds. “You don’t have to prove anything. You—”

Your mouth is on his before he can finish. You kiss him like you’re trying to breathe him in, to memorize the way his ribs rise under your hands. His lips part on a gasp, and you take it as invitation. He lets you tilt his head back even further, lets you set the rhythm—his hands gripping the couch cushions like they’re the only things that can possibly ground him.

You pull back, just enough to see his face. His hair’s still damp, starting to curl at the edges, his cheeks flushed. His glasses are askew, so you reach up, slow, deliberate, and slide them off. Set them gently on the side table. His eyes don’t leave yours for a second.

"Stand up," you say, and he does, wordless, chest rising fast under the hoodie. He's got the towel instead of the cape draped around his shoulders, like he's still half in hero mode. You take that off.

Your fingers go to the hem of the hoodie next, lifting it slow. He raises his arms obediently, eyes half-lidded, focused. He’s still in the bottom half of the suit, and your breath catches—because even now, even like this, he wears it like a second skin.

But you want the man. Not the symbol.

“Off,” you say, fingers brushing the slick, faintly scorched fabric of the suit’s torso. “I want you, not him.”

He nods. It’s so damn slight, like he’s not so sure his voice will work. His hands go to the hidden seams and he peels the suit down, exposing inch after inch of bare skin beneath—toned and marked from the night, faint purple bruises already turning gold where his healing has started. You trail your fingers and follow him down, down, down his sternum, then lower, across his ribs.

The suit hits the floor in a gentle whisper. Boots, too. The cape’s already been discarded—somewhere between the fire escape and your front door—and now he’s just standing there in front of you, bare and breathless and completely yours.

“Come closer,” you say. "It's my turn."

He goes to help you, but you stop him. Eyebrows raised. "Eyes up here. I'll do it myself."

Clark watches you the whole time, not rushing, not leading. His expression open, undone. His bottom lip's caught between his teeth, eyes trained on every single one of your painstaking actions. Peeling your shirt off, your ratty fleece pants, your bra, all of it. He's enjoying this way more than he should, those eyes of his glinting in the light, but that's the intoxicating part of it.

When you're done, he finally speaks up, voice reduced to a hush. Wills himself to look away from your body and just look into your eyes. "How do you want me?"

You hum, turning on your feet, pretending to think it over. Really, it's just an excuse to have him look at your bare body. Tempt him a little bit. It drives him insane. Still, he doesn't break eye contact.

"I think," you purse your lips. "I want you underneath me tonight."

He nods. Serious. "Of course."

You lead him back to the bedroom slowly. Not because he needs help walking, but because there’s something in you that just wants to savor the walk. He lets you guide him backward, his legs bumping against the edge of the bed.

He sits.

Then waits.

Clark just looks so… perfect like this.

Hard, aching, weeping, cheeks pink and pupils dilated. Hands, those goddamn hands, politely by his sides. Does nothing but lay down on the mattress, just waiting for whatever you feel like doing to him. The knowing—the seeing, does more to you than you'd like to admit.

You crawl, slowly, over his body. Fingers skirting over the freckles of his body, the light dusting of hair across his torso, the goosebumps that rise there. Anything but pay attention to his cock that's begging for you, until you're close to straddling his face, hovering there.

A pause. Those baby blue eyes, the cause of so many of your little deaths. His lips, pink and wet as his tongue swipes over them. A hint of a smile. You brush a curl away from his forehead, fingers slow and thoughtful.

"Okay."

Once you give him the go-ahead, he's all instinct, steady hands pulling your thighs more snug over his shoulders with all of the skill and quiet confidence of a man who's been breaking you down and laying you out for a long time.

It's so easy—so easy to lose yourself in it. So easy when you're on top of the world.

Clark knows. You've genuinely never met a guy who enjoys eating someone out more than him. He knows all the ways to make your legs shake and your head vibrate out of its skull, all the little skills and patterns and consistencies to get you to cum within minutes, but from the way he takes his time, mouth roaming everywhere—your thighs, your legs, the back of your knees—

He means to torture you. Make you eat your words. But you're gonna have the last say tonight.

You squeeze your legs around his face, bringing his attention to you, all blue-eyed innocence glancing up to you. Little shit. "Hey," you will your voice into something vaguely commanding. "How many times do you think you can make me cum tonight?"

All you get is a lopsided smile. "As many times 's you want."

"Ball park?"

He strums his fingers along your thigh. Pretends to think about it. Looking up at the corner of his eyes like he's doing mental math. "How about we start with five or six and go from there?"

"Perfect. Delightful, Kent. Alright, procee—"

His arms tighten around your thighs, and that's all the warning you get before he dives right in, parting your lips with his tongue and tasting all that you've got to offer, and god, if that doesn't make the slick accumulate even more in between your thighs, gushing, eyes falling closed.

A trooper always, Clark's mouth is warm, forming into a smile. "Baby, you taste so good. Needed this."

There's desperation in it, the way he sucks on your clit, two fingers finding themselves rocking against your cunt so that you feel nothing but full, boundless pleasure. You're so wet that his digits are sliding effortlessly, even more so as he licks you through it.

All you can do is whimper and whine, hands coming to rest up against the headboard. "Clark, Clark, so good. Don't stop. Please."

The mattress shakes around you as he grinds up into the air, barely concealed want and need and everything he hasn't said before, teeth gently scraping at your cunt. You can hear it too, the way his mouth works against you, his moans rising above it all. And god, the tension—the fucking strength of this man—the fact that he's letting you ride his face like there's no tomorrow.

Then his tongue sweeps hot across your clit, his two fingers curling inside you at the exact moment you squeeze. And fuck, you pulse hard and come until you've got nothing left to give, just a mantra of his name—"Clark, Clark, baby—"

He licks and sucks you through the aftershocks, shuddering through it all, and then it's back down to earth.

You fall down on the bed next to him, legs unable to hold you up. The only way to describe how you feel now is just—pure, fucking, boneless glee. And then you look over, and god, if that's not the best view in the world—Clark. The bottom of his face glistening, smiling in that stupid, boyish way of his, curls in his eyes and a twinkle there like he just won the lottery.

"What are you smiling about?"

Clark shakes his head, shrugging and looking up at the ceiling like it has the answers. "Oh, nothin'. Just happy."

This hunger, this love for him—you don't think it'll ever go away. You don't think you could ever get sick of it, you don't think you can ever get your fill of him. You're going to want him this badly for the rest of your life.

But before you could spiral down that terrifying staircase of thoughts, you're brought out your stupor with one large hand trailing up your thigh. Clark's shifted so that you're beneath him, world turned upside down. He's going back down for more.

"We've got at least four more to go, sweet girl. Made you a promise, remember?"

It’s honestly the quiet that gets you, at first.

That slow, rolling kind that doesn’t sit heavy so much as drape itself across everything like an old quilt. The kind of quiet that has its own rhythm. Space between sounds.

Not silence, never that, but it's more akin to a hush. A pause you didn’t know your life had been missing.

There are birds, sure. A lot of them, actually. There’s the wind, too, rattling through those wheat-colored fields, whistling past the house's warped slats like it’s trying to remember a song it used to know. But underneath it all is stillness.

A kind of breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding, now slowly, slowly letting out.

Smallville wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

You’d pictured something more… stylized. Romanticized.

A little more soap opera meets Hallmark original—maybe some mysterious family feuds and charming small-town antics. Some lingering drama about a pie contest. You fully expected someone with an old-timey name to pour you coffee at the local diner you guys stopped at and mention she “hasn’t seen Clark Kent around these parts in a while.”

Instead, you got: rooster at 5:30. Floorboard in the kitchen that creaks like it’s about to file a complaint against you just for exisiting. A guest room that smells faintly like wood polish and wheat. You got Clark, elbow-deep in chicken feed at seven a.m., wearing a white t-shirt that’s hanging on by a thread but you're not complaining.

You’re house-sitting for the Kents while Jonathan and Martha are on a cruise—a cruise, of all things. Clark’s voice had been thick with disbelief when he told you.

“Can you believe my dad packed four Hawaiian shirts?” Then later, when they called from the boat to say they’d already made friends with a retired couple from Branson and signed up for salsa dancing classes, Clark had stared at the phone like it had personally betrayed him.

“They deserve it,” he says eventually, a little quiet. “They’ve never done anything like this. I hope they stay gone the full two weeks.”

You’d kissed his shoulder and said, “Selfishly, me too.”

Because being here, just the two of you, it’s not glamorous. But it feels like something. Something good.

One morning, early on, you found yourself squinting into the haze of a Kansas dawn, clutching a cup of coffee that tasted like burnt hope, and whispering, half to yourself, “Do… do the cows have names?”

Clark, already in his work boots and wrist-deep in a feed bag, turns like you’d just offered to marry him.

“Of course they do!" he says, smug. “That’s Millie.” He points at a big black-and-white cow with the expression of someone who’d once gone on Twitter and got traumatized. “She’s real skittish when it rains but loves, absolutely loves cantaloupe rinds. That one’s Donnie—he’s dramatic. Moooos like he’s dying if you’re even five minutes late.”

You blink at him. “You’re serious.”

“Deadly,” he says, patting Millie with the same affection he uses on your lower back when you cook dinner barefoot. It makes you snort. “Also, we don’t call it breakfast here. It’s ‘morning feed.’”

You stare. “This is so not the rural romance novel I signed up for.”

He grins, boyish and crooked. “Let me guess. Thought it’d be Days of Our Lives but make it cornfed?”

“Exactly. Where’s the murder mystery? The barn dance? The family rival who wears all linen and says ominous things like, ‘You’ll never take the south pasture from me, you bastard.’”

"You forget. It's the Midwest. We're not in the South," He scratches behind Donnie’s ear. “But there is a someone with drama kinda like that here. Name's Barb, I think,” he says. “She runs the Dairy Queen and once hit a deer with her truck and cried about it for a week.”

You pause. “…Okay. That’s actually kind of sad. But wholesome."

“See?”

The days fall into a rhythm, eventually.

You weed the garden (poorly). He fixes the gate (obscenely well). You help collect eggs and try not to let on that the chickens genuinely unsettle you. Clark, that menace, just laughs every single time one flaps in your general direction and you flinch like it’s going to demand your wallet and keys and job.

One Friday afternoon, you find yourself washing strawberries at the sink while Clark scrubs paint off the porch railing—some old project Jonathan started and never finished.

You glance up and he’s standing there in the sun, t-shirt stained, face flushed, humming some old country song under his breath, and your chest physically hurts from how much you love him.

“You wanna do something dumb?” you ask, voice louder than it needs to be, just to get his attention.

Clark looks up, squints against the light. “Always.”

It’s not fancy.

Twenty minutes later, you’re both in the back pasture, far enough from the house that it’s just you and the cows and the sound of summer in every direction.

There’s a plastic grocery bag between you full of things neither of you should technically call lunch. Two kinds of chips (barbecue for you, cheddar for him). A Diet Dr. Pepper, sweating in the heat. One sad gas station brownie. And a couple of oranges, wrapped carefully in plastic wrap.

You lift an eyebrow as you start to unpack. “You know we have actual food, right?”

He shrugs, pulling the chips open. “The grocery store’s like forty minutes away,” he says, like that explains everything. “Didn’t wanna leave you.”

Your mouth opens, ready to toss something casual back—something about sandwiches, or homemade pasta salad, or literally anything with protein—but then you see how gently he’d wrapped the oranges. How he packed napkins, remembered your favorite chips, brought two plastic forks for the brownie like it was a birthday cake.

So instead, you say, “...I like barbecue,” and your voice is quieter than you mean it to be.

He glances over, chin on his shoulder, smiling like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I know.”

You eat like kids. Cross-legged on the blanket, crumbs everywhere, licking orange juice off your thumbs. You wipe your hands on your pants. He stretches out on his side, elbow propped, watching the clouds like they’re moving too slow. His knee brushes yours and doesn’t move away.

You think you feel a mosquito bite. You don’t really care anymore.

“I forgot what this feels like,” you say at one point, picking salt from the corners of your lips. “Just… doing nothing. On purpose.”

He hums. “It’s good for you. Stillness.”

“You sound like your mom.”

“She’s smarter than I am.”

“You said that last night when I told you to take a nap.”

“See? Pattern holds.”

You lean back on your elbows and look at him, really look. The way the light gets caught in his lashes. He’s watching you, too, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. Like the world could ask for him and he’d still choose to stay here, sweaty and dumb and mosquito-bitten and happy beside you.

He peels another orange with a practiced hand, splitting it down the middle and handing you the sweeter half.

“Thanks,” you murmur.

“Sometimes I miss this, y'know?” he says, around a bite of an orange.

You glance over.

“Not the chicken poop or the mosquito bites,” he adds, “but the...quiet. The not-having-to-be-everything-all-the-time. Out here, you’re just...you. You fix the fence. You make a mess. You listen to cicadas and complain about the humidity and your ma yells at you for tracking dirt inside.”

You tilt your head. “You ever think about staying? Settling down here?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just plucks a blade of grass and spins it between his fingers.

“Sometimes,” he admits. “But then I think—this is what shaped me. But it’s not all I am. The world’s loud, and it’s messy, and it needs things. But this…” He looks at you. “This is what I miss when I’m out there.”

You nod. Reduced to speechlessness, because it's so tender and perfect and so him that it hurts.

Clark finishes the orange. Wipes his fingers on a napkin, then on his jeans when that doesn’t do the trick. You lie back on the blanket with a quiet sigh, letting the sun press into your skin, the breeze lift the sweat at your temples.

It could’ve ended there. Could’ve been just a quiet kind of golden. But then you nudge his ankle with yours.

“Bet I could outrun you,” you say lazily, like you’re not poking a bear.

Clark huffs. Turns his head toward you, amused. “That so?”

“Mmhm,” you say, stretching. “You’ve been slacking. Porch paint and chicken duty’s got you soft.”

He squints at you. “You really wanna start this?”

“You said yourself, Kansas. Nothing to do out here but complain about the heat and cause a little trouble.”

He smiles slowly. The kind of smile that curls at the corners. Dangerous in the way only someone so gentle and kind can be.

“Alright then,” he says, sitting up. “You get a ten-second head start.”

Your eyes go wide. “Wait, really—”

“Nine,” he says, already grinning, already counting.

You scramble to your feet. “Oh my god, you are not serious—”

“Eight.”

You bolt.

The grass is taller in some spots and it catches at your ankles, slows you down. The air is thick with sun and the hum of everything living. You turn left, laughing, hair sticking to the back of your neck, and glance behind you just in time to see him loping after you, easy and unhurried, like he’s letting you win.

Which is worse. Infuriating. Fucking ass.

“KENT!” you shout over your shoulder. “I swear if you let me win I’m gonna trip myself just to spite you—”

“Then you better run faster!” he calls back, but he’s laughing too, bright and open and young in a way he doesn’t always let himself be in the city.

You make it halfway to the barn before he catches you, just a hand on your waist, barely a tug. You spin with the momentum and half-collapse against him, breathless, wheezing from the run and the heat and the sheer absurdity of it all.

“You cheated,” you gasp.

“I didn’t even use my powers.”

“That’s worse.”

He leans in, resting his forehead against yours, both of you flushed and sweating and smiling like idiots.

“You’re fast,” he murmurs, voice low. “But I know how you move.”

You roll your eyes, still catching your breath. “Don’t say stuff like that unless you wanna get kissed.”

“Maybe I do,” he says, quiet now.

Oh, if that doesn't make you wanna ruin him. When you lean in, he tastes like oranges and sweat and something warm you can’t name.

“You’re always holding back,” you murmur against his mouth. “Let me have you.”

Clark’s breathing stutters.

“You have me,” he says, like it’s a promise. Like it’s been true since the first day you met.

Your teeth graze his lip, just enough to make him gasp. “Then act like it.”

Now that—that—does something to him.

His hands slip quickly under your sundress, palms mapping the curve of your back, hungry and greedy all at once. Your head tips back when his mouth finds your neck again, hot and open and just a little bit wild. His teeth scrape the spot just beneath your ear and your fingers clench in his curls, hard.

The bark digs into your shoulder blades. You can faintly feel the ground disappearing from under you. Grass sticks to the backs of your calves. The sky overhead is lazy and blue, clouds like pulled cotton, and none of it, absolutely none of it, matters.

Not the cows, not the heat, not the fact that you're pressed up against a pecan tree in the middle of a Kansas pasture—just this. Just him.

It doesn't take long for it to escalate.

You're not normally a fan of this—quickies, anyway, you'd rather take your time, break him down methodically, piece by piece, but you think you'd actually combust if you don't have him right there, right at that second. And damn it, you will.

You will.

Your hands scramble to wrench his shirt off, a mad dash to get as close to his skin as possible. He helps you, your pretty boy, your sweetheart, your sunshine—chuckling when the fabric inevitably gets caught between his head and shoulders.

"Clark—" you glare at him, not really annoyed with him but his stupid, stupid shirt. "Get it—please, get it off—"

"So impatient," He grins. He helps you anyway, giving you that final push to get the shirt off his head. And then ou're like a moth drawn to a flame, nipping at his skin, sucking little love bites that you know he adores into his chest. "Baby, sweetheart—"

"Sweetheart, baby—" You kiss his collarbone, hands going to undo his belt, the metal clinking from your actions. "Need you now."

Clark nods vigorously at that. "Yeah, yeah—okay."

He readjusts, free now from his belt, jeans dropping low, and he's scooping your thighs up so you're flush against the tree for leverage. The bark of the tree's rough and it'll leave some truly horrendous marks later, but he's pushing your dress up around your waist, cock situated and ready at your entrance.

A breath. A look between you. And then he sinks you down, no prep, no foreplay, just him and the burn of taking all of him bare.

You make an embarrassing noise when he bottoms out, yelping and wrapping your arms around his neck. Clark slows down, pressing kisses on your forehead and muttering small little praises. "You're doing so good. You feel amazing, baby, you just let me know when, I'll wait—"

Fuck, that turns you on more than it should've. You clench around him, mouth parting in a quiet moan. "Now, I'm ready now. Move, Kent."

His hand hitches your leg up higher for a better angle, and—yeah, if that's not the hottest thing in the world. The tenderness mixed with the way you know he's about to utterly destroy you. He rolls his hips, once, twice, until he sets a punishing rhythm.

He moves, hard and deep inside of you, always a stretch widthwise. Always feels like a rearrangement. Every single vein, every twitch, every agonizing inch as he gets to work fucking you like your life depends on it.

And the tree shakes—it fucking shakes, leaves falling all around you—when his pace gets punishing and relentless. All you can do is take it, legs shivering and hands scrambling to hold on to something, anything.

The strap of your dress has fallen down your shoulder at this point, and Clark takes the opportunity to wrap his hot mouth around your exposed nipple, eyes falling closed. "Tastes like heaven."

"Clark—" You shudder, his ruts turning more and more shallow. "Need more, I need—need help, please—"

He nods against your skin, letting go of your nipple with one wet pop. A hand skirts down between you, wordless, and rubs hard circles against your clit, never twisting, just a constant, almost vibrating pressure that wrenches more desperate gasps out of you.

You love him.

It hits you the hardest at that moment, when he grins and you can feel those tell-tale signs of your orgasm shuddering closer, so impossibly close that it makes your knees weak. Like your body can’t hold the thought anymore.

Months of this, this agonizing need to tell him, to show him. And suddenly it’s all you can feel—this pressure behind your teeth, this wild, unspooling thing clawing to get out. You didn’t plan on it. You don't meant to. But it’s already there, clawing its way up your throat with a kind of ferocity that feels unstoppable.

You pull back a breath. Just enough to get the words free. Try to get lucid fast.

“I—”

But then his hand’s on your cheek.

Soft. Certain.

“Wait,” he says, and it’s gentle, but firm enough to stop you.

You freeze, stunned. Like someone hit pause on your entire brain.

“W–W–What?” you whisper, barely breathing. His pace doesn't break. Still pounding into you like he doesn't see right through you. His eyes flicker between yours—quiet, careful, like he sees exactly where you were going. Like he caught the words mid-flight.

“Not yet,” he murmurs. “Not like this, baby. Not while I'm—not against a tree.”

“I don't—I don't mind,” you whine.

He laughs under his breath. "No.”

You must've pouted, must've frowned, or… or something, because Clark's expression goes soft. He tugs you closer, hips going deeper this time until your head falls back, like an apology.

You're so close, so goddamn close, and fuck, if he's not determined to make it up to you. Focus redirected to the sole goal of making you finish harder than you ever have before. Another broken moan slips out of you.

And you're still overtaken by this need to say something, something to encapsulate this feeling inside of you. So instead, you say the next best thing, “You’re mine,” you say, fierce and true and sure.

Clark nods. “Yours,” he echoes, like it’s gospel.

You come around him like that, muscles wound up tight, him working himself into you faster—faster, until he pulses inside you. It's all warmth, his shoulders shaking like a leaf, you holding onto him like the old tire swing on a tree. Chests heaving. Sweat pooling underneath your knees. But he doesn't let go.

He pulls back just a tad, just enough to rest his head against the crook of your neck. His curls tickle your skin, just slightly. "Hold me tighter?"

You're still quivering, traitorous legs twitching, but you do. You wrap your arms around him and squeeze until he sighs, relaxed and spent and all the things that you let go unsaid.

The cows, thankfully, have the decency not to interrupt.

He’s on the fire escape again.

You don’t see him at first—just the corner of his shirt sleeve through the window screen, fluttering gently in the breeze like a flag someone planted in a place they want to stay.

You step closer.

And there he is.

Sitting on the metal grate, knees drawn up, socked feet tucked against the warm steel, one arm draped loosely over the railing like he forgot the rest of the world exists. His head's tilted back against the sun, eyes closed, face subdued in that way it only gets when no one’s watching.

Or maybe just when you are.

His shirt—some washed-out old thing from Central Kansas A&M—is rumpled and crooked on his frame like he pulled it out of the laundry basket and shrugged it on without thinking. One sleeve's shoved all the way to his elbow, exposing the freckles on his forearm.

You’re barefoot, cradling a sweating glass of lemonade in your palm, still in sleep shorts and one of his too-big sweaters again. You hadn’t meant to come looking for him. You just woke up and felt the space beside you was empty, not in a sad way, just… hollow. Cool.

You followed the pull of it until it led you here.

He doesn’t move when you open the window. Doesn’t speak. But his eyes blink open, lashes catching the light. He looks at you, and that alone does something to your insides.

It’s the kind of look that hits low and blooms slow.

Not a spark, but a sunrise.

His smile when he sees you is small. A little crooked, like maybe he’s not so sure it’s okay to be this happy about something so simple.

Like you just standing there, sleepy and squinting and probably still with pillow creases and hints of drool on your cheek, is his favorite part of this whole Saturday.

He lifts a hand and stretches it toward you.

Palm up.

Fingertips flexing.

“C’mere,” he says, voice warm from disuse. “It’s nice.”

You don’t hesitate.

You climb carefully, your lemonade forgotten on the windowsill, and ease down between his legs. The fire escape creaks beneath you but holds. Of course it does. He shifts to make room for you like he already knew exactly how this would fit—your back against his chest, his knees bracketing yours, arms folding around you like second nature.

And you just sit like that, folded into him.

His chin hooks over your shoulder. His breath brushes your neck. One of his hands rests against your stomach, just above the hem of your sweater, warm through the fabric. The other finds your thigh, fingers drumming lazily against the denim there.

And you breathe. In and out. Slowly. Like maybe you forgot how before this.

“You been out here long?” you murmur.

He shrugs behind you. “I dunno. Long enough, maybe.”

You lean back into him, let your head fall onto his shoulder. “Get what you needed?”

There’s a long pause. Not like he’s unsure, just like he’s letting the quiet fill in some blanks first.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I think I did.”

You let the silence stretch after that. It’s not awkward. It’s just… Clark.

Which is to say: it’s safe.

The sunlight spills golden across the alley, catching in the curls at his temple. Today, he smells like clean cotton and cedar and whatever fancy soap he borrowed from your shower. His skin's warm.

You rest your hand over his where it sits on your stomach. His thumb traces a lazy circle just under your ribs, like he’s mapping out the shape of you in his mind.

“I used to sit like this back home,” he says after a while, voice soft. “Not on a fire escape, obviously. We had a roof. And a swing. My dad always left it out a little too long, so in the summer it was warm to the touch by the time I got to it.”

You hum, eyes slipping closed.

“He used to say it was good for me. Sunlight. Said I always looked like a weed after a storm when I stayed inside too long. Pale and strung out and grumpy.”

“Grumpy?” you smile, turning your face a little to glance at him. “You?”

“Oh yeah,” he grins. “Pouty little farm boy, hair sticking up, refusing to eat my vegetables unless they were corn.”

“Let me guess,” you say. “Martha snuck green beans into casseroles when you weren’t looking.”

He makes a pleased noise. “Bingo. Said it was her secret weapon for keeping me out of trouble.”

“That and the swing?”

“That and the swing.”

You settle again, your cheek to his shoulder, the metal warm beneath your thighs. You wonder if this is what he felt like, back then—sitting outside in the golden quiet, the weight of the sky pressing gentle on his shoulders, like a blanket he didn’t know he needed.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” he says suddenly, like it just occurred to him.

And it is.

But it would’ve been, anyway.

You twist slightly, enough to catch the line of his jaw, the slope of his nose. He’s not glowing. Not exactly. But something in him is bright.

And you—you love him so goddamn fiercely in that moment it feels like your ribs might crack from the inside. Like your heart is blooming against them, stubborn and wild and wholly his.

You lace your fingers with his where they’re still resting against your chest. His grip tightens. Not possessive. Just… sure.

He’s quiet a long time.

Then, like he’s been trying to time it right: “I love you.”

Just that.

Just the words, tucked into your collarbone. No fanfare. No build. Just truth. It roots into you like sunlight in soil. You don’t speak for a long moment, trying to get your lungs to work again. Your body. Everything else. Because it’s a simple sentence, but it feels like something tectonic and holy.

Eventually, you turn, slow and sure.

“I love you too.”

His head drops forward until his forehead presses to yours. You feel him exhale, shaky but smiling.

“I kept trying to find the right time,” he says. “I didn’t want it to feel like… I don’t know. A checkpoint. Like I had to say it because it was next on the list.”

You smile, thumb still brushing his skin. “So you went with the middle of the fire escape, during golden hour, while I’m in your hoodie and haven’t showered since last night?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Felt right.”

You sit like that for a while, sun on your skin, his breath on your neck. The world feels quieter with him this close. Still.

Eventually, when the light starts to dip low, painting the fire escape in rust and gold, you shift to get up.

He doesn’t let go. Not immediately. His hands stay at your waist, his fingers patient where they rest at your sides. Anchoring you.

“You look good in this light,” you murmur. “Like—too good. It’s kind of rude, honestly.”

He huffs a laugh. “Yeah?”

You nod. “Like you belong in it.”

He looks at you for a long moment, something intimate and private in his eyes.

Then, “You’re not wrong.”

You tilt your head. “What, that you photosynthesize?”

But he just shakes his head, slow.

“No. Just… I think it’s you,” he says, almost like he’s surprising himself. “You make everything brighter.”

And it’s stupid, and it’s a little embarrassing, and you kiss him anyway. Because he’s warm and real and saying the kind of thing that would make anyone else roll their eyes—but with him, it just lands.

Tastes like the last light of the day and something sweet and earthy beneath it. Like coming home.

#this is one of my favorite fics ever #if i ever make a hall of fame with my fave fics of all time this will definitely be there #bea reads 🐝#clark kent #clark kent x reader #superman (2025)

7K notes · View notes

caturdwy · 19 days ago

Text

𝗜 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄, 𝗜 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄, 𝗜 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄

You confess your affections to an unsuspecting Superman, but your best friend Clark can’t know about your crush, okay? You’d die of embarrassment. (Or, Clark falls in love while Superman does most of the wooing.) fem, 8k

˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚

You never thought you’d get to talk to Superman. You've never been in that kind of danger, and you never hoped to be. You hadn’t wanted to talk to Superman because you know this is weird. You can’t have a crush on someone you don’t know. It’s idol worship, a celebrity fixation, and Superman is the perfect target. You’re not alone in loving everything about him —it’s easy. You aren’t ever confronted with the bad in his good.

And then he’s standing in front of you with his hands braced on your shoulders, and there’s blood running down your face from your temple and you’re crying, because it hurts, because you’re in the panic of your life and not sure what to do next.

He frowns at you with an unwavering gentleness.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “take a deep breath, ma’am. Deep breath.”

“It’s bl– bleeding.”

“I know.”

You shudder through tears as Superman brings his cape up and rips. It startles you, sending fat tears plinking down your cheek. You hold your breath as he brings his scrap to your face, dabbing the wetness from your cheeks before turning the fabric and holding it to your temple firmly.

You gasp painfully under his touch, desperate for air.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his voice a new shade, “it’s alright, you’re going to be fine, I promise. I’m gonna press this to your head, and we’ll see if we can get this bleeding stopped. As soon as it does, I’ll take you down and we can get you some real help.”

You nod, skittish as a scared deer, eyes as wide as they’ll go to follow his movements. It doesn’t hurt any more than the injury itself as he presses down on your head wound. He sighs in sympathy anyway. A broad hand spreads behind your back, familiar in a way, or maybe it’s the way he’s talking to you now. Like he knows you as you know him.

The photos of him online don’t do him justice.

“It’s not bad. I know it hurts, but,” —his hand finds your shoulder, squeezes lightly— “it’s because it’s so high up, alright? They always bleed more. It doesn’t mean this is anything to worry about beyond fixing you up and getting you some pain relief.”

“You– you’re real help.”

He holds your gaze. “Yeah?”

You wonder if he can feel the heat of your blush. It’s all over. He’s lucky your head wound doesn’t start spurting. “Yeah– yeah, I– Superman.”

His smile is everything. “What?” he asks patiently.

“I’m a big fan of– of yours.”

“You are?”

“You’re so brave,” you breathe out in a rush, though it hurts your head. “So brave. And– and…”

“Sorry,” he murmurs, putting a little more pressure on your temple. “Thank you for being a fan. All I want is to keep everyone safe.”

“You’re so gentle with everyone, even the aliens, and– you’re pretty…”

“Pretty?” he asks, pure surprise in his voice, his hand falling off of your arm.

You wince. “Yeah. Yes. Handsome. Sorry, you must get told that so much.”

“It’s okay. I won’t hold you to anything you say. You’re injured, after all.”

His teasing tone pretty much flies over your head. “No, I’m not lying. I mean it. You’re really lovely, and what you do, it makes you lovelier, it does–” You nearly choke on your enthusiasm. He has to know.

“Don’t get wound up, I’m sorry. I believe you. Let’s try to stay calm.”

Your head is aching in a new way, now. Less the sting of a wide cut, more beating, like a whirl in your own brain twisting and shaking, dizziness alive behind your eyes and threatening to knock you over. You clutch at Superman’s arm and he knows what you need, slipping his free arm behind your back before you can collapse.

“I don’t usually get crushes on people,” you inform him. “But it was hard not to get one with you. You’re even nicer than I thought you’d be.”

“It’s easy to be nice to you. Easy as breathing.”

Superman hugs you. You swear he does. But when the concussion begins to clear up and your confusion wanes in a hospital bed outside of the battle zone, you realise that he was holding you upright. Superman doesn’t know you, he never will, and you’re okay with it in the grand scheme of things. If you had to meet him, you’re glad it was while he was keeping you safe. He really is a good guy.

—

A week later, Clark Kent is waiting for you at the doors to the Daily Planet.

“Are you sure you don’t need more rest?” he asks, forcibly removing your handbag from your shoulder to carry himself.

“I’m sure.”

“It’s okay if you need more time to recover. You’re still wearing a dressing.”

“It’s a bandaid, Clark, and it’s to hide the scar for now, it’s–”

“It’s still a wound.”

“It’s fine! You saw it, you know it’s fine.”

Your overbearing best friend had surprise-visited you the day after your injury despite a text to tell him to stay home. You’re fine. It was a cut and the mildest concussion you could’ve had. You didn’t throw up, or collapse, you’d simply gotten confused and bled all over Metropolis’ finest super hero until his hands were more red than white.

“It looked awful, it still does.”

“It looks fine. Even the nurse said it was a small cut, in an unfortunate place.”

“Very unfortunate.”

You follow him to the elevator bank with a frown. “Clark, you don’t have to sulk.”

“I’m not sulking! I just don’t see what’s wrong with staying in bed for now.”

“I have stuff to do, babe. I have to work. I have to move forward, it barely hurts anymore.”

He likes being called babe, simpering accordingly. “Well, you’re sitting down all day. Doctor’s orders.”

“Show me your oath and I’ll consider it.”

“Please?”

He looks like he could cry. Not that he will, but like he could if you keep saying no to him. And despite all your grievances with being treated like you’re fragile now, you decide to take it easy, if only to give Clark the peace of mind. “Okay, sure. You can wait on me all day.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Clark’s your best friend because —no matter how much it might confuse you— he seems to really love you, maybe from the moment he met you. You started at the Daily Planet and he took to you like a duck takes to water. Everything you said made him laugh, every recipe you wrote was one he had to try. And you figured it was something boys tend to do, right? Pretend you‘re interesting until they get what they want from you, but Clark’s never asked for anything else, loving you wholly and expecting nothing in return.

You let him swing an arm around your shoulders, a mirror of himself those few nights ago where he’d come shaky and sorry to see you. He apologised for not being there when you got hurt, as if he could’ve stopped it.

“I’m sick of working already,” you say.

“Then let’s go home.”

“Clark. I’m being conversational.”

“Don’t tease me,” he pleads, sounding all sudden and whiney. You squirm out of his arms to poke his side. Gets more solid by the day. Idiot boy.

“Have you been working out?”

“Can you stop?”

“Can I stop? You’re a nightmare.”

Clark threatens to superglue you to your deskchair, but he titters around you hopelessly all day.

—

You’re laying on the gravel roof of your apartment on top of a sun lounger, trying to decide if getting some sun is worth all the noise. Beeping, birds, cars, doors, the wind, this high up and occasionally curving through buildings to kiss your skin —noise, noise, noise. Your phone is ringing while you ignore it, desperate to get through the last chapter of your book without interruption. You have thus far been foiled, and figured nobody’d be able to find you up here.

The quick, awful zip of a high impact sounds somewhere close. You nearly topple from your lounger, a hand pressed to your chest, your heart racing near painfully at the surprise. You whip your head to the horizon looking for smoke, but there’s nothing. For a few minutes, you can’t hear anything at all.

The shape of him descends before your mind can catch up. Then, he’s there in one piece. A touchable dream, Carol Ann Duffy at work and torturing you in passing. You’ve seen a ton of photos of him, hundreds, videos of girls recording to ask him sweet questions, and you’ve never seen him smile so shyly. You shiver violently down your arms, but Superman isn’t here to hurt you.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“You were?” you ask.

“I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”

You sit up properly. The book in your lap makes a crunching noise that you happily ignore. “I’m fine. I’m fine, did you– You’re here to see if I’m okay?”

His smile strengthens. “Is that okay?”

You stammer, “Of course it’s okay!” A flush rises from your chest to your cheeks as he stays there. He’s not leaving until you answer. Holy fuck. “I’m great, Superman. All healed up.”

“Are you sure? You still have–” He gestures to your bandaid.

“It’s to keep it clean in the daytime. I take it off before bed.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why of course not?”

Your heart makes a funny pulse. Handsome isn’t the right word for him. There’s something special about it, otherworldly, literally, the cut of his jaw somehow sharp and soft at once, his pert nose, his eyes gone light in the sunshine and framed by dark lashes that beg to be touched. You imagine running a fingertip along them, gently brushing them up for no reason at all, and he narrows his gaze at you in your silence. The shorts you’re wearing have you worrying you’re underdressed in his eyes. They’re pajamas, pink with black polka dots and edgings. You’d had the forethought to wear a short-sleeve rather than a vest lest one of your neighbours find themselves up here with the same quiet idea. Superman’s fully clothed in comparison.

His boots look formidable next to your puppy dog socks.

“It doesn’t hurt,” you promise, half-lying and uncaring. Superman saved you. He’s perfect, so your head doesn’t hurt.

“You seem a little flustered, is all.”

“Oh. Oh, well, it’s hot out, and I’m not like, super used to being in your company. Or any company, um, like yours.”

“You’ve never met a metahuman?”

“No, never.”

“We’re just like everybody else.”

You laugh.

“No, really,” he says, idling toward you, red boots treading the gravel down flat. “I’m just like you, you don’t have to be nervous.”

“Sorry.”

“Now what do you have to be sorry for?”

You laugh again, a giggle you’d never admit to. He’s strangely intimidating; a presence, but not an imposing one.

“What are you reading?” he asks, nodding to your lap.

“Oh, uh. Uh, it’s called The Ocean?” You straighten up the book to show him the cover. “It’s good, uh, the main character is a young boy who wants to find his father, I think it’s supposed to be a take on The Odyssey,”

“Why is he looking for his father?”

“He’s missing after a terrible war. It’s one of those ones that hurts the entire time but the ending has wrapped it up so nicely, it was worth it.”

“Maybe I’ll read it, too. You look like someone who has great taste.”

“You can borrow my copy.”

Superman’s gaze narrows again. “You’re finished?”

“Yeah, I finished it before you got here.”

He waits in the quiet. You’re sure he’s going to call you out for your lie. It's not as though a Kryptonian truth-radar would be outside of the realm of possibility.

Superman finally smiles. “I promise to bring it back,” he says simply.

“Sure. Well, take your time.”

—

How long can it possibly take a superhero to read one book?

You shouldn't be thinking about it again. Poor Clark is sitting in the corner of the couch with your feet stuck under his thighs, telling you about the grocery store widow who asks him for help to take her groceries out to her car whenever she sees him. She’d spotted him at the produce section today and dibsed him, and Clark doesn’t mind (though she leaves her car at the back of the parking lot no matter the weather). In fact, Clark doesn’t bring it up to complain. He’s sympathising with her, how lonely she must be.

You try to shake Superman from your head while Clark is talking, but the thoughts of him won’t budge.

You’d made a fool of yourself on the roof. Superman had taken your book to be polite. He probably won’t come back.

“Hey.”

You lift your head.

Clark’s looking at you. Big blue eyes in a classic face, the line of his glasses dark and heavy against his brow. They trace your expression, searching for the misery you’ve failed to hide, until he finds it in the creases of your eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is weak with worry.

“Nothing.”

“It’s something.”

“It’s really not.”

“It definitely is. You can tell me about anything, you know. Or you don’t have to tell me, but I’ll be here for you no matter what. Some food for thought.”

“Food for thought. Eat this, Kent,” you say, jabbing him at the top of the thigh with your heel.

Clark grabs your foot. “Come on. I know something’s wrong, and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me, but…” He lets your foot smack down into the top of his thigh to grab his tea instead.

“Isn’t that cold?” you ask.

“It’s tepid,” he allows after a sip.

You laugh, so he laughs. It’s a lovely sound.

“Again. Again, you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but I’d listen if you wanted me to.”

“Don’t try and make out like you’re not keeping secrets.”

Clark goes slack-jawed. “Sorry?”

“You don’t tell me everything. I know exactly where you disappear to all the time.”

“You do?”

You climb up on your knees and settle in front of him. You’re wearing those pink polka dot shorts like you were on the roof with Superman, in hopes they’ll summon him to you like a talisman. Clark presses his lips together, watching you closely as you take his face into your hands.

“You’re dating Lois Lane,” you say.

His fingers dust your elbow. “What?”

“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you? Plus, you’re busy all the time. You’ve cancelled movie night three times this month, did you know?”

“I’m sorry–”

“I’m not. I’m happy for you.”

Clark shakes his head. “But Lois and I… I mean, not for months. We were almost something, I think, but no. Not for a while.”

You let your hands fall off of his cheeks. “Oh. Sorry, Clark.”

“Don’t be. I should’ve told you, but it was new and then it was over.”

“You should’ve told me,” you agree, “but I sort of get why you didn’t. I’m your girl best friend. That’s a thing.”

“You’re my best friend,” he promises, no ‘girl’ prefix necessary. “That’s not why it ended, Lois isn’t like that. It was… we disagreed on so many things. Looking back, I think she was right about most of it.”

“Well, she’s a girl.”

“That she is. You’re all the same, aren’t you? All dazzling.”

He says it with an earnestness that reminds you of the other half of your friendship-equation. Clark’s your best friend because he loves your work and your jokes and your company, and you’re his best friend because he’s good as gold, inside out, just awfully lovable.

“You’re ’dazzling’ too,” you say. “You are.”

Clark offers you his mug of tea. You take a sip for something to do.

“Not that cold,” you murmur.

“I never realised you were such a liar.”

“I don’t really lie to you, Clark.”

He leans up to kiss your head, chaste against your purpling scar. “I know.”

—

“So, this book–”

You jump hard enough to send your groceries five different ways, oranges and kiwis for Clark flying up in the air. They never hit the ground —Superman catches them in two hands.

Your loaf of bread lays cradled in his arm like a baby.

“Fuck,” you complain.

“I’m sorry.” Superman laughs at you. Laughs. “Sorry. But this book, is there a sequel?”

“What?” you ask. Superman tips your groceries into your waiting paper bag.

“I think I need a sequel.” He pulls The Ocean from a pocket and squeezes it unkindly. “I think it ruined my life.”

“There’s no sequel. But–” don’t spoil the ending for me, you almost say. “Did you enjoy it at all?”

“It was good. Do you read a lot, or are you down to the real heart-achers?”

“Uh, I guess. Well, no, I used to read more, but I didn’t have time for a while ‘n now I’m usually too stirred up to settle down.”

“You cook.”

You blink. “You googled me?”

“No, how could I? But I did see you on the third page of the Daily Planet. You have a little author’s window. You made pumpkin pie.”

“For Thanksgiving weekend, yeah. They only ever put me near the front or on the main page of the website if it’s the holidays.”

“Is that true?”

You shake your head. Not to say no, to say, let’s not talk about it. Silly insecurities are unnecessary conversation. At least, they are with him.

Someone gasps from behind you. With one comes a few. The people near the crosswalk are starting to notice Superman’s tall figure standing in the sun, and though you’d wish he’d managed to hide in the shadows, you admit to yourself that there’s nowhere else he could ever be. He looks right in the sun.

“Do you want to come with me?” he asks.

Do you want to go with him? What the fuck does he think? said in your head ecstatically, not a lick of derision against him. Your excitement nearly blinds you.

“Yeah,” you say, practically mumbling, wanting to come off nonchalant and instead sounding painfully shy, even to your own ears.

“Yeah?” He offers an arm. “Come here.”

Your charmed little laugh makes him grin. “Alright?” he asks, locking an arm around you vice-tight.

“Where are we–”

The air leaves your lungs in one fell swoop. There and gone, breathless and weightless in tandem.

The sky is more than blue when you’re in it.

There’s nothing you can say about it. You’re terrified Superman is going to drop you, you can hardly breathe from the sudden speed at which you’d been taken up with him, but beyond that, there’s nothing to say. Wordless, endless sky. Blue, blue—

“It’s not as scary as you think, right?” he asks, his head angled down to yours.

“I expected you to have to shout. I don’t know why.”

“It’s windier in the air, but we’re close. I don’t need to yell.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t get many groceries.”

“You aren’t heavy.”

You’re delighted. “This is a paper bag, you realise! I’m surprised it didn’t explode the second you got me up here!”

“I’ll be careful. You’re precious cargo, and you deserve a better experience now than the one you got when you first came up here with me.”

“I don’t remember much of it.”

“That’s okay. I do.”

You should feel ridiculous, but strong arms hold you steady. Blue eyes like someone familiar pour over your face, as though they need to see you clearly, with all this perfect light. Your few groceries are squeezed between your chests as you squeeze him by the neck, desperate for the extra security, that he won’t simply let you go, and have you fall.

“This is amazing,” you breathe, your eyes sweeping down to take in beautiful Metropolis beating away beneath you. The cars look like ants. The buildings cast shadows you’d never noticed from the ground.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s something.”

You glance up to find him still staring at you.

The girls on SuperClub would never, ever believe you if you tried to tell them what passes between you, then. (Not that you frequent SuperClub. Often. You see it while scrolling, and you tend to scroll past it with a fond eye roll.) They wouldn’t believe that Superman brings his hand to your head to touch your temple, as though your small scar is a personal affront to him. They wouldn’t believe the way that he pauses when you shudder. Wouldn’t believe how he lets his fingertip tumble down your cheek, or the soft incline of his head. The slightest kiss of his eyelashes meeting in the very corners of his eyes as they almost close.

“Don’t feel guilty, please,” you say.

“What?” He sounds as though he’s woken up from a nap.

“About what happened. It wasn’t your fault that I got hurt. I wanted you to know that. You saved me.”

Superman lets the distance between your two faces grow. “I…”

“If this is what that is, if you feel like you owe me something, well. You don’t… I don’t know you, Superman, but sometimes I think I do. It’s like… someone I've met before? I can see your bleeding heart.” You offer a brash smile. “But I’m just fine. You promised me that I would be, and I am.”

“You’re not making this any easier for me.”

You shift in his grasp, his hair tickling you and the little hairs on your arms.

“I’m not a very easy person,” you say.

Superman presses his nose to your cheek.

“I think you’re giving me tachycardia,” you whisper.

He hears it. Doesn’t answer for a while, and when he does, it’s to neither of the things you said before.

“Let me take you somewhere new,” he says.

—

A day later, Clark asks if he can bring you dinner. Like and unlike himself, to care enough to ask but to forgo his usual boisterous lack of respect when it comes to taking care of you. Clark recognises that you like to be cared for aggressively. That you want someone to care so much that they won’t stop at the first hurdle. You want someone to take it at a sprint, and Clark’s a show off loser-dork who likes taking care of you.

He meets you at the door, where you show him your small picnic basket kitted with two plates, knives, forks, and a hidden dessert. “Too hot in my apartment,” you say.

“What’s wrong with the AC?”

“It’s leaking.”

“I’ll take a look at it. What happened to that fan I got you?” he asks, his fingers at your wrist trying to steal the basket.

“Oh, Clark, can’t you just leave me alone?” you plead.

He laughs like a kid. “I love when you do that.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, is it sarcasm? I don’t think that’s apt. Whatever it is, when you act like that? You’re really convincing. It’s funny.”

“I can be funny.”

“I know, that’s what I’m saying. You’re really funny. Can you do it some more?”

“Now it’s not natural, though.”

“Please?”

“Leave it alone, Clark. You’re such a beg.”

He laughs again. It peters off to a quiet you’d like to live in. His takeout bag rustles, your picnic basket rattles, his fingers brushing the back of your arm as he follows you down the street to the wooded path.

There’s a small park not far from your apartment that’s been divided into two halves. The playground for the neighbourhood kids, and the picnic tables made of strangely shaped wood. They’re all rounded. One table is shaped like an ‘S’. Another like a filled in ‘8’.

You sit at the one furthest from the playground, coincidentally shaped like a ‘C’. “For Clark,” you say, pleased.

“Adorable.”

You set up your plates, dividing up the food squarely. Clark had the wherewithal to bring two cans of soda and a big bottle of water. He asks which one you want, cracking it open accordingly. “Gonna pour it into my mouth, too?” you tease.

“Do you not want me to be nice to you?”

And the night slips away. You eat your takeout at the picnic table and linger until your legs are numb. The grass around the park is damp, but you sit, and you shoot the breeze until the sun starts to go down. It must be hours out there together.

Clark takes his jacket off and spreads it over your shoulders. “This is your only bad trait,” he says happily. “You never tell me when you’re cold.”

“I’m not that cold.”

“Sure you’re not. Look, come here,” —he pulls you bodily into his side, his voice turning silky as angora— “you act like you’re such a plague, like– I don’t know, like I wouldn’t wanna know that you’re cold.”

“I don’t act like that.”

“You do. You could rely on me for more, you know? I want you to lean on me.”

You lean on him.

Clark presses his nose to your temple, his glasses digging into your skin.

And you think, I know you.

But you don’t know why.

—

Clark can't believe this is happening again.

He woke up this morning with a scary yet firm plan: he’s going to get himself together, pluck up what he has in the way of courage, and be honest with you about Superman. If only so he can stop lying to you. He should’ve told you months ago that he was Superman. Hell, he might’ve told you from the moment he met you, that’s how sure he was that he’d love you. As a friend —his best friend, half of his life. There’s this ease, like he’s known you for far longer than he truly has, like he could know you for the rest of his life.

And lately.

Oh, lately. Clark can’t get a handle on things. He hadn’t realised he was falling in love with you, isn’t even sure that’s the way to describe it; far from a sharp plummet downward into love, this has felt like a slow and steady ascent, but now suddenly he’s at the mountain top and the air is thin, and he’s looking for you, aching for relief, and you’re sitting in the snow with your book and your shy smile, cross-legged, just waiting for him to get there and open his cowardly mouth.

Or that’s what he’d like to think.

Fact of the matter is, Clark would like to kiss you. Hold your hand, have your head rest on his shoulder. He’d like to pull you into his lap and squeeze. Clark could die happy if he got just one shot at it, no matter the outcome.

He knows he won’t lose you, but he’s worried you don’t want what he wants. He’s gotten so close to having you, he’s not sure he can take being any further apart than this.

Clark takes the tramline to the rich part of the city with the best florist. There are buckets and buckets of flowers; orange tiger lilies and white orchids turned green in the sun; roses as big as his fist, unfurling; sweet peas kissing pinkest camellias all tangled up with baby’s breath. He chooses the sweet peas. They really are sweet, their hemmed edge petals curling in and nearly blue. They’re beautiful. He can see them in a glass on your nightstand by tonight if he’s lucky.

It’s on the walk to your apartment (tramline too busy to risk, lest your flowers get hurt) that the trouble begins.

The light goes out.

It doesn’t make logical sense. He’s outdoors. It’s the early morning, the sun should be shining for hours to come.

He looks up and finds a singular dark rectangle over Earth.

It blots out everything, disapears the clouds, turns the blue sweetpeas in his hand a tired shade of grey.

Clark wonders if he should’ve told you how he felt when he had the chance. Then, he leaves his glasses, his jacket, and his sweetpeas in the hedgerow at the park with alphabet picnic tables and throws himself upwards into the sky.

—

What emerges from the spaceship (and it is a spaceship, made of an element humans aren’t want to touch) are creatures shaped like spinning asterisks, wisps of their angel-white bodies bending the shadows they’ve cast down onto Metropolis. It’s like smoke.

The dark makes it hard to breathe.

You sit huddled in your bedroom looking out through the window, despite a desperate urge to hide somewhere further inward. Sirens echo throughout otherwise quiet streets, discordant wailing that wavers for long, sharp minutes. There had been screaming and crying and the splintering sounds of glass. It’s not —not unseeable, out there, but anyone with poor vision will find themselves stranded.

You open your phone. Your theory is that the aliens have been able to dampen sound as well as sun, leaving the battlefield dangerously quiet. Clark’s not answering your texts because he never has his phone, but you’re sure he’s out there somewhere. He told you he was coming. The last message he sent this morning blinks at you from the bottom of your screen: Coming by soon if you’re not busy, do you want me to bring breakfast?

You’d said, just some eggs please if you want eggs

You’d said, hey, are you safe? What’s with the dark?

You’d said, clark please text me back right now, I’m freaking out, do you need me to come get you?

He won’t answer the phone. Outside, up in the sky where it’s darker still and the white shadows have begun to ripple, the occasional red beam of heat slices into whiteness, turning it to shadows again. There are two sets of red if you watch carefully. Green light flickers at the ground.

And Clark Kent is out there all alone.

You crawl to your shoes under the bed and put them on, pajamas and all. Clark’s blue hoodie lays on the back of your deskchair. You shrug it on.

He’s gonna lose his entire mind if you do find him out there. Can friends ground you? Because Clark’s going to ground you. But you’d rather be grounded than all alone.

—

Superman groans into the floor, his tongue coated in dust.

He has far better vision than a person feasibly needs. He wore a pair of glasses once that are supposed to approximate what it’s like to have legal blindness, and he’d felt suddenly, achingly sorry for the human race. But then he’d found the glasses stand beside it with all their different prescriptions and shrugged it off. Humans are brilliant. He’s in awe of their persistence, their resilience, and their strength. He knows he can find it in himself to go on because they can, too.

He has better vision, and still he finds himself batted away from the entities like a bothersome fruit fly.

“Krypto?” he asks into the smog.

His borrowed dog flies at him with impressive speed, pressing his snout straight into a bruise.

“Ow!”

Krypto snuffles and hits at his arms with both paws.

“Krypto, stop! Jeez, stop. You’re such a pai– Ow! Get off.”

Krypto nibbles his shoulder.

Clark forces himself to sit up. At least he hasn’t killed the dog. Kara would probably eviscerate the planet country by country if something happened to her dog, not mentioning the aliens that started this whole thing. And he is good at bringing the suit when Clark needs it.

He rubs at his eyes and drags himself to his feet, back aching, eyes like sand. Nothing is healing because he can’t feel the sun, but he’s not too hurt. He can take a bad landing. He can take twenty of them.

“Krypto, stay.”

Krypto tilts his white blurry head.

“You’re not helping.”

Arf! Clark rolls his shoulders and shoots back into the air.

Krypto stays down, for now.

Clark takes a lap through the air, searching for signs of life with his ears. The eery quiet is beginning to fill with catastrophe.

“Clark?”

He stops dead in the sky.

“Clark?” you call, ten miles below him, shouting all clipped and scared. “Clark Kent! Are you out here? If you can hear me, call back to me!”

He says your name.

“Clark? I’m here!”

Clark looks up into melted-sugar shadows as they begin to curdle and makes a choice. Damn the aliens, they can have the sky, so long as Clark gets to keep you safe.

He has to keep you safe.

—

You’re watching a shadow plummet toward you when the sky opens up into shards of Technicolor. Concentrated around a single point of red and blue and moving so fast it turns puce.

—

There’s a scene in The Ocean where the main character realises his father has been dead before the beginning of the book. Dead for years. He goes searching for him because he’s scared to be alone, brave enough to realise it, and young enough to misunderstand the danger of the world. He treks sandbanks, ferries favour, turns in promises and follows the footsteps of a man long dead across the world. Clark told you once, privately, quietly, in a moment that immediately panicked him, that his parents had adopted him, and that his birth parents had left him with a letter after they both died.

What did it say? you’d asked.

To be good.

You find your copy of The Ocean cradled in familiar hands. You recognise its secondhand cover, the bends in the front where a previous owner had tented it for a long period of time. The spine is loose and lax with age. The pages are yellow with time.

Clark is sleeping quietly in the plastic-wrapped chair beside your bed. He doesn’t have a bruise or cut. He doesn’t look anything like Superman had as he’d flung himself at you, two seconds too late, his body a shield against an explosion that lit your body with fire and colour alike. The whole world had been red, and then yellow, and suitably blue. There was pain.

Not a darkness as people often say. Just hurting and now this.

You take a scary breath. Hitching and pained, you search for comfort and find none of it. There’s a needle in the back of your hand secured with a teddy bear wrapping. The sheets have been drawn to your chin and choke you as you try to sit.

After a moment of struggling, you sink back and try for another breath. Deep, aching breaths. You do it until your lungs burn, these awful, stringing breaths, eyes to the ceiling and fighting the spots of nothingness that cloud your vision.

“Hey,” a soft voice says, softer hand pressed to the curve of your neck. “Oh, hey, sweet girl, hey… it’s okay. The pain won’t last, they gave you a little more morphine a few minutes ago, it’ll kick in.”

“Uh–”

Clark makes a sound. “Oh.”

You let your eyes slide to him. He’s checking his wrist where it’s resting on you.

“I was sleeping for a long time, I… Honey, I’ll get a nurse.”

“No,” you breathe.

“Yeah, honey, I’ll get a nurse,” he repeats, stroking your neck with his thumb. His eyes are their usual calm blue, bearing down into your own with an emotion that’s somehow palpable and implacable. “It’s no good, you being in pain like this. I’ll come right back.”

“Clark, don’t go,” you whine.

It’s like the world has been placed heavy on your head.

Clark offers you relief. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Tell me what’s hurting, and I’ll fix it.”

You shake your head at him. Fuck, nothing hurts. It’s not pain you’re being smothered in.

“Okay,” he murmurs.

For a while, you don’t talk. Clark stays stooped over you, too tall and careful anyhow to stay out of your light. He holds your cheek, rubbing at skin with his thumb until it’s tickled into numbness, your body begging you to move away from his touch and your brain knowing you can’t. You’ll never duck away from his fingertips ever again.

Where he’d been unhurt, he isn’t unharried. His hair is in a complete disarray, curls in places pulled straight and greasy behind his ears. His face is pale. His eyes flicker obsessively between you and your monitor, as though he can decipher the information it displays. He must see something there that he trusts, sitting down again in the chair dragged quick and easy to the side of your bed. His hand stays at your face. He’s long. It’s simple work.

“You read The Ocean,” you whisper.

“I read all your annotations, too,” he tells you, turning his hand to run it down your cheek, his fingernails especially silky against the line of your jaw.

You turn your face toward his touch. Your eyes flutter closed as he indulges your deepest fantasy.

“I didn’t–” Oh, you can’t say it. You hadn’t meant to want him like this. You hadn’t known he was Superman, and isn’t that awful? Something cruel. Your best friend kept a worst secret.

He doesn’t rush you.

You’re ready to try again a few minutes later. His fingertips have started to draw a flower into your neck.

“I’m embarrassed that Clark knows what I said to Superman,” you say plainly.

“Superman didn’t tell Clark anything,” Clark says. His voice is light in contrast to your hesitancy.

“But you know it all.”

“I know you,” he agrees.

“I’m really… sorry. I’m sorry, I–” You search for his touch and he immediately cups your cheek again. “Clark, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come out looking for you. I didn’t realise you could look after yourself and I made things worse.”

“Do you even remember?” he asks.

Mildly. You’d woken once before and found a less fixed Clark covered in blood above you. A part of you had understood that it was Clark, even without his glasses, and a different part knew it was Superman. Then things had blurred, half-replaced by a memory of his hand behind your back in the middle of a meadow halfway across the world, that beautiful quiet valley where the water had been ice and the grass emerald velveteen under your legs.

In the dream, Superman (and this had been real until it wasn’t), turned to you, and said, with Clark’s dorky intonation, “That’s seriously beautiful, huh?”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But–”

“You don’t. I won’t argue about it with you. You have no apologies to make, you did everything right and nothing wrong, and I lied to you, and I got you hurt, and…” He has the gall to pink in the cheeks, like you’ve taken the skin between your knuckles and pinched. “I wasn’t honest with you about my feelings. I almost kissed you as Superman, and that wasn’t fair.”

“You really are… him?” you ask weakly.

“Yeah, I am.”

Clark sits up as a doctor opens your room’s door.

“Everything okay?” she asks. When she sees you awake, she smiles broadly. “Hey, you’re up! Can we get you some dinner now?”

“You skipped breakfast,” Clark tells you.

“I was awake for breakfast?”

“Barely. We had you on some pretty gnarly painkillers,” the doctor says. She adjusts her white coat. “I just wanted to check in with your nurses and your lovely partner here that you hadn’t thrown up again.”

You flush. “I’m fine.”

Clark simply rubs your chest like a wave of his hand against your heart.

“I’m worried you haven’t gotten enough sustenance this past day, but we try not to hook you up with too many things,” the doctor explains, “much better for you to settle and then eat. And to drink some water!”

“I don’t feel very hungry.”

“The painkillers you’re on can make some people feel quite sick. But try your best, okay? I’ll come back after dinner to see what we can do about those broken fingers.”

You follow your arm down to your hand. Your pinky and ring finger on the non-dominant hand have been splinted but not casted.

“Oh.”

The doctor takes her leave, abandoning Clark to your questions.

“What’s wrong with me?” you ask.

“You got concussed again. It made you sick, and your hand is very nearly broken, but they think it’s just your fingers from the look of your x-rays. And you have a long cut.” He puts his hand on your stomach gently. “Here. Almost as long as your arm, but it’s a surface cut. You landed on debris. I’m sorry, my– honey. Sorry.”

You can’t fight the chills or your bewilderment. “What for?”

“I didn’t get to you fast enough.”

“Clark.” Your mouth is dry. He’s pretty. Your head goes round and round and aching and then with a dash of clarity, the world snaps back into place. Your hospital room is empty and bright, with a vase filled to bursting with sweetpeas in pride of place on your nightstand. There are voices drifting in from the hallway, and Clark is handsome even as he tears himself apart. The silver lining his bottom lashes doesn’t go unnoticed. “I’m okay, babe.”

He laughs wetly.

“I’m fine,” you promise, quieter now. “How couldn’t I be? You’re so gentle.”

Clark finds your hand, pulling it to his forehead, his body bending forward like a marionette on loosening strings. He shakes his head vehemently, his grip on your wrist tight but far from cruel.

“You’re gentle,” you promise under your breath, “I told you that before, didn’t I? You’re kind, and brave, and– it’s not your fault I went looking for you.”

“I should be comforting you. I should be helping you,” he whispers.

“You won’t catch me crying on your shoulder twice, Superman.”

His head flinches up, like he’s realising for the first time that you know who he is.

Whatever he sees in your face helps him to settle down. He curls long, thick fingers around your hand. You can’t help noting how adversely tender they feel while he holds your hand.

“What did you think of the book?” you ask finally.

“I didn’t know you liked to read,” he says.

You shrug. Let your head fall back into a thin pillow, wondering how you might go about getting a better one, and beginning to feel the effects of the painkillers they’d been talking about. “It’s not like it’s the most alarming secret, between us.”

He lets out a wounded whine. “Why do you hate me?” he asks.

“You’re due some hazing.”

“Can’t you take pity on me?” he asks.

You curl your fingers around his where they’d otherwise been limp. “I’m not really half as cool as I’m trying to act, Clark.”

He sulks beautifully. “I think you’re lying to make me feel better.”

Only a little.

—

Being cool around Clark Kent lasts about as long as the morphine does. The reality is this: Clark Kent —best friend extraordinaire, sweetheart farm boy who’s vetted all your worst ideas, held your hair back in the smallest toilet in Metropolis bar history after a too-happy happy hour, knows all your holey socks and questionable medical queries— is Superman.

And Superman?

He’d been courting you.

The word is antiquated and accurate. Superman had been cautiously courting you with his sparse visits, shy and brave at once, brash but remarkably put together. It is after you know the truth that you realise Clark had been not so secretly courting you simultaneously.

“Is that why you were bringing me dinner and stuff?” you ask, lured into the conversation by accident, now deeply curious.

“No. I did that stuff before I wanted you. It was hard to sort the feelings into boxes, like– platonically, I’ve loved you since you came into the office with your miserable laptop and– and romantically, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realise until I tried to kiss you and you wouldn’t let me.”

“Sorry?”

“I tried to kiss you, and you thought it was a pity kiss.”

You hold him by the shoulder. “That was real?”

“Do you dream about it?” he asks knowingly.

“It was really going to be a kiss?”

He softens. Clark, big on your smaller couch, in his pajamas with his hair finally washed again and your hand in his lap, rests his shoulder into yours with a long-suffering sigh. “Best kiss of your life,” he promises.

“Prove it.”

“What?”

It’s been four days since the hospital and Clark is horrifically chaste. “Do you not want to kiss me?”

“You know I do.”

“So kiss me.”

He pinches your chin. “If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve just taken one,” he tells you, looking you straight in the eyes.

“From Superman?” you ask with a little scoff.

He moves his head from left to right. “From me,” he says.

There has been so much to tell him. So little space to hide from him. Lines of books you’d underlined for him, lines for Superman, for both of them. The guilty way you’d watched Clark Kent take off his shirt at the public pool in summer heat and the loop of Superman under your thumb as you’d fallen asleep scrolling SuperClub. You’ve been more honest with him than you’ve dared to be previously.

Clark has repaid you in kind.

Did you know, he’d confessed, when you were still grody from the hospital and he’d demanded you let him stay, that night, that everything I’m good at is because of the sun? I can function without it. I can store up the energy in my cells and I don’t need much to stretch it far, but without the yellow sun, I’m just like you?

How could I know that? you’d thought. Why are you telling me this? you’d asked instead.

I want you to know.

Clark loves the sun, you realise now. He turns his face up to it often, soaking it in silently. He gets this look whenever he stops to take it in. Perfect contentment. Trust, that it will make him feel better.

Clark tilts his chin against yours, nudging your face gently inward, giving you the shortest glimpse of that content stretched across a smile as it presses into yours.

You hyperventilate your way into an open-mouthed, gasping sort of thing, and find Clark a fiercer kisser than you could’ve imagined. All those daydreams about Superman saving you from another day copyediting your own messes, you’d never thought to picture the boy sitting at the desk across from you, how his hand might slide behind your neck like water. How he’d take the breath from your lips and offer his own in a shaky, wanting gasp.

Superman, breathless under your touch. No one would ever believe you.

“Did you want me to tell you how it ends?”

You break away from him, panting, vaguely confused. “Sorry?”

“The Ocean? You never finished it.”

“Oh. Maybe you can read it to me. You know, afterwards.”

Clark grins. “After,” he promises, leaning down for another kiss.

˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚

thank u Bec for proofreading ur brains are irreplaceable <3 and thank u everyone else for reading!

#lovery read to light up this morning #bea reads 🐝#clark kent x reader #clark kent #superman (2025)

12K notes · View notes

caturdwy · 19 days ago

Text

oh my god this was such a delightful read, I was giggling like a teenage girl with my feet up in the bed the entire time 😭

10 Things you hate about Clark Kent.

PLOT! You had just moved to Metropolis from Gotham after quitting the Gotham Gazette. You thought it would be a breeze. But there's 10 things about your coworker that irk you more than you ever thought.

WARNINGS! corenswet!clark. gotham!reader. clark is kinda submissive in this... sorry. overstimulating. oral (fem receiving). unprotected p in v (wrap b4 u tap). kinda service top clark? but he gets submissive.

NOTES! i watched superman with my boyfriend and i need to dick down clark with every bone in my body. i had sm fun writing this. thank you to my baby girls out there, i see u. word count is 7.2k btw!

1. You hate that he’s always late.

Metropolis is cleaner than Gotham, sure. Shinier. The streets sparkle like they’ve never seen a body chalked on the pavement, and people here walk a little faster—like they’re going somewhere they actually want to be. But beneath the polish, it’s the same grind. New City, same newsroom.

You should’ve known The Daily Planet wouldn’t be much different than The Gotham Gazette. The coffee is just as burnt, the interns just as sweaty, and deadlines still loiter like stormclouds, waiting to downpour. You expected chaos. What you didn’t expect was Clark Kent.

He’s late.

Every. Damn. Day.

You hear him before you see him—always the same: the hurried shuffle of too-big shoes, the frantic slam of a shoulder against the swinging glass door, and the apologetic murmur of “Morning” that barely beats out the time clock.

You don’t even look up from your monitor. “It’s 9:47.”

Clark wheezes into his cubicle—which, of course, is right next to yours. His tie is crooked, his glasses fogged, and his hair’s got a single, infuriatingly perfect curl bouncing on his forehead like it was placed there by angels.

“Yeah,” he huffs. “Sorry. There was traffic.”

There’s always traffic in Metropolis. But that excuse is wearing thin, especially when he is the only one in the building who acts like he has to physically leap over it.

You finally glance up, deadpan. “You know who else got stuck in traffic today? Me. Lois. The kid from copy who literally rides a unicycle to work. We all still made it to work on time.”

He runs a hand through his hair and smiles sheepishly, like that’s supposed to mean something. And somehow, it always does—with everyone else. Lois laughs it off. Perry yells, but only half-heartedly. Even Cat calls him “Smallville” like it’s an inside joke and not an indictment of his incompetence.

But you?

You are not charmed.

You’re Gotham born and bred. You’ve filed stories from under police tape, from fire escapes, from alleys where the blood was still wet. You didn’t claw your way out of that city just to share a byline with a man who treats deadlines like vague suggestions and shows up to work looking like he just wrestled a tornado.

Again!

“You’ve been late every day this week, Kent,” you mutter, turning back to your monitor. “If you’re aiming for a record, congrats. You’re winning.”

He’s quiet for a beat. You think you’ve shut him up, finally. But then—“I’ve never really been good at winning things,” he says softly, almost like he’s talking to himself.

You glance at him from the corner of your eye. There’s something about the way he says it, not pathetic. Just… strange. Like maybe he means something bigger. You almost ask.

Almost.

Instead, you scoff and shake your head. “Try winning a Pulitzer. Might help your case.”

He grins again, that irritating, dimpled grin, and unpacks his bag like he didn’t walk in almost an hour later. You hate that he’s always late. You hate that nobody seems to care. You hate that he never has a good excuse, but still somehow gets away with it.

And most of all?

You hate that you’re starting to care enough to notice.

2. You hate his 'aw shucks' act.

If Clark Kent’s lateness is a thorn in your side, then his personality is the knife twisting next to it.

Not that it’s a bad personality, exactly. That’s the problem. On paper, he’s the perfect coworker—polite, humble, well-liked by every living soul in the building. He holds elevators. He offers to do coffee runs even when it’s pouring. He once helped Carol from Archives fix the jammed printer with nothing but a safety pin and a hopeful smile.

People adore him. They smile when he walks into the room. Laugh at his dumb jokes. Trust him.

You do not.

Because you’ve been watching. You’ve been taking mental notes since week two. That “aw shucks, I’m just a small-town guy from Kansas�� routine is too well rehearsed. No one is that gentle and that oblivious. No one stammers through meetings and then turns in a perfect copy by the end of the day. No one is that clumsy—spilling coffee, tripping over wires—and yet somehow always lands on their feet.

You didn’t come from Gotham to fall for the world’s oldest trick.

So when he chuckles nervously after Lois slaps him on the back for landing a quote from the Steel Syndicate leader—a quote you had been chasing for a week—you grit your teeth and mutter:

“Oh, give me a break!”

Clark turns to you, blinking. “Sorry?”

You don’t bother to fake it. “You play the ‘golly gee’ routine, but you’re sharper than you act. And frankly, it’s annoying.”

His brows knit behind his glasses. “I’m not acting.”

You arch an eyebrow. “Right. You just accidentally out-interviewed me and walked away with the best lead we’ve had all quarter.”

He laughs, scratching the back of his neck, all bashful. “I really wasn't trying to one-up you. I just—I guess he liked me?”

You scoff. “Of course he did,” you mumble. “Everyone does. Must be the charm of your down-home, butter-wouldn’t-melt-bullshit!”

“I’m from Smallville,” he says, like that explains everything.

You lean forward across your desk, voice low. “I’ve met people from Smallville. They don’t act like they’ve never heard someone curse before.”

Clark shrinks back slightly, like your words sting, but there’s a twitch of something else in his eyes—like he’s fighting a smile.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse,” he offers gently.

You narrow your eyes. “I save it for when I’m alone. Or keep it in my head. Like right now, for example. Internally? It’s a full symphony of four-letter words.”

He snorts, an actual snort, then claps a hand over his mouth like he’s embarrassed by it. That’s when you realize something terrifying. He’s not pretending to be harmless.

He is harmless.

And that somehow makes it worse.

Because no one is harmless in this job. Not in journalism. Not in Metropolis. Especially not if they’re good at it. And Clark? Despite the dopey smile, the apologies, the way he trips over every desk in the bullpen. Clark is very good at it.

You hate that his small town bullshit works. You hate that it makes people underestimate him. You hate that it almost worked on you. But the worst part? You’re starting to realize it’s not an act. It’s who he is.

And that makes you want to scream.

3. You hate how he somehow always got the exclusive.

There’s something sacred about how the word exclusive in a newsroom. It’s the holy grail—the thing that earns you front pages, corner offices, Pulitzers. You’ve chased exclusives down back alleys, stayed on hold for eons, bribed a coffee-stained secretary with two croissants and a MetroCard just to get one measly quote from a crooked city councilman

But somehow, Clark Kent just gets them.

Every. Fucking. Time.

He never brags. That would at least make him bearable. He just shows up—late, of course—shrugs off his coat, and drops a crisp interview transcript on Perry’s desk like he tripped over it on the sidewalk.

It’s infuriating.

You first noticed it during the Union Square train derailment. Superman was spotted hauling survivors out of the wreckage. No reporters got near him. Police kept everyone back. Even Lois couldn’t get close. And she's Lois!

But the next morning?

There it was: Superman Speaks on Metropolis Disaster by Clark Kent.

You stared at the byline like it had personally offended you. Your fingers hovered over your keyboard as you read the quote—exclusive, lengthy, insightful. Too insightful.

“He said that?” you asked Clark across the bullpen.

Clark blinked. “Uh, yeah. He flew by while I was walking back from a source.”

You narrowed your eyes. “And what, he just… pulled you into the sky for a heart-to-heart?”

Clark smiled, bashful. “We’ve talked a few times.”

You nearly choked on your burnt coffee.

A few times?

Since then, it’s been quote after quote. Superman says this. Superman warns that. Every piece is conveniently labeled “as told to Clark Kent.” You’ve pitched a dozen stories with solid leads, real impact, and Perry still passes them over in favor of Clark’s Superman exclusives.

You’ve tried to ask how he does it. Casually. Aggressively. Once while both of you were on a stakeout at a warehouse near Suicide Slums, you even offered him your last protein bar if he’d just tell you how the hell he keeps finding Superman.

Clark just smiled. That soft, maddeningly patient smile, and said, “I think he trusts me.”

Trusts him.

Like Superman sits around rating journalists on a Yelp scale.

You stare across the bullpen now, watching Clark quietly type something into his terminal. He looks like a librarian. One of those sleepy, gentle ones who offer you a tissue when you cry reading To Kill a Mockingbird.

And yet somehow, he gets the hero in blue to spill his guts.

You hate it.

You hate that it makes you question your own work. You hate that you keep looking for the cracks in his story, the thing that explains how he’s doing this. You’ve doubled-checked timestamps. Scrubbed security footage. Asked sources. Nothing adds up.

No one sees Clark talking to Superman.

And yet Clark knows things. Small details. Direct quotes. Reassurances Superman has never given anyone else.

You lean back in your chair and stare at the ceiling. Either Clark Kent is the luckiest man in Metropolis… or he’s hiding something.

And you don’t believe in luck.

4. You hate that he doesn't talk shit.

Newsrooms run on gossip.

That’s just a fact.

You don’t survive in this field—not in this city—without learning to weaponise information. It’s part of the culture. You swap barbs while the coffee brews, trade snark over late-night edits, hurl critiques and conspiracies like dodgeballs. Everyone does it. It keeps you sane. Keeps you sharp.

Except Clark.

Clark doesn’t talk shit.

At first, you assumed it was a tactic. A kind of passive power play, let everyone else tear each other down while he keeps his hands clean and his halo polished. You even waited for him to crack. Made space for it.

Lois stormed past your desks muttering, “If I have to rewrite one more of Franklin’s clickbait trash, I swear to God—” and you turned to Clark, ready.

Nothing.

He just said, “Franklin’s trying to juggle two kids and night school. He’s doing the best he can.”

You blinked. “That’s your take? Really?”

Clark smiled, easy. “Well, it’s not like yelling about it helps.”

You stared at him for a full beat, then scoffed, Wow. How do you make ‘reasonable’ sound so smug?”

He laughed. Not mocking. Not defensive. Just… amused.

It keeps happening.

Gina in Copy fakes sick twice in one week to go see her boyfriend in Coast City. Nobody buys it. You expect Clark to at least comment. Something gentle, like “Must be nice to have a love life” but he just covers her calls without being asked.

When Jimmy blows a quote in a city council interview, you hear three people mutter about it near the break room. Clark hears too. You watch his eyes flick in that direction, but he doesn’t engage. He just brings Jimmy a coffee the next morning with no explanation.

You don’t get it.

You’ve worked with assholes and saints and everything in between. But there’s always a crack. A vent. A gripe. A single “Jesus Christ, can you believe this guy?” at happy hour.

Clark? He smiles, he listens. He takes the fall for other people's mistakes, and never once asks for anything in return.

It’s not that he’s quiet. He barks. He just doesn’t bite.

You should hate it. Actually, no, you do hate it.

Because it makes you feel mean. Makes you feel like every time you roll your eyes or mutter something under your breath, you’re the one slinging mud at a guy who just… doesn’t throw it back.

He’s not better than you. That’s what you tell yourself. He’s not better. He’s just boring. But that’s not true, is it?

Because when Carol’s mom lands in the hospital, he’s the one who quietly organizes a grocery drop-off.

When Perry has a meltdown over a typo in the Sunday headline, Clark doesn’t flinch. He just calmly fixes it. Compliments the new intern’s formatting, and reminds Perry to breathe.

When you come in one morning with three hours of sleep and that coil, pre-caffeine snarl already at your lips, he places a black coffee on your desk without saying a word.

You hate how it makes your chest tighten.

You hate that he makes kindness look easy—not loud or performative or fake, just… part of him.

You hate that you’re starting to notice how often his eyes go soft when someone’s having a bad day.

You hate how your shoulders drop just a little when he walks in.

You hate how, for all the ways he frustrates you, he never gives you a real reason to hate him back.

You tap your pen against your notebook and glances at him—across the bullpen, bent over his desk, tie askew, glasses sliding down, that same stupid curl on his forehead. He’s reading something, mouth twitching like he might laugh, and you watch him longer than you mean to.

You shake yourself.

No.

This is just a strategy. Observation. Knowing your competition. It’s not softness. It’s not a crush. It’s not a slow-burn, late-blooming kind of fondness, the kind that sneaks up on you when you’re too tired to fight it.

It’s not.

You just hate that he doesn’t talk shit. That’s all.

5. You hate how he remembers everything you say.

You’re not the type of person who expects people to remember things.

You’ve had too many conversations die halfway through a sentence. Too many men nod politely, only to ask you the same question a week later like they never heard your answer the first time. You’ve learned to file your words under ‘for now’—disposable, temporary, forgettable.

Clark Kent doesn’t see it that way.

You noticed it during your first lunch break, maybe two weeks in. You’d been ranting—venting, truly—about how every salad in Metropolise comes pre-drenching in some sort of smug artisanal vinaigrette. You weren’t even talking to him. Just muttering to yourself while stabbing a piece of limp kale in the breakroom.

The next day, he passed you a plain turkey sandwich from the deli on 6th and said, “They don’t just dressing unless you ask. Though you might like it.”

You blinked at him

“You remembered that?” you asked, caught off guard.

Clark shrugged with a smile. “You seemed passionate.”

You were half convinced it was a fluke. But it wasn’t.

Because the pattern kept happening.

You mentioned once—once—that your favorite weather is when it rains but the sun’s still out. A week later, during one of those golden, misty drizzles, he caught up to you on the steps and said, “Looks like your kind of day, huh?”

You told him offhandedly that your least favorite movie trope is the girl tripping while running. Three nights later, you passed each other in the hallways after working late, and he asked if you’d seen the new action flick in theaters. “No tripping heroines, I promise.”

You said that once your dad used to call you ‘kid’ and that one one’s used the word since.

He’s never called you that. But you catch him hesitating once. Mid-sentence. Like it’s on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it.

You don’t know how to feel about that.

Because you never asked him to remember. You never wanted him to.

You’ve known people who remember birthdays because Facebook reminds them. Or likes and dislikes so they can use them later. But Clark? He never uses it. He just stores it. Quietly. Thoughtfully. Like your words matter. Like they’re puzzle pieces he’s collecting, not to solve you, but to understand you.

And maybe that’s what bothers you most.

Because no one’s ever tried to understand you.

Not really.

Gotham trained you to guard your secrets with blood. To keep your walls high, your smile sarcastic, your stories brief and impersonal. But Clark listens like he’s trying to paint a picture of your in his head, one brushstroke at a time.

And you despise it.

You hate that it makes you feel seen.

You hate that it makes you feel real.

You hate that it makes you wonder how much you’ve remembered about him.

You glance at his desk. Same stupid Superman bobblehead he swore he didn’t buy himself. Same chipped Kansas mug. Same pair of extra reading glasses tucked into the drawer, just in case.

You remember that he doesn’t like spicy food. That he uses semicolons like they’re going out of style. That he hums the theme from Star Wars when he’s writing something he’s proud of.

You remember that his middle name is Joseph, but he doesn’t like it because it was his dad’s.

You remember way too much.

So maybe you don’t hate that he remembers everything you say. Maybe you hate that you’ve started doing it too.

6. You hate that he looks at you like he sees you.

There’s a kind of look people give you when they think they know who you are.

Back in Gotham, it was always the same—calculating, wary, sometimes impressed. You were the youngest on the crime desk, the loudest in the pitch room, the one with the sharpest elbows and the thinnest armor. People look at you like a problem to solve or a rival to beat.

But that’s not how Clark looks at you. He looks at you like you’re someone. Not a headline. Not a byline. Not the girl from Gotham with a chip on her shoulder and a pen like a scalpel.

Just you.

And it drives you batshit crazy.

Because it’s not just in meetings, when you sneak up and catch his gaze across the table—it’s in the little moments. When you’re half-asleep at your desk and he walks by with a fresh coffee. When you’re biting your tongue in an argument and he gives you a look like he already knows what you want to say. When you laugh—really laugh—and you see him watching like it’s a rare event he doesn’t want to interrupt.

It’s too much. Too soft. Too honest. You don’t want to be known like that. Not by him. Not by anyone.

But he keeps doing it. Like it’s effortless. Like seeing you, the real you, the messy and angry and guarded parts is just what happens when he looks at someone.

And you hate that you notice it. And you hate that some small, quiet part of you never wants him to stop.

7. You hate how nervous he makes you.

You’re not nervous around people.

You’ve been yelled at by corrupt mayors. Cornered by gang members for writing the wrong names in the right story. You’ve told a Gotham crime boss to spell his name correctly if he wants to be quoted. You know how to stand your ground, spine straight, heart steady.

But Clark makes you so nervous that you might shit your pants.

Not in the usual nervous way—not in the way bad people do. He doesn’t threaten or belittle or hover too close. No, Clark stands a respectful distance away and still somehow manages to get under your skin. He fidgets when you talk. He laughs at your sarcasm. He listens like he’s memorizing you on purpose.

And lately… you’ve been messing things up.

You dropped your pen the other day. Three times. In one meeting.

You forgot what you were saying mid-sentence when he looked at you—just looked at you—like the whole room had gone quiet except for you.

You called him Clark and it came out soft, almost breathless, and it startled you. Like your mouth knew something your brain just hadn’t caught up with yet.

When you brushed against him near the elevator, shoulder to shoulder, your pulse stuttered. Not fear. Not irritation. Something else. Then it hit you.

You like him.

God, you like him.

You like his stupid glasses and his kind eyes and the way he always holds the door for people even when they don't say thank you. You like the way he scribbles notes in the margins of his reporter’s notebook and the way he lights up when someone says the words human interest. You like that he takes his job seriously without ever acting like he’s the smartest man in the room.

You like that he’s good. You trust him. And that might scare you more than anything else on this planet.

You hate that he makes you nervous, because it means your guard is down. And you never let your guard down. Especially not for someone like him. Especially not when he might possibly, slightly, maybe, feel the same way.

Because if he does.. if he does… you’re not sure what happens now.

8. You hate how he’s Superman.

You almost died today.

Not in the dramatic, flashing-lights-before-your-eyes kind of way. More like sudden and sharp. One second, you were walking past LexCorp Tower with a coffee in hand. The next, the sky cracked open with a sound like the earth tearing apart, and something enormous. A ship? A drone? It spiraled out of control and straight into the street.

You didn’t scream. Not at first. Your body froze instead, the kind of instinct that Gotham should’ve removed. Get big, get loud. Scare the monster away from you.

But flight or fight invited a friend to the party. Fawn. And she told you not to move a muscle. To get small. Get still. And pray to Jesus of Nazareth that the monster passes.

It didn’t.

It was coming right for you.

And then, just like every headline you’d ever written about him, Superman was there.

He was a blur at first. Then red. Then blue. Then everything stopped. The drone crumpled against the pavement thirty feet away, a crater the size of a bus sinking into the asphalt. Wind whipped around you, debris in your hair, your coffee exploded on the ground. And in the center of it all, standing perfectly fine like the chaos had bent around him on purpose—

Him.

Superman.

He turned to you, eyes impossibly soft for someone who could tear steel apart with his bare hands. “Are you hurt?”

You nodded dumbly. Maybe you shook your head. You don’t remember. Your voice wasn’t working.

He gave you a smile, the kind that should’ve made you feel safe. It did. But it also unsettled something deep in your chest. Almost like recognition.

He took off again in a gust of air and cape and godlike power, and you stood there shaking, your hands empty.

That night, you sat cross-legged on your couch with the local news running in the background, half-heartedly typing notes for tomorrow’s article. You watched grainy footage of Superman returning a flaming car to the street like it was a paper toy. You watched people cheering, waving, chanting his name.

You knew he was a hero. You knew he’d saved countless lives. But seeing him up close? Feeling the air shift around him, the sheer weight of him?

It rattled you.

And yet, what kept circling in your brain wasn’t just the blur of the cape or the force of the landing. It was his eyes.

The way he looked at you.

Like he knew you. Like he saw you.

And then your fingers stopped moving.

Because you’d seen that look before.

Early this week. At the Daily Planet. In the elevator, when you’d complained about the vending machine eating your dollar.

Clark had looked at you like that.

You stared at the paused frame on your screen. Superman mid-turn, mid-expression.

You grabbed your phone, opened the gallery. A photo Jimmy had taken at Lois’s birthday last month. Clark, standing beside you with that same crooked smile. Same jawline. Same posture.

Your heart sank.

No.

You looked again.

You zoomed in.

And all at once, every thing—every late arrival, every exclusive quote, every ‘You okay?’ after a tremor, every ‘How did he know?’—every moment fell into place like puzzle pieces you’d been too close to see.

Clark Kent is Superman.

You sat there frozen, blinking at the screen as a sick kind of heat spread through your chest. You hate that he’s Superman.

Not because he’s dangerous. Not because he lied—though God, he did.

You hate it because you were just starting to fall for Clark. Sweet, awkward, late-to-everything Clark. Now you’re not sure where Clark ends and Superman begins.

And worst of all? You’re not sure which one of them you’re in love with.

9. You hate how he touches you.

You told yourself it was for the story.

That inviting Clark over to your apartment — late, after deadline, with a six-pack in the fridge and the lights dimmed just enough to feel casual — was journalistic strategy. You even made a notepad with scribbled questions, highlighted sources in your phone, and pulled up three articles from the Planet’s archive as “references.”

But deep down, you knew exactly what you were doing.

Clark knocked once. Polite. Timid. He always knocked like he didn’t want to disturb you, even when he had to enter the bullpen three minutes before a press conference with ink on his tie. You opened the door and didn’t let yourself look too long at the way his glasses slid down his nose or how the sleeves of his white button-down were rolled to his forearms.

He stepped in, soft-voiced as ever. “You said you needed help with something?”

“An article,” you said, breezy. “About Superman.”

And God, you said his name like a test.

Clark blinked. Just once. Just barely. But you caught it.

You offered him a beer. You talked. You took notes on nothing. And he sat there — not relaxed, exactly, but trying to act like he was. He always had this charming nervousness to him. But now that you knew — knew — it wasn’t nerves. It was restraint. It was a man constantly folding himself into something smaller to pass unnoticed.

You kept waiting for him to lie.

He didn’t.

So you forced his hand.

You said it like it didn’t cost you anything: “You’re Superman.”

Silence. Stillness. The longest pause you’d ever heard.

He didn’t deny it.

He didn’t laugh it off.

He just looked at you.

And it was like the air in the room shifted. Something cracked open between you. Not hostile. Not afraid. Just honest.

“You’ve known?” he asked quietly.

“I figured it out after the LexCorp thing. The way you looked at me.”

He closed his eyes. Like he was trying to protect you from something — or maybe protect himself from what he already knew was coming next.

“I never meant to lie,” he said. “Not to you.”

“But you did,” you replied. “Every day.”

And you should’ve been furious. You should’ve thrown him out. Written the article. Exposed everything. But you didn’t.

Because all you could think about was the way he looked at you in the cratered street. The way he always hovered a second longer when your hands brushed. The way he saw you — really saw you — even before you ever knew who he was.

And the way he touched you now, when he reached across the table to cover your hand with his own — gentle, grounding, warm.

You hated it.

You hated the way the contact burned up your arm and across your chest like he’d set your blood alight. You hated how steady it felt, how calm, how wanted. You hated the way it made you lean in, just slightly, like gravity was tugging you toward him.

“You’re mad,” he said.

“I should be.”

He swallowed. “Are you?”

You looked at him — really looked — and saw all of it. The weight of two lives. The softness behind the cape. The man who brought you coffee when you were hungover. The man who pulled a collapsing building off a school bus.

Clark Kent. Superman. Both. All.

And you hated that he made you feel like this. Hated the way his fingers curled around yours like he’d been waiting to do it for months. Hated that your heart was pounding so loud you were afraid he could hear it.

You stood.

He stood too.

You should’ve said something. Pulled back. Cut it off.

But when he stepped forward, eyes locked on yours — when he hesitated, like he needed your permission — and when you didn’t stop him—

His mouth met yours, and the world dropped out.

You hated the way it made you forget every single reason you were supposed to hate him. Hated the way his hands were patient, reverent, like he was memorizing the shape of you. Hated the way you melted into him like you’d done this a thousand times in another life.

You hated the sound you made when he pressed you gently against the wall. Hated the tremble in your breath when his lips found the spot just beneath your jaw. Hated how badly you wanted him — and not just the cape. Not just the secret.

Him.

Clark.

You pulled him closer.

And in that moment, you didn’t hate anything at all.

You didn’t mean for it to go this far. You meant to confront him. To unearth the truth. To hold him accountable.

But now his hands are at your waist—warm, grounding, familiar—and he’s kissing you like he’s spent decades thinking about it. Like he’s imagined it in quiet mornings between bylines and burning buildings. Like it’s the one indulgence he never allowed himself to have.

Your fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt. “Tell me to stop,” he breathes against your skin. You don’t. Because you’ve wanted this. Hated how much you’ve wanted this.

Not just tonight. Not just since he walked through your apartment door with that bashful smile and that stupid, careful politeness like he didn’t have a goddamn clue you were about to wreck both of your lives.

No, you’ve wanted this since the second week at the Planet. And you’ve finally got it.

You fist his shirt and push him back against the wall, chest heaving, and when he looks at you with wide eyes and his lips parted, looking so vulnerable in a way that makes your throat ache, something inside of you snaps.

“You’re such a fucking liar.”

His breath stutters. “I didn’t want to—”

You cut him off with your mouth.

And that’s all it takes.

The kiss is desperate. Messy. Teeth knocking, breath uneven. His hands roam over you like he’s been starving for it, like he’s been dreaming about this for years. One palm slides up your back, the other fists in your hair, and you moan against his lips before biting down, just enough to make him groan.

You push him toward the bedroom.

He lets you.

You straddle him the second he hits the bed, pressing your helps down until you feel him twitching beneath his slacks, already hard, already straining. You grind slowly, deliberately, and his head drops back with a strangled sound.

You kiss him again, slower this time. Meaner. Like a punishment. Like retribution for every late arrival, every Superman scoop, every time he looked at you like you hung the fucking moon.

When you break away, you lean down, your mouth brushing his ear. “I hate you.”

His breath catches. His grip on your hips tightens.

“I hate how soft you pretend to be. I had that stupid fucking ‘golly gee’ act like you’re not hiding the most dangerous secret in the world. I hate that you touched me like I mattered, like you meant it.”

“God,” he breathes, almost broken. “Say it again.”

“I hate you, Kent.”

And then his hands are everywhere.

He rolls you over, yanking your shirt off so fast the fabric nearly rips. His mouth crashed to your neck, trailing heat down your collarbone, between your breasts, across your ribs. When he pulls back to look at you, there’s something primal in his gaze. Starved. Worshipful.

“Tell me where you want me,” he rasps.

You lean up on your elbows. “You’re Superman. Figure it out.”

His growl vibrates through your chest before he drops to his knees at the edge of the bed, dragging your pants down your thighs. He doesn’t stop to tease. Doesn’t play coy.

His mouth is on you in seconds.

Hot. Wet. Perfect.

You cry out, hips jerking, but his hands grip your thighs and hold you down, unmovable. His tongue flicks in tight, devastating circles, and then he flattens it. Slow and deliberate, until your eyes roll back in your head.

“Fuck—Clark—”

He moans against you, like the sound of his name falling from your lips is the only thing he’s ever wanted.

Your fingers tangle in his hair. “I hate this. I hate how good you are at this.”

He groans again, deeper, louder. You feel him rutting slightly against the mattress like he’s getting off just from tasting you.

The thought makes you whine.

It’s almost unfair how good he is at this. Like he’s memorized you.

He finds your clit again, circles it with obscene precision, and you arch off the mattress with a sharp gasp.

“You’re close,” he whispers against you. “I can feel it.”

“I’m going to kill you,” you pant.

“I’ll die happy.”

Your orgasm hits like a wave crashing through you, hot and heavy and blinding, You cry out, sharp and breathless, thighs trembling around his head. Clark doesn’t stop. He licks you through it, soft and reverent. Like he wants to savor every second.

You look down at him, wrecked and panting. “I still hate you,” you manage.

He grins, a real one this time, crooked and infuriatingly gorgeous. “Good,” he says. “Then you’ll hate this even more.”

And just like that, he’s crawling back up your body, slotting himself between your legs, the head of his clothes cock nudging against your soaked entrance.

And he’s still hard. Rock fucking hard.

You blink. “Jesus Christ.”

He pulls his pants and boxers down as his smile widens. “Not quite.”

You punch his arm. He laughs, but the sound dies quickly when he lines himself up and pushes in, slow and smooth, inch by inch.

You both groan. You clench around him instinctively, and his jaw locks.

“You feel—fuck. Better than I dreamed.”

“You dreamed about this?”

He leans in, kisses you hard. “Every night.”

You’re still trembling from the first wave when Clark pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes dark, pupils blown wide like he;s been holding back an entire storm.

You arch up into his hands, desperate and aching. His lips descend again. This time with hungry insistence, sucking bruises into your skin—neck, collarbone, chest—a map of possession in deep, dark purples. You try to catch your breath but he pins your arms above your head with one hand, the other trailing fire down your ribs, across your stomach.

“Don’t move,” he commands, voice trembling like it’s torture holding himself back.

You whimper, and the sound sends a shudder right through him. He nips at your inner thigh, then drags his tongue over your clit again, slower, more torturous. You didn’t even notice that he pulled out. Your legs shake uncontrollably, and he groans. A ragged, desperate sound, a whimper escaping past his lips.

“Please,” you breathe, and he smiles like you just handed him the universe.

But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t slow down.

His fingers slide inside you, circling, pressing that one perfect spot that makes your back arch and your breath catch in your throat. “God,” he pants, his mouth pressing wet kisses along your hipbone.

You’re drowning in pleasure, desperate for release. But Clark pulls back suddenly, his eyes dark and gleaming. “Not yet.”

You glare at him, frustrated and needy.

“You’re going to remember this,” he promises, voice low and intense. “Every damn moment.”

His mouth covers yours again, hot and insistent, teeth grazing your bottom lip as his fingers move faster inside you. He kisses and sucks at your neck, marking you like he’s carving your name into his skin.

Another wave crashes through you, your body shaking with the force of it. Clark doesn’t miss a beat, he keeps licking, sucking, teasing until your hips buck wildly and you're crying out his name, desperate and undone.

He hums—a deep, satisfied sound—as he pulls you into a long, slow kiss, tongue swirling around yours, possessive and needy.

“Round three,” he whispers against your lips, voice shaky but still full of hunger. “I’m not done with you.”

You shiver, heart pounding as he slides his hands under your shirt again, fingertips tracing fire trails across your ribs. He’s relentless, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re gasping, trembling under the weight of his touch. Your body still singing from the last orgasm Clark coaxed out of you. But he’s not done. Not even close.

His hands tremble as he touches you. The way he looks at you now—wide eyes, desperate, like he’s about to break—makes something wild flare inside you.

He’s not the untouchable hero tonight. He’s yours. And you own every inch of him.

His fingers shake as they ghost over your hips, then he trails a slow and reverent path back up his own body, touching himself briefly. You watch, breath hitching, as his hands work, fingertips teasing, tentative.

He looks up, eyes pleading.

You reach for him, your hands bold now, fingers wrapping around the hard length. He whimpers, a soft and needy sound, and his hips jerk forward, pressing into your grip.

You kiss him hard, biting his lower lip as you tug his jeans down just enough to free him. His skin is impossibly warm under your touch, slick with heat and desire.

Clark’s breathing is ragged, his chest rising and falling quickly. He presses himself against you, hands tangled in your hair, holding you close like he’s afraid to let go.

You take control, guiding him down until he’s lying back, breathless and vulnerable. You straddle him, sliding your heat against his ache. His hands cup your hips, trembling, and he whimpers softly as you begin to move.

“Fuck,” he groans, voice thick with need. “So good… God, you’re so good…”

His eyes squeeze shut, mouth falling open, exposing raw, desperate pleasure. He’s never been like this, the strong and invincible Superman, not when it comes to you.

He whines when you shift, when you grind, when you tease that sensitive spot that makes him arch into you, hips jerking uncontrollably. Then you sink down onto him.

“Please, don’t stop,” he begs, voice breathy and broken.

Your hands slide over his chest, feeling the rapid thumb of his heart beneath your palms. He’s lost, undone, and it’s yours to keep. You ride him slowly, building, driving him higher, feeling every shiver and gasp as his pleasure months.

He whimpers your name over and over, voice cracked and raw. “More.” He begs, fingers clutching your hips tighter. You give it to him.

Faster now. Harder. The room fills with the sound of skin sliding, ragged breaths, and his desperate, needy whimpers. When he comes, it’s shuddering and loud—hips bucking wildly, mouth open in a ragged cry.

You collapse against him, breathless, hearts pounding together in a thunderous rhythm. He pulls you close, lips brushing your hair, whispering your name like a prayer. And you hate that you don’t want this to end.

10. You hate that you love him.

You told yourself it wasn’t possible.

Not with Clark Kent—Mr. Always-Late, Mr. Aw‑Shucks, Mr. Exclusive‑Scoop Superman. The man who made you roll your eyes before you even opened his email. The man who kept secrets that could’ve rewritten your career. The man you once swore you'd never let in.

And now you’re waking up tangled in his arms, back pressed against his chest, his breath warm against your neck. He’s asleep—still shirtless, still soft beneath the weighted duvet like he’s the one who needs comfort, not the other way around. Your mind whips through all the reasons you shouldn’t feel this calm. This safe. This full.

You hate him.

You hate how he made you laugh at that stupid coffee joke you said while complaining about the crime desk. You hate how he trails kisses along your eyelids when you’re half-awake just to check if you're really real. You hate that he’s Superman—because knowing he could see the world in one blink, yet he chooses to stay here, beside you… it almost hurts.

You roll over carefully and catch his gaze.

He blinks. “Morning.” His voice is rough, like he’s just been dragged out of a dream you wish you were in too.

You raise an eyebrow. “Morning? You know you’re not even supposed to exist before 8, right?”

He grins softly, stretching, then wraps an arm around you again. “I got a day off,” he says. “Superman’s on vacation.”

Your lips twitch. “Vacation. That’s rich.”

He chuckles into your shoulder. “So you don’t mind.”

You scoot back enough to face him. “I mind that you’re gorgeous at 7 a.m. and I can't even hate you for it.”

He quirks his mouth. “Sorry.”

“Oh no, it’s fine.” You tap the bridge of his nose with a finger. “Let the world survive without Superman for one day. Let me hate you slightly less.”

He laughs, and it’s the softest thing in the room. Your chest tightens. You’ve hated him for a lot of things—his lateness, his lies, his speed-of-light heroism—but none of it compares to the strange ache of joy when he smiles at you this way.

“We should get breakfast,” he says, voice low like he’s testing gravity. “I know this place downtown that has killer cinnamon rolls.”

You sit up. Hair messy, pajamas rumpled. You cross your arms. “I hate cinnamon rolls.”

He scowls in mock horror. “Not real humans dislike cinnamon rolls.” Then softer: “Fine. We’ll go anywhere you like.”

You narrow your eyes. “I’ve lived decades off burnt coffee and reuse foam. I don’t crave anything sweet.”

He’s thoughtful for just a beat. “Okay. Black coffee and stale bagels it is.”

A grin tugs at your lips. It’s so utterly him to tease. So… effortless. You're flooded with old habits—cynicism, sarcasm—and they feel braver than you thought.

But then his thumb brushes gently over your hand. And underneath the banter you suddenly realize how loud your heart is.

You clear your throat. “But seriously—I hate that I love you.”

He stills beside you. Heartbeat thunders under his palm.

“You know,” he says quietly, voice cracking just a little, “I hate how worried I get when you pull investigative duty alone.”

Your gut clenches. “You’ll fly here if anything happens.”

He nods. “In five seconds.”

You stare at him. Really stare. This is not Superman breathing next to you—this is Clark. Vulnerable. Human. Loving.

In that moment, all the hate evaporates.

“We’re a mess,” you laugh softly, looking away.

He brushes a strand of hair behind your ear. “Best mess I’ve ever been in.”

He kisses your temple lightly. Tender. Long. Enough that you’ve lost count of everything you should hate about him.

And you hate that this moment isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning.