Clark didn’t make it far.

Your apartment door clicked shut behind him—a small, routine sound, but it cut straight through his chest like shrapnel.

For a long moment, he just stood there in the hallway, hand still on the handle, forehead almost touching the cool painted wood. On the other side, you were breaking, and he heard every second of it.

Your sobs came in uneven bursts, like they’d been waiting in your ribs for weeks and finally tore free. Each one snagged, cracked, gasped its way out of you. It gutted him. Every sound, every hitch in your breathing, every time you tried to pull yourself together and couldn’t.

His body knew exactly what it wanted to do: turn the knob, cross the distance, gather you up, beg until sorry became currency again.

He didn’t move.

Your last words hit him in a loop, each one paralyzing him:

You’re looking at her like she’s still yours.

You sounded tired. Bone-deep tired. Like this wasn’t just about one look, one line, one night. Like it was about every moment he hadn’t interrogated his own loyalties, every time he’d let inertia carry him instead of intention.

Every day is like I’m dying all over again.

The three weeks after the gala taught him what living with a fresh injury felt like when the body insisted on moving anyway. He kept finding evidence he didn’t know how to live with. A pale crescent of dried pink on the inside cuff of his shirt from that night—he washed it, it stained. The hospital bracelet you’d tossed, plastic curled inward like it was trying to make itself small. The marble floor still in his head every time he stepped on tile.

He worked. He patrolled. He made lists he didn’t finish. He practiced saying your name without apology and failed. And every time your breath hitched at nothing, every time your smile arrived late, every time your hand pressed unconsciously to the place where a bullet had been and his body remembered the heat of it, he felt the same helpless burn.

I saw you love her. Do you know what that felt like? When you’re supposed to love me?

He dug his fingers into the doorknob. It groaned softly under the pressure. He forced himself to relax before he dented it further.

He did love you. That was the worst part. There was no universe, no branch, no timeline where he didn’t. He loved you in the quiet way he made your coffee exactly the way you liked it. In the way he memorized the pattern of your steps approaching his desk. In the way his whole body settled when you leaned against him on the couch. In the way the absence of your laugh made the room feel vacuum-sealed.

He loved Lois once. A past tense carved into his bones, formative and real. He had told himself he’d put that love in the right place—respected, acknowledged, boxed up, labeled. 

But the gala had proved there were parts of himself he had not examined closely enough. Reflexes he hadn’t re-trained. Scripts he still read from when caught off-guard.

I can’t live in a world where your history dictates my safety, my trust, my life.

He’d always known his history carried weight. Krypton. Kansas. The cape. Every decision he made as Superman rippled outward. He hadn't accounted that his romantic history could be just as dangerous—that who he had loved, and how, and what he hadn’t let go of—could break open the life he was trying to build with you.

“Please, honey,” he whispered before he could stop himself. The endearment you'd just forbid him from using. “Please… don’t cry anymore.”

You sobbed harder, like your body rejected the idea that you owed him any neatness in your grief.

It would be so easy. One twist, a nudge, and the lock would give. Three strides and he’d be inside: cupping your face, touching your wrists, smoothing your hair back from your wet cheeks. He could press his mouth to your temple and chant I’m sorry into your skin until he believed he’d earned the right to hold you again.

But bursting back in would only do what you’d just accused him of—put his guilt above your boundaries. 

He leaned his forehead against the wood instead, muscles shaking with the effort it took to stay still. The paint was cool under his skin. He could feel the faint vibration of your sobs through it, your pain turning the door into a conduit.

He replayed the gala again. Over and over, as relentlessly as any news reel.

Then the bullpen. Lois’s laugh, bright and sharp. The flash of her hand swatting his arm, the familiar pull of an old rhythm—reporter and source, past tense lovers, present tense professionals who had never quite untangled their history.

“You love me anyway,” she’d teased carelessly. Confident in the way you only could be when you had once been the center of someone’s orbit.

She hadn’t meant it as a challenge. For her, it was a joke. An old line between old friends.

And he—stupid, unthinking, habitual — smiled and said, “Yeah, I do.”

He hadn’t thought about what it would feel like from the outside of that old orbit, looking in, until now. He heard it the way you must have heard it. Not as a fond nod to a bygone era. Not as a harmless scrap of shared history. Heard it as a verdict. A choice, not you. 

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed. This time he didn’t say it to be heard. He said it because it was the only thing left that felt true.

Time stretched.

The hallway smell shifted from someone’s dinner to someone’s cigarette. His knees started to ache. None of it registered properly. Grief ignored clocks.

Your sobs finally thinned into jagged breaths. A hiccup. A curse that dissolved halfway through. Then, for a terrifying heartbeat too long, nothing.

His head snapped up, worried. Instinct narrowed his world down to one thing: your body on the other side of the door, silent.

He stripped away the building’s noise with a thought. TVs, plumbing, arguing neighbors—they all fell back. He listened for you.

There. Your heartbeat. Off-center, like always. Too fast, but steady.

He forced himself to stay still as he tracked you. The soft shuffle of your feet against the flooring. The uneven drag of your steps, as if your legs were as shaky as your breathing.

He counted the footsteps from the other side of the door.

One. Two. Three. You were crossing the living room carpet.

Four. Five. Six. Seven. The subtle change in resonance told him you’d hit tile. The bathroom.

He heard the faucet turn on, the rush of water—too loud in the small space—something dropped into the sink, the clink of a cabinet door. Maybe you were washing your face. Maybe you were rinsing away the tracks his choices had carved into your skin.

He imagined you gripping the edge of the sink, head bowed, water dripping from your chin and eyelashes. He wondered if you were looking at your own reflection like you didn’t recognize the person who trusted him enough with a future he’d fumble like a rookie.

He remembered the way your face lit up on that word —future— and the way you tucked your head into his chest like you were tucking the words between you. And then he remembered the way your expression had folded in on itself at the gala, when you saw him cradling Lois and demanded—

I can't lose her

He swallowed hard, throat burning.

The water shut off. More footsteps. Slower this time. Back across the living room.

He counted again. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Then the muffled sound of your bedroom door, closing with a soft, final snick.

He stayed where he was, palm sliding off the doorknob, fingers curling uselessly at his side. The small domestic sounds on the other side—bedsprings creaking, blanket rustling, a broken sigh forced through clenched teeth—filtered through the wood like a life he no longer had access to.

He knew your nighttime soundscape better than his own: the way you shifted when you were cold, the little hum when a dream turned good, the choked-off snort when allergies stuffed up your nose. He’d spent so many nights cataloguing those tiny shifts.

He would not be there for any of it tonight.

The thought landed with heavy finality. Not just you’re alone in there. But you chose to be alone rather than be with him like this.

He could live in a world that hated Superman. He’d spent years being misread, misunderstood, misused. He could bear that. But the idea of you choosing anything over him—not because you didn’t love him, but because loving him felt like stepping on glass—made his chest seize.

He stepped back from the door.

Every part of him protested, muscles clenching like he was walking against hurricane wind. He forced himself to move anyway. One step. Then another. He didn’t look back. He didn’t measure the distance from your threshold. If he did, he’d turn around and ruin the last thing you’d asked of him: listen to me when it matters.

He took the stairs instead of the elevator; the idea of another set of doors closing in his face made his lungs tighten. At the ground floor, the exit banged open, and cold night air slapped him across the face.

He stopped on the sidewalk outside your building and looked up.

Your window was just another dark rectangle against the brick. He could hear you still, faintly—your heartbeat slowing, your breath catching now and then on leftover tears, the rustle of fabric as you shifted, trying to fold yourself into a shape that hurt less.

You had drawn a line to save yourself.

He’d crossed enough lines in one night.

Clark tipped his head back, staring into the washed-out city sky. He could feel the distant pull of the sun below the horizon, waiting to rise and fill him with the same power it always did, no matter what he’d done the night before.

A blessing to keep going, keep lifting, keep bearing what needed to be borne, keep hoping.

He didn’t feel like he deserved any of that.

But there were two things he could do right now, while you were on the other side of that wall trying to breathe without him.

He would honor the boundary you’d drawn, even if it tore him apart. He would think of a way—somehow—to become a man whose history didn’t threaten your future.

He held that promise in his chest like something breakable, then stepped off the curb and let the wind catch him, leaving your window small and still behind him.

.

Clark didn’t remember deciding to go home. One moment, he was feeling the sun warm his skin undeservingly and leave the rest of him cold, then the next, he was outside his own building.

He unlocked his apartment door, and the silence that greeted him on the other side was a different kind of loud than the one outside your place. 

Like a room after the party guests have gone home, and all that’s left is confetti ground into the floor, sticky counters, and the muffled echo of music that had just stopped

He stood there for a second, letting his eyes adjust.

The coat rack still leaned a little to the left, weighed down by his jacket and your old denim one you’d “borrowed” for a chilly night and forgotten to bring back. The bookshelf still sagged under the combined weight of his journalism texts and your battered paperbacks. The couch still slouched in the middle of the living room, one corner of the blanket thrown over the back where you’d last kicked it in your sleep.

He took his shoes off, landing them softly with a thud. He moved automatically toward the kitchen for a cup of water. The coffee maker sat on the counter, glass pot clean and empty. Beside it, by the sink, was your mug.

He recognized it instantly. White ceramic, chipped at the lip where you’d once dropped it in a rush to answer a Justice Gang call. A faded cartoon crab on the front and the words WORLD’S MOST MEDIOCRE MORNING PERSON in peeling letters.

You’d stolen it from the Planet breakroom and brought it here the first time you stayed the night. “If I have to drink coffee at your place,” you’d teased, rinsing it out, “I’m not doing it from one of those sad freebie mugs with the bank logos.”

Now it sat where you’d left it, upside down on a dish towel. A coffee ring stained the counter in the exact circle of its base, like a little ghost of your morning routine.

Next to the dish rack, your favorite plate—blue and gold rim, a peacock painted in the center—rested alone. You’d claimed it with all the ferocity you brought to editing his work, using the rather expensive plate for everything from midnight grilled cheese to leftover takeout. Seeing it clean and abandoned made his chest pinch.

He turned away before even getting a glass, heading for the bedroom, shedding his tie as he went.

He pulled off his shirt, tossed it toward the hamper, and stopped halfway through the motion when he saw it.

Your hair tie on his nightstand. Just a thin pink band, stretched a little out of shape, half buried under the edge of a Steinbeck paperback and his glasses case. He remembered the way you’d tugged it off your hair one night, snapping it around your wrist before climbing into his lap, your hair falling around his face like a curtain as you kissed him good-night. You’d fumbled for it later, half-asleep, to twist your hair up again, and clearly never found it.

He picked it up with his thumb and forefinger, the elastic tiny and light and heavier than anything he’d lifted all week. For a second, he hovered on the edge of putting it somewhere “safe”—a drawer, a box, a place where he wouldn’t have to see it, and remember the exact sound you made when he slid his hands under the hem of shirt and—

He set it back down.

If his apartment was going to be haunted, it might as well be honest about it.

In the bathroom, the illusion of “just my place” fell apart completely.

Your shampoo sat next to his on the shower shelf, the label peeling from steam, the bottle dented near the base where you’d dropped it once and sworn the floor was out to get you. Beside it, your conditioner, your face wash, that ridiculous citrus body scrub you’d made him smell until he agreed it did, in fact, smell like summer, but not Kansas summer.

Your razor balanced crookedly on the corner of the tub. A tiny bit of your hair clung stubbornly to the drain.

On the sink, your electric toothbrush rested next to his, bristles slightly frayed from you brushing too hard when you were stressed. A smudge of your toothpaste streaked the porcelain, dried in a little arc.

He gripped the edge of the sink and stared at the two toothbrushes for a long time.

He didn’t move yours. He didn’t trust himself not to.

He splashed cold water on his face, more to shock his thoughts out of their spiral than to wake up, and caught sight of himself in the mirror. Eyes red-rimmed, jaw shadowed with stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave yet.

He showered quickly, the hot water scalding away the chill but not the heaviness riding under his bones. When he stepped back into the bedroom, towel slung around his hips, he almost slipped over the flannel.

It lay half on, half off the bed—his old blue-and-grey one, the one you’d stolen early on and declared “yours now.” It had always ended up like this; you’d wear it to bed, drowning in it, and at some point in the night, he’d push it off your shoulders, hands sliding under it to find your soft skin, his eager mouth following.

His body remembered before his brain did, a little flash of heat under his sternum that made him feel like a traitor to his own remorse.

He bent and picked it up. The fabric was soft, worn thin at the elbows, faintly carrying your perfume. He pressed his face into it for half a second, then exhaled and folded it, placing it carefully on the back of the chair in the corner.

The chair, of course, was piled with your things.

Hoodies, leggings, a pair of pajama shorts with tiny lightning bolts on them. The novel you’d been half-reading, spine cracked in the middle—Little Women.

Underneath that, another book: a battered trade paperback about healing ethics in metahuman communities, dog-eared and bristling with your sticky notes. He could see your handwriting peeking out—short, jagged comments like this is bullshit and ask Kendra if this happened on her first mission.

His chest ached.

On his dresser, scattered among spare change, were your little notes. Tiny squares of paper stuck on surfaces, scribbled reminders to yourself in your hurried handwriting. Some were practical:

DON’T FORGET PERRY WANTS FEATURE FINAL DRAFT BY THURS.

ASK MRS. KENT ABOUT PIE RECIPE?

LORDTECH BRIEFING 8AM – DON’T LET BOWLCUT TALK OVER YOU.

Others were more mundane, meant for him:

CHECK ON PLANT @ MY PLACE!!!

RUN LAUNDRY BEFORE WE BOTH HAVE TO GO COMMANDO.

He’d rolled his eyes fondly when you’d first started plastering his apartment with them. Now he walked through each room like he was following a breadcrumb trail you’d forgotten to finish.

On his desk, half tucked under his laptop, was a note he hadn’t seen before.

It was on a torn piece of printer paper, the ripped edge jagged where it had been yanked in a hurry. Your handwriting slanted more messily than usual, like you’d been writing fast between other tasks.

When I’m with Clark, I feel—

The sentence ended there. No period, no scribbled-out word, no arrow leading to a backside. Just the dash trailing into white space.

The breath went out of him.

He sank down onto the edge of his bed, note held carefully between his fingers as if it might crumble. The room seemed to tilt around the unfinished line.

He could imagine a dozen endings.

—safe. 

—seen. 

—terrified.

—like I’m finally allowed to breathe.

—like dying.

He didn’t know what you’d meant to write. He didn’t know if you’d stopped because you’d been interrupted, or because you couldn’t decide, or because the word had scared you too much to put down in ink.

When had you written this? Before the gala? After? Was this the beginning of a letter you’d planned to give him and never did? A journal entry that had migrated to his side of the world by accident?

His vision blurred for a second. He set the note down gently on the nightstand, next to your hair tie, as if they belonged together.

“When I’m with Clark I feel—” He read aloud, but could hear your voice filling in the blank in a dozen different tones. Laughing. Frustrated. Soft. Shaking.

He thought of your face last night, tear tracks shining under your apartment light as you’d said, Every day is like I’m dying all over again.

He thought of you on the marble floor, blood soaking your gown and the tile, still trying to sooth with him between gasps.

He thought of how you’d looked at him before he walked out. Not like you didn’t love him. Like you wished you didn’t.

He got dressed on autopilot: suit, cape, hair.

On his way out, he paused by the fridge, hand hovering over one of your notes—this one stuck crookedly above a magnet shaped like the Daily Planet globe.

DON’T FORGET: YOU’RE ALLOWED TO BE HAPPY, DUMMY.

You’d written that one after a particularly bad patrol, when he’d come home vibrating with adrenaline and guilt over the three people he just barely managed to save—never mind the dozens he successfully had. You’d kissed his knuckles where they were clenched on the counter and then scribbled the note and stuck it up before he could argue.

Now, the words felt cruel.

As he slid the balcony door behind him closed, he did a final sweep of his apartment. Evidence of a life that had threaded itself through his without ever fully moving in. 

When I’m with Clark I feel—

He carried that blank space with him out on the balcony, in the skies.

Whatever the end of that sentence had been, he knew one thing with excruciating clarity: he hoped the word that finally landed there was not terrified. Not dying.

.

He told himself he’d circle the block, clear his head, and then… something. A siren flared in the distance—ambulance, two boroughs over—and his body latched onto it like a lifeline.

By the time the sun edged over the buildings, he’d already pulled three people out of a car pileup on the freeway, rerouted a train, and stopped a mugging that would’ve ended badly for the kid with shaking hands and a cheap knife.

It set the tone for the weekend. One emergency bleeding into the next, no edges between them.

An apartment fire in Metropolis. A collapsing crane in Coast City. A flash flood three states away. A gas leak, a hostage situation, a missing child at a crowded festival.

Clark reasoned if he lifted enough, if he flew fast enough, if he stayed busy enough, maybe the echo of your sobs through your apartment door wouldn’t creep back in.

He still felt them.

They threaded under everything—under the crunch of steel, the roar of fire, the sobs of people he actually managed to save. At one point, holding up a collapsing balcony with one arm while guiding panicked civilians down with the other, he heard a woman scream, Don’t let go, please, I can’t lose him, and his hands shook hard enough that concrete dust rained down in a fresh shower.

“Superman?” she gasped.

“I’ve got you,” he said hoarsely, and wasn’t sure who he meant.

He didn’t eat much. Didn’t sleep at all. When his body complained, he flew closer to the sun for an hour and let it burn the exhaustion out of his muscles, even as it left the hollow in his chest untouched.

More than once, he caught himself a fraction of a second late—moving through an explosion’s shockwave instead of around it, misjudging the angle of a fall and slamming into asphalt hard enough to crack it. Nothing he couldn’t walk off. Nothing anyone else noticed.

It still scared him, that sliver of imprecision. He filed it away with everything else: you crying alone; your voice saying you still love him, but didn’t know if there was a way back.

By Sunday night, he hovered over Metropolis and realized he’d spent the entire weekend everywhere but the one place where he wanted to be.

He didn’t go to your door.

He went to his apartment long enough to change, to stand in the doorway and refuse to really look at the flannel on the chair or the note on the nightstand. Then he lay on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling instead of the empty space beside him, and counted the hours until Monday morning. 

.

Normally, walking into the bullpen felt like slipping into a familiar suit. Today, it felt like walking into a life he’d already ruined.

He took three steps out of the elevators, the overhead fluorescents hitting him harder than they had any right to, and then he saw you.

You were just stepping away from your chair, having clearly arrived a few minutes earlier, shrugging your bag off one shoulder. Your hair was pulled back in a way that told him you’d done it in a hurry. There were shadows under your eyes, dark and bruised, faint puffiness of your eyelids like the weekend hadn’t given you anything back. Your lips were chapped from where you’d chewed them. The skin around your nose was raw, the way it always got when you’d gone through a box of tissues on your own.  

Despite it all, Clark thought you were so beautiful.

But what stopped him, though, was the potted plant in your hands close to your chest. It was the same little leafy thing he’d brought to your apartment when you first met, when he introduced himself as both Clark Kent and Superman. 

He remembers you spending twenty minutes proudly finding the perfect spot for it by your kitchen window. He knew for a fact it had never left that sill. You’d once scolded him for moving it three inches to the left.

Now it was here. In the bullpen. In your arms.

He slowed without meaning to, heart snagging on the sight.

The plant wasn’t in terrible shape, but it wasn’t thriving either. A few leaves curled brown at the edges, one stem listing a little too far to one side. You, knowing how serious you got when things depended on you, propped that stem up with a bent paperclip.

You set the pot down on your desk with a caution that made his throat tighten, fingers brushing one of the drooping leaves with pity and apology. For a moment, your shoulders dipped, just slightly, as if placing something from home on your work surface took more energy than it should.

Then you straightened. You reached for your keyboard, logged in, and adjusted your monitor. 

He took a step toward you.

Perry’s office door flew open with a bang. Clark froze, reflexively bracing to be called in, but Perry just shouted something down the line at the photo desk and slammed it again.

Clark exhaled, took another step.

He was two desks away now. Close enough to see the exact shade of pink at the tip of your nose. Close enough that, if he wanted, he could say your name and you’d hear him.

He opened his mouth.

“Morning, Smallville!”

Lois's voice sliced cleanly through the clatter of the bullpen.

Clark flinched before he could stop himself. Lois breezed past him, her elbow clipping his arm as she went. She shifted a paper cup tray in her hands—three coffees, one balanced precariously—and gave him a quick grin.

“You’re on time today,” she sing-songed, not unkindly. "That'll earn brownie points with Perry, if he notices. ”

“Yeah,” he coughed. His eyes were still locked on you.

Lois followed his line of sight.

“Oh, yes! You're here!” she called, angling herself toward your desk and beelining. “I brought you the least crime against caffeine I could find.”

You turned at the sound of her voice.

Clark watched the transformation in real time.

For a split second, you were unguarded, eyes dull with exhaustion, mouth slack from the concentration it took just to exist. Then your expression smoothed itself out with almost mechanical precision. Your spine straightened. Your mouth lifted into something that aspired to be a smile and landed closer to a sour grimace.

“Morning, Lois,” you greeted, tonguing the word into shape like it tasted strange today.

He’d seen you post-Justice Gang patch ups, face pale and hands shaking from pain, and still manage to radiate more genuine warmth. This was not that.

Lois, for her part, was oblivious, or least acted it.

“My favorite copy editor!” she announced, setting one of the cups on your desk with a flourish. “I need your magic eyes on this city hall piece eventually. They tried to sneak three different numbers past me, and I already burned all my patience on bureaucracy this morning.”

“You do have a gift for getting into a lot of messes, honestly,” you mumbled with a huff, reaching for the coffee. Your voice was scratchy, slightly pitched high around the edges.

Lois grinned, unswayed by your tone.

“Hey, don’t act like you don’t enjoy cleaning up after me,” she shot back, leaning a hip against your desk. “What would you even do with all that free time if I turned in clean copy?”

“I’d probably sleep,” you retorted dryly, taking a careful sip. “Or remember what weekends feel like.”

“Lies,” Lois said. “You’d just take on more work because you’re pathologically helpful.” She bumped your shoulder lightly with her own. “But you love me anyway.”

The room didn’t go quiet. Phones were still ringing. Printers still whirred. Someone laughed over by sports. Somewhere, Perry cursed mightily at his computer.

And yet Clark heard that line like someone had cut a hole in the noise just for it.

But you love me anyway.

The words hit him like a thrown knife.

Friday. The bullpen lights, Lois’s laugh, the easy smile he’d given her as he straightened papers on her desk, the way it must have looked from across the room. The way it must have sounded, hearing him say “Yeah, I do” and feeling something in your chest go out like a light.

The way your face had looked when you repeated it back to him that night in your apartment, eyes glassy, mouth trembling: “What did you mean when you said you loved Lois?”

“Explain what it meant. Because I’m here trying to hold it together, trying not to fall apart every time I see her, and you’re—”

Now, Lois had tossed the same phrase into the air like a joke, unaware of its weight, and it was circling back around to see who it could cut this time.

From where he stood, he saw your hand falter.

You’d been reaching absentmindedly to adjust the plant, thumb brushing one of its browning leaves. At Lois’s words, your fingers stilled on the curl of dead green. Your shoulders lifted a fraction of an inch. A breath caught in your throat—not loud, not dramatic, just a tiny stutter in the rhythm that his ears snatched up and refused to let go.

You kept your gaze on Lois, lashes lowering for a heartbeat longer than necessary, as if you were choosing between two realities and decided to stay in the one that hurt less.

When you spoke, your voice was softer than he expected. Not brittle. Not sharp. Almost—Gosh, it killed him—tender.

“Yeah, I do, Lois,” you said, and you even smiled. A small, rueful tilt of your mouth, pulling at only one corner, like you were in on some joke at your own expense.

Clark’s lungs forgot how to work.

It felt wrong, somehow, that the words could leave your mouth so gently when they’d left his the day before like an accident. It felt worse that you were using them now on the woman who had unknowingly lit the fuse.

Lois, still oblivious, squeezed your arm.

“See?” she crowed. “Validation. I should get that in writing for when I blow a deadline.”

You set the stack of papers down with exaggerated care, fingers lingering on the manila folder to keep them from shaking.

“I—” you started, then stopped. Your eyes flicked to your monitor, to the stack of proofs on your in-tray, to anywhere but him. “I just remembered I… have something I need to get started. Perry will have my head if I don’t turn this around before lunch.”

Clark watched you slide the strap over your shoulder, movements too brisk to be casual. Your perfume—familiar, faintly coconut and something warm under it—reached him across the space between desks. He wanted to say something — your name, an apology, anything — but his voice caught in his throat.

When you finally looked up, your gaze skimmed over him, and your face crumpled slightly. 

“I’ll be back later,” you whispered harshly, already edging past Lois. “Just… need a head start.”

“Oh, okay,” Lois replied casually, still unaware of the way the air had thinned around you. “Don’t work too hard, Saint Copy.”

You huffed out something that might’ve been meant as a laugh and then you were moving—out from behind your desk, down the aisle between cubicles, toward the far hallway. Your steps were quick, not quite a run, but faster than someone who had all the time in the world.

For a moment, he could almost hear your heartbeat the way he had the night before—too fast, stuttering around its own hurt. This time it was paired with the rhythmic click of your shoes on the floor, growing fainter with each stride.

He couldn’t seem to do anything but stand there, fingers curling uselessly at his sides, watching the space you’d just vacated.

You plant sat in the middle of your desk like a stand-in. Its leaves caught the light from the bullpen windows, a few of them glossy and green, a few browned at the tips. The elevator doors at the end of the bullpen slid shut behind you with a soft ding he felt more than heard.

“Yikes,” Lois said, watching the doors close. She let out a low whistle and swung around to face him, her expression shifting to something more assessing. “Not even a kiss goodbye, Smallville? That’s brutal. What’d you do?”

Clark’s jaw clenched. He realized belatedly that he was still standing half-turned toward your desk, body leaning forward like some part of him hadn’t accepted that you were gone yet.

He couldn’t answer.

His throat had closed up, words swelling there and refusing to form. I told you I loved you. I told her I loved her. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t careful. None of that would make sense to Lois anyway.

So he did what he’d done too often lately: nothing.

He stared at the empty path your body had carved through the newsroom, then back at the plant on your desk, and felt the hum of the bullpen swell around him—phones, printers, gossip—like a tide rising over his head.

From across the room, he watched a tiny, translucent drop of water slide off one of the plant’s leaves and darken the soil below. He didn’t know if it was from a rushed watering you’d given it that morning or from the edge of a tear you hadn’t managed to wipe away in time.

Either way, the message was the same: something living had been uprooted from where it was safe, and brought here to survive on less than it deserved.

He stood there, a few desks away, muscles taut, watching the past and what he’d thought was his future share the same small space and realizing, too late, how little room he’d left for you to grow.

.

Metropolis moved like it always did over the next two weeks—phones ringing, printers whining, Perry calling “Kent, where’s that feature? Final draft is tomorrow!” across the bullpen—but for Clark, everything felt a half step to the left. Like reality had been nudged and no one told him.

Technically, you were still there.

He saw you the way people saw ghosts: in reflections and edges and almosts. A flash of your reflection in the glass wall of the conference room as you crossed behind him. The back of your head as you ducked into archives. The curve of your shoulder warped in the chrome trim of the elevator doors.

Every time he tried to catch up, you were already veering away. Already turning down another aisle of desks, already folding yourself into another task you “just had to take.”

And still—his drafts came back from Copy with your fingerprints. The literal, track-changes kind. Headlines tightened by two words. His soft verbs swapped for verbs that did work. A margin note in your brisk shorthand—ck names vs. police blotter—initialed with the same neat two letters of your initial. When Perry insisted the Kent feature stay on the A1 slate, the workflow didn’t change; you were the line between his sentences and the morning edition. No rule broken. No whispers to HR—there was nothing to whisper about. Your notes were professional, impersonal, and correct.

He stopped lingering at the copy desk when he filed. He stopped standing over your shoulder to talk ledes the way he always had. He emailed clean and waited for the ping. Reply: tighten nut graf; source 3 needs time stamp; verify quote punctuation. No greeting. No sign-off. Not unkind—just airless. A corridor with the lights turned off.

You’d always been good at moving quietly. The healer who threaded herself through Justice Gang chaos, touching a shoulder here, a wrist there, taking pain into your own body before anyone could register what they’d handed you. The copy editor who ghosted in at the eleventh hour, smoothing out commas and numbers so the paper looked like it had always been that clean.

Now that stealth was turned against him. Weaponized absence.

He deserved it. Knowing that didn’t make it sit any easier.

He saw you tucked into corners with Jimmy—behind the photo desk, leaning against the stair rail by the loading bay, huddled at the vending machines. Heads bent together, your voice low, Jimmy’s hands flying in sharp, furious gestures. Once, just once, Clark saw your shoulders shake with laughter before you swallowed it down and said something that made Jimmy snort despite himself.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what it looked like from the outside.

Man screws up. Girlfriend retreats to the one person who saw the restroom, the blood, the way she almost didn’t come back. The one who’d yelled at Superman to move, to get you out before you bled out on marble.

He told himself this was good. Healthy. Jimmy was his buddy, he trusted him. You needed someone who wasn’t him. Someone who could be angry on your behalf without choking on the word sorry.

The part of him that twisted, watching you bump your shoulder against Jimmy’s on your way out the lobby doors one afternoon, did not feel healthy at all.

His phone pinged. Your note on the feature, clinical as a chart: lede’s right; cut para 6 and fold stat into graf 4; headline’s long—trim to 8 words. He made the changes. He always did. When the proofs came back, the piece sang. It sounded like him—only better, the way it always had when you were on his pages.

The byline hit A1 the next morning. Perry slapped his shoulder. The newsroom cheered in that distracted way newsrooms cheer. And from the copy desk, your hand reached out into his periphery—not toward him, simply to move the page along to Layout.

Professional. Distant. Airtight. Nothing for HR to see. Everything for him to feel.

And when Clark felt too much, as impossible as that sounds, he went up. Which was often these days.

He’d make some excuse about a source or an errand, taking the stairs instead of the elevator so he didn’t have to brush past you or see another door close. Then he’d step into the sky as soon as he was out of sight of the windows.

Metropolis from above was a map of distraction: sirens, smoke, a thousand small disasters begging to be triaged. He let his hearing stretch until it snagged on something actionable.

A bus fishtailing on a rain-slick bridge. A scaffolding collapse two blocks from a school. A gas main rumbling beneath a corner deli.

He dropped into each problem like a man trying to drown out a song stuck in his head.

“Superman, we’ve got a situation on—”

“I’m on it,” he assured whoever was briefing him —EMS, fighterighters, police, it didn’t matter— more sharply than he meant to.

“Clark, you sure you don’t want backup?” Kendra crackled once, suspicion under the casual tone. “You’ve been hogging all the fun lately.”

“I’ve got it,” he repeated, already banking toward the plume of smoke.

He did have it. He always did. That wasn’t the point.

He moved through emergencies like a man working down a list he could never finish. Catch, brace, shield, lift, fly, repeat. A girl sobbing into his shoulder as he carried her out of a burning building. A construction worker clutching his arm, saying thank you, thank you, over and over as if gratitude alone could anchor them both.

Every time someone cried, “I thought I’d lost them,” his gut clenched.

He never forgot you were somewhere in the city.

Even as he listened for sirens, some background part of his awareness was tuned to your heartbeat—steady, located like a pin on a map: at the Hall, in the bullpen, in your apartment. Sometimes, hovering above the city at three in the morning, he caught it faint and fast and knew you were awake too, staring at a ceiling that wasn’t his.

He almost flew to your window more than once. He’d end up hanging in the air a few blocks away instead, knuckles white on his own fists, forcing himself to pivot to a police scanner instead of your fire escape.

At the Hall, he gave you space the way you’d asked. Too much, maybe.

If a call came in that needed medical support, and someone said your name on comms, he veer the other angle if possible: the perimeter, the evac, the grunt work. Anything that meant he didn’t have to watch your hands work.

He still heard you.

Your voice over their line, clipped and professional: “Med bay prepping. Status check Terrific—what’s it going to be today? Type of injuries?” A beat. “Copy: Gardner, blunt trauma; Rex, chemical exposure. ETA?” Another beat. “Understood.”

He could picture you naming the injuries before you saw them, prepping for pain you’d take into your own body and carry alone.

Once, Rex, from the way the sarcasm swung—said, “You know Supes’s been burning the candle at both ends, right? Somebody tell him he doesn’t have to white-knuckle the whole city while we’re getting stitched.”

You didn’t answer. At least not out loud. Clark imagined the look on your face and felt about two inches tall.

At home, when he did go there, he lay on his back on top of the covers, fully dressed, boots unlaced. Eyes on the ceiling. Listening to your heartbeat across town.

On the rare nights he actually slept, he dreamed in snippets:

Your hand on his chest, warm and solid.

Your hand slipping away.

Your voice at his ear saying, “I’m still waiting,” and then, “but why should I?”

Lois’s laugh from across the bullpen, overlapping with yours, until the sound turned into the echo of a gunshot in the gallery.

He would wake up startled with the taste of smoke in his mouth and went back to the sky.

Two weeks of that and the lines under his eyes deepened, his stubble grew in more often than he remembered to shave, pointed out by an amused Steve, and the edges of his control started to fray.

He overshot a landing and cratered a parking lot. He misjudged the force needed to stop a truck and twisted the frame like a soda can. Nobody died. No civilians got hurt. By Metropolis, it was still a good fortnight.

It just didn’t feel like it.

Every rescue ended with the same hollow thud in his chest: they were alive, they were grateful, they went home. And you were still on the other side of a line he’d drawn in his own blood and then stepped over.

He could keep a city from collapsing. He could not make his hands forget the one door he wouldn’t open, or the window he wouldn’t fly to, or the single thing he wanted most—not to use saving as proof that he was still good, but to be good where it counted: in the quiet, with you.

.

On this particular morning, he just meant to go to his desk.

The bullpen was in full swing when he stepped off the elevator. You weren’t at your desk; your monitor was dark, your chair pushed in, your plant sitting in its new spot in a little closer to the window than yesterday, leaves turned toward the light like they were relearning how to reach. The pot was new, a pale blue you would’ve called “eggshell” and he would’ve called “blue.”

He was halfway to his desk when he heard your name in passing.

“…I’m saying she doesn’t have to cover for him,” Jimmy murmured. “What happened was messed up.”

Clark’s steps faltered.

He knew better than to listen. He’d crossed enough lines for a lifetime. But his body recognized Jimmy’s quick cadence and Lois’s low reply before his brain did, and he stopped just shy of the doorway.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like he did it on purpose,” Lois said—raw, not defensive. “I know how it sounded. How it looked. I was in his arms and I—” She exhaled hard. “I didn’t realize things were that bad between them. They always looked… solid.”

“Rock solid,” Jimmy said. “Like, ‘sickeningly in love’ solid. ‘Please get a room’ and ‘I’m genuinely happy for you’ solid.”

“I can’t believe they broke up. Over two weeks!?” Lois’s voice became shrill. “Neither said anything!”

“Well… can you blame her?” Jimmy inquired, “Has Clark been around your radar lately?”

“No. Not at all,” she admitted. “Neither of them. Clark’s… he’s been in the cape a lot lately, now that you mention it.”

Then: “She and I already talked, cried about that night. She said…I have nothing to be sorry for,” she added, voice tightening. “But sometimes when I close my eyes, I see her hovering above me, with this blank look on her face. Clark’s next to her. Her hands and her dress—”

“There was a lot of blood,” Jimmy said quietly.

Clark pressed the back of his head against the wall and shut his eyes.

He could see it too: marble floors, tile walls, your knees slipping, your hand clamped over a wound that had never been meant for your body. The way your fingers shook. The way your voice had trembled when you’d said You said save her. I did.

Lois cleared her throat. When she spoke again, the guilt underneath every syllable was thick enough to touch.

“I keep thinking, if I hadn’t stepped in front of that couple, if I’d kept my mouth shut, if I hadn’t pushed just that one time—”

“Lois,” Jimmy cut in, sharper. “The guy was shoving an old lady with a gun. You did what anyone with half a spine would do.”

“Well it was fucking stupid!” she shot back, then winced. “Sorry. That was—”

Silence stretched.

“I feel sick…” Lois started again, softer now. “I vaguly heard what Clark said to her. How he held me when I came back, and I feel… so sick. I’d be so angry if I were in her shoes,” Her voice cracked. “But you saw how he was with her after. How he… hovered. I thought they were okay. I thought they figured it out, and we all went back to normal. And then one day, she can barely look at him, and he looks like someone stole his dog. ”

“Yeah,” it sounded as if Jimmy winced. “That tracks.”

Lois sucked in a breath. “I mean… we do have history,” she said, quieter now. “Old… stuff. And I’m not blind. I saw how he looked at me that night, and I thought, okay, that’s… complicated. But whatever it used to be? I don’t—” She broke off, then forced it out. “If I talk to her—If I said aloud what she thinks she has to worry about, would it help?”

Another long beat. Sneakers scuffed tile. “Maybe,” Jimmy said, and the reluctance in his voice was a weight, “but not much.”

“Why not?

Clark’s stomach dropped.

“I don’t…” Jimmy shifted his weight, sneakers scuffing tile. “It’s not really my place to say what she told me. She was pretty wrecked when I asked what was going on between them. I don’t think she meant to talk as much as she did. It just kind of… spilled. A lot of crying. And, like… that’s not for me to spread around.”

“She cried?” Lois asked, stricken. “While I was ribbing Clark that she forgot to kiss him, she’s going home and falling apart. Great. That’s not going to haunt me at all.”

“She said she didn’t have anyone else she felt safe going to,” Jimmy muttered, then immediately looked like he regretted saying it. “Look, it’s not that simple, and I already regret talking about it this much. Let’s just say it was a lot of little things stacked on top of a big thing and then someone jostled the table.”

Lois made an irritated grumble under her breath.

“Look,” Jimmy sighed, trying again, scrubbing a hand over his face. “She doesn’t blame you. She told me that. For the bullet, at least.”

“At least,” Lois echoed, bitter. “What about the rest?”

“She…”He let out a long exhale. “She blames herself for a lot of it. Because of course she does. But honestly, what do I think? That’s on—”

“On me?” Lois finished, voice dull.

“No,” Jimmy sighed, disappointment hanging on the end. “On—”

Clark stepped forward before he could stop himself, the word ripping out of him. “Me.”

Two heads whipped toward him.

Jimmy straightened so fast he squeaked. Lois’s eyes went wide, then narrowed with a mix of alarm and recognition; she knew that look on his face from a hundred stakeouts and arguments—the one that meant he’d heard more than he should have and hated every second of it.

“Clark! Shit! How long have you been standing there?” Lois demanded.

“Long enough,” he said roughly, gravel catching on the edges. “I just couldn’t… I couldn’t stand by and hear you two talk about it anymore.”

Jimmy’s face drained, then flushed. “Dude, I—I didn’t mean— I wasn’t trying to gossip. Lois was—she asked and I panicked and now I’m—.” He ran a hand roughly through his hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. To anyone. I should’ve just—”

Clark shook his head once. “Jimmy.”

Jimmy forced himself to meet his eyes. “I shouldn’t have spilled anything she told me. I made it worse. For you. For— for her. I’m sorry, I was just worried.”

“I—I know you care about both of us, Jimmy, but you’re right. Whatever she wants shared should come from her,” he said. He forced himself to meet Lois’s eyes. “Whatever’s happening between us, though, is no one’s fault but mine.” 

“Clark—” she started.

He shook his head. “You didn’t ask for any of this,” he went on, not letting her interrupt. “You didn’t know what her power really looks like. I did, or should have. And I—I’m the one who held you when I shouldn’t have. I’m the one who said careless, awful things,” The words clogged for a second. He forced them out anyway. “I’m the one who broke her trust. This is on me”

The word broke hung there, solid and ugly.

Lois flinched. Jimmy’s gaze flicked past Clark’s shoulder, toward the hall.

Clark didn’t need to follow it to know why his heart suddenly slammed harder. He could feel you there—could feel the stutter in your pulse, the way your footsteps had gone from brisk to stopped-dead just around the corner.

He turned.

You stood at the edge of the hall eyes wide and shock-bright. For a second, the entire bullpen seemed to blur around you—the movement, the noise, the swirl of reporters and copy runners—until it was just the four of you in this narrow slice of space and the words he’d just thrown into it.

“Hey,” Lois greeted weakly, lifting a hand.

You acknowledged her with the smallest of nods, eyes flicking over her face, then to Jimmy, then landing on Clark with an anguished expression.

He opened his mouth. “I—”

You pivoted sharply on your heel.

“Wait!” Clark called, already moving. “Please—” 

You didn’t. Your heels rang on the tile in quick, clipped beats as you vanished around the bend toward the stairwell. His body moved before his brain caught up, casting a helpless look at Jimmy and Lois—don’t follow, don’t intervene—and jogged after you, catching the door with his palm before it swung shut.

.

He caught up to you on the landing between floors.

The stairwell was one of those Planet afterthoughts—bad fluorescent buzzing overhead, paint peeling in a few corners, the hum of ancient pipes rattling behind the walls. You stood halfway down the next flight, one hand gripping the rail, the other clutched around a folder pressed to your chest.

“Honey—” Clark tsk’d, unable to drop the habit of your pet name, and tried again, saying your name carefully, “Can we talk? Please?”

You didn’t turn right away. Your shoulders rose on a breath and stayed there for a beat too long.

“You’re following me into stairwells, Clark,” you said. Your voice was steady, but he could hear the strain underneath. “It’s starting to feel like a pattern.”

“I’ll stay here,” he said quickly, stopping a few steps above you. “You don’t have to come any closer than you want to. I just—” He swallowed. “I heard what Lois and Jimmy were saying, and I couldn’t let it keep going.”

You were quiet for a moment. Then you turned. The light above you flickered, washing your face in a harsh, flat glow that did nothing to soften how tired you looked. Not just end-of-shift tired. Bone-deep tired. Hurt-tired.

“I heard them too,” you said, fingers tightening on the rail.

His throat tightened. “You keep reassuring everyone else. I needed to make sure you weren’t carrying blame you don’t deserve. If somebody is going to wear this, it should be me.” 

“I heard that, too. I heard you say you broke my trust. That’s… the bare minimum of true.”

Your expression shifted—something like reluctant respect flickering through the exhaustion. 

“Do you remember what I told you that night?” you asked.

He did. Every syllable was etched into him. You’re looking at her like she’s still yours. Every day is like I’m dying all over again. I can’t live in a world where your history dictates my safety, my trust, my life.

“You told me a lot of things,” he said hoarsely.

“Not just the hurt parts, Clark,” you said quickly. “I told you something else.”

You stepped up one stair, closing the distance just enough that he could see the fine tremor in your hands.

“That I love you,” your voice wobbled. “You were never a second choice for me, even if you made me yours.”

He flinched.

“I know,” he blurted. “I know that now. And I hate that it took you bleeding out and then watching me be an idiot in the bullpen to get it through my head.” His throat worked. “You were always it. I just… let old ghosts talk louder than you in the worst possible moment. That’s on me. Not you. Not Lois. Me.”

Your mouth twisted, not quite a smile. “You’re getting very good at owning the headline.”

“It’s more than a line,” he said, desperate. “If I could rip that night out of both our bodies, I would. If I could stand in front of every person we know and say I’m the one who failed you, I would. None of it changes that I hurt you. I know that. I just… I don’t want that to be the end of us”

“You also ask me to wait for you, on that night,” you started, quieter. “Like I’m a pause button you can hit while you sort yourself out.”

“That’s not—Gosh,” He swallowed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just— I don’t want this to be the end of us. I want a chance, time, to fix it, to fix me.”

You let out a breath that sounded like it hurt coming out.

“What have you done so far,” you asked, “to fix you?”

He blinked. “I—what?”

“You said you needed time to figure out how to be better,” you pondered. “It’s been a couple weeks, Clark. What have you actually done with it?”

His mouth opened, then closed. He looked down at his hands, at the way they’d started to shake.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he whispered. “Every day. I’ve replayed the gala, and the bullpen, and your apartment, and the way you looked at me when I—”

“Thinking,” you cut in gently, “is not doing.”

“I’ll figure it out,” he blurted, frustration prickling at his own lack of language. “I’ll look at why I said what I said that night. I’ll rip that whole night apart and—”

“Baby—” you said automatically, the endearment slipping out before you caught it. You flinched, corrected yourself. “Clark.”

His heart stuttered on the ghost of the word.

“I know you’ve already been doing that,” you said, shaking your head. “I’ve heard from Guy, from Rex. You’re out there all the time in the cape when you’re not here. You’re punishing yourself. But beating yourself up is not a plan, Clark. It’s just pain with extra steps.”

He swallowed, throat burning. “Then what do you want me to say?” he pleaded, too raw. “That I’ll cut Lois out of my life? Quit the Planet? I’ll do it. Any of it. Hon—Just tell me, I’ll do it.”

“I don’t want a list of sacrifices, baby,” you flinched again. “Clark, I don’t want you to burn everything down around you and call it growth. I want you to know why you did what you did. I want you to stop treating your reflexes with Lois like weather you can’t control.”

He stared at you like you were asking him to reroute gravity.

“You’re the one who asked me to wait,” you went on softer but heavier, like you were trying to thread the words into his ribs. “I’m not pretending I didn’t hear you. But waiting only matters if you’re moving toward something real. So I’m asking you, Clark Kent: what are you going to actually do? Not feel. Do.”

He’d never wished harder for a good, clean answer.

He didn’t have one.

All he had was the ache, the guilt, the terror of losing you, and the bone-deep desire not to be this version of himself anymore.

“I… don’t know,” he said at last. The admission scraped its way out of him. “Not yet.” He forced himself not to look away. “I know that’s not good enough. I know it isn’t what you deserve. But I don’t want to lie to you and pretend I’ve got some grand plan when I don’t. I just—” His voice broke. “I want to be someone you’re safe with. I want to be worthy of you even thinking about waiting for me. And right now I only know that I’m not. Yet.”

You closed your eyes briefly, as if the honesty and the lack of an answer hurt in equal measure.

“That,” you said when you opened them, “is the first thing you’ve said that doesn’t sound like a performance. I believe you.” Your mouth twisted. “The problem is, I don’t know if believing you is enough for me anymore.”

His breath snagged. “You said you still—”

“I do,” you said helplessly. “I love you.” You confessed as if it were also a curse. “I wish I didn’t, sometimes. It would be so much easier. To write you off and be done. But I can’t. I love you, Clark. I probably will for a very long time.”

He stared at you, every instinct screaming to reach out, to pull you into his chest and say then let’s fix it now, let’s just go home, please, my love, I miss you. 

Hope flared in his chest, wild and immediate. “Then—”

“You asked me to wait,” you cut in, and it landed like a guillotine. “I don’t know if I can say yes to something with no shape,” you went on more quietly. “To promise I’ll still be here on the other side of work you haven’t started yet. And that’s… that’s not fair to me.” 

A tear slipped free; Clark flexed his fingers to reach out, but you swiped it away quickly. 

“I don’t even know who you’ll be when you get there.”

When I’m with Clark, I feel—

The silence after that felt thicker than concrete.

“I’m tired,” you admitted, voice cracking. “I’m tired of building my life around other people’s ‘maybes.’ LordTech, the Gang, always waiting for the next mission, the next crisis. I did it with my own body, waiting to feel like it wasn’t a fix-it-all. I can’t… put myself on a shelf and label it ‘Clark’ Kent’s Future, Do Not Open Until He Figures It Out.’”

He flinched like you’d hit him, but he didn’t argue. He couldn’t. “So… is this it?” he asked, barely audible.

“It’s an ‘I don’t know,’” you said. “I know I love you. I know I’m hurt. You want to change, and I know I can’t do that for you. I don’t know if I want to keep my heart tethered to a version of you that only exists in theory.”

You took one step up, until you were close enough that he could feel the warmth of you, even if you weren’t touching him.

“I’m not giving you an answer today,” you said. “Not the one you want, and not the one that would be easier to live with either. I’m not promising to wait, and I’m not promising that I won’t. I’m allowed to decide that later, when I have more than your guilt to go on.”

His eyes burned. “Hon—what do you… need from me to change that?” he asked, desperate. 

“I need you to stop trying to make me your coach,” you wearily said. “Stop bringing me apologies and hoping I’ll tell you when you’ve done enough. I’m not a progress report, Clark. I’m the person who got caught in the blast radius.”

You let that sit for a second.

“If you’re going to figure this out,” you added, “please do it because you don’t want to be that man again. Not because you’re trying to win me back like a prize.”

He nodded, shoulders sagging. “Okay,” he whispered. “I… I can try. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll—”

“That’s the thing,” you said softly. “You’re telling me what you’ll do, someday. ‘I’ll figure it out. I’ll be better. I’ll change.’ I don’t need future tense from you anymore, Clark. I need… something I can actually see. Something that isn’t just you tearing yourself apart over and over. Here and up in the skies.”

You stepped back down a stair, putting a sliver of space between you again, matching the emotional distance you’d just carved.

“I have to get back,” you murmured, lifting the folder. “Perry will start yelling, and if someone has to swoop in to rescue me from that, I might actually throw them out a window.”

He let out a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob. “Yeah,” he said weakly. “He, uh… he already yelled once today.”

You moved down the last few stairs and pushed the door open. Newsroom noise spilled in—phones, voices, the distant clatter of someone dropping a stack of files.

You paused in the doorway and glanced back.

“Clark?”

“Yeah?” he answered, hope and dread tangled in the single syllable.

“Don’t ask me if I’m waiting for you again,” Clark watched you unconsciously played with the fabric of your shirt, where the scar lied underneath. “Not until you can tell me what you’ve actually done with the time you’re asking me to give up. Not for me. For you, too.”

His chest squeezed. “Okay.”

You nodded once, almost formally, like you were sealing a deal with yourself rather than with him.

Then you stepped through the door and were gone, swallowed by the swell of the newsroom, leaving him alone on the landing with the echo of your footsteps and the dull, relentless thud of his own heart under the place your hand hadn’t quite touched.

Deep down, he had wanted a promise— I’ll wait.

You’d given him something far more terrifying and honest: uncertainty. I love you. I might not stay. What you do next is on you.

.

Clark didn’t really sleep anymore. He drifted.

On, off, in fits and starts that never made it to rest. He lay on his side, facing the empty half of the mattress, and watched the alarm clock chew through the night. 11:19. 12:03. 1:47.

Every time his eyes slipped shut, his brain hit play on the same reel: the stairwell, the hum of the bad fluorescent light, your hand clutching that folder like a shield. Your voice saying I love you and, in the same breath, I don’t know if I want to keep my heart tethered to a version of you that only exists in theory.

He reached out more than once, half-asleep.

In his body’s memory, you were always there—limbs everywhere, hogging the blanket, hair in his face. His hand would slide across the sheets, searching for the familiar dip of your waist, the warmth of your thigh pressed against his.

His fingers found only cold cotton and the faint ghost of your citrus shampoo.

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, counting cracks in the paint.

Across the city, you were awake too. He could hear your heartbeat if he let his senses stretch that far—too fast for sleep, too slow for panic. Just… hovering, the way it always did when you were overtired and trapped in your own head.

He could fix a gas main from six blocks away, hear a mug shatter three streets over, pick out the whine of a faulty engine in rush hour traffic—but he couldn’t figure out what to do with the space beside him.

By two a.m., he gave up.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. His elbow brushed the blue-and-gray flannel still folded on the chair—his shirt you kept “forgetting” to return. His toes knocked into something small and soft on the floor: your socks, mismatched, one bunched half under the frame.

Every corner of the apartment held some echo of you he couldn’t escape. Your favorite mug upside down by the sink. Your shampoo in the shower. The unfinished note on his nightstand: When I’m with Clark I feel—

He couldn’t read it again. Not tonight.

He dragged on sweatpants and a t-shirt, grabbed his glasses out of habit, then left them on the dresser. Outside, Metropolis’ sky was a hazy smear, city glow swallowing all but the bravest stars.

He opened the window and stepped into the air.

Smallville’s night was the opposite of Metropolis’—deep and quiet, full of crickets and the rustle of corn instead of sirens and traffic. The Kent farmhouse sat in its pool of darkness like a ship at anchor. The porch light was off. One upstairs window glowed faintly for a second, then blinked out as his parents finished whatever book or show they’d been pretending not to fall asleep to.

He landed on the back porch as gently as he could.

The screen door still squeaked. It always did, no matter how often Jonathan muttered about oiling the hinges. Clark slipped inside on bare feet, into the familiar sigh of the old house. The kitchen smelled like coffee and apple pie cooling under a tea towel. The fridge hummed. The clock over the stove ticked louder than it needed to.

He braced both hands on the counter and let his head hang.

He hadn’t meant to wake anybody. He just needed… here. A place where, once, all his problems could be solved with a talk on the porch and Ma’s pancakes in the morning.

“Clark?”

Martha’s voice floated down the hallway, soft but instantly awake.

He straightened. “Sorry, Ma. I didn’t mean to—”

“Baby, you crossing a county line wakes me up,” she drawled, padding into the kitchen in her robe and slippers. She took one look at his face and her expression softened and tightened all at once. “Oh, my baby.”

She crossed the room and wrapped him up. He folded into the hug, bending to rest his chin on the top of her head. She smelled like flour and laundry detergent and something warm that had always meant home.

“Sit,” she ordered, pulling back to squeeze his arms. “I’ll get you a blanket. You look like you’re about to fall over sideways.”

“Ma, I’m okay,” he lied.

“Mmhmm,” she hummed, completely unconvinced, and raised her voice. “Jonathan? He’s doing the thing again.”

From down the hall: “What thing?”

“The ‘I’m okay’ thing,” she called back. “With the face.”

A beat, then Jonathan’s muffled sigh. “Ah, jeez. I’ll get the mugs out.”

A few minutes later, Clark stood on the back porch with his Jonathan, a mug of hot chocolate warming his hands. The sky was crowded with stars; the air smelled like damp earth and old wood and the faint metallic tang of the windmill.

They were quiet for a bit. One of the porch boards creaked under Jonathan’s weight as he leaned on the railing.

“So,” Jonathan said eventually. “What brings you home at this hour? And don’t say ‘just passing through.’ You’re a lousy liar, son.”

Clark stared out over the fields, the horizon a darker line against dark.

“I messed up,” he said. “With her.”

Jonathan didn’t ask who her was. He didn’t need to. Clark had been talking about you for months the way other people talked about the weather—constant, inevitable, occasionally awe-struck. The metahuman copy editor. The healer in the Gang’s orbit. The person whose laugh could drown out the background noise of a city if he let it.

“What kind of messed up?” Jonathan asked, voice mild. “Leave the toilet seat up, or ‘we should start lobbying for apologizing as an Olympic sport’?”

A crooked huff escaped him. “Somewhere in the new-event category.”

“Start from the part where you feel like you can’t breathe when you think about it,” Jonathan said gently. “That’s usually the root.”

Clark drew in a slow breath. Let it out.

“There was the gala,” he began. “LordTech thing. Lois and I were covering it. She was chasing the story, I was trying to keep an eye on… everything. And then some idiot thought it was a great place to pull a gun.”

He walked Jonathan through it. Not the gore, but the structure. Lois stepping in front of a couple because of course she did—always three steps toward danger if it meant the truth or someone else’s safety. The shot. The blur as Superman—fear, not thought—crashed through marble and guests to get to her.

How he’d grabbed you, desperate, dragged you into that bathroom and said the words that wouldn’t stop looping in his head now: I don’t care, just fix her. I can’t lose her.

His throat closed around the memory.

“You did what you’ve always done,” Jonathan said quietly. “You picked the person bleeding in front of you and forgot the cost to the person you handed the knife to.”

“I thought I knew her power,” Clark said, eyes stinging. “I do know it. I just… chose to see the part that looks like a miracle and not the part that looks like it might kill her. I didn’t see her. Not really. Just the solution she could be.”

Jonathan’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say I told you so. He just let the words hang.

“She warned me,” Clark went on. “Told me it could kill her. Told me it wasn’t that simple. And she still did it. Took the wound. Jimmy found her nearly dead because of a choice I pushed her into.” His voice dropped. “And afterward, she was the one telling me not to blame myself.”

He stared into the darkness, at a field that had never held a gala or a gun.

“And then?” Jonathan prompted.

“And then,” Clark said hollowly, “I went back to work like an idiot and pretended we were fine. She tried to, too. That’s… what she does. She patches people up and keeps moving forward.”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“A few weeks later,” he continued, “Lois and I were in the bullpen. Just… joking, like we used to. It felt familiar. Easy. She said something about me always cleaning up after her. And then she said, ‘You love me anyway.’ Teasing. It was an old line. We’ve tossed it around before.”

Jonathan glanced sideways. “And?”

“And I said, ‘Yeah, I do,’” Clark whispered. “Automatic. I didn’t mean it like… that. I’m not in love with her. I don’t want her back. It was just…” He grimaced. “Habit. Old script. And she—” His voice caught. “She heard me. My girl. She was right there.”

“Didn’t realize until later,” he added. “By then, she’d already cried at work and told Jimmy it was an intern thing. Then at home she told me exactly what it felt like. Watching me tell my ex I loved her. After I’d already put her on the floor for Lois once.”

He swallowed.

“She said every day felt like dying,” he murmured. “That my history with Lois kept dictating whether she could feel safe. That she couldn’t live in a world where she was always second to a story I hadn’t finished telling myself.”

Jonathan let the crickets fill the silence for a while.

“Son,” he said at last, “you know I like Lois. Always have. Girl’s got grit. But you and Lois… you broke long before this mess started.”

Clark’s mouth twisted. “I know, Pa.”

“Why’d you two break up?” Jonathan asked, not unkind. “Not the polite version. The real one.”

Clark stared down into his mug, watching the surface shiver with his pulse.

“We wanted different things,” he said slowly. “Lois… she was always chasing the story. The next lead, the next corruption case, the next big headline. That’s part of what I admired about her. Still do. But she was more in love with Superman than she ever really was with Clark. With me.”

He took a breath.

“She liked the danger,” he admitted. “The rush. Standing too close to the edge because that’s where the truth usually hides. And I…” His shoulders sagged. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to pull people back from the edge. I don’t want the people I love walking toward gunfire, even for the right reasons.”

“And now?” 

“Now I love someone who’s made of the edge,” he admitted, the words low and rough. “She literally takes people’s wounds into her body. Broken bones, lacerations, burns, now gaping,bleeding wounds— her cells will take it and repair itself. And somehow it feels… safer with her than it ever did with Lois, because she and I share the dangerous parts.”

He let that sit for a moment, tasting the truth of it.

“She knows what it’s like to be looked at as…not normal,” he said quietly. “Like a tool, something useful before something human. And for the first time I wasn’t pretending I was.” His throat tightened. “With Lois, I was always trying to be more human than I am or more Superman than I should be, depending on the day. With her,” he nodded toward the vague direction of Metropolis, “I got to be both. She saw all of it.”

“And this breakup feels different,” Jonathan finished for him.

Clark huffed a humorless breath and sipped. “Lois and I were… we ended things,” he said. “It hurt for a bit. It mattered. But it was… we both knew it wasn’t going to work forever. Different lines we wouldn’t cross. She wanted the story no matter what, and I—” He shook his head. “I can’t live there.”

He swallowed hard.

“With her,” he said, softer, “it feels like I’ve torn something out of the middle of the life I was supposed to have. Like… losing my chance at a version of myself that finally made sense.”

Jonathan was quiet. Then: “So this isn’t you trying to decide between Lois and this girl?” 

Clark opened his mouth to say no on instinct…and the word jammed in his throat.

It should have been that simple. He wanted it to be that simple. Instead, his thoughts snagged on the bathroom again—Lois bleeding out, your power burning, his own voice cracking as he shouted I can’t lose her like it was the only truth in the world that mattered.

He stared out over the fields, jaw working.

“I… don’t know,” he admitted, the words tasting like rust. “I thought it wasn’t a choice. I thought I knew exactly what I felt. But then I hear myself, Pa. I think about what I said at the gala, what I sounded like in the bullpen, and I…” He made a frustrated sound. “What kind of man says that in front of the person he claims is his future if there isn’t some part of him still hung up on the past?”

Jonathan didn’t rush to answer. He just let the question sit there between them.

“Do you want her back?” he asked eventually, plain as anything. “Lois.”

Clark’s stomach lurched. Every possible answer felt wrong.

“I don’t… lie awake wanting that life again,” he let out a shaky breath. “But when I thought she was dying, everything in me went straight back to twenty-something me in a cheap suit, thinking the world would end if she walked away.”

He shook his head, helpless.

“I don’t know if that’s love or just… fear,” he said. “Or guilt. Or habit. Or all three.”

Jonathan grunted softly. “Pretty big difference between those, son,” he said. “Love’s ‘I want to walk forward with you.’ Fear’s ‘I can’t imagine my life if you disappear.’ Guilt’s just you trying to rewrite the past with feelings you think you should’ve had.”

Clark swallowed hard. The distinctions made his chest ache.

“I keep thinking,” he confessed, “if I really loved her the way I love—” he said your name with a pained exhale, “—then why does it feel so different? Why does the thought of losing Lois feel like… history snapping shut, and the thought of losing her feel like… someone taking the air out of my lungs?”

Jonathan watched him, gaze steady.

“Sounds to me like you already know they’re not the same,” he said. “You’re just scared that admitting you don’t love Lois like that anymore makes you a worse man for ever having said you did. And scared that admitting you do still care about her in some way makes you a worse man now.”

Clark stared into his mug, fingers tightening around the ceramic.

“I care about Lois,” he said, voice low. “I always will. I don’t want her dead. I don’t want her hurt. Part of me will probably always flinch if she’s in danger. But when I picture… home?” His throat worked, and his fingers tightened around the mug. “It’s not her face that shows up.”

Jonathan nodded, as if that was the answer he’d been waiting for—not clean, not neat, but honest.

“I never wanted to hurt her,” Clark pressed on. “I keep thinking, if I can just explain, if I can just show I didn’t mean it… if I can just do enough, bring coffee, flowers, fix every problem before it touches her—”

“You screwed up, son,” Jonathan cut in, gentle but firm. “That part’s not in question. Now, are you trying to make things right, or are you trying to make sure nobody writes you down as the bad guy?”

The question hit like a punch.

“I don’t want to be the bad guy,” Clark admitted, small. “Not to her. Not to anyone. Not after everything I’ve spent my life trying not to be.”

“That’s understandable,” Jonathan said. “It’s also not the same as not wanting to hurt people.”

He took a sip of his own drink, then continued.

“You can’t fix this by convincing everyone you meant well,” Jonathan said. “You fix it by changing what you do when it matters. By not defaulting to whatever habit feels familiar when an old love bats her eyes and throws you a line.”

Clark stared out over the fields, jaw tight.

“She told me she still loves me,” he said softly. “But she doesn’t know if she can wait for me to ‘figure myself out.’ That she’s tired of being somebody’s maybe. I don’t want to crowd her, Pa. I don’t want to chase her around with grand gestures and ‘I’m sorry’ until she either caves or runs. But if I don’t do anything, it feels like I’m just watching her slip away.”

He looked at his father, desperation raw and plain. “How do I… be better? Actually better. Not just sitting around thinking about how awful I feel. Not just… hovering over her life like a storm cloud with a bouquet.”

Jonathan exhaled slowly through his nose.

“You remember when you first started lifting things you shouldn’t?” he asked. “Tractors. Trucks. That old combine.”

Despite himself, Clark snorted. “You mean when I almost flipped the tractor onto Pete Ross’s dad?”

“Exactly,” Jonathan said. “You didn’t learn control by standing in a field feeling bad about it. You learned by letting people help you. By practicing. By failing where it was safe and listening when folks told you how it looked from the outside.”

“This feels different,” Clark muttered. “Messier.”

“It is,” Jonathan agreed. “Because a truck doesn’t feel scared when you drop it. She does.”

That landed hard.

“You’ve got a lot of power, son,” Jonathan went on. “Not just the flying and lifting. The way you look at people. The way your words land. The way you put folks in an order in your head—who gets saved first, whose feelings you prioritize. That’s power, too. You’ve never had to pick that apart with somebody who knows how to help you do it. Maybe it’s time you did.”

Clark stared into his mug, the chocolate gone lukewarm.

“I think about it all the time,” he said. “The gala, the bathroom, the bullpen, the stairwell. I tear it apart every night. It doesn’t… change anything. It just hurts.”

“Thinking isn’t the same as working,” Jonathan said. “Stewing in guilt is like running the tractor in place—you burn fuel, you churn up dirt, but the field doesn’t get plowed. You want to be better? You’re going to have to let somebody else under the hood. Someone who can say, ‘Here’s why that engine does that when you panic.’”

Clark was quiet for a long moment.

“You mean… talk to someone,” he said slowly. “Really talk. Not just… vent at Ma, or dump on Jimmy, or—”

“Someone whose job,” Jonathan said, he bumped Clark’s shoulder lightly with his own, “is to help stubborn, overpowered knuckleheads figure out why they keep crashing into the same wall.”

Despite himself, Clark laughed, the sound rough.

“You’ve got friends,” he reminded him. “That Terrific fella with the… floaty circle things—”

“Spheres,” Clark muttered.

“Sure, what about him?” Jonathan inquired. “You telling me that man doesn’t know somebody who talks supers and metas down off ledges for a living?”

The image of Michael—cool, precise, constantly three steps ahead—flashed through his mind.

“If I ask him,” Clark said slowly, “that’s… doing something. Not just… thinking about doing something, right?”

“Right. Tomorrow,” Jonathan said. “Not ‘sometime.’ You want this girl to have any reason at all to keep the door cracked? Give her something besides ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I’ve been thinking about it’ to hang her hope on like she asked. And if, God forbid, she decides she can’t wait, you’ll still be a better man for the next person who loves you.”

The word tomorrow settled into Clark’s bones with the weight of an assignment, not a wish.

He looked back toward the dark line of the horizon, toward the direction of Metropolis, where your heartbeat was still moving, still there, still undecided.

“I don’t know if she’s going to stay, Pa,” he said quietly.

“I know it’s hard,” Jonathan sighed and rubbed Clark’s back. “You don’t get to decide for her. What you do get to decide is whether this is the moment you finally stop trying to carry everything alone.”

Clark tightened his grip on the mug, nodded once, and let the decision take shape.

Tomorrow, he’d call Michael. He wouldn’t tell you. Not yet. Not until it was more than a promise and a theory.

For the first time since the stairwell, the idea of doing something that wasn’t just bleeding in place felt like the tiniest bit of air in his lungs.

.

By the time Clark reached the twelfth floor, most of the hard part had already happened.

A week ago, he’d flown to Smallville in the middle of the night, sat on the back porch with his father while the crickets screamed, and said out loud, I don’t know how to be better without hurting her more.

Six days ago, he stood in Michael’s lab doorway the following afternoon, throat dry, asking for help.

“I need a recommendation,” Clark said. The words felt too big in his mouth; he forced them out anyway. “For a therapist. Someone who knows metahuman stuff. Secret identity stuff. And… relationship stuff.”

Both of Michael’s brows went up. “All of the above,” he said. “Ambitious.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” Michael’s voice softened by half a degree. “For the record, I was waiting for you to get here.”

Clark blinked. “You were?”

“You’ve been walking around like you swallowed a live grenade,” Michael said matter-of-factly. “I figured either you’d do something catastrophically stupid, or you’d ask for help. I’m glad we’re on door number two.”

He opened a drawer, flipped through a neat stack of cards, and pulled one free.

“Claire Foster,” he said, handing it over. “Psychologist. Civilian background. Specializes in capes, metas, and people who can bend steel and still think feeling bad is a personality.”

“She knows about… us?” he asked.

“She knows enough,” Michael said. “I’ve sent people to her. She doesn’t answer to LordTech, the Gang, or me. Her whole thing is confidentiality.” He held Clark’s gaze. “You tell her the truth, she can help you untangle this. More importantly, she keeps other people from having to.”

Now, the card was warm in Clark’s palm, edges soft from where he’d turned it over and over on the way here.

DR. CLAIRE FOSTER – PSYCHOLOGY.

The building was nothing special—busted intercom in the lobby, a ficus on life support, elevator that rattled on the way up

Clark stared at the little brass plaque—DR. C. FOSTER—then down at his hand. For one stupid second, he almost turned around. He could still hear you in the stairwell: Thinking is not doing, Clark.

His knuckles tapped the door before he could talk himself out of it.

“Come in,” a woman’s voice called.

He drew a breath, closed his fingers tighter around the card like it was ballast, and stepped inside.

.

Claire sat across from him, notebook open but not immediately in use. Her hair was pulled back, sleeves rolled to her elbows, expression steady in a way that made him want to both bolt and sink into the chair forever.

“First session is mostly logistics,” she said. “What this is, what this isn’t. We can go as slow or as fast as you want—within reason. You’re in charge of what you share.”

Clark nodded, throat tight.

“You mentioned you have… two jobs,” she went on. “One with a certain newspaper, and another that’s a bit more public. You don’t have to confirm anything you don’t want to, but broad strokes help.”

He let out a breath.

“I’m Superman.” There. Out loud. To a stranger.

“Okay,” Claire said, one of her eyebrows ticked up, but that was it. “Thank you for trusting me with that.”

“You’re not surprised?” he blurted, a little thrown.

“I have a client list,” she said. “It has patterns. Also, you sit like you expect the ceiling to fall in and know you can catch it.”

Despite himself, Clark huffed a small, embarrassed laugh.

“You also mentioned,” she added, “that lately you’ve been… off your axis. That something happened that shook you.”

He stared down at his hands, flexed and unflexed them.

“There was a gala,”he began, voice graveling as he avoided Claire’s eyes. “Journalist work assignment. Gunmen slipped through. Someone I care about got shot. Someone else I love almost died saving her. And then… I said something stupid at work that made everything worse.”

“Okay,” Claire nodded once, pen already moving. “Let’s start with the gala. More specifics. What happened, and what did you do that you can’t stop replaying?”

He told her.

Lois stepping in front of the couple. The gun. The shot. Marble and screaming. Dragging you into the bathroom, your hands already shaking as you warned him what your power might cost.

“I yelled at her,” he admitted, disgust curling the words. “She warned me, tried to tell me pieces of the true nature of her powers. I ignored her— I told her I didn’t care. That I just needed Lois alive.”

Clark swallowed, tipping his head back. “I said I couldn’t lose her.”

The words felt poisonous coming back out.

Claire’s pen stilled. “You said that out loud?”

“Yeah, I did,” he muttered.

“Say it the way you said it then,” she suggested, quiet but firm “Not for me. For you. Let’s see how it feels in your mouth.”

Clark sat up and almost refused. Then one look from Claire, and he closed his eyes, hauling himself back there—Lois on the floor, blood pooling around her, your voice shaking next to him.

“I don’t care!” he dragged out, hearing his own echo over phantom screaming. “Just fix her! Please, please, I can’t— I can’t lose her.”

Silence dropped like a stone.

He opened his eyes. He braced for disgust, condemnation, something.

Claire just watched him, steady. “Who is ‘her’ in that sentence?” she asked.

“Lois,” he breathed. “Lois Lane.”

“And when you said ‘lose,’” she continued, “what did that mean in that moment? Lose her how?”

“Dead,” he forced out. “On the floor. Gone.”

“Just that?” she pressed. “Or more?”

He hesitated.

“If she’d died that night,” he admitted, “it would’ve felt like… losing everything we’d ever been. Friend, partner, ex, colleague. All those threads. Cut.” He swallowed. “And it would’ve said I failed her. Again. That I wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, smart enough. That I was exactly what everyone’s afraid I could be—someone who could’ve stopped it and didn’t.”

Claire nodded, like she’d been expecting that.

“So when you yelled, ‘I can’t lose her,’” she pondered, “it wasn’t just about Lois as Lois. It was Lois as… proof.”

“Proof?” he echoed, wary.

“Proof you’re still the man who keeps people alive,” she said. “Proof the story of you and Lois doesn’t end with you standing over her body. Proof breaking up didn’t mean abandoning her. If she dies, you lose her and you lose your chance to ever make it right.”

He grimaced. “That sounds… selfish.”

“It sounds human,” Claire replied. “It’s both. Terror isn’t neutral. It chooses priorities. That’s what we’re looking at.”

He flinched. “I said that with—” his voice hitched“—with my partner…at the time…right there. Begging her to help without listening to her.”

“And she did it,” Claire said. “She took the wound.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “And nearly died.”

“And afterward?”

“She disappeared. Our friend found her bleeding out in the restroom. She told me to stop looking sad. Told me she was fine. Then just… went on with her days.”

“And you let her,” Claire observed, not unkind.

Shame burned under his skin. “I tried to— I don’t know. Pretend we were okay. That if I stayed steady, it meant we were.”

She nodded once. “Okay. And the stupid thing at work?”

He swallowed.

“Weeks later, we were in the bullpen,” Clark wet his lips. “Me and Lois. Joking like we used to. She said, ‘You love me anyway,’ teasing. And I said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ Autopilot. I didn’t mean it… romantically. I just—”

“You wanted her to know she still mattered,” Claire finished. “That you hadn’t written her off. That you’re still the guy who cares she almost died.”

His jaw clenched. “Yeah. Habit. I didn’t even think about it. Until…”

“Until your partner heard you?” Claire supplied.

He nodded, staring at the rug.

“And she told you what it felt like,” Claire continued. “To hear that. After the bathroom. After the bullet. After paying the cost.”

“She said every day felt like dying,” he murmured. “That my history with Lois dictated whether she could feel safe with me. That she couldn’t live in a world where she was always second to a story I hadn’t finished telling myself.”

“And she asked you tot figure out what you wanted,” Claire said. “Who you wanted.”

“I told her I wanted to be better,” he said. “I asked her to wait while I figured out how.” His mouth twisted. “She said she didn’t know if she could wait for a version of me that only existed in theory.”

Claire was quiet a moment, then: “Good. She’s drawing a boundary. Now we need to figure out what you’re waiting for.”

He let out a shaky breath. “I don’t even know if I… still love Lois,” he confessed. “My dad asked and I said no, I don’t want to go back there. But then I hear myself in that restroom, hear myself in the bullpen, and I—” his hands spread, helpless “—I don’t know what to call that.”

“Okay,” Claire said. “We’ll test it. Not with words. With your body. Close your eyes.”

He frowned, but did.

“Picture Lois,” she instructed. “Not memory-Lois ten years ago. Present Lois. As you saw her last week. Now imagine reaching for her. Kissing her. Not CPR, not panic. Just… choosing her as your person again. How does your body respond?”

Even conjuring it, Clark’s shoulders went tight. His stomach twisted with wrongness, not longing.

“No,” he grimacing. “I don’t want that. It feels… like trying to step back into a photograph.”

“Good,” she said calmly. “Notice where you feel that ‘no.’”

“Chest. Gut,” he answered. “Like the lock doesn’t fit the key anymore.”

“Now,” Claire went on, “same exercise. Picture the woman you were with. Imagine it’s a day where everything is healed, for the sake of this. You’re home. You put your hands on her face. You kiss her. What happens in your body?”

Heat washed through him so fast it almost made him dizzy. Ache, sharp and familiar. His eyes stung behind his lids.

“I want that,” he said hoarsely. “I want… her.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere,” he admitted, wrecked. “Chest, stomach, hands. Like tension leaving and coming back all at once.”

“Okay,” Claire said. “Open your eyes.”

The room came back: plant on the sill, ugly mug with a cartoon brain, Claire’s level gaze.

“Seems you are not in love with Lois,” she said plainly. “Your body just answered that for you. Loudly.”

He blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Then why did I say it like that?” he demanded. “Why did it sound like I couldn’t live without her?”

“Because love isn’t the only kind of attachment,” Claire replied. “You can be done with a romance and still be tangled in guilt, obligation, unfinished stories. You and Lois ended. A part of you never believed you deserved to have hurt her. So you’ve tried to be the good ex. Over-available. Extra kind. The man who would never let her down again.”

He winced. The truth landed too cleanly.

“So when you saw her bleeding,” she went on, “your nervous system screamed, Not again. I cannot be the man who let Lois Lane die. It grabbed the nearest lever—which happened to be your partner at the time—and pulled.”

“And I made her pay for that,” he whispered. “I put that terror on her. I made her carry it. Literally.”

“Yes,” Claire said. “On multiple levels. You asked her to take the physical wound. You also asked her, without words, to protect you from ever having to feel what it’s like to lose Lois and what that would mean about you.”

A wave of nausea hit Clark, “I didn’t want to—”

“I know,” Claire cut in gently. “You weren’t scheming. Intention matters. It does not erase impact. What matters here is pattern. You turned one woman you love into a shield against your unresolved fear about another.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“Say this out loud,” Claire prompted. “So your nervous system hears it: ‘I care about Lois. I don’t want her dead. But I’m not in love with her.’”

His throat worked. “I care about Lois,” he forced out. “I don’t want her dead. But I’m not in love with her.”

His chest loosened, just a fraction.

“And now the other truth,” she said. “The one you’ve been circling.”

He thought of you. Of your hand hovering over his heart in the stairwell. Of you saying I love you and I don’t know if I can wait in the same breath.

“I am in love with her,” he said, voice rough. “With the woman I asked to wait for me.”

Claire nodded once. “Good. Now we have our baselines. You care about Lois, but you’re not in love with her. You are in love with the woman who you asked to wait. And the person you’re in love with is living with the aftermath of you confusing those things in the worst possible way.”

He stared at his hands. “So what do I do with that?” he asked. “Cut Lois out of my life? Apologize forever? How do I fix this without making it all about proving I’m not the bad guy?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do,” Claire said. “I’m not going to declare you secretly a monster or secretly a saint. You’re a man whose patterns hurt someone he loves. Some of those patterns come from habits you learned early. Some from fear. Some from a story you tell yourself about what keeps you good.”

He swallowed. “What story?”

“That you are only worthy if you are saving someone,” she added. “That your value is measured in disasters prevented. That if you fail even once, you have to work twice as hard to prove you’re not the worst-case scenario.”

The words hit like an exposed nerve.

“You pick people who throw themselves at danger,” Claire continued. “Reporters who chase bullets. Metahuman medics who take wounds into their own bodies. Teammates who bleed for others. You stand between them and the worst of it. In doing so, you feel like you’re earning your place in the world.”

He thought of Lois with her notebook in the line of fire. He thought of you, hands pressed to someone’s chest, pain crawling up your arms.

“I don’t want that to be why I love them,” he said, hushed, exhausted.

“Good,” she said. “It isn’t that simple. But your patterns don’t care about poetry, they care about outcomes. When you hurt someone, your first instinct is to patch it with proof that you meant well. I didn’t mean to. I was trying to help. I love you anyway.”

He flinched at the echo.

“What she’s asking you for,” Claire said, “is not a better speech. She’s asking you to change the reflex. To become someone who can stand in a room with his past and his present and not default to the script that makes the past feel safer.”

“How?” he asked. It came out almost like a plea.

“By doing exactly what you’re doing right now,” she said. “Sitting here. Naming it. And then, over time, practicing something different.”

“Practicing what?”

“Pausing,” she said. “Noticing whose comfort you’re prioritizing. Lois’s? Yours? The city’s? Hers? Asking, Am I trying to be good, or am I trying to be forgiven? Learning how to hear ‘you hurt me’ without sprinting to ‘but I didn’t mean to.’”

He stared at the weave of the rug.

“She asked you what you’re going to do,” Claire reminded him. “Not what you’re going to feel. You’ve already got guilt handled. That’s not the work.”

She leaned forward slightly. “So we’re going to make a list. Not of grand gestures. Of small, concrete things. For you.”

“For me?” he blinked.

“Yes,” she said. “Because if you only do this for her, you’ll resent it, or you’ll make her responsible for measuring your progress. This has to be something you are doing because you do not want to be this version of yourself anymore. Whether or not she takes you back.”

The idea landed in his chest like a new kind of weight—heavy, but solid.

“Okay,” Clark adjusted with his seat, spine straightening with conviction. “What’s first?”

“First,” Claire said, “you keep coming here. You commit to this. Second, you start tracking when that urge to fix, to reassure, to say ‘I love you anyway’ kicks in—especially with people who are not the woman you’re building a life with. Third, you start practicing one sentence in your head when you think about her.”

He looked up. “What sentence?”

“I won’t use you to fix my past,” Claire said. “Say it to her in here, for now. Make it a promise to yourself.”

He rolled it over silently. I won’t use you to fix my past. Awful. True. Right.

“And Lois?” he asked, smaller. “What happens with her?”

“We’ll get to boundaries later,” Claire said. “For now, hold both truths: you care about Lois and don’t want her dead. You’re not in love with her. The person you are in love with is bleeding from the way you confused those truths under pressure. That’s the mess we’re cleaning.”

He let out a long breath.

“She’s waiting,” he said, voice rough. “She said she loves me. That there’s still a chance. But she’s not promising to wait forever.”

“Good,” Claire said. “Her love isn’t a prize at the finish line. Your job now is not to obsess over whether she forgives you. Your job is to become a man who, even if she doesn’t, can look at himself and say, I did the work. I changed.”

He thought of the unfinished note on his nightstand. When I’m with Clark I feel—

He thought of you in the stairwell, saying you wouldn’t stand still forever for a version of him that might never arrive.

“I don’t know if I can ever make up for what I did,” he admitted.

“That’s not the assignment,” Claire said. “You’re not erasing. You’re building from here. You’re learning how to make sure that the next time someone says ‘you love me anyway,’ you know exactly what kind of love you mean, and who you’re saying it for.”

He swallowed, then nodded.

“Okay,” he said again, more solid this time.

“Good,” Claire said, uncapping her pen. “Now, tell me about the first time you felt like your powers made you dangerous to someone you cared about. We’ll trace the line from there.”

He thought of Kansas. A field. A tractor flipped too easily. A boy with a broken arm and terror in his eyes.

He started talking, and it felt like something was actually moving—not fast, not magically, but in the right direction.

.

Clark didn’t realize how loud the world had been until he started trying to listen to himself.

He stepped out of Dr. Foster’s office with his shoulders knotted and his brain buzzing, not with sirens or heartbeats or the usual city symphony—but with a handful of sentences that wouldn’t stop circling.

I care about Lois. I don’t want her dead. But I’m not in love with her.

I won’t use you to fix my past.

Am I trying to be good—or am I trying to be forgiven?

The elevator ride down felt longer than a cross-country flight. By the time the doors opened on the ground floor, he’d thumbed his way through half a dozen drafts of a text to you and deleted every one of them.

You weren’t his progress report.

He texted Michael instead.

Clark: Got in. Thanks.

Michael: Proud of you. Now go again next week. And the week after.

That night, Metropolis tried very hard to give him excuses not to think.

There was a scaffolding collapse in Suicide Slum. Instinct screamed you’re the only one who can fix this, but Kendra was already in the air, helmet shimmering. He caught the edge of the panic—his and theirs—closed his eyes for half a second and remembered Claire’s voice.

Are you trying to save them—or are you trying to save yourself from feeling useless?

He landed beside the rubble anyway, but instead of lifting everything alone until his bones hummed, he stepped back as Kendra barked orders.

“You take that beam, I’ve got the top section,” she told him. “Nice of you to join us, Boy Scout.”

“Just tell me where you want me,” he said.

He pushed. He lifted. He did the work. But when the last person was clear and the EMTs waved them off, he didn’t go looking for another crisis like a man trying to earn the right to breathe. He went home.

He walked past your side of the bed without reaching for it.

He glanced at the unfinished note on his nightstand.

When I’m with Clark I feel——

He forced himself not to pick it up and make it about whether he still deserved the words that never got written.

This is for you too, Claire had said. Even if she never finishes that sentence.

He slept. Badly, but on purpose.

.

The bullpen had that late-morning buzz—phones, printers, Perry shouting faintly from his office—but it all felt a few decibels removed from Clark.

You were at your desk, head bent over proofs, pen moving in short, precise strokes. The plant sat beside your monitor, leaves turned toward the window. Five new shoots, greener than last week were waiting to unfurl. You’d shifted the pot closer to the light, the bent-paperclip splint still bracing the weakest stem.

He wanted—Gosh, he wanted—to walk over, ask about your weekend, offer a stupid comment about the plant’s comeback arc. Instead, he took his seat, set his bag down, and focused on his keyboard.

I won’t use you to fix my past, he reminded himself. Or my guilt.

You were allowed to have a normal morning without him crashing through it, bleeding apologies all over your in-tray.

“Hey, Smallville,” Lois said as she breezed by, dropping a manila folder onto his keyboard. “Got numbers from City Hall. They tried to bury a ten percent discrepancy in a footnote; I need you to tell me I’m not hallucinating.”

He managed a small, polite smile. “Morning.”

She paused, frowning slightly. “That’s it? No complaint about my timing? No joke about how I only bring you numbers when they’re a crime?”

“I’m still waking up,” he said, because it was easier than “my therapist said I have to relearn how to talk to you.”

She leaned a hip on his desk, easy and familiar. Too familiar.

“Rough night?” she asked. “Or just deep in thought about how very lucky you are to have me?”

It was almost nothing—a line, a posture, a rhythm they’d traced a hundred times.

Old Clark would’ve fallen into it automatically, let the banter smooth over the jagged edges inside him. Let the comfort of we’re still us muffle the image of you in the staircase saying I don’t know if I can wait for a man who only exists in theory.

He felt the reflex rise—You know I always have your back, Lois, You know I’d never let anything happen to you—and forced himself to stop.

Pause.

Whose comfort are you prioritizing? Claire asked in his head. Hers? Yours? The woman you’re in love with?

“Lois Lane,” he said instead. Something in his tone made her straighten.

“Uh-oh,” she pinched her brows. “Whenever you use my full name like that, I either get a lecture or a hug. Please let it not be the second one; I don’t have the emotional bandwidth yet.”

He huffed a breath. “I need to talk to you about… that.”

She blinked. “About hugging? Did HR make a policy memo I missed?”

“About… us,” he clarified. “About how we are at work.”

Her expression flickered—surprise, guilt, a flash of defensive humor she bit back halfway.

“O-oh,” she stuttered. “Then this is about… that.”

“It’s some of it,” he said.

Clark glanced past her—to your desk, your plant, your empty chair—and made himself keep his eyes on Lois.

She jerked her head toward the side hall. “Stairs?”

“Stairs,” he agreed, and they both moved.

.

The fluorescent light buzzed faintly overhead, casting everything in that same ugly, humming glow that had lit your face the day you told him you didn’t know if you could wait. 

Lois dropped down to the first landing and leaned against the rail, cradling her coffee in both hands. Clark stayed one step above her, more out of habit than intention.

“Okay,” she said. “So. What’s going on?”

“I’m not… mad at you,” Clark started, firmly. “I need you to know that first.”

“Great,” she said, too brisk. “Because I’ve been feeling like human collateral for days, and—sorry, it really fucking sucks,” She ran a hand through her hair. 

He swallowed.

“At the gala,” he said, “when you got shot. And in the bullpen afterwards. I said and did things that hurt her. That’s on me. Not you.”

Lois stared at him, face carefully neutral.

“I forced her to into an impossible choice, one she warned me about,” he went on. “I told her I didn’t care what it did to her body. I yelled that I couldn’t lose you. And weeks later, I joked back when you said I loved you anyway. I didn’t think about how that sounded.” His throat tightened. “That’s all mine. That’s not yours to carry.”

She looked away, jaw ticking.

“I figured as much,” she said quietly. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t… help light the match.”

“You stepped in front of a gun,” Clark said. “That was about the couple behind you.”

“And still,” Lois said. “If I hadn’t—”

“Lois.” He let a little steel into it. “You didn’t make me say any of that to her. You didn’t make me ignore what it would cost her. I have patterns I didn’t see clearly until they hurt her. And I’ve been… sorting through that…with someone who actually knows how to help me untangle it, instead of just feeling awful and calling it progress.”

Her brows shot up. “You’re in therapy,” she gaped, like she’d just solved a puzzle. “That explains the sentences.”

He huffed a humorless little breath. “Yeah. I am. A few weeks now.”

She let that sit for a second, then nodded. “Good. Honestly? Good.”

He shifted his weight, the step creaking under him. He took a breath.

“I care about you,” he said, and felt how true it was. “You’re my friend. My colleague. You matter to me. But I’m not in love with you. I haven’t been for a long time.”

Lois blinked. Something in her shoulders dropped—not hurt. More like a tension she hadn’t noticed letting go.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “That’s… good, actually. Okay. I… I knew that. Just nice to hear it out loud without everything else collapsing around us.”

“I haven’t acted like it, though,” he admitted. “I’ve let us slip into old patterns. Banter, touching, half-flirty half-nostalgic… stuff. For me, it was habit. For her, it looked like I was still half in that story.”

Lois flinched. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, if I were her, I’d—actually, I’d murder you. She’s being much more mature about this than I would be.”

He gave a humorless half-smile. “She went for the heart instead.”

“She loves you,” Lois said. It wasn’t a question.

“She told me,” he nodded. “She also told me she doesn’t know if she can keep her heart tethered to a version of me that only exists in theory.” He exhaled, the memory slicing through his chest. “I asked her to wait while I figured out how to be better. She… hasn’t promised she will.”

Lois winced. “Ouch,” she muttered. “Good for her, though.”

“I’m not asking you to convince her to stay,” Clark said quickly. “Or to… talk me up, or anything like that. That’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to her. What I am asking is that we stop feeding the script that hurt her in the first place.”

“Meaning?” she asked finally.

“I need us to have clearer… lines,” he said. “I can’t be the guy who lets you hang off my arm then goes home to her pretending that doesn’t mean anything. I can’t joke about loving you like we’re in some nostalgic rom-com. It’s not fair to her. And honestly… it’s not fair to you either. It keeps us both stuck.”

Lois let out a breath between her teeth. “You’re asking me to be less… Lois,” she asked lightly, but there was no real sting in it.

“I’m asking you,” he said carefully, “to be my friend and colleague, not my unfinished business. I haven’t been fair to either of you the way I’ve let things stay muddy.”

Her eyes flashed, then softened into something he wasn’t used to seeing from her: sympathy.

“Clark, for what it’s worth,” she said, voice quieter, “I never wanted to be that. The ghost in your new thing. Or a… measuring stick. I’ve been carrying around my own guilt—about the bullet, about ribbing you in the bullpen, about watching her smile at me while she was probably… breaking inside.” She swallowed. “I like her a lot. She’s so good for you. Scary good.”

“She is,” he agreed, thinking about you entirely, voice turning tender.

Lois nodded to herself, then met his eyes again.

“Okay,” she nodded with conviction. “Boundaries. Fewer limbs. Less nostalgia. No more ‘you love me anyway’ unless we’re both ninety and drunk, or at least I am, at bingo hall.”

“That seems reasonable,” he said with a small chuckle.

She huffed a laugh. “And if I slide back into old banter?”

“I’ll… catch it,” his brows furrowed. “And tell you no.”

She nodded, picking at her shirtsleeve just to do so.

“And her?” she asked carefully. “What are you doing… for her?”

He thought of Claire. Of the sentence he’d promised to practice. Of your face in the stairwell, eyes wet but steady as you said, Beating yourself up is not a plan, Clark.

“I’m trying,” he exhaled slowly, “to become someone who doesn’t ask her to bleed for my unresolved mistakes. Someone who can stand in a room with you and not default to the script that makes the past feel safer. Which is what we’re starting here,” He gave a small smile. “I’m trying to do that whether she takes me back or not.”

Lois stared at him for a long second, eyes suspiciously bright despite the strained smile on his face.

“She’s lucky,” she said softly. “If you get there.”

“I’m the lucky one,” he stated firmly. It came out before he could stop it. “If she decides I have.”

Lois sucked in a breath, then let it out in a half-laugh. “God, you two are disgusting,” she muttered, swiping at one eye with the back of her hand. “In a good way. I’m rooting for you. Just… don’t quote me on that. I have a reputation to maintain.”

He let the corner of his mouth lift. “Yeah,” he said. “That I can do.”

“Good,” she said, straightening. “All right, Clark. I think we’ve sufficiently emotionally matured for one day. If we do any more growing, we’re going to out-evolve this stairwell.”

She started up the steps toward the door back to the bullpen, and pushed through the door with a hollow thunk. 

Suddenly, the stairwell felt really quiet. Clark exhaled, tension unfurling from between his shoulder blades. It wasn’t perfect. It didn’t erase anything. But it was… something. A line drawn where there hadn’t been one before.

He turned to go, something above catching his eye—

—and froze.

You were standing on the landing above them, 

One hand on the rail, your body angled just enough around the bend that you could’ve stayed hidden if you’d wanted to. Your eyes wide, lips parted like you’d forgotten to finish an inhale. You looked like you just saw a miracle that rivaled your gifts.

His heart stumbled. He had no idea how long you’d been there. 

“I—” he started to say your name, then stopped. All the old reflexes crowded in—It’s not what it sounded like, I was just——and he shoved them down.

Claire’s voice slid in, steady as ever: Am I trying to be good, or forgiven?

Clark swallowed and tried again. “What you heard…” he began quietly, “was true. All of it. I should have had that talk with Lois a long time ago. I’m sorry it took hurting you for me to see I needed to.”

You didn’t say anything at first. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead; somewhere below, a pipe clicked. He forced himself not to move up the stairs, not to reach for you. Claire’s voice was clear in his head: She is not responsible for proving you’re good.

“I’m not telling you to change your mind,” he added, pulse loud in his ears. “Or to… wait, or not wait anymore. You hold that power. I just—” He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m trying to do the things I told you I would. Even when you’re not watching.”

That, at least, was something he could say without choking on it.

For a long second, you just looked at him. Then, slowly, your grip on the folder loosened. Your shoulders dropped with the tiniest release of tension, but he caught it like it was seismic.

The expression that crossed your face wasn’t the raw, wounded anger from that night at your apartment. It wasn’t the numb, stunned hurt from the first stairwell. It was… something in between. 

Softened. Guarded. Familiar in a way that made his chest burn. 

It looked, for a heartbeat, like the way you used to look at him across the bullpen when he brought you coffee before a brutal edit—tired, amused, fond despite yourself. Love. You looked so beautiful to him

“Yeah, I know, Clark,” you said, voice calm and steady. “I heard.”

His mouth went dry. “Okay,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to offer that wouldn’t tip into begging.

You tilted your head, studying him like you were seeing a new angle.

“That was…” You searched for a word, lips twisting. “Different, from you.”

He almost laughed. “Trying to make that a habit,” he managed.

A corner of your mouth tugged up—small, rueful, so achingly familiar it felt like someone had put his heart back in his chest for half a second.

“I should get back,” you said, fingers tightening on the folder again.

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”

You turned, took a step up, then hesitated and glanced back down. “Clark?”

“Yeah?” he asked, his heartbeat racing .His name in your mouth still did something to him.

“You don’t owe me a play-by-play of… all this,” you gestured vaguely between him and the door Lois had gone through. “But… if you keep doing things like that? I’ll notice.”

The words were simple. Noncommittal. Completely, absolutely devastating.

His throat tightened. “Okay,” he said softly. “I… okay.”

Something unspoken moved between you—regret and history and the faintest outline of something that might, one day, be hope.

You gave him one last look, that almost-old look, then turned and climbed the rest of the stairs. The door opened, letting in a burst of newsroom noise, then shut behind you.

For a long moment, Clark stayed where he was on the lower landing, heart pounding, hand braced on the rail.

He’d set a boundary with Lois, and you’d heard. For the first time since everything broke, instead of feeling like the walls of the stairwell were closing in, it felt like maybe he’d taken one step in your direction that you were willing to count.

That night, he sat on his couch with his journal open—Claire’s homework—and stared at a blank page.

At the top, he wrote weeks ago:

Moments I chose differently (for me)

Underneath, slowly adding a couple more bullet points:

Let Kendra take charge. Helped. Didn’t overstay.

Went home after. Didn’t patrol until I dropped.

Told Lois I’m not in love with her. Set clearer lines.

Didn’t say “I love you anyway.”

Didn’t follow her (you) into the stairwell. Didn’t ask if you’re waiting.

He stared at the list, shame and something like fragile pride tangled together.

This wasn’t a grand gesture. It wasn’t a plea. It was a record. Proof to himself that the version of Clark you were waiting on—if you still were—was starting to exist in more than theory.

Across town, your heartbeat moved through your evening—work, the Hall, home. There was a space between you and that felt, for the first time, less like punishment and more like necessary distance.

When I’m with Clark, I feel—-

He closed the notebook and set it on the table. Tomorrow, he’d go back to Claire. Tomorrow, he’d probably find a dozen more ways he’d failed without noticing. But tonight, he’d at least given himself something to bring into that room other than I’m sorry and I don’t know.

He thought of the plant on your desk, leaves turned stubbornly toward the light, still holding on despite brown edges and a cramped pot.

“Keep going,” he murmured, to it, to you, to himself.

Then he turned off the lamp and let the dark be quiet for once.

.

(Recovered fragment, 2025 restoration project) Excerpt: “On the Return of Alcestis — A Study in Mortal Bargains In the oldest tellings, Alcestis was the queen who loved too greatly. When Death came to take her husband, Admetus, she stepped forward in his place — unbidden, unthanked — a quiet act of devotion mistaken for destiny. The poets record that she descended willingly, hand in hand with her own mortality. She did not weep. She did not plead. They say the gods themselves paused to watch her go. When she was returned — whether by divine pity or the hero Heracles’ brute insistence — no one knew how to greet her. The people rejoiced. Her husband fell to his knees. And yet, Alcestis said nothing. Three days passed before she spoke again. No historian agrees on what she said first, only that it was not forgiveness. Some scholars argue the silence itself was her speech: that love given at the cost of self is not a covenant, but a wound. — Archival Commentary, Metropolis Museum of Antiquities, “Love and Loss in Ancient Greece” exhibit, 2025.

.

You woke to the low hum of fluorescent light. The ceiling above you was the same indifferent white as every hospital ceiling you’d ever seen—sterile, too bright, an imitation of calm. 

The gown they’d given you was the color of a clear spring sky. No IV line tugged at your arm, no monitors chimed. You felt too whole for this place, your body already steady, skin cleansed and smooth where there should have been ruin. Only a scar the size of a pencil eraser marked the off-center of your chest—a polite dot over what had been chaos, sacrifice. The rest of you hummed with a quiet wrongness, as if your cells hadn’t caught up to the fact that they were still alive.

You turned your head.

Clark was slumped in the chair beside your hospital bed, long legs folded awkwardly, head tilted toward you in uneasy sleep, his glasses tilted halfway down his nose. His shirt was half-untucked, his suit jacket draped behind him. Dried blood, Lois’s, yours, maybe both, stained the cuff of his sleeve. His tie drooped around his neck like a spent ribbon. His black curly hair stood in chaotic directions, and the sight of him— the world’s strongest metahuman looking so humanly wrecked—broke something inside you.

His hand had fallen toward the bed, open and reaching, as if he’d meant to keep hold of you even in sleep.

The memory returned in flashes.

Honey, you can help her.

This could kill me—

I don’t care!

I can’t lose her

You’d carried those words into darkness.

Now you stared at him, the man who saved the world yet couldn’t bear to lose one person. The first man who asked about you instead of what you could do. The first who saw the healer before the miracle. The man who you’ve fallen so terribly in love with.

The echo of his desperation for Lois stung like a reopened wound repeatedly. 

You bit your lip and reached for him despite it all.

Clark woke the instant your fingers brushed along his large palm. His eyes were bright blue and terrified.

“Hey, handsome,” you rasped, your voice paper-thin. “You look like hell.”

He exhaled like a dam giving way, half a laugh, half a sob, lips quivering. Then he was up, crowding your side, his trembling hands cradling yours.

“You’re—Honey, you’re awake.” He pressed frantic kisses to your knuckles, your wrist, the inside of your palm, feeling the light pinpricks of his stubble.“You scared me,” he said hoarsely against your skin. It wasn’t an accusation; it was confession. “You’re really awake.”

His lips then brushed your cheek, your temple, deeply along your lips. The taste of antiseptic mingled with the faint sweetness of the coffee he must have downed hours ago. When he drew back, his lashes were wet and the corners of his eyes were red, fatigue threading through them.

“You’re really here,” he whispered, inhaling deeply against the back of your palm. “I—You passed out, in the bathroom, and Jimmy called—”

You gripped his hand tight and tried to smile, the murky details of you on the bathroom floor ebbing at your memory. “You don’t have to —It’s okay, I got an idea what happened. I’m okay.”

“No, no, please,” He looked down at your joined hands as though they were something sacred. “Be honest with me, are you though? Do you need water? Are you hungry? What do you need? Tell me.”

You almost said it then. 

The truth that sat like glass in your throat. That you weren’t okay. That the sight of him on that marble floor, choosing Lois’s blood over yours, had cleaved something open inside you that no apology could quite suture. That you hadn’t only passed out from blood loss but from the quiet, nauseating realization that he’d risked you without hesitation.

You wanted to ask why. Why Lois? Why not me? 

Why the panic had been louder, the fear sharper, the touch gentler when it came to her. 

Why your name had come not even second. Third. Last.

But he was looking at you now with that earnest, open expression—the one that made you believe in Clark’s kindness and hope beyond what the cape ever did. The one that always made forgiveness feel like muscle memory.

And suddenly the words you had prepared felt cruel, impossible. You couldn’t bear to wound him when his hands were shaking and his voice was still breaking on the edges of your name.

“Water,” you said finally, voice smaller than you meant. “Could you—I’d like some water.”

His shoulders sagged and he nodded, as if you’d handed him a lifeline. “Yeah. Of course, sweetheart. Don’t move, okay? I’ll be right back.”

When he left with the soft click of the door shutting, the air felt thinner, quieter. You stared at the indentation his hand had left against yours and told yourself it wasn’t avoidance, just timing. That there would be a better moment to ask. 

You didn’t believe it.

.

“I told the nurse you’re up,” Clark said as he came back to your room a few minutes later, a large styrofoam cup in his hand. “They’ll be in soon to check your vitals, and—” His voice hitched as he sat on the edge of your bed. “Wow.”

You tilted your head, frowning, “What?” 

“You look…better than I expected. All…all things considered.”

You tried for a small smile, one that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “Perks of having an accelerated healing. You would know too, right?”

Clark made a pained noise from the back of his throat, and handed you the cup of water. He helped you sit up, fluffing the pillow behind you, and brushing hair behind your ear.

You didn’t flinch away from the touch and attention, but your throat tightened around the memory that kept haunting you.

I don’t care. I can’t lose her.

You swallowed the words before they surfaced, careful sips out of the straw. “How’s Lois?” you asked, the question softer than intended, as though saying her name any louder may summon her.

Clark's expression shifted, a shadow crossing over his features. “She’s okay. Discharged a few hours ago. No complications. Jimmy took her home.” Relief softened his tone, then guilt crept in to replace it. “They both wanted to see you, but… I told them they needed to rest.”

“Good. That’s good.” You nodded, forcing the muscles in your face into something like a smile. You’d spent years practicing that—masking pain behind the professionalism expected of a medic, a teammate, a friend.

You thought about the look in his eyes cradling Lois, the way his voice broke saying her name, and you forgotten, ignored. You’d seen—really seen—what you were to him in that instant.

A tool. A salvation.

He must have sensed something shift in you, because he placed a hand on your thigh, rubbing circles with his thumb. 

“Honey,” His voice softened, almost pleading. “Look at me.”

You did.

“Thank you,” he said simply. “For...doing the impossible. You’re incredible. I love you. All night I was sick to my stomach, wondering when I’d get to say it again to you,” He pressed another kiss to your lips, as though gratitude could fix what intention had broken. “I love you so much.”

You deepened the kiss. It was all you could do.

“I love you too, Clark. More than I can say,” That fact only made the hurt spread deeper.

Clark then brushed a stray hair from your face, looking every ounce regretful and pained. His touch was reverent, almost fearful. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t even be here. I should’ve never asked you to—”

“To save Lois?” You said softly, not cruelly. Just… true.

He froze. You bit the plastic straw and mumbled, “You asked me to.”

The air between you thickened momentarily. He retracted slightly and his shoulders slumped, looking suddenly smaller despite his height. 

Your mother’s voice ghosted through your mind: You can’t let people see how far you can fix them. You’ll scare them.

You’d spent your life measuring that line—how much pain you could take with a smile on your face, how much healing you could hide until someone caught you around the corner. 

Tonight you’d crossed it.

“I didn’t understand.” He rushed out, jaw clenched. “I thought—energy. I thought your powers were metabolism based. I didn’t think it was—” He couldn’t even finish, groaning as he buried his head into the crook of your neck.

The muscles along his shoulders trembled with the effort to hold himself together.

“I didn’t think. I didn’t listen,” he said finally, the words muffled against the column of your neck. “God, I didn’t listen to you. I can’t stand that I hurt you.”

You exhaled quietly, the ache in your chest deeper than any wound. You shook your head and carded your free hand through his dark curls. 

The hum of the TV filled the space between you, the tinny voices of infomercials selling mixing bowls for a discount and this upcoming season’s latest shoe trends—normal things. Human things. Things you used to feel tethered to before last night broke everything loose.

“Clark, baby. Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself. Please.”

He lifted his head, eyes glassy, apology written in every line of his face. “You were bleeding, Jimmy was freaking out, and I didn’t—” His voice cracked. “You should’ve told me sooner. That you transfer wounds to heal.”

“I tr—” You cut yourself off, your words dying in your throat. “Yeah. Yeah. I should have.”

The words were automatic, an agreeable script meant to soothe him. 

Clark’s hand found yours again, fingers threading through with trembling purpose, pressing his forehead against yours as though the gesture itself might undo the night. His other hand massaged the nape of your neck the way he knew you loved.

He then cupped your face, a thumb lingered against your jaw, warm and careful. 

“I can’t stand that I hurt you,” he whispered, voice wrecked and raw. “I was thinking about Lois. I wasn’t thinking about you. I almost lost you. God, I almost lost you.”

I can’t lose her

It should have been a comfort, that honesty. It only hollowed you out further.

You focused on his hand along your jaw, how it shook just enough to betray the fear still clawing at him. The same hand that had cupped Lois’s face, frantic, relieved. 

You didn’t know what hurt worse—how much Clark loved Lois, or how much he loved you after.

When you finally glanced up, Clark’s eyes were rimmed red again, tears falling. “You shouldn’t even be here,” he rasped, echoing himself. “You should be home . We should be home. Sleeping. Looking forward to our weekend together.”

“We’ll have our weekend,” you managed, forcing steadiness into your tone before he could spiral further. “I should be discharged soon. It’s…I’m already healed. Clark, please stop worrying.”

He gave a soft, broken laugh that sounded more like a scoff. “That’s never gonna happen now. Not when I know the truth. That I could really lose you.”

Your heart clenched at that. You wanted to tell him that he already had, in ways he didn’t understand. That part of you had gone quiet the moment you’d realized how easily you could be asked to die for someone else’s sake.

But instead, you kissed him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

It was almost true.

You smiled because it was easier than crying. The kind of smile that felt like muscle memory—practiced, professional, hollow.

He let out a shaky laugh, pressing your hand against his chest. His heartbeat thudded warm beneath your palm, steady and familiar. “I don’t deserve you,” he murmured, the kind of thing he said when he didn’t know what else to say.

And though part of you wanted to agree, you only leaned back against the pillow and whispered, “You’ve had a long night, too. You should go home, take a shower, get some rest.”

Clark shook his head immediately, stubborn. “No, I’m fine. I’m here. I’ll wait until I can bring you home. Just wait till sunrise and I'll be all set.”

He said it like a vow, not an option. His hand still lingered around yours, thumb brushing absently along your knuckles as if the motion itself could anchor you to the bed.

“You smell like a farm, baby.”

That earned you a grin, exhausted but a grin nonetheless—one corner of his mouth tipping higher than the other, dimples, blue eyes crinkling. “Well, geez, I know what that smells like. It’s that bad, huh?”

“It’s pretty bad,” you teased, the first ghost of something like warmth flickering between you. “Hay, sweat, that smell of being out in the sun.”

He chuckled, rubbing a hand across his jaw where the stubble caught the fluorescent light. “Maybe it'll motivate them to let you go home faster, just to get rid of me.

The sound of his laughter loosened something inside you. It reminded you what it used to feel like—before the gala, before the blood. Just the two of you and your easy rhythm, his warmth filling a room without trying.

You smiled, unable to help it. “Go home, Clark. Even for a little. For me. I’ll still be here.”

He looked at you for a long moment, gaze soft. “Okay, I’ll make it quick. Only because you asked.” Then he leaned down, brushing a kiss across your temple. “You’d better be here still.”

You didn’t answer. Didn’t tell him that you weren’t sure what being here meant anymore.

He stood, stretching and collecting his suit jacket, and for a moment the sterile lights caught the sheen of his glasses and the faint purple of fatigue under his eyes—a human mark on someone so godlike. Then he leaned down, kissed you on the lips, and left with a promise to be back before breakfast was served.

When the door clicked shut behind him, the room seemed to fold inward on itself. The low hum of the television was the only sound left, some broadcast rerunning an old segment about Metropolis landmarks. The colors flickered faintly against the linoleum, blues and yellows blurring into the sterile white light of dawn.

You leaned your head back against the pillow, exhaled, pressing your palms to your eyes and exhaled, letting the quiet settle into your bones. It was strange, being awake and whole again. Stranger still that the world went on so easily, as if you weren’t bleeding out on a restroom floor a few hours ago.

The body remembered what it survived. You felt it even now—the echo of pain, the ghost of a bullet that had never been meant for you.

Maybe coming back didn’t mean returning. Maybe it only meant learning how to breathe again in the wreckage.

You turned toward the window. The city skyline shimmered faintly beyond the glass, dawn crawling across its rooftops. 

Outside, the hum of the city crept in faintly through the window, a reminder that life continued—cars honking, people laughing, Metropolis moving on. 

Alcestis came back changed, they said. But no one ever asked if she wanted to return.

.

In ancient stories, those who returned from death walked among the living with borrowed warmth — the world felt familiar, but nothing fit quite right. You weren’t dead, yet each step felt borrowed, each breath a cautious claim.

The Daily Planet felt impossibly loud Monday morning. 

Phones rang, printers thumped, reports and columnists shouted over each other, and you moved among it all with practiced ease, a smile stretched over what the world expected of you. No one could tell the difference between someone alive and someone hollow if you did your part convincingly.

Then Perry’s voice carried like an avalanche down the bullpen aisle, barking your name from his office.

“— Kent! Lane! The three of you — get in here!”

You looked up from your desk, cursor halfway to the ‘submit’ button of an article, your heart stuttering at the sound of your name paired with Lois’s and Clark’s. 

Lois glanced at you from her corner of the bullpen, icy blue eyes sharp but unreadable. It was the first you were seeing her since that night. 

Clark appeared beside you before you could settle your heart, tall and careful, like the world itself might fracture if he moved too quickly. His eyes scanned you from head to toe, lingering a fraction too long on where the faint scar at your chest hid behind your blouse. 

You watched the muscle in his jaw tick once before he masked it with that earnest calm as he placed a hand on the small of your back and led you to Perry’s office.

.

The office door shut with a thud behind you. Perry just stood there, arms crossed, the blinds half-drawn, sunlight cutting across the three of you in uneven stripes.

“I don’t know what the hell went down at that gala,” Perry started, voice low but thick with strain. “Half the city saw the footage. The news reports conflicting accounts of casualties.” His gaze dropped briefly, then lifted, sharper now. “What I do know is two of my best and what I thought were the brightest ended up in the damn hospital, and not a single soul has told me how.”

You swallowed, hard. The smell of hospital antiseptic passed under your nose like a ghost.

Lois exhaled and crossed her arms, impatient. “It was chaos, Perry. Security breach, gunfire. We were…lucky.”

“Lucky,” Perry scoffed, like the word tasted wrong. “The hospital wouldn’t confirm names, but someone in City Hall said Olsen was flagging EMS, said Lane and—” he paused, eyes flicking to you, “—our resident miracle worker—were getting treated over the weekend.” His voice softened then, almost imperceptibly. “You alright, kid?”

Your throat closed up before you could answer. You nodded instead. “Yes, I’m alright.”

Clark’s hand brushed your sleeve, a silent reassurance that only seemed to tighten something inside you. 

Perry’s stare lingered on the two of you. “Tired’s fine. Dead’s not. You hear me?” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Look, I don’t need the gory details. But if whatever happened out there puts this paper—or either of you—in danger again, I need to know it. If you need to take time away. I need to know it. The Planet doesn’t run on secrets. Not from me.”

“Yes, sir.” You said gently.

Lois straightened. “It was an isolated incident.”

Perry gave her a look that said he’d been lied to by better people. Then he turned to Clark. 

“Kent, you keep an eye on both of them. And for God’s sake, tell me before anyone runs headfirst into another disaster.”

Clark’s voice was steady, measured. “Of course, Perry.”

When you stepped out of the office, the newsroom swallowed you in noise again—keyboards clacking, phones ringing, the hum of breaking stories. But it all felt too loud, too bright. 

Perry’s office door had barely swung shut behind you when a gentle tug at your sleeve stopped you short.

Lois.

She didn’t say anything—just pointed with a subtle tilt of her chin toward the stairwell at the far end of the hall. The kind of gesture meant to avoid eyes, gossip, questions.

You glanced once over your shoulder. Clark was standing by the door talking to Perry again, his head slightly bowed, hands on his hips, back slightly turned away from you. Hovering, as he always did now—close enough to catch you if you fell, but too far to stop you from walking away.

The stairwell was dim and cool, the echo of your footsteps filling the quiet between you. Lois let the door shut before she spoke.

“I didn’t want to say it out there.” Her voice cracked, just a little. “Whatever I say won't be enough, but thank you. For what you did that night.”

You shook your head before you could stop yourself. “Lois, you don’t—”

“I do.” She crossed her arms, not defensive, just grounding herself. “They said I was good as new before they even got me into the ambulance. I didn’t know it was because of you until Clark told me— he kept saying it, over and over, that you brought me back, and I just couldn’t believe him,” Her breath hitched. “You saved my life.”

The word saved felt heavier than it should. Like something sacred, or cursed.

Your chest ached. You pressed your palm against your ribs, where the burn still pulsed faintly beneath the fabric. It had no angry red welt, no stitches, but there was something there, invisible and constant, like the echo of light behind your sternum.

Lois caught the gesture. “You got hurt.”

“I’m fine now,” you lied, softly.

She shook her head. “God, I can't even imagine how you did it. One second everything went to shit, and then Clark—” She stopped, biting the inside of her cheek. “He said you’d never tried anything like that before. That he had no idea that’s what you really did to heal people.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m sorry he asked you to do that.”

The stairwell hummed with that word—sorry—as if it might undo what had already been done.

You stared at the scuffed metal steps between you. “Clark made a call,” you said finally. “One I would’ve made, too.”

“But he put you in danger. I put you in danger,” she shot back, a sharp edge breaking through her guilt. “Who stands up to an armed gunman like that? So, I’m there bleeding like an freaking idiot while you had to—” She broke off again, pressing her hand to her mouth, eyes glistening and frustrated. “You should hate me for that. I would.”

“No, I don’t. C’mon, Lois.” You pleaded.

“Why?”

Because you’re my friend. Because I love you, and I love Clark. Because you’re not the one who broke me open that night.

Instead, you said, “Because you were dying, Lois. And that’s not something you can apologize for. I’d do it again for any of my friends.”

The silence stretched between you—thick, almost unbearable. You could see her trembling now, her breath catching in uneven bursts.

So you did the only thing that felt right. You stepped forward and pulled her into a tight hug.

She froze for half a second, then clung to you like a drowning woman. Her shoulders shook against your chest, and you held her tighter, fingers digging into the fabric of her blazer. The smell of her shampoo—lilac—hit you with sudden, cruel familiarity.

“You don’t owe me anything,” you murmured against her dark hair. “Nothing. Never. I’d never ask anything of you.”

She nodded against you, silent tears dropping into your shoulder.

When she finally pulled back, her eyes were red, mascara smudged, but her smile was small and real. “You say that like it’s supposed to make me feel better.”

“Well, it’s the truth. Please, it’s… it’s what I was made to do.”

Pain crossed her features before she looked at you for another long moment. She stepped away, swiping under her eyes with the heel of her hand. 

“You’re stronger than I’ll ever be,” she sniffled, a hollow kind of admiration in her voice. “I just hope Clark knows what that cost you.”

Your throat closed up. He doesn’t. Not really. Not yet. 

“Clark…” you whispered. “Has been so good to me. You know how he is.”

Lois gave a faint, knowing nod and pushed open the stairwell door, the noise of the bullpen rushing back in.

You stayed behind for a moment, alone in the quiet hum of fluorescent light, one hand pressed over the ache in your chest. The warmth there had long since faded, but the ghost of it lingered—like a heartbeat that no longer knew who it belonged to.

When you finally pushed open the stairwell door, Clark was waiting by your desk.

He smiled when he saw you, that soft, nervous kind that never fully reached his eyes anymore.

“Hey,” he said, low enough that it didn’t carry. “Lois said she talked to you.”

Your throat went dry. “She did.”

“And?” His voice softened further, hesitant. “Are you okay?”

You could hear the edge of worry in his voice—the same one that had followed you since the hospital. It should’ve been sweet, grounding. Instead, it felt like the brush of something sharp and fragile, the kind of tenderness that might shatter if you touched it wrong.

“Yeah, I’m fine. We’re fine,” You reached for your chair, but he stepped closer, catching your wrist before you could sit.

The contact jolted through you, startling in its warmth. His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist, exactly where your pulse stuttered. He was careful with you now—more than careful—as if afraid you’d break under the wrong kind of touch.

He studied you, blue eyes searching for cracks in your demeanor. “You don’t have to pretend around me, honey.”

You smiled tightly, “I’ve been pretending my whole life, Clark. I’m good at it.”

His eyes were steady, gentle, and they saw right through you. You want to hate him for it, and yet… you couldn’t.

“You shouldn’t have to be.”

You wanted to say then stop making me.You wanted to say I saw the way you looked at her when she opened her eyes.

Instead, you just stepped towards him and gently pulled your hand free, playing with his crooked tie.

“I’ll try to do better. To open up,” you murmured.

Clark smiled then, soft and earnest, as if that single word had restored something. He brushed his thumb across your knuckles—one more small, impossible kindness—and pressed his lips against them, before heading back to his desk.

You watched him go, a hollow warmth blooming under your ribs.

Then you sat down, surrounded by half-edited articles, and stared at a headline about hope and humanity until the letters stopped making sense.

.

Time did not move the way it used to. It crawled.

Three weeks folded themselves into each other like bruised petals — delicate, indistinguishable, always on the verge of falling apart.

Clark still called you honey and sweetheart, though it came quieter now, as if the word had to pass through apology before it reached you. His hands still found you in the dark, but more often to check if you were breathing, before pulling you closer. You caught him counting your pulse in your sleep once — thumb pressed just below your jaw, feeling the rhythmic thudding under his digit instead of using his superhearing— and pretended not to stir. It seemed cruel to take that small comfort from him.

You went through the motions: morning coffee, headlines, edited articles, human medic for the Justice Gang

Perry’s voice thundered across the bullpen about deadlines and decorum. Jimmy laughed loudly at something on his phone. Lois leaned over her desk, scolding Clark about his misplaced notepad. The world spun perfectly on its axis while you drifted somewhere outside it.

No one noticed, you thought. That was your specialty — the art of seeming fine. You smiled when spoken to, cracked quiet jokes that landed softly, kept your head down and your work spotless. Copy editing was good for that: endless correction, red lines that let you focus on other people’s mistakes instead of your own.

Michael, ever precise, noticed first out of the Gang.

He caught you between shifts at the Hall one evening, adjusting the settings on the med scanner after a minor skirmish. “You’re running diagnostics twice,” he said, voice even. “No one’s that careful unless they’re trying not to think.”

You’d smiled thinly, fingertips still hovering over the console. “Maybe I just don’t trust your tech, Mr. Terrific.”

“Damn liar.” He said it kindly, then, as if testing the air: “Clark’s been different too.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. They had no idea what happened at the Gala, too engrossed with other LordTech-appointed missions to scrutinize the event. 

They only saw the aftermath — Clark showing up to your every field rotation, standing a little too close when you patched others up, lingering behind when you insisted you could stand.

He eventually said, “You’ve crossed into… parental supervision.”

You laughed lightly, the sound small, brittle. “He’s a worrier. Let him be.”

Michael didn’t push, just muttered something about “Kryptonian guilt complexes” and walked off.

Guy made his comments sparingly, blunt but not cruel. “You’re not bossing me around as much," he said once over a briefing. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, Guy,” you replied immediately, no hesitation. “I actually could start being a real pain in your ass, since you keep asking."

“Hell, maybe you should! Would remind Big Blue you can still handle yourself.”

You looked up sharply, but Guy’s grin was lopsided, joking. “He’s been dropping in on my runs,” he added. “Just watching. Weirds the hell out of me.”

Later that night, after helping Rex disinfect a shallow burn on his shoulder, Kendra approached you with the same look as Michael — all sharp edges softened by concern. “Hey, anything you want to talk about?” she asked, inspecting her nails. “You’ve been pretty quiet, more than usual.”

“Eh, just a lot on my plate,” you said, that practiced refrain, steady as breathing.

Kendra watched you for a long moment, eyes flickering between yours. “You’re hesitating,” she said finally. “That’s not like you.”

You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t want questions, and you didn’t want their pity.

“I’m fine,” you pressed back, and that was the end of it.

But later, when you found Clark leaning against the Hall of Justice wall waiting for you — arms folded, worry carved into every line of his face — you understood why they all asked.

Because love shouldn’t feel like surveillance.

And guilt, no matter how gentle, still casted a shadow.

.

An unspoken shift between you and Clark rippled through everything. 

He hovered in that constant, stifling, quiet orbit that felt like both devotion and penance. 

You felt his restraint, the effort it took not to ask more from you—don’t move too fast, don’t push yourself, don’t get hurt again. You answered his soft questions with honesty. “Yes, I ate. Yes, I rested. Yes, I’m fine.”

You wanted to tell him it was unnecessary, that the damage was done, but you couldn’t. 

The memory of his words—I don’t care—still burned quietly beneath your ribs.

You still had dinner together, post-Superman patrol, post-Justice Gang duties, post-everything, but the meals were quieter now.

Once, at a small ramen place near Centennial Park, Clark fumbled with his chopsticks, distracted by the way you barely touched your bowl. “You used to steal half my gyoza,” he teased.

You shrugged, “I’m not that hungry.”

He set his chopsticks down, hands folded loosely in front of him. “Honey, you’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

You looked up, and met his concerned gaze with a raised brow. “Baby, you’ve been watching me a lot lately.”

He grinned sheepishly, and you saw the way his lips curved when he was trying not to feel panic, when love and regret fought under his skin. “I know. I just… I’m worried about you.”

“I know.”

“And you’re just so beautiful.”

You laughed, disbelieving and pained all at once. You glanced away from him.

Outside, rain streaked the window, blurring the neon reflection of the city. You watched it because you couldn’t bear to look at him just yet— because every time you did, you saw that night replaying. 

I don’t care! I can’t lose her

Clark reached across the table then, brushing your hand with his, getting your attention. “I know something’s on your mind,” he said, the words trembling like a confession. “When you’re ready to talk about it, I’ll be here. Ready for you.”

You were unable to speak. Words felt impossible. Even in this intimacy, there was a gulf between the life you live now and the life you almost lost.

You turned your hand over, palm up, entwining Clark's larger fingers with yours. It should’ve been enough. It should’ve felt like home, like before.

Instead, it felt like a prayer whispered to someone who wasn’t listening anymore.

.

The coffee machine hissed in the corner of the bullpen, an ordinary sound that somehow cut through the hum of the newsroom and the weight you carried. You were deep into editing Steve’s latest article when Jimmy appeared, scooting past you in his computer chair with the balls of his feet.

“Hey, how’ve you been?” he asked, voice casual but too careful to be just small talk.

“Hey Jimmy, just peachy,” you said automatically, too quickly. You didn’t look up, eyes skimming over one particular sentence with too many adverbs.

He nodded, but his eyes didn’t believe you.

Jimmy had been the first to see you that night. Not Clark. Not a medic. Jimmy.

After that night, he never treated you like you were fragile. But there was something in his eyes when he looked at you now — something that said he remembered everything.

Maybe that’s why you trusted him in a small way. Because Jimmy had seen you before the lies. Had seen you in the thick of breaking.

Still, you couldn’t bring yourself to fully reach out, to pull him into your chaotic, suffering orbit.

Jimmy leaned back, giving you space but keeping his gaze, patient, steady. “I just want to check in,” he said. “Make sure you’re okay. Not like I blame you if you’re not! I don’t. I know you’ve been through a lot. You and Lois.”

You tilted your head, forcing a smile, one that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You’re sweet, Jimmy,” you said. But this time, there was a quiet weight behind the words, the kind that only someone who had been present for the worst of the night could sense.

He didn’t respond immediately, just watched, like he always did before speaking. “Clark’s been…hovering a lot lately, hasn’t he? For the past week or so.”

Your hands froze, your brows pinching together. “He’s Clark.”

Jimmy’s eyes softened, but he didn’t push. “Yeah, I know… Big Guy’s always been extra careful. But since the gala? He’s been on edge around you. Did…did something else happen? He wouldn’t say much at the hospital. Hasn’t really said much about it since.”

You exhaled slowly, forcing your shoulders to relax. “You know how he is. He tears himself apart when he can’t save everyone. It’s hard for him to explain, better to show.”

Your voice was quiet, careful not to reveal anything to listening ears, almost defiant, but a slight quiver betrayed your control. 

“You don’t have to justify it. Not with me,” he said gently. “I can see he’s… worried. But it’s more than that, right?”

You hesitated, then shook your head lightly, a small laugh escaping. “He’s… he’s just being Clark. He cares and loves as big as the galaxy.”

Jimmy’s expression softened. “Then you’re doing your usual thing, huh? Making it better, smiling, keeping it professional?”

“Yes, exactly,” you said firmly.

He nodded slowly. “It doesn’t mean it’s easy, right? Not for you, not for anyone around you.”

"Okay, dad," You let a small laugh slip, almost bitter. “You always sound like Perry when you talk like that.”

“I try, he’s my hero,” he said dryly, but there was warmth in his tone. “Look…I can see it. You’re just… trying to keep the peace.”

Your hands stilled. “Peace,” you repeated. “Right. That’s what I’m doing.”

He didn’t push. “If you ever want to talk,” he said softly, playfully kicking your chair, “I’m here.”

You nodded with a weary smile, fighting back tears. “Thanks, Jimmy. I’ll remember that.”

He returned the smile and shifted to leave, but paused. “Just… take care of yourself and be honest, okay? Don’t push it down because you think it’s easier for everyone else. That never works.”

“I know,” you whispered, more to yourself than him.

After he left, rolling away on his chair. The bullpen felt impossibly large and quiet. You forced yourself to smile at a passing intern, to nod at a fellow editor, to laugh at a joke Clark made across the room—but the hollowness didn’t leave. Jimmy had noticed. Clark had suspicions. 

You couldn’t yet untangle what you really felt from what you allowed anyone to truly see.

.

The days started passing with the same rhythm: work, Justice Gang duties, quiet evenings with Clark, punctuated by glances that felt heavier than words. 

You caught yourself observing Clark closely when he talked to Lois at work. She would laugh at something he said for just one moment, and you thought he’d looked at her with desire—but it wasn’t that. It was the ease of shared history, the comfort of familiarity, and it hurt.

You wanted to tell yourself it shouldn’t. 

That his love for you now should outweigh everything else. But the memory of his panic, of his words that night, settles over you like a shadow. 

You kept your distance, smiled when needed, and let Clark stand a fraction too close, his hand brushing yours as though afraid to let go. You never pulled away.

You notice the first subtle cracks one evening when Clark came over after work. You expected him because the routine had become predictable: the soft knock on your door, the quiet greeting, the tentative warmth that lingered in the spaces between your words.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says, holding a bag that smells faintly of garlic and roasted vegetables. “Thought I’d make dinner.”

“That’s nice of you,” you reply automatically, watching him set the bag on the counter. He unpacks ingredients with careful precision, arranging the vegetables on a cutting board, the pasta waiting in a pot on the stove. Everything he did had this quiet, methodical gentleness, like he was afraid to disturb the fragile balance of your home.

“Sit down,” he would say, gesturing to the chair by the table. “I’ll handle it.”

You always nod, but instead of sitting, you lingered near the counter, pretending to busy yourself with a stack of mail. You felt the tension in your shoulders, the way your hands tighten reflexively. Clark’s presence should’ve felt comforting. It didn’t. Not yet.

Dinner passes in silence, punctuated only by the occasional clink of utensils or the low hum of the oven. Clark clears the table, washes the dishes, and even folds a few shirts you’d left in a neat pile on the couch. Every act of kindness, every careful movement, felt like penance, like he was trying to atone for something neither of you were ready to say aloud.

One evening, after a particularly long day, you collapsed onto the couch while Clark cleaned up the kitchen. 

“Do you ever rest?” you asked, voice soft.

“Eh, don't really need to as long as I have the sun,” he admitted, wiping the counter. “But I try. Something human. But I want to be here when you are.”

You watched him, the lines on his face softened by the warm light of your apartment. He folded the towels you left crumpled, arranged your mugs from dinner neatly back in their spots. Every act of domesticity feels like an offering, a way to repair something neither of you could name.

“Clark,” you asked, almost to yourself, “why are you like this?”

“Like what?”

“So… you. Why are you doing all this?”

“Because I love you,” he says without hesitation, placing a hand over yours. “My Ma would have my head if I didn't treat my girl otherwise, and… and I’ll lose you if I didn’t try. I hope what I do helps.”

You frowned at the words, not from pain, but from his ignorance to how far you've already slipped away. You closed your eyes, leaning slightly into his warmth even as your heart trembled.

“It helps,” you admitted, though not entirely truthful. 

The warmth of the apartment, the smell of garlic and tomato, the careful folds of laundry, all felt suffocating in their normalcy. You want comfort, but not this kind—too aware of the distance between you, too aware of the unspoken words that weighed heavier than any heat from the stove.

After, Clark sat beside you on the couch, watching one of your favorite movies. His hand reached for yours, tentatively, and you barely moved. He noticed but didn't pull away. He squeezed gently instead, as if testing the limits of your tolerance. You pressed your face into his shoulder and your hands curled around his large bicep to reciprocate.

He hummed softly, a comfort and a tether, and wrapped that arm around you. He turned back to the movie, playing with your hair.

You sighed and curled your other hand to you chest, aware that your warmth was borrowed, fragile, and he would never know just how hollow you felt beneath it.

And Clark, in his gentle, suffocating love, remained unaware of the severity of the storm forming inside you.

Alcestis came back to the world that didn’t know what to do with her light.

.

At night, you were hollow. 

Your hands twitched, restless, and your heart thrummed with quiet unease. You could feel Clark’s breathing slow, rhythmic and devoted, but your own pulse refused to follow.

Once, halfway between waking and sleep, you heard him murmur, “I’m sorry,” and the words cut through you like glass. You didn’t know if he meant for that night at the gala, or for everything since.

It didn’t matter.

Now, you laid in the dark, his arm draped over your waist, his breathing deep and steady beside you. His warmth radiated through the blanket, through your skin, into the quiet space where your thoughts never seemed to rest.

Clark murmured your name in his sleep this time. You turned toward him, his face half-lit by the city lights leaking through the curtains. He looked peaceful, untouched by guilt and time, and you envied that.

You pressed your hand lightly to his chest, feeling the slow rhythm of his heart — the same heart that once begged you to live, begged you to do the impossible to save someone else. You’d done it. You’d lived. You’d saved Lois. But something else had stayed behind in the museum.

“Clark,” you whispered, though you knew he was asleep. “I don’t know if I’m angry with you, or if I just miss you.”

He stirred slightly, pulling you closer unconsciously, his chin brushing your temple. The gesture was tender, that once would’ve undone you. Now it only made you ache.

You closed your eyes, pretending for a moment. That you could sleep. That tomorrow, his love wouldn’t feel like atonement and your silence wouldn’t feel like penance.

But the night stretched long, and the weight you carried — of sacrifice, of return — whispered somewhere deep within you. 

.

Then, three weeks after the gala, came the reprise to the day that hurt you the most.

On that afternoon, you were stacking reams of papers next to the copy machine when Lois walked past Clark’s desk, laughing at something he had muttered under his breath. Not joking, not teasing, but sharing a private rhythm. You paused mid-step, catching his glance at her, and your chest tightened. There was ease in the way he smiled at her, the kind of comfort built over years of knowing each other, safe and natural. Not out of worry or guilt.

You felt your chest constrict, that awful burn between your ribs, as if the wound had reopened and sewn itself shut again. Clark’s eyes flicked to yours instantly, relief softening them. He was unaware you’d seen anything. You moved away before he could notice your pain, letting the hum of the Planet drown the rest.

Later, you overheard another exchange—one worse than the last. 

Clark handed Lois a folder across the table. Their hands brushed. Lois laughed softly, a sound meant only for him, and he straightened her papers for her with careful fingers, grinning at the subtle chaos she created. “You’re impossible,” he scolded. “You know that?”

She laughed again, leaning towards him for just a second. “You love me anyway.”

“Yeah. I do.”

He responded automatically, a little helpless, frustrated, but fond. 

You stepped back quickly, invisible and betrayed like that night, the corners of your mouth fixed in a deep, quivering frown, your stomach twisting. You were pushing through the door to the stairwell, breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps.

Didn't he realize what he said? Didn't he realize how it sounded? 

The metal door slammed shut behind you with a heavy clang, sealing you off from the newsroom’s chatter, its keyboard clatter, and newsreel loops. All of it muted into a dull hum as you pressed your back against the cold concrete wall, fingers trembling around the manila folder you hadn’t realized you were still clutching.

You didn’t cry right away. You stood there for a long time, fighting it — the burn in your eyes, the tightness in your throat, the memory of that same feeling three weeks ago. The helplessness. The metallic taste of blood in your mouth as you bled out alone, and Jimmy’s voice calling your name through the bathroom door.

Now it was quieter. No pain, no wounds — only the hollow, spreading ache that made it hard to breathe.

You pressed the heel of your palm to your chest, where the scar lay hidden beneath your blouse, and you finally broke.

A sob tore loose, small and shattering. You pressed your knuckles to your mouth, trying to muffle the sound, but it came anyway — ragged and wet, years of control giving way in the shadowed stairwell where no one ever came. Except, of course, he would hear.

You sank onto the steps, head bowed, shoulders trembling. The sound of your own breathing filled the stairwell, a sharp echo against the cement walls. You didn’t hear the door open at first — not until the soft creak of it drew your head up.

Jimmy’s voice came gently. “Hey—hey, hey, hey. Easy.”

He crouched beside you in a heartbeat, his camera strap dangling, his eyes wide with worry. “Talk to me. What's wrong? Are you—are you hurt?” His gaze flicked down automatically, searching for red, just like that night. You shook your head fast.

“No, no, not that,” you rasped, swiping at your face. “It’s not— it’s nothing.”

He frowned, settling beside you anyway. “How is this nothing? This is just like last time.”

The last time. The restroom. The blood.

Your eyes fell shut, the guilt curling deeper in your stomach. “Jimmy—please, I just—can we not—”

He nodded, understanding too much. He sat beside you in silence for a while, offering nothing but his quiet presence — that rare kind of loyalty that didn’t demand an explanation. He just stayed, elbows resting on his knees, eyes fixed on the stairwell door as though guarding you from anyone else who might wander in.

The moment stretched. The sound of footsteps in the hallway outside made your chest constrict.

And then — the door opened again.

You didn’t have to look to know who it was. The air shifted; it always did around him. The low hum of strength, the scent of cologne, coffee, and something softer — home, though it no longer felt safe to think of it that way. Of course Clark knew. Superhearing.

His voice was gentle, low. “Honey?”

Jimmy turned, startled. “Oh. Hey, man—she’s—”

“I’ve got it,” Clark said quietly.

There was a moment — a silent understanding passing between them. Jimmy hesitated, then looked back at you then him, his expression torn with worry. “You sure?”

You nodded without meeting his eyes. Clark squeezed his shoulder as he walked towards the doors, “Thanks, Jimmy.”

Jimmy gave both of you a look that said I’ll be close, and slipped out.

When the door clicked shut, the stairwell filled with silence again — thick and charged. You could feel Clark’s presence before you saw him, the warmth of him kneeling down in front of you, his voice breaking into your thoughts like a whisper through fog.

“Honey,” he murmured again, and the sound of it nearly undid you.

He reached for you slowly, giving you time to pull away. You didn’t. His hands came to your shoulders, large and steady and unbearably gentle. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

You shook your head, staring at the steps, tears slipping free despite yourself. “It’s stupid. Silly.”

“Nothing that makes you cry is silly,” he said softly, swiping a tear.

You laughed weakly. “You don’t get to say that.”

His brow furrowed. “Why not?”

“Because you—” You cut yourself off, biting down on the rest. Because you’re the reason I’m crying. Because you love her.

Instead, you whispered, “I just… I overheard something I shouldn’t have.”

His thumb brushed away a tear that fell before it hit your cheek. “From who?”

You hesitated, hoping your sob-filled breaths masked your lie, “An–an intern.”

He exhaled through his nose, soft, pained, “What’d they say?”

“I—I don’t—” you hiccuped, lost on how to deepen the facade, the lie.

He leaned closer, pressing his forehead to yours, his voice trembling with apology he didn’t yet name. “Doesn’t matter, honey. I'm sorry, for what they said, whatever hurt you— you don’t have to repeat it. It’s not true. They don’t know you, have no gravity in their judgement. You’re the smartest, strongest, most beautiful woman out there. I love you.”

You wanted to push him away. You wanted to pull him closer. Both impulses lived in the same heartbeat

“Did I…hit the mark somewhere?”

His hands cradled your face, warm and careful, and he murmured your name again.

“Y-you covered all the bases,” you said with a shaky laugh, because it was easier than saying I can’t stand the thought of you loving someone else. It's killing me everyday.

You drew in a breath, forcing a smile that broke halfway. “I’m sorry, Clark. It’s been— it’s been a hard couple of weeks.”

He searched your face, nodding, also feeling the strain with you. “Yeah,” he whispered, his thumb tracing the curve of your cheekbone. “Yeah, it has, but it’ll get better.”

When he pulled you in, you didn’t resist. You let yourself collapse against him, his arms coming around you, strong and certain, his chin resting against your hair. The world felt far away for a second — just the sound of his heartbeat, too close and too steady, the warmth of him wrapping around the pieces of you that wouldn’t stop shaking.

Clark kissed you. The brush of lips to your temple first, then your cheek, then softer, lower, your lips. It wasn’t desperate. It was reverent, aching — a man trying to make something right that could never be.

Your fingers curled around his tie and kissed him back because you couldn’t bear not to.

When you finally pulled away, your throat burned from holding too much in. You smoothed your sleeve, your eyes finding the floor. “Thank you, babe.”

He didn’t stop you. Just rested a hand against your cheek one last time, his eyes glassy with something that looked like guilt. “Always. I’ll always be here for you.”

You swallowed hard. That was the problem. “I know.”

You close your eyes, pressing your face against his chest in an embrace.

You felt alive, returned, and yet misplaced in a world that has moved on without you.

You've decided right then.

This was the day.

.

The apartment was quiet when you got home later that evening. It was the kind of quiet that lingered like a fog. You eventually expected Clark post-Superman patrol tonight, and expected home-made dinner to commence.

What you didn't expect was the bouquet when he finally did show. Anemone, roses, peonies, all of your favorites. Your heart lurched even more, knowing what was to come.

“For the day you had, and just because,” Clark said, setting them on the counter with a wide smile.

“They’re beautiful,” you said, standing on your toes to press a kiss along his jaw. And they were. “Thank you.”

The vase you chose was old, with a hairline crack that leaked if you filled it too high. 

You hadn’t bothered to fix it.

.

The apartment smelled faintly of garlic and rosemary, Clark’s plans for steak for dinner, two glasses of wine, and the bouquet of flowers bright and cheerful laid out neatly on the table in front of you.

He sat down beside you carefully. He hadn’t touched the food yet. His hand rested lightly near yours, hovering, unsure whether to close the distance or wait for permission.

“Honey,” he said finally, voice soft. The pet-name was deliberate, like a key pressed gently in the lock of your defenses. “Look at me.”

You did.

“Everything okay?”

You shook your head, staring right into his eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine, Clark.”

“Please,” he whispered, tone almost pleading. “You said you’d do better. To open up. I can hear every time you lie to me.”

Something about him—the softness, the desperation—finally broke you. The floodgates you’d held shut for three weeks, the tight dam of fear, grief, and heartbreak, gave way. You turned toward him, eyes ablaze, tears brimming, and let the words tumble out.

“What did you mean when you said you loved Lois?”

The words hung there, slicing through the air between you.

He blinked, stunned. “What? When did I say that?”

“Early today,” you said, voice trembling, borderline angry. “At work. Has something been happening behind my back?”

Clark’s brows furrowed, his confusion raw and unguarded. “What! Absolutely not. Where is this coming from!?”

You scoffed—small and bitter. “From you, Clark. From you smiling at her even though there’s nothing to smile about. From her laughing like it’s just another inside joke, like I’m a shadow.”

He flinched. “What you overheard—”

“I heard enough,” you snapped, your voice cracking under the weight of it. “You think I’d mistake that tone? She said you loved her. I know what I heard.”

Clark’s breath hitched. His chair scraped softly against the floor as he stood, moving toward you. “It wasn’t like that!”

“Then what was it?” You stood too, chest tight, heart hammering. “Because from where I was standing, it looked a hell of a lot like you two still had something—like what happened at the gala was not an isolated incident.”

The room tilted. You hated yourself the second the words left your mouth, but they wouldn’t stop.

He closed the space between you, voice low but urgent. “Don’t. Don’t do that. You know that’s not fair.”

“Then explain it!” you choked out. “Explain what it meant. Because I’m here trying to hold it together, trying not to fall apart every time I see her, and you’re—” Your voice broke. “You’re looking at her like she’s still yours.”

Clark reached for you, but you flinched back. His hand hung there, useless. His voice was barely above a whisper. “She almost died, sweetheart.”

“So did I!”

That silenced him.

You pressed your palm to your chest, to the faint raised scar that still burned when you touched it. “I almost died. Because you told me to do it, Clark. You told me to use my powers on a wound that could’ve killed me—and I did. I took her pain so she could live, because you chose her.”

He swallowed hard, his eyes glistening. “I didn’t choose her!”

“Didn’t you?” you said quietly. “You had to make a call, and you picked the person you couldn’t stand to lose.”

He closed his eyes, as if the memory itself hurt. “I picked the one who was bleeding out in front of me.”

You let out a shaky laugh. “And I picked you. I picked your word. I trusted you’d get me out of it, that you’d save me too.”

He looked at you like you’d struck him. The tears spilled over finally. You pressed the back of your hand to your mouth. 

“Every time I see her, it’s like I’m back there again—bleeding out in a bathroom, while you’re somewhere else, holding her. Your voice haunts me. You said you didn’t care what happened to me. As long as Lois was okay, like that was all that mattered.” 

Clark’s breath hitched, a soft, sharp sound that punctured the quiet of the room. “No, no, I—”

“You said it like it was the truth!” you pressed, cutting him off. “You said it as if my life meant nothing. As if I didn’t exist beyond the act of keeping her alive.”

“You’re everything to me,” he said fiercely. “You think I’d survive a world without you in it?” His fingers twitched, hovering over your hand before retreating. “I… I panicked. I was scared. I—God, I wasn’t thinking.”

“You weren’t thinking,” you repeated bitterly, voice breaking. “That’s all you can say. You were supposed to be learning with me. How to be human. And that night, Clark, nothing about us felt human.”

He swallowed hard, throat working, eyes bright with guilt. “I—I know I can’t erase it. I know that. But you have to understand—I was terrified. Lois—she was dying. I thought… I thought if I didn’t ask, if I hesitated, she—” He broke off, hand curling into a fist at his side. “I panicked, and I hurt you. And I—I can’t take that back. I can’t.”

You let out a hollow laugh, almost bitter, almost mocking, but it wasn’t. Grief had taken over anger. “So, do you expect me to forgive that? To just… move on?”

You pressed your hands into your lap, gripping the fabric of your pants as if holding yourself together could somehow make his words lighter. 

“I saw you love her,” you whispered. “Do you know what that felt like? When you’re supposed to love me?”

“But I don't love her. Not the way I love you,” Clark urged. He leaned forward, hands trembling as he cupped your face. “I’m so, so sorry, that I did that. I made you believe that. I was raised to be better than this, to be someone who doesn’t hurt people he loves. I said the worst things. I watched her bleed, and I—You saw it. You were there, and I failed you. I—God, I—the worst things.”

You turned slightly, wanting to curl into yourself, to hide the truth of the hurt that still burned in your chest. “Clark… I… I can’t even imagine the panic you felt. But it doesn’t erase mine.”

His thumbs brushed your cheeks lightly, and he swallowed hard. “I will never erase it. But I can promise… I will never risk you like that again. I will never put you in a position where I could make that choice and fail. I—” He stopped, drawing a shaky breath. “I love you. I know that saying it doesn’t fix anything. But it’s the truth. And I’ll spend my life proving it if you let me.”

You shook your head slowly, heart breaking further. “I… I love you, too. But I can’t keep loving you like this. It’s not fair. I can’t keep measuring your affection against what you almost let me lose. I can’t live in a world where your history dictates my safety, my trust, my life.”

Clark’s lips trembled. He leaned closer, pressing his forehead lightly to yours.

“Please, sweetheart,” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “Please tell me there’s a way back. That we can—”

“I—I don’t know,” you cried, feeling your cheeks flush. “Not right now. I want you to figure out what you want, because right now I don’t think it’s me.” 

You buried your face in your hands, the heels of your palms digging into your eyes to quell your tears.

“I'm in love with you, Clark. I truly, deeply am, but that night has been killing me. Every day is like I'm dying all over again.”

His eyes were wet and bloodshot, and for a moment, the apartment felt impossibly small, the world outside irrelevant. He took your hands in his, trembling, lips brushing your knuckles like a prayer, and you let him.

“I… I understand,” he said finally. “I understand. Even if it kills me, I have to understand.”

You felt his erratic heartbeat through your palms, the desperation that had built over weeks now unmasked to something fierce and gruesome. His sobbed, hot tears against your skin, but you held yourself painfully steady. You didn’t reach for him; you didn’t pull him in. You let him grieve for you and him.

He held your face gently before he finally pulled back, as if committing your features to memory, memorizing the lines he had nearly destroyed, the hands he had nearly failed. 

“I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I’ll never forgive myself for that night. And the days after. I can only be better. For you, for us. And… I will. I'll be better. Have to be.”

He lingered for a moment, hands brushing your hair back, his thumb caressing the line of your jaw one last time, “I have no right to ask this, but please, sweetheart, wait for me.”

You sobbed, letting the words fall around you like ashes, because what else could you do? You’d waited before. You’d waited all your life for someone to choose you, to stay.

Tears burned your throat as you rasped,“I—Clark—I—”

His hand faltered, then steadied on your cheek. “If you can’t…” His voice broke, soft and uneven. “If you can’t, I hope you’ll find the peace I couldn’t give you. But please. Please, let me try again.”

You stared, wide-eyed, silent. You couldn't trust your voice enough to say anything back. Because a part of you still wanted to believe that the love between you could heal what fear, guilt, history had broken.

Then he turned and walked toward the door without another glance back. The click of the lock behind him echoed through your apartment, leaving the quiet heavier than any sound could.

You stayed at the dining table long after he was gone, eyes fixed on the plates between you — the dinner he made, now sitting untouched and cooling by degrees. His chair was still pulled out, a ghostly vacancy in the warm light.

You rose on instinct and drifted to your couch — the same couch where, not so long ago, Clark wrapped himself around you, played with your hair, and watched your favorite movie.

You clutched a throw pillow tight across your burning chest, letting more tears fall unrestrained, feeling the weight of your heart beat erratically beneath your ribs. 

Maybe Clark thought he was doing the right thing, giving you the space you fiercely demanded. Maybe this was the only way he knew how to love you now — from a distance, like the way the sun loved the earth.

Although Clark’s love burned with the intensity of a lifetime, it couldn’t erase the shadow it left behind.

Returning wasn’t the same as healing. Coming back wasn’t the same as forgiving. 

The city hummed beyond the window, lights flickering against the walls of the apartment, untouched by your heartache. You couldn’t move. You couldn't reach out for him. You couldn't even imagine to fill the enormous space Clark Kent left behind.

Alcestis returned silent. Her husband couldn’t stand the quiet—he filled it with apologies, promises, vows. But she said nothing. 

She had seen death and returned; no words could make her world whole again.

.

tbc - next, no one can stop a loop when it becomes a spiral

.

You were eight the first time you learned what pain could do when you touched it.

It was a July afternoon that smelled like hot asphalt and orange popsicles. The neighborhood kids were racing their bikes down the hill, and you remember thinking the world was endless—until your neighbor’s son Tommy hit a rock and went flying. There was a sound that didn’t belong in summer: metal twisting, a cry that tore through the cicadas. You were already running before you realized what you were doing.

He was on the ground, his knee sliced like a peach, blood pooling dark and fast, and his wrist angled in a way that made grown-ups panic. You didn’t think. You just pressed your hands on his injuries and whispered please, please, don’t cry. It’ll be okay.

It worked.

The skin knitted, the bleeding stopped, joint straightened, swelling ceased—and then your own scream broke the air. The pain slammed into you like a wave. Your vision went white. When you woke up, your knee was bandaged, your wrist was in a make-shift sling, and Tommy was fine, blinking at you like nothing had happened.

That night your mother sat on the edge of your bed, eyes red from crying.

“You can’t let people see how far you can fix them,” she whispered, voice trembling. “You’ll scare them.”

You learned to smile through the pain after that. You learned to hold steady even when it burned. You learned that people liked their miracles clean — painless, neat, without cost.

You practiced when no one was watching—small cuts on your own skin, bruises taken from stray cats and scraped knees. You learned the pattern of it: pain first, then the warmth of closing flesh and mending muscle, then exhaustion that sank into your bones. Only the deeper wounds left marks, faint silver ghosts that lingered after healing.

You were able to hone the process to just mere miraculous minutes.

Despite the short-term pain, you started dressing modestly—long sleeves, high collar, pants even in the summer—to keep others from noticing the evidence. People called you polite, shy, gentle. They didn’t see the way you clenched your jaw when you helped them up after a fall, or how you’d retreat somewhere quiet to breathe through someone else’s pain for just a few moments.

You told yourself it was a gift. You told yourself it meant something—that maybe if it hurt this much, it had to matter.

You never imagined that someday, someone would ask you to use it for the one wound that could break you completely.

.

Years later, you were a name on a registry—filed neatly under Metahuman, Type C: Healer.

Officially, you were part of LordTech’s Collaborative Medic Initiative, a glorified way of saying “human first aid kit with paperwork.” The Justice Gang had been your assigned team for an indefinite period of time. You were allowed to call Metropolis home —its skyline of steel and sunlight, its endless pulse.

You didn’t mind. There was something about this city that felt like forward motion. You had a small apartment with thin walls and a view of the train. You had a modest salary, a LordTech badge, and a second job you actually looked forward to starting: copy editor at The Daily Planet. Between the two, you figured you could build a life here—quiet, purposeful, almost normal.

Almost.

That afternoon’s mission had gone as smoothly as any “routine” alien tech containment could. The Justice Gang returned bruised and winded, except for one new piece—Superman. You hadn’t met him yet, though you’d patched up everyone else at least once. You weren’t sure what to expect.

“There’s our girl!” Rex Mason—Element Man—called as soon as you entered the hall, flopping onto a plush chaise. His arm oozed a faint shimmer of copper and mercury. “How good are you at treating Guy’s bruised pride?”

“I didn’t bruise shit,” Guy Gardner snapped, cradling his wrist, jaw tight. “Except maybe that robot.”

Kendra Saunders—Hawkgirl—let out a tired laugh as she leaned her mace against the wall. “You tried to punch a tank, dude. Look where that got you.”

The sweat sliding down Guy’s temple made him look less like a soldier and more like a stubborn kid caught in a lie. He finally turned to you. “Just fix this so I don’t get benched.”

You had grown to loathe that phrase. Fix it. As if you were an appliance, a thing that hummed and healed on command.

You knelt beside him, inspecting the swelling along his forearm. “You want me to ‘fix’ it,” you asked softly, “or actually heal it?”

He blinked. “Difference being?”

You smiled faintly. “The intentions.”

He groaned something unintelligible, but he didn’t pull away when your hands hovered over the break. The warmth flickered through you, the fracture crawling into your own bones before smoothing under your skin. By the time Guy flexed his wrist, your knuckles ached and your fingers trembled, but as your body repaired yourself you hid it well. You always did.

“Better?” you asked.

“You… actually did it,” Guy said, eyes flicking from his healed wrist to your calm face. “Didn’t even flinch. That’s badass.”

"That’s what they hired me for.”

When the others dispersed, the room quieted. You were cleaning up unused gauze when you heard a deep voice from behind you.

“You okay?”

You turned.

Superman stood there—taller than you expected, broader too. His voice was steady but softer than the headlines made it sound, carrying warmth that startled you. His cape hung behind him, a faint smudge of dirt along his jaw the only sign of a fight.

He looked at you, not with the distant awe you were used to seeing in past heroes, but something quieter. Concern, maybe. Empathy.

You hesitated, unsure how to respond. People usually asked how bad it was, or if you could fix them next. No one had ever just… asked you.

You gave him a practiced smile and your usual cover. “Most wounds just take energy out of me. Should be good in a few minutes! Which is good for me—I don’t want to show up to my first day at work tomorrow already slacking.”

It wasn’t an entire lie. Superman seemed to move past the excuse you made up for your powers.

“Work?” His brow furrowed slightly. “You mean LordTech?”

“The Daily Planet, actually. Copy editor.”

His expression softened, almost boyish. He offered a small smile that made something unfamiliar flutter behind your ribs. “Good luck tomorrow.”

.

That night, your apartment smelled like cardboard and takeout. You were halfway through unpacking a box labeled kitchen stuff, probably? when a knock came at your door.

Standing there was a tall man with curly hair, glasses slipping down his nose, and an awkward smile that made him look harmless in the most deliberate way. He held a small potted plant like a peace offering.

“Uh—hi,” you said, confused. “Neighbor?”

“Not exactly.” He shifted the plant between his hands before handing it out to you. “Thought I should introduce myself properly. I’m Clark Kent.”

You blinked as you cradled the new bloom in your arms. I have heard of that name before, reputable, honest. “Hi, Clark. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Actually, we’ve met before,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I got your address from Kendra.”

Your breath hitched. There was only one Kendra you knew, and while you pieced it together, Clark continued. “I figured I should get ahead of the surprise. I’m a reporter for the Daily Planet, too. We’ll be seeing each other a lot at and outside of work, I feel.”

He looked at you expectantly, his blue eyes piercing through you. For a moment, you forgot how to breathe.

“Well, Superman,” you managed in a soft voice, smiling despite yourself, “I’m glad to know a familiar face at work.”

He looked just as relieved. “Likewise.”

.

It didn’t take long for your orbits to start closing in.

Clark introduced you to Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen on your first day. His tone was casual, but his smile was too wide to ignore. They were two whirlwinds of brilliance and chaos who made the newsroom feel alive.

Lois shook your hand without question and immediately made you laugh; Jimmy showed you the fastest way to break a copy machine and fix it again; Perry barked something about deadlines in the background like a father who secretly worried too much.

They welcomed you in so quickly, so freely.

Lois took you out for drinks the first week and made sure everyone at the Planet knew you were off-limits to office jerks. You liked her instantly — a force of nature that was sharp, funny, and impossible to intimidate. She teased Clark relentlessly until he blushed. It hurt a little more when you noticed how Clark looked at her when she wasn’t looking.

It wasn’t lust. It was tenderness. Familiarity. History. That quiet ache that belonged to people who’ve already said goodbye once.

Jimmy caught you staring once during a late edit and smirked. “You noticed it too, huh?”

“Noticed what?” you deflected.

“The thing,” he said, gesturing vaguely between Clark and Lois, who were bickering shoulder to shoulder over phrasing, pointing comically at Clark’s monitor. “They’ve got that… tragic exes who still text energy.”

You laughed, though it came out strangled. “They’re just good friends.”

Jimmy raised a brow, “Whatever you say.”

You tried to believe in yourself instead. You pretended that watching them didn’t sting in your chest. Even though it did.

Still, there was no denying the pull between you and him.

It wasn’t some grand, sudden thing; it crept in like sunlight through a cracked window. Late nights at the Planet editing side by side, shoulders almost touching, your laughter muffled between the hum of printers and Clark’s habit of reading every line out loud before you approved it. He’d lean over your screen, glasses slipping, voice low as if the words themselves might shatter if spoken too loud.

Lunches became coffee breaks, coffee breaks turned into dinner because neither of you wanted the conversation to end. He listened the way most people didn’t — not just waiting for his turn to speak, but really hearing you. Sometimes he’d bring you snacks from vendors you’d never tried, or a thermos of tea because he’d noticed you never finished your coffee. Small things, but they stacked up quietly into something whole.

He started showing up more often at the Hall of Justice after the Gang’s long missions. He never asked for anything except “How are you doing?” and “How’s your energy holding up?”

He always placed a warm hand on your shoulder and with a smile, “You did good.”

And you’d always say, “You too.”

It still caught you off guard, how gentle he could be even when covered in soot and sweat.

Superman was invincible — but Clark, Clark carried softness like armor.

And maybe that’s why it scared you, the way his eyes always found yours in a crowded room, how he’d grin when you rolled your eyes at Guy’s ramblings, how he’d offer his hand like he wasn’t sure you’d take it but hoped you would.

You started seeing patterns: the way his cape brushed your shoulder during field briefings, the way he’d drop his voice to say your name like a secret. Every day, the orbit tightened a little more.

You thought about sharing the true nature of your powers with him. That every healing came at a cost. The deeper the wound, the longer it took for you to crawl back to yourself. That there were limits, and you’d never dared test them, not yet.

But you didn’t.

You didn't want to scare him.

Eventually, friendship blurred into something deeper — slow, inevitable, tender.

The first time he kissed you, it wasn’t fireworks; it was relief. Like two people who’d been holding their breath too long finally remembered how to exhale.

He told you he’d never met anyone who made him feel so human. You told him you weren’t sure you remembered what “human” even meant anymore. He smiled, hugged you close to his chest, and said you could figure it out together.

You let him in.

You let yourself believe that love didn’t have to hurt to matter. That maybe you could hold something fragile without breaking it — or being the one broken by it.

.

The Metropolis Art Museum gleamed like something carved from light. The city’s elite crowded its marble atrium in black suits and glittering gowns, champagne flutes catching the reflection of chandelier stars. You had never felt so aware of your own heartbeat.

Perry White, in his rare generous mood, had managed to secure you a press badge despite your title being copy editor. “Consider it a morale booster,” he’d said, which you suspected really meant, We’re short-staffed and you clean up everyone’s typos.

Jimmy, Lois, and Clark were here officially: camera, notepad, and recorder in hand. You were just trying to look like you belonged.

Your dress was simple but elegant—dark navy, gloves up to your elbows, hair swept back. You caught Clark’s expression when you walked in, his eyes going wide for just a moment before he ducked his head with a blush and straightened his tie. It was enough to send a small, dangerous warmth through you.

Clarak leaned in, whispering as he brushed his lips to your temple, “You look beautiful, honey.”

You laughed, hooking an arm through his, and picked imaginary lint off his red tie. “You look pretty sharp yourself, handsome.”

“Well, you both are showing us up tonight!” Jimmy chimed in from your side, adjusting his camera bag.

“You’re wearing sneakers,” you laughed. He grinned back, unbothered.

It was easy with Jimmy—like a brother who saw everything but never judged. He, like Lois, knew what you were. That you could heal others. Neither asked questions they didn’t need to, which you appreciated. You weren’t sure what they thought of you and Clark, though Lois had a way of smiling that made you feel like she knew exactly how far things had gone.

And beneath all the laughter and banter, that quiet history between her and Clark hummed like a radio left on low volume.

.

Later, you found yourself shoulder to shoulder with Clark before The Life Line by Winslow Homer, tucked away in the Nineteenth Century American Art wing.

A storm-tossed sea consumed the canvas: a man clutching an unconscious woman, both suspended on a rescue line above furious waves. Her face half-shrouded by the red blanket he held around her, his own face obscured entirely by her weight and the spray of the sea.

Clark’s voice was quiet beside you. “Homer painted this after a real rescue off the Jersey coast,” he said. “He was fascinated by people at their breaking points. By… what we’re willing to risk for someone else.”

You tilted your head, gloved fingers resting at your chin as your eyes traced the ropes cutting across the frame. “It’s strange,” you murmured. “The man’s saving her life, but he’s… faceless. The hero disappears.”

Clark hummed, thoughtful. “Maybe that’s the point,” he said, the glass of his lenses catching the reflected light. “Sacrifice isn’t about being seen.”

You studied the canvas again, heart tightening. “Do you think the man made it?”

“I’d like to think so.”

You wondered what kind of person Clark was if the sea came for him. Would he reach for you, too?

“And her?” you asked softly.

He turned to look at you then—eyes catching the painting’s dim gold light. His mouth parted like he might answer, but Jimmy’s voice came echoing from down the hall, calling you both to join the others.

The moment dissolved.

.

The night bloomed with laughter and light until it didn’t.

The gunmen burst in without warning—four of them, ski masks and rifles.

“Everyone on the ground!” a deep voice barked.

They shouted for phones, wallets, and jewelry after that. Panic tore through the crowd like lightning. You dropped low, your mind snapping to triage mode as the elite of Metropolis huddled together on the floor, trembling, whispering.

Clark was tense beside you. You could feel it in the air, that shift in him like a storm about to break. His eyes darted, calculating exits, counting threats, but there were too many civilians, too many guns, too many eyes.

Superman wanted out. Clark Kent couldn’t leave.

Your pulse hammered in your throat. You glimpse the way one of the gunmen moved, saw the tremor in their hands. Untrained. Amatures. Even more dangerous.

“Clark,” you hissed, low. “What are we going to do? We can’t–”

He exhaled through his nose, the marble beneath his hand cracking under pressure, “I know, I know–”

The gunmen moved methodically, their voices shaking but determined as they robbed guest after guest.

You could see Clark’s jaw tightening with every second.

Lois was near the front, standing protectively in front of an elderly couple who could barely move. You wanted to tell her to stop drawing attention—wanted to reach her— but then one of the gunmen shoved the elderly woman.

“Hey!” she shouted, stepping out before more damage could be done. “Leave them alone!”

“Lois, don’t—” Clark surged forward, trying to reach for her across the room.

“I–I said everyone on the ground!”

The gunfire cracked the air.

For a second, the world blurred. You didn’t hear the screams or Jimmy’s shout. All you heard was Clark’s voice, raw and desperate.

“Lois!”

She stumbled back, shock in her eyes, hands pressed to her the side of her chest as red bloomed through her dress. The gunmen bolted. The guests scattered in every direction, their panic deafening.

Clark was at Lois’s side before anyone else could move. You followed, pulse hammering, knees hitting the marble beside them. Jimmy’s voice was somewhere behind you, trying to help keep the guests calm, to prevent a stampede.

“Lois—hey, Lois—stay with me,” Clark begged, one hand pressed to the wound, the other trembling. The blood was spreading too fast.

“Clark, baby, you need to get out of here.”

He shook his head violently, his mop of curly hair damp with sweat, “I can’t—too many eyes.”

He looked at you then, eyes frantic behind his glasses, desperation raw in his voice. “Honey, I— I need you! You have to save her— You can save her.”

You froze. “Clark—”

“You can do it. I've seen you.”

You felt your chest heave from panic.

“I’ve never healed—like this,” you stammered, voice thin.

He clutched Lois’s face like he could will her to stay awake. “Fix her!"

It wasn’t Superman’s voice. It was something raw, human, terrified. He was shaking, begging now, tears streaming down his face, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. “She’s not breathing— Lois, hey, hey—”

You tried again, breath shaking. “Clark. I'm serious. Through the chest. I’d never—this could kill me—”

“I don’t care!” he snapped, louder than you’d ever heard him. “Just fix her! Please, please, I can’t— I can’t lose her—”

The words shattered something inside you.

He didn’t even realize what he’d said, didn’t realize how it sounded. But you did.

All his love, all his desperate need—was for her. Not like before, not the lingering fondness you’d tried to ignore. This was the kind of fear that only comes from loving someone so much the world stops when they fall.

And suddenly, the painting came back to you: The Life Line. The man clinging to the woman as the storm swallowed them whole, alive and desperate along the rescue line.

“Do you think the man made it?”

“I’d like to think so.”

“And her?”

You swallowed hard, eyes burning, and nodded.

“Jimmy,” you called as you stared down at the wound, voice low but firm, “go outside. Flag down the EMS. Tell them we’ve stabilized her, but we need a stretcher and backup. Bring them here. I’ll make sure she'll be okay until then.”

Jimmy blinked, startled, then nodded, his face pale. “Got it!” He bolted toward the doors, phone already at his ear, pushing through the panicked crowd.

One less witness.

You tossed your gloves aside and nudged Clark’s bloodied palms away with trembling hands. You pressed your trembling hands over Lois’s chest and glanced at her face only once. She was impossibly quiet, her eyes losing shine and focus.

“C’mon, Lois. I got you.”

Heat flared instantly — that sickly surge of power clawing through you, dragging her pain into your body. Your chest and ribs burned, bones creaking under invisible weight. You could taste iron as every nerve ignited with agony.

The echo of the sirens sounded impossibly far away.

She gasped loudly then — a full breath flooding back into her lungs as she coughed wet and ragged — just as you swallowed your scream.

You quickly pressed your hand over your chest where the phantom gunshot started to bloom between your ribs. You were shaking and blinking owlishly, watching them.

Clark was rocking Lois in his arms, murmuring her name, trembling with relief as color began to return to her face. Her eyes darted wildly, her hands trembling as she clutched Clark’s shirt.

“Clark?” she whispered weakly. “What… what happened?”

They were whispering now. Clark soothing, brushing her hair from her face like he brushed yours, a relieved, devastating smile on his face.

You did it. You healed her.

“You did good,” you told yourself under your breath, but your voice broke.

No one was whispering your name. No one was worrying about you.

Their attention never broke. Not when you placed one palm on the marble floor to stand up and slid against the red. Not when your knees wobbled.

Clark’s eyes stayed on Lois like she was the only person left in the room.

Your palm remained pressed to your chest, but the wound kept blooming, warm and slick beneath your fingers. You stepped back once, twice—testing—waiting for someone to notice.

No one did.

The marble floor seemed to tilt under you. The echo of your heels was lost beneath the low sound of Clark’s voice as his forehead pressed to Lois's. Her trembling hand rose to hold his hand, and he let her.

The sight cut deeper than the pain underneath your hands.

You took another step back, the hem of your dress brushing against broken glass.

Still, their world stayed sealed around them— his hands on her face, his voice promising her she was safe.

You turned, slow and quiet, like an animal trying not to draw attention. Your hand caught the doorframe for balance as you slipped into the deserted hallway. Blood dotted the marble behind you like a breadcrumb trail, but nobody looked up.

Nobody called after you.

.

You didn’t remember crossing the gallery, only the cool marble under your fingers as you stumbled into a side corridor. The noise of the museum—sirens, shouting, the echo of boots—faded behind you like a radio turned down.

The single-occupancy restroom at the end of the hall was mercifully empty. You slipped inside, careful to drag your hem so it caught the worst of the blood before it hit the tile. The door swung shut behind you.

The mirror greeted you first.

A stranger stared back—eyes glassy, dark navy dress soaked, skin ash-pale beneath the harsh fluorescent light. The bullet wound you’d pulled from Lois was a ragged bloom over your ribs, seeping through your fingers. Each heartbeat pushed a warm pulse against your palm.

You pressed harder. “Stop,” you whispered—not to the blood, but to the memories.

Clark’s voice, hoarse and desperate, still rang in your head.

I don’t care! Just fix her!

I can't lose her.

Lois’s hand on his face. His forehead against hers.

The look he hadn’t given you.

Your knees gave out and you slid down the door until the tile met your back. Cold. Hard. Steady.

You worked by muscle memory—one hand bracing your ribs, the other clutching the sink as you forced your breathing to slow. The healing would come, you told yourself. It always did. Though it came slower with big wounds.

Slower still with a broken heart.

But you've never had a wound like this.

The pain was a tide. It licked up your spine, pulled at your lungs, filled your head with white noise. You bit your lip until you tasted copper to keep from crying out. You didn’t want to scare anyone. You didn’t want to draw them here.

Blood trickled between your fingers, down your arm, spattering onto the tile.

The edges of the room wavered. You could almost see the Winslow Homer painting on the bathroom wall instead of the mirror—red blanket, storm-slick rope, a woman carried by a faceless man.

You pressed your head back and laughed once, a small sound, broken in the middle.

Your hands shook. Your lips went numb. Still, you stayed quiet, curling in on yourself like a wounded animal. If you could just ride the tide long enough, your body would stitch itself back together. God, you hoped.

Then a voice cracked through the silence. “Oh my God—”

You blinked up, disoriented, as the door flew open. Jimmy filled the doorway, wild-eyed, the press badge crooked at his throat. He froze when he saw you on the floor.

His hands trembled as hand hovered over your shoulder. “I was looking for—You’re—bleeding, how?! Jesus fucking—!” He spun toward the hall, voice rising. “Clark! She’s—”

You clutched his sleeve weakly. “Don’t, please don’t,” you rasped, though your voice sounded like it came from the end of a long tunnel. “Lois needs him. I’ll be fine, just…gimme a minute.”

Jimmy’s eyes snapped back to your face, furious and panicked as he pressed trembling hands against yours. “I don’t think we have a minute! God, how are you even—” His hands hovered, not sure where to press. “Clark!”

Your head lolled to the side, “Jimmy, shhh, I’ll be—just wait,” you whispered. “Clark told me… to save her. Lois is alive. Fixed. That’s all that matters.”

Jimmy’s grip slipped on your blood. “No, no, shit,” he muttered, pressing his hand over yours again as if he could hold you together. “This isn’t fine, this isn’t—I thought you could heal—Clark! Where the hell are you?”

.

A few agonizing seconds later, you heard a familiar stride echo down the hall.

Clark’s voice then filtered through. “Sorry, Jimmy. EMS just arrived—they’re transporting Lois to Metropolis General just to be safe. I was going to meet them there. Police have the—”

He had his eyes down, meticulously rubbing a washcloth between his hands, the towel tinged pink with blood.

He stopped short.

“Jimmy, what the—”

Clark immediately dropped the towel and collapsed to his knees beside you, his hands reaching out for you.

“Hey—hey, no, no, no—” His voice broke apart. “What happened?”

Jimmy’s words tumbled out in a panic as he adjusted his hold on your ribs. “She was fine, I thought she was fine! She told me to flag EMS, said she’d take care of it, you were there, you heard her, and, and—Clark, she’s bleeding out, I think she’s—”

Clark’s eyes flicked from the wound between your ribs to your face, back again. He froze. The realization hit him like a blow. “This—this was Lois’s wound.” His breath stuttered, disbelief hardening into horror. “You—how—how long have you—”

You tried to focus on his face, but the room kept tilting, the edges of his silhouette bending in the light. “Awe, Clark…please don’t… don’t look like that,” you whispered, frowning. “You said—save her. I did.”

Clark didn’t move. His throat worked, breaking around the words, and finally all his attention was locked on you—on the realization that you had taken on a life-threatening injury to save someone else, someone he had —

The room felt impossibly small, suffocating with the weight of your shared secret, the blood, the silence between sirens and shouting. Clark’s eyes searched yours, haunted.

“I didn’t know,” he choked, shaking his head violently. “I didn’t know this is what happens when you heal people. You told me it took energy out of you. Not— not this.”

You shook your head slowly, barely conscious, vision flickering at the edges. “It… scares people,” you murmured. “Even you…”

Clark made a wounded sound, somewhere between a sob and a growl. “I'm so sorry. I forced you to— I—how could I—” He cradled your head with shaking hands. “You shouldn’t have done this. You shouldn’t have had to— I didn’t think—”

“You never do, when it’s her,” you murmured automatically as your eyelids fluttered shut, and tried to focus your energy.

Clark flinched like you’d struck him. Jimmy looked between you, helpless eyes wide with disbelief, the horror settling heavy on his shoulders.

Jimmy then stood and was halfway through the door. “She’s losing consciousness! We need EMS to take her, too!”

Clark’s jaw tightened. “They've already left, won't be fast enough to come back,” he muttered, and Jimmy looked at him sharply, pleading.

“Then fly her out!” Jimmy yelled, voice cracking on the last word. “You’re Superman, for God’s sake—get her out of here!”

The name cut through the air like a confession. You heard a siren's wail diminish with distance.

You blinked, barely conscious, watching him war with himself—the hero and the man both frozen. “Clark,” you breathed. “Go. Lois needs—”

“No,” he said instantly, voice sharp, raw. “Don’t—don't say it. I’m not—” His words collapsed under their own weight. “I’m here. I'm here.”

You wanted to tell him it was fine if he left. That you understood. That you’d live. That it would just take time. But your lips barely moved, and all that came out was a whimper.

He leaned closer, voice trembling. “You saved her. But you—” His hand cupped your face, thumb brushing your jaw. “You should’ve told me. I would’ve—I would’ve never asked. I swear I would’ve—”

You managed to shake your head, “I did tell you…you said you didn’t care,” you whispered.

Clark froze, eyes wide, pupils blown, every color draining from his face. His hands shook as they hovered over your shoulders, unsure whether to cradle you or hold you back.

His hands fumbled at your bloodied hands, trying to find some small comfort, some way to make it right, but he was paralyzed by guilt, horror, and the raw reality of your sacrifice. His chest heaved, and he muttered broken apologies over and over, unable to stop, unable to look away from what he had forced you to do.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“You… you wouldn’t have forgiven yourself if Lois… I just couldn’t let you ever feel that way. Clark, I love you so much.”

The words cost you everything, but you meant them.

You could hear Jimmy shouting for the medics from the hall.

The roar of the sea, like a siren, was in your ears, getting louder, pulling you under.

Your last thought was of the painting swaying in its frame — the man and the woman, the storm, the rope that bound them both to salvation.

You finally understood what your mother meant, long ago, when she warned you not to let anyone see how far you could fix them.

Because this was the cost.

The hero disappears.

You leaned back on your elbows, wine glass empty beside you, cheeks flushed from laughing too hard at whatever dumb thing Clark had just said. He sat close, Metro U crewneck sleeves rolled up to his forearms. You could see his watch tan line on his wrist. You could smell him, a comforting clean cotton, fresh air, aftershave, and maybe, just maybe, the faintest trace of nervous sweat.

He shifted beside you, clearing his throat, "Hon, I uh… got you something."

You sat up and turned your head, the glow of the string lights catching in the slope of his cheekbone.

His hand slid into the back pocket of his jeans.

You froze, sobering quickly. 

Something about the motion. The obvious cube shape you hadn’t noticed until now. The pause. Your stomach tightened, breath catching somewhere between your ribs and your throat. It wasn’t like you were expecting it, not tonight, not here, but Clark had been weird lately. More than usual. More giddy and soft in a unique way. Like he had a secret, bigger than Superman, and he couldn’t wait to share.

Your mind went faster than your heart. Faster than reason. Faster than it should have.

Your voice was light when it came, practiced in its casualness: "Clark Joseph Kent," you teased, half-grin blooming like a dare. "Is that a ring box in your pocket or you just happy to see me?"

His hand stilled.

You raised your eyebrows.

He blinked, once, slow. Like he’d just registered the weight of your words, and with the kind of unhurried, maddening deliberation he always used when opening a gift or untying your dress, he pulled something out. A small, black velvet box.

Your heart vaulted to your throat. Your breath caught. Your eyes began to burn, but you couldn’t blink.  The string lights flickered behind him, and the world narrowed to that little black square in his palm.

He opened it.

Earrings.

Just earrings. Well, no. Beautiful earrings. Small, delicate, expensive, earned on a reporter’s salary. Your birthstone held in a tiny gold setting, warm and winking up at you like it didn’t just break your heart a little to see it.

"Oh," you exhaled. Your voice didn’t crack, but you felt the tremor anyway.

Clark, bless him, was still beaming. "You mentioned you lost the pair you liked. These reminded me of them."

He looked so proud of himself. Like he’d nailed it. Like he’d known this would make your night. And it should’ve. It did. It would have, on any other day.

You took them. You grinned back, fighting the urge to sniffle as your fingers curled around the velvet. You threw yourself on him in a tight hug, kissed his lips, and thanked him.

Because you were still grateful. Still loved him. Still adored that your incredible boyfriend’s brain remembered the little things like what you’d lost three months ago and how you’d muttered about it under your breath while brushing your hair back behind your ear before turning in for the night beside him.

But God, it had felt so real for a second. That heartbeat of possibility. That lurch in your chest of forever with Clark almost in your grasp.

So you socked him in the arm. Not hard. Just enough.

"Oh, you absolute jerk!"

He flinched dramatically, stunned and l laughing. "Ow! What was that for?! What did I—what’d I do?!"

"Did you see how that looked right now?!"

"I really didn’t! Not until five seconds ago," he insisted,  wide-eyed and pouting. "I swear on Ma’s pies, I just thought you’d like them!"

And you did. Love them in fact the longer you stared at it.

You even put them on right in front of him, sliding one into your left ear, fingers trembling just a little as you fastened the back. He watched you do the same to the right ear, blue eyes alight with awe and adoration. 

But the quiet that followed told a different story.

The laugh faded too quickly. Your smile dimmed too fast.

Because something continued to pinch your chest tight. Because it had felt so real for a second. The setup. The box. The way his hand lingered daramtically upon reveal. You weren’t in a rush—not really. Not in a way you’d ever say aloud. But the hope you hadn’t known was waiting to be lit, and now it was snuffed out just as quickly.

Clark’s eyes caught your expression instantly, some flicker he knew better than anyone else because he’d grown up with it, soothed it, and now, caused it. His hand found yours on the blanket, his calloused thumbs soothing out the tension in your knuckles. You hadn’t realized you were wringing your fingers on the gingham fabric. 

"Sweetheart," he started, quieter now. You looked at him. God, he looked worried. Like he already knew what you were about to say. "I’m sorry."

"No, no! What are you sorry for?" You shook your head, trying to smile through it. "You are too good to me. I was prepared for just a nice urban picnic with my favorite person. I was being dumb. I wasn’t expecting anything. Honestly."

"You kind of were."

You didn’t deny it, because he was right. Because he knew you too well. Because this exact kind of moment, golden-lit and private and just the two of you tucked into your own little world would’ve been the kind of place he’d do it. 

He brought your hand to his lips and kissed your knuckles and then your palm. Held it there longer than necessary, warm breath lingering against your skin like a drawn-out apology. Your fingers curled against his cheek, thumb catching on his stubble.

"Clark, I’m not upset. Please believe me. I was being dumb," you urged. "It’s just—You know how I get with gifts, moments like this. Truly, thank you."

You swallowed hard, leaned into his touch, and kissed him soundly.

And even though the night carried on with quiet laughter as you both wrangled the blanket under the night breeze, and the winding down of something almost-magical, there was a tender weight in your chest that hadn’t been there when you first sat down.

Not heavy. Not bitter. Just a hum of something left unfinished.

.

The walk back to the apartment was quiet.

Clark held your hand the whole way, his thumb brushing over your knuckles every few steps. Neither of you said much. There was a strange kind of familiarity to the silence, a wordless understanding that stretched between you like a thread.

He opened the door for you when you got to the apartment. Let you step into the warmth of home first. You toed off your shoes with a sigh, tucked the picnic blanket and empty wine bottle on the kitchen island, and padded toward the bathroom with a tired hum. Clark followed, slow and quiet, like he didn’t want to startle whatever quiet thing was blooming between you now.

He watched you in the mirror as you removed your makeup.

He didn’t mean to stare, but the way your eyes softened when you wiped your mascara away, and the way your lips parted just slightly when you concentrated on getting your eyeliner off made his chest ache. You were always beautiful. But like this? Bare-faced and blinking slowly, wearing the faintest flush from the wine and the laughter and the disappointment you’d tried to bury?

He would’ve given you anything.

You caught him watching. Raised your brows. He looked down at the sink.

"I can’t help it," he shrugged, a lazy, insincere apology. "You’re just really pretty."

You snorted, dabbing at your cheeks with a cotton pad. "Pretty gross."

"Nope, really pretty."

He brushed his teeth alongside you like always, shoulder to shoulder, nudging his elbow into yours when you started humming that old song you both hated. You made a mess with the mouthwash, and he cleaned it up without a word. You laughed when he accidentally spit too hard into the sink. He pretended not to beam at the sound.

The shared shower was more about teasing than getting clean.

Clark followed you in like a magnet, warm skin crowding yours beneath the stream. He didn’t try anything. Didn’t push. Just stood there behind you while you lathered shampoo into your scalp, fingers sliding through your hair to help rinse it out. When you rinsed, he kissed your shoulder. When you bent to grab the body wash, he groaned under his breath.

"You trying to kill me, sweetheart?"

You turned, soap suds on your jaw. "For what ever reason, babe?"

He just raised a brow. You kissed him then. A little slow. A little smug.

He still didn’t push it. Not yet.

By the time you were both towel-dried and yawning, the lights in the apartment were dim. Clark stood at the foot of the bed in just his boxers, hair curling and damp, glasses gone, skin golden from the lamplight. You pulled one of his oldest T-shirts over your head: faded navy, a rip in the hem, the Daily Planet logo cracked like old paint. It hit just below your hips.

You climbed into bed, and he followed, curling his body around yours like every night.

And still, even after you’ve cut the lamp, snuggled into the sheets, he kept watching. 

Like the words he wanted to say were too big for his mouth. Like every version of I’m sorry and you deserve more and I love you so much it’s killing me and I need to tell you the truth had lodged somewhere in his chest and hadn’t worked free yet.

"Clark," you whispered, turning to face him in the dark. "You okay?"

He looked at you like he could’ve cried from it: your face, your voice, the way you still sounded like you still wanted him beside you, even after what he’d unintentionally did tonight.

"I am," he replied, voice just as quiet as yours. "Just… stuck in my head."

"Still about tonight?"

He nodded once, then shifted until he was leaning over you, elbows pressed into the mattress, right hand finding your left in the quiet. You blinked up at him, watching him bring it up to your lips. He kissed the pad of your index finger. Then your middle next. Then finally, the one beside it, your ring finger.

"It’s real," he whispered, soft and hoarse. "The ring. I’ve had it for weeks."

Your heart skipped with the confession, but remained silent.

"I should’ve told you then. On the roof. You looked so beautiful. I could've grabbed the box and just done it. And doing it now, it'd feel...I…" He exhaled. "I overthought. Like I always do."

You stayed quiet, letting him go on.

"I keep thinking about the moment," He continued, lips brushing over the skin just beneath your knuckle. "How I want it to feel. What I want you to remember. Not a joke. Not a bodega sandwich and blinking lights. I wanted you in a dress you love. With music. And the sky. And flowers."

The tears were a surprise. Actually, you weren't even real crying. Just felt prickle of pressure behind your eyes, the kind that came when you’d been holding something in for too long and someone, like Clark, always Clark, touched it gently.

"And I forgot," he added, voice breaking. "That you probably think about it, too."

"....I do, Clark. I think about forever with you a lot." You paused. Swallowed your ache. "I didn’t mean to joke about it, make things awkward. I just hoped—"

"I know," he cut in immediately, still gentle. "I know. You hoped. I'm so sorry."

Your chest tightened. "Babe, you know I don’t need a perfect moment. I just want you."

His thumb stroked the inside of your palm, cradling your hand tighter.

"I know, but I want you to look back on that moment and know how much care. That I didn't settle with just giving you 'just enough'." 

He looked at you then with that earnest, devastating softness. "So soon. It’ll be right here where everyone can see it, and there’ll never be a second where the world doesn’t know how much I love you."

Eyes wet, you nodded, breathing through the confession, letting the truth of it settle between you.

He moved next to your temple, pressing a kiss deep into your hair. 

"I love you," he repeated. "Love your mind. For how fast you move through the world, even when I’m the one with super speed. You make connections I don’t see coming. I love that you challenge me, make room for me in there despite all you carry."

You laughed, watery and breathless. "You’re the only one I want in here. though"

Smiling against your skin, he pressed another kiss. "Yes, I've heard."

Then he kissed your lips. Long and open-mouthed, with the weight of everything he wasn’t saying just yet. His palm slid across your cheek. His thumb brushed the corner of your mouth.

"Love your lips, your mouth, your voice," lips ghosting over yours. "For the way you say my name, talk to me, take interest in me. Make me feel like I belong."

He kissed the corner of your jaw. The line beneath your ear. The side of your neck, where your pulse jumped the moment he exhaled there.

"Right here, love this, too," he breathed against your galloping pulse. "Because I like knowing how fast it goes when it’s me. And sometimes I swear it’s the only thing keeping mine steady."

His hands slid up the hem of his old shirt, gathering the fabric slowly. You lifted your arms, still quiet, still stunned. He peeled it over your head, letting the fabric fall somewhere beside the bed, and looked at you like he was seeing the earth for the first time. 

He admired your breasts first, palms cupping them gently before he leaned in, kissing the swell of each one slow and open-mouthed, thumb circling one nipple until it peaked under his touch.

You turned your face away, heat blooming. "I always wished I could do something about these. Make them nicer."

His head lifted. His brow furrowed.

"Don't ever say that to me again," he said firmly, scolding. "They’re yours. Which means they’re perfect. I love knowing every mark."

He then dipped his head to kiss the small beauty marks atop your right breast. Then he kissed another. Then another. Then one he’d only ever seen in the soft glow of early morning.

"I never forget a single one," he whispered.

He moved lower, mouth tracing the center of your sternum, over your ribs. Your stomach rose and fell with each breath, and when his lips found the area just above your navel, you sighed, long and slow, threading your fingers into his hair.

Clark paused.

He thought about all the quiet mornings when you’d pressed his hand to your belly and joked about feeding you too well. All the conversations you’d had about someday. About names. About tiny sweaters. About how scared you were to try, and how much you wanted to anyway.

"I think about this part. More than I should," he murmured, blue eyes piercing through the moonlight. He kissed the softness of your stomach again, slower this time.

"When you're ready. When we are I think about your beautiful body changing, and the way you’d look carrying something we made. I think about how much you’ll love them. How lucky I'll be to witness it."

You curled your fingers tighter in his hair, a silent, mutual: yes, someday.

His hands slid down your waist next, anchoring at your hips. He kissed the inside dip there, just above your hip bone. Then again, on the other side.

"You drive me out of my mind," he breathed, almost like he was scolding you for it. 

Then he kissed your thighs. First, the left. Then the right. Then higher, and higher, until your knees fell open for him. 

"This part," he exhaled, in awe. "where you open for me, where you trust me. I love this, too. But you probably figured that out."

And then he kissed your clit.

You gasped, sharp and sweet, your hand tightening in his hair as his tongue followed. He was slow and precise, savoring you like he had all the time in the world, like he had no greater purpose than to unspool you with his mouth.

He held you open with both hands on your thighs, his shoulders braced between them, nose pressed into your folds, and lapped you until you were shaking. And then, only when your thighs trembled, and your breath came in broken, desperate fragments, and your whole body felt like it might dissolve into stardust—

Then he pulled back, chin wet, pupils blown.

Then he crawled up your body, kissed your lips again, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.

"I love you," he breathed your name. "So much, it makes me do silly things."

You smiled, already trembling. "I love you, Clark. It’s not even fair how much."

He kissed you again. And again. And again.

Finally, he slid into you, slow, thick, unhurried. You cried out softly, back arching as he filled you all the way. He didn’t move at first. Just stayed there, buried deep inside and feeling you adjust, forehead pressed to yours. 

His eyes never left yours. You felt the weight of him everywhere—his hands, his chest, his gaze, his heart. All of him, pressed into you, wrapped around you, like you were his home and his vow and his lifeline all at once.

Then his left hand found yours, fingers interlaced. He pressed your joined hands into the pillow above your head. Ring finger curled tight with his.

His gaze dropped for a beat, caught by the glint off the tiny gold earrings in the moonlight.

"I promise, sweetheart," he whispered, honest and eyes full of everything you’d ever loved about him. "The real one’s coming. You’ll have the ring. The name. Every piece of me, for as long as you want it."

You nodded, breath catching, mouth parted. "I already do."

And when he began to move, rocking into you, it wasn’t about rhythm, urgency, or making you come again.

It was about proof. 

It was about the way he kissed you with each thrust, the way he caressed your fingers, the way he breathed your name like it was the only word that ever mattered.

It was about making sure you knew: he was already yours and you were already his.

And soon, the rest of the world would know that, too.

.

Thank you for reading! Please don't forget to leave comments & reblog!! these are forever appreciated, and keep writers motivated!

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You woke up to the weight of Clark’s arm around your waist.

For a blissful five seconds, you forgot what day it was. Just warm, strong muscle at your back, his breath on your neck, the low rumble of his heartbeat under your palm where your hand had slipped beneath his T-shirt in the night.

Then your alarm blared.

You groaned and tried to burrow closer. "No. Not yet."

Clark huffed a laugh against your shoulder. The firm arm around your waist tightened, hauling you back when you tried to roll away.

"I second that motion," he murmured, voice still rough with sleep. "All in favor of ignoring the alarm and staying right here…?"

You were tempted. God, you were tempted.

But the familiar knot of responsibility tugged you upright. You reached back, slapping at your phone until the noise cut off. The dark room settled into the faint predawn gray leaking in around the curtains.

"I have to go," you sighed, already mourning the loss of his warmth as you sat up. His T-shirt rode up on your thighs; one of his hands slid, automatically, to steady you at the hip.

"I know, sweetheart," he sympathized, a hand coming up to tuck hair behind your ears. "Doesn’t mean I have to like it."

You glanced over your shoulder. In the dim light, his glasses were crooked on the nightstand, his dark hair a riot of curls from your fingers. He looked younger like this—less Superman, more Kansas farm boy who was still learning how to keep up in a city that never slept.

You reached down to smooth his hair back. "Someone’s gotta keep Metropolis from overeating fried foods into oblivion. You take the ones falling out of the sky, I take the ones who stab themselves carving turkey."

That got a smile, crooked and reluctant. "We make a good team."

"The best," you sighed dreamily, and leaned back in for a quick kiss.

It should have been quick, anyway. You meant it to be—a press of lips, a soft goodbye.

But Clark's hand came up to cradle the back of your neck, thumb brushing the hinge of your jaw, and suddenly you were melting into him again, Thanksgiving and the ER and the world beyond this bed sliding out of focus. His mouth moved with sleepy insistence, like he could make up for the hours he’d be without you in one long kiss.

When you finally broke away, you were both breathing a little harder.

"Not fair," you muttered, forehead resting against his. "Weaponizing your lips like that when you know I have a twelve-hour shift. Bad. Bad husband."

"Sorry," he winced, not sounding sorry at all. "Just… gonna miss you."

The words sat between you, heavier than they usually would. You both knew why.

"Baby," you started, then hesitated, twisting the sheet in your hands. "You're flying to Smallville, right? To be with Ma and Pa."

His whole body went still. "Or I can stay," he suggested immediately. "It’s just a day. I can go home for Christmas instead, or—"

"No." You shook your head, sharper than you meant to. His brows pinched; you softened your tone, laying your palm on his chest. "No. I want you to go."

"But you’ll be here." The protest was quiet, stubborn. "Working all day. Coming home to…what, microwaved mac and cheese? That’s not Thanksgiving."

You tried to joke, lightly swatting his chest. "Rude. I’ll have you know the hospital cafeteria is serving something that technically qualifies as turkey. Free!"

He didn’t smile. His gaze searched your face like he could find a piece of you that didn’t need him so much.

He wouldn’t, because it didn’t exist.

"You haven’t gone home in months," you reminded him, softer. "Ma misses you. Pa wants to tell you about his new tractor or whatever farmers do for fun."

"There’s nothing fun about that tractor," he muttered, almost automatically. "It’s a menace. The transmission—"

"Exactly." You poked his chest. "Pa needs someone to complain to. Go. Eat real food, breathe actual country air, let Ma fuss over you. It’ll make her happy, and that'll make you happy."

He caught your hand before you could pull it away, lacing your fingers with his, and kissing your ring finger.

"What about what makes you happy?"

You swallowed, forcing a smile. "Saving lives makes me happy."

He raised a brow and studied you. He knew you, and he didn't quite buy it. But he sighed and squeezed your hand anyway.

"You’re sure? Final answer?" he asked quietly.

"I’m sure." You leaned in and kissed him again. "We’ll have our own little Thanksgiving when I get off a string of shifts and can taste food again without chugging coffee over it."

He exhaled, the fight going out of his shoulders. "Okay," he sighed, like it physically wounded him. "Then I’ll go."

You doubted he’d really relax. He’d hover, probably literally, over the city whenever he could, listening for trouble, for your voice across the miles, the states.

But he’d go. Because you asked.

Because that’s what you did for each other.

.

The ER on Thanksgiving was…predictable in its chaos.

By four p.m., you’d seen three carving-related lacerations, a burn from a deep fryer that made you want to swear off fried food for life, a teenager with alcohol poisoning who’d thought spiked cider was just "apple juice that makes you warm," and an elderly man whose heart had decided it did not, in fact, appreciate his third helping of stuffing.

You moved on autopilot, the way you always did when the waiting room brimmed and the halls buzzed. Gloves snapped on, vitals taken, warm blanket tucked up under a shivering patient’s chin. Your voice shifted automatically—calm for the anxious, firm for the belligerent, soft for the ones who couldn’t stop apologizing for needing help on a holiday.

"Hey, you’re not ruining anything," you told a woman whose eyes were glassy with tears and fever. "The turkey will keep. You, I’m a little more invested in keeping intact."

Your feet ached by noon. By three, your shoulders were a knot of muscle and stale coffee. You scarfed down a protein bar at the nurses’ station while listening to a family argue on speakerphone about who’d overcooked the green bean casserole.

At some point, you caught a flicker of red and blue on one of the newscasts playing in the corner of the break room.

Superman, high above somewhere in the Midwest, steering a disabled plane from colliding with another plane. You watched for a few beats, breath lodged halfway in your chest, then forced yourself away from the screen when your work phone buzzed.

Back to work. Back to the here and now and the chart in your hands.

You didn’t have the luxury of worrying about your husband being shot out of the sky when room twelve needed their meds, and room three needed someone to notice the way their breathing changed.

.

By the time you finally staggered into the locker room at the end of your shift, your scrubs smelled like feet and fear and other people’s lives. Odd, appetite-squashing combination.

You scrubbed your hands longer than usual at the sink, watching suds circle the drain. You brushed your hair back, tied your shoes tighter, shrugged into your coat.

Your phone buzzed. A text from Clark.

How’s my wife doing?

You smiled despite yourself, thumbs clumsy as you replied.

Exhausted. Alive. Nobody bled out on my watch. How is my husband doing?

He answered almost immediately.

Same. Plane detour over the river, you probably saw. Pa is lecturing me about aerodynamics and Ma keeps trying to get me to bring leftovers to the Leery's across town.

You swallowed around a sudden tightness in your throat. You typed:

Tell them I love and miss them. I'll be there for Christmas.

Another text, faster than before.

Already did. And they love and miss you, too. Ma's giving me a whole crate of care packages. Look forward to that.

You stared at the screen for a second too long, the ache of distance pressing in. It wasn’t that you needed a big, fancy Thanksgiving. You’d gone without plenty before.

It was just… the thought of walking into the dark, cold, silent apartment, reheating something in plastic, flipping on the TV for background noise so the quiet didn’t swallow you.

You typed before you could think better of it.

Heading home now. Might pick up gas station mashed potatoes. Please, don’t be jealous. I love you, baby.

His typing dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.

Be safe. I love you, sweetheart.

You tucked the phone away and walked out into the cold.

The convenience store on the corner was doing a brisk holiday business. You grabbed the not-the-saddest-looking turkey sandwich from the bunch, a cup of instant mashed potatoes that plastered "real butter flavor" in aggressive font, and a slice of pumpkin pie in a plastic clamshell.

It was…fine. It was food. It was more than some of your patients had.

You told yourself that, over and over, as you stood in line behind a man buying cigarettes and a woman juggling two crying toddlers. This was more than what some of your patients had. Be thankful.

You did not think about Ma's mashed potatoes, the ones that were more cream than potato, or her insane stuffing that could probably broker peace treaties.

You definitely did not think about how your Clark would be sitting at their table, shoulders hunched to fit into a wooden chair too small, grinning at his Pa's story about something on the farm.

You were in love with that image. You wanted that for him, every single day. He deserved it.

You just wished—selfishly—that you didn’t have to miss it.

.

You were so exhausted that you didn’t register the smell right away when you unlocked the apartment.

Your keys clicked; the door swung open with its usual soft creak. You nudged it closed with your hip, juggling your bag and your sad plastic bag of food.

Then you froze. The lights were on. The apartment was warm. It smelled…warm, too.

Not just "someone used the oven once this week" warm. Rich, savory, layered—roasted garlic, something herby and buttery, the faint sweetness of something else you couldn’t place over the hum of your own fatigue.

For a second your brain stuttered. Maybe one of the neighbors. Maybe you were just hungry enough to hallucinate.

"H-hello? ....Clark?" you called, more out of habit than expectation.

You’d texted him less than an hour ago. He should have still been in Smallville, pretending he couldn’t eat a fourth roll. There was no way he'd be-

"In here, sweetheart," his voice answered, easy and close, like he’d just stepped out of the bedroom.

You nearly dropped your bag.

You hastily slipped your shoes and jacket off, following the smell down the hallway, heart thudding. The living room was softly lit—no overhead lights, just lamps and the glow from the string of fairy lights you’d hung for holiday decorations.

The dining table was set. Plates, silverware, folded napkins. Steam curled up from a serving dish of what looked suspiciously like mashed potatoes that did not come from a plastic cup. There was a smaller dish of green beans with little flecks of something toasted on top, a basket of rolls, of all things.

And in the center of the table, on a pedestal that did not belong to your usual mismatched dishware, sat a pie. Apple. Classic.

You knew that pie tin. The way the latice crust was placed, almost too thick in places. The faint fork marks along the edge where someone had gotten distracted, then corrected it.

Your throat closed.

"N-no way. Is that…?" Your voice came out paper thin, and you swallowed the lump in your throat.

Clark stepped into view from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He’d changed into jeans and a soft sweater, hair still a little wind-blown, glasses hanging from the collar. The sight alone made your chest ache.

"Ma’s," he confirmed gently. "Apple. She made an extra."

You stared at the pie. At him, his outstretched arms and his wide grin. Then back at the pie.

"I love her pie," you whispered, in a trance. "I'd do anything to have it."

"I know," you could hear his grin, his amusement, "Luckily, I made it easy for you. Surprise!"

"What are you doing back?" you finally managed, your brain catching up that your husband was home, in front of you. "You’re supposed to be in Smallville,

"I was." He crossed the distance between you in three long strides, taking the plastic bag gently from your hand and setting it aside on the counter as if to say, 'your services are no longer needed'. "But I wasn’t…here."

Your eyes burned. "Clark—"

"I kept thinking about you." He cupped your face, thumb sweeping under your eyes, as if trying to take the tired away. The warmth of his hands was almost too much after a day of latex gloves, alarms, and cold metal. "In that awful break room with those weird vending machine sandwiches, or in the ER with everyone else’s families crowding the halls. I just…"

He swallowed, his jaw working. "I wanted you to come home to more than that."

The words hit you like a physical thing.

You’d told him to go. You’d meant it. You weren’t lying when you said you were proud of what you did, that you’d chose this job knowing holidays would be…different.

But standing here, the smell of real food in the air, your husband in front of you looking at you like you were the only thing in the world that made sense, that mattered—it cracked something open inside you.

"I-I have no words," you squeaked.

The first tear slipped free before you could stop it.

"Hey." His brow furrowed. "Sweetheart—"

You tried to laugh it off, but it came out as a broken sound. "Sorry, sorry. I’m just—tired. Ignore me. It’s the twelve hours of fluorescent lights and stupid doctor orders melting my brain."

Another tear. Then another. Your nose started to hurt, and your breathing started to hitch.

Suddenly you were full-on crying, the kind of ugly, hiccuping tears that left you mortified. You slapped a hand over your face.

"I’m fine," you insisted through your sobs and fingers. "This is so silly, I’m just—"

"Sweetheart," His voice went low, firm but gentle. His Superman voice filtered through Husband Clark’s warmth. "Don’t apologize for feeling things, okay? Not with me. I'm here, it's okay."

He tugged you into his chest before you could protest, arms wrapping around so tight that the last twelve hours fell off your shoulders instantly. One hand slid to the back of your head, massaging your scalp. You pressed your face into his sweater, the familiar smell of laundry soap and his cologne sank into your bones.

For a while, that was it. Just you sobbing into your husband's chest, his hand moving slowly up and down your back, his lips occasionally pressing into your hairline. The world shrank to the span of his arms.

You sniffed, your words muffled by his shirt, "I told myself I was okay. I chose this. People get sick, accidents happen, life doesn’t stop for holidays. I know that. I’m lucky. I have you, and a job, and—"

You broke off, breath hitching.

"I know other people have it worse. So much worse," you finished helplessly, another sob tearing through. "I know that. I see it every day. But...today I didn’t want to be the strong one. Just once. And I thought I had to be. Alone."

His arms tightened, his voice rough. "You are allowed to want things," he murmured into your hair. "You are allowed to be tired and sad and want your husband and mashed potatoes that have real butter. None of that makes you selfish."

You let out a watery laugh at that, a little choked. "Ma’s mashed potatoes?"

"Ma’s mashed potatoes," he confirmed. "And my attempt at her green beans. This isn't MasterChef, okay?"

You tipped your head back to look at him. His blue eyes were softer than you’d ever seen them, reflecting the lamplight, concern, and love and something fierce simmering underneath.

"I thought you’d be mad," you admitted with a sniffle, voice small. "If I…cried over something like this. When you spend your days saving the world. Ugh, my problems sound so dumb when I say them out loud."

He frowned. "I spent my day rerouting a plane and chasing a guy who thought robbing a bank on Thanksgiving was a good idea," he said, matter-of-fact. "You spent your day trying to patch up people’s worst moments. We’re both tired. We’re both allowed to be human. Your problems are not dumb."

"And you're not human," you said automatically, then snorted at your own joke through tears. "Technically."

He smiled. "I am when I’m with you. Or at least I’m trying my best."

Your laughter melted into a soft, shaky exhale. "No, you're always the best. The best not-human-human-husband a woman can ask for."

He rested his jaw against your forehead. "And for the record," he added quietly, "you were never going to be alone tonight. Not if I had anything to say about it."

"You left your parents early for me?"

Clark’s expression softened in that way that always made you feel like you’d just opened a window and let sunlight in. "I’d do anything for you," he said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. No hesitation, no bravado. Just fact.

Your breath caught.

He huffed a little laugh, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "But, uh… it wasn’t exactly a covert operation." The corner of his mouth tugged up. "Ma shoved me out the door after dessert and told me to ‘go be where I belonged.’"

You let out a watery laugh. "She said that?"

"More or less." His eyes crinkled. "Then she packed up half the fridge, told Pa to warm up the truck in case I ‘forgot how to fly,' —which would take me days to get home from Kansas to Delaware, but I digress — and threatened to throw the pie at me if I didn't bring it to you personally."

You laughed again, this time without a sob hitching in the middle. "That sounds like her."

"She loves you, they both do," he reminded you. "I love you."

You reached up and cupped his cheek, thumb brushing the faint stubble there.

"I love you too," you confessed for the millionth time in your life. "So much. So unfair. Bad. Bad husband."

He leaned into your touch, missing it all day. "Good," he murmured with a lopsided grin. "I’m a big fan of unfair advantages."

Clark's gaze dipped to your mouth. You rose onto your toes, his hands immediately dropping to your waist to lift you the last couple of inches to finally close the distance between you.

The kiss started soft. Just lips against lips, the quiet press of a promise: I’m here. You’re safe. We made it through another day. I love you.

Then something in both of you loosened.

You tasted sugar and spice from whatever he’d been sampling in the kitchen, the familiar warmth of him under it. His fingers flexed at your hips, pulling you closer until you were flush against him, chest to chest. The ache in your feet dissolved, the hum of the fridge and distant city noise fading under the slide of his mouth.

When he finally eased back, you were breathless for a better reason.

"Happy Thanksgiving, sweetheart," he whispered, moving to kiss the side of your neck, below your jaw.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Clark," you echoed, the words thick from his ministration.

He then kissed your cheeks where tears had dried.

"Now," he cleared his throat, voice a little lighter, "can I interest you in actual food, sweetheart? Or would you prefer to continue sobbing into my sweater? Personally, I’m a big fan of my wife smiling and stuffing her face with mashed potatoes… but if you need a little more sweater-ruining, I’m good for that too."

You swatted his chest, a little laugh escaping. "Don’t mock the cathartic holiday breakdown, baby. It was very healing."

"I’d never." His eyes sparkled with mischief. "But the mashed potatoes are getting cold. And Ma will hear about it somehow if we disrespect her pie."

You glanced toward the table again, the knot in your chest easing. All day you’d worn the calm, professional mask so no one else would panic; this, though—this felt real. Yours.

"You really cooked all this?" you asked with astonishment, letting him lead you toward the sink to wash your hands.

"With supervision," he admitted, crossing his arms as he watched you dry up. "Pa handled the turkey back home, Ma loaded me up like a pack mule. It's not that easy flying back with half her kitchen in my arms, ya know? Then I uh...sped through the rest before you got home."

You pictured it: your husband a blur in the kitchen, ovens firing, pots simmering, taste-testing and stirring something with his phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, Ma scolding him fondly. The image made you smile.

"Hey," you said quietly, bumping your hip to his thigh, "thank you. For all of this."

"There’s nowhere else I’d rather be," he answered, serious. "You know that, right?"

You rose onto your toes and kissed him again, letting your gratitude pour into it. When you pulled back, your forehead rested against his shoulder.

"I do," you whispered. "But it still means everything."

.

Later, after you’d demolished more food than you thought your tired body could handle, after you’d moaned embarrassingly loudly over the first bite of Ma’s pie and watched Clark’s whole face flush and soften with how happy that made him, you curled up on the couch with your legs over his lap.

The TV murmured in the background, some movie playing to an audience of two. His warm hand traced idle patterns on your calf.

"You know," you mused quietly, eyes half-lidded, "today kind of sucked."

"Yeah," he agreed, thumb circling your ankle bone. "It kinda did. Until you came home."

You looked over at him, at the way he looked back like there was nowhere else on the planet he’d rather be, and you felt the same.

You swallowed past the sudden lump in your throat. "You’re getting sappy in your old age, baby."

"Just practicing for when Pa’s tractor finally takes me out," he deadpanned. "I want you to have good quotes for the eulogy."

"Not funny," you muttered, even as you snorted.

He squeezed your leg, eyes dancing. "Seriously, though." His voice softened again. "No matter where we have to be during the day—up there, down here, in the ER, in the sky—you’re never alone. Not on Thanksgiving. Not on any day. Not as long as I’m around."

You reached for his hand and laced your fingers with his, idly playing with his wedding band. The last of the day’s tension finally started to unknot in your shoulders.

"Deal," you whispered.

He leaned over and kissed you again, grateful and full of want.

When you settled back against the cushions, his hand still wrapped around yours and the faint smell of Ma’s pie hanging in the air, it hit you—not like a grand revelation, just a quiet, steady knowing.

Today had been brutal. Messy. Lonely in all the ways you didn’t say out loud.

But here, in this small, warm living room—with Clark's fingers brushing your pulse, Ma’s pie on the table, and the day finally held at arm’s length—you didn’t feel empty anymore. Whatever the world had taken out of you, your husband crossed states and skies to give a little of it back.

All for pie, you thought so full of love.

All for you.

.

You met him on your third and a half day at the Daily Planet.

He spilled coffee on you. A full cup. Right down the front of your blazer. Frothy iced caramel latte catastrophe. He panicked immediately—rushed through an apology so fast you barely caught the words—then offered, in complete earnestness, to dry-clean your coat. Not send it to the dry cleaner. Do it himself. Like it was the gentlemanly thing to do. You just stared at him, dripping, blinking. “Are you okay?” you asked, because someone had to.

He nodded—too fast—then proceeded to trip over the recycling bin just trying to get you napkins.

You’ve been friends ever since.

It’s not the cleanest origin story.

But over time, somehow, Clark became your person.

Not in the “call-at-3-a.m.-while-sobbing” kind of way (that’s Jimmy), or the “bring-wine-and-insult-your-evil-ex” kind of way (also Jimmy). 

But in a steadier, quieter way. You write your little articles; he helps edit them. You fight with your sources on the sidewalk; he bakes them apology muffins the day after to make sure they don't contact Perry. You cover Metropolis politics like it’s trench warfare, and he smiles across the bullpen at you like you’re doing God’s work even when you're calling the mayor a “power-drunk thumb in a trench coat and a receding hairline you can see from space.”

He’s your constant. Steady and reliable and always five degrees too soft for this world.

Which is exactly why it doesn’t make sense.

Why, one night, it all… shifts.

.

You’re soaked.

Not in the steamy, sexy way. Not even in the Charli-XCX-Spring-Breakers kind of soaked.

Just: wet. Unpleasantly. In that half-drenched, trench-foot, what-is-my-life kind of way.

The weather app lied again (seriously, Metropolis Weather has one job), and your jacket is now suctioned to your body like a bad ex. Your boots have crossed the line from “water-resistant” to a really bad “Swamp Thing cosplay,” and your tote—home to your press pass and a sad little Tupperware of soggy couscous—is dripping like it’s auditioning for a plumbing ad.

So when Clark offers his place—soft-voiced, ever-accommodating, all that big dumb golden retriever energy—you say yes.

Not because you’re weak. Please.

Because he lives closer.

Logistically. Geographically.

(Okay, maybe emotionally, too, but you’ll unpack that when your socks aren’t squelching like a really bad porno.)

So now you’re in his apartment. Standing in the entryway. Leaving a trail of water on his hardwood floors while he gently, gently hands you a towel and fiddles with the thermostat and says things like, “You’re going to catch a cold if you don’t change out of those clothes.”

And you, being the self-possessed adult that you are, snort and say, “Thank you, Mom.”

Clark blushes.

Actually blushes. Like a cartoon character. Like a man who has never, in his life, imagined someone undressing in his home, which is hilarious, given that you’ve seen the size of his arms. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just meant… yeah. You’re soaked.”

His place smells like cinnamon and laundry detergent. There’s a candle burning on the kitchen counter—one of those $9.99 specials from Bath & Body Works. You imagine him in the store, earnestly reading the label on something called "Warm Vanilla Sugar" while the cashier tries to upsell him on a five-for-fifteen deal.

The image makes your lips curl. Your mascara's halfway down your cheekbones, your calves are cramping from the walk, and you should really, really, really just go take a hot shower and crash on his couch.

Instead, you look at him.

And he’s looking back.

Not like most men do—not the bar-stool inventory of what you are and aren’t. Not a scan. Not a question. More like a memory. Like he’s already filed you away in some quietly treasured part of his brain and he’s just taking the time to make sure the details are right. Like you are known.

You don’t think. You don’t make a plan. You just move.

Step forward. Grab the lapels of his flannel like it owes you money. Pull him down. Kiss him.

It’s not graceful. Not choreographed. You catch his chin at a weird angle, and your nose bumps into his, and the kiss lands too sharp, too fast. Like you’re trying to stun him. Like you’re trying to win a fight.

But then, he exhales.

And he melts. Not urgently. Not hungrily. Just… fully.

Like this is the thing he’s been waiting on for months, and now that it’s finally happening, he’s scared to spook it. His hands hover for a beat, like he’s making sure it’s real, and then one comes to rest lightly on your waist—tentative, patient. The other curls around your jaw with all the softness of a man who has no business being this gentle.

You break the kiss first, of course.

Because you always break things first.

When you look at him, he's staring at you like you invented language. Like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so they hover awkwardly at your sides, respectful, warm, and shaking just a little.

Which is when the panic crashes in.

He’s not supposed to look at you like that. Like you hung the stars. Like he knows you. Like he loves you.

Because if he does. If he really, truly does. Then eventually, he’ll stop.

They always stop.

People love you in the beginning. They love your bite, your snark, the way you know which part of a politician's background are most incriminating. They love the thrill of earning your attention. They love that you make them work for it. But eventually, the charm fades. The sharp edges cut a little too deep. 

You forget to text back. You overshare. You undershare. You get tired. You get real.

And they get bored.

You’ve never wanted to risk that with Clark. He’s been yours—just yours, in the safe way—for too long.

You step back like the floor might collapse under you. 

Put space. Just… anything between your body and the soft burn of his flannel. Try not to think about how fucking warm he was. “Shit—uh. You don’t have to say anything,” you blurt, voice too fast, too thin. “We can pretend it didn’t happen. Go back to normal. That’s fine.”

Clark’s brows knit, not in offense, just concern. He doesn’t look hurt. He looks… steady. Like he expected this part. “Are you sure?”

The way he asks it is soft. Unhurried. Like it’s not some ultimatum. Like it’s okay if you're not sure.

You open your mouth. Close it. Swallow.

“I just—” You press your fingers to your temple, like maybe that might just reorganize your entire internal filing system. “You know I don’t do relationships.”

“I know,” he says, without hesitation.

You study him—really study him—like you’re trying to find the catch. Some hint of disappointment or wounded ego. But it isn’t there.

He reaches up slowly and tucks a damp strand of hair behind your ear, his touch feather-light. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

You blink. “Even if I’m the one who kissed you?”

Clark smiles, just barely. “Especially then.”

His hand lingers near your cheek, but he doesn’t push. He’s patient in that maddening, disarming way. Waiting, always, for you to meet him halfway.

“Whatever you want,” he says again, quiet. “I’m good with that.”

You stare at him. “You’re really not gonna argue?”

“Nope.”

“Not gonna psychoanalyze me? Tell me I’m avoidant or emotionally stunted or terrified of my own vulnerability?”

He huffs a small laugh. “Already did. Long time ago.”

Your lips twitch despite yourself. “And?”

He shrugs, like it’s the easiest truth in the world. “You’re complicated. But you care. A lot. More than you let people see.”

And damn it, you hate how much that lands. How much he lands. You hate that he’s always been able to see through you, gently, without ever demanding more than you could give. And you hate—more than anything, more than all of that—how badly you want to kiss him again.

So you do.

Maybe to prove a point. Maybe to blow it all up before it can settle. Maybe because you’re already in too deep and part of you is tired of pretending you’re not.

You didn’t plan for it to go further. You didn’t plan anything, really. 

But your hands slide up into the open collar of his flannel, and he stumbles a little as you back him into the bookshelf. His glasses tilt when your fingers brush his temple, and you pull them off carefully, gently, like they’re the only thing tethering you both to whatever was before.

His eyes are wide. His mouth already parted. And when he looks up at you like this—flushed, breathless, undone—you think, mine.

And it’s terrifying.

Because it means it’s real.

It happened.

God.

It happened.

.

You strip him out of that worn flannel with a kind of sick, obsessive care. Button by button, like you were unwrapping a gift, like you were unearthing something you’d been searching for in every bad date, every failed talking stage, every mediocre bar makeout that had ever left you cold.

His flannel hit the floor. He doesn't say a word.

Not until you settle into his lap, thighs on either side of his. Then—quietly, like he wasn’t sure if it was okay to want anything—he says, “You… you don’t have to be gentle. Just, just in case. So you know.”

But you are. Because he is. 

Because even now, even with your mouth to his, your hands fisted in his curls, his hands stay light on your hips. Like he doesn't want to take more than you’d give. Like he's still giving you the option to leave.

He makes a sound when your hips tilted forward. Not a groan, not exactly. Something deeper. A noise from his chest, halfway between a gasp and a plea. You kiss more of it out of him, mouths clumsy and desperate, fingers scrabbling at the hem of his undershirt, and it feels like breathing.

His breath's caught between his teeth when you rip a condom wrapper in between yours, slotting it onto him with shaking, shaking hands and trying not think about how he's probably the biggest you've ever had.

Lord have mercy.

You ride him like your life depends on it.

You get a thigh cramp halfway through—let out an annoyed groan and tried to keep going—and he, sweet, precious idiot that he is, sits up and says your name like it hurt. Voice quivering like he wants to stop, wants to help, wants to make sure you're okay.

Absolutely no way in hell you wanted that to happen.

“Clark,” you hissed. “Chill. I'm okay, dude. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” he said, dazed, grinning. “Just—didn’t want you to get hurt. I mean. You’re, uh. You were very intense. Just now.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the one with the dick that's slowly rearranging my guts,” you mutter, and he laughs so hard his shoulders shook.

And worse—goddamn it, worse—he looks at you the whole time.

No games. No posing. Just Clark. Holding your hips with those hands—god, those hands, unfairly big and warm and steady—and looking up at you like he meant it.

You’d told him once, over shitty fries past midnight on the curb at McDonald's, that you didn’t trust men who made eye contact during sex. Called it performative. Manipulative. 

“Like they’re trying to Jedi mind-trick you into thinking it’s love,” you’d scoffed, and he'd gone quiet in that way he does, not sulking, just thinking. But that he was filing it away.

So of course—of course—when you're bare above him, hair a mess, mascara still clinging to your cheekbones, all vulnerable and exposed and teetering over the edge because his dick was doing wonderful, amazing things to your insides and making you melt—

He looks up at you with that open, earnest face and asks, softly:

“Do you want me to close my eyes?”

You freeze. Like an absolute idiot. Like prey.

And you say no.

"No."

Never.

He nods. “Okay.”

Then he kissed the inside of your wrist—just because it was there—and you lost ten entire emotional minutes and your grip on reality, grinding down on him like your life depended on it.

You come so hard you forgot your name. 

Forget what you were supposed to be protecting yourself from. Forget every lie you’ve ever told yourself about  the depth of your feelings for him.

It was insane. Deranged.

(Perfect.)

Later, three orgasms later, you collapse over him in a ridiculous heap of limbs and half-dressed post-coital delirium, forehead pressed to his shoulder, chest still heaving.

And he whispered something into your hair—something low and steady and not quite the word love, but so close it that it scraped through your head.

Then he hums.

You don’t recognize it at first—just the vibration under your cheek, the low murmur of a tune, warm and unassuming. You’re half-asleep, boneless, and not fully aware he's still inside of you, pulsing, your fingers curled around his neck.

But you listen.

“You humming Dolly right now?” you murmur, voice hoarse.

Clark hums a little louder. “‘Here You Come Again.’” Then, almost shy, “She’s good. What?”

You groan into his chest. “You absolute dork.”

“I like her,” he says, defensive. “She’s smart. You know she gave away, like, a million books to—wait, are you laughing?”

You are. Full-on giggling into his shoulder now. Giddy and too full and sore in all the best ways.

.

And you really don't mean to keep it going in the morning, let alone  in the shower.

Truly. 

You're just trying to get clean. 

Wash off the evidence of the night before—sweat and come and a whole life’s worth of repressed emotional distress—but then, Clark steps in right behind you, warm and quiet and too gentle. 

And suddenly it was over for you. Just absolutely fucking over.

He offers to join, sheepish and bashful, eyes flicking away like he hadn’t just had his face between your thighs just a few hours ago. “Just to save water,” he says. “'Cause of the environment… and all that.”

And sure, Clark. You absolute liar. The environment.

Except the second he steps in behind you—naked, dripping wet, glasses still off so he looked all boyish and wreckable—your resolve crumples like wet newspaper.

He reaches around you for the body wash and that was your downfall. Arm flexing around your waist, that goddamn baritone rumble in your ear as he asks, “This one okay?”

Like you're supposed to just—what? function when his voice was doing that thing? That was supposed to be okay?

But then his hands are on your hips—steady, huge—and you tilt your head back just enough to graze his jaw. He flinches. Or maybe you do. And before either of you could process it, your palm's flat against the tile and Clark was slowly pressing himself against your back.

“Okay?” he asks, voice a little too hoarse, a little too human.

You nod. “Yeah. Just—don’t be sweet about it.”

“But I'm always sweet about it,” he mumbles, and then he was, dragging a hand up your stomach, brushing your wet hair off your neck, mouthing at the base of your spine like he was making a wish.

He moves inside you slow. 

Like he means it. Like he thinks he’d scare you off if he went too fast. And it was disgusting, really, how good it felt. How intimate all of this was.

Your knees nearly buckle. You have to brace yourself with both palms on the glass, forehead pressed against fogged-up safety plastic, biting down on your own goddamn fist to keep from crying out his name like something from a romance novel.

(You still did, eventually. He made sure of that when he pressed one large hand up against your stomach so you can feel him, really feel him, and another down your front, rubbing at your clit like it was a lifeline until you saw stars.)

"Clark. Clar—fuck, baby, I'm almost—Jesus Christ—oH!"

When it was over—when your legs were jelly and your throat was raw and your spine was doing that post-orgasm melt thing—you turn to rinse the shampoo out of your hair, and he just… helped. Without you even having to say anything.

He lathers it for you, clement and thorough, massaging your scalp. His cheeks are pink. His mouth is pink. You think about biting him. Maybe.

But instead, you let yourself lean into his chest while the water poured down over both of you, and you didn’t speak, because if you spoke, it would become too real.

So, you just let him wash your back.

He didn’t ask you to stay.

You didn’t ask if he wanted you to.

But when you wander out of the bedroom ten minutes later—half-wet, flushed, wearing his old Central Kansas A&M hoodie like it hadn’t just been folded neatly in a drawer—you find him in the kitchen, humming again. 

Making pancakes.

“You want blueberries in yours?” he asks, like he didn’t have his dick in you in the shower ten minutes ago.

And you—traumatized, horny, emotionally compromised—you say, “Sure."

Then, because your brain has finally rebooted just enough to return to its default defense mechanism:

“Also, we need to talk.”

Clark pauses mid-pour, then turns around, spatula still in hand. “Okay,” he says, unbothered. His voice is calm, casual. Like you didn’t almost combust from having maybe, four—no, five or six orgasms in his arms over the past twelve hours.

You cross your arms over your chest, over his sweatshirt. “Last night—and this morning was great. I mean, objectively. A solid eight out of ten. No complaints.”

He looks amused. “Only eight?”

“I’m leaving room for improvement,” you say, defensive. “But I just want to be clear again that this isn’t… this isn’t a thing.”

Clark nods. “Okay.”

You squint at him. “You’re not going to ask what I mean by that?”

“Well,” he says, lips twitching, “I—uh, I figured I’d let you finish your prepared statement first.”

You gape at him. “I knew I was giving Perry's press conference energy.”

“You’re even holding your coffee like a mic.”

You glance down. You are. Damn it.

He walks over, sets your pancake on the table next to you, and then settles into the armchair across from the couch. His legs are way too long. He has to fold them a little awkwardly, which should be goofy, but somehow only makes him look more like someone who could carry you up a mountain and apologize for the inconvenience while doing it.

You sip your coffee. Clear your throat. “So. Ground rules.”

He raises his brows. “Rules?”

“Yes. Rules. Guidelines. Frameworks for how this… goes.”

Clark tilts his head. “You mean for… us?”

“No, for NATO,” you deadpan. “Yes, us.”

He tries to cover a laugh with a sip of his own mug, but you see the dimple twitch. Smug bastard.

You forge ahead. “Okay. Rule one: this is casual. Very casual. Like… like ‘you can sleep with other people’ casual.”

Clark nods, slow. Thoughtful. “Do you want to sleep with other people?”

“No,” you admit. Then scowl. “But I want to have the option.”

“Right,” he says, nodding. “The illusion of freedom.”

“Exactly. Wait—"

He’s smiling at you now. Soft and fond and dangerously amused.

You plow on. “Whatever. Rule two: no romantic stuff. No dates. No—like—Valentine’s Day cards or surprise cupcakes or, God forbid, foot rubs.”

“You’re really against foot rubs?”

“I just think they set a tone.”

Clark looks at his plate. “What if I just make you pancakes sometimes?”

You narrow your eyes. “Pancakes are a gray area. I'm only allowing it this time."

“Noted.”

You tuck your feet under you. “Rule three: no falling in love.”

He looks up.

There’s a pause. A beat of silence so thick it fills the whole room.

You add, quickly, “I know that sounds dramatic, but I’ve seen what love does to people, and it’s terrifying. They lose brain cells. They post Instagram captions like ‘my forever’ with sparkly emojis. They start making weird couple TikToks where they throw cheese slices at each other’s heads. I can’t be part of that kind of ecosystem. I'm lactose intolerant."

Clark’s smiling again. Not in the ha ha you’re sooooo funny way. In the I think you’re the best thing to ever happen to me way, which is very much against the rules.

“Are you even taking this seriously?” you demand.

“I am,” he says, clearly lying. “You’re very intimidating.”

You roll your eyes and gesture wildly. “I’m just saying! I don’t want this to become something that implodes because I—God, because I can’t remember your favorite pizza topping one day and suddenly we’re—we're not friends anymore and splitting custody of houseplants and  fucking Cat is stuck writing a gossip column about it.”

Clark chuckles. A pause. “well, for the record? My favorite pizza topping is mushrooms.”

You wrinkle your nose. “That’s a red flag.”

“You’re the one writing up a treaty before brunch.”

“Exactly,” you say, triumphant. “See? We’re incompatible.”

Clark leans forward slightly. 

The sunlight from the window cuts across his glasses, but you can still see his eyes, warm and impossibly blue, locked on yours like you’re the only person in Metropolis who matters. “I think you’re scared,” he says gently. “Which is okay. I just want you to know… I’m not going anywhere. Rules or not.”

And that—

God. That should not make your eyes burn the way it does.

You shake your head, fast. “Don’t say stuff like that. It’s dangerous. You’ll trick me into liking you more.”

“I’m just being honest.”

“Well, stop.”

He raises a brow. “What do I do if I want to kiss you?”

You freeze.

Your heart does a complicated backflip-kick into your ribs.

“...well, that's allowed,” you mutter.

He smiles again, dimple sinking deep.

And then, because he’s a menace with zero self-preservation, he leans in.

You meet him halfway.

And it’s soft this time. Sweeter. Slower. No rain, no adrenaline, just his hand cradling your jaw and your fingers twisted in the hem of his t-shirt like you’re trying to anchor yourself to something real.

.

It's been months now of your little arrangement. And you're already destroyed by the time he even speaks.

Not because he’s touched you yet. Not really. He’s just there, mouth warm against the inside of your thigh, hands stroking the back of your knees like you’re something delicate. Something precious.

Which is so fucked. You are not precious.

You told him that that, breathless and still shirtless and sitting on his kitchen counter at midnight while he gently fed you the leftover peach cobbler Martha left for the two of you straight from the fridge.

He just nodded. Wiped away the crumb left on the edge of your lip. Said, “Okay.”

And then he kissed the inside of your wrist again and said, “You’re still allowed to want things, you know.”

Which is—god, so not fair. 

Now he’s between your legs, kissing a line up your thigh like he’s praying. He’s been taking his time. Like the goal isn’t to get you off, but to study you. Like he’s memorizing the exact way your breath catches and the little twitch of your fingers every time he licks just close enough to your center, but not quite.

You’re panting. Whimpering. Biting your lip so hard you’re pretty sure you taste blood.

And he’s grinning. Not cocky—just happy. Which is so much, so much worse.

“You’re staring at me again,” you breathe.

Clark hums, kissing just below your hip. “I just like looking at you.”

“That’s crazy,” you whisper. “You’re crazy.”

“Probably.” He kisses your navel. “Do you want me to stop?”

You whine. You actually whine. You feel like you've just set feminism back by centuries. “No.”

“Didn’t think so,” he murmurs, nuzzling into your skin. And then, because he’s the devil in a button-up: “You know, the way you objectify me is honestly very inappropriate. I’m not just a—just a piece of meat, you know.”

You bark out a laugh, head tipping back against the pillow. “So bad news, you're actually a mountain of meat, man.”

“See? Objectified.” He presses a kiss just below your ribs. “Reduced to my—”kiss“—ridiculous shoulders—”kiss“—and tragic dimples—”kiss“—and stupidly proportionate thighs—”

“I didn’t say anything about your thighs—”

“Oh, but I think you were thinking it.”

You giggle, delirious. Drunk on this man. “God, shut up and fuck me.”

Clark goes still.

Not awkwardly—this isn’t early-days Clark, the one who used to stammer when you wore red lipstick when you came over and knocked over his own coffee trying to offer you a napkin. 

This Clark—the one under you now, hands broad and firm against your thighs, spine pressed into the worn couch like it’s the only thing keeping him from rising into the sky—this Clark is different.  

He’s grown into himself. Into this. Into you.

Not cocky, not exactly. But assured in a way that makes your stomach clench and your mouth go dry. You’ve seen it happen slowly. Like the sunrise—you didn’t notice until the whole room was full of it.

This Clark doesn't flinch when you flirt, doesn’t panic when your mouth goes sharp or your eyes go guarded. He just… waits. He sees it all. Lets you burn yourself out. And then lays a hand on your cheek like you’re made of something precious.

Still, he doesn’t move.

And that’s what sets you off.

You squirm, shifting your weight in his lap, irritated now. “What?”

He looks up at you, his jaw tight, hands still splayed over your thighs like he doesn’t know whether to hold on or let go. There’s something in his eyes, sharp, patient, impossibly tender, and it makes your chest ache in a way you refuse to name.

“You really want that?” he asks, voice low.

You roll your eyes. “You think I climbed onto your face to do taxes?”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Your stomach flips. You hate when he does this. Gets all serious and calm and measured while you’re flailing, clearly two seconds away from combusting. You cross your arms over your chest—petulant, defensive. “Clark.”

“You say stuff like that,” he murmurs, one hand dragging up the back of your thigh, “but then you pull back like I’ve asked for your soul.”

You glare at him. “I’m not pulling back.”

He lifts a brow. “You haven’t even kissed me yet.”

You scowl. “I was about to, but you’re being annoying.”

His smile is crooked, lazy, maddening. “Yeah? Gonna punish me for it?”

Your heart skips. You hate that you love it when he talks like that. You hate that he’s right—that you’re the one drawing lines in the sand and then pretending you don’t care when he steps over them.

You lean down, hover over his mouth. “I swear to god, if you don’t do something soon, I’m walking out that door.”

He catches your jaw in one hand, gentle but firm. “You won’t.”

“Watch me.”

His thumb drags over your bottom lip. Lets it pop out just a bit, so you can feel the way the wetness drips over your chin. “You always say that. You never do.”

Your breath stutters. Your spine goes stiff. You hate how much he knows you. You hate that he’s always so calm about it, so damn tender, even when he’s calling you out.

“I’m not just a warm body, you know,” he says after a beat, the faintest furrow between his brows. “If that’s what you wanted, you should’ve picked someone who doesn’t look at you like I do.”

You blink. “And how is that?”

Clark tilts his head, eyes never leaving yours. “Like I actually see you.”

You hate him for that. A little.

But you kiss him anyway.

Hard. Sharp. Like a warning.

And then he flips you—effortless, smooth, like it doesn’t take more than a breath. One of his hands pins your wrists above your head. The other trails slow up the curve of your thigh. His mouth finds your neck, and you gasp—not in surprise, but because it’s too much. He’s too much.

“You keep asking me to take you apart,” he murmurs against your skin, “but you never let me show you what it actually means.”

“Oh my god,” you groan, shivering under him. “You are so fucking—”

“What?” he interrupts, dragging his mouth back up to yours. “Soft? Serious? A buzzkill?”

You don’t respond. You’re too busy squirming, too busy arching into him, because he’s right. Again.

“Too bad,” he murmurs, smiling like a secret. “You don’t get to run the show tonight.”

And you're already clawing at his back by the time he finally pushes in. And god, fuck, it’s—

He’s so much. Too much. Even now, even after months of attempting to get used to him, after a minimum of one hour of foreplay every time, hours spent fingering you open and devouring you whole and it still makes your spine tingle in the best way possible. The push and pull of it every time, the struggle, the way he looks at you so, so proudly when he's bottomed out and your smiling from under him like you've just won the lottery.

You make a sound—something small, strangled, "Clark."—and he doesn’t shush you this time.

He smiles.

“There it is,” he murmurs. “Now we’re being honest.”

.

Then one day, Clark cancels a lunch.

That’s it. That’s all. Not the end of the world.

He texts you a sweet apology. Too many words, as always, classic Clark, something about a lead on some money laundering story and “I’ll bring dinner to make up for it, promise, anything you want, even that overpriced pasta from the place with the weird chairs.” He adds three emojis. Two are completely nonsensical (a chicken and a rain cloud?). One is a little heart. You stare at it longer than you should.

You text back something breezy. Casual. “You’re the one missing out on my lunchtime TedTalk about corrupt city councilmen and their tragic toupees.”

He doesn’t respond until hours later. Just a thumbs-up emoji.

You tell yourself it’s fine. You tell yourself you don’t care.

.

Then it happens again.

This time, you're already standing outside the Planet, coffee lukewarm, watching a construction crew down the block try to maneuver scaffolding around a new billboard. It’s another Superman PSA—third this month. Something about disaster preparedness and blood drives. His cape’s caught mid-whip, expression noble and inhumanly calm. You roll your eyes, but your stomach tugs a little. Something about the stillness in his posture—it looks almost familiar.

Your phone rings.

Clark.

You answer with a smirk, trying to make it light. “Should I be worried you’ve joined a pyramid scheme? Please tell me you’re not selling supplements.”

There’s a pause, then his voice, warm but ragged around the edges: “I’m so sorry. Something came up. Can I explain later?”

You make some offhand joke about mafia debt collectors and say, “No worries,” even as your stomach twists.

He sounds tired. Tired in a way Clark never really gets. You’re the one who burns out, who rants and paces and flirts with deadline-induced breakdowns. He’s the one who shows up with coffee and an extra pen. Always.

But now his voice has this roughness to it. Frayed edges. Like he’s trying not to breathe too hard into the receiver. Like he just ran here. Or ran away from somewhere.

“Are you okay?” you ask, before you can stop yourself.

Another pause. “Yeah,” he says, and he softens, like he always does when he hears your voice. “I will be.”

.

By week three, he’s dodging plans like it’s his new hobby. You’re not hurt, obviously. You’re busy too. You have other friends. You go to bars. You flirt with bartenders you’ll never text back. You have a whole life outside of this whole thing with Clark.

It’s not a relationship. It’s just a thing. A nice, dependable, sometimes pantsless thing.

That’s all.

But still, there’s this night.

You’re at your apartment. There’s an old movie playing, something black and white and miserable, and Clark was supposed to be here an hour ago.

You’d ordered his favorite takeout. You’d even found that dumb craft soda he likes, the one that tastes vaguely like melted gummy worms. You told yourself you just wanted someone to share the noodles with.

He doesn’t show.

No call. No text.

You sit through the entire movie. Alone.

And when your phone finally buzzes—close to midnight, just his name and a short, “I’m so sorry. Can we talk soon?”— you stare at it for a long moment.

Then you flip your phone over, face-down.

And in the dark, you think, Shit. This is how it starts. The distance. The shift. The slow pulling away.

You’ve done it to people before.

You just never thought you’d be on the receiving end.

Not from him.

Not from Clark.

.

Around 11:30, you open Twitter out of boredom. You don’t cry. That would imply something was wrong. That you were hurt. You’re not. Obviously.

You’re just a little annoyed.

And maybe, just mayb, you’re thinking about how Clark used to be your safest person. Your sure thing. Your just-text-me, just-call-me, just-walk-right-in-without-knocking guy.

And now he’s something else. Something slippery. Something you have to squint at sideways to understand.

Your thumb scrolls through the usual mess. Politicians being embarrassing, memes you’re already tired of, some half-hearted discourse about whether the Metropolis skyline is over-designed or “delightfully optimistic.”

Then: a video clip.

No sound. Just shaky phone footage.

A blur of red and blue moving fast—streaking through the air over Hobbs Bay, pulling someone from a collapsed scaffolding, leaving behind a wake of stunned bystanders and bent steel.

You pause. Watch it again. Retweets piling up.

BREAKING: Superman saves construction worker after scaffolding collapse.

You stare at it for a second longer than you mean to, then snort under your breath.

Must be nice, you think. Some people get rescued. Some other unlucky fuckers just get ghosted.

.

The message comes on a Thursday. One of those weirdly warm spring evenings when Metropolis smells like asphalt and deli grease and the last ten years of your bad decisions.

Hey. You free tonight?

You stare at it for a moment too long. Thumb hovering.

Then:

yeah. yours?

A pause.

If you want.

God, he’s infuriating. Polite even now. Careful with you, like you’re made of something breakable. Like you haven’t already cracked half a dozen times this month alone.

Still, you go.

.

It’s not tense at first. It’s easy. Familiar.

Clark opens the door wearing one of those threadbare t-shirts that should be illegal, sleeves barely containing his biceps, neckline just a little too stretched from use. His hair’s damp. There’s flour on his cheek.

“You baked?” you ask, stepping past him before he can do that thing where he tries to gauge your mood like a barometer.

He shrugs. “Felt like it.”

There’s banana bread cooling on the counter. Two plates. One knife. He’s already sliced yours and left the end piece—your favorite—on the left, like always.

You want to be mad. Or suspicious. Or anything that would make this easier to navigate. But it’s hard to keep your footing when he’s being like this. Soft. Normal. Like he didn’t flake three times last month. Like you hadn’t spent the last few nights half-dressed and overthinking on your bathroom floor

But them again, you could never really resist him for that long.

So maybe it’s no surprise that your dress ends up pooled around your ankles. The lamp’s still on. Your mouths are moving like they’ve done this a hundred times—because you have, but it's not enough, will never be enough—and you’re both pretending it’s still casual. Still nothing.

Except it doesn’t feel like nothing.

And then Clark pulls back.

Not sharply. Not like he’s been burned. More like he just remembered something, which, again, not unusual. You’ve seen that look before. That oh shit look.

But tonight, he doesn’t immediately jump up. 

He doesn’t mutter something about needing to check in with Perry or help Lois edit her headline.

He just… stares at you.

And not in the usual way, not with those soft, soft eyes like you’re something he stumbled across in a field and decided to treasure. He looks—serious. Scared, even. His hand is still on your hip, but his other is twitching slightly at his side like it doesn’t know what to do with itself.

“We need to talk,” he says.

You still have one shoe on. You don’t even remember kicking the other off.

You blink at him. “I—what?”

He licks his lips. His glasses are smudged. He doesn’t take them off.

“Something’s been—there’s something that I need to tell you,” he says, slower now, like he’s rehearsing this in real time and trying not to panic.

And that—that is when your stomach drops.

Because you know this script. You’ve seen this scene. The music swells, the camera pans in, the guy who smells like safety and Sunday mornings says he “needs to talk,” and then boom. Heartbreak, cut to black, roll credits.

You hold up a hand before he can say anything else. “Wait. Just… don’t. Yet.”

Clark pauses. He blinks at you.

“Look,” you say, backing up a step, scanning the room like you’re looking for your dignity. “If this is about how I’ve been kind of, I don’t know, evasive or inconsistent or, like, deeply emotionally unavailable, I just want to say — I know. Okay? You don’t have to do this so gently.”

His face twists. “What?”

“You’re trying to break things off,” you continue, steamrolling him, your voice way too steady for the freefall happening inside your chest. “And I get it. I do. You’ve been pulling away for weeks, you disappear all the time, you don’t sleep anymore, you look like you’ve been hit by a truck most days, which I assumed was just bad reporting hours, but who knows, maybe it’s metaphorical.”

Clark tries again. “I’m not—”

“It’s fine,” you say, voice louder now. “It’s fine if you met someone. You don’t have to pretend it’s not happening.”

“I didn’t—”

“You’re allowed to outgrow this. Me. Whatever this is.”

Your dress is still on the floor, and you suddenly want it back on like it’s armor. You crouch to grab it, clumsy with urgency, your hands all wrong.

“I should’ve seen it coming. You were too good to last. Guys like you don’t stick around for girls like me.”

“Hey,” he says sharply, stepping forward, but you back away before he can reach you.

“Don’t,” you say, holding your dress to your chest like a shield. “Don’t be nice to me about it.”

Clark runs both hands through his hair. He looks like he’s short-circuiting. “You’re not even letting me—I’m not trying to end this with you.”

You stare at him, lips parted.

He’s breathing hard now. His glasses are askew. His shirt’s wrinkled, and his jaw is clenched like he’s holding something back with both hands.

“I was going to tell you something,” he says, voice raw. “Something real. Something I’ve never told anyone who didn’t already know.”

You freeze.

Because that doesn’t sound like cheating.

That sounds like confession.

“What,” you whisper, suddenly breathless. “Like a dark secret? You have a kid? You’re actually married? Are you part of a mafia? Are you—Oh my God. Are you a stripper?”

“What?” he blurts, completely thrown.

“I don’t know, Clark!” your voice spikes, hands flying up. “What the hell could you possibly say right now that starts with ‘we need to talk’ and isn’t a relationship guillotine?”

His eyes flick to the window. Just for a second. A glance, like instinct. And then right back to you.

And for the first time, you see it.

The quiet panic. The way his entire body is buzzing like a live wire under skin.

Like he’s not scared of you.  He’s scared for you.

But it’s too late. You’ve already built the wall and bricked yourself in.

You grab your dress, yanking it on with the dignity of a raccoon being evicted from a trash can. Somewhere behind you, Clark says your name again, gentle, like a bruise he’s afraid to touch. You ignore it.

Instead, you just start collecting your things like a squirrel in crisis.

Because—and this is humiliating—you’ve essentially moved into his place over the last year in the slowest, most passive-aggressive way possible. Not officially. Not “hey, should we get you some keys?” But enough that the signs are there. 

Enough that you now have to do this, which is to say the break-up equivalent of packing a go-bag in the middle of a fire drill.

You grab the mug with the faded “Central City Gazette Student Press 2013” logo you refuse to drink out of at home because it’s chipped, but which you do drink out of here, because Clark always makes tea the right way — hot, strong, too much honey. You grab the copy of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow you stole from his shelf three months ago and meant to pretend was yours all along. The sweatshirt he “forgot” you left here, that you “forgot” he noticed you wore to bed six times in a row.

You jam it all into your work tote like it’s a goddamn body bag.

Then there are the smaller things. The stupid things.

The half-used notepad from a city council meeting where someone tried to blame vigilante-induced infrastructure damage on solar panels. The disposable camera from that one weekend in Smallville — the one you never developed because the idea of seeing his parents smile at you felt too dangerous, too much like you might belong there.

And then you eye the drawer next to his bed. Your drawer, to get that clear, which was never explicitly claimed but which somehow holds one (1) pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs, two (2) half-empty bottles of lube, and three (3) protein bars, one of which is probably from last fiscal year. You shove it all into your bag, zipper groaning like a sad, sad accordion.

Clark’s still standing near the window, looking bewildered. Like he walked into the scene five minutes late and can’t tell who started the fire.

“Wait—are you leaving? You don’t have to—just—can we talk? Please?”

You don’t look at him.

Instead, you gesture vaguely at your bag. “This is just me doing a quick inventory of my terrible judgment. Don’t mind me.”

“Can you stop for two seconds and just let me—”

“Clark,” you say, and your voice comes out quieter than you meant it to. “It’s okay.”

It isn’t. But you’re trying to win the emotional Olympics in the “cool and detached” category, and you’re not about to blow it with something as devastating as eye contact.

You sling the bag over your shoulder and pause by the door. 

You consider saying something devastating and poetic. Something from Hamlet, maybe. You’ve always liked the line about cutting love out with a knife and it still bleeding. But instead, you give him a big, fake smile and an inexplicable hand up, like a contestant leaving Rupaul's Drag Race in disgrace.

“No harm, no foul,” you say. “Tell whoever you're seeing that I say hi.”

And then you leave.

.

You are, in every measurable way, unwell.

You don’t call it a breakup.

That would imply there was something official to break. That you were ever really together. That there was something solid under your feet to begin with, instead of months of teasing the edge, hovering over the line like two people too chicken to admit they’d already crossed it.

So, no. Not a breakup.

Just—a recalibration. A pause. A hot minute.

You say this to Jimmy, who narrows his eyes and says, “You’re holding a spoon like a murder weapon right now, so I’m gonna circle back on the ‘hot’ part of that minute.”

You even say it to the woman at the corner bodega—the one who always gave Clark an extra packet of honey for his tea and once slipped you a protein bar when you looked particularly anemic on a deadline.

She glances up from restocking the gum and says, “He’s okay? The tall guy? With the glasses and the very... polite shoulders?”

You blink. “Sorry, what?”

“He always said thank you. For the bag. Like, sincerely.” She squints at you. “You were good together.”

You make a sound of vague agreement and exit before she asks if you want your usual. (You do. But the idea of holding a wrap in your hands right now makes your stomach lurch.)

You take your PTO. Two weeks. You don’t tell anyone where you’re going, mostly because you’re not going anywhere. You lie in bed. You eat cereal out of a mug. You watch a three-hour documentary about the collapse of a bridge in Gotham and cry when a random city engineer says, “We tried our best, but it wasn’t enough.”

You don't let yourself think about that… that stupid drawer by Clark’s bed.

Or the banana bread.

Because there is banana bread.

It shows up on your doorstep the morning of Day Three, wrapped in wax paper and still warm. No note. Just a faint imprint where a palm must’ve rested on the foil, like he wasn’t sure if he should knock. You don’t bring it inside right away.

You stare at it. Then the door. Then back at the bread like it might explode.

Eventually, you take it in. Set it on the counter. Eat half of it standing over the sink with your fingers, because you don’t trust yourself to not drop it.

He texts you the next day. Just your name. Then a minute later: Just wanted to check in. Hope you’re doing okay.

You stare at the dots blinking at the bottom of the screen until they disappear.

You don’t answer.

He calls a few times, a few days later. Your phone lights up with his name, and you let it ring out. Not because you’re angry—okay, maybe you are, a little—but because you know the sound of his voice will wreck you. Because if he says your name in that soft, patient, Clark way, you’ll crack like a fucking fault line.

He doesn't leave a voicemai any of the times l. Just hangs up.

(You spend the rest of the night clutching a throw pillow to your stomach like it’s a life raft.)

You tell yourself this is temporary. You’ll get it together tomorrow.

And then tomorrow happens.

And then the next day.

And then—on the seventh day, like Jesus, you rise.

Kind of.

You pull on the ugliest hoodie you own, some too-large sweatpants with a questionable stain, and a pair of knockoff Crocs. Your hair is doing something that technically defies gravity, and you haven’t worn deodorant since Tuesday. Your soul is gone. Your standards are lower. All that remains is one singular thought:

Hotdog.

.

Which is how you find yourself under the flickering fluorescent lights of a 7/11 at 1:42 a.m., perched on the curb out front like a feral raccoon, holding a lukewarm hotdog in one hand and a Red Bull in the other, actively disassociating while Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You plays through a tinny outdoor speaker with all the emotional resonance of a dying Roomba.

You stare off into the distance.

Which is, of course, exactly when Clark walks up.

You see him in your periphery first. Hear the crunch of gravel, the telltale weight of his sneakers.

“No,” you say, out loud. “No. No. Absolutely not.”

Clark stops short. “Hi,” he says, voice soft. A little nervous.

You hold up the hotdog like a loaded gun. “Turn around.”

“I—”

“I swear to god, Clark.” You don’t even look at him. “I am mentally and spiritually clinging to life by the barest thread, and if you say something kind to me right now, I will vomit on the pavement.”

He nods. Raises both hands. “Okay. Not saying anything.”

You stare at him. His flannel is wrinkled. His hair’s sticking up at the back. There’s a scuff on his glasses like he’s been rubbing at them all day.

Goddammit. He looks like home.

You turn your burning eyes back to the pavement and try to focus on your dinner. Try to remember how this whole dignity thing works.

“Why are you here,” you say finally, flat.

He swallows. “Because I needed to see you. Because I’ve been calling, and—”

“Right,” you cut in. “The calls. That I didn’t answer. On purpose.”

“I know.”

“And you took that as a challenge?”

Clark exhales slowly. He takes a tentative step closer.

“I’ve tried everything else,” he says.

You roll your eyes. “Maybe that’s because you’re not supposed to fix this. Maybe this is just what it is now.”

“That’s not what I want.”

You shrug. “And? Sometimes we don’t get what we want. That’s life. Welcome.”

He’s quiet. Long enough that you glance sideways and catch him staring at you with a look you can’t name. Doesn’t defend himself. Just stands there, quiet, while a beat-up minivan idles past the edge of the lot and the Whitney Houston outro fades into static. And you’re just about to tell him to cut it out—whatever this whole tortured-eyes, kicked-puppy thing is—when he steps forward.

One arm wraps around your waist.

And then—

You are no longer on the ground.

You shriek like a B-movie scream queen, clutching your 7/11 hotdog in its sad foil wrapper like it might save your life. “WHAT THE FUCK,” you yell. “WHAT—ARE YOU KIDDING ME—WHAT IS HAPPENING.”

“I’m sorry!” Clark yells over the wind.

“ARE YOU—IS THIS YOU?! ARE YOU—”

“Yeah!” he shouts. “Hi! Surprise!”

“SUPERMAN?!”

“…Yes!” he calls back, cringing midair.

“YOU’RE SUPERMAN?!”

Clark doesn’t answer that. Just… grimaces. Flying sideways. His arm tightening around your waist like he’s half-expecting you to elbow him in the ribs and wriggle free.

You might, honestly. As soon as your brain catches up. You’re only just vaguely aware of your Croc flying off somewhere over a used car dealership.

“My toothbrush is still at your apartment!” you shriek.

“I know!”

“I HAVE A TOOTHBRUSH AT SUPERMAN’S APARTMENT!”

“I know! That’s why I—listen, I panicked! You weren’t picking up! You blocked me on like, four platforms—”

“I BLOCKED YOU BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE GHOSTING ME FOR ANOTHER GIRL, NOT MOONLIGHTING AS A NATIONAL TREASURE.”

The wind roars past your ears. Your teeth are chattering. You’re barely holding onto the last few shreds of coherence. And Clark—no, Superman, apparently—he’s not even breaking a sweat.

“You couldn’t have called?” you snap.

“I did!”

“WITH WHAT, MORSE CODE?”

“I showed up at your apartment!”

“With a cape, Kent?!”

“No! No, the cape’s new—look, I didn’t know what else to do. You wouldn’t talk to me. Jimmy said you took PTO and haven’t left your apartment in four days and I just—I needed you to see me. To listen.”

You make an inhuman noise, somewhere between a wail and a curse. “So your solution was to airlift me like a stolen asset out of a CIA bunker?!”

“I checked to make sure no one was looking!”

“YOU TOOK ME HOSTAGE.”

“I swept the parking lot, I swear! The cameras at 7/11 are fake, and there was one guy but he was busy dropping a Big Gulp.”

You blink at him. Wind in your eyes. A foot still bare. There’s an onion from your hotdog stuck to your shirt. Your heart does a slow, brutal somersault.

“…Okay,” you breathe. “Okay, so this is real.”

“It’s real,” he says.

“Like, capital-R Real.”

“Yeah.”

You shake your head once, sharp. “Jesus Christ.”

And then something in you quiets. Something that’s been vibrating with panic for days—for weeks—sputters out like the end of a bad engine. You’re too tired to scream again. You’re too wrung-out to cry.

So you just say, quietly: “I'm sorry. For not listening. Or giving you the time to explain. But, what the fuck, dude.”

Clark swallows. His eyes flick to your mouth, then away. He nods—once.

“I didn’t want to lie to you,” he says again, quieter now. “I hated it. Every second of it.”

His breath fogs slightly in the night air. He still won’t quite meet your eyes.

“I thought I could keep it separate. You and… that part of me. I thought if I just kept my head down and made you pancakes and let you call me out when I forgot to text back, it’d be enough.”

He runs a hand through his hair, still wind-tossed from flight. “But then it wasn’t. Because I started… I don’t know, noticing stuff. Like the way you always get a little mean when you’re scared. Or how you never remember to lock your front door but you’ll glare at me for refusing to jaywalk. And every time I had to run off and I saw the look on your face—I wanted to tell you. I almost told you, like, like, forty darn times.”

His voice cracks a little. He’s still not looking at you.

“I kept thinking, if I say it out loud, you’ll leave. Or worse—you’ll stay, but only because you think you owe me something. Because I have the suit. Because I can lift a building. But I don’t want you to be impressed by me. I just want you to look at me the way you used to. Like I’m just… Clark.”

He laughs, sudden and shaky. “God, I sound insane.”

You say nothing. You’re not breathing very well.

And then, softly, finally, like he’s pushing it out before he loses the nerve: “I love you. Not in a heroic, save-the-day kind of way. Just—I love you. I think I’ve been in love with you since you made me help you tail that councilman with the suspicious hair plugs. And you made fun of me the whole time, but you still brought snacks.”

He swallows. “I don’t need anything from you. I just wanted you to know.”

The wind whips gently around you both now, slower, softer. Like the world has dialed down to listen in. 

Clark hovers easily in place, arms strong around you, careful and warm, like he’s afraid you’ll wriggle free again and drop straight through the clouds.

He’s flushed. Nervous. He looks like he’s trying to prepare for every possible version of the moment after this. Every soft or horrible thing you might say. Every joke you might make to dodge the weight of it. Every silence.

You lean back a little to look at him.

And then, honestly, you just kiss him.

Because it’s easier than saying the whole thing. Easier than listing every moment that’s led to this, every reason you tried not to fall for him and did anyway. 

The time he walked (not flew) across the city in the rain because you forgot your keys. 

The fact that he never interrupts when you’re spiraling, just waits it out, steady and warm and right there. 

The way he let you drag him into that adult store and joked around and made him blush with the pink handcuffs, and then he bought them for you anyway.

 The banana bread. 

“I love you too, you idiot.”

His whole face crumples. And then he laughs, messy and relieved and a little helpless, like he wasn’t expecting you to say it back. Like he wasn’t hoping.

“You do?”

You nod, eyes stinging. “Yeah. In every kind of way.”

And Clark—not Superman, Clark Kent, the world’s most ridiculous man, the guy you’ve known and kissed and run from and found again—leans in and kisses you silly again.

.

You’re still smiling when he stumbles through your front door with you in his arms.

Not gracefully. Not like some poised, soap-opera seduction —more like the two of you crash through the threshold like a couple of drunk fucking idiots who forgot how to use their limbs. You reach back and slap the door shut, barely catching the knob, breathless from altitude and adrenaline and everything that’s been boiling under your skin for months.

Clark kicks over your shoe rack by accident. It topples over with a loud bang and suddenly, all your shoes are on the floor.

“Sorry,” he says, half-choking on a grin, already pressing you to the wall. “I’ll—clean that up—later—”

You cut him off with your mouth. Sloppy, desperate. Fingers tangling in his curls, tugging just to feel him gasp against you. You can feel the way he hardens close to you, and you're really, really liking where this is going.

It’s not like you didn’t know he was strong. 

You’ve seen his biceps. You’ve felt the hand at your back steady you when a cab came too close. You’ve watched him shoulder his way through panicked crowds, through chaos, through life, always quietly making space for you.

But this is different.

This is him holding your entire body like you weigh nothing. Like physics doesn't apply to you anymore. Like his hands were made to carry you and his mouth was made to ruin you.

“Clark,” you gasp, because you don’t know what else to say. Your hoodie’s already halfway up your torso. His hands are under it, up your ribs, one squeezing your thigh like he’s staking a claim and the other splayed wide across your spine. “You’re—fuck—”

“I know,” he pants, nosing down your throat, licking into the hollow like he’s starving for it. “I know, baby. You’re—God, you’re actually killing me.”

He lifts you—actually lifts you—like you’re nothing, just sweeps you up with one arm under your ass and carries you toward the bedroom, leaving a trail of your jacket, your hotdog wrapper, and one of your slippers behind. 

You claw at his shirt, frantic, trying to get it off. Buttons ping off somewhere near the kitchen island and you both flinch, then laugh again, dizzy with it.

He drops you on the bed and follows fast, crawling over you, shedding the remains of his flannel and undershirt like he’s being hunted for it. 

"Fuck, fuck—take this off," and yank off your hoodie and he groans at the sight, like the skin of your chest is some sort of a revelation, like he hasn’t had it memorized since the first time he saw you in a tank top at work and forgot what day it was.

His mouth is everywhere. On your collarbone, your shoulder, between your breasts. 

Hot and open and eager, tongue twisting ruthlessly around your nipples. He’s making sounds now, those broken, happy little gasps like he’s surprised every time you let him touch you again.

You’re squirming under him, soaked and breathless, tugging at the waistband of his pants like it might save your life.

“I am gonna ruin you,” you manage to say. "Baby, let me fucking ruin you."

Clark laughs again, the kind of laugh that goes straight to your core, deep and bright and boyish, and then he flips you effortlessly onto your stomach, pushing your thighs apart with his knee, dragging his mouth down your spine like he’s tracing poetry there.

“Oh yeah?” he murmurs, low and smug. “Get in line, pretty girl.”

He pushes into you with one smooth, slow thrust, so much of him, too much, your jaw goes slack, and he just stays there for a moment, his hand curled over yours, forehead pressed to the back of your shoulder.

“I love you.”

Your breath stutters.

He doesn’t give you time to recover, emotionally or physically. Doesn’t let you laugh it off or throw up your usual wall of flippant sarcasm. He kisses your shoulder again, hips moving deeper, more purposeful.

You twist beneath him, trying to turn over because as much as you love doggy, you can't bear to not look at him right now. 

But his hand presses gently between your shoulder blades, grounding you. “Wait,” he murmurs, and you freeze. You’re still so full of him you can barely think. “Just let me—can I just—”

He grinds forward, pushing all eight inches of him inside, and you choke on a moan. You’ve never heard him like this. Not just desperate, not just lost in it — but open.

“I love you when you’re mean,” he pants, voice fraying around the edges. “I love you when you roll your eyes at me in meetings and mutter under your breath during interviews. I love you, God, you're so tight," another thrust. "—when you wear those socks with the tiny dogs on them and try to pretend you’re not soft.”

You turn your head, mouth parted, eyes wide. “Clark—”

He leans down, kisses your cheek, your temple, the place behind your ear that makes your thighs shake.

“I love you when you’re being impossible. When you steal my flannels. When you pretend you don’t care. When you kissed me for the first time and then gave me a whole spiel about it.”

“Stop—”

“I love you,” he says again, brokenly this time, like it’s being torn out of him. “I love you even when I’m scared you’ll leave. Even if this is all I get.”

You turn fully this time, eyes glassy, fingers curling around the back of his neck to drag him in.

And you kiss him.

Hard.

Hungry.

Grateful.

“I love you,” you whisper against his mouth. “I love you, you wonderful, wonderful man.”

Clark lets out a sound that’s not quite a laugh and not quite a sob.

Then he flips you under him and fucks you like it’s a promise.

You say it again when you come the second time, breathless, high-pitched, hands clutching at his shoulders, and again when he follows with a low, shuddering groan, spilling into you like he’s got nowhere else he’d rather be.

.

The car smells like spearmint gum and way, way too much coffee. Clark’s got one hand on the wheel and the other laced through yours like it’s always been there. Which, lately, it has.

You’re about halfway to Smallville.

“So,” you say, tapping his knuckles with your thumb. “How many embarrassing baby photos am I being subjected to this time? Just give me a ballpark.”

Clark chuckles. His dimples show. “Oh, uh… probably all of them. Again."

You groan. “Even the corn maze one?”

“There are multiple corn maze ones,” he corrects gently. “There’s one where I’m dressed as a scarecrow.”

You stare at him.

He nods solemnly. “With face paint.”

“Oh my God,” you wheeze, turning toward the window. “I don’t know if I’m emotionally prepared for that.”

“Don’t worry,” he says, squeezing your hand. “Ma loves you. You could commit tax fraud in front of her and she’d ask if you wanted seconds.”

You snort. “That’s very comforting.”

He shrugs, smiling again. “It’s true. She already set up the guest room.”

You blink at him.

“…The guest room?”

A pause. Clark glances over. “Well, I didn’t want to assume we’d—uh—share a bed. With my parents in the house.”

You raise a brow. “Clark. We had sex in a supply closet at the Planet.”

“That was—okay, yes—but that was under different circumstances.”

“We are dating.”

“I know.”

You lean your head back against the seat, grinning. “You’re so weird.”

“You love it,” he mutters, cheeks pink.

You do.

God, you do. You love him.

It still sneaks up on you sometimes. The clarity of it. The quiet, persistent fact of Clark Kent: the man who once made you blueberry pancakes the morning after you nearly ran out on him, who kissed your wrist like it meant something, who never—not once—looked away. Who told you he was Superman in the middle of a 7/11 parking lot, like some fucking lunatic.

And now here you are. In his car. On the way to meet his parents.

Officially.

Not just as the girl who sleeps over sometimes. Not as the coworker who won’t stop pretending she doesn’t care. Not as the idiot who thought she could get away with loving him and not doing anything about it.

No. Now, you’re his girlfriend.

Which means this is real. Which means you’re going to their farmhouse in Smallville. And Martha is probably going to offer you pie. And Jonathan is probably going to show you Clark’s fifth grade spelling bee trophy like it’s the most precious thing in the world.

Which should terrify you.

(And maybe it does, a little.)

But mostly—mostly it feels like the best thing you’ve ever said yes to.

Clark clears his throat. “Hey.”

You turn.

He’s watching you with that expression again. That soft, unguarded, ruined look like he still can’t believe you’re real. It’s so sincere it nearly undoes you.

“I’m really glad you’re coming,” he says. Quietly.

You look at him. You squeeze his hand back.

“Me too, Michigan.”

His ears go a little red. “Don’t call me that.”

“Oh? I thought you liked when I objectify you by state.”

“I like it slightly less when it happens in front of a rest stop attendant while you’re holding beef jerky and winking at me. And when it's the wrong state."

You smirk. “Not my fault you were born with that jawline and a humiliation kink.”

Clark coughs through a laugh. “God help me.”

He reaches across the console, dragging his thumb lightly over the inside of your wrist. The same spot he kissed that night. The one you think might still hum a little under your skin.

You let your head fall against his shoulder, smile tucked into your cheek.

“Wake me when we’re ten minutes out?”

“You sure?” he murmurs, already lowering the volume on the radio.

“Mhm.” You close your eyes. “I gotta mentally prepare myself for the scarecrow photos.”

You feel the press of his lips against your knuckles. Gentle. Familiar.

“You’re gonna be fine,” he says. “They love you, you know that. I do too."

You smile.

Not when you brought the water to his desk, or for the rest of the day. When you got in the next morning, he was already at his desk, but didn’t do more than mumble a good morning. His shoulders had squared and rippled, when you’d walked past.

You’d gone to the bathroom, and made sure you didn’t reek of something rancid. Maybe there was a sulfur leak in your apartment and you’d just gotten used to it. Maybe you’d stepped in dog poop on the train and no one’s told you.

“Do I smell bad?” You’d asked Jimmy, and he’d looked at you like your were crazy.

“I don’t know? I don’t go around smelling people like a- A serial killer-“

“I’m not asking you to smell me like a serial killer.” You’d hissed, leaning down to block him in his chair. “I’m asking you to smell me like a friend, Lois smells me all the time-“

“Then go ask Lois!”

“Lois is in Gotham, I can’t ask Lois-“

“Then ask Clark, he’ll be happy to smell me-“

“I can’t ask Clark.” You’d whined. “Come on, please smell me-“

Jimmy had eyed you suspiciously. “If this is some weird mating dance, I’m not interested-‘

“It’s not a mating dance!”

“It seems like a mating dance-“

“It’s not-“ You’d shaken your head. “Just stop being a fucking pussy and smell me!”

Someone had cleared their throat behind you. Jimmy’s eyes had widened, fixed right over your shoulder, and you’d known who it was before you turned.

You know that low, controlled sound. You know the rush that his attention brings, and the shiver up your spine whenever he’s close. You close your eyes tight, breathing through your nose, and turn to Clark with a plastered smile.

“Hi, Clark! No one was trying to smell anyone-“

You cut yourself off when you see him. You almost forget how to speak.

He’s a wreck. Curly hair is plastered to his brow, his white button up is more sweat stains than dry spots, and there’s a vein pushing out of his neck that seems painful. His glasses keep trying to slip off his nose, and he’s shifting like even just standing is uncomfortable. He’s pale and red all at once, ruddy in his face and paper white in his fists. The flush deepens near his neck, and returns to his arms right before the cut off of his rolled up sleeves. He’s breathing through his mouth.

His eyes are black, and gleaming.

You scramble away from Jimmy, yanking yourself back from going to press a hand to Clark’s brow.

Clark takes a jagged, stumbling step back.

You look back to Jimmy, and he gives you a tight shake of his head. He doesn’t know what to do either. You’ve never seen Clark with so much as a paper cut, and now it looks like he needs a hospital.

“Hey, buddy.” Jimmy tries, voice soft. Like he’s speaking to a feral animal. “You feeling alright?”

Clark jerks his head to Jimmy, and his nostrils flare. Like he’d almost forgotten Jimmy was there.

Jimmy leans back. And you know he doesn’t mean to. It’s Clark. The softest, sweetest heart you know, shoved into a giant’s body.

But like this, Clark doesn’t look like a man. He looks like something that’s crawled out of your darkest wet dream. Like something that should be in the sky, fighting Superman. With the black eyes and sudden, jagged movements, he looks like an animal.

He looks dangerous.

And he doesn’t respond right away. Clark stares at Jimmy, breathing heavily, then squeezes his eyes shut. You and Jimmy exchange another worried look. If he’s been corrupted by something—in this world, you can’t rule anything out—and he attacks, you’re not sure you can fight him off. Emotionally or physically. Clark’s huge, he’d crush Jimmy with one fist and you’d be nothing but an annoying fly to be swatted across the room.

But whatever’s going on with Clark, he seems to drag it under control. He opens his eyes, and a thin ring of blue is back.

“I’m fine.” He rasps, staring at Jimmy. “Just- Didn’t sleep well. You know.”

Jimmy blinks. “No, uh- I don’t-“

Clark looks at you.

And you could swear the blue flickers, when your eyes meet.

“You smell good.” He mutters.

He turns like something’s dragging him, and walks away. You and Jimmy stand there for about three more minutes—in total baffled silence—before Jimmy’s mouth falls open.

“What the fuck is up with him?”

Nobody seems to be sure.

On Tuesday, he seems a little better. He eats lunch with you. Wheels his chair next to yours like usual while he’s editing, because you always catch typos he misses, and he’s a good reporter but not the best writer.

“You can’t use that word here.” You tap his laptop screen. He frowns.

“There are no other words I could use, though-“

“Corrupt?”

“But- Oh.” He sighs, hitting backspace. “See? That’s why you’re the expert.”

You laugh softly, and Clark gives you his usual small, almost shy smile.

“How’s your piece coming?” He asks kindly—always kindly—and you groan.

“Dogshit.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad-“

“My main source backed out.” You grumble. “Like a little baby bitch. I can’t make this level of accusations again LuthorCorp without a source, it’s asking for a defamation lawsuit, and after the last one Perry would kill me-“

“But you won the last one.” Clark frowns, and you give him a pointed look.

“Yeah. Because I had a source.”

“Ah. Right.” He pauses, pushing his glasses slowly up his nose.

You watch the movement as subtly as possible. You love it when he does that. It’s a tiny, adorable quirk that makes you want to rip his hand away and push them up yourself.

“What if I said I have a source for you?” He asks softly, and you perk up.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” He grins. “You know, I’d think you’d have faith in me, I wouldn’t lie about that-“

“Shut up, I’m excited-“

“I can tell.” He boops your nose, and you stick your tongue out at him.

He does that all the time. He says you get a bunny nose when you’re excited about something, and then you hit him because nothing about you is bunny like.

Sometimes you say that, and he chuckles.

You have no idea. He mutters under his breath.

And sometimes he hits your nose, and your breath hitches because he touched you.

Today you keep it under control.

It’s Clark that freezes. Coughs and goes red, wheeling his chair an inch back. You frown at him, ready to ask what’s wrong, but he shakes his head like he’s already denying you an answer.

“It’s- Uh- Superman.”

You blink. “What?”

“Superman can be your source.” He grunts, shifting in his chair. “I can ask him to. For you.”

“I- You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“I can find someone else-“

“No, I- I’ve got it.”

He stares at you. You stare back, heart swelling with something sweeter than you usually allow it to feel.

You’re used to your feelings for Clark. You try not to think about them, especially not in his presence. There’s no amount of love you’d risk your friendship for.

But he makes that rule hard to follow sometimes. When he starts being stupidly perfect.

You smile at him, wide and unrestrained. “Thank you.”

He nods—tight and jerked—stares for a long, long moment. He shoots to his feet.

“I have to go to the bathroom!” He announces to the whole bullpen.

Clark sprints away. Jimmy gives you a questioning look, and you shake your head.

He doesn’t come back for an hour. When he does, his face is wholly red again.

He’s back to not looking you in the eyes. Back to looking so sick you’re worried he might be going feral.

And you have no idea what to do.

Lois gets back on Wednesday, and the first thing she says to you is What’s up with Smallville? Perry corners you at your desk to ask if you’ve got any idea what’s Clark’s been up to that might be doing this to him. Steve loudly jokes that everyone should be placing bets on when Clark passes out. Cat keeps trying to bring him tea—a thin guise so she can suggest home remedies to whatever super hangover he has—and Clark always drinks it with shaking hands.

He listens to all her suggestions without interrupting, but whenever Jimmy suggests Urgent Care—you’ve given up on trying to get him to the ER—Clark grunts a sound like no and won’t hear another word.

You’re getting really worried. Everyone gets sick, but Clark’s always talking about his very good immune system.

And nobody gets sick like this. Legally, Perry should be making him go home, but no one can get close enough to confirm a fever, and it’s somehow not effecting his work performance.

“Clark.” You sit on the edge of his desk, keeping your voice soft. “You need to go to a doctor.”

His whole body locks up. His fingers freeze on his keyboard, and he bows his head like he’s in prayer.

“Clark-“

“Please.” He says, so quiet you almost miss it. “Back up.”

You blink. “Back up?”

He nods, and there’s a sting in your heart.

He hasn’t asked anyone else to back up.

But you slide off his desk, and take a single step back. Another, when he doesn’t relax from the first.

You clear your throat, tucking your hands behind your back. Clark lets out a heavy, ragged exhale, and looks up.

He still won’t fully meet your gaze. His darkened eyes are fixed right over your head, and you try not to let it hurt more than it already does.

“Clark.” You’ve lost a little bit of nerve. You try not to let him hear it. “The doctor-“

“I don’t need a doctor.” He tells the ceiling, and you sigh.

“You’re sick-“

“No. I’m not.”

“Dude, I- I can feel your fever from here.” The heat, rolling off his body like he’s an active star. “At least just go so they can say you’re not sick.”

He doesn’t answer. You almost take a step forward, before reeling yourself back. He doesn’t want you too close.

“Please?” You say. “It would make all of us feel better.”

That makes him look at you. For just a split second, barely a heartbeat, but long enough.

His eyes go wholly back. He wheels his chair backwards, like there’s something toxic coming off of you that he’s trying to avoid.

And it hurts. It hurts so much your face burns with shame, and your stomach does a sick clench of pain.

It’s never fun, for the man you’ve quietly been in love with for years, to look at you like you’re proximity might kill him.

The only thing that stops you from crying is worry for him.

But that’s not enough to hold back the crack in your voice.

“Clark- Please-“

He shakes his head, jaw clenching. You swallow, and take another step back.

“Oh- Okay. Sorry.”

You turn on your heels. Behind you, Clark rasps your name.

And you look back. You can’t help it.

But all he does is stare at you.

So you walk away.

Clark doesn’t come in on Thursday. Jimmy goes to check on him, but won’t report back on what he finds. When he gets back to the office, his face is bloodless and eyes wider than an owl.

“Is he-“

“He’s not sick.” Jimmy stares at you like you’re a ghost. “He’s- Um- We should- Give him space.”

You frown. “But-“

“Lots of space.” Jimmy mutters under his breath, already walking away. “And maybe me some bleach. Freakin’- Gross-“

Lois comes up next to you, watching Jimmy head into the bathroom. You’re wringing your hands, lips pressed in a painfully tight line, and Lois grabs your wrists.

“Don’t go visit him.”

You shoot her a glare. “I wasn’t going to-“

“Yes, you were.” She raises her brows. “Don’t.”

“But-“

“Don’t.”

“What if he needs something-“

“I texted his cousin. She knows what to do.”

“To…” You narrow your eyes, pulling your hands from Lois’ grip. “You know what’s going on with him, don’t you.”

Lois shrugs. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Lois-“

“He’s going to be fine.” She says, giving you a firm look. “Don’t check on him.”

She walks away without another word.

On Friday, you go to Clark’s apartment.

You don’t go inside. Lois’ voice keeps ringing in your head, and while you’re more than willing to disobey her, it’s the way she’d said it.

Don’t.

His door is right there.

Lois’ voice fills the gaps in city noise. Pointed and direct. Almost hopeless. Like she knew you wouldn’t listen.

Don’t.

You made him soup, because you’re pathetic. He’d left his jacket at work on Wednesday, and you’d brought it home to clean up before returning it. You’d had a whole painted daydream made of pastels and watercolor, where you’d give Clark his jacket, he’d swoon with how romantic that is, and then kiss you.

But like real watercolor, the colors bleed and run. Blur together. It’s too fuzzy a picture to be reality.

You stand at his door. You don’t remember walking inside the building.

Don’t.

But you want to.

Don’t.

He could need someone, what if his cousin was busy, what if he’s been waiting for you to check on him-

Don’t.

Lois’ voice isn’t louder than your heartbeat. But it’s level. And your pulse is erratic in your throat and fingers.

And you keep seeing Clark’s face. Keep thinking of how he’d been stiffer than concrete, until you’d moved away.

He wouldn’t want to see you right now. He’d made that clear.

You put the soup and jacket on the doorstep, and ring the doorbell.

Before Clark can open it, you walk away.

On Saturday, you hole up in your apartment and work.

It’s a  distraction. Anything not to think of Clark. To think of how sick he is, how he might be in pain, how he might need help but not from you. How lately he can’t stand to be in the same room as you, and apparently everyone gets to know what’s going on with him except you-

You groan, tipping your head back against the couch.

This is exactly what you’re trying not to think about.

It’s hard, though. Impossibly hard. If only because you open your email, and see a bunch of messages from Clark. You open Teams, and his messages are pinned at the top. You send Jimmy something, and have to include Clark as a contributor. Lois sends you something, and Clark is CC’d.

He’s everywhere. You can’t stop checking your phone for a message, even if Jimmy says he’s basically out of commission. Can’t really do anything right now, he’d grumbled, making a sour face. Too… Sick.

He’d said it weird, but everything about this is weird.

Usually you’d talk to Clark about that.

You miss him.

Goddamnit.

Apparently, you’re very bad at not thinking about Clark.

You busy yourself. Clean the apartment, do the laundry, waste the day, don’t think about Clark.

He gave you this pencil. Let you borrow this  sweater, that you’ve been hoarding like a dragon with gold since. Sent you the cheesecake in the back of your fridge as a birthday present, and it had been horrible but you’d kept it anyway.

You lie flat on the floor, and fail not to think about Clark a little more. Maybe you should text him. Just so he knows you’re thinking of him. Or text Lois and ask for his cousin’s number, so you can ask her if he’s okay. Or let the anxiety fully overpower Lois’ voice in your head, and go visit him.

You’re about to go with that last option, when there’s a bang on your window. You shoot up with wide eyes, expecting a massive bird.

Instead you find Superman, standing in your fire escape. It’s hard to see him, in the shadows of dusk. His head is strangely bowed, his shoulders slumped in a way you’ve never seen on TV. Maybe he’s just more casual, when he’s doing home visits.

But why is he home visiting you.

Usually that would freak you out. This week, it’s just another fucking thing.

You open the window slowly, poking your head outside.

“Hello?”

Superman looks up at you, and your mouth goes dry.

He doesn’t look well.

Red and pale face, messed up hair, heaving chest. Clenched fists, sweat-slicken face, blown out eyes with barely a ring of blue-

Like Clark.

Just like Clark.

And it’s not just the ragged appearance. It’s something deeper. It’s the way he’s staring at you like he’s  worried you’re going to attack him. Like he’s restraining himself from moving, like you’re a repellant and he wants to fly away.

Or something else.

Without the glasses, there’s something else.

He looks desperate. The shadows on his face look longer. Maybe it’s just the sickness overtaking him, but he looks hungry. Desperate and starved. There’s an openness on his face that wasn’t there before. And he’s not looking at you like he’s afraid or skittish.

He’s looking at you like he’s a predator. Like you’re prey.

“Clark?”

“I’m here for your interview-“

You speak at the same time. Your voice is a breath. Superman—Clark? —pushes out his words like they hurt, and falters in a second.

He stumbles back like he’s been hit. You scramble forward to catch him, your body not worried about anything but Clark is going to fall.

Your hand wraps around his wrist. He makes a deep, rumbling sound from his chest. Almost a growl.

His eyes flutter. He moans out your name, trying to tug weakly away.

“Clark- Wait-“

Superman’s body goes slack, and he collapses in your arms.

At one in the morning on Sunday, too much is happening.

You put Clark—Superman? —in your bed. Took his temperature and dropped the thermometer in shock.

He’s burning at 150 degrees.

He should be dead. You’re not even sure how you touched him without burning up.

The thermometer clatters to the ground, and Clark shifts in his sleep. Groans out a garbled, pained noise that sounds like your name.

You swallow, hugging yourself tight. It’s hard not to reach out to him, but you don’t feel like you should. He hadn’t wanted you near him, and you’ve already crossed a few lines by putting him in your bed.

Then he moans, ripping the thin sheets off his body.

That time it was definitely your name.

Superman moaned your name.

You back out of the room slowly, with an embarrassing amount of effort. You can’t rip your eyes away from him.

Clark in your bed, calling for you and rolling around like a rutting beast. Whatever’s tormenting him isn’t enough to wake him up, but it’s enough to drive you out of your mind. You bite the inside of your cheek, and force yourself to close the door. It solves the looking at him problem.

It does nothing for hearing him.

And he’s loud. You’re lucky the apartments have thick walls between units, or you’d get a noise complaint. Clark is almost howling from his room, and whenever you give into temptation and go to check on him, he’s somehow managed to rip another item of clothing off in his sleep.

It starts with his top. The symbol on his chest gets torn to shreds, revealing a broad, flushed chest. He’s got a small happy trail. Muscles that you want to trace, and boobs that might be bigger than yours.

Your eyes wander to his abdomen. There’s a happy trail that leads down, down, down, and-

Oh.

That’s… Big.

You slam the door closed, and run back to the kitchen. Cold water does nothing against the heat building in your core. You splash it on your face and drink two glasses, but you might as well be downing sea salt. You’re thirstier than when you started.

The image seems to be burned behind your eyes. Clark’s bulge. Superman’s bulge.

You still haven’t really dealt with that.

Clark is Superman. Superman is Clark. You’re sure. You’ve spent the last hour on the couch, sketching out timelines and checking your work. The random disappearances in the middle of the day. How you’ve never seen him get drunk. The fact that he’s built like a Greek god but never works out, and whenever Jimmy asks him for a routine he just says grow up on a farm.  

And be a Kryptonian. That would probably also help.

To be sure—you have to be positive, before Superman wakes up and you start throwing around accusations—you cut out a pair of paper glasses and build up all your courage.

When you step into your room, it hits you like a tidal wave. The smell of sex, sweat and cum and something deeper. Clark’s ripped off his tights, and apparently the outside boxers are the only thing he’d been using for cover.

You don’t let yourself look. Your traitorous eyes try to, but you refuse to glance past his thick thighs. You won’t violate him like that. You’re here for confirmation, and nothing else.

Carefully, you wipe the sticky hair from Clark’s brow. His whole body shudders under your light touch, and he bucks up to chase your fingers when you pull away. A deep whine escapes from his lips, and you swallow.

Dear lord.

Very, very slowly, you put the paper glasses on his nose. He wrinkles it, trying to buck them off, but you plant a hand on his chest.

You don’t mean to. You move before you can think.

Clark relaxes. His body goes slack like putty, save for a single hand flying to your wrist, holding tight.

He could break you. He’s Superman. You’ve watched—albeit from afar—him pick up whole buildings. But his touch on you is light, as if you’re glass. His jaw relaxes. A purr rumbles under your hand, and his thumb starts to trace small circles.

You stare at him, every logical thought in your head evaporating in the heat of the room. The glasses confirmed exactly what you wanted them to.

Clark is Superman,

And somehow, that’s the least important thing that’s happening right now.

His brow is unfurrowed, his mouth hanging open as he pants out your name.

“Clark?” You breathe, and he moans.

This time, he calls your name. His eyes flutter in his sleep, and his hand starts to move. Dragging yours down his chest. Over his pecs, his ribs, to his abdomen and-

You yank away with a squeak, when you realize. Clark whines, immediately seizing up the second you pull away.

He looks like he’s in pain. Your touch helped, and he’d liked it, and-

No. You can’t. You won’t. You’re stronger than that, and he’s not in his right mind. Whatever’s effecting him—whatever’s strong enough to effect Superman—can’t be letting him think clearly. It would be one thing if he asked. Another to touch him in his sleep, just because he’d moved your hand there. He probably doesn’t even know it’s you.

But he’d been calling your name. He’s calling your name right now.

The steam of the room is getting to your head. You stumble away, squeezing your eyes shut when Clark keens in pain.

If you weren’t such a masochist, you’d put in earbuds to avoid hearing him. But he keeps calling your name.

And you’re not that strong at all.

Clark wakes up at four in the morning. You haven’t even managed to close your eyes.

You’re so dazed from the everything that you don’t hear him coming. You just realize the moans have stopped, and hear a quiet mumble of your name.

When you turn, Clark’s standing in the door of the living room.

He’s naked.

Fully naked.

And this time, you’re too tired stop your eyes from wandering.

He’s glorious. It’s not just the muscle and size of him, it’s all Clark. How his flexing arms are the ones that catch up when you stumble over yourself, and his legs are the ones that bring you coffee in the morning. Those fisted hands hold your hair back when you’re sick and boop your nose. His tense knees bump against yours under almost every table, and his chest keeps you tucked safely away from the world whenever you have a meltdown.

But it’s also the muscle and size of him. He looks wound up, so tight you’re worried he may snap. The coat of sweat on his skin is begging to be licked off, and his thick arms could wrap around your neck and you wouldn’t complain.

And his cock. 

You don’t know how he manages to walk around with that thing. It’s bigger than the toys you’ve seen in shops, bigger than the ones in porn that have to be fake, bigger than the lewdest drawings on the internet. Thick and veiny, hard and standing proud. His balls are heavy, and you kind of want to put them in your mouth. Every inch of him is slicked with cum, and you realize you just licked your lips far too late.

Clark clears his throat. You look up with burning cheeks and wide eyes.

“Clark, I- I’m so sorry-“

“Don’t.” He mutters, shifting on his feet. You can see his arms jerking wildly. Like he’s actively stopping them from moving. “I’m the one that should be sorry, I- I shouldn’t have come here.”

He winces at his own word choice, rubbing a stain of  release on his thigh. He’d been humping  the sheets all night. You’d heard the squeak of the mattress, and-

“I broke your bed.” He mumbles, not meeting your gaze. “I’ll fix it when- This passes.”

“Clark-“

“Stop saying it like that.”

You blink. Clark takes a deep breath, and looks up at you.

His eyes are shining. You can’t tell if it’s with frustration, or sadness, or that something else.

“Please don’t say my name. Like that, or- At all.” His throat bobs. “It makes everything very hard.”

Your lips twitch, and you glance back to his dick. He sighs.

“Yeah. I know. There are only so many words I can use, you know.”

You laugh softly, despite everything.

Clark grabs the doorframe with a groan. It cracks under his hands, and he won’t stop staring at you,.

“Don’t laugh either.”

“I- I’m sorry-“

“And don’t apologize, or- Or look at me-“

He cuts himself off with a long moan, and you fix your gaze very pointedly on the ceiling.

“Cla-“ You cut yourself off. “Should I call you Superman?”

“No- That- That’s weird-“

“Kal-El?”

“Worse.” He grunts, and you sigh.

“I need to be able to call you something.”

“It would be better if you didn’t talk, actually.”

That makes you glare at him. He winces, face scrunching in apology.

“No, not- Not like that-“

“Not like what-“

“It’s just, when you talk-“

“It’s hard?” You snap, and you don’t know why you’re so mad all of a sudden. Maybe it’s how you haven’t slept in almost two days.

It’s probably that. But also, something needs to break. If Clark just Supermans away after everything, you’re going to kill him.

“Please don’t sat that word.” Clark mumbles, and you shake your head.

“No. I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen and give me answers.”

“I- I don’t think that’s a good idea-“

“You don’t get to decide what’s a good idea right now, boner-boy.”

He wrinkles his nose. “That… Doesn’t seem fair.”

“Maybe, but you know what’s also not fair?” You cross your arms over your chest, raising your chin. “Ignoring your best friend for a week, then showing up with a fever and- And magic boner then telling her to shut up!”

“I didn’t tell you to shut up-“

“You said I shouldn’t talk.”

“I said it would be better if you didn’t talk.” He mumbles, staring at the floor. “That’s not the same-“

“Shut up.”

“Sorry.”

The wall cracks further. You wrinkle your nose.

“You better fix the wall, Kent.”

“I will. ‘M sorry-“

“Stop apologizing to me, and just- Just tell me what’s wrong!”

You take a step forward. Clark shrinks back, but doesn’t move away.

“You’re not allowed to- To be mad.” He glances up under his lashes, and lets out another labored sigh. “Be more mad.”

 That’s not  promising, but your worry outweighs your anger. You nod, watching him expectantly. He closes his eyes, like he can’t bear to see your reaction.  

“You know kryptonite?”

You blink. “Of course I know kryptonite, I don’t live under a rock.”

“Right. Well,” he coughs. “There’s, uh- This thing. Called red kryptonite. And it does… Weird things. To me. And other Kryptonians. Which is just Kara- My cousin- I think you’d like her-“

“Clark.”

“Sorry- Sorry.” He groans. You can trace a bead of sweat down his brow.

“Red kryptonite?” You prompt, softer than before.

His cock twitches. You try not think about it.

“I got exposed to some.” He mumbles. “Last weekend. And it never does the same thing twice, but usually it’s something like… Shrinking me. Flipping my personality, or giving me an extra power or curse or- Once it turned me into a fish-“

“It what-“

“I got better.” He says quickly. “But it’s usually immediate. This wasn’t. I- I even hoped I got lucky. That it wasn’t going to effect me at all. Then I got into the office on Monday, and saw you, and…”

He trails off, words hanging in the air.

Saw you.

You activated the red kryptonite in him.

There’s a very reasonable guess to what it’s doing. You still need to hear him say it, before you do something about it.

“What happened when you saw me?” You breathe, and he gives you a pleading look.

Makes a loose gesture to his erection. You bite back a smile. He’s going to need talking into this.

“Clark.” You say gently, and he groans.

“Please don’t make me say it.”

You give him a look, and he turns even redder than before. Stares down at his feet like a scolded child. It’s almost adorable, while also remaining impossibly hot.

“It’s very… Demanding.” He mumbles. “About certain things that I would like to do. And it is very particular about who I need to do it with. But- I can’t ask that of you-“

“Can’t you?”

Your question is quiet. You know he’ll hear you.

And Clark’s head snaps up, his jaw hanging open. He shakes his head.

“You- You can’t mean that-“

“Why not?”

You take a small step forward. Clark grabs the other side of the door way, tracking your every movement with that predatory focus.

“I’d like to.” You murmur. He grunts.

“You don’t have to pity me-“

“It’s not pity.”

He chuckles dryly. “Feels like it. I know you don’t- That’s not how you feel-“

“Who says it’s not how I feel?”

You fix him with a challenging glare, and Clark swallows.

“Uhh… Steve?”

You scoff. “Steve’s been trying to ask me out for three years, of course he’d tell you that.”

Clark shakes his head, his whole body trembling.

You’ve stopped a foot away. More than close enough for him to grab you. But he has to make that final step himself.

“I- I could hurt you.” He says, giving you that puppy look.

You shrug. “I like being hurt a little.”

His cock jumps. He doubles over, and you’re a little worried he’s going to break your whole apartment if he doesn’t move soon.

“Clark.” You whisper, taking a small step forward. “I trust you. And I- I want this. I want you.”

“No, you-“

“Don’t tell me what I feel.”

He shuts his mouth, still giving you that desperate look. You want to soothe him, but you just hold your ground.

“Will it hurt you?” You ask. “If you ignore it?”

He nods, tight and controlled.

You steel yourself, even as your nerves start to buzz.

Not with fear.

With excitement.

“Then use me.” You whisper, holding his darkened gaze. “Please.”

And Clark snaps.

He kisses you so hard you stumble. Knees buckle as Clark’s fevered lips overtake yours, and your startled squeal only lets him kiss you deeper. Your fingers fly out for something to hold onto, and find only the air.

Clark picks you up like you’re made of feathers, and there’s something steady about there being no ground at all.

If you were in your right mind, you’d think something about free fall and having no worry if there’s nowhere for impact. If you can only be caught.

But you’re not in your right mind. Because Clark isn’t kissing you like a kiss.

He’s inhaling you, and it’s already lighting you on fire.

There’s a thick arm wrapped around your waist, the other holding your back. A hand wrapped around your neck, angling him to kiss as deeply as  he wants. His tongue presses over yours as he walks himself backwards.

You push back, and he moans. It’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.

Clark’s back hits the wall, his legs sinking slightly as you make out. Nothing in his hold on you falters. If anything, it tightens. Like even with your open mouth moving against each other, there’s no way he can get close enough.

You respond to everything he gives you. Clark squeezes the back of your neck lightly, and you hum happily, smiling into the kiss. He grunts, when you thread your fingers through his hair.

He sinks further down, kisses turning short and desperate. He sucks on your lower lip, nipping softly and hauling you further up his body. Your nails dig into his scalp, and he drops his arm on your waist to grab your ass.

“Clark-“

“So- Sorry-“ He groans, and you can feel him rolling beneath you, trying to get himself back under control. “You’re just- So pretty, and- And soft, and-“

He drops fully to the floor, and you start slightly when he rips his mouth from yours, before burying his face in your neck.

“Smell so good.” He almost  whines. “So good.”

You take a deep breath, trying to collect yourself. You’re the sane one right now. The Clark beneath you is still your Clark, but he’s also a man who’s in a fugue state of lust. Not the mild, usually level headed, noble little dork you love.

Clark whines, when you run your nails gently against the back of his neck. He’s almost shaking, kissing and sucking on your neck like he can’t even help himself. You don’t think he can.

It makes sense why he was avoiding you. This would’ve been quite the HR violation in the copy room.

“It’s okay.” You coo, kissing the side of his head. “You can take what you need, Clark, I told you I want it-“

“You- You can’t-“

“Don’t tell me what I get to want-“

“No, you can’t.” He detaches himself from your neck, going completely still. His grip on your hips is bruising.

You don’t mind at all.

“I’ll hurt you.” He mutters, and you sigh.

“We talked about this-“

“I’ll hurt you.” He squeezes his eyes shut, over pouncing each word, and you stare at him for a moment.

You shift in his lap, trying to peer closer, and he hisses. His fingers dig into your sides, and his head slowly bows against your chest. Licking and kissing softly, as if he can’t physically stand to be that far from you.

And you feel it.

The literal alien cock pressing against your ass. You’d think was a stick if you didn’t know better.

Oh.

Right.

Clark must hear the way your heartbeat picks up, and put it together. He sighs, warm breath tickling over your breasts.

“I need to get you ready.”

You swallow. “I- I’m pretty-“ You can feel your heartbeat in your cunt, and there’s the familiar tingling ache that’s always a good sign. “I feel pretty ready-“

Clark grunts. “Not ready enough.”

“How do you know-“

“Nose.”

“Nose- Oh.” You flush. He can smell your arousal. “But that’s a good thing, right-“

“Not enough.”

He seems reduced to short worded grunts. You’re not faring much better, but there’s also a massive man below you that can’t stop sucking around your tits.

“Can you… Always smell me?” You manage to ask, and he hums.

That’s his agreement hum.

Your jaw drops.

“Are you serious-“

“I can’t help it.”

“You- You could wear nose plugs-“

“No. Like it too much.”

Your thighs squeeze, those deep words shooting straight to your cunt, and Clark groans.

“You- Can’t move-“

“You should move-“

“Won’t hurt you.” He grunts, like he’s making a vow. “Just- Need a second.”

You let out a slow breath, looking up to the ceiling. The idea comes faster than you want to admit, but you’re desperate.

“You were better when you woke up.” You say causally, stroking your fingers through his hair. “Lucid.”

Clark grunts. You smile at the air.

“You came in bed last night.”

He stiffens slightly. “Wet dream.”

“About who?”

You feel the ghost of a smile, against your chest. “You’re very… Mouthy. Like this.”

And you’ve been told that before. But something about the way Clark says it—like something he’s measuring, a note he’s jotting down for a piece—makes you feel all glowy and stupid inside.

“Wow. Mouthy.” You tease. “Not very polite, Clark.”

“There are other words I could’ve used for it.” He mumbles, and you giggle.

“Yeah? Like what?”

Clark draws slowly back, staring at you with those drunken, dark eyes.

“A brat.”

A lot of the fight leaves you, very fast. No ones ever looked at you like that. Like you’re something they want to chew on, carefully and deeply. To leave a mark while keeping every part of you both ruined and intact.

And his voice. Lower than you’ve ever heard, and hoarse with desire. You were already a lot woman. This just seals your fate.

“I should jerk you off.” You blurt.

Clark makes a sound like a wounded animal, and drops his brow against yours.

“You- You can’t just say that-“

“But it will help.” You give him your best, pouty and pleading expression. “You’ll feel better enough to- To get me ready.” You try to keep your voice level, as if you’re not thrilled just to say the words. “And then… More.”

Clark doesn’t answer. He just closes his eyes again, breathing heavily through his mouth. You wait, but you start to get a little worried he didn’t hear.

“Can you please look at me-“

“No.” He grinds out, and you frown. Reach up to cup his face.

“Clark-“

“Don’t ask me to move.” His words are tight. Pushed through his teeth.

You feel his cocks twitch, near your ass.

“Clark.” You make your voice soft. Traced the tensed line of his jaw, the bridge of his nose. He whimpers at the touch, and you smile. “It’s okay.”

“I- I need to get you-“

“I’m going to touch you, okay?”

His throat bobs, but he nods. Short and tight.

Enough.

You scoot back, and Clark lowers his legs at a painfully slow pace you accommodate you. Your ass drags over his dick, and he hisses, rutting up.

“Sorry-“

“It’s okay.” You say quickly, smiling slightly. “Good preview.”

He looks at you in befuddled exasperation. Opens his mouth like he’s going to snap something else out about you being a brat.

You settle against his knees, and don’t give him a chance.

The sound Clark makes when you wrap your hand around his cock is holy. Deep and guttural, like a man already wrecked. You let him sit in your loose grip for a second, watching his chest heave and eyes flutter.

He’s throbbing under your touch. You can barely hold him with the single hand.

You add a second, and squeeze at the base.

Clark makes another one of those beautiful noises, and grabs your wrist.

“Be- Be careful.”

You pause. “Does it not feel-“

“Feels good.” He grunts. “Too good. Gonna- Oh, fuck-“

Your mouth falls open. Clark swore.

You started to stroke his cock, and he swore.

And more. You need more. More of his swears, his sounds, his sweat running down his bare chest and the way he’s moaning your name. You need to see him fall apart, because once he’s back in control—once this massive dildo of a dick is inside you—you’re not going to be able to focus on such things.

You set a quick pace. Skin slapping and hot, unraveling him quickly.

Clark calls your name, his hands slamming back to grab at the walls. You watch in awe as his fingers sink into the wood, creating a slot for him to hold onto.

“Like- Like that- Shit.” He tosses his head back, moaning loud and lewd. “Yeah, baby, oh- Right there-“

He cuts himself off, rolling his hips up into your touch. You squeeze him again, switching your hands so one can thumb at the weeping slit on his head. Pre-cum leaks all over your fingers, and your lean further down.

You want to taste him.

When you slide off his legs—keeping your hands working—Clark says your name in a rough, garbled warning.

“What- What are you-“

You wrap your lips around the tip of him, flicking your tongue where your thumb had been. Clark makes a sound you’ve never heard from anyone before, his free hand flying to grab your neck.

The grip is tight, but painless. You’re in no danger of pain.

There’s something thrilling about how he’s gripping you so possessively. Like a life line.

You drop your hand to play with his balls. Clark bucks up into your mouth, bumping against the back of your throat.

“Sorry- Fucking Christ-“

You moan happily around him, drooling lips pushing down further. Your tongue swirls around him, and you suck, bobbing your head up and down. Trying to make him lose control again.

It doesn’t take long. Not when you reach up to his hand on your neck, and push it down.

“Are you-“

You moan, and Clark gives in.

He fucks your face like it’s a toy. Cock slipping in and out from between your lips, your spit staining with his pre-cum. Tears prick at your eyes, but you dig your nails into his thighs, refusing to be pulled off.

“Look- Look at you- Holy- Holy shit-“

Clark moans your name, and you let your hand drift back his balls. He slams up at the featherlight touch, and the tears start to flow.

“You’re so good at this sweetheart, so- So good-“ Clark moans, hips thrusting to meet every bob of your head. “Your mouth is so warm, and- And soft-“

You suckle lightly, the praise going right to your core. Your ass is sticking in the air, grinding up into nothing as he uses you.

And you can feel how close he is. His balls are tightening under your fingers, his cock twitching and pulsing, and-

Clark yanks you off suddenly, with one last cry of your name. Before you can protest or try to go back down, you see why.

He’s cumming.

And he’s not stopping.

Thick white ropes spurt from his dick, and you stare, transfixed. Every time you think he must be done, more comes. When the geyser finally stops, there’s not a place it hasn’t hit.

Clark lets out a shaky breath. You look up to him with wide eyes. He stares back, licking his lips.

“If you-“

“Do that inside me.”

You speak at the same time again. Clark blinks, leaning back slightly, and you flush.

“I- I mean- Clark-“

He starts to drag you forward, and your words turn into a squeak. Your being manhandled right into his lap, your ass still sticking up in the air and your hands just barely bracing you on the ground.

“I heard you.” He drawls, running a hand over the curve of your ass. “Pretty well, actually.”

His hand drags over your exposed core, and you whimper.

“Don’t- Don’t tease-“

“Trust me.” He mutters darkly. “I won’t.”

Two thick fingers toy at your clit, and you push yourself higher into the air. He knows exactly how to flick that little button, to drive you insane.

“Oh- Oh god-“

“If I had time.” Clark murmurs, almost to himself. “I’d keep you here for the rest of the day. Watch the sweetness drip down your legs,” his fingers trace over your sensitive inner thighs. “Let you make a mess in my lap. Wait ‘till you’re begging for it, then touch you,” one, broad finger rubs around your fluttering hole. “Nice and slow, until you feel what I’m dealin’ with right now.”

You moan, gaping at the floor. Clark gets a southern, Kanas drawl when he’s horny. It makes you clench around nothing, and he chuckles.

“Oh, you like that.” He presses the tip of his finger in, and you whine. “Yeah, I know. Know better than anyone, sweetheart.”

He pushes his hips slightly, forcing your ass higher into the air. There’s a rip, and cold air hits your core, making you shiver. His cock, still so hard, bumps against your tummy right as his finger slips into your cunt.

“Claaaark.” You moan, squeezing tight around him.

You’re rubbing backwards, trying to take him deeper. He splays one hand on your lower back, keeping you from getting what you want while still letting you chase the false hope.

He crooks his finger slightly, twisting it in a circle. You go limp, wrapping your arms around his thigh and pressing your cheek down for support.

“That’s it.” He mutters. “Just seeing what you need, it’s alright. Shit,” he lets out a sharp breath, cock twitching against you. “You’re so wet. I- I gotta-“

You hear it start to possess him, and you can’t be surprised when he pulls the finger out. Still, you twist to whine at him, maybe try to drag his hand back. He’s strong, but you’re horny, and that’s sure to help you somehow.

Instead, you trip on your own hands and collapse back down at the sight before you.

Clark cleaning your arousal off his fingers, eyes closed and face slack like he’s having a fine meal.

You can’t look away from it. It’s the hottest, most lewd thing you’ve ever seen. You whimper when he goes back into for more, dragging two fingers between your pussy lips before returning them to his mouth. He does it over, and over, and over again. Sometimes giving a little attention to your clit, like he’s milking you for more.

You’re a flushed, wiggling mess when he finally pulls his fingers away with a pop. His eyes are wholly black, gleaming with lust and fixed on yours.

There’s nothing left of you but putty, when Clark slowly starts to rub your pussy again. You’re a smeared, wrecked mess that can’t stop grinding back onto his hand, and he smiles down at you.

It’s predatory, but still soft. Exactly what you expect from him now. Pulling out the hair that got stuck in your mouth, all while slowly fingering your cunt.

“Wanted to do that for so long.” He coos, pushing two fingers deep inside of you. “You’d come into the office and start gettin’ wet right next me, I was slobbering like a dog. Thought I’d lose my mind, every single day.”

His fingers go deeper, bumping against your g-spot. You keen, making an almost unearthly sound from your chest. Clark notices it. Of course he does.

“There she is.” He mutters, starting to pump his fingers fast. Pushing against the gummy point over and over, until you’re drooling.

Your head has never been this empty during sex before. But you’ve also never been put over Clark’s lap like this. Fingered into oblivion while his dick pushes into your stomach. You start to push up—he needs attention—but Clark pushes you back down with a grunt.

“Need to be inside you.” He grunts. “Need you ready.”

Well. If he needs it.

It’s easy to relax into the feeling. Clark starting to thumb at your clit, rubbing it back and forth like a bop-it toy. Between that and his fingers, Clark is almost pulling pleasure out of you like a machine. It doesn’t take long for you to feel like you’re close. Your face his presses into his bare leg, your pussy fully pried open and well touched. You can feel the familiar tension inside you, about to burst.

“Clark- Clark-“ You don’t have the strength to twist, so you scratch at his leg. “I- I’m gonna-“

“I know.” He mutters, and fuck, you don’t doubt him. “Whenever you’re ready, sweetheart. Cum on my hand, let me feel it.”

It only takes a few more moments. Release hits you quickly, and lasts long. Thighs shaking and loud moans escaping your lips as Clark keeps playing with you.

You’re dazed from the orgasm. It’s the strongest you’ve ever felt, and your cunt is still pulsing when Clark’s fingers pull away.

“You’re ready.” He mutters, and you agree with a garbled sound.

He laughs, leaning down to kiss the back of your head as you quiver. He pulls you up into his lap, and you can feel his cock sliding between your folds. Both of your are so slick with everything there’s no friction. The tension in Clark tells you he’s close to going feral again, but his voice is still sweet.

“Just- Stay like that, beautiful.” He kisses the side of your head. “And if it- If anything starts to feel bad, tell me. I’ll stop.”

And you believe him. You know just how much this is affecting him, but you also know he’s Clark. And there isn’t a force on earth that could make him hurt you like that.

“Can you- Can you please say you’ll tell me-“

“I’ll tell you.” It’s barely more than an exhale.

Clark hears it.

“Good. Good girl.” He kisses your neck this time, and you whimper. “Let me- Can’t do it here. Not right.”

You’re not sure what he’s talking about until you’re airborne. Clark tosses you over his shoulder, holding you steady with one arm around your knees, and you blink at the cum and sweat stained floor. You might have to move, after this.

Maybe Clark could let you live with him.

Too fast. And not the thing to worry about right now.

Get fucked stupid, then think about your living situation and relationship status.

That’s a good plan. The best plan.

There really couldn’t be a better one, you decide. Not when Clark starts to rub your clit again, using the full pressure of his palm.

“Keeping her ready.” He rumbles, and you hum. You’re certainly not complaining.

You’re already close to another orgasm, when he lowers you down onto the bed. Your back hits the mattress, and you immediately reach between your thighs, fondling at your pussy hopelessly. Nothing feels as good as Clark’s hands. He might’ve already ruined you forever.

“Don’t do that.”

Those very hands catch your wrists. You stumble over your breath, when you look up at Clark.

He’s back into feral caveman mode. Stroking his cock with one hand, the other squeezing yours gently before setting it down at your side.

“I touch you.” He grunts, and you can’t argue with that.

You lay down, spreading your legs slowly. In offering. Clark makes that guttural sound, his dick somehow looking like it’s gotten harder. You swallow. It’s very hard not to touch yourself with a massive, hulking god standing over you and jerking himself off. For Clark, you’re going to try.

He’s been reduced back to deep noises from his chest and moans of your name, but he’s not making any attempt to move on you. He’s just… Staring.

Stroking his cock, and watching you. Looking between your wet, gaping pussy and flushed face, beating himself into his fist.

He moans, and doubles over. Pumps so fast his hand becomes a blur, and god you’d like him to do that to you later.

His face lands on your inner thigh. Soft stubble grazing the oversensitive area, cold breath pushing against your clit. You grab his hair, back arching off the bed at the taunting pleasure. Clark moans, watching you clench around nothing.

You cry, as his face fully presses into your cunt. It’s right as he finishes himself off, his cum painting the mattress and covering your ankles.

Clark rises back up, and for a second you just stare at each other.

“Didn’t mean to do that.” He rasps, and your lips twitch.

“I liked it.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Of course you did.”

Clark falls back over you, kissing you deep and slow. You call tell that the clear-headed affect of the orgasm is lasting for a shorter and shorter time.

And Clark choses to use it, just to kiss you.

He tests the head of his cock up and down your pussy, making sure to push it against your clit before going back down, and starting to slide slowly in. There’s almost no resistance, and he hums against your lips.

“Goin’ slow.” He mumbles. “While I can.”

You nod. It’s all you can manage.

He feels just as big—if not bigger—than he looked. Never has a cock stretched you so greatly, and so well. The fullness is incomparable, and you’d be worried you couldn’t take it if your pussy wasn’t greedily swallowing him whole.

“That’s it.” Clark groans, pushing in every inch so torturously and amazingly slow. Forcing you to feel every single inch. “There’s you go, just- Just take it- Fuuuck-“

He moans your name, and you kiss him. You want to feel everything he has, vibrating through your chest. Straight into your cunt.

Clark bottoms out, hiding his face in your neck. You blink up at the ceiling, trying to push off more tears. It’s good, unbelievably good, and your body doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Tight.” Clark mumbles against you, and you laugh breathily.

“Big.”

He looks up at you, and for a second, you only see Clark. Your best friend, looking out of you, always kinder than he needs to be.

“’m serious.” He says, low and rough. Like a secret. “When I call you pretty. When I- When I say I want you-“

You kiss him, and Clark melts into you in a second. You can’t stop your smile.

“I know.” You breathe, and he nods.

“Love you.” He pushes in almost an inch deeper, like the words spur him on. “So much.”

You blink, and his eyes widen.

“That’s- Um- I don’t think I meant to- You feel really good and my brain is soupy-“

Kissing to shut him up will only work so many times. You cover his mouth with your hand, every inch of you feeling alive. From his words, his body, every single inch of this glorious man that’s somehow, all yours.

“My brain is soupy too.” You whisper, clenching purposefully around his cock.

Clark grunts, rutting forward. You giggle, and he gives you a dangerous look.

“Very soupy. But,” You beam. “I love you too. And I’m very serious.”

Clark pauses. Smiles into your hand, eyes shining in the dark. You feel a little like your floating. You’d like to be rocketed right up to heaven.

“Make me dumb.” You breathe, and Clark’s shoulders square.

Your hand is knocked away in a second. His mouth attacks yours, and the moment he starts to move, an orgasm is ripped from your very core.

You scream, locking up and clenching around him. Clark moans against your lips, grabbing your knees and pushing them up to your chest. It’s a deep angle, and you can feel every inch of him, sliding in and out of your cunt. His balls slap near your ass, and his mouth hangs open as he stares down at him.

He’s fully gone to the red kryptonites effects. There’s no question, as he bends you in half and starts to fuck you like a doll. But he still doesn’t let his strength slip. You feel completely safe in his hands.

Safe and attended to.

You’ve never fucked a man who makes sure to hit your g-spot so much, and Clark’s barely even lucid right now. But he drills down into it, moaning your name and making those sinful, beautiful sounds.

It’s too much for your poor pussy. Two is a lot of orgasms. Three is your—usual—max, and that’s usually with time between. But Clark isn’t letting up. And you’re getting close again.

“Cla- Clark-“ You whine out, and he fucking growls. “Clark, I’m gonna-“

He makes a deep noise of understanding, and starts to fuck you harder. You cry out, grabbing uselessly at the sheets as the next release gushes from your pussy, flying up your spine like ecstasy.

Clark finds his own release there. With you clenching tight around him, writhing with overwhelmed pleasure and moaning his name like a hymn as you come. He throws his head back and starts to fuck like an animal, roaring your name.

He grabs your jaw, demanding your eyes on his. His thumb presses on your lower lip.

Cockdrunk and empty headed, you open your mouth and start to suck.

It feels even better than you’d thought. At first it’s nothing, just painting your walls and sticking so deep inside you, you think it knocks you into another, tiny orgasm. Then it’s more, spurting out of your pussy as he keeps fucking into you. An obscene fountain, staining your ass and thighs.

Then it’s too much. You’re not sure you can breathe, but the lights dancing on the edge of your vision only add to the euphoria.

Now, it’s everything. You’re full. So full. You never want to be empty again.

And you don’t think Clark would allow that anyway.

Because he’s still fully hard inside of you. And with how he’s staring at you, you don’t think there’s a space of sound mind anymore.

Clark just stares at you, still mindlessly sucking on his thumb and growls.

You giggle as he grabs your hips and flips you onto your stomach. Drags your ass back up into the air and pushes himself back in with a thick moan.

There’s a chance that his cum is transferring some of the sexual stamina onto you. It’s the only possible way you can last this long. Clark fucks into you from behind, kissing up and down your spine as his balls slap against your clit. Your fourth orgasm hits you, and you think you see he stars.

Clark cums again. You don’t know how there’s still possibly space for it, but nature finds a way.

You giggle into the sheets. Clark kisses your shoulder, rutting deeper and deeper into your abused pussy.

He might take your laughter as a challenge. Suddenly you’re being flipped over, and Clark’s impaling you on his dick once more, forcing you to slide down and feel every inch.

It’s a good thing you get giggly when you have good sex.

If he sees it as a challenge, you’re ready to lose, over and over and over again.

On Sunday, Clark fucks you through the afternoon and into the night.

There isn’t a spot in the apartment that doesn’t feel the aftermath. After making you ride him, he clambered over you and held you to his chest, fucking you with just your knees on the bed. After that you ended up on your back, then riding him again, then somehow on the floor. Against the wall. In the doorway, your face pressed against the window, Clark flying and holding you in his lap. By the time the sun was over your head, you were a wordless, dumb mess. Clark had you in a headlock and you were smiling like an idiot, taking his cock over and over again until you think you reshaped each other.

Now, standing in the shower to wash off the everything, you think if you reached down and touched yourself, you’d find Clark completely rearranged your guts to his shape. When you’d looked at him during the soft, quiet cleanup, his cock had certainly looked like you’d molded him to only fit in you.

It’s an oddly romantic thought.

There are lots of those to go around.

Clark’s waiting for you in the living room. He’s been trying to clean, but you don’t think there’s a point.

“I told you I’m going to have to move,” you joke, and he sighs.

“Well, I- I really tried, but-“ He wrinkles his nose. “I think it got in things. When I- Yeah.” He groans. “I can see it.”

“See it-“

“X-ray vision.”

“Oh.” That fun revelation had gotten lost in everything else. It’s going to take some getting used to.

Clark bows his head, almost in shame.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” he mutters.

You shake your head. “It fine-“

“I wanted to-“

“Clark.” You place a hand on his chest, smiling softly. “It’s okay. Really.”

He blinks at you, then relaxes.

“Really?” He asks anyway, and you nod.

“Really.” You nod to the floor. “I can even start apartment hunting right now.”

Clark laughs at that, and you beam.

It’s the same. Even after I love yous and the sex marathon, it’s still just Clark. And you’re more lucky to have that, than anything else.

“You could move in with me.” He suggests quiet and nervous, and your eyes widen.

“I-“

“If it’s too fast, you don’t have to, I- Geez, I haven’t even taken you out on a date yet, never mind-“

“Clark.” You raise your voice, forcing him to quiet down. “I was thinking the same thing earlier.”

He starts slightly. His lips twitch. “You were?”

You nod, and he grins like you handed him the sun.

“It’s not- Maybe too fast-“

“Maybe.” You shrug. “But I- I’ve loved you for years.” You look down to your fingers. “And we kind of lived together before. For work. And you’re my friend, first, so if you think it’s fine-“

Clark pulls your own trick. He grabs your face, and shuts you up with a deep, long kiss. You smile, rising up to meet him, and it’s barely been a day, but it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“I’m gonna do it right, though.” Clark says against your lips. “Take you out. Woo you.”

You laugh. “Bring it on.”

✦End note: sex pollen fics are so fun i feel like im getting a secondary high✦

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"oh fuck- shut up, will you? i'm t-trying... mmnh... to focus," you manage out. trying to sound stern is basically an impossibility when you've got his cock smushed inside you to the hilt.

his hands are fisted in the sheets, knuckles white, thighs trembling beneath you as you sink down on him and then rock your hips back and forth while completely stuffed. this method doesn't give him as much pleasure as it does for you, but you don't care. this isn't for his pleasure, or your connection. all you care about is how deep he hits when you sink all the way, how your cunt's clenching so tight he can't stop shaking.

"f-fuck-!" he whines again pathetically through the lace in his mouth, drool soaking the crotch of your panties where they're pressed over his mouth and nose. his eyes are wide, glassy, fixed on the place where you meet him. it's humiliating how desperate he looks.

"you like getting used, huh?" you pant, beginning to bounce again so the overstimulation hits once more. you let his big, drooling cock drag and catch with each rough bounce. it makes that slick, wet sound every time you move.

"ah- ye-yeah, like it soooo much," he moans so loud it vibrates through your soaked panties, tries to say something, but you shove your panties harder into his face so you don't hear what shit he has to say. his cock pulses again and you can feel more warmth spill out of you, overflowing from the tip, dripping down to his balls in glooping heaps. "such a -shit- big fucking cock wasted on a nobody like ngh! you. y-you don't deserve it."

your voice cracks halfway through but you don't stop or pretend this is anything but using him like he's just a toy that happens to twitch and moan and cum without your permission. your hands are braced on his chest for balance, his skin hot and slick under your palms from how hard he's sweating, poor thing.

you push the underwear just enough to see his eyes, which are teary and rolled back. his eyes clamp shut when you drop down especially hard, and his whole body jerks like he's seizing. his stomach tightens under your hands but the second you grind down again deep, slow and mean, he lets out a strangled sob into your panties, soaked through with spit and the sharp scent of your cunt.

"mmnh, fuck, look at you," you breathe out, "you're crying, sweetheart. is it too much?" you coo mockingly, dragging your hips up until just his swollen tip is nestled at the edge of your cunt, nearly pulling out. the area where his cockhead enters you is smeared in cum and slick. he scrabbles at your arms, needing to be back inside you. then, without warning, you slam back down, clamping hard on him.

he screams behind the fabric. legs kicking. you begin grinding down hard as punishment until you feel another twitch inside you, his cock thickening, spurting another weak, creamy load. his fifth? sixth? doesn't matter.

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He’d seen the new guy, some new writer at the Daily Planet, talking to you in the break room, flirting with you. Clark could hear the guy’s heartbeat racing nervously, excitedly, and he’d been filled with a hot, bitter sensation that had prevailed throughout the day. The jealousy had burned strong, and it still did, at the mere thought of some guy thinking he could have you.

You were his sweet girl. His to love, his to take care of — his girl.

And he had every intention of making that very clear.

His mouth moves down to your collarbones, teeth scraping over your skin delicately as one of his hands grabs your thigh to hitch it over his waist. His cock sinks deeper into you and you gasp, gummy walls squeezing him tighter.

“My sweet girl, I love you so much,” he says lowly, pulling back just enough to see your gorgeous face. Your pretty eyes are shut, so you can’t see the crazed look in his. You don’t know how insane he feels at the memory of another man trying to flirt with you.

Even though you had repeatedly brushed the guy off, he’d persisted. And now Clark wanted to leave you marked everywhere, so this guy had no doubt about the fact that you were with Clark.

He groans, fucking you a little faster. You mewl in response, your hands tracing over the strong muscles of his back, nails occasionally dragging over his skin. His cock is stretching your inner walls to their limit, pressing against all those sensitive spots in you that make you see stars. “Clark!” you moan, breathless, the pleasure pooling low in your belly.

He grunts, his cock twitching at the sound of his name on your lips.

My name, he thinks, My name. Not his. Mine.

“Oh, baby, I know. Good girl, you’re doing so well,” he says, burying his face into the crook of your neck, licking the sweaty skin there. “I love it when you say my name like that.”

One of his hands slides down, fingers finding your clit with ease and drawing messy circles on it. You squeal in delight, your hips bucking against his as the pleasure gathered in your womb grows hotter.

You’re scratching at his back, whining and gasping as he fucks you. He does it so well. His cock fills you completely, almost to the womb. The engorged mushroom head brushes against your cervix and makes you feel like there’s no space for air in you, just him. “Clark!” you gasp again, the tight coil of ecstasy in your womb getting tighter and hotter, building steadily towards your climax.

“I know, sweet girl,” he says gently, his voice thick with lust. He thrusts into you faster now, his fingers rubbing your clit in time with the roll of his hips. “I’m right here. I’ll give it to you.”

You moan, back arching off the bed, eyes shut tight as you get closer to your release. Your pussy tightens around him, gummy walls sucking him in as he pushes you to the edge.

“Come for me, baby,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss your lips. “Come for me. Let me know you’re mine.”