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nymphadora7 · 10 hours ago

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𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐭

You like to rush things. Clark takes things slow until he can’t anymore. (Or, you attempt to seduce your coworker in a series of little skirts, and while Clark falls in love with all of you, the skirts don’t hurt.) 4k words, fem.

˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚

It’s mildly manipulative, what you��re doing to him. Subtle seductions stretched far and wide between weeks of work, your eyes alighting a moment too long on his lips and his neck and his arms.

You don’t flirt. That’s important. You don’t tell him how handsome he looks when the cold has rosed his cheeks. Won’t mention the poor fit of his gray suit, how it’d look far better on a bedroom floor, or draped across a bathroom stall. Nothing severe. You’re… teasing him.

For no reason, really. It might be frustration, but wow, wouldn’t that be introspective? You know you could never land a guy like Clark, so you pretend. Blah blah blah, it’s all very boring and your skirt is very short.

Alright, it’s not that short. It’s the illusion of the thing. The idea that he could get a glance at something, even though the skirt has an inner lining.

You’re not, you know, obvious about it. Clark might not be looking. But you place your hand on the counter as you reach up with the other for a mug, and you know there’s a stretch of thigh on show if nothing else, heat of a real or imaginary eye on the backs of them as you sigh softly. You genuinely can’t reach.

You settle back on your heels and turn to find Clark not too far away. “Hey, would you help, please? If you can reach it.”

You can’t glean any overt interest from his expression, but he says, “Sure,” with warmth on his lips, like he’d gone to say something else and let it fizzle out.

Clark opens the cabinet door wider and reaches in for a pink mug. It has ‘sweetheart’ written on the side in white, textured font, though the script is elegant.

“Here, sweetheart,” he says.

You laugh, mostly to see his satisfied smile. “Thank you.”

“Can I make it for you?” he asks.

Clark could hang you upside down and shake you for spare change if he wanted. “You know how I like it.”

Teasing aside, you spend the afternoon sipping at your coffee with Clark a desk away, Lois adjacent, listening to the click of tens of keyboards and the scritch of shuffled paper on the edges of desks. You work on your small cooking column in relative silence. Three recipes a week, minimum. If you do especially well, Perry lets you slide a conversational piece across his desk for reviewing. You’ve had a couple on the third page. Clark has taken the front page again this week —an exclusive interview with Superman about the Jelly-Mecha that attempted to swallow the WGBS building.

You’re leaning back with a leg over your knee, your eyes dedicated to the little clock in the corner of your monitor, when somebody hooks the empty chair in the desk beside yours and wheels it over. Clark is sitting next to you before you can protest, a dark-sugared donut in his hands.

“Okay?” he asks.

“Are you sharing?”

“Obviously.” He grins, pulling the donut in his hands apart. Sugar crumbles down into his lap, and the smell of it erupts between you. Apple-cinnamon, miraculously warm when he presses it to your fingers.

“Thank you.”

Your quiet doesn’t perturb him. He matches your tone, “Yeah, don’t mention it.”

“Where’s this from?” you ask, taking your first bite.

He takes his own, covering his mouth with his hand as he answers. “Beanies.”

“That explains why it’s still warm.”

He shrugs. You don’t get what it means but you don’t care to argue, savouring each mouthful of dough and sugar. You lick the crumbs from your fingers and the corners of your mouth. Clark ate his own half fast, ‘cos he’s a giant with an appetite you envy and revile; in your most humble opinion, it is both impressive and audacious to watch Clark house a BLT in half a minute.

“Was that good?” he asks quietly, his eyes on your shining fingertips.

You wipe them on the edge of his napkin. An achy heat eats at your stomach. “You’re spoiling my appetite.”

“Do you have big dinner plans?”

“Huge! I’m testing something new tonight. Snow mountain garlic and pea risotto, for health week. It’s not particularly healthy,” you confess. “But snow mountain garlic has all these supposed special properties. Doesn’t matter if it’s true, though.”

“Why not?”

You like his tone. “It has more allicin. That’s what makes it taste good.”

“Allicin is antibacterial,” he says.

“Brilliant. Antibacterial risotto.”

He holds your eyes for a moment, his own big and especially blue behind his straight frames. “I hope it goes well,” he says.

It’s a measured sentence, like he’s crafted each word carefully as he said it.

“I’ll bring you some if it does.”

“I’d like that.”

You hide how warming it is to be spoken to like that, carrying the feeling home with you to unravel against the stovetop. If you try harder than usual to make a good meal, it is nobody’s business but your own, and Clark’s, who sits waiting and ready at his desk the following morning.

“Clark Kent on time?” you tease, letting the handles of your handbag fall into your elbow. “Who would’a thought we’d ever see the day?”

“I can be punctual,” he promises.

“Can you? Aren’t you on probation?”

“That wasn’t for tardiness, it was for sick days, and no. I’m no longer on probation.” He smiles with white, shy teeth, a peek of them from between his lips. “I’m on the straight and narrow.”

You imagine the hardness of them against your own lips as you lean in for a kiss, for a split second. The clack you’d inevitably make as your teeth knocked into his, as you hooked your arm behind his neck and dragged him down to you for some light force.

“‘Cos you’re a good boy,” you murmur, mumble, more to yourself than him (though he is definitely meant to hear you).

Clark’s face is still. His hands less so, a fist curling against his thigh. His smile is remarkably genuine. “Coffee?”

Calling Clark a good boy might be flirting. Or not! What’s important is the way it softens him for the working day. How quietly awed he sounds as you unveil a Tupperware container full of risotto for him. He tells you it’s good between big bites. You want to nibble on him, taken by the curve of his bicep each time he brings up his fork, and the tip of his tongue darting out to catch a grain of rice. He’s killing you. You’re dying at the Daily Planet.

Dramatics aside, he compliments your risotto egregiously, returning the Tupperware with a pristine shine. You don’t play short-skirt with him for days.

When you do, the skirt is a delicate thing that isn’t as short as you’d expect considering the name of the game, but it’s nearly sheer. Standing in the right light, your hip smushed to the pillarway near his desk while Jimmy tells you about a new kind of giant slug they found living in West Africa, you assume you’re displaying what you’d seen in the mirror that morning. Given enough sunlight, the lavender fabric of your skirt goes translucent. Anyone in looking distance can make out the barest hint of your legs, their shape, a shadow of your thighs and the neat little underwear you have on beneath. You aren’t trying to harass him, but, this is Metropolis. It’s not the most conservative place when it comes to fashion. It isn’t much different to wearing a pair of daisy dukes.

They’re cuter than denim shorts, though. Velveteen paisley overlaying plain panties.

It’s not entirely a sex thing. It’s to feel sexy, sure, as an arm to feeling beautiful, desired. You want to know that Clark (handsome, kind, beautiful Clark) sees it, that he wants it, even if it’s a fleeting flash of lust and nothing else.

And Clark —he doesn’t notice. Doesn’t say a word about it, doesn’t clench his fist or take in a sharp breath.

You decide you like that just as much and return to your desk, happily ashamed.

—

The pasta you made yesterday is far better today. The mushroom sauce has soaked into the fusilli. With a scratching of fresh cheese, you lay it over a fresh bowl of rocket and watercress, coat the entire thing in lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and flaky salt, and eat it enthusiastically behind your computer.

“That smells amazing.”

You lighten at his dulcet tone. “It’s pretty good. D’you want some?”

“I’m trying to keep you fed, sweetheart,” Clark says, placing down your ‘sweetheart’ mug and a small plate, “not the other way around. Thank you.”

His thank you is diligently gentle. He must work at it, to sound so docile. It has to be practised.

The small plate homes two cupcakes. One has golden cake with a great dollop of fresh cream and cut raspberries atop it, and the other looks like a darker flavour. Ginger? The buttercream is thick and caramelised, with cookie crumbs between its peaks.

“What have I done to deserve all this?” you ask.

“You don’t have to do anything at all. It’s your afters. Your dessert.”

“I haven’t done anything?” you ask.

He shakes his head kindly. “It’s inherently deserved.”

If he’s charming or teasing, you can’t tell.

His eyes fall from your face. You get distracted by his details, the clean hills of his cheeks, his dark brows, sweet mouth and a sweeter nose broad enough to take a kiss or two, and you almost miss the stroke of his gaze lingering on your collar. His fingers twitch. “Can I?” he asks.

You follow his finger. One of your straps has fallen down, leaving the simple pale elastic of your bra alone. You couldn’t have faked it better. “Sure,” you say under your breath.

Clark hears it regardless, slipping a fingertip up your arm, a backwards tumble that threatens to send tattle-tale goosebumps over your skin. He hooks the strap under his fingers and brings it over your shoulder, pulling at it enough to make your eyes widen. Then his touch is gone, leaving a strange sensation in its place.

“You’re dressed really pretty, today,” he says.

You smile at the joke before you’ve said it. “As opposed to every other day,” you say.

“This is beautiful. You look beautiful.”

You duck your head. Sincerity in the face of your sarcasm inspires an amazingly dizzy feeling in the stem of your neck. You have to force back a smile.

“Thank you, Clark. I’m… glad you think so,” you say eventually. There’s emphasis there for him to take or leave.

You can see his hesitation, then, a palpable pause while he makes a decision.

“It’s a nice skirt,” he says quietly.

There’s nothing imposing in his tone, but there doesn’t need to be. He isn’t tall, dark, and handsome, he’s incredibly, scarily brilliant. He’s smiling at you like you’ve given him a compliment.

“It’s a little brave,” you say.

“Bravery suits you. Anyways,” —he touches your arm briefly— “don’t let me keep you. Eat your lunch. Hopefully your coffee won’t be too cold to enjoy when you’re finished.”

You wish he’d press you up against a wall. He did notice the skirt. He has the self control to leave it alone, or at least to wait for you to bring it. And… yeah, that’s working for you, actually. Really working. You stood in the sunshine to give him an explicit view of your legs and he brought you cupcakes to say thank you.

—

Apparently, there are limits to Clark Kent’s self control.

You’re lavishing in Centennial Park under a gorgeous sun. It’s barely seventy two degrees, a tame heat for July in Metropolis, and yet the sun is hitting you just right, kissing at your skin, leaving you sated and heavy under its weight. Clark has rolled up his sleeves (a contributing factor, perhaps, to the contentness you’re carrying) and loosened his tie, sitting where you’re laying down, a sweet hand held to your knee. Today’s skirt is a bias-cut midi dress made of a dark sage green. There are bell-sleeves like petals and a neckline you aren’t worried about, not when he’s guarding you like this. You shift on your back to better feel the sun on your face, and he pulls the skirt along the inside of your thigh. Keeping it in place to protect your modesty, setting every nerve-ending you have aflame with pleasure.

“Tell me if you feel too warm,” he says.

“I’m not worried about the sun.”

“What are you worried about?”

“Oh, the usual. That some weird space creature is gonna break the atmosphere and kill us,” you croon.

He delights in your tone, his thumb sweeping a line into your leg. “I won’t let anything kill you.”

You’d kissed his cheek in the elevator because the line of his nose had looked rather unkissed, and his cheek had been the politer option. You hadn’t expected the quick turn of his head, or the complete lack of nonchalance about him as he’d smiled and laughed and pressed that same cheek to your temple as he’d hugged you with one arm.

So now you’re here in the park because you hadn’t wanted him to stop touching you. The summer dress wasn’t part of your seductions but it seems to be working all the same. You’re hoping you’ll get a kiss of your own to settle the score before the sun goes down. With where his hands are resting, you aren’t sure where you want one most. One hand on your thigh, one on your knee, his body turned to you like it’s the natural thing to do. He could be generous and give you a kiss beneath both palms. You think you’d quite like that.

“Do you worry about that a lot?”

“Hm?”

“The aliens… The space creatures, do you worry you’ll get hurt?”

“Not really. We have a great protection detail, don’t we?” you ask.

He’s quiet for a bit. “What do you think about him?”

You don’t ask, Superman? Of course he’s talking about him. “He’s extremely handsome.”

Clark laughs boisterously and shakes you by the leg. “Alright. Knock it off.”

“Or what?”

“Or nothing. Just knock it off.”

He makes everything sound so satiny.

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he adds.

“Promise?”

Half a joke. Clark pushes his glasses up onto his nose and finally leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your elbow where your arms are crossed over your chest. “Yeah. I promise.”

You let him walk you home. That night, one of the star-shaped superaliens appears in the air near your apartment and then there’s a breathless Clark on the line asking if you need some company. You tell him no, ask if you can see him tomorrow when the dust settles, and he promises you that his Saturday was all yours. He actually says it, says, “I think you could ask me for anything after today and I’d try to do it for you.” He’s laughing to diffuse the weight of it, but you take it to heart.

A Saturday turns to Sunday. A week turns to two. You and Clark trade careful kisses anywhere but the mouth and he doesn’t mention your little skirts. You keep wearing them, especially the velveteen lavender one too sheer for summer, layered over a short silk underskirt to protect your own wits. You’ve seduced him (have you?) but now you’d really like to keep him.

It’s a Tuesday morning with little to give. The air is already warm, the tram platforms are full. You commute to the Daily Planet for another day of dedicated journalism.

Jimmy begins the morning with praise. “I made your honeycomb macarons. I actually made them.”

“And?”

“And? They were amazing! You’re such a goddamn genius,” he says.

He gives you a macaron from a tin shaped like Yoda. The cookie is sweet with that perfect, delicate crunch, and the honeycomb ganache is better than your own. You take another one from his tin, giving him a congratulatory pat on the elbow. “They’re amazing!” you say, shells and honeycomb pieces thick in your mouth.

“What’s amazing?”

You remember where you are urgently.

“I made macarons,” Jimmy says.

Clark doesn’t make fun of his pride. “Really? That’s awesome, man. Can I try one?”

You swallow the lump in your mouth, washing it down with a quick swig of coffee.

“Morning,” Clark says.

“Hi. Good morning.”

“Hi,” he says, fond. “How has your day been so far?”

You lick your lips without thinking, sweetness lingering in the stick of your lipgloss. “It was good, yeah. The tram was hot.”

“You look good.”

Jimmy wrinkles his nose. “Guys, we talked about this.”

“‘Bout what?” Clark asks, finishing his macaron in one bite.

Jimmy is kind enough to roll his eyes and leave it alone, wandering off with his tin clutched to his chest. Clark rolls his eyes too, a secret gesture that has you laughing through your nose.

“You do look good,” he says again.

You look down in mild bewilderment. “It’s laundry day.”

You’re in a pair of black slacks that threaten to slip off your hips at any moment and a button up that should be tight to the waist but unfortunately isn’t. You’d saved the outfit with a necklace and a handful of jewelled rings, but it’s nothing like the stuff you’ve been wearing as of late. Of course he’d notice.

“This…” He raises a hand to your hip but doesn’t touch.

“What?”

His thumb presses to a slip of skin so small you hadn’t noticed it was visible. His brow creases like he’s been burned, yet his hand remains where it is. After a heavy second, he squeezes, and he says something too quiet to hear to himself.

“Clark?” you ask tentatively. “You okay?”

“You have no clue… no clue what you do to me.”

His eyes are all on you. Deep, indigo-blue.

Heat leeches up your neck. Your heart capers suddenly. “What do I do to you?” you ask, your tentativeness turned to silk.

“Don’t.”

“What do I do, honey?” you ask, nearly whispering now. “I don’t have a clue, right? So tell me, then, what I do to you?”

“What am I supposed to do?” His fingers adjust against your hip. “Why would you do this here?” Clark’s voice breaks with a put-upon heartache. He’s still smiling. “What am I supposed to do, here?”

“Take me somewhere else.”

His hand falls away from your hip. You can feel where his fingers had shaped your skin for minutes afterward, following him with a poorly faked casualness to the elevator.

He hits the button for the basement as you step in.

“I think they’re still printing,” you say. The mock-up copies get made in the basement, and it’s an all day affair. “It’ll be as busy there as it is–”

No sooner has the elevator started moving than Clark is hitting the emergency stop.

“Clark!” you say.

“Can I kiss you?”

He doesn’t laugh. You lean away from him to take in his long body, his grey suit and red tie and the wetted run of his bottom lip. He has honeycomb in the very corner of his mouth.

You raise your hand to wipe it away.

“Yeah, okay,” you say, tilting your chin up slowly.

Clark grabs two great, heaping, greedy handfuls of your back, long fingers spread out and guiding you in for a kiss you aren’t expecting. There’s genuine hunger there, your teeth clicking as you’d always imagined, a voracious sort of meeting that quickly gentles. He lets out a sigh against your lips and melts against you like a stick of butter over a flame, lax, a hand traversing upward and over and– and his mouth, his kisses are these open, warm mouthings you meet with a stammering heart. This isn’t the slip of control you’d imagined it to be.

Clark’s kissing you without an ending in mind. You can feel it in the tenderness of his open palm, seemingly laid to sleep at the small of your back.

“How long does that work?” you ask in a murmur, your lips happily stung.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done that before.”

“Really?”

“When would I have had reason to try?” Clark asks, cupping your cheek in his hand. “You’re so pretty.” He steals another quick kiss. “Do you know that?”

“I can’t believe this is what got you to crack,” you laugh.

His eyebrows pinch. “What?”

“This,” you gesture to your clothes. “Of all the things I’ve worn.”

“I don’t understand.” Though it’s dawning on his face quickly. “Oh. You– The… Oh.”

His neck goes all shades of rose.

“Sorry,” you whisper.

He tips your head back nicely. “For what? I would’ve cracked anyway. You could’ve worn anything, but… The little purple skirt, that was for me?”

You press your flushed face to his chest, arms crossing lazily behind a strong neck. “Clark…” you mumble.

He digs his face into your neck to kiss the softness beneath your ear. You’re surprised he doesn’t whine your name back to you, what with the mood he’s in, but Clark’s got a propensity for sweetness that won’t quit.

“On purpose,” he whispers, vindicated. “I knew it.”

The elevator chugs back to life.

—

You are delightfully, blissfully human. There comes a time when you need saving, and it just so happens that Metropolis brags its very own (and very only) Krypton superbeing. One minute you’re being squeezed in the fist of a raspberry-furred mega fox thing, and the next you’ve been freed and grabbed and propelled through the air in arms that feel oddly familiar.

“Miss, are you okay? Miss? Miss, are you alright?”

You look down at the ants of your city and nearly puke up your dinner. “Oh my fuck,” you squeeze out.

“I’m sorry! I’m taking you back down. There’s a girl, breathe in for me. Deep breaths.”

You can hardly breathe at all, but your shallow breaths earn you a thank you and a proud pat on the back. Your legs are shaking so hard at touchdown that Superman has to physically arrange them beneath you, his arm glued to the small of your back when you list unsteadily.

“You’re okay,” Superman assures you.

His little curl is ever so darling. “Like Clark’s,” you say unthinkingly, wrapping the short strands of hair around your finger.

“Are you alright?” he asks, generously ignoring your moment of delusion.

“I thought I was gonna die.” You blanche, glancing back over your shoulder for signs of the megafox. “Fuck.”

“Everything’s fine, now. I promise you.”

You take a deep breath. Superman holds you by both shoulders, forcing you to copy a second, deeper breath, then a third.

“Good girl,” he murmurs.

Too much like Clark. “My boyfriend, he was–”

“Everyone’s safe.”

You let out a shaky breath. The last of your panic ebbs from your shoulders. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, thank you. For saving me. Thank you so much.”

“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” he says. His voice goes bendy and weak.

“I really do. If I died in this skirt, my boyfriend would never forgive me.”

Superman gives you an appraisal, up and down. Heat flares in your stomach and refuses to cool as he smiles. “Wouldn’t wanna ruin a skirt like that,” he says knowingly.

You shake your head, not without fondness.

All boys are the same.

˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚

thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed <3 and thank you Bec for reading it twice at different times

#YES #dc #dcu #dceu #fic #clark kent

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