nor

finally, he folds the newspaper across his knees. “i wanted to talk about something,” he says, careful, like he’s threading a needle with words. “about… superman and lois. i could tell it was bothering you… in a way.”

your chest tightens. your stomach twists into knots. you’d been dreading this conversation, and yet you had to hear it. “i thought… i thought they were…” you trail off, unable to find words for the envy curling in your chest. “you know.”

clark tilts his head slightly, watching you. “they’re friends. nothing more. superman wouldn’t betray me by… going after you, either. he wouldn’t. he respects boundaries.” he pauses for a moment, swallowing. you watch the way his adams apple bobs. “he respects me.”

respect. loyalty. words that feel like fire coiling in your chest. and yet you want to argue, want to shout, want to demand that it doesn’t make sense. that he’s meant to notice you, that he should.

“so… they’re just friends?” you whisper, voice catching.

“friends,” clark confirms. his eyes are soft, patient, unwavering. “lois isn’t… not in that way. superman trusts her. he relies on her. that’s all. nothing more. i introduced them when lois and i were dating, back when we both were just starting at the daily planet.”

you nod, pretending the words ease the sting in your chest. they don’t. they only sharpen the nettles beneath your skin, reminding you of all the things you’ll never have, of all the ways your heart aches for someone you can’t reach.

“do you ever… think about him?” your voice is softer than intended, almost drowned out by the city hum.

clark’s gaze drifts to the distant skyline. “of course. but he’s someone who moves through the world in ways i can’t. he’s not yours. he’s not mine. he's not anyones. he’s just… there. sometimes close, sometimes not. always untouchable.”

the honesty stings, sharper than you expected. you think of the last rooftop interview, of lois leaning in, laughing, of the bright blur of red and blue swooping through the city, and you feel small, invisible, human in ways you can’t reconcile with.

“to love me is to suffer me,” you whisper, almost ashamed. “it’s like that with him, isn’t it? i’ve never—lois always gets the interview, but i can tell. he’s tormented. those around him are tormented. it’s hard to be a superhero. hard to be around one, too. he’s just so… magnetic”

he just lets the words hang between you, quiet and raw, like nettles pressed to bare skin. he doesn’t laugh at how naive you seem. he doesn’t judge.

“it doesn’t have to be that way,” he says finally, voice low and careful. “you make the rules. it’s however you want it to be.”

“i don’t… i don’t know how i want it to be.” you confess, voice cracking slightly.

“you don’t have to know. not yet. feelings don’t follow rules. they’re messy. they hurt. they confuse. that’s normal.”

you swallow, nodding, letting his words sink into the bruised corners of your heart. he’s right. the pull between him and superman coils tighter with every passing day, twisting in ways that leave your chest hollow and aching. 

clark is steady, warm, tangible.

superman is perfect, impossible, untouchable.

“i want him. ever since he saved me, clark. i don’t even know him, and yet i’m pulled in. it’s painful, and makes no sense. i hate it.”

i hate it because you’re here, you desperately want to add. but this is clark, the man who would rather shoot himself than look at a woman the wrong way. 

he’s too polite. too warm. too good to be brought into the mess that is your feelings.

too perfect for you to even dare entertain the idea of liking him, because what if you don’t? what if you just like the idea of him?

he tilts his head, a soft smile brushing his lips. “and that’s okay. like i said, it’s supposed to hurt. it’s supposed to be confusing. you don’t have to fix it all at once.”

and for the first time, you allow yourself to look at him, really look, noticing the small things—the crease of his tie, the curl of his hair, the patience that radiates in everything he does. 

he is human, grounded, safe in a way superman never can be.

but even as you study him, the pull toward superman remains, coiling, prickling.

a familiar ache that won’t be ignored.

over the next few days, the tension simmers. you watch him in interviews, catch glimpses of superman saving lives, always near lois, laughing, joking, untouchable. 

your notebook becomes a refuge, scribbling observations to distract from the aching in your chest, but it doesn’t help. 

it never helps.

clark is there too, always quiet, always patient.

sometimes he leaves traces of himself—a coffee on your desk, a newspaper article with the headline circled, a small smile when you look up and catch him watching. 

his gestures are tiny, almost imperceptible, but they coil around your heart like vines.

and yet, the pull toward superman is magnetic. irresistible. 

the hero hovering above the city, light glinting off his cape, impossible perfection, untouchable.

you wander the streets at night, rain tapping on your shoulders, neon reflecting in puddles. you replay interviews, flashes of heroism, lois leaning in close, the sound of laughter you can’t ignore. the city hums around you, a thousand little nettles scraping at your skin, each one a reminder of what you cannot have.

that evening, a rescue downtown pulls you again. another car teeters on the edge of a bridge—you’d think by now, the metropolis city council would’ve passed a motion to build better bridges. 

superman arrives in a blur of motion, calm, precise, carrying the driver to safety. lois narrates the scene with bright excitement, documenting every heroic detail.

your hands shake as you write, heart thrumming. clark is there when you’re done, leaning against your car, soft as a shadow. “hey,” he murmurs. “how’d the rescue go? how are you?”

“i’m fine,” you lie, a common occurrence at this point. "the rescue was fine. no one got seriously injured. pretty sure the driver will sue the city."

he sighs quietly, not pushing. he doesn’t know, and even if he did, he wouldn’t push. he lets you unlock your car. lets you throw your stuff in aggressively. lets you drive off after a few short words. he lets you do whatever you want—whatever you need.

lets you feel the sting of longing and envy without interference.

the nettles scrape deeper. your chest burns. you feel pulled in two directions.

toward clark’s warmth. his grounded presence.

toward superman’s perfection. untouchable and luminous.

the park is quieter on saturday after you leave the office. streetlights smear gold across wet sidewalks, puddles reflecting the neon glow from storefronts. the air is thick with the smell of rain and damp leaves, and it scratches at your skin like tiny nettles, a constant, familiar ache.

clark is already there, leaning against the same bench as before, his glasses fogged from the humidity. he doesn’t speak at first. just watches you approach, as though he’s waiting for the right words, or perhaps waiting for you to untangle yourself.

“you’re late,” he says finally, not a reprimand, just a gentle observation.

“traffic. the crosswalk decided it never wanted to be green.” you murmur, sitting beside him. your coat sticks to your back. your hands fidget in your lap. “it’s… been one of those days.”

he nods, as if he understands exactly what kind of day that is. “do you want to talk about it?”

you hesitate. part of you wants to spill everything—the envy, the longing, the sharp pangs whenever you see lois leaning into him, the way superman’s presence makes your chest ache. 

but the words catch in your throat.

“i don’t know where to start,” you whisper.

“then don’t,” he says. simple. patient. grounding.

the silence stretches between you. the city hums faintly in the distance, a river of noise, and somewhere above it all, somewhere out of reach, you imagine him—superman—slicing through the night sky, uncatchable, glowing, untouchable.

“clark…” you start, voice small. “do you… do you ever think about him? superman?”

he shifts slightly, glancing at you, then out toward the darkened city. “you’ve asked me this before.” he hums, pausing for a beat before continuing. “but yes, all the time. to me he’s more than just a friend, more than anything you can measure. we’ve been through things together… things i couldn’t put into words. i’d trust him with my life. and he’d do the same for me. but…” he glances at you, and there’s a softness there, almost painful, “…that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to exist in the space beside him.”

you swallow hard. the words twist in your chest. “but lois…”

“she’s a friend too,” clark says gently. “he doesn’t—i mean, i’ve said it before and i’ll stand by it: he wouldn’t betray me. and she isn’t… she’s not the kind of person to take that from me. it was an amicable breakup, if you care.”

and somehow, the relief is laced with guilt. your stomach knots. you want to want to be free of the pull, but you’re not. not even a little.

“it’s…” you begin, but the words fail you. “it’s so complicated.”

clark smiles faintly. “it’s supposed to be.”

you groan, annoyed by his sudden wisdom. never tell a man he is a modern socrates—a mistake you made the first week you were assigned to work with clark—or else he will spend the rest of his life attempting to be plato and aristotle. 

you glance at him, really see him, and something catches you—his warmth, his steadiness, the patience in his eyes. “and… you?” you ask, voice tentative. “where do you fit into all of this?”

he tilts his head, a small laugh escaping. “i’m in the shadows,” he admits. “not unnoticed, but… not the one glowing up there in the sky either. i’m here. patient. watching. waiting. hoping, maybe, that you’ll notice me for what i am, even if it isn’t obvious.”

your chest twists. part of you aches at the admission. part of you feels… guilty. guilty for thinking about superman the way you do, for longing for him in a way you can’t reconcile.

maybe clark knows you better than you think. maybe clark knows what it’s like to be you.

“i…” you falter, looking down at your hands. “i don’t know what to do. i can’t… i can’t stop thinking about him.”

you’re reminded of the conversation you had a few days earlier, sitting on the same bench. the only difference, is this time there is the underlying thought of what if? 

he reaches out, and for the briefest moment, his hand brushes yours. just a fleeting contact, a spark, nothing more—but it makes your heart skip. “you don’t have to decide yet,” he murmurs. “feelings don’t work like that. they don’t follow rules. sometimes they surprise you. and that’s okay.”

clark knows. there isn’t a going back. you’ve begun to entertain the idea of liking him.

you let yourself breathe, let his words sink into the ache, the confusion, the longing.

later, walking through the city streets, you find yourself replaying every encounter—superman swooping in on rooftops, lois laughing, clark’s quiet gestures of care. every detail coils tighter in your chest, a vine of desire, envy, and guilt.

you whisper under your breath, your fingers tracing the damp leaves along the wrought-iron fence of the park. “to love me is to suffer me,” you add quietly, almost ashamed. “and i believe that.”

clark watches, silent. he doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t judge. the city hums around you, and the nettles scrape against your skin, leaving marks you can feel even in the soft warmth of his presence.

“you’re… you’re thinking too much,” he says eventually, voice low. “maybe it’s easier if you just… exist in the moment. feel what you feel, and let it be. the rest will sort itself out.”

you nod, letting the wet air fill your lungs, the distant hum of the city and the faint glow of neon lights wrapping around you. you glance at him, not just looking through anymore, but looking to truly see him: the gentle curve of his smile, the patient tilt of his head, the way he listens without rushing, without judgment.

and in that moment, you feel the ache of longing stretch between you and clark and superman and lois, a tangled web of desire and loyalty and envy.

you straighten up, your hands finding comfort in the pockets of your jackets, letting the night and the city wrap around you. the nettles sting, the neon flickers, the rain hums faintly on the leaves. and somewhere in that tangle, you realize: you don’t have to decide yet. 

not tonight. 

not here.

you can sit with the ache, the envy, the longing, the warmth, the steady hand of clark beside you—all of it, all at once.

and maybe that’s enough. for now.

days pass like this—gray, wet, the city humming around you—and each one stretches the ache in your chest just a little further.

jimmy makes a comment about how it’s the rainiest october metropolis has experienced in five decades. it seems fitting that your first october in the city is the worst in half a century. 

clark shows up, as always, with coffee in hand. the steam curls between you like a fragile promise.

“thought you might need this,” he says, holding it out. you take it, fingers brushing his for a second, and it’s electric. small, fleeting, and yet it leaves your heart hammering.

“thanks,” you murmur, voice quieter than you intend.

he doesn’t press. doesn’t ask why your hands shake, why your gaze drifts constantly toward rooftops, toward the places superman might appear. he just sits beside you, letting you breathe, letting the ache settle where it may.

you can’t help yourself. you watch him. notice the small things: the way he tilts his head when he’s listening, the crease in his tie, the quiet patience in his smile. the way his accent peaks through his words when he's rushed, or feeling some surge of emotions. 

he’s human, and grounding, and you can almost imagine a life beside him. almost.

but then the thought of superman swoops into your mind, impossibly perfect, glowing in the night, and the small warmth of clark’s presence twists into nettles in your chest. envy, longing, guilt. 

all tangled in ways you can’t untangle. not right now. not by yourself.

you scribble notes in your notebook, trying to distract yourself. interviews with superman, flashes of him swooping through the city, lois laughing. every detail pricks at you like sharp leaves against bare skin.

clark watches quietly, letting you write. sometimes he points out a small detail you’ve missed, gently, with a softness that makes your chest ache in a new way.

“you’re… quiet today,” he says finally, voice low, careful.

“i’m fine,” you lie, not looking at him.

“do you want to talk about it?” he asks, patience in every syllable.

you hesitate. then, finally, the words spill, heavy and raw: “it’s just… i can’t stop thinking about him. about superman. and every time i see him, everything—everyone else feels smaller. i feel small.”

he nods, eyes soft, unreadable. “he’s… larger than life. yes. but that doesn’t make you smaller. you exist. even if he’s untouchable, that doesn’t erase you.”

you look at him and the ache in your chest twists again. his words soothe, and yet they prick.

 he’s steady, real, grounding. 

superman is impossible, untouchable, blinding.

the rain begins again, soft, tapping your shoulders, slicking the streets and leaves. you let it soak your hair when you leave the building that evening, feel it run down your coat. clark doesn’t flinch. he stands beside you, silent, patient, letting you exist in the storm of your own longing.

later that week, he finds you on a rooftop, notebook in hand, staring at the city skyline. the lights blur in the rain, neon bleeding into puddles. you’re scribbling fragments of thoughts, snapshots of interviews, fleeting glimpses of superman. trying to capture him on paper, trying to make sense of your own emotions.

“you’re getting good at that,” clark says softly, stepping beside you.

you startle, and then laugh nervously. “i’m… trying. it’s… a way to focus.”

he glances at your notes, brow furrowing in gentle curiosity. “do you ever write about yourself?”

you freeze. “myself?”

“yeah. your thoughts, your feelings. not just… observations.”

you bite your lip, unsure. he’s right. you’ve been writing about superman, about lois, about laney, about the ache in your chest, but never fully about you. never about what it means to exist in this tangled web of longing and envy.

“sometimes,” you admit finally. “but… it’s hard. the feelings… they’re messy. i don’t know where to start.”

he nods, a slow, understanding movement. “then start small. a sentence. a word. a thought. it doesn’t have to make sense yet.”

“when did you get so smart, kent?”

you write, letting the rain smear ink across the page. words come, halting at first, then flowing.

clark watches silently. there’s a faint catch in his gaze, something unspoken, something almost painful. you don’t notice, too lost in your own spinning thoughts.

he shifts closer, just a fraction. you feel it. warmth. grounding. but your eyes flick toward the rooftops, toward the glow you can’t reach, and your chest tightens. the nettles scrape deeper.

“you know,” he says finally, voice soft, “you’re allowed to feel all of this. envy, longing, confusion. it doesn’t make you weak. it makes you… human.”

and it’s true. you nod, letting yourself breathe, letting the rain wash over the ache.

but the pull toward superman is relentless, impossible, blinding. it coils around your chest, prickling, stinging, reminding you of everything you can’t touch.

that night, back in your apartment, you replay every interaction in your mind. small gestures, quiet words, the way clark sits beside you and listens, the way superman swoops across the skyline, untouchable, perfect, adored by everyone.

you write in your journal.

and somewhere in the hum of the city, in the blur of rain on windows, you feel both torn and alive.

clark is there, patient, human, grounding. 

superman is there, untouchable, glowing, impossible.

the nettles scrape at your skin. the ache twists in your chest. and you realize, finally, that this is where you exist. 

between longing and loyalty, between envy and warmth, between what you want and what is.

and maybe, just maybe, that’s enough for now.

he moved around the room with that same gentle disarray, stacking papers no one had asked him to, straightening chairs. you watched him through the glass reflection—his tie a little crooked, his shoulders too broad for the room. he looked like a man trying to hide a cathedral under his shirt.

“last night again?” he asked.

“always,” you hummed. “you?”

he smiled, small and polite. “just finishing a piece.”

it was the kind of answer that meant nothing. 

you both trafficked in those—answers that smoothed the surface, never disturbed the water.

you turned back to your screen. 

the cursor blinked inside a sentence that would not finish itself. the story was about nightlife in metropolis. synthetic apparitions of not being lonely. you’d written the phrase twice and deleted it both times. 

too honest.

clark appeared beside your desk holding a paper cup. “you look like you could use this,” he smiled.

“is that an observation or a rescue mission?”

he looked startled, then laughed, soft and clean. “maybe both?” you took the coffee. your fingers brushed, just enough to feel the static hum.

from outside came the restless traffic, horns and sirens layering together, a symphony of false urgency. the city always sounded like that—on the verge of something.

“you ever notice,” you began, unsure of how to phrase your words. it seemed like writers block was  going to affect even how you spoke. “how metropolis is always pretending it’s awake?”

he leaned against the edge of your desk, loosening his tie. “you think it’s not?”

“it’s just caffeinated. there’s a difference.”

that made him smile again, the kind of smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “you don’t like it here.”

“i like the idea of it,” you shrugged. “i like the shine. the way it pretends to mean something. it’s like living inside a commercial for happiness.”

he nodded slowly, looking out through the window where the skyline shimmered in electric halos. the daily planet globe turned lazily above them, casting its spinning light across his face. for a moment, you saw the other version of him—the one who didn’t belong to gravity.

“you’re good at pretending, you know.” you added after a moment.

his gaze flicked toward you. “what do you mean?”

“i mean—” you gestured vaguely toward his posture, his tidy haircut, the glasses that didn’t fit right on his face. “this whole thing. the small-town reporter act. you’re almost convincing.”

he froze for half a heartbeat, then looked down, smiling as if the comment were only teasing. you didn’t press further.

the game between you two had no rules, but it had boundaries—unspoken ones. lines neither could cross. 

for you, it was saying who clark truly was. for clark, it was becoming too close to you.

outside, thunder rolled somewhere over the river. no rain, just the threat of it. metropolis had been in a drought for weeks, the air thick with static and exhaust.

“do you ever miss it?” you asked suddenly.

“miss what?”

“where you came from. your home.”

he hesitated, long enough for you to know you’d brushed against the truth. “sometimes,” he said finally. “but i try not to. i was just a baby when i left. i don’t remember it at all, all i have is videos. plus, the more i think about it, the less i understand where here is.”

you nodded. “that’s very american of you.”

he looked at you then, properly, like he was seeing the edges of you for the first time. “and what about you? you’re from here, aren’t you?”

“close enough. suburbs. malls and diners and church basements. my parents thought the city meant salvation. i thought it meant escape.” you paused. “turns out it just means noise.”

he tilted his head, listening. “noise can be good. it means life.”

“or, it means you can’t hear yourself think.”

the fluorescent lights flickered above you, a brief seizure of white. somewhere below, a siren rose. it was a sound only he could really hear. you caught the shift in his posture, the way his shoulders squared almost imperceptibly.

“go,” you muttered quietly.

he blinked. “what?”

“you heard something. you always do.”

he stared at you, and for a moment, the air between you two felt like glass about to shatter. then he smiled, awkward, almost bashful. “you have a good imagination.”

you raised an eyebrow. “and you have a terrible poker face.”

he laughed again, that same small, uncertain sound, and for a moment you wanted to reach across the desk and touch the edge of his sleeve, just to prove he was real. 

but you didn’t. instead you leaned back, feigning disinterest. “you should write something real for once,” you sighed. “not another city-beat piece. something that means something.”

he looked thoughtful. “maybe i will.”

“good… maybe i’ll read it.”

when he finally left the room, the air seemed to expand behind him, like it had been holding its breath. you watched his reflection disappear in the glass, then turned back to your blank document. the cursor blinked patiently. 

the city hummed below, lit up like an idea that refused to die.

you typed a new line: metropolis looks alive tonight, but only from far away.

then you deleted it.

from the window, you could see a faint streak across the sky. too fast. too quiet. too small. too much of anything and yet not enough at all to be a plane. 

you smiled to yourself, not sure why.

somewhere above the skyline, he was already gone. and down here, you were still pretending not to be lonely.

the next time you ran into clark was only a short few days later. rain still had not come, and  the air outside the daily planet building was thick enough to drink. heat rose off the concrete in invisible waves, and the sky had that strange violet tint metropolis got in summer. it was too bright to be real, like someone had overexposed the stars.

the air outside the Planet building was thick enough to drink. heat rose off the concrete in invisible waves, and the sky had that strange violet tint metropolis got in summer—too bright to be real, like someone had overexposed the stars.

you pushed through the revolving doors and found clark standing there on the steps, sleeves rolled to the elbow, the day’s last edition tucked under his arm. 

he looked like an idea someone had of an honest man.

“you again,” you grinned.

“just heading home,” he replied, a polite tone to his voice. “you?”

“pretending i have one.”

he smiled a little, uncertain whether you were joking. you weren’t sure either.

you started walking together with no destination, carried forward by the city’s current. 

neon signs blinked and fizzed overhead, spilling pink light on the sidewalk. the streets were crowded but somehow lonely—everyone half looking for someone else, half pretending not to.

a group of young people laughed too loudly outside a bar, their voices echoing off the glass. someone shouted something about dreams. the word didn’t sound real anymore.

clark was the first to break the silence. “you know, i’ve lived here a few years now and still don’t know where i fit.”

“that’s the point,” you sighed. “nobody fits. we just learn to look like we do.”

he glanced down at you. “you say that like it’s easy.”

“it’s not. it’s american.”

he laughed softly. “you make that sound like a bad thing.”

“i wouldn’t say it’s bad. it’s just… rehearsed.” you crossed an overpass where the river shimmered below, black and glassy. from here, metropolis looked like a promise—gold light, constant movement, the illusion of order. “i used to sneak out here when i was a teen,” you hummed, leaning on the railing. “from my parents’ house in the suburbs. i thought if i could see the city lights, i was part of them. i thought that meant something.”

he stood beside you, watching the water. his reflection looked almost human. “did it?”

you shrugged. “i don’t know. maybe that’s why i moved here—to find out.”

“and?”

“it’s brighter up close… but not truer.”

he smiled faintly, still watching the river. “where i grew up, you could see the milky way at night. here, it’s all drowned out.”

“by us,” you murmured.

he turned to you then, and for a moment you caught something raw in his face—an ache, or a question. 

“you ever stop pretending?” you asked.

he opened his mouth, closed it again. the lights from below made his glasses flash white. 

“you’re allowed to.” you added quietly.

the wind shifted, carrying the smell of ozone, the faint hum of power lines. he looked at you like the question had weight, like maybe you could see right through him. 

and you could.

a few nights later there was a staff party—cheap champagne, lukewarm music, everyone laughing too loudly about deadlines and rent. 

clark stood near the wall, awkward in his good suit, like someone who had read about parties but never quite attended one.

you found him there, two drinks in hand. “you hiding or observing?”

he smiled. “a little of both.”

“come on,” you laughed, tugging at his sleeve. “let’s get some air.”

you left together, and the city swallowed you whole.

by the time you reached your building, you were barefoot, shoes dangling from your fingers, hair tangled by the heat. 

you climbed the narrow stairs to the roof, where the sky pressed down heavy and starless.

“nice view,” he noted, his eyes on the skyline.

you laughed. “it’s mostly billboards.”

he leaned against the railing, sleeves rolled again, the skyline burning gold behind him. you sat on the ledge, opened a can of soda from the vending machine, and offered it to him. he took it without a word.

“i used to think the suburbs were the whole world,” you said abruptly. “my mother would cut coupons and call it survival. my father sold cars and called it freedom. everyone smiled like they’d rehearsed the gesture a hundred times. you learn to sound sincere before you know how to be it.”

he listened, quiet, the wind teasing his tie loose. “that’s harder than lifting buildings,” he said.

you turned to him. “what did you say?”

he blinked, startled. “nothing. just— just trying to say it sounds hard.”

“mmm…” you smiled. “you’re strange, clark.”

“i’ve been told that.”

“don’t fall in love with the moment,” you said suddenly.

he looked at you, confused. “i wasn’t planning to.”

“you will,” you said, and smiled like you were tired of being right. “you’ll think it’s love with me.”

for a long while, neither of you spoke. the city hummed below you, each light a small declaration of loneliness.

later, in your apartment, you stood in the half-dark. 

the air smelled of rain that wouldn’t come.

you handed him a glass of water, but he didn’t drink it. you stood close enough to feel the charge between you, the faint static of nearness. 

you reached up, touched the rim of his glasses. “you don’t have to hide so much.”

he caught your wrist, gently, as if afraid to hurt you. “it’s not that simple.”

“i think it is.”

he looked at you then, really looked, and you could almost see it—the impossible otherness of him, flickering beneath the polite disguise. you’d wanted to ask what the sky looked like from where he came from. instead you said, “you should go.”

he nodded, slow. “yeah. i should.”

when he left, the air in the room felt thinner.

you stood at the window, barefoot, watching the lights blink on and off in the distance. somewhere above, a streak of color crossed the clouds—red, blue, gone.

“there’s no more freedom in this city,” you whispered. you didn’t know why you’d said it.

outside, the night kept humming. synthetic apparitions of not being lonely.

in the weeks that followed, the heat broke. 

rain returned to metropolis in thin, uncertain threads, rinsing the dust from the streets but not the ache from the air. the newsroom smelled of damp paper and bad coffee. deadlines multiplied. everyone looked a little softer under the fluorescent light.

you were seeing each other now, though neither had named it.

you would find him in the mornings, sleeves rolled, writing like the world depended on whatever ordinary sentence he was finishing. 

sometimes you’d sit on the edge of his desk, pretending to read proofs, watching the way he pushed his glasses up with one finger—an unconscious tic, almost human. at lunch you’d walked the perimeter of the park outside the daily planet. he bought hot dogs from a vendor and you didn’t eat yous, only held it while talking. 

he noticed but said nothing. you noticed him noticing.

“you really are a kanas boy,” you teased. “straight lines, clean conscience, ketchup on everything.”

he smiled. “you say that like it’s a flaw.”

“it’s adorable,” you hummed, though the word sounded like an apology. “you make decency look like an experiment.”

he laughed. “and you make cynicism sound romantic.”

you shrugged. “it’s a living.” you kept walking. clark simply followed. 

pigeons scattered like gray paper across the fountain. somewhere downtown, sirens began to wail. he flinched—a barely perceptible tightening of the jaw. you reached for his sleeve.

“don’t,” you pleaded.

he looked at you. “people need—”

“not now,” you sighed. “they’ll still need you tomorrow.”

he hesitated, torn between worlds, and for once he stayed.

later, at your apartment, you poured you both glasses of wine. he barely touched his. 

you lit a candle on the table though the air was already warm.

“do you ever get tired of being good?” you asked.

he thought for a moment. “it’s not goodness. it’s habit.”

“same thing,” 

he looked up. “no. habits don’t ask questions.”

you smiled around your glass. “maybe that’s why i like you. you still think there’s a difference.”

the candle sputtered, wax pooling against the rim.

you two became a rhythm of almosts. 

nights spent in half-dark rooms, mornings separated by obligations neither could name. you learned the way his voice changed when he was about to leave—the softening, the apology built into every goodbye.

once, in the reflection of your bathroom mirror, you caught him without his glasses. it startled you—the brightness in his eyes, unfiltered, like looking at sunlight too long. 

he put them back on quickly. “better?” he asked, as if he were worried about your response.

“almost,” you answered. then, teasingly: “if you fixed your teeth, you’d be perfect.” he blinked, unsure if you were joking. you smiled to soften it. “relax. it’s a compliment. you look too flawless; it’s unnerving.”

he laughed, low. “thats the first time i’ve been accused of that.”

“flawless?”

“unnverving.”

you leaned against the doorway, studying him.“that’s because you still believe in things. you don’t know how rare that is.”

he looked at you with something like wonder, or pity. “maybe you should try it.”

“believing?” he nodded. you shook your head. “i grew up in an american city, clark. we’re taught to want everything and mean nothing. it’s efficient.”

the words landed heavier than you meant. he didn’t argue.

you spent an afternoon on the rooftop of your building, the city breathing below in mechanical sighs. 

you laid beside him on the tarred concrete, one arm flung across your eyes. “tell me something true,” 

“i’m from kansas,” he answered automatically.

you laughed. “everyone’s from kansas.”

he smiled but didn’t continue. the wind lifted a strand of your hair; he reached out, hesitated, let it fall back against your cheek.

you lowered your arm, looking at him. “you’re still pretending.”

“maybe i’m learning.”

“to be human?”

he nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“how’s that working out?”

he thought for a long time. “it hurts more than i expected.”

you smiled sadly. “then you’re getting it.”

that night, when he left, you stayed awake listening to the hum of the city—sirens, air-conditioners, the constant static that passed for silence here. you wondered if he could hear all of it at once, the way gods must hear prayers: endless, contradictory, unfinished.

in the distance, thunder rolled again, though the sky stayed dry. you closed your eyes, imagining him above it all, the skyline mirrored in his pupils, the city lights turning him mortal.

you thought, he loves this place the way only someone not born here could. and maybe that’s why you loved him. because he still believed america—the world—was something someone could save.

by late august the air in metropolis turned metallic again. 

rain had vanished; puddles became dust-colored stains. the river shrank back from its banks like something ashamed of itself. everyone complained about the heat, but you knew it wasn’t the weather. 

the city was just exhausted.

clark still came by, sometimes through the front door, sometimes through the window. you stopped asking which was the disguise. he’d drop his jacket over the chair, loosen his tie, sit on the floor like a man who’d forgotten what chairs were for. 

you would talk about nothing—traffic, deadlines, the neighbor’s radio—until the pauses grew heavier than the words.

you noticed the new stillness in him. it wasn’t distance, exactly; it was weight. the more good he did, the quieter he became. 

sometimes he’d stare out the window as though listening for something only he could hear, and you’d wonder if it was the world crying or the sky calling him back.

“you’re somewhere else,” you frowned one night.

“i’m everywhere else,” he answered. that should have frightened you, but instead you felt relief. it meant the miracle was wearing off.  it meant the two of you were coming back to earth.

at work you moved through the newsroom like a ghost. 

stories about disasters crossed your desk—floods, fires, political tremors—and you could read none of them without hearing his voice under the headline. 

there’s no more water in this city, you thought, but he still thinks he can make it rain.

you went home early, opened the windows, let the hot wind move through. from the street below came the tinny chorus of a song spilling out of someone’s car radio—bright, ironic, too young to mean it. 

she’s american, it insisted. 

the words felt like an accusation.

you stopped seeing clark at work—he was there, of course, but you never saw him. he took the long route to the break room. he never stopped to talk to jimmy when you were at your desk, which happened to be right next to the ginger’s. he took the back elevators, or the stairs, never the main ones.

when he came again, he looked thinner, as if the world had been skimming pieces off him.

you poured him a glass of water. he didn’t drink it. “you don’t have to save me,” you began, voice unsteady.

he smiled faintly. “i wouldn’t know how.”

“you already did. you made me believe for five minutes that the world was worth fixing.”

“wasn’t that the point?”

you shook your head. “no. the point was that we could stay small together.”

he took off his glasses, rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “small doesn’t last.”

you stepped closer. “neither does perfect.”

outside, thunder again. he looked at the sky like it was an open door.

later, after he left, you wrote a single sentence on a scrap of paper: the man who could hold back oceans cannot keep a promise.

you folded it, slid it into a book on the shelf, and forgot which one.

days passed. 

the green turned brown again. you walked to work through a haze that smelled of overheated asphalt and wilted flowers. in reflections—storefronts, bus windows—you sometimes caught the shape of a man above the skyline, a flicker, a rumor of color. 

you told yourself it wasn’t him. or maybe it always was.

when the rain finally returned, it didn’t fall gently. it came like a collapsing building. streets flooded within hours. you stood on your balcony watching the city drown in its own relief, and for the first time in months, you felt clean.

somewere high above, he must have been moving faster than the storm. you imagined him cutting through the clouds, pulling lightning apart with his hands, trying again to balance the impossible.

you whispered into the downpour, half a prayer, half a goodbye. “don’t fall in love with the moment.”

only the thunder answered.

autumn came late that year, slipping into metropolis like someone trying not to wake the city.

the heat lifted, and for a moment everything looked cleaner than it was—glass washed in new light, trees trying again at color. you thought it might be a trick of distance. you hadn’t seen him in weeks. not since the storm.

sometimes, in the lull before sleep, you swore you could still feel the tremor of air pressure that announced his arrival—the sudden stillness, the way the room would hum for a heartbeat before he stepped through.

but it was only memory, and memory has good manners: it always knocks, even when you wish it wouldn’t.

you met him again by accident. or maybe he planned it.

it was a quiet evening in mid-october, a coffee shop on the corner of 49th where no one looked twice at anyone.

he was there already, sitting by the window with a paper folded neatly in front of him, as if he were rehearsing being ordinary. he looked up when you walked in, and the moment paused—long enough for you to notice the small things. the hair too perfect to be wind-tousled. the eyes too kind for their own good. the faintest crack in the disguise: the way his stillness filled the room.

“hi,” you breathed, because what else could you say.

he smiled that soft kansas smile that had always undone you. “hi.”

you sat. nether of you reached out to touch.

outside, the light had that copper tint peculiar to october—beautiful, but only because it’s dying.

“how have you been?” he asked.

“fine,” you lied. “you?”

he hesitated. “busy.”

“i bet.”

the silence stretched, tender and unbearable. he reached for his coffee but didn’t drink it. you watched the steam rise, contorting into something you wanted to name.

finally, you broke the silence. “you look tired.”

he laughed quietly. “you always said that.”

“you always are.”

he nodded, as if accepting the fact. “i still hear you, sometimes. when i’m flying. like an echo.”

“don’t romanticize me,” you said gently. “i’m just one more voice in the static.”

he studied you. “maybe. but it’s the one that sounds human.”

you wanted to ask him a thousand questions, none of them fair: are you lonely up there? do you miss pretending? do you dream, and if so, is it of us?

but all you said was, “you remember that night—the one with the thunder?” he nodded. “you looked at me like you were trying to memorize something.”

“i was,” he said.

“what?”

he smiled, small and rueful. “how to stay.” your throat tightened. there was nothing left to answer with. you both sat like that until the sun disappeared behind the skyline.

you paid for your coffee. he didn’t stop you.

at the door you turned once more. “you’re still saving them, aren’t you?”

“trying,”

“you’ll drown first,” you murmured.

he smiled. “i know.”

then you walked out, and the bell above the door gave a sound like glass breaking.

that night, back in your apartment, you opened the window.

the city’s air was crisp, full of radio noise and the far-off thrum of helicopters.

somewhere beyond the clouds, you knew he was moving—fast enough to undo the world if he wanted.

you leaned against the frame and whispered, not quite to him, not quite to yourself: “don’t fall in love with the moment.”

the stars flickered once, like they were answering.

you watch from across the street, notebook unopened in your hands, pretending you’re here to record the city in the aftermath of the latest attack. 

the neon buzz of downtown seems to hum just beneath your skin, matching the thrum of envy and self-loathing that pulses with every flick of her wrist, every tilt of his head.

i’ll never blame her, you tell yourself. i kinda hate her.

yet, you stay. you always stay.

the interview is scheduled for two in the afternoon.

he lands gracefully on the rooftop, the wind catching his cape like it’s made of light, and suddenly the distance between admiration and obsession collapses into something raw. he looks at you when he introduces himself—not for long, not with that deep, consuming gaze that stays for lois—but enough to make your stomach flip.

“thank you for coming,” he says, voice calm and even, the kind that could make a city stop in its tracks without raising an eyebrow.

you nod, scribbling notes. your hand shakes just a little. he doesn’t notice. or maybe he does, but chooses not to care.

lois is effortless beside him, leaning in, asking questions you would never dare. you watch every tilt of her shoulder, every sly smile that he returns. it’s unfair. he’s polite, attentive—but the warmth is reserved. 

it always is.

later, when the cameras have stopped rolling, he hovers near the edge of the rooftop, looking down at the streets.

“you want to see what it looks like from up here when the city sleeps?” he asks, voice softer now.

lois leans in, eyes bright, and you want to throw your notebook at the ground.

“maybe another time,” you murmur, forcing a laugh that tastes bitter.

he glances at you, the smallest flicker of disappointment crossing his features. and then he’s gone, leaving a hollow warmth where you wish his attention had landed.

you walk home through the rain afterward, city lights smeared across the wet asphalt. the droplets catch on your eyelashes like tiny stars, and every so often you imagine him in the sky, looking down, seeing everyone, choosing everyone—except you.

you try to write it down. the words feel wrong, heavy in your chest. but perry told you to write. to be personal

i’ll never be that kinda angel, you scribble. i’ll never be kind enough to me.

clark kent is waiting at the office the next day, briefcase slung over one shoulder, tie askew. he smiles when he sees you. “morning,” he's holding two cups of coffee like always. one for him, one for you.

“morning,” you mutter, trying not to look at him too long.

he notices anyway. he always notices. small things: the way your fingers drum on your notebook, the curl of your hair against your neck, the quiet tension that’s always wrapped around your shoulders.

“i hear you got to interview him yesterday,” he says, voice casual, but you catch the edge. curiosity, maybe worry.

“yeah,” you reply. “it was fine.” you don’t say it was torture. you don’t say the way your chest constricted watching him with her, watching him look like he belonged to someone else.

“i’m sure you were great,” clark says, smiling. and somehow, that hurts too. because you know he thinks you deserve his kindness, but you’re not looking at him. 

you’re only looking through him.

another public appearance; a bank robbery. he swoops in, carrying a terrified clerk in one arm, the flash of blue and red impossibly bright against the night. 

you’re there, notebook in hand, heart thundering with both fear and awe.

the cameras pan, capturing every heroic move, every unearthly detail. and you stand at the edge of the crowd, knowing you’ll never be enough to make him look at you like he does when he’s leaning close to lois, laughing with abandon.

and yet, you watch.

lois smiles in ways that break your chest, and each time she leans closer to him, you feel your stomach twist, a mix of envy and awe.

you try to focus on the words, the articles, the city, but everything bends back to them. every headline, every flash of red and blue, every laugh, every tilt of shoulder.

i’ll never blame her. i’ll never be the one he would see. i’ll never be enough.

because why would you? what could you ever do to make him see?

clark notices your pale fingers wrapped around the notebook the next morning, the way your jaw is set so tight you’re cutting off circulation without meaning to.

“coffee?” he asks, holding two steaming cups in front of your desk later that evening.

you shake your head, embarrassed. “i’m fine.”

“you’re not,” he says. flat, impossible to ignore.

and you stare at him, mouth half-open, because he’s right. always right. the coffee smells like almonds and something else you can’t name. like hope you’re not allowed to feel.

“i’m just… tired,” you mutter.

“then let me carry some of that,” he says, quietly. and for a fleeting moment, you almost imagine him being the one you want.

almost. but then lois appears in your mind. her laugh, her tilt of shoulder, the way he looks at her—and you shove it down.  the yearning curls into shame.

you start noticing him in little ways—how he lingers outside the window when the rain is falling, hands deep in his pockets, gaze distant. 

the smallest things feel monumental: the way his fingers brush the papers when he hands them to you, the way he tilts his head when he’s listening.

one night, you catch him watching a rescue on the news. the reporter calls it miraculous. you know it’s him.

“he’s amazing,” you whisper to no one.

clark is beside you, quietly listening, and you feel a flash of guilt because your words were meant for him, though you don’t realize it.

“he is,” clark says softly. “but so are the people who help him, even in small ways.”

you glance at him, heart tugging. he’s smiling faintly, gentle and aware. 

it’s platonic. it’s warm. it’s… steady.

and you look away, unable to recognize your feelings for him, because all your longing is for someone else entirely.

as the week drags on, your envy coils tighter.

lois’s voice is in your ears when you write your notes, her laughter echoes in every hallway. every time she’s near him, you feel yourself shrinking, folding into the smallest version of yourself you can manage.

you hate her. you love her. you hate yourself for caring.

and then he comes by, clark, not him, carrying an extra sandwich because he knew you’d been too busy to eat lunch.

“thought you might need this,” he says, rolling his chair from his desk to be across from you.

you force a smile. “thanks.”

he watches you eat, not judging, not teasing. 

just being. 

and you think, for a fraction of a second, maybe someone can see you like that. maybe someone can care for you quietly, without expecting the impossible.

but the thought vanishes, replaced by the impossible reality of lois lane— and how she will always have the laugh that makes him forget to see the rest of the world.

the week stretches thin with rooftops, interviews, and glimpses of the impossible hero.

one night, a rescue on the bridge. traffic snarled, cars teetering over the edge, the city screaming below. 

you’re there, notebook ready, hands trembling. you’re scared, maybe. of what, you’re not sure. but the tremor in your bones won’t go away no matter how hard you will it to.

he swoops in, all impossible grace and light. she’s beside him, notebook capturing every heroic angle, voice alive with exhilaration.

your pen drops. your stomach burns. your chest aches. you feel like screaming and crying at the same time.

clark appears behind you a few minutes after he disappears and lois vanishes. “hey,” he murmurs. “are you okay?”

“fine,” you lie.

he sighs softly, but doesn’t push. 

he doesn’t know.

and even if he did, he wouldn’t touch it.

later, you write in your notebook, just like perry told you to. you doubt he meant he wanted you to write such personal things, but weren’t they good for cat, steve, or clark to use?

i’ll never blame her. i’ll never be that angel he sees. i’ll never be enough. i’ll never be kind enough to me. and yet i can’t stop looking. i can’t stop hoping that maybe one day he’ll see someone like me. but he won’t. not really. not like her.

the city hums beneath your window. rain on glass, neon reflections, the faint whoosh of cars — and somewhere in the distance, a streak of red and blue slices across the skyline.

you press your palm to the glass.

“be safe,” you whisper.

you know he won’t hear you. despite the rumors of superhearing you’ve been fed from cat and jimmy, you know he’ll never hear you. and you know it doesn’t matter.

and still, it’s all you can do to feel like a part of the world is holding you up, even if it’s the part you can never reach.

the week continues on, another monster attack on wednesday morning, a missing kid that same evening, a bank robbery on friday. by the time you’re off the clock, you’re exhausted.

night falls over the city like a velvet curtain, wet with rain and neon streaks.

you wander the streets alone, notebook clutched in your hands, not because you’re looking for something to write about for the sunday column, but because it feels like the only thing keeping your fingers busy. 

every reflection in the puddles is fractured — a thousand little pieces of yourself that you don’t recognize anymore.

you saw him today, again. just for a moment, through the chaos at a press event. 

he was there, all impossibly bright and calm, moving through the crowd like he belonged to the sky, to everyone, to someone who isn’t you. lois was at his side, leaning in, asking questions that made him laugh in a way that should have made your chest explode, and yet it didn’t. 

it made it ache.

i’ll never be that kinda angel, you murmur under your breath, biting the inside of your cheek.

i’ll never be the one he would see.

clark stops by your apartment later, carrying a folder of notes. house calls were becoming a common occurrence, for some reason. jimmy liked to poke and tease, making off-handed comments about how he hadn’t seen clark like this since lois first began to work at the daily planet. 

you ignore him. it’s easier that way.

“hey,” he says, voice gentle, like a hand brushing against your back when the world is too sharp. “thought you might want these.”

you take them without looking up. your jaw is tight. you know you shouldn't, but you invite him in; you let him sit down at your table while you pour over the notes.

he sits across from you, careful not to crowd, and watches you arrange the papers.

“you’ve been quiet,” he says softly.

“just thinking,” you murmur, avoiding his eyes.

he nods, understanding, though he doesn’t press. clark knows you better than anyone, but you don’t know that yet. or maybe you do, and you just don’t care. 

your heart is somewhere else entirely, tracing the lines of a hero you’ll never touch.

days pass in a blur of press briefings, quiet moments you steal in the office, and the occasional rooftop interview. green lantern, hawk girl, mr. terrific—every hero metropolis had to offer. 

none measured up to him. 

he’s always there, in the background, calm and certain. the way he looks at the city, at people, at the small things that matter, it makes your chest tighten in ways that leave you breathless.

lois leans in close during one interview, too close, asking questions that make him laugh so openly that you feel the acid burn of envy in your gut. you force yourself to smile. you tell yourself you’re happy for her. 

that you’ll never blame her for trying to make it.

but it’s not enough.

you hate her. you love her. 

you hate yourself.

one saturday evening, you’re assigned in a rush to cover a heroic rescue downtown with lois—a car dangling precariously from a bridge. “supes will be there, i can just tell. if he is there, my people are there.” perry muttered as he pushed you towards the elevator, despite your attempts to tell him you really weren’t feeling like covering superman anymore. pleading for him to give the story to anyone else—clark, cat, hell even jimmy.

by the time you arrive, he’s already there.

he moves with a grace that feels almost inhuman, yet the kindness in his eyes is unshakable. he sets the driver down, checks for injuries, makes jokes to calm a terrified crowd. all while lois documents every moment with her camera, voice rising with excitement and awe.

you scribble notes, capturing every detail, but your hands shake. your eyes sting. you feel small, invisible.

clark appears at your side without you noticing. “what’s up?” he asks. it’s casual. he hasn’t noticed the blurring in your eyes. at least, you hope he hasn’t

he is gone.

“nothing.” you say, too quickly.

he tilts his head, watching you carefully. “it doesn’t seem like nothing.”

he’s noticed. 

you glare at him, frustrated, and he doesn’t push. he just waits. just… sees. and god, that’s infuriating. how can someone be so patient, so steady, and yet never the one you’re waiting for?

later, alone in your apartment, you stare at the ceiling.

the rain taps against the window, soft and relentless. somewhere in the distance, you hear sirens—faint, comforting, terrifying all at once. 

and you imagine him, moving through it, unshakable, heroic, untouchable.

you close your eyes and picture the last time you saw him up close, the warmth in his voice, the steadiness in his hands. you remember lois’s laugh, the way she tilts her head when he talks. the way he chooses her.

and it burns.

clark texts you later, simple: coffee tomorrow?

you don’t reply immediately. your fingers hover over the keys. he’s kind, gentle, patient. he wants you. and yet, your thoughts drift immediately back to him.

him.

the one who would never notice you in the way you need. the one whose eyes are always searching for someone else.

you type: sure.

the next morning, he meets you at the corner cafe. coffee for both of you, the kind he knows you like, almond and slightly bitter. 

he smiles when you arrive. “thought you could use a good cup.”

“thanks,” you murmur.

he doesn’t ask why you’ve been quiet. he doesn’t push. he just sits, lets the city wake around you, and for a moment, you feel almost… normal.

almost.

you talk about the city, the stories you’re covering, the small human moments he notices but doesn’t need to comment on. clark leans back, listening, watching, waiting. 

and you feel the sharp ache again—because even in these small, quiet moments, you can’t feel the same for him.

you’re only here for someone else entirely.

that evening, a faint commotion near the river draws your attention. 

the police tape, the flashing lights. a rescue.

he’s there, impossibly bright, carrying someone to safety. lois captures every moment, narrating for the crowd. she’s always there. you scribble in your notebook, your chest tight, your stomach hollow.

you leave the scene before the rescue is even complete, too upset at something you can’t quite explain to bother sticking around.

that night, you don’t fall asleep as quickly as you were hoping to. sleep seems to be playing tricks on you, leaving you staring blankly up at your ceiling. 

your phone buzzes, clark probably, but you don’t bother to check.

part of you clings to the hope that one day, he’ll look at you like he looks at her. another part, deep down and hidden away, hopes you’ll look at him the way he looks at you.

you don’t know what to make of that second feeling. what to do with it. with how panicked it makes you feel. how vulnerable.

how real.

so for now, you write, you watch, and you ache.

“yeah?”

his voice is sandpaper and sleep.

or maybe gunfire and guilt.

you can never tell the difference anymore.

you don’t say anything. the quiet stretches so long it becomes a sound of its own. you can hear him breathing, faintly, the kind of careful sound someone makes when they’re trying not to wake the ghosts in the room.

then, soft: “you drunk?”

the truth is yes. the truth is you've been drinking for hours. the truth is you put on his old t-shirt earlier—the gray one that smells like engine oil and winter—and you've been sitting on your kitchen floor pretending it still fits right.

but what you say is, “no.”

he exhales, a half-laugh that isn’t really a laugh. “okay.”

there's a pause, and you can feel him deciding whether to hang up. he's good at that—the clean exit. but you beat him to it. “don't,” you bein, the word slipping out small and raw. “please.”

“don't what?”

“hang up.”

silence again. then, quietly: “you know i can’t do this with you right now.”

“right now?” you echo, laughing, the kind of laugh that hurts the back of your throat. “when, then? when you’re dead again? when you’re busy pretending you don’t know me?”

he doesn’t take the bait. he never does. “you home?”

“where else would i be?”

“i'll be there in ten.”

click. the line dies.

you stare at your phone until the screen goes black, then set it face-down on the counter like it’s guilty of something.

he's always good on his word.

nine minutes later there’s a knock. two quick, one slow.

the kind of pattern only someone who lives like a secret would use.

when you open the door, he’s standing there in that black leather jacket that looks like it’s been through hell and liked it. his helmet is tucked under his arm, and his hair is still damp from rain.

“hey,” he says, voice tense.

“hey.”

it's a word that could mean a thousand things—i missed you, i hate you, please don’t leave yet—but neither of you have the courage to pick one.

he steps inside without waiting to be invited. you let him. he always moves like he’s afraid the room might bite him, slow and careful, eyes everywhere but on you.

“you shouldn’t have called,” he says finally.

“i know.”

“then why’d you?”

“habit.” it's not a lie.

he glances at the counter, at the glass still sweating beside the bottle. “you've been drinking.”

you shrug. “so?”

“so, you don’t drink.”

“i do now.”

you gives you that look—the one that’s equal parts frustration and worry, like he’s already halfway through scolding himself for caring. “cranberry juice?”

“vodka cranberry.”

“of course.” he sets the helmet down on the counter beside it. "classy.”

“fuck you.”

his mouth twitches. “there she is.”

you hate that he can still pull a smile out of you with that voice. hate that he knows how to say there she is like he’s been looking for you, when he’s the one who left.

the rain’s stopped, but he’s still dripping on your floor. you hand him a towel without thinking, muscle memory more than kindness.

he takes it. “still taking care of me,” he murmurs.

“don't flatter yourself. i just mopped.”

he dries his hair, sets the towel on the back of a chair, and leans against the counter. for a moment, you just look at each other. it's the kind of stare that could start a war or end one.

finally you break the silence. “you could’ve called, you know.”

he doesn’t answer. his gaze slides to the window.

“february fourth through the sixteenth of may,” you utter. “that's how long it was last time. you disappeared. came back with new scars and that same fucking jacket. pretended nothing happened.”

he says nothing. which, in jason’s language, means: you’re right.

you laugh, but it sounds like crying. “you always do this. you vanish, then show up like you’re doing me a favor.”

“maybe i am.”

“maybe you’re not.”

he looks at you finally, eyes brown but sharp with something you can’t name. “why do you keep letting me in, then?”

the question lands heavy. you could lie, tell him it’s loneliness. maybe nostalgia. maybe even self-hatred. but the real answer is simpler and worse.

“because you always come.” that earns you a flinch. small, but you catch it.

the clock ticks. the air feels full of static. and suddenly, you want to ruin everything. to make it honest, ugly, real.

“do you hate me?” you ask.

he blinks. “what?”

“do you hate me, jason?”

his jaw tightens. “no.”

“then say you love me.”

he doesn’t. he just looks at you like he’s standing in the wreckage of something he built himself and can’t figure out how to rebuild.

outside, sirens wail. inside, you take another sip of vodka cranberry. it burns less this time.

he stays. of course he does.

jason never leaves when he’s supposed to—he waits until it hurts enough that leaving feels like mercy.

he ends up on the edge of your couch, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floorboards like they might give him an answer. you sit across from him with your knees pulled to your chest, the vodka glass sweating against your palm.

for a long time, neither of you say anything. the apartment hums. the fridge, the city, the ghosts.

“you always pick the worst nights,” he sighs finally.

“you always answer.”

“bad habit.”

“same.”

you watch him—the way his shoulders move under his jacket, the faint line of a scar along his throat that wasn’t there before. his gloves are off, fingers curled loosely together, raw knuckles catching the yellow light from the lamp. he's been fighting. he's always fighting.

“was it bad tonight?” you ask. it's not your place to ask—not your place to know either—but you can't help but wonder.

“define bad.”

“did anyone die?”

he huffs. “not anyone that shouldn’t have.”

“then you call that good?”

he shrugs, and for a moment you catch a flicker of that old boyishness beneath all the armor—the part of him that still doesn’t know how to stop apologizing to the world for surviving.

you sip your drink again, just for something to do. “you should take the couch. or the bed, if you want. i'm not sleeping anyway.”

“i'll stay here,” he says, eyes flicking toward the window.

“afraid i'll stab you in your sleep?”

his lips twitch. “you're drunk. you'd miss.”

“maybe i wouldn’t.”

he looks at you then, full-on, and there’s something like laughter buried under all that distance; something almost alive. and then he says your name. quietly. just you name, nothing else.

it hits you like a bruise under the ribs.

the last time he said your name like that was three months ago—may sixteenth—the night he came back after the break neither of you admitted was a breakup.

he showed up at your door at dawn, bloody and silent, like some wild animal that had finally decided it couldn’t make it alone. you patched him up without speaking. He slept for ten hours on your couch, and when he woke up, he asked if Iyouwanted coffee. that was his way of saying sorry.

that was always his way.

you didn’t talk about where he’d gone, or why. you told yourself you didn’t need to know. that was the deal: no questions, no strings, no expectations. but sometimes, in the middle of the night, you'd wake up and find him sitting on the floor by the window, staring out at gotham like he was waiting for it to forgive him.

that was when you started drinking again.

now he’s looking at you the same way he did that morning. like he’s half in the room and half somewhere you can’t reach.

“what?” you ask. you're not fully sure if you wan't an answer.

“nothing.”

“don't do that.”

“do what?”

“act like everything’s fine. like we didn’t—” you stop. he tilts his head.

“like we didn’t what?”

you want to tell him—about the nights you slept with the lights on because you kept thinking you heard his voice. about how every time a motorcycle passed your window, you'd check to see if it was his. about how you kept his t-shirt in the bottom drawer because you couldn’t stand to see it but couldn’t throw it away either.

but you don’t. instead you settle on: “like we didn’t break.”

something shifts behind his eyes. “you're drunk.”

“stop saying that.”

“you are.”

“so what if i am? maybe that’s the only way i can talk to you anymore.”

he exhales, leans back, runs a hand over his face. “you really want to do this right now?”

“yes, right now. because if i don’t, i'll never do it."

he looks tired—not the kind of tired sleep fixes, but the kind that lives in a persons bones. “you think i like this? hurting you? being this person?”

“i think you like disappearing more.”

he flinches. “that’s not fair.”

“neither is showing up like nothing happened.”

you sit in the wreckage of that sentence. the streetlight outside flickers. you can hear the distant siren of an ambulance somewhere down robinson street.

finally he says, “i don’t know how to be anything else.”

you swallow hard. “you could try.”

he shakes his head, almost smiling, but it’s a sad, crooked thing. “you don’t want to see me try. it's not pretty.”

“you think i haven’t seen worse?”

he doesn’t answer, but the silence feels like yes.

the clock on the stove reads 3:23 a.m. now. he's still on the couch, still looking like he wants to leave and stay at the same time.

you stand, pour another drink, set the bottle down harder than you mean to. “you said i shouldn’t have called. so why did you come?”

he looks up at you then. really looks, not just peers. “because you called.”

“that's it?”

“what else do you want me to say?”

“the truth.”

he exhales through his nose. “you don’t want that.”

“i do.”

he leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “you want the truth? the truth is i don’t know how to stop checking if you’re okay. i don’t know how to not come when you call. i tell myself i'm done, and then the phone rings and—” he cuts himself off, shakes his head. “it's pathetic.”

“it's human.”

he huffs, low and humorless. “not in my line of work.”

“then quit.”

“can't.”

“won't,” you correct.

“same thing.”

and that’s when you realize it. he’s already halfway gone. not physically, not yet, but in that quiet, invisible way people leave before they walk out the door.

the kind of leaving you can’t stop.

he stands, picks up his helmet. you stand too. you're facing each other, the air heavy with everything we can’t say.

“jason,” you whisper. he pauses. “do you hate me?”

he looks at you for a long time, eyes dark and unreadable. “no.”

“then say something else.”

he hesitates. “like what?”

“anything real.” for a heartbeat, you think he might. his mouth opens, then closes again. the silence that follows says everything.

he sets the helmet back down. “i'll stay until morning.”

and you let him. because you're too tired to argue, and too scared to be alone.

but sleep doesn't come, not to you, and not to jason.

he's stretched out on the couch, jacket off now, his t-shirt clinging damp to his shoulders. the city hums through the open window—the low growl of a passing car, the hiss of wind against brick. gotham never really sleeps; it just turns its face away.

you're sitting on the floor beside the coffee table, cross-legged, with you half-empty glass on the rug. the vodka’s gone warm. your head’s gone light. the room feels like a half-remembered dream.

“you're still awake,” he says quietly.

“so are you.”

he shifts, propping his head on one hand. “you're gonna feel like hell in the morning.”

“i already do.”

he smiles, barely. “that's not the kind you can sleep off.”

“yeah, i figured.”

a long silence follows. then kind that feels like an argument without words. then, you dare to break it. “you remember february fourth?”

his eyebrows lift. “what about it?”

“that's when you left. that time.”

he doesn’t answer.

“i marked it down,” you continue. “not because i wanted to, just because it was the only way to keep it straight in my head. i told myself you’d call. every night. for months.”

he sits up now, feet on the floor. “you shouldn’t have waited.”

“then what was i supposed to do?”

he shrugs. “move on.”

the way he says it—flat, detached—makes something inside you crack. “you think it’s that easy?”

“no,” he says softly. “i think it’s impossible. for both of us.”

“then why do you keep leaving?”

he rubs a hand over his face, sighs. “because every time i come back, it gets harder to go.”

that hits harder than he means it to. you swallow, looking down at the rim of your glass. “so what—you’re protecting me by disappearing?”

“i'm protecting you by keeping you away from the mess that surrounds me.”

you laugh, but it sounds wrong. “you are the mess.”

he almost smiles. “exactly.”

“then what does that make me?”

his eyes meet yours, slow and deliberate. “someone who deserves better.”

“that's not an answer.”

“it's the only one i've got.”

you shake your head. “you think you’re being noble, but really you’re just scared." he goes still. “yeah,” you add after a moment of silence. after you're sure he doesn't have some excuse. “scared. of loving anyone who might outlive you. of being seen for real. of staying.”

“don't.” his voice is low, warning.

“i'm right, though, aren’t i? you'd rather die than let someone actually hold you long enough to see what’s left under all that armor.”

he stands. the movement is sharp enough to startle you. “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“i know exactly what i'm talking about.”

he paces—two steps, three—then turns back. his hands are fists at his sides. “you think this is easy for me?”

“no,” you whisper. “i think it’s easier for you than it is for me.”

he exhales, sharp and heavy. “you're drunk.”

you slam your glass down on the table. the liquid sloshes, spills. “stop saying that like it makes me wrong.”

he looks at the spreading red stain, then at you. there’s a flicker in his face; something like sorrow, something like anger. “you're bleeding,” he says suddenly.

you glance down. a thin line along your palm, from the cracked edge of the glass. you hadn’t noticed.

he's beside you before you can say anything, crouching down, his voice low and steady again. “hold still.” he takes your hand in his, presses his thumb against the cut. his fingers are rough, warm. the kind of touch that says more than any apology.

“it's nothing,” you murmur.

“you always say that.”

“because it’s always true.”

he looks up at you then, close enough that you can see the flecks of green hiding in the brown of his eyes. “no,” he says quietly. “it's not.” the air between you shifts. you can smell the faint copper of blood, the alcohol on your breath, the leather still clinging to his sleeves.

“speak up,” you whisper, the words catching. “if you hate me, say it. if you don’t—”

he doesn’t let you finish. “i don’t hate you.”

“then what?”

“i can’t do this.”

“do what?”

“us.” his voice cracks on the word. “i can’t keep coming back here. you don’t understand what that does to me.”

“i understand... you’re not the only one breaking.”

he closes his eyes, like he’s trying to steady himself. “you don’t deserve to be dragged down with me.”

“dragged down?” you echo, half-laughing, half-crying. “jason, i'm already at the bottom. you think i drink like this because i’m fine?”

he flinches, but doesn’t let go of your hand. the silence between you two feels enormous. then, quietly: “looked at your picture and cried like a baby.”

“what?”

he gives a weak, almost embarrassed smile. “that's what you said in your voicemail. earlier. when you called.”

you freeze. “you listened?”

“yeah.”

your throat tightens. “delete it.”

“i did.”

“good.”

he squeezes your hand once, gently, then lets it go. “but i still remember.”

and that’s worse.

the clock blinks 4:10 a.m. now. thenight feels long enough to last forever.

jason stands, finally, and pulls his jacket back on. the quiet has settled heavy between you, but it’s not the soft kind—it’s the kind that comes right before something breaks.

“jason,” you say again. he stops at the door. “if you won’t end this, then i will.”

he looks back, eyes shadowed, unreadable. “i already did.”

then he’s gone—the door closing softly behind him, like a secret being kept.

“guess i am.”

“i don’t think i ever properly introduced myself, i’m clark.” he holds out a hand, and it’s warm, steady, like he’s holding back the whole weight of his strength just to make sure he doesn’t startle you.

you shake it. “i know.”

the day unfolds quietly. he shows you where things are as if you haven’t spent the past few weeks committing everything about the office to memory, helps you with the archives. when he laughs, it’s soft—like a secret he’s willing to share.

you tell him you’re working on a feature about the city’s public figures—a series meant to remind people that heroism isn’t always capes and logos.

he hums thoughtfully. “that’s a good story. we could use more of those.”

you glance up at him. “you think people still believe in heroes?”

he smiles, faintly. “i think they want to.”

for some reason, the answer stays with you all day.

by wednesday, you’ve settled into a rhythm. coffee at nine, notes by noon, shared silence in the middle of the chaos. he’s easy to work with—patient, unassuming. 

people seem to orbit around him in the newsroom, drawn to his calm.

once, while you’re typing, a sudden tremor rattles the glass. there’s a faint thud from somewhere far away—something like thunder. before you can look up, clark’s already halfway out of his chair, expression unreadable.

“earthquake?” you ask.

he blinks, startled back to the moment. “maybe just construction.” he sits down again, but you could swear you see dust on his sleeve that wasn’t there before.

you don’t question it. 

not then.

you start meeting outside of work, though it’s never planned. you’ll both end up in the same coffee shop near the station monday after work, or in line at the corner deli during lunch break on thursday. 

he waves, asks how your day’s been as if you’ve known each other your whole lives, not a week.

he listens, really listens, and there’s something almost unreal about how safe it feels to talk to him.

by wednesday, he feels more like a friend than anyone in your life. you mention that you’re not sleeping well, he looks at you for a long moment, then says quietly, “some people spend their whole lives trying to rest. maybe you just need to remember what it feels like.”

you laugh. “you sound like a fortune cookie.”

“a really tall fortune cookie,” he jokes, and you smile, though something about his words lingers.

that night, you sleep better than you have in weeks.

as days blur into weeks, you begin to realize how easy it is to trust him. 

there’s no pressure, no strange edge of expectation. 

he doesn’t ask too many questions, but he notices everything—when you’re tired, when your hands shake after too much coffee, when you stare too long out the window at the skyline.

on one wednesday, during a late deadline, you catch him watching the street below with that same expression he wears when he’s listening—deep, alert, like he’s attuned to something you can’t hear.

“what is it?” you ask.

he blinks, then smiles. “just thinking.”

you nod, but a small part of you wonders what exactly he’s listening for.

that friday evening, the two of you walk out together. it’s raining, the city lights bending in the puddles like soft glass. he holds his umbrella so it covers you both, and for a moment, you’re struck by how steady he feels beside you.

you don’t say much, just listen to the sound of the rain.

at the corner, you pause.

“thanks for the week,” you say. “for all of them. you make it easier than i expected.”

“that’s what partners are for.”

you smile, looking out at the blurred skyline. “i think i like the city better when it rains.”

he glances up at the dark sky. “i do too. everything feels slower.”

and you think, he means it. 

not as small talk, not as a line—just truth, simple and whole.

you see him again two days later at the office. he’s reading a report when perry storms in, shouting about a citywide blackout. as if someone were listening, everything goes dark for a heartbeat—then the backup generators kick in, and in the dim red light, clark’s chair is empty.

you look around, confused. “did anyone see—?”

but no one’s paying attention. chaos takes over—phones ringing, editors shouting.

you grab your notepad and rush outside. the city’s a mess of flashing lights and sirens. somewhere across the river, you think you hear a sound like metal tearing, and your stomach drops.

for a second, you could swear you see something move against the skyline—a shadow, fast and bright—but when you blink, it’s gone.

later, clark shows up at your desk, a little breathless, tie askew. “sorry,” he says, “left for my lunch break, and of course the power went out on the subway.”

you stare at him, still reeling. “you’re lucky you made it back.”

he smiles, soft and apologetic. “seems like the city always finds a way to keep going.”

something in his voice makes you pause—the certainty, the warmth. 

like he knows something you don’t.

you want to ask how he’s always so calm. 

instead, you just say, “yeah. i guess it does.”

that night, you walk home through the cooling air, the streets still humming from the outage. you pass a mural of superman painted across a brick wall—bright blues and reds against the city gray.

you stop for a moment, studying it. 

he looks so unreal, so larger than life.

but somehow, you think, there’s something familiar in the way his eyes are painted—that same quiet steadiness.

you shake your head, smiling at yourself.

maybe it’s just the lighting.

the city wakes up slower than usual one october morning.

traffic lights blink unevenly. street vendors light candles on their carts. for a few hours, the world feels a little smaller, a little more human.

you stop for coffee on your way in. the barista, hair pulled back and eyes tired, says, “crazy night, huh?”

a monster had attacked the night before, keeping you at the office until some ungodly hour when it was finally deemed safe to walk the streets without having a building fall on you.

you nod. “felt like the whole city stopped breathing.”

clark’s already at his desk when you get in—shirt sleeves rolled up, glasses smudged, hair slightly out of place. there’s a faint red mark near his collarbone that you can’t quite place.

“morning,” he says, glancing up with that same easy warmth.

“hey.” you pause. “how was the subway?”

he chuckles. “crowded. but everyone helped each other out. it was nice.”

you smile. “only you could find something nice about that.”

“maybe i just like seeing people at their best.”

you don’t know why that makes your chest ache. maybe because you’ve spent so long expecting the worst.

later that afternoon, perry pulls you both into a meeting. “kent, you’re on the monster follow-up. take her with you,” he says, nodding toward you. “see what you can find downtown. i’m talking people, clean-up crews, anything human-interest.”

“you got it,” clark says.

you grab your notepad and head out into the afternoon sun. the city feels different today.

brighter, cleaner somehow, like it’s been rinsed of noise.

clark stops to help a man move debris off a storefront. you jot down notes, watching him. there’s something in the way he listens to people.

he’s patient, unhurried, like they’re the only thing that matters in that moment.

a little girl tugs at his sleeve, holding out a small piece of red fabric tangled in string. “my balloon broke,” she says, voice trembling.

he crouches down. “that’s all right, sweetheart. balloons don’t last forever.”

there’s something to his words.

thick, deeply ingraved.

you tell yourself it’s just country—smallville, he had mentioned once. kansas. 

“mama said heroes don’t either.”

he smiles at her, soft and sure. “maybe not. but kindness does.”

she grins, nodding solemnly, and runs off.

you don’t write any of that down, but you know you’ll remember it.

as the days go on, working with him becomes its own quiet rhythm. you start to understand that he’s the kind of person who carries silence like a language. it’s not because he’s hiding, but because he listens so deeply that it feels sacred.

over lunch, you ask him how he ended up in journalism.

“i think i wanted to tell stories that matter,” he says. “the kind that make people feel seen.”

“you ever think you could do more? like… bigger than this?”

he hesitates, gaze flicking toward the window, where the sun glints off the mirrored towers. “sometimes. but i think the small things matter most. the world doesn’t stay together because of the big gestures — it’s the little ones that keep it from falling apart.”

you write that down in your notes later, even though it’s not for a story.

on friday, you’re sent to cover a community event in midtown—a fundraiser for emergency relief after the attack. clark’s there too, camera slung over his shoulder, tie slightly askew.

the mayor gives a speech. people clap politely. but your attention keeps drifting—to the hum of the crowd, to the soft thrum in your chest you can’t quite explain.

when the speech ends, a commotion breaks out near the edge of the crowd—shouting, a toppled table, panic spreading fast. you drop your pen.

“stay here,” clark says, voice steady but firm.

and then he’s gone.

you don’t see where he goes—just the blur of his jacket disappearing into the chaos.

minutes later, it’s over. somehow. the police say a power line sparked, someone almost got hurt—but didn’t. 

the news calls it luck.

you find clark standing near the back, shirt a little torn at the sleeve, dirt smudged near his collar.

“you okay?” you ask.

he nods. “yeah. you?”

“fine.” you hesitate. “you always disappear right before things get weird.”

he laughs softly. “bad timing, i guess.”

you smile back, but something in your stomach twists—a strange mix of worry and awe you can’t name.

you start spending more time together outside of work.

it starts with late nights editing at the office, but soon enough it becomes walks through the park, grabbing lunch together on days off, and random texts that definitely could have waited until morning.

it’s the kind of quiet friendship that sneaks up on you. He never talks much about his personal life, but he’s always there when you need him.

one night, you mention laney. your laney.

“she was my best friend,” you say. “we grew up together. i thought we’d never… drift, i guess. but she got older, found her own life. someone else.”

he listens, hands folded, eyes kind.

“you miss her,” he says gently.

“every day.” you trace the edge of your coffee mug. “she was my sister first. you know?”

something flickers in his expression—recognition, maybe. like he understands what it’s like to lose someone who still exists.

“please don’t leave me, i’ll always need more,” you whisper, half to yourself, half to the memory.

clark says quietly, “maybe that’s the best kind of love. the kind that stays, even when it has nowhere left to go.”

you look at him, and for a moment, it feels like the whole world narrows to the space between you.

not romantic. not anything like that. just seen. completely, achingly seen.

weeks pass. the city moves, shifts, hums.

once, while walking home, you both stop at a crosswalk. there’s an old man trying to lift a heavy crate. clark’s already moving before you can blink, helping him with effortless ease.

the man thanks him, shaking his head. “you remind me of that superman fella,” he says, laughing.

clark grins. “oh, i don’t think i could keep up with him.”

you laugh too, but something in your chest stirs. the light turns green, and he steps back beside you.

“you ever wonder what he’s like?” you ask.

“who?”

“superman. i mean, i know you’ve interviewed him, but you have to think that superman and whoever he really is are two different people. like he has a mask without ever actually wearing one.”

he hums thoughtfully. “i think he’s probably just doing the best he can.”

you smile. “you sound like you know him.”

“maybe i do.”

you shake your head. “you’re weird, kent.”

“so i’ve been told.”

the streetlights buzz above you, and for a second, you could swear his eyes catch the light in a way that doesn’t make sense. 

too bright, too alive.

you blink, and it’s gone.

a few days later, perry gives you both a new assignment. it’s a feature on “the enduring myth of the modern hero.”

you roll your eyes. “subtle.”

“maybe it’s fate,” clark says, smiling.

“you believe in that?”

he pauses, thinking. “i believe people end up where they’re needed most.”

and for some reason, that feels like the truest thing anyone’s ever said to you.

you write the piece together on long nights and quiet mornings. 

you handle the words, he takes the statements. 

somewhere along the way, you realize you’re not writing about superman anymore. you’re writing about him. 

about the kindness that doesn’t ask to be noticed. about the quiet strength that saves people in smaller ways.

when you finally hand it in, perry reads it twice before saying, “this is the best thing we’ve printed all year.”

you glance at clark, who only smiles and says, “she did most of it.”

“you helped,” you say.

“that’s what partners are for.”

the story runs on that sunday. 

people love it. 

the comments pour in steadily.

we need more stories like this. we need to believe again.

and you think maybe, for once, you do too.

that night, the city hums outside your window. somewhere in the distance, sirens wail, and you swear, just for a heartbeat, you see a blur of red and blue crossing the sky.

you smile faintly, pressing your hand to the glass.

“be safe, clark,” you whisper.

you don’t know why you say it.

you only know that you mean it.

the next morning, he’s at your desk with two coffees and that same familiar smile.

“morning,” he says.

“morning.” you take the cup from his hand. “thanks.”

he nods, looking out the window at the rising sun over the city. “beautiful day.”

“yeah,” you say softly. “it really is.”

and it feels true — for the first time in a long while.

steve rogers was the only boy who ever looked at you like quiet was a language he could speak.

he was small for his age, sickly, always coming down with something. he’d sit out on the stoop with a sketchbook when the other boys were fighting over baseball scores.  you’d seen him once from the corner of your eye, drawing the light itself. the way it bled down onto the pavement like honey, and you’d thought, god, that’s a tender thing for a boy to do.

it started with a shared walk home after mass, both of you pretending you weren’t walking together. you’d told him your name and he’d said it like it mattered, like he was tasting it for the first time.

after that, it was a slow kind of friendship. the kind that grows like ivy over years. his mother, sarah, worked double shifts as a nurse; your mama cleaned houses. they’d both learned early that love was work.

not some fever dream, but a series of quiet tasks: tending, watching, returning.

in those years, the world felt small but full. there was music leaking from apartment windows. billie holiday on the phonograph, the swell of brass bands from the navy yard. 

you’d sit on the stoop eating penny candy, talking about nothing. steve would point out planes overhead and say, “one day i’m gonna fly.” 

and you’d tease him: “you’ll catch cold before you get there.”

but you believed him. even then, he had that look, that unshakable belief that the world could be better than it was. 

it was a dangerous kind of hope for a boy so fragile.

you once found him in an alley, nose bleeding, ribs bruised, shaking with anger.

some kids had cornered him again. called him a runt, told him to go home and hide behind his mama’s skirts. bucky wasn’t there to protect him this time.

you had crouched beside him, pressing your handkerchief to his face.

“you can’t fight every battle,” you’d said softly.

he’d looked up at you with eyes the color of rainwater. “if i don’t, who will?”

that was steve: all heart and no armor.

some nights, when your mama was asleep, you would sit by the window and watch him on his stoop, sketching under the yellow light. sometimes he’d look up and catch you watching, and he’d smile that shy, crooked smile. the kind that felt like a promise even if it wasn’t.

you didn’t know then that you were already building a mythology out of him. every glance, every word turned relic. 

he was just a boy who coughed too much and dreamed too big. 

but the light made saints out of anyone, if you looked long enough.

by the time you were seventeen and he was eighteen, war had started whispering through the neighborhood. the men at the corner bar spoke about enlistment, and the radio carried the names of places you couldn’t pronounce. stalingrad, kursk, pripyat. 

steve listened, jaw set, eyes sharp. he wanted to go, though everyone told him he wouldn’t pass the medical.

you felt the world tightening around you and him, the way summer does before a storm.

you found him one evening by the east river, sketchbook open, the sunset turning the water to fire. “you’ll get yourself killed trying to prove something,” you mumbled.

he’d kept his eyes on the page. "maybe. but at least i'll mean something."

“you already mean something.”

he’d looked at you then, really looked, and the air went still. 

the city kept moving around you two and the world kept spinning. but you felt like the last girl left in the world.

that night, walking home, you thought about the way he said mean something, like it was the only currency the world ran on. and you understood then that you’d spend the rest of your life trying to believe it too.

sometimes, years later, when you thought back on that summer, you’d tell yourself that maybe it was already too late.  maybe he’d already been halfway gone, halfway legend. but you didn’t believe that. not really.

he was still just steve then. a boy under a yellow light, waiting for the world to let him in.

it was 1943 when the city began to sound like a train pulling out of the station.

it was long, inevitable. it was sour, sad. it was broken.

every morning, the newspapers stacked themselves higher with names of boys who were gone or going. every evening, the radio sang the same thin, trembling song: the kind that made a person stand very still in their own kitchen and feel history starting to move under their feet.

you worked at woolworth’s then, behind the counter where the perfume bottles caught the light and turned it into something honeyed. you’d see the girls come in with their lipstick perfect and their hearts halfway broken already, folding dollar bills for war bonds, talking about who’d enlisted, who’d shipped out, who’d written. 

it was a time of waiting and pretending you weren’t waiting.

steve came by less often after that winter. when he did, he wore the same threadbare jacket, but his shoulders had started to change. not in size, but in how he carried them. he walked like he’d already been drafted by the future.

he told you once, under the elevated train, that he’d tried again.

“they turned me down. heart, lungs, something.” he laughed, but it came out like a cough. “guess i’m not what they’re looking for.”

you wanted to tell him that the world didn’t know what it was looking for, that maybe that was the problem, but he was staring at the posters on the wall.

I WANT YOU FOR THE U.S. ARMY. ENLIST TODAY.

uncle sam pointing straight through the paper, straight through him.

you frowned instead, “you don’t have to go to prove you’re brave.”

and he’d smiled at you. it was tired, almost tender. “that’s the thing. i’m not trying to prove it. i just… can’t stand by.”

it was the kind of thing boys said before they disappeared.

in the spring, something changed. 

rumors started floating through the neighborhood. rumors about some program, some special recruitment. 

you saw him less after that, and when you did, he looked different. like he was lit from inside by something you didn’t have a word for. 

there were nights you’d see him from you window, standing under the streetlight, head bent, hands in his pockets, like he was saying goodbye to everything that had made him.

the night before he left, he came to your door. his hair was wet from the rain, his eyes dark and clear. “i didn’t want to go without saying—” he stopped there. you both knew there weren’t words big enough. “i ship out to boot camp next week if all goes well, but i won’t really be around much leading up to that.”

you let him in. you always let him in.

the apartment smelled like starch and lavender; your mama was asleep in the next room. you sat at the table like it was an ordinary night, your fingers tracing the rim of your glass, his hands restless in his lap.

“you’ll come back,” you frowned, though it sounded like a question.

he nodded once. “one way or another.”

you didn’t understand what he meant until much later.

when he stood to go, you touched his sleeve, the fabric still damp. “steve—” it was all you could manage. he took your hand—small, cold fingers swallowed by his. for a second, he looked almost startled, like the contact itself had startled him. then he pressed your hand to his chest. his heartbeat was fast and thin under your palm.

“for me,” he said quietly. “don’t stop living for me.”

and then he was gone. down the stairwell, out into the rain, swallowed by the noise of the city.

after that night, he was everywhere and nowhere. 

his face on posters, his name on people’s lips. there were stories, near impossible ones, about what he’d done overseas. about a man who could run faster, fight harder, lift the weight of whole armies. you would see the papers and feel dizzy, like someone had taken the boy you knew and blown him up into a myth too large to look at directly.

sometimes, walking home from work, you’d think you saw him. the tilt of a head, the narrow shoulders under a soldier’s coat. but it was always someone else. always the shadow of him.

letters came for a while. the handwriting was neat, careful, as if he still worried about smudging the ink. he wrote about the cold, the waiting, the way the stars looked over europe. he wrote of  the howling commandos. he wrote of bucky’s death. but he always ended with take care of yourself, love. 

you kept those letters folded in a tin box under your bed, the paper softening with every reread.

the last one came in december.

don’t worry about me. we’re getting close to the end of it. keep the light on. i’ll be home soon.

and then nothing.

weeks turned to months. the radio told you he was gone before the telegram ever arrived. 

a crash somewhere over the arctic, they said. no body recovered. he saved the world.

you stood in the kitchen that night with your hands over your knees, trying not to be sick. the room smelled of coffee and something burning. outside, the streetlight flickered, casting the same gold across the wall. the same yellow light you’d known for what felt like all your life.

you whispered his name, but it sounded like a prayer that had already gone unanswered.

for a long time after the telegram came, you kept expecting some small correction. a letter misplaced, a report amended, a miracle in the mail. none came. 

brooklyn was full of women like you then: girls in borrowed dresses, widows without rings, walking through grocery aisles like ghosts rehearsing their lines for an ordinary life.

you still worked your shifts at woolworth’s, still folded linens for your mama on sundays. but something inside you stayed turned toward the window, as if the air itself might one day deliver him home.

sometimes you’d go down to the navy yard and stand by the fence where the men loaded crates. you’d close your eyes and imagine him among them. you pictured what he would look like now, what the war had done to him. would his shoulders be broad now? his lungs clear? would he be laughing at something one of the boys had said. you could almost see him reach for you, the same hands, the same shy smile.

at night, you read his letters out loud to youself, softly, as if saying the words might make them true again. 

keep the light on.

 you would look toward the window where the streetlamp burned, the one outside your old stoop. some nights the bulb would flicker, and you’d tell yourself it was him, caught halfway between the world and whatever came after.

there were rumors, strange ones, that never went away. fellow veterans would whisper that the crash hadn’t killed him, that he’d been seen again somewhere, somehow. peggy would stop by once a month, promising you that everything possible was being done to bring him home. she’d make tea, tell you stories of him before he went under. the steve she got to know. occasionally, howard would join her, talking of science and serums that made your head spin. it was never much comfort. newspapers ran stories about a man frozen in ice, about resurrection. but you knew better than to believe everything you read. and yet—

and yet, sometimes, in that soft hour before dawn, you’d feel him there. in the quiet. in the pause before the city woke up. you’d feel the hum of that yellow light, warm against the windowpane, and for a moment you’d swear you could hear him breathe.

the years went on without permission.

brooklyn changed first. brick by brick, store by store. the candy shop became a laundromat, then a parking lot, then nothing at all. the radio gave way to television, and men who’d come home in one piece built lives so ordinary they glittered. 

you stayed. 

you married no one, though there were offers. one from a dockworker who smelled of salt and tobacco, one from a teacher who read you poems in central park. 

you would listen kindly, then shake your head. “i already gave the best part of me away.” people stopped asking after a while.

you rented a narrow room above a bakery and worked bookkeeping until your eyes went bad. in the evenings, you’d walk to the corner where the streetlight still burned its amber heart. the bulb had been changed a hundred times, but in your mind it was the same light that had once fallen across his shoulders. you’d stand there until the bakery closed and the city quieted.

sometimes you’d heard the stories. you tried to ignore them. the mythology, the way he sounded like a god. it wasn't your steve.

captain america, they called him. 

the newspapers said he’d given his life to save the world; the movies said he’d never really died. children played with little tin shields and shouted his name in the alleyways. it should have comforted you, maybe. 

but it didn’t. 

it was like listening to a hymn written about a stranger who happened to share his face.

one winter, a museum opened an exhibit downtown. artifacts from the war, photographs, letters, propaganda. the news had mentioned a tribute to ‘captain america,’ the fallen hero who saved the world.

you went alone. in a glass case near the end, you found a sketchbook: pencil drawings of rooftops, tenement stoops, and the skyline at dusk. no label said his name, but you knew. 

your breath left your body so fast you had to grip the edge of the case. on the last page was a rough outline of a girl sitting under a streetlamp, hands folded in her lap. he hadn’t finished the face, but you didn’t need him to. 

the curator asked if you were all right.

the words came out before you knew you were speaking, the response automated from years of sideways glances and tense shoulders.

"yes, of course—just a little tired."

after that you began to dream of him again. not as the soldier or the hero, but as the boy you’d first met under the yellow light. in the dreams he was always turning toward you, always just about to speak. when you woke, your pillow smelled faintly of rain.

years layered themselves like dust. 

your mama passed, your hair silvered, and the bakery closed. 

the block filled with new voices. languages you didn’t know, faces you didn’t recognize.  still you stayed, because leaving felt like breaking the last thread that connected you to steve.

on sunday mornings you’d sit by the window with your coffee and your trembling hands, whispering a half-prayer, “jesus, if you’re there… why do i feel alone?” you laughed after saying it, but sometimes you didn’t. 

sometimes you cried in the bleachers at a neighborhood ball game, pretending the noise around you was enough to fill the silence he left. you’d wipe your face and tell the man beside you, "i don’t need anything from anyone, i’m all good out here", when he tried to offer you his handkerchief.

and you almost believed it.

decades later, when the news came that he’d been found, that the myth had thawed and was walking again somewhere out there, you sat very still at your kitchen table. the kettle screamed on the stove. 

you didn’t move to stop it.

alive, they said. a miracle. the world rejoiced.

you only whispered, “oh, steve,” and pressed a hand to your heart, unsure if it was joy or terror you felt. 

the boy you'd loved was gone either way; the man walking now belonged to history.

that night, you dreamt of him one last time. 

you were back on union street, the air thick with summer. he stood under the yellow light, smiling that same small smile.

“you kept it on,” he said.

“you told me to.”

“then i guess we’re both still standing.”

when you woke, dawn was spilling through the curtains.

pale, endless, merciful. 

you sat up, knees aching, the city already roaring awake outside. the light through the window wasn’t gold anymore, but white and clean, the kind that forgives. you whispered his name once, just to feel it. 

by the time school started again, laney had become the kind of constant you never questioned.

you walked home together every day, kicking dust and trading secrets like candy.

you shared lunches, traded bracelets, talked about how boring everyone else was.

it wasn’t long before her mother started calling you her “shadow.” you didn’t mind. if you were a shadow, at least you were hers.

your house was quiet—too quiet sometimes.

laney's wasn’t.

her mom yelled, and her little brothers screamed, and her dog barked nonstop. you loved it there anyway.

it felt alive in a way your home never did.

laney's room was always a mess of posters, nail polish bottles, and half-finished homework. you'd lie on her bed while she painted your nails unevenly and told you about the life she was going to have someday: a car, a job, maybe even an apartment in the city. you'd just nod and watch the light catch her hair, pretending you didn’t already know you’d follow her anywhere.

years passed, and everything changed except her.

you both grew taller, your voices softened, your laughter turned quieter but deeper.

you spent your summers in that same town, swimming in that same creek, except now you were old enough to talk about what you wanted from life, and sometimes, what you were afraid of.

laney was always braver.

one night, lying in her backyard under a sky swollen with stars, she whispered, “please don’t leave me... i’ll always need more.” you didn’t know what she meant, but you said you wouldn’t. you said you’d always stay.

and you believed it.

it wasn’t until you were sixteen that you noticed how much she needed to be seen.

not just by you—by everyone.

laney had a way of pulling the world toward her. the football players, the girls who wore lip gloss and perfume, the teachers who let her turn in homework late because she smiled when she apologized. you'd watch from the sidelines, quietly proud but quietly afraid, too.

you weren’t built for the same light she lived in.

still, she always came back to you. no matter who she sat with at lunch or who she laughed with in the hallways, she’d find you after school, take your hand, and say,

“come on. let's go home.”

and you would. always.

you spent nights on the roof of her house, drinking soda out of the same bottle, the metal taste of the cap sharp on your tongue. she'd hum songs from the radio, her voice low and tired, and you’d let your head fall against her shoulder. sometimes you thought you could feel her heartbeat, steady and real, like the rhythm of something permanent.

you told her once that she was your best friend, and she said, “you’re my sister.”

you laughed, but part of you wanted to cry. because you knew what she meant, and it meant everything.

when laney got her driver’s license, everything changed again. the town got smaller, the nights shorter. you'd drive around with the windows down, singing too loud to songs you only half knew, your laughter spilling out into the humid night. you thought maybe this was what forever felt like.

something reckless, alive, and a little bit scared.

but sometimes you caught her glancing at her phone when she thought you weren’t looking.

a name lighting up the screen.

a smile that wasn’t for you.

you didn’t say anything. you didn’t want to break the spell.

still, when she said his name out loud for the first time—caleb—it felt like the air went out of the room.

she told you how he made her laugh, how he said her eyes looked like sunlight. you nodded and smiled, and she didn’t notice how your hands were shaking.

later that night, lying alone in your bed, you thought about the way she said his name.

the softness in her voice. the same softness she used to save for you. she was his girl now.

and you thought: she was my girl first.

you didn’t say it out loud. you never would. but the thought stayed.

it stayed for years.

you didn’t realize when it started. 

nobody ever does.

it wasn’t a fight or a word left unsaid; it was the slow fade of a song you loved too much, the kind that lingers in your head long after it’s over. 

it was small things at first; missed calls, plans canceled with apologies that sounded rehearsed. 

you told yourself she was busy, that she’d call tomorrow.

she didn’t.

laney spent most of her time with him now. you saw them sometimes, walking through the halls with their fingers barely touching, like even the smallest connection was too much to hide. you told yourself you didn’t care. 

but you watched anyway. 

you watched the way she leaned into him, how he made her laugh. the same laugh she used to save for you.

you told yourself it was fine. that people change, that it’s normal. 

that it doesn’t mean she loves you less.

but one night, she sent you a photo of the two of them — her smile brighter than you’d seen in months, his arm around her shoulder — and you just stared at it until your eyes blurred. the accompanying text said “he makes me feel like home.”

you didn’t reply. you didn’t know what to say.

you thought about all the times you made her laugh, all the nights she fell asleep next to you, the secrets she told you like prayers whispered in the dark. and you thought, wasn’t i home once, too?

you still saw her, sometimes. at school. around town. but it wasn’t the same.

you’d ask if she wanted to hang out, and she’d smile that gentle smile—the one that always felt like a sorry—and say, “maybe next week?”

next week never came.

you told yourself she needed this. that you’d be there when she came back. but deep down, you knew the version of her you loved wasn’t coming back. she was changing. growing into someone new. someone you didn’t recognize.

still, you waited.

you waited for her texts. 

her calls. 

her laughter. 

you waited for her to come knocking on your door with her hair a mess and her eyes red from crying. 

you waited for her to need you again.

but she didn’t.

months passed. the creek dried up that summer, and you stopped going. the town felt smaller without her. 

everything did.

you tried to fill the silence with other people, other things. you took up painting for a while. you stayed after school to help with the yearbook. you joined the school newspaper, and got decent at writing about the latest cow tipping scandal. you made new friends who smiled at you but didn’t know the language laney had taught you—the quiet kind, made of glances and half-smiles and shared breaths.

they didn’t know how to exist with you like she did.

sometimes you thought about calling her. you’d pick up your phone, scroll through your texts, stop on her name. you’d type something—i miss you, or do you remember the creek?—then delete it before you hit send.

she was probably with him, anyway.

one night, you ran into them at the diner off highway 10. 

you were there with a group from school, laughing too loudly about something you didn’t care about, when you saw her.

she was sitting across from him in a booth, her hair tucked behind her ear, smiling at something he said. you froze. she didn’t notice you at first. but when she did, her face changed—just for a second. a flicker of something between guilt and recognition. then she smiled.

“hey,” she said when you walked over. her voice was soft. careful. “i didn’t know you’d be here.”

“yeah,” you responded, shrugging. “just hanging out.”

he smiled at you politely, the way strangers do when they know they’ve already taken something from you.

there was silence after that—thick, awkward. you wanted to ask her how she’d been. you wanted to ask if she still thought about you. but the words wouldn’t come.

instead, she said, “we should hang out soon.”

you nodded. “yeah, sure.”

you both knew it was a lie.

later that night, you drove home alone. the road was dark and empty, the only light coming from the gas stations and the neon signs that buzzed like dying stars. you thought about her, sitting in that booth, laughing with him, her hand resting on his wrist.

you thought about how much you missed her, and how much you hated missing her.

and you thought about how he loved her.

but she was my sister first.

the words burned. you didn’t know who you were saying them to—him, her, or yourself. maybe all three.

you didn’t cry. not yet.

instead, you pulled into the old creek road, parked, and got out. the air was cool, the moon bright enough to see your reflection in the still water. 

you sat on the rocks where you’d once skipped stones, and for the first time, you realized how quiet the world had become without her voice in it.

you wanted to call her. to tell her everything.

but you knew it wouldn’t change anything.

you stayed there until dawn, watching the sky lighten, listening to the cicadas fade away.

when you finally got home, your phone buzzed. a text from her.

“hey. just thinking about you. hope you’re okay.”

you stared at it for a long time. then you typed, i miss you.

you didn’t hit send.

the last summer before everything changed was the hottest one you could remember. the air sat heavy on your skin, syrup-thick and unmoving, the kind of heat that made everything slow and quiet. you didn’t see laney much that year. she got a job as a journalist at a newspaper outside of town, the one that always smelled like burnt coffee and fried chicken. caleb would pick her up after shifts, headlights cutting through the dark, and you’d watch from your window as they drove by, the sound of her laughter fading down the road.

you told yourself it was fine. you told yourself people grow up, that she’d come back when things settled down. but she didn’t. and when you left for college that fall, she didn’t come to say goodbye.

you still waited, though. for a text. for a call. for something.

it never came.

the city was louder than you expected. it wasn’t just the noise—it was the movement, the constant hum of life that never stopped. cars, trains, people shouting into the air like the world would listen if they were loud enough. you rented a tiny apartment on the seventh floor of a building that smelled like paint and old smoke. from your window, you could see the skyline, the towers of glass and light stretching up into the clouds.

sometimes, when you couldn’t sleep, you’d stand by the window and watch the sky. there were stories about him—the hero. 

superman. 

people said he could fly faster than sound. that he’d once lifted a collapsing bridge with his bare hands. that he’d saved an entire school from a fire uptown.

you saw him once, or at least you thought you did—a flash of red and blue cutting across the clouds, so high up it could’ve been a trick of the light. the city seemed smaller when he was there.

you almost smiled.

life moved quietly.

you got a job at a newspaper company that never seemed quiet enough. you made friends who came and went, names that blurred together over time. a few stayed: lois, jimmy, cat. people who refused to let you shake them off.

you kept yourself busy, but not full.

some nights, when the neon lights from the diner across the street painted your ceiling red and blue, you thought of laney.

you didn’t talk anymore, not really. there were still traces of her online—photos with caleb, a dog you’d never met, her hair shorter now. once, you saw a video of her at a local fair, spinning in circles under the lights, laughing with a joy so wide it hurt to look at.

you replayed it twice before closing your phone.

you wondered if she ever thought of you.

if she remembered the creek, the roof, the blanket.

if she ever whispered your name the way she used to when she was tired, soft and slurred like a secret.

you told yourself it didn’t matter. that you’d both grown up. that it was just part of life.

but there were nights when the quiet got too loud, and the memories pressed too close.

nights when you’d wake from a dream and swear you could still hear her saying, “please don’t leave me. i’ll always need more.”

and maybe she didn’t mean it forever.

maybe she just meant then.

the daily planet closed early one evening after a power outage. you stayed behind to stack the last of the boxes that cat had wanted for some exposé, the air thick with dust and the smell of wet paper. the city outside buzzed like it always did.

traffic, sirens, the faraway rhythm of music from some bar down the street.

you took the long way home, walking through the plaza. there was a crowd gathered by the big screen above the metro entrance, the one that played news twenty-four hours a day.

“—and in today’s coverage, superman intervened in a high-speed chase downtown, saving three civilians from an overturned vehicle—”

you stopped, watching the footage. it was grainy, the kind of news clip that looked more like myth than fact. a figure in red and blue, landing hard on the pavement, lifting a car like it weighed nothing. you watched the crowd cheer, phones raised to the sky.

and for the first time, you wondered what it felt like to be saved.

that night, you dreamed of laney again.

you were back in the creek, the water low and golden in the evening light. she was standing in the middle of it, skirt hitched up, her hands cupped around something small.

“look,” she said, smiling. “a tadpole.”

you laughed. “you’re gonna crush it if you’re not careful.”

“i won’t.” she looked up at you, eyes bright and endless. “i never hurt the things i love.”

but when you reached for her hand, she was already gone.

you woke to thunder. rain hit the window hard enough to rattle the glass. for a moment, you couldn’t tell if the sound in your chest was the storm or your own heartbeat. you sat there in the dark, the city alive outside, and whispered her name into the room. 

just once.

it felt like letting go.

you started keeping a notebook after that. little things. thoughts. lines that didn’t mean much on their own.

you didn’t know why you wrote them down. maybe you just needed to keep her somewhere, even if it wasn’t real anymore.

perry liked them.

he’d congratulated you on how “personal” they felt once. lines about waiting for some hero to come save you. 

he urged you to write more. stuff clark kent could use in his superman pieces.

so you did. you spent hours writing away, pouring your heart out in an empty notebook.

you didn’t know, but that was the night everything would change.

tomorrow, you’d take the same route home you always did—the subway, the crowded street, the crosswalk that never stayed green long enough. you’d be thinking about laney, like you always were when the world got too big. you’d be staring down at the pavement, lost in memory.

and then the earth would break open.

but that’s tomorrow.

tonight, you’re still here. sitting by the window, the rain still falling, the city pulsing like a living thing. and somewhere high above the skyline, a streak of red and blue light cuts through the clouds.

you look up just in time to see it fade.

and for the first time in a long while, you don’t feel so small.

it happens on tuesday. just like it was supposed to.

you’re late leaving work, rain again, streets slick with light and sound. the city feels like it’s breathing heavy tonight, traffic groaning, neon signs flickering in and out like tired stars. you pull your jacket tighter, turn down the side street you always do, the one that cuts through the plaza and past the flower stand that never closes.

you’re halfway across the crosswalk that never stays green long enough when the world explodes.

a sound like thunder, but sharper. the kind that shakes the bones first, and only later the air. you stumble back, heart in your throat, eyes searching for the source.

and then you see it: a building, maybe three blocks down, half of it gone in a cloud of dust and an explosion of fire. 

the sound follows like a roar, glass raining from the sky. 

people scream. 

cars screech. 

the city folds in on itself.

you can’t move.

you should run, but your body refuses to listen. you stand there, staring at the orange light swallowing the skyline, and for one impossible moment, you think of laney.

she’d hate this city, you think. too loud. too big. too easy to get lost in.

someone shoves past you, and that’s when you start to run.

the smoke spreads faster than it should. the air tastes like a mix of metal and rain. you don’t even know why you’re running toward it—maybe instinct, maybe something else. 

maybe you’re tired of standing still. 

you reach the corner just in time to see the building groan, tilting toward the street. the crowd surges back, shouting.

and then everything stops.

a flash cuts through the haze, bright as lightning.

superman drops from the sky.

he’s realer than you ever imagined—taller, solid, his cape whipping behind him in the wind. he lands hard, the concrete cracking beneath his boots. the air itself seems to hold its breath.

then he moves—faster than you thought he could, catching the edge of the collapsing structure and holding. the strain ripples through his shoulders, the ground trembling beneath his feet. 

you can hear people crying, praying, filming, calling out his name.

and somehow, amid all that chaos, his eyes find yours.

you don’t know how long you stand there, the world burning around you.

he shouts something—maybe “move!”—and it’s enough to break the spell. you turn, feet pounding against the pavement, lungs aching, until the sound of falling stone fades behind you.

you don’t stop until you reach the next block.

and then you collapse.

when you wake, you’re not sure where you are. the air smells of antiseptic and smoke, and the world hums with the low static of fluorescent light. your vision clears slowly—the inside of an ambulance, a paramedic pressing gauze against your temple.

“you’re okay,” she says softly. “you were lucky. that building came down faster than anyone expected.”

you blink. “superman—did he…?”

she smiles faintly. “he saved at least a dozen people. pulled a woman out from under a car. i think he’s still out there.”

still out there.

you nod, even though your throat feels tight. there’s a hollow in your chest, something that feels like awe but hurts too much to be only that.

because as the sirens wail and the lights blur outside, you realize what’s been gnawing at you all this time. 

you’ve been waiting to be saved—not from danger, but from yourself. 

from the empty spaces laney left behind. from the ache that settled so deep you stopped noticing it.

but he did save you.

maybe not in the way you expected, but enough. enough to make you believe again.

later, when they discharge you, you wander through the streets like a ghost. the city feels different—still loud, still endless, but alive in a way it hadn’t before. the wreckage is cordoned off, smoke curling into the night sky like a signal. you stop at the edge of the barrier, watching the workers sift through the debris.

you catch a glimpse of him then—high above, silhouetted against the searchlights, cape trailing behind him like a comet’s tail. people cheer when they see him. 

you don’t. you just watch.

you want to tell him thank you, though you’re not sure for what.

for saving you. for reminding you that people still reach for each other, even when the world falls apart. for giving you a reason to look up again.

you whisper it anyway.

just in case he can hear.

that night, back in your apartment, you open your notebook again. the last page is still blank, waiting. you pick up your pen, your hand trembling just slightly, and write:

i think i’ve been waiting for someone to catch me ever since she left.

you set the pen down. 

the rain’s stopped. 

somewhere outside, a siren fades into the distance, and for a heartbeat, you could swear you hear the rush of air, like wings slicing through the clouds.

you go to the window. the city stretches out before you—wounded, shining, alive.

a single streak of red and blue moves across the skyline, bright and fast, disappearing into the horizon.

you smile, quietly. you don’t know where he’s going, or what comes next.

you’ll dream of laney again, you know you will.

the creek, the tadpoles, the sun caught in her hair.

but when you wake, it won’t hurt as much.

and maybe that’s what saving really means—not fixing what’s broken, but reminding you that you’re still here.

still alive. still reaching. still looking up.

before you go to sleep, you draft an email to perry.

could you partner me up with kent next week? i think i want to try a superman piece.

you lived on the road after that. a motel-to-motel kind of life.

he rode an old harley that looked older than him—although he grumbled that he was well over a hundred years old, it didn’t seem plausible—, and you learned to pack light: denim jacket, polaroid camera, the half-used tube of red lipstick you put on in gas station mirrors when he wasn’t looking.

he liked it when you smiled, though he never said it. you could tell by the way his shoulders dropped when you did.

as if he let his guard down. as if he wasn’t atlas, and the entire world wasn’t resting on his shoulders.

he never slept well. sometimes, you’d wake to find him sitting up on the edge of the bed, face in his hands, whispering to no one.

once, you made the mistake of reaching for his metal arm in the dark, and he flinched like you’d burned him.

“it’s okay,” you whispered.

but he just shook his head.

“no, doll. it’s not.”

you crossed state lines like they were promises we meant to keep.

he’d stop at lonely diners and pay for strangers’ coffee. he’d fix broken taillights for people who didn’t ask, like he was trying to balance out something invisible.

sometimes he’d disappear for a day or two—come back with blood on his shirt and a new dent in his arm.

you didn’t ask where he went.

the one time you did, he said, “some people don’t get to walk away from what they’ve done. i’m one of them.”

then he kissed you like he wished he could.

the thing about james—about bucky, as you later learned to call him—is that he loved like he was apologizing for something.

he’d brush your hair behind your ear, trace the curve of your jaw, and look at you like he wanted to memorize your face in case he forgot it. 

forgot everything again.

every time he touched you, you felt him counting the seconds, the breaths, the heartbeats—like he knew he didn’t get to keep any of it.

one summer day, on a stretch of highway in new mexico, he pulled over without saying why.

he got off the bike and stood there, staring out at the desert—endless gold and rust beneath a sky that looked like it could swallow you whole. it was a view that, in some weird and twisted way, made you understand why humanity went to war. 

“everything’s so big out here,” you murmured.

he nodded. “makes you feel small.”

“does that scare you?”

he looked at you then, eyes soft for the first time.

“no,” he hummed. “it’s the only time i feel peace.”

peace from what you never asked.

there were nights when you’d park the bike behind a half-dead motel and drink cheap beer until the stars blurred.

he’d tell you stories about places he’d been—never the details, just the outlines.

cold winters. train stations. snow that looked like ash.

he’d talk until he went quiet, and you’d reach for him, try to anchor him back to now.

“stay with me,” you’d whisper. “stay here.”

he’d nod, but his gaze would already be somewhere else.

the war, the noise, the ghosts.

whatever he carried, they were always louder than you were.

the war ended long before you were born—before your parents were born, even. what he experienced then, and what lingers now, are things you could never understand.

once, he asked you, “if i lose it again… my mind, i mean, would you still find me? still care?”

you told him you would.

“even if it kills me, i would.”

he smiled the sad kind of smile that belongs to men who don’t believe in happy endings.

“you shouldn’t love me like that,” he said.

“maybe i don’t know how else to,” you replied.

months later, you were somewhere in nevada. the neon from a roadside motel painted the world pink and blue, the color of bruises.

you were lying in bed, the tv murmuring static, his arm heavy around your waist.

outside, the wind howled across the sand. inside, he whispered, “you make it quiet.”

it wasn’t a declaration, not with him. he never spoke in declarations, not anymore you came to know. 

it was a prayer.

in the morning, you woke to the sound of his bike starting.

the room smelled like his leather jacket and the smoke he never admitted he liked.

he didn’t leave a note. 

he didn’t have to.

some men are meant to stay moving, and some people are meant to follow until the gas runs out.

the first few days without him were the loudest.

every noise was wrong.

the buzz of motel lights, the creak of floorboards, the empty hum of an engine that wasn’t there anymore.

you’d wake before dawn expecting to hear the scrape of his boots, the soft clatter of metal against countertop.

instead, there was just stillness.

the kind of stillness that feels like punishment.

you kept moving.

it felt easier to stay in motion—as if by crossing enough state lines you could catch his shadow.

nevada bled into arizona, 

arizona into texas.

each town felt like a version of the last: one dusty main street, one motel with flickering lights, one bar that smelled like old beer and loneliness.

the blip had devastated everyone and everything. that much was clear, even if your eyes were hazy each night.

sometimes, you thought you saw him.

there was the curve of a shoulder at a gas pump, a gloved hand gripping a motorcycle handle, a flash of dark hair in the mirror.

every time you looked closer, it was someone else.

still, you’d leave a twenty on the counter wherever you stayed, just in case he came through after me.

you didn’t want him to find the room empty.

there’s a kind of faith that only comes from loving someone like him. it’s the kind that keeps a person driving even when they don’t know where they’re going. the kind that hurts like a slow song on repeat.

at night, you’d talk to him through the radio static.

sometimes, you’d tell him things you never said when he was beside you.

how you knew he’d never stay, how you’d loved him anyway, how it didn’t matter whether it was fate or foolishness.

you’d whisper, “you make it quiet,” and imagine him saying it back.

in albuquerque, you met a waitress who recognized the picture you kept folded in my wallet—him standing beside his bike, head turned just enough that you could almost see the softness he tried to hide.

“yeah,” she said, refilling your coffee. “he was here last week. didn’t say much. looked tired.”

she didn’t have to say the rest. he always looked tired.

you left her a tip that was too much and drove until the stars came out.

somewhere before santa fe, maybe cerrillos, the highway opened up like a wound.

the sky was wide and bleeding orange, the road ahead endless.

you pulled over, stepped out into the wind, and closed your eyes.

you thought about how he used to look at the horizon. not like it was calling him, but like it was the only thing left that didn’t want anything from him.

he once told you that peace felt like being invisible. 

that’s what he was chasing, you think to yourself.

sometimes you wonder if he remembers you.

if the ghost of your voice still lingers somewhere in the back of his mind.

a whisper beneath the hum of the engine, a name half-buried under all the noise.

maybe he’s somewhere right now, parked under a neon sign that buzzes like a heartbeat, thinking about that night in nevada when you told him to stay.

maybe not.

he always did say he never could forget the past, though.

you keep his dog tags in the glove compartment.

they’re heavy, cold, like they still belong to someone else.

you don’t wear them, just touch them sometimes.

like a prayer.

it’s strange, what love turns a person into.

you used to think you were following him, but really? you were following who you were when you were with him.

someone brave, someone who believed that even broken things could keep moving forward.

maybe that’s why you can’t stop.

when you sleep now, on the rare occasions that you can, you dream of the road. of him in the distance, the tail light of his bike glowing red like a promise. he never turns around, but he never disappears either.

if you drive long enough down any highway between here and nowhere, you might see him—metallic arm glinting in the dawn light, engine rumbling low, a ghost on two wheels.