When Bucky was told he had to go through government mandated therapy sessions, it might as well have felt like being put back into a sterile Hydra room.

He wanted to avoid it as best as he could—the mere idea of therapy didn’t sound pleasant at all. White walls and in an enclosed space, ostensibly designated to make him feel safe—a place to open up about his past and get “well” enough to prove to everyone that he was no longer a threat. No longer the Winter Soldier, but rather just a boy from Brooklyn. He almost laughed at the idea alone. As if therapy could help with that.

He had been trying to avoid several things lately. Text messages from Sam and these therapy sessions were at the top of the list. But if given the choice of which to face first, he’d actually choose the therapy.

Now, Bucky sat in the quiet waiting room, manspreading as his left knee bounced anxiously. He was hunched over, hands between his legs like a cat with its tail tucked.

He should get up and leave—go back to being a hermit in his small apartment on Union Street, and do his best to dodge these sessions until he got a call ordering him to try again. Then rinse and repeat.

The door in front of him clicked open, and you stepped out.

You wore a soft cardigan, and your hair was a little messy. Not totally unkempt, but he wouldn’t call it professional, either. You looked more like a regular, frazzled woman he’d bump into at a grocery store than a specialist meant to mend broken people and their emotions.

“James Barnes?” you called out, glancing around the small waiting room.

There were only two other people in the room—a man and a woman sitting just a few seats away—but you still looked right at the super soldier first.

Bucky lifted his head, meeting your eyes before pushing himself out of the chair with a huff. Here goes nothing.

“I’m here,” he said, raising a hand. He offered a tight-lipped smile meant to be friendly, but it fell flat.

You smiled warmly. It was inviting, but far too rehearsed for him to accept at face value.

Pushing the door open with your back pressed against the frame, you stepped aside to let him in. He gave another forced nod out of politeness as he entered the room.

Standing near the entryway, he paused and took in the surroundings. The room wasn’t what he expected at all. The walls were colorful, warm string lights hung across them. Several plants were arranged neatly around the space—more so near the windows. A large couch sat on one side while a simple lounge chair faced it. Against the wall stood a shelf lined with books tucked neatly inside— self-help, fiction, and biographies.

But what really caught his attention was the turntable sitting on top of it, with no record spinning.

“Make yourself comfortable,” you said, flipping the ‘THERAPY IN SESSION’ sign to face outward and shutting the door behind him. “Whether you want to take the couch, the chair, or even lie on the floor—it’s all fine by me!”

Bucky huffed out a short laugh, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets. “You have people who lie on the floor?”

You shrugged, removing your cardigan and draping it over the coat rack. “This is a judgment-free zone, James.”

You stood beside him with a smile, your hands folded neatly in front of you, and that’s when Bucky realized you were waiting for him to make a decision.

He eventually chose the couch, sinking into the cushions with a grunt, while you settled into the chair across from him.

“Have you ever been to therapy before?” you asked softly.

“No,” he replied—straightforward, honest, and flat.

You sifted through the papers attached to the clipboard in your lap, checking the records that were passed on by his psychiatrist. Bucky assumed the list of things wrong with him was longer than your weekly grocery list. You lifted your eyes back to him, noticing the obvious tension in his shoulders.

“It’s not as bad as they make it out to be,” you explained gently. “I won’t tire you out with the whole ‘what do you want to work on, why are you in therapy?’ nonsense,” you tried to say lightheartedly, waving your hand for emphasis. “I know that you’re only here out of a government mandate, but just know that I’m here to help you because there are people out there who care about you—”

A heavy, long sigh escaped Bucky’s nostrils before he could stop it.

You tilted your head with an innocent frown. “Is something the matter?”

Yes. There are a lot of things that matter—like how you’re saying your usual script for your other clients, claiming that you “care” when in reality, you care about dragging out the time until your pockets are full of green.

“No,” Bucky lied. “Nothing’s wrong. Go ahead.”

You knew he was lying, and you didn’t need to call him out on it to prove it.

After some awkward silence and being watched under your silent scrutiny, he eventually sighed and shifted awkwardly on the couch.

“It’s just… I doubt there are people out there who care about me, you know? Like…” he blew a raspberry, feeling like he was rambling now. “They couldn’t care less about what I do in a day.”

You set your clipboard aside. “And what did you do today?”

He blinked, not expecting that question at all.

“What did I do today?” he repeated with pinched brows. He shrugged. “I went for a walk at my nearby park, and then…”

He trailed off with a scrunch of his face.

Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t done much at all today.

“And then…?”

But for some reason, he didn’t want to seem as lame as he felt. So, he continued.

“I guess all my eventful stuff will be after this therapy session,” he explained. “I’m supposed to be having lunch with a friend.”

Your face lit up, and Bucky chewed the inside of his cheek. Your expectations for him were probably that low—you truly believed he didn’t have any friends to have lunch with.

“That’s great, James!”

Just wait until you find out that the person he was having lunch with is a man in his eighties with a son whom he had brutally murdered while he was the Winter Soldier.

“Yeah. His name’s Yori. We usually get sushi on Wednesdays.”

“That’s wonderful. I’m glad that you have a friend who’s close enough for you to find a routine with,” you said. Your eyes flickered to his gloved hand resting on his thigh. “Does he know?”

Bucky glanced down at his left glove. “I’m sorry?”

“Does he know about your arm, and about what you’ve done in your past?” you clarified in a gentle tone—well, as gentle as it could be given the subject.

Bucky flinched, and that action alone was enough to give you your answer. His eyes fell to the colorful patterns on your carpet, his left hand curling into a tight fist beneath his glove out of apprehension.

No. Of course Yori didn’t know.

He knew that being truthful to himself and to his therapist was the whole point of therapy—the whole point of getting better. But Bucky didn’t see the point in going into detail with the whole, “No, Yori doesn’t know, because then that’d mean I have to tell him I killed his son!” routine.

You frowned, leaning a bit closer. “If he doesn’t already know, you’re going to have to tell him.”

Bucky stayed quiet. The patterns on your carpet were stupid, but he couldn’t look away.

“Because if you don’t—if you continue to hide from someone who cares about you—you’re hiding a part of yourself,” you explained.

“It’s not that simple, doc.”

“Is it ever?” you asked with a small chuckle. “This is all about trust—not just for Yori, but for yourself, too. You have to trust yourself to find trust in others. And in order to trust yourself first, you can start with acceptance—accepting who you are and what you’ve done.”

“I can’t,” Bucky protested weakly. “If I tell him, everything will change. He’ll look at me differently and… and then we can’t have lunch—”

“—that’s the beauty of life, James. Change is a constant thing, and sometimes, it's completely outside of our control. Without change, there is no growth.”

Bucky stayed quiet.

You leaned back in your chair and suddenly asked, “Before everything that happened, what did you like to do?”

Bucky furrowed his brows. He had no idea where you were going with this, but he tagged along anyway—not like he had a choice in the matter, but just to get it over with.

“I liked listening to music.”

“Okay, okay,” you nodded, rubbing your chin. “What kind of music?”

“Forties music,” he replied.

“Has that ever changed?” you asked with genuine interest.

Bucky remembered the list of things Sam had told him to listen to before he ghosted him. Marvin Gaye was one of them. Had he listened to it at all?

“No,” Bucky answered.

It was like a light switch turned on in your head. You suddenly got up out of your chair, making him flinch, and walked over to where your record player sat. You crouched down, your fingers sifting through your large collection of records until they landed on one he didn’t recognize.

You pulled it out and revealed the record to him face-first with the brightest smile. It had four men walking across the street in flared jeans—and with hair too long for his liking.

“Abbey Road,” you announced, handing it to him. “The Beatles. Made thirty years after your time—but listen to it and tell me what you think.”

Bucky frowned, examining the cover. He wasn’t fond of your methods of getting accustomed to ‘change,’ but it could’ve been worse.

“Fine,” he sighed, pushing himself up from the couch as his session neared its end.

You led him out the door, holding it open for him. “I’ll see you again next week, and you can tell me what you think about it. And whether you like or don’t like it—just remember, change can be good, James.”

You pointed to the cover he held in his hands. “And personally, I think Abbey Road is very good,” you added with a grin.

Bucky, however, was surprisingly fond of how personal you were. He didn’t think that’d be possible with a therapist.

“Sure,” he said with a smile that felt just a tad less forced than the first one he had given you. “I’ll see you next week, doc.”

As he walked past your door and entered the waiting room, you also added with a shout that caught the other patient’s attention who were waiting, which could be seen as totally unprofessional:

“Oh, and if you’re grabbing sushi, order the fried tempura rolls!”

His back was already turned, and he made a face. Oddly enough, fried tempura rolls were something he’d never ordered before. Not only were you dictating his emotions, but now you were dictating his music choices and food as well?

He waved over his shoulder, letting you know he heard you, before disappearing around the corner with your vinyl in his hands.

Looking back down at it, he realized he didn’t even have a record player to put this on.

Shit.

Bucky had forced himself to do more things out of his comfort zone in the span of a week than he had ever since gaining his freedom in Wakanda.

Since his first session with you, he had gotten sushi with Yori and had tried the tempura roll. It was different from what he usually ordered—which was just nigiri and a beer—but surprisingly enough, he liked it. Even the waiter had raised an eyebrow when he pointed it out on the menu.

Then, after walking Yori home—who lived in the same complex, so it wasn’t much of a walk at all—he decided to stop by a music store just a couple of blocks away to listen to the vinyl you had given him.

The store had various music players that people could test, such as jukeboxes, CD players, radios, and record players.

Stepping inside, he was greeted by a friendly ding! from the door chimes. Bucky lifted Abbey Road in his hands. “Got any record players open?”

The boy behind the desk, who looked no older than twenty-two, pointed towards the back. “There’s one open, but it’s loud in here. Need headphones?”

Bucky furrowed his brows in confusion. “Headphones? For a turntable?”

The worker nodded with a shrug that was far too casual—it made Bucky feel stupid. “Yeah, we use headphone amplifiers for them.”

Bucky looked at the boy like he had grown a second head. The worker grabbed a pair of headphones from beneath the counter and nodded toward the other end of the store.

“Here, follow me.”

Bucky followed the boy’s lead to the turntable, which was far different than the ones he was used to back in the forties. Back then, turntables were usually in a small brown box, and the vinyls were never this size. The player in front of him was silver, sleek, and he didn’t even want to attempt to use it at the risk of making a fool of himself.

The boy, luckily, took charge. He grabbed Abbey Road from Bucky’s hands, popped it onto the platter, plugged in the headphones, and handed them to him.

“Enjoy,” he said, before walking back to his post behind the counter.

As Bucky slipped the headphones over his ears, he tried his best not to stare at the people around him. The customers in this store were young, with styles he couldn’t begin to comprehend. Piercings, colored hair, and tattoos.

It was different—but he liked it.

It was his next session with you.

Your hair was styled more neatly than it had been the last time he saw you, but your smile was still the same. Soft and welcoming.

“So,” you started with excitement. “What did you think of it?”

“It’s different from the music back in my day, but it was good,” Bucky said with a shrug that felt almost dismissive despite his honesty.

“What was your favorite song?” you pressed on.

His teeth caught his bottom lip as he tried to remember the one that stuck out to him the most. “The one with the sun, and how it’ll be alright?” he answered, though it sounded more like a question.

“Oh! Here Comes the Sun—that’s a popular one! One of my favorites, too!”

You sounded more excited over this than he felt. Your smile and enthusiastic energy were bouncing off the colorful walls and string lights—and Bucky couldn’t help but smile, too. It was contagious.

“Did you have a record player at home to play it on?”

Bucky shook his head. “No. I went to a music store down the block and played it on one of their players.”

Your smile grew wider and your eyes softened. You had planned for this to happen—for him to step out of his comfort zone and find a way to listen to the music.

“And how was it?” you asked.

“Not my kind of crowd, but it wasn’t terrible,” he explained. “It was loud in there. People were blaring all kinds of music I’ve never even heard of.” He made a face at the memory. “The kid who worked there had to give me headphones so I could listen.”

Your eyes widened in confusion. “Headphones? To listen to a turntable? That’s a thing?”

Bucky was caught off guard by your reaction. Even over something as small as headphones, he liked that he wasn’t the only one who felt out of the loop.

“Yeah, the kid was trying to explain it to me—something about disabling the phono preamp and using the input for an amp. I’ve got no clue. It’s all rocket science to me,” Bucky rambled.

You threw your head back with a laugh, and Bucky chuckled along. He hadn’t even realized he’d been smiling until then.

“I had no clue that was an option. I might have to try that one day.”

Bucky couldn’t stop staring at you.

Up until this point, he’d had to drag his feet just to get to your office. But now, sitting across from you, he felt like all the tension that had built up in his shoulders over the last week had finally eased. He was laughing and smiling more than he had in a long time—he probably looked stupid.

“Oh yeah, I also tried that thing you suggested I get for lunch yesterday,” he said, trying to remember the name. “The… fried tempura?”

You leaned closer, practically on the edge of your seat as you looked at him with wide-eyed anticipation.

“Did you now? How did you like it?”

He’d actually liked it a lot—but with the way you were looking at him, those sparkly irises fixed on him, he couldn’t help but want to tease you. Maybe it was just the playful instincts he had back in the forties kicking in again.

“Eh, it wasn’t really my cup of tea.” He shook his head, watching closely for your reaction.

Your expression shifted dramatically from delight to disappointment. The sparkles he loved seeing in your eyes dimmed just a little, and your lips pursed into a slight frown.

“Ouch,” you muttered, slumping in your chair. “Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.”

Bucky had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. You were too easy, and he was having fun.

“I’m kidding. I did like it.”

You blinked at him. “Oh, so you’re playing with me now?” You huffed a laugh, crossing your arms and legs. “Whatever happened to my lesson about being truthful and honest?”

Bucky wore a boyish grin. He felt like he was talking to a friend rather than a therapist.

“Hey, I was being honest... eventually,” he added, which received an eye roll from you.

“Well, despite you pulling my leg, you did really well this week.” A proud smile spread across your face. “I’m so happy for you.”

His grin faltered for just a second. He knew that tone of yours. It meant this session was closing to an end, meaning he wouldn’t be able to talk to you again until another week. He hated how disappointed he suddenly felt about it.

You pushed yourself out of your chair and wandered over to your large collection of records. “Since we’re almost out of time, I want to send you home with another album to listen to.”

You pulled out another vinyl—a black and white cover featuring a woman who looked like a ballerina witch and a man with a beard and a ponytail.

“Rumours,” you said, handing it to him.

Your hands brushed over his just briefly, and his whole body shuddered. Despite wearing a leather jacket, he felt goosebumps prickling his skin after your touch.

“Fleetwood Mac. It’s lighthearted and catchy—kind of like Abbey Road, but… not really.”

You watched as Bucky took the record, examining the cover closely. A small smile lifting across your face.

“Let me know what you think about it next time.”

It was the first time in a long time that Bucky felt like he had something to look forward to.

Going to the same music store no longer felt like a chore. Rather, it had become another stepping stone that brought him a little closer to you. The kid behind the counter already knew why he was there, handing him the same pair of headphones and all.

He slipped on the headphones, put on Rumours, and let himself get lost in the music. There was something special about listening to your favorite albums. It felt like a closeness he wouldn’t ever get to experience any other way. Music said a lot about a person, and with every track, he felt like he was learning a little more about you.

Suddenly, a finger tapped his shoulder.

Bucky turned around, pulling the headphones down around his neck.

Standing behind him was a woman—and a remarkably pretty one at that—wearing a bright smile that instinctively put him on edge. She pointed to the silver turntable spinning in front of him.

“Fleetwood Mac?” she asked.

Bucky glanced from her to the album cover, his mind landing on the most logical conclusion. She must’ve been waiting for her turn.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, stepping aside. “After this song, I’ll be right out of your way.”

The woman let out a soft laugh, taking a small step closer to him.

“No, no, you’re fine! Keep listening.” She smiled. “I just couldn’t help but notice, you know? A guy who looks like you listening to Rumours? That’s a rare find these days.”

Bucky frowned, looking down at his worn leather jacket.

What was wrong with the way he looked?

She leaned against the edge of the counter, her eyelashes fluttering as she looked at him. “And honestly,” she drawled with a honeyed tone, “I find it kind of hot.”

Now, Bucky was just confused.

His brows furrowed into a tight knot as the words failed him. This wasn’t the first time he’d been hit on, and it was just another one of those moments where he had no idea what to say.

“The, uh…” He cleared his throat. “The record doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to my therapist. I’m only listening to it out of recommendation.”

He figured mentioning the word therapist would be enough to lose her interest, but the woman only smiled wider, and somehow that scared him.

“And you care about your mental health?” she said. “Gosh, you’re like a man straight out of every girl’s dream!”

He had no idea what to make of that. If this random woman thought he was hot, he wondered what you would think of his appearance.

She ran a hand through her hair and looked him up and down, making Bucky stiffen. Did his hair look weird?

“But hey, if you’re looking for other recommendations… I know a really great bar that makes the greatest cocktails just down the street. They have an open-play turntable with fancy speakers on Thursdays. I’d love to show you sometime.”

He knew he should accept the offer. He was being given the opportunity to put himself out there and make friends. This was what you would want him to do. This was good for him.

“I can’t,” he mumbled weakly. You idiot. “Sorry. I usually have… a, uh, thing on Thursdays with a friend, so—”

He started to scratch the back of his head, and she took the hint to back off.

Well, not entirely.

She pulled a notepad and a pencil out from her tote bag. Bucky had assumed that everyone did everything electronically these days. She started to jot down something, then tore the page off and handed it to him with a grin.

“If you ever change your mind, you know how to reach me.”

She turned and walked away before he got another word, and Bucky stood there with the headphones wrapped loosely around his neck with a dumbfounded expression. He glanced down at the piece of paper.

It was her phone number.

“You managed to get her phone number? That’s incredible!” You beamed in your chair, clasping your hands together with excitement. “How does that make you feel?”

You were more excited over this than he was, and he found himself smiling. It wasn't because the memory of getting that girl’s number was a huge boost to his ego, but because he liked seeing you smile. He always missed it during his week away from you.

“I felt flattered,” he answered truthfully. “I was surprised that any woman in this day and age would be interested in a guy like me.” He leaned back on the couch. “Though, it’s usually the men who pursue the women… not the other way around.”

“Well, times are changing, Bucky!”

Earlier in the session, he had encouraged you to use the nickname he was fond of—the one he reserved for the people closest to him. He didn’t know why he hadn’t suggested it sooner, because he was already in love with the way it rolled off your pretty lips.

Bucky made a face that made you chuckle. “Is that why she gave me her number on a piece of paper instead of making me hand my phone over?”

You grinned. “I guess some ladies like to keep it old-fashioned.”

He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his words from spilling out—words that were far too inappropriate to say as a patient to a therapist who was only there to keep his emotions in check.

“Do you like to keep it old-fashioned, too?”

And yet, the words spilled out anyway. If he wasn’t staying silent, then he was always saying something stupid instead.

The way you looked at him made him want to open up the couch and let it swallow him whole. You went from smiling to a flustered, awkward mess. You chuckled—trying to save face—as you scratched lightly at your cheek to ease the tension.

“Probably just like any other woman,” you managed. “I like to get wined and dined. There’s nothing more romantic than keeping it classy.”

Bucky’s eyes studied the way you sat so neatly in your chair, one leg crossed over the other, your skirt draping softly over your knees. Your nails were neatly manicured, and your makeup was light enough to let your natural beauty shine through, doing nothing more than enhancing what was already there.

He couldn’t help but think that someone like you deserved nothing less than a classic kind of love.

The kind that received flowers for no reason at all. The kind of man that held doors open for you, or put his palm respectfully over your waist during a slow waltz, and remembered every little thing you ever mentioned. The kind of love from a man that made you feel cherished every single day.

Bucky silently wondered if he could be that kind of man.

You cleared your throat, sitting up straight and dusting off your skirt. “Anyway, enough about me. This is about you.”

Bucky’s frown lines deepened. He didn’t want to change the subject—he wanted nothing more than to hear about you and your interests. But even then, a dark feeling began to stir deep in his gut over the thought of you being wined and dined by someone else.

You tilted your head, trying to engage him back into the conversation. “Have you spoken to her since?”

“No,” he answered, his gaze drifting down to check for a ring on your left hand.

“Why not?”

There was no ring.

Letting out a subtle breath of relief, he met your eyes again. “I just don’t see the need to.”

“Then open your eyes, Bucky. There are a lot of opportunities you miss out on if you continue to keep them closed.”

There was a selfish part of him that didn’t like the fact that you were trying to encourage him to talk to another girl. If he were to find out that a man had given you his phone number, Bucky would be entirely against it.

Fuck. What was wrong with him? He tried to push those thoughts aside—those silly, inappropriate thoughts about his own therapist.

He knew the session was nearing its end, so he thought he’d change the subject—but that was just his excuse to get you to stop encouraging him to go on a date with this random woman.

“What’s the album for this week, doc?” He asked.

You smiled. “Marvin Gaye.”

Bucky remembered the list of things his old friend Sam had told him to check out—though Sam probably wouldn’t consider him a friend anymore, given how Bucky had ghosted him. It was a long list, a couple of items even carried over from the notes Sam had given Steve years ago. Aside from emphasizing how great Thai food was, Sam had insisted that he absolutely needed to listen to Marvin Gaye.

Yet, despite all of Sam’s efforts, all it really took for Bucky to finally listen was a recommendation from you—the only woman he cared about.

Marvin Gaye’s voice filled his ears, and Bucky could finally understand why Sam had been so insistent about it.

If love was an emotion too complicated for him to grasp, the lyrics explained everything. The gentle beats danced in his ears, and sweet melodies about love, devotion, and longing wrapped around him. Before long, he found himself closing his eyes and picturing you.

He imagined the way you smiled, the way you laughed so easily around him, and the way you made him feel like living was a beautiful thing and not something you dread.

Whoever Marvin Gaye had been singing to in Let's Get It On must have been someone deeply cherished—someone longed for so intensely that the only way to express it was through music. It was everything Bucky wished he could say to you, if only he were allowed.

A soft smile tugged at his lips at the thought of you.

Of course you liked music like this. The kind you’d slow dance to in the middle of the living room, one hand intertwined with someone else’s. The kind that sounded like old-fashioned love brought to life.

His heart thrummed happily, his mind filled with giddy, hopeless thoughts.

He couldn’t wait until Wednesday morning, when he would see you again to talk all about it.

On Tuesday afternoon, his flip phone dinged with a notification from you.

Hi Bucky, I’m so sorry for the short notice, but something urgent has come up and I have to cancel our session tomorrow. I’ll reach out next week to reschedule. Take care!

Bucky stared at the message, his frown lines deepening.

Had something bad happened to you? Or had he scared you off with his question last week?

No. This is stupid, he told himself, trying to shake the sudden panic. There’s no point in dwelling on something like this. She’s just busy.

But as the hours ticked by, his mind began to spiral. He had nothing to look forward to for the rest of the week—just seven empty days without you. He stared at his phone, wondering how inappropriate it would be if he sent a simple, “Hey, how are you doing?” text to his own therapist.

He tried to push the thoughts away, but nothing he did could distract him. Frustrated and exhausted, Bucky decided to turn in early and end the day.

But as the sun went down and the moon rose, sleep brought him no peace. Instead of falling into a blissful rest, he was dragged straight back to his nightmares—except they weren’t like the ones before.

None of them were about his Hydra days or his past victims.

Every single nightmare was about you.

It was the most absolute terrifying fear of abandonment.

In the dream, he pushed open your office door, expecting to see the warm lights and your pretty smile. But the room was completely empty. The walls were cold, bare concrete, and your chair sat vacant in the center of the room. It didn’t look like the welcoming, colorful space with the warm string lights he knew—no, it looked more like the sterile Hydra rooms where he had been brainwashed over and over again.

He tried calling your name, but his words were stuck in his throat. He tried to scream, but it only strained his vocal cords, and nothing came out but a pathetic wheeze. He kept trying, over and over again, until he finally gasped hard enough to wake himself.

His eyes flew open as he bolted upright on the floor. His bare chest was drenched in sweat, his vibranium hand clutching the sheets so tightly the fabric threatened to tear.

He stared blindly into the dark corners of his empty apartment, his chest heaving. It took him a long time to realize it was just a dream, but the hollow feeling in his chest wouldn’t go away.

He just needed to see you.

“I think the saxophones were the best part,” Bucky praised Marvin Gaye with a gentle smile. “In Distant Lover, especially.”

“Excellent choice, Bucky. That one’s my favorite, too,” you returned the sentiment, leaning back in your chair. “So, tell me. Did you have any new, fun interactions at the music store again?”

Bucky shook his head. It hadn’t been interesting at all this past week—just seven days of solitude away from you.

“What about the girl who gave you her number?” You tilted your head. “Did you ever reach out to her?”

“God, no,” Bucky said with a huff of a laugh. “I actually ended up losing the paper. Pretty sure it went through the wash.”

You let out a soft gasp, placing a hand over your heart.

“Bucky! You threw away her phone number? Do you know how hard it is to get someone’s number the old-fashioned way these days?” A smile crept onto your face, matching the teasing look in your eyes. His favorite. “I’m guessing Marvin Gaye couldn’t convince you to be a little romantic, huh?”

Bucky looked down at his hands, both flesh and vibranium. He had stopped wearing gloves to his appointments. He fiddled with his fingers over his lap, looking almost sheepish.

“Guess I just haven’t found the right person,” he mumbled shyly.

“Sometimes it’s not about finding the right or wrong person. Just spending a few hours with someone can help you grow,” you explained. “If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.”

Bucky rose a brow.

You grinned. “A quote from Marvin Gaye.”

“What a sap,” he joked, and you chuckled.

You adjusted yourself in your chair, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear, and Bucky’s breath caught in his throat.

“You haven’t brought this up in recent sessions, but I’m curious to know—”

A ring. Nestled on your left ring finger.

“—are you still having nightmares?”

It was shiny. The diamond was a respectable size—as much as he hated to admit it.

“If you don’t feel comfortable talking about it, we don’t have to.”

You had been proposed to?

Was that why you had to cancel on him?

“I just thought… as your therapist, it was important for me to ask, to see if you’re actually getting better—”

While he was having nightmares about losing you, you were out getting proposed to. He hadn’t even known you were being courted.

The warmth that he only felt inside your room turned to ice so fast it was hard to breathe.

Your lips were still moving, your voice as gentle and professional as could be as you continued to speak, but Bucky couldn’t hear a single word. There was a loud ringing in his ears, drowning out everything else.

His eyes were helplessly glued to your left hand. Every time you moved, the silver band caught the sunlight streaming through your office window, throwing a tiny, mocking rainbow light over his lap.

It was cruel. Someone else had asked you for forever, and you had given it to them. While he had spent his Tuesday night twisting in his sheets, choking on a nightmare about losing you, you were already out in the world, building a life that didn’t include him. A life where he was just an hour on your Wednesday schedule. A stupid, court-mandated file.

He wanted to pull his eyes away. His vibranium fingers were twitching to pull his gloves back on. He wanted to collect his things, and his feelings, and leave the room without looking back at you. But he knew he had no right.

All he was was your patient.

He was nothing to you.

“Bucky?” you asked softly, carrying such genuine worry that only made his feelings that much more complicated.

When he didn’t move, you leaned forward. Slowly, giving him plenty of time to pull away if he wanted to, you reached across the small gap between your chair and the sofa and gently rested your hand over his. Your touch was light, full of professional respect, but the warmth of your skin seared right through him.

“Bucky? Are you okay?”

He flinched slightly, his eyes ripping away from the diamond to look up at your face. You looked so kind, so concerned for him. It nearly broke him right then and there.

He swallowed hard, forcing the massive lump down his throat as he tried to find his voice. He needed to lie. He needed to put the walls back up before he spilled every pathetic, selfish thought in his head.

“No,” he whispered, his voice rough and slightly cracked. He cleared his throat quickly, pulling his hand back just a little to break the contact, though his skin immediately missed your warmth.

“No. No nightmares, doc.”

Time had passed since he saw the ring, and every day felt like a countdown to the ticking time bomb in his heart, ready to explode.

The walls of his apartment felt lonelier and smaller than ever before. Night after night, he found himself sitting on the floor, his head buried in his hands as he let himself drown in panic. He always had pent up grief and anger from his past to wrestle with. Now, he had to contend with something else entirely—the longing for you that clawed relentlessly at his heart.

It was the kind of emotional turmoil he was supposed to share with his therapist, but how the hell was he supposed to tell you everything when it was all about you?

He couldn’t go to his sessions and look at that ring anymore. He couldn’t sit there pretending to be the patient who was supposed to be honest about his feelings when he couldn’t even tell you a fraction of the truth.

Then came a bright Tuesday morning, the day before his weekly Wednesday session.

Bucky wandered aimlessly down a quiet street, his jacket collar pulled high against the breeze, when he saw you.

You were standing outside a local flower shop beneath a green awning, leaning over a vibrant display of fresh blooms. Your eyes were closed as you bent down to smell them, a soft, peaceful expression resting on your face.

You were probably looking for flowers for your wedding. The thought twisted painfully in his chest.

As if sensing his gaze, your eyes slowly fluttered open and found him across the sidewalk.

A warm, familiar smile spread across your face—the same smile he had grown to love, and the very one that haunted his dreams. But because you were his therapist, you kept your distance. You didn’t wave or approach him, preserving that professional boundary and leaving the choice entirely up to him: acknowledge you, or walk away.

He had every opportunity to turn around.

He should. He should walk away and never look back. But as he looked at you standing there among the flowers, so close yet completely out of his reach, he felt his resolve begin to crumble.

He couldn’t keep living like this.

If he was ever going to accept himself—if he was ever going to trust his own heart, just as you had spent these sessions trying to teach him—then he had to face the truth.

Sooner or later, his footsteps brought him closer to you.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he said, trying to force himself to sound cheerful, but the effort failed.

“Yeah,” you breathed with a smile, gesturing to the blooms. “I’m just looking at some flowers for the wedding.”

Another knife to his heart. He felt his face ache from how hard he was trying to maintain his smile.

“They’re beautiful,” he complimented the flowers, despite his eyes being stuck on you.

“I know! There’s so many to choose from. It’s kind of overwhelming,” you chuckled with a hand over your mouth.

Bucky’s heart was hurting so bad in his chest. The longer he stood in front of you, the less he trusted himself.

“Your fiancée is a lucky man,” he said. Fuck. “I’m happy for you.”

You blinked at him, processing his words. It confused you, but what confused you even more was the solemn expression he wore on his face despite saying he was happy.

He looked like a can of worms that were threatening to open and spill all over your hands, like a bomb that was ready to tick off with one wrong move or one wrong breath.

“Bucky,” you frowned, adjusting your bag strap. “Is everything okay—”

“I… I don’t know what to do,” he cut in, his voice trembling with pent up feelings he couldn’t contain for a single second longer. “I’m having the nightmares again. Every single night. But they aren’t about Hydra anymore. They’re about you.”

You stood there, stunned.

“Bucky, what—what are you saying?”

“I have… I have all these thoughts about you,” Bucky confessed, the words pouring out of him like a broken dam, his blue eyes left entirely vulnerable. “Stupid, selfish thoughts. It’s making me crazy. I know I’m your patient. I know I have no right to feel like this—”

He pressed his lips together. He should stop. No. He needs to stop—but he can’t.

“But you taught me to trust myself, and right now, the only truth I have is—”

“Bucky, slow down—”

“—that I’m in love with you.”

With the way you were looking at him, he might have believed he was in a nightmare already.

“I… I—” you stammered, clutching your bag so tightly.

You were usually so confident with your words, always knowing the right things to say in the perfect tone. But now, your words failed you completely.

A patient? Falling for his therapist?

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say—” you tried for a lighthearted laugh, but it came out painfully awkward. “I’m sorry—but you don’t love me. Y—you’re just confused—”

“I’ve had a lot of doubts in my life,” he insisted on adding salt to the wound, stepping closer in the small hopes of reaching you. “I struggle to navigate my feelings—I know that. But my feelings for you—that is the one thing I don't doubt.”

The look on your face was so solemn, so melancholy, yet you were still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

In no world would it ever be appropriate for a patient to fall in love with their therapist.

He knew what was coming next. He knew full well the consequences of confessing his feelings—of saying something stupid to the one woman he shouldn’t.

But he loved you so much, and as a result, he had to let you go.

“I’m so sorry, James.”

“Let’s hope you don’t fall in love with me next,” Dr. Raynor tried to joke in that flat, sarcastic tone of hers. Bucky didn’t even smile.

She jotted something down in her notebook, and the scratching of her pen made him deeply uncomfortable.

It was cruel, really. The moment the board found out he had fallen in love with his therapist, they stripped him away from the one person he actually cared about. Now, they had paired him up with a much older, entirely unenthusiastic replacement. It was a complete joke.

“Since then, have you tried reaching out to other people?” Dr. Raynor asked.

Bucky sat perfectly still on the sofa, his expression blank. “I… have.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “James, I’ve done this long enough to know when a person is lying. You hesitated.”

“You’re a cynic. I don’t know what you want me to do, doc—”

She clicked her pen with a sigh and started scribbling, making Bucky’s eyebrow twitch.

“Okay, fine. I haven’t reached out to anyone,” he admitted in defeat. “I know I should talk to Sam, but… I don’t know. It’s hard.”

“Have you tried reaching out to him?”

“No.”

“Has he tried reaching out to you?”

Bucky stayed quiet, and Dr. Raynor’s patience wore thin. “Let me see your phone.”

Bucky knew there was no point in fighting her on this. With a reluctant sigh, he shifted his weight to dig into the back pocket of his jeans and handed over his brick of a flip phone.

Dr. Raynor took it and began clicking through. “Several missed text messages from Sam, spanning back months. James, what are you doing?”

Bucky’s jaw clenched as he turned to stare out the window. Dr. Raynor’s office was completely different from yours. It lacked all the welcoming colors your walls had. There were no string lights, no carpet with silly designs he could get lost in, and most of all—there was no music.

Dr. Raynor tossed the flip phone back to him, and he caught it effortlessly.

“You’re punishing yourself,” she pointed out blatantly.

Bucky didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes down to his phone, his gloved thumb swiping over the screen. “I’m not punishing myself, doc. I’m doing myself a favor.”

“Bullshit, James,” she snapped, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees to force him into her line of sight. “Look at me.”

Reluctantly, his gaze lifted up to her.

“I know what happened with your previous therapist. I read the file,” Dr. Raynor said, using that same tough love of a tone that only made Bucky feel like a child being lectured. “And I know it hurts. I know it feels like the universe threw you a bone, let you feel something real, and then ripped it away just to remind you of who you used to be. But isolating yourself in this empty apartment, cutting off Sam, drowning in your own head—that is the worst goddamn punishment you could possibly inflict on yourself.”

Bucky’s jaw tightened so hard, a muscle ached. “I cross lines when I feel things. I get confused. It feels safer like this.”

“No, you’re just a coward,” Raynor said, unfazed by the hardness in his eyes. “You allowed yourself to feel human for a minute, James. You fell in love. Was it appropriate given the circumstances? No. But it proved that the Winter Soldier didn’t kill the man inside. Now you're treating a normal, heartbreaking human experience like it’s a… a Hydra relapse.”

Bucky made a face.

For a therapist, Raynor was terrible with her allegories.

“Solitude isn’t keeping you safe. It’s just a slow suicide. You want to honor what she taught you? Stop. Hiding. In. The. Dark.”

Raynor checked her watch, clicked her pen one final time, and stood up.

“Our time is up. Call your friend.”

After his session, Bucky found himself walking through a nearby park just a few steps away from his apartment.

Children were running around together. Families were eating on picnic blankets. Couples walked hand in hand. And funny enough, there was even a couple getting engaged just a few feet away from him, surrounded by friends laughing and cheering.

He finally found an empty bench to sit on and pulled out his phone, desperate for a distraction.

Bucky couldn’t remember how many times he had brought Sam up to you in your previous sessions. Every single time, you had encouraged him to talk to him. At the time, Bucky had you—he hadn’t seen the need to reach out to anyone else for friendship when he already had you.

But now that you were gone…

With a sigh, he pressed the phone to his ear and let it ring.

“Sam Wilson. Who’s this?”

Bucky’s throat suddenly felt like it was coated in sand. “Sam.”

There was a dead silence on the other end. Bucky shut his eyes, waiting for Sam to hang up on him. He deserved it after having the audacity to call after nearly a year of silence.

“… Bucky?” Sam’s voice came out breathy and surprised. “Man, I—wow. Are you alright? Why are you calling?”

Bucky winced. He knew Sam probably didn’t mean for it to sound accusatory—or maybe he did. Either way, he had earned it.

Bucky swallowed the lump in his throat, his eyes drifting up to the sky. He inhaled deeply, letting the fresh air in. He thought of the warm string lights, the colorful walls, the beautiful laugh and the gentle advice of the woman he had been forced to leave behind.

Sam sounds like a wonderful person, you had told him once. You should talk to him. You need someone like that in your life.

He was going to try.

For you, he was going to try.

“Yeah. Uh. I just wanted to tell you, I finally listened to Marvin Gaye. Think you got some time this week to catch up?”

There was another pause, long enough to make Bucky’s anxiety spike. Until finally…

“Marvin Gaye, huh? You know, I thought you’d never ask.” Sam said with a light laugh that made Bucky feel a little less tense. “And I don’t want to hear a single thought about it unless we’re talking over a couple of beers. How does Friday sound?”

For the first time in what felt like ages, Bucky genuinely smiled.

“Yeah, okay. Sure.”

It still hurt, knowing that he didn’t have you to look forward to anymore. He had messed up the one good thing he’d had going for him since Hydra—but he had allowed himself to feel. To fall in love. To open his heart to someone else, even if it hadn’t been the right person.

He had to learn to move on. Marvin Gaye was a sap, a man who sang of fantasies entirely out of reach for someone like Bucky. But the man was right.

“It’s good to hear you again, Sam.”

If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.

“It’s good to hear you too, Buck.”

me when i might say something stupid (but the fic is actually buns so this entire fic is just me saying something stupid) i've always wanted to write a tfatws!bucky healing fic of some sort, and what better way to do that than by making the reader his therapist, someone he hopelessly falls in love with which actually plummets his mental health even further! thank you to @houseofhyde and @iamthatonefangirl for beta-reading ily guys

if you've made it this far, i hope you enjoyed, and thank you so much for reading! while you're here, might i suggest taking the opportunity to check out the rest of the bwat summer masterlist that this fic is part of here!

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you couldn't stay in your apartment, you were going to lose your mind if you did.

you needed to talk to the one person who truly understood. someone who understood him.

you grabbed your coat, slipped out into the wet metropolis streets, and hailed a cab and gave the driver lois lane’s address.

you and lois had become incredibly close over the past year. you had joined the planet as a features writer a couple of years after clark and lois had officially ended their relationship.

because they were long broken up, there was no awkwardness... lois had taken you under her wing, becoming your mentor, your loudest cheerleader in the bullpen, and your closest friend.

by the time the cab pulled up to lois’s apartment building, you were blinking back furious, hurt tears. you took the elevator up, practically throwing yourself at her front door and knocking aggressively.

you heard footsteps inside, the lock clicked, and the door swung open.

lois stood there, dressed in a comfortable oversized sweater, a half empty glass of red wine in her hand. "y/n? what are you doing here? it's pouring-"

"i can't do it anymore, lois," you burst out, the words tumbling out of you in a sobbing rush before she could even invite you inside. you stepped past her into the entryway, too consumed by your own heartbreak to notice her sudden, tense posture.

"he canceled again," you cried, hugging your wet jacket tighter on you, shivering. "it’s always the same excuse. 'something came up at the office,' 'a late breaking lead.' i know he cares about his work, but i feel like a ghost in my own relationship! i'm sick of being the one who always gets left behind. i'm sick of competing with a job, and honestly... sometimes i feel like i'm competing with you."

you finally paused to catch your breath, wiping a tear from your cheek. "i just really needed a friend tonight. can i please just crash on your couch?"

usually by now lois would've said something, she would've made a joke or immediately handed you tissues or started calling clark an idiot, but there was nothing... no response.

"lois..?" your eyebrows pulled in.

"what?" she asked, her voice a little too high.

"why are you looking at me like that?"

"...like what?" lois muttered, she gripped the stem of her wine glass so tightly you thought the glass might shatter right in her hand.

"like..." you frowned harder. "like something's wrong."

"no, nothing's wrong."

but her eyes weren't on you, they were staring straight past your shoulder at the hall behind you.

"lois?" you whispered, stepping further into the hall. "is someone here? did i interrupt a date? i'm so sorry, i should have called-"

"no! no, wait.. " Lois reached out, her hand catching your wet sleeve, but she was a second too late.

you walked through the short hall and into the living room, the words of apology dying on your tongue.

a figure stepped into the dim light of the living room, drying his hair with a towel. he was wearing a gray t-shirt and sweatpants.. home clothes. comfort clothes.

he didn't have his glasses on. and as he looked up, his bright blue eyes met yours, freezing him entirely in his tracks.

it was Clark.

the towel slipped from his hand, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud.

“something came up at the planet, sweetie. a breaking story. i'm so, so sorry.”

the words of his text message flashed in your mind, your eyes darted from clark’s damp hair, to his relaxed clothes, to the second glass of wine sitting on lois's coffee table, and finally back to lois, who was now looking down at the floor, unable to meet your gaze.

"baby," clark breathed, his voice entirely stripped of its usual warmth. he took a panicked step forward, his hands reaching out instinctively. "baby, wait. It’s... it’s not what you think."

the sheer cliché of the phrase made a hysterical, breathless laugh bubble up in your throat. "not what i think? clark, you texted me an hour ago saying you were stuck at your desk. you’ve canceled our last three dates because of 'deadlines.' and you’re here? in your sweats?"

"you canceled on me," you said, your voice barely a whisper, "for three weeks, you’ve been too busy. you were too busy tonight. to have dinner with me. in our apartment."

"we were talking," lois interjected quickly, her voice trembling. she stepped between you and clark, trying desperately to play defense, to be the fixer. "just talking. he was stressed, he came over to vent about a case, and he got caught in the storm. i told him to dry off. that's it. I swear to you, that's all this is."

"and you couldn't tell me that?" you looked at lois, the tears you had been fighting finally falling. " i came here crying because i felt invisible in my own relationship, and you let me walk through that door knowing he was in your bedroom?"

"sweetheart, no," Clark choked out, stepping closer. "please. i love you. i would never- "

"don't call me that," you snapped, anger finally bursting through the sadness. a single, hot tear spilled over your cheek. you looked at lois, the woman you had trusted with your insecurities, the mentor you practically worshiped.

"i thought you were my friend. i thought you were the one person who understood how hard it was to love him."

a terrible, suffocating realization washed over you. lois did understand. she understood perfectly. because she hadn't actually let him go. and he hadn't let go of her. you were just a temporary detour in their romance.

"please, let me explain," clark pleaded, taking another step forward, his hands raised in defense. "lois is right. it’s not a date. i didn't plan this. it’s just… things have been so heavy lately, and i didn't want to bring that stress home to you."

the words left his mouth, and a suffocating silence fell over the room.

you stared at him, your breath hitching as you inhaled. "you didn't want to bring it home to me?" you muttered. "so you brought it to your ex girlfriend instead?"

"no, that's not what I meant...."

"you lied to me," you said. "you told me you were working. you told there was a breaking story, but the truth is you just didn't want to be around me. you left me sitting alone at a table with dinner i spent hours cooking, because you'd rather vent to lois?"

"listen to me," clark rushed out, his voice cracking as he scrambled to fix the damage, only to dig the hole deeper. "you don't understand the pressure I'm under. lois just... she already knows everything about my life.... she knows how i think. with her, i don't have to explain myself or ease into things. it’s just easier."

it’s just easier.

you let out a laugh. "easier," you repeated, backing away from him until your spine hit the wall of the hallway. "right. because i'm work. i'm the person you have to try for, and she's the one you actually want to unwind with."

"no! sweetie, please, no," clark choked out, looking completely undone. he reached for your arm, his touch gentle, but you yanked yourself away.

"don't touch me," you snapped again.

you gripped the fabric of your wet coat, looking at clark one last time. "have a nice night at the office, clark." you scoffed, turning around.

"sweetheart, please," clark begged, his voice breaking, "let's go home. let's just go back to the apartment and talk about this. please." he said as he made a move to follow you.

"if you come near me, clark, i swear to god i will never speak to you again," you spat, your voice harsh, that actually made him freeze in his tracks.

You have to wipe the look off your face. I mean, whose voice sounds like that? All kind and dripping with sweetness. You don’t trust Clark Kent as far as you could throw him and God knows you weren’t moving that well-toned body of his, how much did he work out and that bone structure, I mean– “What, Clark?” You know you sound snippy because he looks like a kicked puppy. Well, actually, he always looks like that around you. 

Clark’s glasses sit on the edge of his nose, he pushes them up as he speaks, “Oh, um, sorry to bother you.” His desk chair scoots over from his desk over to yours. A common occurrence. Jimmy and Lois would share a glance over it, you’re sure. “I was just wondering if you’d read over my latest piece. The new one about Superman.” He’s got that look on his face. Is he trying to impress you or shove it in your face? Everyone would kill for an interview with Superman, but of course, Clark Kent is the only one to secure them. 

You roll your eyes. You can’t help it. “Clark, I’m sure it’s great. I’m sure it’ll be on the front page like the last four articles you wrote about him.” You turn your attention back to your computer, not wanting to continue the conversation. 

“Oh, really? You think so?” It typically takes a few more sassy replies from you to get him to retreat back to his desk, but not this time. This was Clark Kent who only ever takes your words at face value. Clark Kent who can’t seem to pick up on the fact you’re annoyed with him, always. Clark Kent who won’t stop till every person at the Daily Planet at least tolerates him. 

“You bet, Clarkie.” Your voice is laced with faux sweetness, but Clark turns away with a smile on his face, his posture straighter than before, desk chair wheels sliding back the way he came from.

Clark would annoy you more if it wasn’t for the little way your heart flipped when he came through the door every morning. But that part of you was never your brain talking, hell, it probably wasn’t even your heart. You swore off the men of Metropolis a long time ago. Relationships were always too complicated and men more so. You have been hurt too many times. They all started off strong. Kind, gentlemen-like, and a little too good to be true. More likely than not, Clark Kent was the same. He wanted one thing and once he got it? No more doors opened before you had a chance to look up. No more take-out containers appearing during the nights when you had to make a deadline. Not to mention you worked together. You couldn’t handle ruining the one place you actually loved. And for what? Clark Kent? Even if it was real, he is too sweet. He probably helps old ladies cross the street and the only thing you ever knew was tumultuous relationships. 

You would throw your hands against the desk if you didn’t want to draw so much attention to yourself. He always had a way of worming himself into your brain. He didn’t even have to try very hard. His smile lit up rooms. He was so tall and broad yet he tried to shrink so as not to take up so much space. You could kill him, you think. 

It was clear to Lois and Jimmy that Clark has a crush on you. It was the most obvious thing on the planet. Clark was nice. The whole act you assumed was for the purpose of getting things out of others was simply how he was. He was a gentleman from Kansas, always taught to do the right thing from Ma and Pa. But it was different with you. He was even more nervous than usual. Clark went out of his way to make sure you were comfortable, that you were seen. If you rubbed at your temples too much, an Advil would appear on your desk. If you yawn a little more than usual, a cup of coffee prepared just the way you like. He never needed the credit for it either. Just did it because he knew it was the right thing to do for someone you admired.

You picked up on it. You weren’t blind. “I mean, he does that for everyone, doesn’t he?” You had asked Lois last week. 

Her eyebrows raised. “I mean, no. If I ask, sure, Clark is happy to get me a cup of coffee from the break room. For you? He’ll go to that place down the street.” She had a knowing look on her face. More often than not, you had been going back to Clark as a topic of conversation. In the past, you brushed him off. 

You sighed, picking at the skin around your fingers. “Well, if anything, he just wants to get in my pants.” You had seen it before. Hell, the last intern the Daily Planet hired had tried it too, but once he realized you weren’t interested, the pleasantries had stopped. That hasn’t happened with Clark, not yet anyway. “Right?” You looked at Lois again. 

“Sure and settle down with you in Kansas somewhere and give you a handful of kids and wait on your hand and foot or whatever floats your boat.” She shrugged. She wasn’t going to waste more of her breath trying to convince you that Clark was one of the good ones. You had to figure that out on your own and your mind was surely set on staying away. And she sure as hell wasn’t gonna go out of her way to vet him for you, at least not for a little while longer. I mean, she had her $50 bucks put on the fact it would take longer than six months for you guys to go on a date. Jimmy on the other hand was convinced it would take less than six months. She was right on the cusp of winning, you just had to hold out a little while longer. Lois can't let Jimmy Olsen win a bet. “But, really, you’re probably right. I mean no man is that perfect.” She emphasized, glancing over at Clark. 

That was a week ago. Now, your restraint seems to be thinning more and more every day that you catch a glimpse of him in that white button down, his glasses hanging close to the tip of his nose. You had managed to finish the day off still mildly annoyed at him, though. I mean, push up your glasses for God's sake.

Clark, on the other hand is making eye contact with Jimmy, shaking his head vehemently as Jimmy gestures over to you, mouthing, “Come on, man. Ask her out!” Clark is nervous. He didn’t want to ruin anything between you, but it was getting harder for him to ignore the ache in his chest. He glances over at your desk, noticing that you're packing your bag for the night. Oh gosh, is he about to do this? 

Jimmy throws a fist up in the air signaling triumph as Clark scrambles out of his chair, stuttering over his words, “Oh, hey, wait, let me grab that for you.” He reaches your desk, scooping your bag over his shoulder as he smiles. “You know, we, uh, walk the same way.” 

You shrug. “Okay.” It was a long day. He was strong and capable. He could carry your bag a few blocks. He’s quick to grab the door before you can, push the elevator button, and follow you to the street. 

“How was your day?” He asks, genuinely curious. He’s only stalling a little on asking you on a date. I mean, would you say yes? Were you set on being friends? Friendly co-workers? He knew he wanted more than that and Ma always said it was better to just take a chance. 

“Honestly? It kind of sucked. Perry was on my ass, sending me email after email when I sent in my draft for Sunday. I just– I worry I’m not always picking up the slack. Like, that I’m not good enough to be here.” You sigh, glancing up at Clark as you walk. Where the hell did that come from? But you knew. Clark was always easy to talk to. He had a way about him that sort of eased the ache in your chest. 

The frown on his face is genuine. “Oh, come on, you know that’s not true.” His brows are furrowed, his grip tightening on your bag. “You’re one of the best writers I know.” He clears his throat, his admiration as clear as day. “Plus, Perry was just in one of his moods. It had nothing to do with you. In fact, it might’ve been my fault.” He’s sheepish when he says it. 

Your mouth drops open. “What? Clark Kent, golden boy? Perry upset with you?” You bump into his side as you walk, teasing him. Conversation flows easy between Clark and you. As much as you hated to admit it at times. 

Your building looms in the distance. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to get a taste of Clark Kent. It had been awhile since you had any romantic prospects. Maybe it didn’t have to be so life or death for you. Maybe it could just be fun. It could even be nice after the day you had. 

Your footsteps slow down as you reach the front door of your building, your body turning to face Clark. His eyes stare down into your own. He swallows. Does he know what you’re about to ask?

“Do you want to come up?” 

“Can I take you out on a date?”

You both stutter over your next sentences. “Oh– Well.” 

“Yes.” You say at the same time, a matching grin on both of your faces. 

—- 

What were you doing? Maybe you didn’t quite think this through, you think as your front door clicks shut. 

“Oh, you can just, uh,” You grab your bag from Clark’s shoulder, dumping it off on your coffee table as you take in the state of your apartment. It wasn’t that bad. After taking a quick inventory, you turn back to Clark, finding him with a goofy smile on his face. As much as you wish it wasn’t, it was contagious. “Stop smiling like that.” You can’t help the way a smile tugs at your own lips looking at him. 

His fingers push the bridge of his glasses up his nose, a chuckle falling from his lips. He’s got a blush dusting his cheeks, has he always been this cute? “I just can’t believe you said yes to a date. I mean, and now I’m in your apartment and it’s just–” 

You close the space you made, stopping his rambling as you stare up at his face. I mean you invited him up for a reason, right? You might as well take the chance while you have him here. You could do this despite your heart wanting to jump out of your chest and into his. You stand on your tip-toes, leaning into him. “Come on, Clark, kiss me.” Here you were, taking the chance. God, that stupid button up and your stupid feelings. 

He really doesn’t have to be told twice. Clark’s hand comes up to cup the side of your face, leaning in and connecting your lips together. Oh, fuck. Your lips move in sync, your eyes closing as you melt into his touch. He is so big, so tall, and all consuming as he deepens the kiss. His nose nudges against your own as he tries to get as close as possible to you. A small groan escapes his lips as he pushes your bodies together, a hand on the small of your back. “I, uh, ‘msorry.” He mumbles against your lips before pulling back and resting his forehead against yours. Clark, ever the gentleman, worrying he’s taken it too far. “I’ve wanted to do that forever, didn’t know if you’d ever ask.” 

A small laugh escapes your lips, already feeling drunk from the feeling of his lips against yours. “Not sure I was ever going to ask.” You peck his lips, sliding your hands across his chest. “But maybe I finally lost my senses.” 

“Oh, yeah?” He can’t wipe the smile off his face as his hands glide over your shoulders to slide down to hold at your waist. “Can I kiss you again?” His hands give your hips a gentle squeeze before he sees your nod and dives back in and this time, it feels even more consuming than the last. Your hands can’t stop exploring the expanse of his chest, his back, the hardness of him, his biceps and the softness too, the way his biceps flex when his arms move to pull you closer. Your hand finds his as you continue to kiss. You pull away from his lips as you begin to tug him towards the couch. 

Clark is quick to sit down and pull you onto him. He isn’t sure how he waited this long to kiss you, to touch you. The world before seems foreign to him now. Have you always been this soft? This beautiful? His hands are moving over your body, squeezing your plush hips in his hands as his lips work down your neck. “I still want to take you out, okay?” He reassures you. His fingers tease at the edge of your shirt, pushing it up an inch just to get a taste of your skin. His fingertips tickle at the bare skin of your tummy; it makes you shiver. You can barely think. “I, uh, I’ve wanted to ask you out for so long.” Every word is punctuated with a kiss as he moves all over your neck, your throat, back to your face: your lips, your cheeks, nuzzling you now that he’s allowed to. “Is this okay?” His fingers are skating at the edge of your shirt, the heat they leave in their wake is enough to make you shiver. You nod. 

Clark shakes his head, fingers desperately gripping at your waist again. “No, I need to hear you say it.” His forehead is pressed against yours, wondering how the hell he ended up here. Maybe he’s dreaming. “Please.” 

You nod again, “Yes, please. Touch me.” Your thighs are straddling his lap as your hips subconsciously grind down against him as you give him your answer. He’s hard underneath you. You swallow. Sure, you knew what you invited him up here for, but you didn’t expect the way heat pooled in your stomach, the way his lips felt against yours. It was electric. You didn’t think you had wanted someone so bad from a kiss before. Didn’t think you’d ever want Clark Kent like this. Clark Kent with his curls disheveled from your hands, his pupils blown out underneath his glasses, the few buttons of his shirt undone, the expanse of his chest peeking out from underneath. You could come from that sight alone.

Clark’s hands tease underneath your shirt, squeezing and touching over all the skin he can reach before he’s pushing a hand underneath your bra and taking your mouth with his again. He can’t help the groan that escapes as he grinds up against you, the feeling of your bare skin making him come undone. “Ah– I,” Clark’s head falls back against the couch as you press down against him, creating a pace against the hard-on in his pants. “I, I don’t do this, usually.” He wants to elaborate, wants to tell you he really does prefer a first date because he wants to earn this, earn you, but he can’t get much else out as he watches you on top of him. 

“Uh-huh.” You're lost in the feeling of dry humping with him, throat tight. Your pussy aches every time his clothed cock rubs just right. You can only imagine how big, how girthy he is if he feels this way through his pants. Your hands are gripping at his shoulders as you rut against him, his hands still kneading your breasts. 

His hands are pulling your top over your head, undoing your bra so he can get at more of your skin with his hands and his mouth. He takes extra care to make sure no piece of your skin goes untouched.

“Come on, Clarkie, please.” You beg, the usual teasing nickname slipping out without a thought, wanting to feel his hands where you really need them. It seems to work as his large hand slips underneath your pants, fingers swiping down to feel your heat through your underwear. He can feel the wetness seeping through your panties. His fingers tease, paying attention to your clit, giving it an experimental rub through the cloth to see your reaction. Your hips buck, losing whatever rhythm they might have had as you cry out. It’s been awhile and you’re so sensitive, you go to explain just as his fingers shove the cloth aside and touch with no barrier. “Ah, oh, fuck.” Your hips stutter again, his fingers slipping toward your entrance. 

“Oh, wow, honey.” He breathes out, mouth kissing at your chest as his fingers tease at your slick entrance. His fingers swipe through your folds before sinking in a single finger. He barely has to push in before you sink down onto it fully without a second thought. You’re so wet, a second finger slides in as easily as the first, he can feel the way your pussy throbs at the intrusion. “Feel good?” He cuts through your foggy mind, his fingers sloppily moving in and out as his mouth returns to claim yours. You give a slight nod, lost in the feeling. “You still gonna let me take you out?” His thumb joins in, lightly rubbing at your clit. 

“Yes, you can take me out on a stupid date.” You push your lips harder against his, moving your hips against his hand, the sound of his fingers fucking into your slick heat fills the room. The feeling in your stomach tightens, close to release. Of course you’ll go out with him especially if his fingers feel this good. Oh gosh, if his fingers feel like this, what will his cock feel like? 

Clark’s fingers keep nudging at your clit, his fingers inside of you feeling over that spongy part, petting, coaxing. He is keeping a steady rhythm as he tunes into the sound of your breathing, the steady thump of your heart. Every time he senses a slight stutter, he keeps the steady rhythm going. His eyes rake over your body, his other hand holding your hips in place the more they want to rut against him. He can’t focus like that. His cock is throbbing in his pants, but he thinks he could cum just watching you like this. With his senses so in tune with yours. “You gonna come, baby?” A kiss presses to your neck, “You gonna come on my fingers?” You choke on your words, your pussy tightening with the feeling in your stomach. It’s about to snap every time he speaks. “Let me see it,” He begs, somehow his voice sounds nearly as wrecked as you feel, “Please.” Clark’s voice cracks, holding you to his chest just as the band in your stomach snaps. You fall forward, gripping at his clothed chest. 

“Ah, ah, ah, fuck, Clark.” You gasp, his fingers slowing down their assault, but working you through your orgasm till your body twitches and your hand shoves at his wrist, “Ha, Clark, quit.” You breathe, hiding your face in his neck. His fingers slowly leave your panties, not too fast. He can tell how sensitive you’re feeling. He wants to laugh, but only from the sense of happiness building in his chest. 

“Good?” His voice is hoarse, deeper than usual. One hand slides to your back, rubbing small circles. 

You nod sleepily. “God. Great, Clark.” Your voice is breathless. Even after your orgasm, you aren’t unaware of his cock still pressing into your clothed core. You aren’t unaware of how big it feels. You aren’t unaware of the ache still in your pussy, needing him to really fill it. You’re still sensitive, but your body is still curious as your core makes another swipe over his lap, testing, teasing.

His hands are quick to grab at your waist, holding you still. “Ah, ah, I–.” He laughs, head dropping back to the couch as he stares up at your face, glasses crooked. A small, knowing grin adorns your face. God, did you get prettier? “I, uh–” He glances at the clock on your wall. He had plans. Superman duties. And he really does want to take you out first. His cock twitches. You can see the inner battle on his face. Was this Kansas boy serious? He really did want to take you out? “I have to go and I really do want to take you out first.” He’s sheepish as he says it, a light blush dusting his cheeks. As if it’s something to be embarrassed about. As if he didn’t make your heart squeeze and give you the best orgasm you’ve had in months. 

“You mean it?” You tease, your lips press a small kiss to the side of his mouth. 

Clark nods, those matching grins adorning your faces again. “I mean it.” 

— 

6:00 PM. Saturday. 

The click of shoes against hard wood. Again. Again. Pacing. A glance at the clock. A glance at the calendar. 

6:30 PM. Saturday. 

A sigh, shoes dropping to the hard wood. You slump on the couch, glancing at the last texts you exchanged with Clark this morning. 

pick you up at 6 pm on the dot :) 

Clark was rarely late and when he was, he made up for it. You try to remember that. 

7:00PM. Saturday. 

You fight the urge to text him. Is he okay? Surely he wouldn’t stand you up. That would be silly.

7:30PM. Saturday.

Would it? 

9:20PM. Saturday.

No, not silly. No text and a no show. You want to text Lois, ask if she wants to go out to the bar. I mean, you got ready and for what? But your heart actually breaks a little. A little told you so to yourself. I mean, he couldn’t even close the deal so what did he really get out of it? You grumble, sinking into the couch. Stupid feelings and stupid chances. How are you supposed to face him on Monday? Maybe that’s on him. Maybe he can deal with the death glares you stare into the back of his head now. Did he do this on purpose? Did he know you really did not want to fall for his stupid little act and somehow got you to anyway? 

“Ugh.” You throw your phone onto the cushion beside you, heading falling back just as a knock startles you in the silence. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

You’re quick to rise from your spot on the couch, even quicker to rip the door open. You can’t even speak before Clark is apologizing. “I am so, so, so, sorry.” His eyes meet yours as soon as you open the door, the kicked puppy look is on full blast. “Please, don’t shut the door.” He begs, one hand extending to you, the other holding a bouquet of flowers. 

“Are you serious, Clark?” You want to scream, but your voice is low. Lethal. 

His eyes plead with you. “I got caught up in, in, — I mean, have you seen the news? I was on the other side of the city and there was an attack, I mean it was just like the one from a few months ago, you remember the one, right?” He’s rambling, he knows it. He means it. He wouldn’t have missed your date unless he had good reason. It’s not like he has to tell you his secret, not after one missed date. “There was this huge explosion and all the transit had to stop, and, you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” He saves himself the embarrassment and stops talking as you pull out your phone and see the news. 

Okay, so you spent 3 hours sulking around the house without checking the news. Is that on you or him? And God, Clark probably stuck around to help cats out of trees and old ladies under rubble. You’re almost sure of it. “Oh.” You say dumbly, looking back up at him before your eyes narrow. “No text? Not even one?”

He shrugs, that sheepish look on his face as he holds up his phone, the screen black. “No battery.” 

You roll your eyes, tugging him into your apartment. “Okay, fine. You’re forgiven.” You point a finger at him, poking at his chest. “For now.” 

— 

So you reschedule for next weekend. This time, there’s even less pressure on it. You had planned a dinner and movie at your place. There were too many deadlines lately at work this week and you hadn’t wanted to go out. Clark agrees with the promise that he’ll take you out somewhere really nice once work isn’t as stressful. Not even a first date down and he’s already planning the other ones. Quite sure of himself, you think, as you finish getting ready. 

You had already ordered the pizza and he was due to be at your apartment in about 15 minutes. 

It’s starting to feel like a repeat of your first plans when 30 minutes go by and the pizza begins to grow cold on the table. You played it safe this time too and let the news play while you waited. Just in case.

You want to cry when another hour goes by. How did you let yourself get your hopes again? You sit on the couch and let it happen. There’s no use pretending that your heart wasn’t feeling the way it was. You liked Clark. Like really liked him. You liked the stupid way he wrote your name on the coffee cups with the stupid smiley faces and you liked the way his eyes searched for you in the morning at work, you liked the way he texted you his stupid thoughts and dumb fun facts. He was genuine and goofy. Like stupidly so. But he was also opinionated and never afraid to stand up for what was right. You liked the way his hands would linger on your back when he held the door open for you, you liked the way he started sneaking kisses on the elevator at work. 

You hope he shows up at the door still. You hate yourself for it, too. There was a reason you didn’t want to get your hopes up about Clark Kent because you would be stupidly in love if you did. 

You fall asleep on the couch crying yourself to sleep. No fist knocking against wood wakes you up. 

The sun rises another day. 

– 

Can we talk?

You want to throw your phone across the room. Can we talk? Really? He wants to stand you up and thinks you can’t take the hint? Now he wants to break it off in person? I mean, what was there to even break off? You’ve only been seeing each other for a week, if you can even call it that. There was no date. Just secret kisses, secret touches in the elevator and the copy room and the stairwell and– you groan, unsure of what to even say. Did you owe it to yourself to see him again? To tell him off? 

ok. u can come over in an hour 

– 

Maybe you’ve shot yourself in the foot. As Clark sits across from you on the couch, you lose all the fight you once had. You’re just sad. Because Clark Kent is perfect in nearly every way except he can’t show up to a date on time to save his life. 

He’s nervous. You have no idea why he’s nervous considering he already did the hard part and stood you up twice. No better way to tell a girl that you’re not really interested. “I, um–” He clears his throat, avoiding eye contact. 

How do you tell the girl you like that you're Superman? Clark wishes he could bring out his phone, bring up the notes app he had jotted ideas down on. The words came easier to him in writing. There was no easy way to get this out. Clark Kent had no excuse for missing his dates with you. Superman did. How does he separate the two? How did he ever believe he could? How selfish could he be? There was a reason he didn’t date. But it was different when it came to you. He felt like he could be himself, as much as himself as he could be without really telling you about Superman. Did this have to be so convoluted? He trusted you. He knew you had integrity. He knew this wouldn’t change a thing, but bring more understanding between the two of you. He knew if he told you, this could really happen. Everything might fall into place. 

The real selfish thing was not allowing Clark Kent to love. He owed it to himself to let love in. What else was there? The most human thing of all. 

“This isn’t easy for me.” He clears his throat finally looking up at you. He wants to reach across the couch, take your hand in his, pour his heart out. But he doesn’t deserve that. Not yet. “I, uh, don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

You roll your eyes. “Just spit it out, Clark.” There’s a venom in your voice that breaks his heart, “I expected this. I mean, really? I should’ve known it was all an act.”

Clark frowns. “That’s really what you think of me?” His emotions seem to be getting the best of him. He knows you don’t mean it. You’re hurt. He’s hurt you.

“I mean, really? How else do you explain this?” You move your hands around the air between the two of you. “You wanted a little secret, office romance or whatever. I don’t know!” You’re exasperated. “You don’t want the, like, real thing.” You frown. “It’s fine. Just stop dragging it out.” You can feel the tears sting at your eyes. 

“That’s not at all what this means to me.” He looks at his hands, wrings them together. “You- I, –” He runs a hand over his face. “You remember when I missed the first date we had?” Clark makes eye contact with you again, watches you nod, watches the first tear drop. “I wasn’t just caught in the middle of all of that, I mean, I was. But not in the way you think.” He swallows, brings his hands up to his face. “I was– I am–” He rips the glasses off his face, watching recognition dawn on your face. 

“Clark.” You are at a loss for words. “I mean, what?” Your hands reach forward to grip his face in yours, thumbs sliding across his cheeks. He’s your Clark, but he’s Superman. The man from work who had driven you up the wall from how perfect he had this act down. The man who was respectful to a fault. The man whose values were worn on his chest and his heart on his sleeve. The man you knew as Clark Kent makes so much sense now like two pieces of a puzzle finally creating the full picture. 

Clark laughs, unsure of himself. Unsure of how to be these two things to you at once. “I’m sorry. I swear, I’m usually on time. Just two really ill timed alien monsters attacking and you know, it’s kinda–” You cut him off with a kiss. 

“Thank you for telling me.” You shake your head still unsure of if you’re seeing things right. “I can’t imagine.” You're still holding his face in your hands, in awe, watching in real time as these two personalities come to meet in the middle, meet in the man before you. How do you blame a guy for missing a couple dates when he’s saving the world? Especially when he makes it up to you in so many other ways. “I can’t imagine what you have to carry on your own.” You frown, hands sliding from his face to his chest. You imagine the suit as your fingers run over his chest, the beacon of hope that those colors carry, the hope he has to carry for the world. 

Clark can’t keep his hands from you anymore as he moves one to cup your cheek. “You’re not mad?” He smiles, “You can still be mad.” He reassures, pushing your hair to tuck behind your ear. “There is nothing in the world that can truly keep me from you, not anymore.” His lips are close to connecting with yours and those words alone have you closing the distance. 

There is so much between you. The sadness you were feeling washes away into something entirely different. Deeper, stronger. Admiration, longing, a trust that settles in your bones. “Don’t make me wait again, Clark.” You tease, “Superman.” Your words are laced with the emotions you’re feeling, dripping with something you can’t quite name.

Clark eases you down onto the couch, his lips still capturing your own as his fingers explore your body. They run along your thighs, your legs, reveling in the fact that you’re still here, that you know him. That you still want him. “I mean it. I’m gonna do my best with you. I promise. As long as you’ll let me.” And his words have a different meaning. You share him with the world, but know him more intimately than the world ever could. 

Your body arches into his touch, his fingers dancing along your skin. He tugs off your shirt, his own following as he gets to know your body, slowly, surely. “I’m not going anywhere, Clark.” Your voice is breathless as his fingers slip in between your bodies, under your pants, a familiar ache in your bones as his fingers gather up your slick and make circles around your clit. You can feel him pressing against your inner thigh. Your own hands explore down his chest till they’re running over the outline of his cock through his pants, your breath hitches as you feel how big he is. At the same time, he’s pushing two fingers into you, slowly easing them in and out, searching for that soft spot deep inside you, the spongy spot that has you cooing. 

He’s quick to draw an orgasm from you once he gets your pants off, peppering kisses over your face, your torso as he works you through it. “I got you, come on, let me have it.” He’s kissing over your neck as you come down, “So pretty.” He praises, his other hand running up and down your side. 

“Clark.” His head is tucked into your neck. “Clark.” You're laughing, his fingers tickling the skin of your thighs. He’s still hard, you can feel him pressing against your naked core, but he makes no effort to address it. “Are you gonna fuck me, Clark?” You whine, pushing back up into him. 

His lips return to yours briefly before he’s looking down at you. “You’re sure?” 

“I think there’s nothing that I want more right now.” You give him a push of your hips to make a point. 

Clark groans into your mouth, nodding. “Okay, okay.” He sits up, slowly unbuckling his pants and pushing them down with his boxers. His cock springs free. 

Oh. 

Oh.

He’s bigger than you could’ve imagined. Longer than you felt. Thicker than you felt. You can’t seem to tear your eyes away from his cock. It’s almost embarrassing. Clark’s hand is rubbing the back of his head, looking at the way you’re ogling him. “I, uh–” You swallow, “Is that even gonna fit?” Your eyes flit up to his own before looking back down. Your pussy clenches at the thought of him working his way into you. “I mean, Clark–” Your laugh is breathless. 

Clark is leaning back over you, his fingers finding your wetness again, pooling even more than before from your orgasm and the sight of his cock. “She’s wet enough to take it.” He mumbles, fingers gathering your wetness before he’s smearing it onto his cock and spreading the pre-cum that has gathered from his leaking, red tip. He pumps his cock a couple times in his fist, his other hand squeezing at your waist. “You trust me, don’t you?” Clark purrs with a few lingering kisses against your neck. You nod, at a loss for words as the tip of his cock pushes through your folds, nudging at your clit. The feeling makes you jolt. Clark’s eyes are locked on the sight of his cock glistening with your juices, rubbing along the length of your slit, teasing, testing, eyes glancing up at your face to gauge your reaction. 

You whine, hips stuttering against his own, needing him to fill the ache between your legs with the length of him. “I told you not to make me wait again.” You hiccup, bottom lip jutting out. 

Clark hisses as his tip nudges at your entrance, your hips seeking where you want him most. His tip catches at the soft ring of flesh, sinking in as your hips continue to tease him. It’s easier than you thought, a soft squelch filling the living room as he gives you the first inch. Your slick lets him in easily as your pussy begins clenching around him. “How’s that feel, sweetheart?” His cock stills in you, not pushing in until you adjust to the thickness of him. You’re nodding, unable to speak from how good it feels. “Use your words.” He urges, voice steady despite how wrecked he feels, his hand sliding down your body, thumb finding your clit. 

“Yeah, yes, Clark.” You choke out.

“Good.” He answers, pushing in the rest of the way as your pussy gives way. It’s snug and your pussy clenches around his cock. He can feel your walls stretch, accommodating his size. When he reaches the hilt, he groans out, “I knew you had it in you.” His thumb is still toying with your clit as he begins to move in and out. He’s slow with it at first, letting you adjust to the feeling of his cock fully sheathed inside you. “You’re taking me so well.” It’s constant praise as he’s shoving his cock in and out, the lewd sounds filling the space; his balls hitting your ass he picks up the pace.

“Clark, I– Oh, fuck.” You’re drunk from the fullness of him. You live and breathe Clark Kent. If you thought his kisses were all consuming, there’s nothing compared to the feeling of his dick splitting you in half, his lips capturing yours in a kiss as his pace picks up. His thumb rubbing small circles at just the right pace, the right pressure. It’s better than you could’ve imagined. Your throat is tight, your entire body clenching from the pleasure of it, just waiting to snap. 

“Come on, baby.” He’s urging you, cock pushing as far as he can, his body snug against your own as he ruts into your pussy, grinding his length deep within you. He’s losing his resolve. He’s not sure how much longer he can hold onto his semblance of sanity here. How long he can keep his strength in check as his fingers squeeze onto your waist. It stings, but only adds to the pleasure.

The only thing you can feel is Clark. His fingers on your waist, squeezing, his thumb toying with your clit, his cock shoving in, his mouth kissing along your throat. “Come with me.” He’s begging, voice cracking, but you can’t tell. Too lost in the feeling of him, your fingers clawing at his back, legs wrapped around his waist, clutching him as close as he can humanely get. You have no idea how badly he needs this, lives for this.

It snaps. “Oh, Clark.” Your thighs tighten around him, the tightness in your body evaporating as you come, body shivering as he works you through it. He’s following behind you, his cock coating the inside of your pussy with his spend. His hips grind into yours, working his cum deeper and deeper into you as you both cling onto each other, his cock kissing your cervix as he comes down. Both breathless, both completely spent. There was no way you were getting Clark Kent out of your bones, out of your head. You’re thinking it’ll only be easier to forgive him if every apology is like this. 

His arms are on either side of your face as he peppers kisses across your skin. “Okay?” Clark is softening inside of you, the rest of him visibly melting at the sight of you, he’s not sure if he can handle seeing you like this, so pliant in his hands, so in love. “I’m gonna move, sweetheart.” A soft sound fills the room as his cock slides from inside you. His body is moving from a top of yours and your hands grip at his biceps, a pleading look in your eyes. 

“Don’t go, Clarkie.” Your voice is small, almost sad. You’re not sure you can ever give him up.

Clark shakes his head, gathering up your body against his. It’s effortless on his part. “Don’t plan on it.” He promises. The rest of the day is for you. The rest of the night is for making up for the mistakes he’s already made. And oh, Clark Kent always makes up for his mistakes. He would make sure he earned every single piece of you, every day. That is the only way he knew how to do it. He only knew how to live by being all in and completely dedicated. 

i. WORD OF MOUTH

The city of Metropolis had barely roused from its sleepy state, the skyscrapers painted in colours of pink and orange as the sun lazily peered from its slumber beneath the horizon. 

Clark Kent shared a similar sentiment as the giant ball of gas, his hair mussed and tie not sitting quite right against the crisp white button shirt that took an embarrassing amount of time to iron the creases out of. There was little requirement for him to sleep, aside from maintaining a side of humanity he’d like to keep, but the mental fatigue from the tensions between the US Government and his actions in Jarhanpur had contributed to his flat energy. 

His feet felt like concrete against the stone stairs, one hand on the railing that the paint was peeling off of, his steps echo all the way to the ground floor; where he had every intention to muster the courage to open up his mailbox on the communal postal area for the apartment complex. 

There was never anything bad in there, but when your standard 9 til’ 5 job consists of fact-checking, pitching article ideas and fighting for the hot spot on the front page of the company you worked for…well, the last thing he wanted to do was read. 

Either way, the mailman waits for nobody and it was evident in the papers crammed into mailbox painted with Clark’s door number on it. 

Clark sighs. He got up earlier than usual to do this—and he was sure he’d still be late to work with an extra twenty minutes under his belt. He persists past the procrastination, and slots his mailbox key into the lock; a few envelopes topple out and he bends at the waist to retrieve them from the floor riddled with chewing gum pressed into the material. 

“Oh hey, Clark,” Clark shoots up, the back of his head catching the corner of the small metal door at the abrupt sound of the secondary voice. You—the owner of the groggy voice—wince, “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

Clark feels his face go pink. You were one of the many residents within the mid-rise apartment complex on Clinton Street in midtown Metropolis. Quick-witted, with a generous amount of extrovert which made the perfect concoction in befriending your neighbour Clark Kent upon his first week in his new pad.

You had believed the dark-haired and bad postured journalist to be a little lacking in the social skills forefront when you had first met him. His skin maintaining a healthy flush whenever you stopped by his door with house-warming plants—that he took incredibly seriously in keeping alive—or whenever you bumped into him around the building. 

(Worst time was in the laundry room, where Clark had missed a pair of boxers with hearts printed on them in the dryer. You were the one to find them and return them to their rightful owner that had written his name in sharpie on the tag.) 

Eventually, you just accepted that was who he was. A six foot something pink man. 

It also didn’t help that Clark found you incredibly gorgeous amongst all the other feelings that bubbled in his stomach when he caught some small talk with you. 

You weren’t as much as the girl-next-door, as you were the girl-one-floor-above.  

Unbeknownst to him; you also felt the same way. 

Clark clears his throat, “Don’t apologise. I should have my wits about me.” he says as he rubs the back of his head. 

“I’ll announce myself by a bell, or something next time.” you joke as you step up to the communal mailboxes and find your one with ease. Your mailbox has the correct amount of letters for someone who checks it daily—unlike Clark—and you begin to siphon through them whilst you speak, “Aside from the headache…how are you?” 

Embarrassed! Publicly humiliated! 

“Swell.” Clark settles for, “And you?” 

You sigh, which can’t be good. “I got let go from my job. I say that term loosely—I got fired.” 

“No kidding?” 

“Turns out you shouldn’t shit where you eat.” you grumble, flipping a pamphlet over in your hand, “Power imbalance prevails, I suppose.” you shrug at the thought. 

Clark pulls his lips into a thin line, the pinky flush slowly dissipating from his face from the distracting subject of your workplace drama. It had been common knowledge between three floors in the building that you and your seedy boyfriend who, also, happened to be the manager at the establishment you had been employed in; had since gone your separate ways after you found several of his accounts on a plethora of dating apps—one app, he had a passport for in order to speak to women across the globe. 

Because his cheating needed to be international. 

Things went sour, like really sour. It wasn’t your finest moment, but Clark reassured you through breathing exercises and a firm rub up and down your back that it was completely acceptable to hold an illegal street bonfire with your ex’s belongings as the kindlings to ignite it. 

(He didn’t mention the part where he was lying about it being okay. Or, the amount of bail he paid to get you out of the local police station.) 

Turns out the retaliation from your ex was firing you. The irony. 

Jackass. 

“I’m sorry about that.” Clark stares at your side-profile with empathy in his blue eyes, “Have you found anything?” 

“Nope.” you emphasis the ‘p’ with a pop, finger peeling a brown envelope open, “So, if you hear anything—literally anything—send it my way. I’m down to scrape the barrel to keep up with my rent payment each month.” 

“You have my word.” Clark promises and then you both fall comfortably silent. Which just means, he was going to admire you for a minute. 

After Clark had heard through the grapevine of your split, he had every intentions to build up the courage to ask you out on a date in the near distant future. It had been nine, torturous months of watching you from afar with a man that Clark Kent knew was not up to par with being able to be with a woman like you. That guy dimmed you down in every single way possible, and Clark had to stop attending neighbour-hangouts as he couldn’t bear to watch your radiance shrouded.

Plus, your ex took a real disliking to Clark after he watched your compatibility with him flourish.

So, when the news broke via—as you graciously called her—Old Woman Jenkins who lived in Apartment 3-B with her seven cats and two budgies; it was safe to say Clark was ecstatic for two reasons. 

1.) You were free from the toxicity, and 2.) This gave Clark the opportunity to show you how a real man should love you. 

Only downside was…Clark wasn’t sure when to approach it. He wasn’t emotionally stinted, so he knew that asking you out within a day, or even a week after your split would’ve just been grounds for a restraining order. On the flip side, he didn’t want to catch a rebound case because his feelings ran a lot deeper than a fleeting, emotional distraction.

Therefore, Clark just never asked. You don’t ask, you don’t get your heartbroken or something like that.

He just couldn’t ruin a good thing. 

You eventually speak again when you close your mailbox, eyes trailing down to the newspaper clutched in your neighbour’s hand, “You a front pager again?” you ask with a smile. 

“Oh—Ah, yes,” Clark flips the folded newspaper open to reveal the front page regarding his recent fight with the Hammer of Boravia. He points to the article, “That’s all me.” 

You peer at the print, “Congratulations again, Clark! That’s a huge deal in journalism world.”

“Oh…I—Thank you.” Clark stumbles through his profound gratitude for your praise. The tips of his ears start to turn pink again. 

You nod and adjust the tote bag on your shoulder, “Seriously, it takes balls.” 

“Yes, that’s why I enjoy the job—” he says at the same time as you speak.

“I mean, making that guy look good? I didn’t think that could be possible.” you add earnestly. 

Clark blinks. 

“…” he breathes a laugh, “I—I don’t follow.”

“Superman? I mean, come on. He is an egotistical white knight that faces zero ramifications from his actions. He only gets away with things because he’s handsome.” you wave off the tail-end of your statement in a flippant manner paired with a roll of your eyes, “I can’t stand the guy.”

You think he’s handsome? Clark has to shake the compliment off like water off a duck’s back. Low priority in comparison to the other things you had just off-handedly stated in your brief rant on the man in red and blue. 

There is part of Clark that almost leaps at the opportunity to get a little bad tempered over it, toss his toys out of the pram from the unwarranted criticism. Superman was good! He was good! 

Instead, Clark compartmentalises his hurt feelings and puts his Pulitzer prize-winning star reporter title to good use. 

“What—What makes you say that?” Clark tucks his chin to conceal the pout on his face, masking it as deep interest to the letters in his hands, “He’s got a glowing track record of keeping the streets of Metropolis safe.”

He was really hoping that he didn’t unearth a Boravian supporter out of you.

Or, that you agreed with the statement that had begun to grow arms and legs about his so-called ‘alien entitlement’ to house himself within Earth’s atmosphere. 

You answer in an unwavering tone of resentment. “It’s a personal grudge that’s grown ever since that fight on Clinton Street broke out—before you got here. I had just paid my car off, and whaddya know? Superman and his body made of steel, totals it alongside his own defeat with whatever shithead guy he was fighting against.” you blurt sarcastically, “He owes me a car.” 

“Oh. That isn’t so bad.” is how Clark responds, without a thought behind it. 

To him, it wasn’t so bad. He felt guilty, obviously collateral damage was something he wasn’t so favourable over.

However, this was fixable. 

Clark’s answer threw you for such a loop, that you almost forgot to answer. “Isn’t so bad?” you repeat, “Under what circumstances does that fall under the category of: isn’t so bad?” 

“No—I, I didn’t mean it wasn’t bad. It’s quite terrible actually,” Clark swallows, the heat capturing beneath his collar as he speaks. “In the grand scheme of possibilities that could have happened, at least you weren’t in your car. And—And, on top of that, he saved multiple citizens from becoming a casualty statistic.” 

“My car became a casualty statistic. Superman fucking sucks.” you state sternly. “Nothing can change my mind about that.” 

Clark frowns, “Nothing?” 

“Nothing.” you affirm, “Anyway, I’ve got a job interview in thirty. I’ll see you around?” 

“Yes. See you.” Clark offers a strained smile as you wave him goodbye and disappear round the corner to exit the building.

He lets out a breath he had been holding since you confessed your acquired distaste for Superman. 

Clark’s gaze drops to the newspaper, his fingers curl tightly into the pages as he decided on the spot; he was going to convince you otherwise regarding the personal vendetta against, well…him. 

ii. WEEKLY PAPER

The art of apologies seemed pretty simple, right? 

A heartfelt card, or a bouquet of flowers could go a long way in the tumultuous events that led up to an apology being a necessity to mending a friendship, relationship or family bond. However, the situation with you was a little different to a petty squabble, despite Clark believing it to be petty to hold such a grudge—he saved lives that day! 

For one, you weren’t aware that there was any mending to be done. Your hatred toward Superman had been cemented the day you returned from work, having decided to walk that particular sunny day, only to find your beloved vehicle crumpled. To you, there was no putting bandaids over wounds, and you certainly had zero forgiveness in your heart for the man that patrolled the skies of Metropolis. 

The whole crux of the matter was, Clark Kent was raised on the rule that honesty was the best policy. Honestly, no, he doesn’t recall crushing your car after being tossed across Clinton Street like a rag-doll. He’s sure he’s crushed a few cars in his time in the city, and he knows he would have felt guilty at the time; but it was better to forgive and forget rather than bottle up all your resentful feelings toward someone who was just trying to help. 

Further to this, Clark wanted to take the chance and ask you out on a date. He really did. Time was a healer, and it had been three months—give or take—since your split from the egotistical cheater, meaning it felt like ample enough time to be justified in his intentions. However, if you despised Superman, you unknowingly despised Clark Kent…and that wouldn’t be something that would sit right on his chest. 

That would take away part of his honesty. If he had to continue concealing his identity behind the glasses to appease your objectifications on Superman. 

(At least it was more a personal issue than a shared thought with the less friendly bunch that lived in Metropolis.) 

So, in conclusion, Clark came up with the bright idea to slowly introduce you to the good side of Superman. You know, the one that saves Metropolis and much further, fetches kittens down from trees, gives back to the community. 

He was basically trying to fill your head with Superman shaped stars. 

The best option came to him whilst he sat at his desk in the bullpen of Daily Planet. Knees touching the underside of his desk, his mind had been elsewhere for the better part of the day; as Clark was more or less sulking over the revelation you shared with him that morning. 

How could he change your mind? Clark had learnt that you were strong-minded to an extent from a personal experience with a fellow neighbour, who had a terrible habit of pausing Clark’s laundry in the dryer and dumping his half damp clothes into a hamper just so they could use that one particular machine. (There were ten in total.) 

When Clark expressed his frustrations to you, he hadn’t expected you to begin a psychological warfare against the neighbour in Apartment 1-D. It was safe to say, you won out of sheer resilience. 

He dared not to share the same fate as Apartment 1-D. 

Then, it sort of went off like a lightbulb in his head. Clark Kent created articles in which he interviewed himself, in order to shed a positive light on his actions. Why not bring those interviews to your doorstep under the Daily Planet subscription service? 

It meant you’d receive weekly newspapers from the Planet, delivered to your home with no extra cost aside from the cheap subscription fee to keep journalism alive and kicking.

Clark would pay for it out of his own pocket, of course. 

Not only were you strong-minded, but you were curiouser than a cat and that meant your interest would pique to flip through the pages of the newspaper and, eventually, read all about the good deeds of Superman. 

Not to mention how charming and handsome he was…but you already knew that. 

It was the perfect idea, with the perfect execution! 

That was, until, you had received the third instalment of your new $3.99 subscription to the newspaper company Clark worked for. 

“Morning, Clark.” you chirp as you reach your mailbox, sparing the male a glance with a pretty smile that had his heart thump a little harder. “This is the most I’ve seen you in the communal mailbox area.” 

(There was a reason for that.) 

Clark hums, “Best to keep on top of my mail, I think.” 

“You’d be right. The shredders are hungry for junk mail.” you had a tendency to laugh at your own jokes with a cute snort. Something that was cut short when you open your mailbox. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“What’s wrong?” Clark asks with his brows pinched.

“I think my ex is tormenting me,” you grouse, “As if I was the one sharing my favourite position on six different dating apps—ugh. He’s signed me up for the Daily Planet subscription when he knows how much I don’t want to read about the brown-nosing of Superman.” you pause, eyes flitting to Clark’s face, “No offence.” 

“None taken.” (A lot taken. All at once.) 

You continue, “I mean—I guess it is a retaliation because I signed his phone number up to receive regular calls for recruitment within Scientology. But, this almost feels worse.” you whine as you toss the newspaper in your tote bag for later shredding. 

“You signed him up to Scientology?” Clark asks and you spare him a shameful glance. He redirects the topic, for your sake. “Is it really so bad, reading about all the things Superman is doing to keep Metropolis afloat?” 

“It’s hard not to hear about it, let alone be subjected to reading it too.” you seethe, “It’s a constant reminder that he wrecked my car, and never had to face the consequences—unlike me. You know, I hate riding the subway? I swear I’m one sticky seat away from contracting a new strain of the plague. He caused that.” 

Clark wants to call you dramatic. 

He goes for, “I hear you.” instead. 

“Do you think you could get this cancelled for me?” you ask as you shut your mailbox, “I want to support you, but, this is like rubbing salt in an open wound.” 

How could Clark say no? He had a firm grasp on boundaries, and part of him felt remorseful over the fact that you believed that his own doings were that of your ex-boyfriend—someone you really didn’t need reminding of. Plus, you were staring at him all glittery-eyed which was part of his weakness when it came to you. 

And your means to be overtly theatrical.

Not only that, but Clark led himself to believe he had crossed a big company no-no by inputting your details into the Daily Planet subscription system and, has since spent every day since unlawfully signing you up to the weekly newspapers, convincing himself he was border-lining on identity theft. 

Clark likes you. He likes the idea of keeping his job just a little bit more. 

He exhales. “Yeah. I will sort that for you. No problem.” 

“You’re a life saver. I owe you one, Clark.” (He owes you a car.) “I’ve got to go. I need to get to Hob’s Bay for an interview with Metro Souvenir.” 

“Good luck. They’d be lucky to have you.” Clark enthuses sweetly. 

You blink at his compliment, a smile growing slowly on your face, “Thanks, Clark.” 

“Anytime.” Clark gives you a lopsided smile, forgetting he’s already ten minutes late to work, being so wrapped up in your addictive presence and all—he’s already forgotten the pit in his stomach over you loathing his true identity. “I’ll catch you later.” 

iii. SUPERSHIT 

Similar to the rest of the population on Earth, Clark Kent had a number of things that got under his skin. The obvious, being that of his own fabrication of an alter-ego in an ill-fitting suit that he hid behind in order to keep those around him safe. It was the finest quality of deception, and Clark found it vexing to upkeep. Then there were other issues, such as: the US Government’s reluctance to side with his good intentions in Boravia, Steve Lombard at times, and the smear campaign against him that had recently gained traction online.  

One specific insult within the smear campaign that tested Clark Kent’s abundance of patience; was Supershit. It was juvenile. Completely undermined his efforts in guiding humanity into a better tomorrow. It was…bothersome to a man like Clark Kent. 

His agitation toward the name had only furthered when Steve Lombard had mentioned it in passing toward the end of the day, leading Clark to trudge home under his own personal grey cloud of discontent. 

The mental fatigue of it all weighed his shoulders down and he took to the three flights of stairs in the apartment like a kicked dog. 

“Whew. Bad day?” 

The grey cloud breaks overhead at the sound of your melodic tone. 

Clark looks over his shoulder to see you with a plastic bag in one hand and a newspaper in the other. “Oh, no. Just a rather long one.” he says in partial dishonestly.

“I hear you.” you take a couple of steps up, “Want to come to mine and wallow over some Thai?” 

When Clark hesitates, you answer for him. 

“It’s free,” you lift the warm bag to wiggle it, “Plus, the cashier asked if I was eating for two…so.” 

Clark’s brows raise at your reiteration of an inconsiderate presumption. “Looks like we both were insulted today.” he murmurs, allowing you to pass him on the stairwell to lead him up to the fourth floor.

You both greet Old Woman Jenkins and her three-legged cat with a taste for ankles on the third floor—she was the eyes and ears of the complex—and then you dip into explaining how the Metro Souvenir interview was a complete bust after you openly belittled the small Superman collection in the corner of the store that was made up of 90% Superman bobble-heads. 

Turns out it was the owner’s daughter’s hobby in her past time. 

Keys jingle in your hands as you pull them from the abyss that was your unorganised tote bag and as you open the door to your apartment, Clark stands behind you with a pout; fiddling with the strap of his work briefcase. 

He was putting it down to mental fatigue or lack of direct sunlight which had instilled the glass half empty mentality into him. Clark couldn’t quite shake off the impending doom of a sharp rejection of, not only a possible blossoming of a relationship, but the friendship you two had made along the way when he eventually takes off the glasses and you’re exposed to the man who wrecked your car. 

(For good reason!) 

The thought stays chewing the back of his mind as he sits on the new sofa—a piece of furniture you decided to invest in after your ex’s body warped a dent in his shape on your old couch—in your apartment, and whilst you spread out the lukewarm Thai food in plastic tupperware boxes; across your rickety coffee table. 

The two of you sit closer than necessary for a four-seater sofa with cushions that felt like the equivalent to clouds from cartoons, Clark had forgone his suit jacket and rolled his ironed sleeves of his white button-up shirt up to rest at his elbows. It wasn’t hard to miss that his suit pants were almost bursting at the seams from being taut against his muscular thighs. 

It was hard not to look at him. 

The friendly neighbourhood heathen. Dwarfing doorframes and, sometimes, having to walk sideways into a room due to the broadness of his shoulders; was sitting flush with your own shoulders and occasionally making eyes with you. 

That’s what you translated it as, anyway—even if he had entered a little broodier than usual. 

Clark eventually strikes up a conversation in between eating, “I actually wanted to tell you about a job going at Daily Planet,” he swallows the chewed up food in his mouth, “Sort of a support role.” 

You perk, “Really?” 

“Yeah. You’d be working under Lois Lane. She’s a good friend and great journalist.” Clark informs, mirroring the excitement that lights up on your face. “I can put in a good word, if you’d like?” 

“I mean…I know nothing about journalism, but it’s a learning curve.” you state. 

Clark bites into a spring roll, the aromatic kaffir lime takes over his senses as he nods into the bite, “You can only try.” 

“Thank you, Clark. I seriously owe you double now.” you pluck a spring roll from the tupperware, “You’ll have to think of something.” 

The idea that crosses Clark’s mind is like a balloon being popped with a sharp needle. His blue eyes shoot to your side-profile, happily dissecting your own spring roll to inspect the food inside. He’s suddenly swamped in those warm fuzzy feelings Ma Kent had told him about during his bedtime stories at a young age. 

Clark didn’t want to detract from the slow process of your own heartbreak over your ex-boyfriend. 

Yes, the guy had shattered the innocence on the idea of love, and how to be loved—he used to turn the TV up to drown out your cries. He robbed nine months of your life with poor judgement that his online escapades with other women wouldn’t see the light of day, he had purposely used his position of power to terminate your employment; leaving you without a job, and zero income to pay for the bills that were on a steep incline from inflation. 

Even with all of this taken into consideration, you were taking your time in experiencing your own version of heartbreak. Because, deep down, you had been naively and so incredibly blindly in love. 

That was something Clark didn’t want to overstep on until the time was right. 

But, on the contrary, when was the timing ever right? It had been three months since you split from your boyfriend, and honestly? Clark wanted you. Heart broken, or not.

He just hoped those feelings would be reciprocated. (Nobody sits that close to you without it being intentional, right?) 

It comes out of him with all the confidence he can muster. “You…you could let me take you on a date.” it almost sounds rhetorical in the way he chose to ask. 

It makes you turn your head, eyes wider as if you were a deer that had just been caught in the headlights. Your cheek swollen with pocketed food, the room goes silent enough to hear a pin drop. 

It makes Clark suddenly regret his decision. 

“I’m sorry—” Clark shakes his head, pink from head to toe, “I don’t, I don’t know why I thought that was acceptable. You’re still going through the process of a breakup. That was all rather silly of me—” 

“Clark.” 

Clark hums, “Hm?” 

“Relax, dude.” you lilt, “I’d like that.” 

“You would?” 

You breathe out a laugh, “Yes. That sounds like the perfect I.O.U.” you bump your shoulder shyly with Clark’s and then mumble, “I knew you weren’t a constant shade of pink around me for no reason.” 

“Yes, well. It was for a good reason.” Clark mumbles and tugs at the collar of his shirt to release some heat that had been trapped beneath it. “A pretty reason.” he says with a smile. 

The night shared in Apartment 4-A would’ve ended perfectly there. Clark had found his voice, and in turn, became more openly flirtatious with you as the pair of you cleaned up the leftovers of the takeaway. The touches became more tactile and it made both of your heads a little fuzzy with excitement. 

His dampened mood from Steve Lombard had shifted, Clark quickly finding that you were a version of sunlight that he could metabolise and recharge on. 

The night should’ve ended there—on a high. 

Then the topic of conversation rolls back around to, well, Clark. 

You take a sip from your water bottle before you speak, “So…I hear your buddy is in some type of hot waters with the government.” you spare Clark a glance. 

“You could say that.” Clark pinches his brows at the thought, “He was just trying to save people—” 

“From a tyrannical president?” you interject, “It’s the one time I’ll give it to him.” 

Clark is surprised, and he struggles to hide that on his expression; so you quirk a brow. He clears his throat, “I didn’t expect you to side with him. Seems like you may be one of the very few people who do.” 

You end up shrugging, “His actions to save Jarhanpur override my personal issues with Supershit.” 

Supershit. You just had to use Supershit.

(Sunlight status revoked.)  The atmosphere shifts and you’re blissfully unaware of the nerve you had hit as Clark shifts beside you. All of the impulsive reactions surge forward in Clark, entangling themselves in the warmth he had felt by being within close proximity with you, making his mood sour like milk left in the sun. 

His nostrils flare from frustration. The tips of his ears are an angry shade of red. 

Clark bores a hole into your coffee table. “I think that’s a little unfair to call him that.” he says lowly. 

“You think that because you’re a good person who sees past all the bad stuff, Clark.” you reason without much deliberation over his defence, “Me, on the other hand—” 

“Should give him a chance, perhaps?” Clark retorts bluntly, leaving you to blink in surprise, “He’s misunderstood. He’s doing what he thinks is right, what is good for the citizens of Metropolis.”

“I’m not questioning if he’s good or not.” you argue back, “It’s just a personal gripe.”

Clark stands, “Oh, come on,” he gravels, “Superman is not your enemy. Supershit is not a fair nickname!” 

“Why do you care so much if I like him or not?” your eyes narrow, “You’ve been selling him to me this whole month. What is that all about?” 

OK, maybe your career in journalism would be a steer in the right direction. 

You sigh when Clark fights for an explanation. “He wrecked my car, Clark. I’m allowed to dislike someone that you favour. That’s just life.” 

Clark doesn’t look at you when he speaks, “Yeah.” 

He backs down after that. Not because he wants to, or that your stare has him pinned to the spot. It was down to the reason that, if he projected anymore resistance against your grievances with Superman; he may be on a slippery slope of a bad-tempered confessional in the middle of your living room.

Clark grabs his suit jacket from the back of your sofa, fiddling with it as he sulks, “I think I should leave. Thank you for the food. I’ll…um, I’ll talk to Perry and Lois about the job.” 

“Okay. Thank you.” you look up at him from your seated position, a little confused by the whiplash from the energy shift in the room. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

“Yeah. Yeah. Tomorrow.” 

iiii. LOIS LANES’ DIVINE INTERVENTION

So…you don’t hear from Clark for three days—aside from a short text giving you the thumbs up for an interview at Daily Planet.

After the blip of Supershit, Clark took the mental load of keeping his distance from you. His patience was stretched thin from outside opinions and he feared with the hard-to-budge bad taste that Superman left in your mouth; that you would be a target of hot-headed retaliation if you utter the word Supershit in Clark’s presence again.

The safest assumption was that he was busy—he was a Pulitzer prize-winner at the end of the day. It definitely hadn’t been in relation to the immediate debate that came after you used the trending, cancel culture-esque nickname, Supershit, on his nearest and dearest interviewee. 

Even with your feelings now left up in the air with a date being strung over your head with zero confirmation of a date or time, you weren’t one to sit and dwell over a man’s fragile ego—for whatever reason Clark’s ego was made of glass, you were unsure but close to figuring out—and put all your energy and abundance of spare time into perfecting your knowledge about Daily Planet prior to your interview. 

The interview process for the support role beneath Lois Lanes’ expertise as a front-runner journalist for Daily Planet had gone smoother than you could have anticipated. To be quite frank, you had little experience in the journalist field, let alone a degree, but you came prepared with a good amount of charm and some background knowledge on the company.

Founded in 1775, globally renowned for its pursuit of justice, home to some brown-nosing of Superman and the Justice League, and the employer of the curly-haired neighbour you had been crushing on for quite some time. (The last two weren’t verbalised as such. Edited version: enthralling interviews that capture the true essence of the city’s extraterrestrial and meta-humans, and the employer of Clark Kent. Your neighbour. Nothing else.)  

Lois likes you. Perry White isn’t easily convinced. She spends the rest of her shift arguing your case—the Editor-in-Chief calls it favouritism for the only woman who applied for the role. 

Before you leave, you are tail-ending a conversation with Lois. She’s the epitome of a thriving journalist in a trim waistcoat and white tee beneath, a mug of hot coffee with at least, fifteen lumps of sugar stirred into the mix.

“You have to make sure you’re not in favour of one particular person that we write about. You know, like Superman is a good guy, but you can’t show bias. Even if Daily Planet have been hit with some accusations of preference.” Lois says in a monotonous tone. 

You nod along, not wanting to ruin your chances by shit-talking one person that brings the money in for the company. “I mean, everyone seems to like him, right? Clark has been fawning over him for sometime.” you prod at her brain intentionally for an underlying curiosity of your own. 

“Clark sees a lot of himself in Superman,” Lois choice of words make your brow quirk—she’s being careful. “He does a lot of questionable things—Superman, I mean, but he saves a lot of lives. They both live their lives to be good, I guess that’s why Clark is drawn to him.” 

“I guess so.” you pause, “You know he totalled my car in a fight?” 

“Clark?” (No, but you were starting to think otherwise.) 

“Superman.” you correct and Lois looks at you as if it isn’t that big of a deal. A major inconvenience at best. “Yeah, he got into a fight on Clinton Street and was thrown into my car that I had just paid off. I was pretty torn up about it…still sort of am.” 

Lois wracks her wonderful brain, “Clinton Street?” you nod, “Yeah—We covered that story. The meta-human he had been fighting was headed for a nursery a few blocks down, for whatever sick reason. Superman diverted him to Clinton Street and saved about fifty kids. He took some punches over that. Anything to keep the guy away from those kids.” 

You blink, “I didn’t think about it like that.” 

“You have to look at the bigger picture, if you’re going to be apart of this world.” Lois smiles, “Although, it doesn’t take away from the fact that your car got ruined. Did you get another one?” 

“Uh…no.” your mind is elsewhere—you kind of feel like an asshole. You shake it off, “Doesn’t matter, though. I like the commute.” 

“Clark mentioned that you had said that you were one sticky seat away from catching a new strain of the plague.” Lois quips and you shrink with embarrassment, the elevator is so close you could just…make a break for it. 

It makes you laugh nervously, “Yeah. Well, that’s the fun part. The risks. Gets my adrenaline pumping.”

Lois really likes you. She decides. 

“We’re all about adrenaline and risks.” 

“Yeah—Well, thank you for giving me an interview. I’ve gotta head, sort of overstayed my welcome.” you express, thumb gesturing over your shoulder to the elevator, “It was nice meeting you!”

Lois bids you a goodbye, her eyes trained on your frame as you press the golden button umpteen times out of impatience to take your leave. She smiles to herself, turning on her heel as the elevator doors peel open. 

Your eyes are cast downward, brain on autopilot over the realisation that struck the back of your neck like the side of a hand. The visit to Daily Planet for the interview had not only been relatively exciting—because you felt like you gelled well with Lois Lane—but it had been incredibly insightful to the incident relating to your deeply rooted dislike for Superman. 

He was saving kids. How could you resent that? 

Perhaps there was an aspect of selfishness on your behalf. Most times you had broken into a rant about the car tragedy of 2024, people have asked you if you knew the reasoning as to why Superman happened to be on Clinton Street, fighting a meta-human. More times than not, you’d shrug. You didn’t care, it was your car that suffered! 

But, now? Lois Lane had smothered that year-long grudge with the missing pieces of the story. 

“Holy shit. Am I an asshole?” you say out loud to yourself. The elevator slides shut and you stare wide-eyed at the golden doors. 

“Pardon me?” 

You turn your head to see Clark Kent clutching into his briefcase as if you were going to bite. You don’t even bat an eyelid as you say, “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Unavailable.” 

“Well, now, I—I can explain my absence—” 

“Can we just bury our last interaction?” you interject with a sharp tone, “I’m feeling a little forgiving today.” 

“Right. Yes, I was going to apologise for how I left—” Clark’s voice trails off as you deadpan at him. He shakes his head, “—All is said and done. Can I ask why you called yourself an asshole?” 

“It’s a long story.” 

“I have time.” 

You peer up at him, “Weren’t you meant to get off on that floor?” 

“Yes. I suppose I should have.” 

It makes you look him up and down. “…Alright, well, I mean I just had this super insightful conversation with your friend Lois about Superman—” Clark visibly winces, “—And the fight on Clinton Street, that ultimately lost me my car. This whole time, I just…I just didn’t care about the details, just knew I was pissed about my car. Then—Then Lois tells me it was collateral damage over Superman saving a nursery from a rampant meta-human. That sort of makes me the asshole in this story, Clark.” 

“You are upset about it, that doesn’t make you an asshole.” 

“No, but it does!” you exasperate, “Sure, it’s been a huge inconvenience to me, and a lot of money lost. But he was putting himself in harms way to save innocent lives. My car doesn’t even matter in the grand scheme of things.” 

Clark wants to argue the fact that Superman has been saving lives even before the incident on Clinton Street. However, the revelation that you’ve been put on track for is at the precipice of a complete 180 in your opinion of Superman; why stunt that growth? 

He makes a note to thank Lois—who is well aware of his secret—for feeding you the breadcrumbs that led to this.

You know…once he takes elevator back up. 

Clark waits for you to breathe. “So, no hard feelings over Superman?” he asks hopefully. 

“He’s still an asshole for wrecking my car.” you retort, arms crossing over your chest, “But, I suppose that’s sort of the closure I needed. I can’t stay mad at a guy for forfeiting his own life to save fifty little ones.” 

“I can work with that.” Clark says without thinking. The colour pink creeps up his neck when you cock your head to the side inquisitively—because, what did that mean? He gulps some air, “I—Can I still take you on a date?” 

“I don’t know, can you get Superman to apologise to me?” you lilt in an unserious tone, essentially throwing a hook with a fat piece of bait impaled on the end.

The elevator reaches the ground floor. 

“I can try.” Clark absolutely would. Without a shadow of a doubt. 

(Hook, line and sinker.) 

“Then yes.” 

+1 APARTMENT APOLOGIES

You had got the job at Daily Planet. It took all of two days, and the persistence of the tenacious Lois Lane for Perry White to accept somebody without even a scrap of journalistic experience onto the team; for you to get the call to start in a weeks time. 

And how you celebrated your elation was by grabbing a greasy pizza en route to your apartment, and watching reruns of Golden Girls on your sofa.  

It was pure, unadulterated bliss. 

That was, until the hairs on your arms unexpectedly stood on end on the last bite of the cheese-filled crust. 

Immediate from this, there’s a silhouette that captures your attention from your periphery on the fire escape outside your living room window. Heart chasing its own beat, you drop the pizza crust into the cardboard box, your hand slowly reaching to curl round the steel bat you kept beside the sofa; the other one was located in your bedroom. 

You didn’t want to engage, or even look. There’s been enough viewings of horror movies to know that the person that is curious, is the person that gets killed. You even think about sprinting out the front door and banging on Clark’s front door on the floor below.  

When your bare foot touches the wooden floorboards, that’s when you hear a groan from just outside your window. 

Your brows pinch from the familiarity. “Clark?” 

It sounded like him. 

Instinctively, you lift your bat as you stand. This was Metropolis after all. You wouldn’t put it past some extraterrestrial visiting the city to mimic the sounds of your neighbour. But honestly, where would they have gotten the sound of Clark in somewhat pain? 

The large silhouette moves when you speak Clark’s name, and you make it to the window in two swift steps; forcing the window up to let in the billowing winds of the city air and noise pollution into your apartment. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“Good evening ma’am.” 

You raise your bat, “Superman?” you waver in your impulsivity to strike him across his head, “What the fuck are you doing on my fire escape? You’re—ugh—you’re bleeding!” 

He peels the palm of his hand away from his torso to reveal a much bigger wound, “Just a scratch. I’ll be alright. May I come in?” 

“No! Crazy!” you argue back, “You’ll get your blood all over my new rug.” 

“I’ll pay for it.” 

You scoff, “Oh yeah? Like the car you wrecked—?” you pause to stare at him, the cogs turning in your mind, “Did Clark Kent put you up to this? Are you—Are you two in cahoots or some shit?” 

“He may—” Superman groans when he shifts from one foot to the other, “—Have mentioned something about a disgruntled neighbour.” 

Oh. He took your joke seriously. 

Your fingers shift around the metal bat. “Yeah, that would be me.” you watch as a loose curl flops down onto his forehead, familiarity spreads across your chest, “Look. You can just let me hit you over the head with my bat. Once. Then, all is forgiven.” 

“I’d rather you didn’t.” 

You sigh, “Worth a shot.” 

Superman’s lips quirk into an amused smile, “Please? It will only be for a moment.” 

“…Fine.” you drop the bat down to your side and step back, “Only step on the wooden flooring, and just head to the bathroom. I’ll get you a wet flannel.” 

A red boot swings over the threshold and suddenly, Superman is standing in the middle of your apartment at full stature, bleeding from the wound on his torso. He’s handsome, you’d give him that. In an omnipresent superhero type of way. He gives you a strained friendly smile, his dimples deep whilst his forehead creases from the sharp pain that elicits from the wound site. 

Without further instruction as to where your bathroom was located, Superman makes a beeline down the hallway, breadcrumbs of blood leading you to him after you wet a spare flannel beneath the kitchen sink tap. His familiarity with your apartment only worsens your suspicions. 

You find him dwarfing your toilet with the lid down. He has a handful of toilet paper stuffed against the bleeding gash, lips parting momentarily to exhale intermittently as he applies pressure with the worst gauze replacement to soak up the excess blood. 

Pieces of tissue paper break apart from the saturation of blood and Superman—without thinking—gives you a clumsy smile. Lopsided and without confidence to fuel the curve of his lip. It is sort of vexing for you, coming from a place with purposefully minimal knowledge, these so-called ‘Protectors of Metropolis’ exuded self-righteousness because they needed to have a strong backbone to be a public figure. The man who sat on the lid of your toilet, in a vibrant red and blue suit that clung to his muscular physique presents nothing of the sort. 

You wish you could approach it differently. This rare moment captured in time, where you come face to face with the destructor of your beloved vehicle and you had asked for permission to strike him across the head, rather than just doing it; as you had practiced multiple times in your head. 

He wouldn’t even flinch, you suppose. 

Further to this, if Lois Lane hadn’t intervened with her sharp memory of the Clinton Street incident, then Superman wouldn’t have been able to step foot into your apartment. Then again, you were stood at the threshold of the bathroom questioning his identity altogether. 

“I don’t bite.” The male informs on borderline playful. 

You don’t budge—a prisoner in your own home.

“I’d rather not take any chances.” you quip, tossing him the wet flannel because watching the pieces of tissue paper fuse to his wound was near painful. You observe him for a moment, “Clark sent you here?” 

He hums lowly. 

You continue, “When…did you see him? Usually he catches you at the scene of the crime, so to speak.” you tilt your head when Superman lifts his gaze to look at you, “I didn’t see any fights break out on the news today.” 

“He called in a favour.” Superman responds with faux-innocence, “By phone.” 

“Right, right.” you fall silent to watch him dab at his injury with care. There’s a deep inhale before you speak again, “You guys are close?” 

“You could say that.” he mumbles, “Is there a problem?” 

Your eyes narrow, “Is there a problem to be addressed? Other than the wreckage of my car, but, y’know, you already knew about that coming here. Did he give you my address?” 

“No.” Superman jumps to Clark’s defence because giving a stranger—let alone a so-called enemy—your address without consent was a downright breach of your privacy and safety; let alone dangerous. He then adds, “He wouldn’t do that.” 

“So you just happened to know where I live in a mid-rise apartment complex with eleven floors?” you take a step into the bathroom to goad him, “Is that part of your superpowers? Being a creep?” 

“What—?” he flaps, “No! Nothing like that.”

“A woman alone in her apartment at night and you’re watching her from her fire escape. That’s pretty creepy, Supe.” you point a finger in his direction, essentially pinning him to the spot. 

“I just came to apologise. Okay?” Superman takes a deep inhale in mild panic, “I never intended to destroy your car. But, if you ask me, I’d do it a hundred times over if it meant I saved those kids that day.” 

“Why does it matter if you apologise to me or not? You must have damaged thousands of cars by now.” (Try hundreds of thousands.) 

Superman huffs, “It matters to Clark. He—uh—Forgive me if this isn’t common knowledge, but he likes you. Truly likes you. He sees a future with you, and then you had mentioned that if he were able to have me apologise to you…then perhaps you’d proceed with the date.” 

Oh, boy. 

“I was joking when I said that.” you state, “Can you not tell the difference between a joke and a serious request, Clark?” 

“Clark?” the tips of Superman’s ears go pink. Dead giveaway. 

You throw a hand in his direction. “Oh, come on, Clark. It’s obviously you. You’re Superman. You think I’m dumb enough not to catch on when you’ve been fighting his corner for the past couple of weeks?” 

Superman—or, Clark to you—gawks, “I’m not quite sure what you’re implying here.” 

“What I’m stating is, that you are Superman. You just so happen to be able to interview him every single time and shed a positive light on his actions, you were unbelievably mad after Supershit—” Clark’s eye twitches, “And, what, Superman just so happens to know what apartment I’m staying in without any information handed out? Don’t even get me started on the glasses.” 

“The glasses?” 

“Well, you mentioned once that the glasses were for short-distance reading. You never took them off after reading the letters in your mailbox.” you shrug as you explain your theory, “Plus, you’re not wearing them now so you obviously don’t need them. You just wear them for a whole identity thing.” 

Clark is struck silent. You were good. Like, incredibly observant. 

“Did you get the job at Daily Planet?” when you nod, he proceeds to talk, “Good. We’ll need someone like you.” he pauses, “Are you mad?” 

“No, I’m not mad.” you deflate a little, “I would have been if my theory was wrong and you did happen to hand out my address to some random man without my knowledge.” 

Clark gives a feeble nod, “I’m a little shellshocked that you figured it out.” 

“I’ve never seen you two in the same room, I guess.” your joke makes both Clark and you smile widely at each other. The break of tension allows you to move closer to him as you bend at the waist to look at his injury. You hiss at the sight of it, “That looks sore.” 

“Oh, it isn’t so bad.” Clark gives you a dopey sort of smile when he catches your eye. “I didn’t intend to get hurt on the way here.” 

You nod, taking the sodden flannel from his grasp in order to dab at his torso, “Superman sells me a sob story and bleeds out on my fire escape to get me to like him. That would have been dramatic.” 

“You’re not mad?” Clark asks again for reassurance—his confidence since shaken from the rise of resistance in the Metropolis community in regard to his presence within the city. 

With a shake of your head, you meet his blue eyes again, “No. I mean, we have a lot to talk about. But that’s what first dates are for, right? Getting to know each other?”

“So, the date is still going ahead?” (Gosh. He sounded so insecure.)

“Oh, I’m not sure. Clark Kent might have an issue with it.” you joke, “He called first dibs.” your playful tone ebbs along with your smug smile when Clark’s brows pinch and he swallows deeply. His eyes flit to your lips and then back up to your eyes. “Are you about to kiss me?”

“Is that okay?”

“Again, Clark Kent—”

Your repetitive joke is smothered when Clark captures your lips with his own. He cradles the back of your head to keep you in position, his head tilting in one direction to refrain from your noses being pressed together. Your stomach is splattered with a heavy warmth as your fingers curl around the bluish fabric of the suit he wears. The room falls into a blissful silence aside from the occasional smacking of lips when Clark deepens the kiss with a sense of heated desire—the innocent kiss soon turning open-mouthed and desperate. 

The signals of it allow you to climb onto his lap, wet flannel disregarded behind you as you wrap your arms around his neck, pulling yourself closer into his arms that begin to circle your frame. Your hips tilt and press downward and Clark responds with a faint whimper that makes you smile against his lips. 

There’s that sensible part of your brain that screams for this to come to a screeching halt. No first date and you’re practically dry-humping Superman? Of all people? But the way he pathetically whined beneath you; that was all Clark Kent. Your neighbour that you had been crushing on for the better part of a year, even when you had been dating your ex-boyfriend, the poorly-postured, socially inept male had always been in your peripheral. (Turns out he had just been biding his time.) 

You feel him shift beneath you and the memory of an open-wound that your all of a sudden flush against is thrown to the forefront of your mind. It makes you pull back promptly, Clark’s face written with concern—his lips all puffy and wet. 

“Is something wrong?” 

“Your wound, Clark.” You lean back and Clark’s hands hold your weight for you. “It’ll probably need stitches.” 

He frowns, “No, it won’t.” he leans in to press another kiss to your lips with less eagerness than before, “I can heal easily without human intervention.” 

“Are you serious? You just wanted some attention?” you tug at the grown out curls at the nape of his neck and laugh. “You have so much explaining to do.” 

“Of course.” Clark smiles against your lips, quickly making you forget your train of thought as he stands with a grunt with you bundled up in his arms. He speaks between hungry kisses, “But first, I have a destroyed car and a year of apologies to make up for.” 

You giddily laugh as he carries you to your bedroom. 

you couldn't stay in your apartment, you were going to lose your mind if you did.

you needed to talk to the one person who truly understood. someone who understood him.

you grabbed your coat, slipped out into the wet metropolis streets, and hailed a cab and gave the driver lois lane’s address.

you and lois had become incredibly close over the past year. you had joined the planet as a features writer a couple of years after clark and lois had officially ended their relationship.

because they were long broken up, there was no awkwardness... lois had taken you under her wing, becoming your mentor, your loudest cheerleader in the bullpen, and your closest friend.

by the time the cab pulled up to lois’s apartment building, you were blinking back furious, hurt tears. you took the elevator up, practically throwing yourself at her front door and knocking aggressively.

you heard footsteps inside, the lock clicked, and the door swung open.

lois stood there, dressed in a comfortable oversized sweater, a half empty glass of red wine in her hand. "y/n? what are you doing here? it's pouring-"

"i can't do it anymore, lois," you burst out, the words tumbling out of you in a sobbing rush before she could even invite you inside. you stepped past her into the entryway, too consumed by your own heartbreak to notice her sudden, tense posture.

"he canceled again," you cried, hugging your wet jacket tighter on you, shivering. "it’s always the same excuse. 'something came up at the office,' 'a late breaking lead.' i know he cares about his work, but i feel like a ghost in my own relationship! i'm sick of being the one who always gets left behind. i'm sick of competing with a job, and honestly... sometimes i feel like i'm competing with you."

you finally paused to catch your breath, wiping a tear from your cheek. "i just really needed a friend tonight. can i please just crash on your couch?"

usually by now lois would've said something, she would've made a joke or immediately handed you tissues or started calling clark an idiot, but there was nothing... no response.

"lois..?" your eyebrows pulled in.

"what?" she asked, her voice a little too high.

"why are you looking at me like that?"

"...like what?" lois muttered, she gripped the stem of her wine glass so tightly you thought the glass might shatter right in her hand.

"like..." you frowned harder. "like something's wrong."

"no, nothing's wrong."

but her eyes weren't on you, they were staring straight past your shoulder at the hall behind you.

"lois?" you whispered, stepping further into the hall. "is someone here? did i interrupt a date? i'm so sorry, i should have called-"

"no! no, wait.. " Lois reached out, her hand catching your wet sleeve, but she was a second too late.

you walked through the short hall and into the living room, the words of apology dying on your tongue.

a figure stepped into the dim light of the living room, drying his hair with a towel. he was wearing a gray t-shirt and sweatpants.. home clothes. comfort clothes.

he didn't have his glasses on. and as he looked up, his bright blue eyes met yours, freezing him entirely in his tracks.

it was Clark.

the towel slipped from his hand, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud.

“something came up at the planet, sweetie. a breaking story. i'm so, so sorry.”

the words of his text message flashed in your mind, your eyes darted from clark’s damp hair, to his relaxed clothes, to the second glass of wine sitting on lois's coffee table, and finally back to lois, who was now looking down at the floor, unable to meet your gaze.

"baby," clark breathed, his voice entirely stripped of its usual warmth. he took a panicked step forward, his hands reaching out instinctively. "baby, wait. It’s... it’s not what you think."

the sheer cliché of the phrase made a hysterical, breathless laugh bubble up in your throat. "not what i think? clark, you texted me an hour ago saying you were stuck at your desk. you’ve canceled our last three dates because of 'deadlines.' and you’re here? in your sweats?"

"you canceled on me," you said, your voice barely a whisper, "for three weeks, you’ve been too busy. you were too busy tonight. to have dinner with me. in our apartment."

"we were talking," lois interjected quickly, her voice trembling. she stepped between you and clark, trying desperately to play defense, to be the fixer. "just talking. he was stressed, he came over to vent about a case, and he got caught in the storm. i told him to dry off. that's it. I swear to you, that's all this is."

"and you couldn't tell me that?" you looked at lois, the tears you had been fighting finally falling. " i came here crying because i felt invisible in my own relationship, and you let me walk through that door knowing he was in your bedroom?"

"sweetheart, no," Clark choked out, stepping closer. "please. i love you. i would never- "

"don't call me that," you snapped, anger finally bursting through the sadness. a single, hot tear spilled over your cheek. you looked at lois, the woman you had trusted with your insecurities, the mentor you practically worshiped.

"i thought you were my friend. i thought you were the one person who understood how hard it was to love him."

a terrible, suffocating realization washed over you. lois did understand. she understood perfectly. because she hadn't actually let him go. and he hadn't let go of her. you were just a temporary detour in their romance.

"please, let me explain," clark pleaded, taking another step forward, his hands raised in defense. "lois is right. it’s not a date. i didn't plan this. it’s just… things have been so heavy lately, and i didn't want to bring that stress home to you."

the words left his mouth, and a suffocating silence fell over the room.

you stared at him, your breath hitching as you inhaled. "you didn't want to bring it home to me?" you muttered. "so you brought it to your ex girlfriend instead?"

"no, that's not what I meant...."

"you lied to me," you said. "you told me you were working. you told there was a breaking story, but the truth is you just didn't want to be around me. you left me sitting alone at a table with dinner i spent hours cooking, because you'd rather vent to lois?"

"listen to me," clark rushed out, his voice cracking as he scrambled to fix the damage, only to dig the hole deeper. "you don't understand the pressure I'm under. lois just... she already knows everything about my life.... she knows how i think. with her, i don't have to explain myself or ease into things. it’s just easier."

it’s just easier.

you let out a laugh. "easier," you repeated, backing away from him until your spine hit the wall of the hallway. "right. because i'm work. i'm the person you have to try for, and she's the one you actually want to unwind with."

"no! sweetie, please, no," clark choked out, looking completely undone. he reached for your arm, his touch gentle, but you yanked yourself away.

"don't touch me," you snapped again.

you gripped the fabric of your wet coat, looking at clark one last time. "have a nice night at the office, clark." you scoffed, turning around.

"sweetheart, please," clark begged, his voice breaking, "let's go home. let's just go back to the apartment and talk about this. please." he said as he made a move to follow you.

"if you come near me, clark, i swear to god i will never speak to you again," you spat, your voice harsh, that actually made him freeze in his tracks.

"How many times have I called you at ungodly hours for the same reasons? Deadline or disaster? Have you ever held it against me?" Was his counter, and before you replied with a deadpanned, "Actually, Clark, now that you bring it up..." He hurried on before you could finish.

He was A Man. A grown man who could survive five nights without making sweet, sweet passionate love to you.You needed to focus and rest, and he'd wait centuries to have your undivided attention if that was what loving you required. Fortunately, it was only until the weekend.

"I miss you, but most of all, I love you, sweetheart. It's fine!" All of this was said with his free hand locked around his knee, blunt nails pressing hard enough to leave pale crescents in the skin while he tried to force himself into believing it too.

But everyone knew the unspoken rule: anyone who said "it's fine!" that cheerful were liars.

.

The tension finally boiled over the second Clark stepped through his front door the following evening. He carelessly tossed his glasses and phone on his bedside table, pressed a fist to his mouth, and released a sigh heavy enough to empty his lungs.

Was it pathetic to be half-hard and aching just from missing you this badly? Or was that devotion? Yearning? Or, as Steve would undoubtedly tease with that little smirk, "whipped?"

Speaking of – Clark tugged his belt loose in a sharp tug. Dress shirt buttons followed. Zipper. Slacks shoved down his thighs, until he's whipping his cock from the confines of his slacks with a shaky, relieved sigh. The cool apartment air did nothing to help soothe the heat coursing through him.

If anything, fredom made the weight of his need more worse. The heavy pulse, the glossy bead already gathering at the slit, the way his length kicked against his stomach as though reaching for a body that wasn’t there.

He tried the cold shower first. Sensible, right? Stood under the icy spray, willing the rut to settle, willing his body to behave like the grown man he kept insisting he was. He rifled through unsexy thoughts: taxes, Perry's editorial calendar, the tamales Ma and Pa raved about when he last spoke to them.

Ninety seconds later, water was streaming over his closed eyes while every drop slipping down his chest became your fingers. Your palms spreading over his stomach. Your nails scratching lightly through the dark trail beneath his navel. Your warm mouth chasing the water lower, lower, until your knees struck tile and that pretty, wicked smile curved against the base of his cock.

He nearly broke the shower handle off with a frustrated growl, cock still brutally stiff between his legs, skin flushed crimson despite the chill.

In his haze, Clark climbed into the empty bed nude, triggering another cruel wave of reminders. Cold sheets welcomed him instead of your legs. Silence settled where your sleepy chatter should have been. No warm body curled beneath his arm. No soft complaint when he crowded too close. No hand wandering beneath waistbands because neither of you had ever been particularly convincing when pretending you only wanted to cuddle.

He stretched out across the sheets until his face buried into your pillow, inhaling the lingering scent of your shampoo, your shower gel, your favorite perfume dabbed behind your ear, you, you, you.

The scents went straight to his cock, and the urge hit like a meteor. With a pained whimper, Clark rolled onto his stomach and pressed his stiff, leaking member against the expensive sheets you bought when you first started spending the night.

Eight-hundred thread count, you’d told him proudly.

He wondered whether they were supposed to survive a sexually frustrated Kryptonian. Probably not.

.

The grinding began slowly, desperately, and experimental. Pleasure washed over him. Again, harder. Soon, wet smears marked every thrust, the motion creating a delicious friction against his sensitive tip, sharp enough to make his breath hitch.

Soon, slow wasn’t nearly enough to scratch that impossible itch.

His hips moved harder, faster, each desperate thrust leaving another damp streak across the fabric. His fists twisted into the sheets on either side of his head until the tendons rose along his wrists and the linen began to fray between his fingers. His tongue rested wetly against his bottom lip as he panted into your pillow, groaning each time his hips pressed down and the fabric dragged tightly along the underside of his cock.

The sounds spilling from him were embarrassingly primitive.

Low grunts. Broken breaths. A needy whine he would deny even under Kryptonite.

Eventually, they all melted into the only coherent thing he could say: your name.

Your name, muffled, over and over while your Clark humped the mattress in a poor attempt to fuck the fantasy of you out of his system. Bless his heart, it wasn't working.

If anything, it sharpened his hazy imagination into vivid, filthy focus. Your weight settling over him, knees planted wide on either side of his head, as you leaned forward in that sixty-nine position you’d joked about one too many times to make him suspect something.

You'd take his cock in hand with a slow stroke, press a kiss at the tip, stretching and hollowing your mouth around him until your nose brushed the heavy weight of his balls when you forced yourself deeper.

From underneath, he’d have the perfect view.

The generous curve of your plump ass hovered over his face. The delicate slope of your back arched deeper. The soft underside of your thighs framing his face while you lowered your core onto his mouth, already wet enough to leave a shining streak across his lips. His thumbs would dig into the soft flesh to keep you from clamping shut around his head while he buried his face between your legs. He would lick you messy, broad stripes through your puffy folds, sucking your clit until your hips bucked against his smothering mouth, then push his tongue into your dripping hole while the tip of his cock bruised the back of your throat.

You’d happily choke around his cock a little. The tight spasm of your throat wound squeeze the head.

Let your saliva spill down his shaft in warm, messy trails until it gathered along his happy trail, and he’d moan directly into your pussy,

"She's beautiful from this angle."

"She tastes so sweet."

"Shd clenched perfectly around my tongue just now. Please, sweetheart, please have Her do it again?"

Golly, Clark’s hips jerked hard enough to shove the mattress and frame several inches across the floor.

Continuing his fantasy, he would then coo about filling Her up so full, until She was overflowing with his come, until you were marked as his inside and out. At the same time, your mouth worked his cock with wet, sloppy determination, swallowing until your throat refused and pulling back with strings of spit still connecting your lips to the swollen tip.

He’d imagine you pulling off long enough to look over your shoulder, glassy-eyed and breathless, begging in a raspy voice to breed you, baby, put every drop where it belongs with his cum already on your tongue before he’d realize even giving it to you.

That scenario had Clark rutting faster, the bed creaking, squeaking, shifting under his barely-contained strength. His eyes suddenly flared hot with unrestrained heat vision, twin red beams scorching pinpoints through the mattress and most likely the floorboards before squeezing them shut.

Precum soaked a dark, sticky patch into the sheets beneath his cock, and his lower abdomen made every grind slick. A dark lock of hair clung to his forehead. His drool made the pillow damp against his cheek, and still.

Still, he couldn’t stop whining your name, couldn’t stop chasing the phantom sensation of your body molded along on his torso, and your slick coating his chin and dripping down his neck

Take him deeper. Sit down harder. Use his mouth.

Somehow, the fantasy deepened.

He’d pull you from his face and roll you beneath him before you finished. Your legs would be spread around his hips, knees pressed to your breasts while he lined himself up and pushed inside. He could almost feel you wet and hot around him. So, so tight after days apart that the first stroke would make both of you shake.

His mouth would cover yours while he fucked you open, tasting himself on your tongue and you on his lips. Every thrust would drive your body higher against the bed. Every needy sound you made would disappear into his mouth while the headboard struck the wall in a rhythm the neighbors could never mistake for anything else.

Mine. The word slid into the fantasy with frightening ease. My sweetheart. My girl. My perfect, exhausted Love

Spread beneath him and finally too ruined to think about anything else. Clark pictured his hand closing around your jaw, thumb slipping between your lips as he told you exactly what he intended to do.

Fill you, and keep filling you. Have my fingers gather my spend from your thighs and push it back deep before it tried to leak out again.

No matter how many times he admired the image of white from your swollen pussy, he groaned so loudly the windows trembled.

Gosh, how he wanted to breed you properly. To pin your hips down and fill you before the first load had stopped leaking.

Wanted your thighs sticky, your belly wet, the sheets beneath you soaked with both of you.

Wanted your voice exhausted because of him instead of work.

Until it stuck...or didn't.

The thought should have slowed him. Instead, it made his balls draw tight.

Did he want to watch your body change because of him? Did you? Or was this simply the rut talking? Some ugly, instinctive Kryptonian corner of him desperate to erase five lonely nights by marking you so thoroughly that even distance couldn’t make him doubt where he belonged—

With a mix of relief and disappointment, Clark came hard with a harsh cry of your name, hips jerking in short, punishing bursts as thick ropes of his spend spilled out onto the warm linen. More followed with each weakening thrust, hot come smearing along his cock and stomach as he continued to grind through the oversensitive aftershocks.

The orgasm left him shaking, heaving, and glazed in a cold sweat, drool still slick on his lips. His lips started to tingle from the real possibility of having you exactly like this on the weekend, letting him ruin you the same way he ruined these damn nice sheets, just more.

His spent cock give a weak, hopeful twitch.

.

The phone rang and Clark startled violently, eyes flying open as your name and that soft, smiling contact photo he’d taken one sleepy Sunday morning lit up the screen.

"Ahh, shoot!"

He fumbled for it, one frantic reach nearly sending the phone skidding off the table. He caught it on the second attempt and pressed it to his ear, swallowing against a throat gone dry, and breathing remained uneven.

Your suspicion came through the line immediately after his greeting."You sound funny. Everything okay?"

"Yeah—no, I’m fine." His voice cracked around the age-old lie. Clark cleared his throat, forcing something painfully casual into it. "Everything’s fine. Just… Superman duties, you know how it is. Tell me about your day."

You hummed, unconvinced, but too exhausted to press him. Instead, you continued talking, your voice low and worn-soft through the receiver, each affectionate little pause slipping beneath his skin. You told him about work, about a coworker who had nearly driven you insane, about the lunch you had forgotten to eat until far too late.

Clark listened, asked the right questions, and made the appropriate sympathetic noises between pauses. Guilt tightened his chest when you asked about his day, speaking to him in that drowsy voice you usually reserved for the minutes before falling asleep against his chest.

Unfortunately, another part of him remained painfully aware that you were lying in bed somewhere else. Perhaps wearing one of his old shirts you now claimed as yours. Perhaps curled on your side with bare thighs brushing together beneath the hem, touching the place where his body usually pressed against yours and missing him badly enough to ache too.

Clark knew better than to let his thoughts wander again, but then you called him baby once more.

His cock twitched against the cooling, sticky mess, then again. The spent length began to stiffen beneath his stomach, dragging slowly through his own come as blood rushed back into it.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut.

Your tired voice kept flowing through the phone, sweet and trusting, while he buried his face deeper into your pillow and inhaled what remained of your scent.

His hips shifted restlessly, chasing relief he had barely finished giving himself. Shame should have stopped him.

Instead, the idea that you were talking so innocently while he lay covered in his own release, getting hard again because you had called him baby of all things, made fresh need tighten low in his stomach.

Every filthy thought returned twice as vivid.

Your mouth. Your pussy. Your hoarse little plea to fill you.

How silly of him to think one damning orgasm would be enough.

How devastating.

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In your train of thought, you didn’t realize you had just run into something you really shouldn’t have. A group of kids, young and dumb, were trying to rob a store with bats, knifes and audacity. You stayed still as you watched them notice you, look at each other before one of the pointed a knife to you. You rolled your eyes, put your hands up and walked closer to them.

“I’m not a snitch.”

“We didn’t fucking ask you.” Wow. Mean. Sounds meaner when it comes from people who had reached puberty a couple years ago. The taller one grabbed you by the shoulder and pressed a blade into your arm, uncovered because you were a moron and picked a strappy top. It wasn’t much sharp or intimidating, but you still knew that any move would cut you and ruin your pale blue heels with blood. You looked up at the sky as you heard a big swoosh, eyebrows rising as something, or someone, fell onto the pavement in front of you and scared the shit out of everyone, causing the boy’s hand to shake and the blade to pierce you like you were an unbaked sourdough.

“Oh my God, ma’am, I am so sorry.” The kid reacted as soon as he saw what he had done, dropping the knife and putting his hands up in surrender. Superman was here; nothing could be done. The owner of the store walked back inside and locked the door like it was all over and the other kids ran. Superman. Right. You had heard about the mythical creature before, Metropolis saviours. The handsome bachelor with a heart of gold and fists of steel. Right now, he didn’t look like a mythical creature, though. He was someone you knew all too well.

“Kid, you know better. Look, this is what happens when you play with fire. Someone gets burned.” Superman’s voice rang loud and clear as he looked down at the boy who nodded and gulped, realizing it had gone too far and waited for Superman to give him the go ahead. Superman looked at your bleeding arm before your face. When he was checking the wound and how bad it was, he squinted as if the simple vision of your skin colour, the singular freckle on your hand had transported him somewhere else. His breath hitched and he looked up at you. It was you, the same frown and disappointed look you had always had. You still had your father’s eyes and your mother’s nose. The same lips that kissed him for the first time ever under the bleachers after a football game. The same chin he’d hold softly between his fingers and wipe because you always got paint on it somehow. It was the same hand that he’d hold while walking you home, sometimes while doing chores and you giggled as he tickled your palm while picking up hay.

And you knew those eyes, that fallen curl on his forehead. That nervous look like when you’d ask him how the fuck he got here so fast or stare at him like you knew he was hiding something. The Adam’s apple you kissed so many times trying to get him to relax and let you in. The neck you held when you let him in for the first time, so painful and magical you would’ve never known you two would break up in two days. It was Clark fucking Kent. It was as clear as day.

“Uh- m’am, are you okay?” The kid asked you, still shaking in fear. You turned to him and nodded.

“Just… make better decisions and go.” He nodded and ran in the direction his friends had just minutes before. Clark, or Superman, was still quiet and fearful like he’d seen a ghost. Like you were gonna bite. You would have a couple of years ago, when you were still so mad at him. It took you a very long time and some sessions a therapist, but it was just something you tried to make peace with. Between other relationships you’d realized humans were too complex and not always meaning to harm, even if they still did. You tried to understand why Clark swore he loved you but still refused to stop hiding from you. Why he didn’t show up to your art show senior year and swore he had a really good excuse but refused to tell you what it was. How he swore he was breaking up with you just because he loved you and could see you weren’t happy with him, you didn’t trust him. You gave him your virginity two days prior. How could he say that? You agreed to break up though because he was still sort of right, you didn’t trust him, you weren’t happy. He was still nice afterwards. If he was getting with other girls, you never found out. He said he’d always be there for you and he was, he was at the mass of your mother’s passing two-year commemoration. He gifted you a beautiful necklace for your eighteenth birthday. He went to say goodbye to your house the day he left for college.

But here he was, happy and well and with another identity where he had superpowers. Fuck, that explained a lot, actually. How he didn’t bruise, how insistent his parents were about him ‘controlling himself’ (you thought it was about sexual urges and were confused they bought it up because Clark was almost too much of a gentleman). How he was always hiding, acting like he was battling something he wouldn’t tell you.  

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier. There was traffic.”

“In the sky?” He chuckled once, putting his hands at his hips.

“There was a traffic jam because of a pothole and I fixed it.” You nodded, still confused. Was he going to pretend you couldn’t tell?

“Are you okay? It’s sort of bleeding a lot but it’s pretty superficial. There’s an emergency room not too-“

“I’m fine. Just ruined my shoes. I’ll take care of it.”

“Are you sure, miss?” Miss. So this is what it was going to be.

“Yeah, thanks, uh-“

“Superman.” He responded like that was his name, a hand on his chest.

“That’s what your parents named you?” You asked, still holding the wound pressed hard to avoid any more bleeding.

“Uh, no, m’am. That just kind of caught on. I’m Kal-el.” You nodded, somehow surprised he was being sort of honest. That’s what you had read his name was.

“Do you need any help?” He motioned to your hands, and you sighed.

“Yes, can you just grab my phone out of my bag and help me get my address on google maps?” He nodded and did as told, picking up your phone and letting you unlock it with your face. He looked the background picture; it was your mother holding you and your brother when she wasn’t sick and was still full of life. He remembered her like that, cheery and so kind. He remembered everything from those months too, your father’s numbness, your brother’s confusion, you taking care of everything. Clark shook the thoughts away, opened google maps and pressed the ‘home’ button, quickly mapping out that you were indeed not too far. Just somehow on the other way from where you started.

“Do you want me to walk with you? You never know… they could come back.”

“I don’t think they will, you scared the living shit out of them. But yes, that’s fine.” He nodded with a laugh and led the way to your apartment.

“So, are you new around here?” Superman asked, watching you out of the corner of his eye and inevitably smiled. It felt weird to see you. He had spent so much time just looking at old pictures and holding onto memories. He had great memory, so it wasn’t a problem. But he’d searched for you on social media, asked his parents and no one seemed to know much. You didn’t have an Instagram and weren’t seen around town since your brother went off to college.

“Yeah, just moved here a month ago.” You didn’t look up, you couldn’t look at him anymore without being so confused at the fact he thought you didn’t know.

“Oh, and how are you liking it?”

“Well, it had been fine till I sort of got stabbed.” You motioned to the arm you were still pressing to avoid getting more blood all over yourself, it seemed like it had stopped though, so you removed your palm. You looked down at your bloodied palm, resisting the urge to wipe it against yourself.

“Here, sorry.” Superman offered his cape to help you get rid of mini puddle on your hand. You sighed and wiped it as you held onto it carefully, looking at the soft confection and wondering why the hell he landed on a cape. You let it go when your hand felt usable again and noticed your apartment building, fast enough for you to feel like an utter buffoon for getting lost.

“Okay, thank you, uh Superman, Kal-el.”

“I didn’t do anything much, miss.” He said, looking at you with an indescribable look. His head twisted to the side just a little, you barely noticed, as he looked into your eyes trying to decipher what you were thinking. What you were feeling. What he was feeling. You gulped nervously, antsy under his stare.

“I’m gonna head up.”

“Right, yes, absolutely. Have a good evening, take care of that. And yourself.” He pointed his finger to your arm and then a circle around all your body like giving instructions. You nodded and turned around quickly before you fainted from the way your heart was beating and your face was burning. Not only was it a weird night in general, but seeing Clark in person when he had existed as a figment of your imagination for so long was completely uprooting. He lived in your head; you didn’t mention him other than when people asked how many boyfriends you’d had or shared a funny story that included him. Like when you had driven the tractor over his foot when he was teaching you how to use it or when his parents almost caught you in his room real late at night and you jumped out of the window with your bra in your hands and hid behind a cow when Johnathan came out to inspect the weird noise they heard. You mentioned him as your high school boyfriend, but his name never came out. It didn’t even come out tonight, but it sort of wasn’t supposed to be him. He thought you didn’t know and you allowed it.

As you put your hair up with a pen and kept hammering the nail, your mind drifted to what happened four days ago again. Clark was Superman, he was Kal-el. And he thought you couldn’t tell. He thought you could mistake his eyes for someone else’s. You didn’t know if its offensive or Clark was too naïve. Your headphones were on, the gallery was closed for lunch break, but you took the time to fix a falling decoration because you were your own handyman, your father was a farm man who taught you the same things as your brother.  You weren’t noticing the outside world, didn’t hear the shatter of the glass on the gallery and didn’t feel the sudden gust of wind of someone with a stupid bowl cut crashing right into the space. You just placed the following nail between your lips and turned around to see some creature-pseudo machine. You yelped, held onto the hammer with more strength and threw it bullseyes into the creature’s chest, the claw landing and logged into the insides, creating a short circuit. It fell back onto the floor, the man who had crashed into the building standing up.

“Lady, what the hell?” He yelled and you finally removed your headphones amongst the noise.

“What?”

“How didn’t you hear? How did you do that?” He was out of breath; you immediately moved towards the window.

“You broke the glass! Do you know how much effort the pieces inside here take and you could’ve damaged them. What even is this?” You yelled, kicking off your heels to step closer to the mess made without tumbling on them. You inspected the big sculpture at the entrance and checked for damage.

“Guy! All good?” Someone flew into the gallery through the broken window, head turning towards you the second he arrived. You were too pissed to look up, frowning as you took your sweater off to wipe away the shards that were on top of it.

“Yeah. I- landed here and this lady threw a hammer at it. It worked.” You finally looked up, seeing Clark-no, Kal-el, standing in front of you looking confused. Guy walked towards you too, watching you standing on your tiptoes to avoid stepping on the glass.

“What- hi, are you alright?”

“Fine. Your friend broke my glass. He could’ve ruined this piece.” You said, too mad to react at the fact that you had somehow summoned Clark by thinking of him, in the worst possible way. He nodded, lips pursed together.

“I’m sorry, okay? Not on purpose. How did you aim that?” Green lantern questioned you again, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Was an axe thrower in high school.” You mumbled, mainly at Guy because Clark knew you were an axe thrower in high school, he had to lock himself into the house to not run towards you and pull you out of the way every time it bounced back while you learned. He watched from the window with a clenched jaw, letting your little brother practice boxing on him meanwhile. He was terrified of showing you his powers, but even more of you getting hurt so he knew when it came to it there was nothing that could stop him. You never did though, always moved in time even when wearing the stupidest outfit while doing it, jean shorts and sinful white blouses, another reason Clark had to cage himself in. You joked you would die pretty if you fucked up, making him roll his eyes and do an x-ray into your head to check if you were actually insane.

“I’m sorry about the mess, ma’am. Is the piece okay?” Superman asked, carefully stepping towards you. You nodded with a frown, watching him move closer to you and wrap one hand around your waist to pull you up from the mess. You said nothing, let his hand basically scorn the skin. You hadn’t felt his touch in ages, it didn’t feel any different, though. It was still gentle with a little too much strength, his hands were still warm and jagged. He put you down where there were no glass shards on the floor.

“Seems you can handle yourself, miss. So, I’m going to take this and go.” Guy said, removing your hammer from the machine and handing it back to you. He took the machine and dragged it out your gallery.

“He sucks.”

“Yeah, he’s… not the best.” Kal-el responded, hands on his hips like he needed them steady somewhere. He wasn’t expecting to see you again, not after the had mapped out the area around your apartment and kept a watchful eye on it but had not seen you around. He had been shocked and quiet the rest of that evening, never expecting to see you in Metropolis. You always said big cities made you sick, too many people and trash. You were also never keen on being far from your family.

“Um, I can help you clean this up and I’m sure you’ll need insurance, I can like keep an eye on it at night.” There was your mumbling, eager to please Clark. Who offered teachers help, who did the dishes without being told to do so. The man you first loved had kept himself a secret for who knows how long, you didn’t know why or how. But there were things that were real. His kindness was one of those.

“It’s fine, I’ll just call the owner. We have great insurance and it’s early, he’ll get someone here by the end of the day.” You sighed, ready to call up your co-workers from their lunch break to get help cleaning this up.

“Okay, yeah. Sorry again. How’s your arm?” He pointed to the place where the cut had been, now mostly healed.

“It’s fine. Didn’t think you’d remember.” You glanced at him as you put your heels back on, looking for your phone on the counter and fully taking off the headphones.

“I remember everything.” Superman said in a voice too low to be his regular regal and professional tone. Because he was sort of saying it to himself too. He did. He remembered every second with you, from the time they first met in middle school, to the last time he saw you, around Christmas of your freshman year of college. You both came home and he went by to your house to drop of a present, a brand-new set of really fancy watercolours he got in Metropolis. You were cordial and polite; you hugged longer than you had since you’d broken up. He never saw you again.

You glanced up at him from your phone, wondering if he was going to fess up. To admit that he knew you. He gulped, fear in his eyes and looked away. So, no.

“I’m just going to call my boss, Kal-el. You can go. Wasn’t your fault.”

“Right, I’ll get out of your way, miss-“ He waited for you to say your name, and you fought the urge to roll your eyes. You said it and he repeated it back with a smile, like he was relieved to be able to call you by it now.

If you just… wiggled your hand out, it wouldn’t hurt more. No, that wouldn’t work. It was really wedged in there. You had dropped your sketching pen in the drain next to the bench you were sitting in and thought you could surely grab it with your nails on the small holes of the system. You were wrong, so terribly wrong. You could not and it was now stuck in there. To add insult to injury, you had chosen a pretty secluded place in the park and saw no one who could help you. The dog was looking at you like you were an idiot and you could not fight him on it. You supposed you had done it to yourself; you wanted to know how good Superman sense of danger was and wondered if you screamed his name, he’d come. Would Clark recognize your voice? You were about to try it when you dropped the pen and thought maybe Superman would come for a citizen with her hand in the sewer. You had not counted on getting stuck. Your fingers were numb already when you broke and yelled a loud ‘fuck’ echoing the surroundings. Anyone would do right now.

“We have got to stop meeting like this.” A voice said from behind you. It had worked. Clark crouched down in front of you, and you knew you looked like a moron, on all fours with your hand full of graphite and hair in your face. You weren’t even wearing the leggings that looked good, they were the old, grey type.

“How’d you know it was me?” You questioned, glancing at him who held a proud smirk on his face.

“Your smell.”

“Creepy.”

“Don’t call the man who’s going to save you from amputation creepy.” You huffed, shaking you head with a small grin.

“I’m sorry.”

“Atta girl. C’mon.”  He snuck his finger into the railing right next to yours and without breaking a sweat, he lifted the metal and bent it, effectively freeing your hand. You moaned relief, your dog finally hearing the commotion and running up to you, licking your face like you hadn’t seen him in weeks.

“Suppose you were reaching for this?” Clark grabbed the pen and put his hand out in front of you, the sudden movement scaring the animal into defence. He stood defensively between you two and groaned.

“Oh, okay. He’s feisty. Just gonna put it down here.” You watched as you rubbed your hand and tried to bring it back to life, Superman placed the pen the bench.

“Of course he is, I’m a woman living alone. He knows the odds.” You defended your puppy, petting him to get him to calm down. Clark put the railing back into place and wiped his hands clean, offering you his hand to get you to stand up. You took it, trying to ignore the weird electricity that coursed through your veins at the simple touch. His hand was rougher, maybe even bigger than before. It was just as comforting, though.

“That’s good, he’s your protector.” Superman said and you nodded, straightening your body and sighing.

“Yep. Thanks, uh- Superman. Kal-el.” You said, not knowing how to refer to him

“You can call me Kal-el. Superman’s pretty formal.” He said and you nodded, sitting back down on the bench and pulling your knees to your chest. Even if somehow your initial attempt was to summon him, now that he was here you didn’t know what to say. You didn’t know why you wanted him here, you were just thinking of him.

“Can I sit?” He pointed to the spot besides you and you nodded, picking up your sketch pad to give the space. He sat down with a sigh, like a man who carried the world on his shoulders. It did fit him right.

“Are you an artist?” Kal-el motioned to your art supplies, you grabbed them tighter to you as if you wanted to hide them.

“Uh, as a hobby.”

“But you work in a gallery.”

“Yeah, but I manage it. It’s close enough, though. And sometimes the Metropolis art museum calls me for a restoration project. Well, they’ve done it once. But I’m on the roster.” You explained, not knowing how you felt about how your life had turned out. You never had a specific dream, not like he did. You found restoration fascinating, you liked painting and drawing, you wanted to learn more. That was about it. He had his life planned out at sixteen. And it seems like he did it all. Help everyone. Write in a big newspaper. Be able to help his parents. You used to be part of those plans, only in whispers when you’d lay on the field and he’d run his fingers down your arm and ask if you’d like a house or an apartment, a dog or a cat, vacations at the beach or at the mountains. You never gave a serious answer, asked for a Komodo dragon or a treehouse. It was scary to tie yourself to a man who had bigger dreams than you and secrets he wouldn’t tell.

“That’s really cool. Is it what you always wanted to do?”

“Uh, I like it. It’s enough. Never had my life planned out. But I like my job, like supporting artists and bossing people around. It pays well.” You shrugged, looking at him and resting your face on your knees. He was looking at your dog jumping around with another one, already feeling protective over the pup. He nodded, looking back at you.

“What about you? This your dream job?”

“This doesn’t pay. No paid time off or 401k. But I love it, it was sort of my dream.” You smiled, nodding softly. You could tell he loved it, you saw it in the way he the relief took over his face after a job well done, the way he conducted himself in the interviews (he was interviewing himself, made you break into laughter when you first read that), the pictures and the news segments with soft smiles that would make anyone swoon.

“So you have a 9-5…. A wife and kids in the suburbs?”

“A 9-5 and an apartment where I don’t spend enough time.” He responded and you were relieved there wasn’t a wife and kids, it would’ve been a knockout to find his life had turned better without you. That you leaving his life wouldn’t have shifted him even a little. Not that you wanted him to be unhappy, of course not, but you still wanted some type of consequence for giving up on you.

“Ah, you did well for yourself, Kal-el.”

“Thank you.” Clark couldn’t bring himself to ask more about you without seeming suspicious or without it breaking his heart. It would kill him to know if you had struggled, if your family was fine, if men had been nice to you, if you’d made good friends. He should’ve been around for all of that, he wanted to. But he promised, he said he’d do right by you. Even if it meant letting you go.

“Clark.” He looked up from the book on his left hand, his right still over your shoulders as you slept soundly next to him, bundled against his side with your face still tacky from the tears. It had become a routine, you sat beside her and inevitably ended up weeping, Clark taking over the reeding. Your mother turned around to look at him, having interrupted the reading of The house of spirits when he finished the chapter and was licking his thumb to turn the page. “Yes?” “You’ll take care of her, right?” Clark’s mouth went dry, closing the book and looking down at your sleeping figure. You’d be furious with your mother if you heard her asking a man to take care of you. “I’m not- I know you’re kids. I’m not asking you to be with her forever. But while you can, just… help her out? Y ’know she’s all brave and strong but I know my little girl. And I just want someone to keep an eye on her. You love her?” He nodded instantly, his hold on you not having faded a single second even when his hand went numb and he knew he should’ve been home for dinner. “I- I know I’m young but if this isn’t love, I really don’t know what else it could be. You know that quote from Jane Eyre? We read it a couple months ago in AP English.” “Which one? Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own?” “Yeah… I feel that.” “Jesus, kid.” Your mother laughed slightly, looking at Clark who was all blue eyes and charm. He smiled softly, like he was embarrassed of feeling so deeply so young. Feeling like this when she didn’t even know who he was. “Okay, good. When I’m gone, which will probably be soon, I want her to have people who love her. Your mama raised you well, Martha’s lovely and I want her to have that.” “Of course, ma’am. I’ll be here as long as she’ll have me.” “That’s the thing, too. She’s loyal as a dog, so she won’t leave easy. If at any point you think you two don’t fit into each other’s lives, if whatever it is that your hiding starts getting in the way” Clark looked down embarrassed, he didn’t realize so many people could notice, “you’ll have to be the strong one. I know you will be.” He sighed and heard her rearrange herself on the bed, sitting up with difficulty but he didn’t run to help her because she hated it and it risked waking you up. She reached for Clark’s hand, it was cold and wrinkly, but he looked up at her. The thought of you two breaking up hadn’t ever occurred to him, he sort of thought this was it. No more searching. After a you agreed to be his girlfriend, the girl in his class that smelled like roses and made him laugh so hard during lunch he squirted milk from his nose, that was enough. This was going to be the rest of his life. And he was ecstatic about it. “Okay? I’m not asking the world of you, right?” “No, ma’am. I can do that. I will.”

That was the reason why when he couldn’t get a smile out of you, he needed to make the decision. Because he couldn’t tell you, it would freak you out. You’d be in danger; he was as illegal as it could get. If he decided to use his powers for good, you’d be at risk. He couldn’t tell you. After you had sex for the first time, he was so enamoured he forgot for a whole day that you didn’t know who he truly was. Then the guilt started to eat him up, turning into a discussion of whether to tell you or not where his parents were no help. That was the night of your art showcase and the following morning you were over.

“I’m heading home. What about you, Kal-el? Those spidey senses tingling?”

“Wrong superhero.”

“Ah, you all look alike. Very well, I’ll see you around. Say bye, honey.” You cooed as you leashed up the dog and he looked at Superman, starting to walk away. You chuckled, looking back at him with a grin. The grin of mischievous charm you’d had since 13. The one he saw when you sneaked him into your room on late nights, when you wrote small compliments on pieces of paper and passed it to him in class to make him blush. It was in his composition to smile back, giving you the dimples that used to stop you in your tracks. It did again, your tote falling from your shoulder.

“Tough crowd. Take care of yourself. Really.” You nodded, smiling at him and waving while he watched you walk away.

“Don’t I tell you to take care of yourself?” Superman said, looking down at you with a smirk. He was all cape, a vision of strength and righteousness. You wished you had a photograph, if you hadn’t just not so accidentally fallen down on the street, soft enough that he had had to be close to you to notice it.

“I tripped; I didn’t get shot.” He rolled his eyes, using his two hands to pull you up by your arms in a grip that felt like he was holding back to not hurt you. He was.

“This little man didn’t help, huh?” Beetle’s tail shook while Clark looked down at him, already growing fond of the man since last time he had seen him when he ‘ran’ into you while walking him and he accompanied you home. He melted himself against his palm and Clark remembered how cool normal dogs who couldn’t drop kick you or ruin your apartment in two seconds were.

“Slut.” You told your dog as you watched him leave hair all over Superman’s leg.

“Who made your suit?”

“My ma.” You guessed that. Martha had shown you how to do basic sewing when you were younger and she fixed some of your mother’s clothes to wanted to keep, to fit you better. You saw the inklings of the love she poured into everything, specially her only son, on the inches of his suit. Remembered how she used to stitch Clark’s initials into the insides.

“And do you think she knew you would look double cheeked up in it?” You wiped your legs as you glanced up at him to see if he still blushed up to his ears and got the shy blinking thing.

“What did you just say?”

“You know, your ass looks huge.” He choked on his own saliva and there it was, the blush and blinking thing. It was still the same dork as always. You sort of forgot after all these years of forceful forgetting and hating him that you used to love him. He used to be the last thing you thought about at night and the first thing in the morning. You had spent years running from him. From the smell of his laundry, his humming when he studied, the way he had made you feel like he was in it for the long haul and you believed him. Everything that rang through your brain when it was quiet. You spooked it away, dreamt of him so much he slowly lost his reality. But he was still real and you had to go back to wondering why he suddenly didn’t want you anymore. Or why he lied. It was terrifying to slide back into it, but you couldn’t help it. Clark was still intoxicating.

“No… I don’t think she previewed that.” You laughed at his response, walking alongside him towards your apartment. This has happened a few times now, you run into a little bit of trouble (sometimes on purpose) and Superman appears from behind you like he was summoned from breathless ‘fuck’ from your mouth.

“Just a happy accident, then. What were you doing on this fine Sunday night before duty called?”

“Not much, polishing my boots.”

“Are you serious?”

“You’ll never know.” You huffed, shaking your head as he chuckled. He wasn’t going to lie, he was sort of hoping you’d appear. Seeing you again had shaken his world upside down, an odd mixture of guilt, regret and excitement filled his nerves when he heard you call (or struggle). But mostly, he was so happy to see you. See what had changed, what had stayed the same. How you still filed your nails the same way but never braided your hair like before. How you talked to your dog the same way you talked to the baby goats the farm had one spring. How you still saved all your loose change to give to people in need. But you didn’t wear gold hoops all the time anymore and it seemed like you had retired the Kansas accent mostly (he had too).

“How’s curating going?” Kal-el asked, referencing the second job you had been picked for now.

“It’s mostly just q-tips and alcohol right now, it was recovered from an abandoned hospital towards the outskirts of Gotham, all dirty and dusty. But oddly enough, even that I love. It’s like when you scratch a lottery card and start revealing the image behind it.”

“I get that. Sounds great.” You nodded, wiping your face as a leaf flew on you and Clark bit his tongue to avoid not reaching out to wipe it himself.

“What about your day job?” He waved at a kid who looked at him from across the sidewalk and watched him erupt in hysterics, turning to his mother to celebrate. You watched too with a grin.

“Good. Sort of slow. My co-workers are trying to do an unofficial retreat to a cabin which I’m sure would end in murder.”

“You’d be there to stop it, though.” You pointed out, looking up at him.

“Well, what if I’m the one committing it?”

“Ah, isn’t there some intergalactic oath that says thou shall not kill in cliché ways? Like in a cabin, so unoriginal.” Superman laughed, shaking his head.

“Not really.”

“At least go full horror movie and get a chainsaw.”

“What horror movies are you watching?”

“None at all. I’m more of a Chef’s Table kind of gal.”

“What’s Chef’s table?” He didn’t get a response as you turned the corner of your block and a little girl with two pig tails came barrelling down the street at the sight of you.

“Hi, Beetle! I missed you.” She yelled, coming to a halt in front of you and letting the dog sniff her hand first before petting him lovingly, getting face licks that turned her into a fit of giggles.

“Hi, Tiana. I’m here too.” You teased her, making her smile up at you.

“I’m more excited to see him.” She still had her arms around the dog, hadn’t even noticed Big Blue next to you covering what was left of the sun. You let out an offended gasp that made the little girl laugh even more. A man jogged towards you two, same smile as the little girl. He was tall, dark and magazine handsome and he had a confused grin as he looked at the man besides you.

“Hi, Wes.”

“Yeah, hi. Uhm, Superman. A pleasure to meet you. I’m Winston. Big fan.” He didn’t even glance at you, offering his hand to Clark who shook it with a grin.

“Pleasure’s all mine.”

“Overshadowed by men. I should have killed your plants.” You joked, rolling your eyes teasingly. Winston glanced at you finally, a softer smile taking over.

“Sorry. Hi, sunshine. Had a hard time watering them?” He said, leaning over his daughter to kiss your cheek. Clark’s eye twitched involuntarily at the display of affection, which didn’t have to mean anything, but it could. And he had avoided completely thinking about the fact that you may be taken, you didn’t seem like you were. He could have ignored the signs for his mental health, though.

“Nope. Your basil’s still perfect and I found a packet of Oreos on the counter that looked real lonely. I may have kept it company.” You crouched down to look at the little girl, Tiana, and squinted at her.

“I was letting them get soft.”

“I like them stale too.” The little girl’s mouth dropped, looking up at her dad like she couldn’t believe you had dared. Maybe you had, you loved Oreos dearly your whole life. Clark rarely looked at one without thinking of you.

“Daddy, I’m gonna go look if she took them. I’m taking Beetle.” She grabbed your leash from you and skipped with the dog into the building.

“I didn’t, by the way.” You said as you looked at both men, continuing to walk towards the building and follow Tiana inside.

“Didn’t think you had.” Both men responded at the same time. Your eyes opened wide, looking between them with a small smirk.

“I’m so predictable. Okay, I need to save my dog before Tiana puts make-up on him. See you around, Supes?” You looked up at Kal-el, he nodded and put his arms to his sides to avoid leaning in to touch you. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. You smiled and reached over to squeeze his arm affectionately, letting go quickly before jogging up to your apartment.

“Great to meet you, man.” Winston said before following you, leaving Clark standing outside and thinking how the hell he was going to find out if you were dating without grossly abusing his powers and your privacy. He didn’t have any right to know; he was still hiding from you in all things considered. But he was green and confused, what you had here was fragile and strange and friendly, so he didn’t have the right to even feel anything. He was still a coward.

“What are you doing?” Lois asked, effectively spooking the man of steel who jumped and changed the tab on his computer immediately. He put his head on his arm and turned around, smiling unsuspectedly.

“Just… research.”

“You’re researching… pretty girls?”

“I’m researching art galleries. The pretty girl is a coincidence.” Lois squinted at him, crossing her arms in front of her.

“Aha. Well, let’s see the pretty girl’s art gallery.” She motioned towards his computer, making him switch back to the website of the gallery that featured pictures of the staff.  And there you were, professional and still casual and so, so sweet and pretty. He had been looking at the picture like a creep for a while now until Lois noticed.

“And what’s so interesting about this gallery?” Lois asked, coming closer to him and taking his mouse to look around the page.

“Uhm, they have some pieces from around the globe and have like videos where they show the artists like showcasing their work. They have like agents around the world who get them real unknown people.”

“Huh, sounds neat. Were you planning on taking a crack at it?”

“I don’t think I have the vision.” Sounded much better than ‘I was actually just stalking my ex’.

“Okay, maybe I will. Need a break from seedy politicians. Thank, Smallville.” Lois slapped him on the back and grabbed her phone, snapping a picture of the address and you. Clark winced, not wanting her to get mixed up in his personal problem but too afraid to tell her what was going on.

“Hi, you said you wanted to speak to me?” You were wiping your hands as you walked to the reception area, a lady in a purple sweater and beautiful dark hair with her back turned towards you was said to be asking to talk to the manager, ‘not in Karen way’ she said, made your co-worker laugh.

She turned around and smiled at you, you thought there was surely someone blowing on her hair and flashing some overhead light. She was ethereal, pale skin and bright blue eyes and she was looking for you.

“Yes, hi, I’m Lois Lane. Nice to meet you.” She said, following with your full name and you nodded with a confused smile.

“You’re- you look beautiful. Wow. Great hair.” You responded, shyly wiping your hands on your apron as she had caught you in the middle of fixing an artist’s piece that got damaged in transport. Lois laughed, pulling her hair back and uncrossing her arms.

“You’re too kind. I’m from a newspaper and I was interested in doing a piece about the gallery. I tried to get into contact with the owner, but he told me to talk to you.” She explained and you sighed, you weren’t a great talker, but the owner was a worse one, so you’d guess it’d be a better bet. Plus, why would a newspaper want to know about this gallery in Midtown?

“Oh, alright. Yeah, do you wanna come to the back and we can sit down?” She nodded and you motioned her to follow you, walking to the back and into the employee lounge where they painted and did all sorts of things. You took off the apron and sat, watching her sit down in front of you.

“So, this gallery was recently brought to my attention, and I thought it could be a good arts and culture piece. Let people in on this secret. I just wanna get some background, ask about the method, favourite pieces. I won’t take up too much of your time. Does that sound good to you?” Lois said, pulling out a notepad and a tape recorder. You sighed and nodded, straightening your back to look more professional. Lois’s questions were straight forward and instigative, she got you talking and explaining about the owner’s ideas and how you treated sales of pieces so personal and from around the world. Towards the end, the questions turned silly and gossipy.

“Silliest sale story?”

“Someone tried to buy my spirit level. If I was a funnier person, I would have but instead I just directed them to Ikea.” Lois laughed, note pad left behind.

“Where are you from?”

“Smallville, Kansas. Home of the meteor.” You responded, Lois sitting up straight. She suspected Clark was being deceitful about having your website open, but this had just turned much juicer.

“Really? We have a co-worker from there! You may know him, Clark Kent.” She saw your easy smile drop, looking around as if he would appear from thin air or someone would come out with a camera letting her know it was a rouse.

“Oh, yeah. The Kents. Nice people.” Lois nodded, reading your expression and wondering how to get more out of you without sounding like a gossip.

“Yeah, he’s a real neat guy. All corn fed and midwestern charm.” You chuckled, nodding and wrapping your shal around yourself tighter like it was your shield.

“That’s… yeah. That’s him.”

“You look like I just mentioned the grim reaper.” She said lowly, coming closer to you to see your flushed cheeks.

“I- we just… lost contact.”

“But you had contact?”

“A lot, yeah.” You admitted, biting onto your nail. Really, you were sort of glad to be able to talk about him with someone else, instead of him just living in your mind and the weird limbo between Superman/Kal-el and Clark that developed in two months.

“Oh, okay. And did it end bad?”

“Well, not really. It was just hard to keep talking after.”

“Well, between us, of course, what did he do?” Lois asked, because it was clear to her something had gone wrong and if she knew Mr. Oh Shucks, it may have been his fault. It was hard for her to imagine Clark being horrible though. He was so respectful and kind, she had only seen him talk about woman with respect. You didn’t respond, biting your cheek from the inside like you were debating on if to say something.

“What? Did he take your virginity and dump you?” She asked in a laugh that faded when you didn’t respond.

“You took her virginity and dumped her?” Lois said, rather loudly, as she put her jacket down and walked towards desk. Cat looked at her with a confused look, glancing back at Clark who looked like someone had spilled his secret.

“I- what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Kent. The nice girl from the gallery.” Clark stood up quickly, taking Lois by the arm and leading her into a more secluded place to avoid her telling the entire bullpen about what he did.

“Did she- it’s not that simple.” Clark defended himself, Lois’s glare becoming harsher.

“You had sex with her, and you dumped her two days after. Seems pretty simple to me.” Clark whimpered, it was the course of events when you played it out like that, and he was horrified to realize that’s what you took it as.

“Yes, but I was dealing with a lot- I was getting my powers and she didn’t trust me.”

“She gave you her virginity! How is that not trust?” Lois spat, offensively looking at the man who was stumbling on his words.

“Okay, first of all, I was a virgin too. And second, you don’t get it. She wasn’t happy and her mother told me I needed to be the strong one.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Her mother, on her deathbed, told me if she was unhappy or our life didn’t blend together anymore, I had to be the strong one and pull the plug. She would never do it herself and she was- she looked at me like I was disappointing her. And I was! I couldn’t tell her about the whole Kryptonian thing and a lot what happening so I just lied and avoided her, and I could tell she was tired. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t know what to do- I kept thinking about her mother telling me to keep her girl safe and I would be putting her in danger. So, I just- I was the strong one.” He finally breathed out what he wanted to say, he had never told anyone the whole story or been honest about what was going on. To his parents it was because of the powers, to your friends it was because it just wasn’t working out. Lois was still frowning as she took it all in, arms uncrossing to place one on his shoulder in comfort as it was clear it was hard for him to talk about it.

“Oh. So, you never told her?”

“No. I was too afraid of scaring her or putting her in danger. When the powers came in harder and I realized what my parents- from Krypton, had wanted for me I just thought she didn’t deserve that. She needed stability and honesty. I didn’t know how to fix it or say it. I was terrified of her looking at me different.” Lois nodded, looking down as she imagined the type of mental hell Clark was in during that time.

“I get it. How did you know she was here?”

“I ran into her as Superman. Then again in her gallery that Green Lantern crashed into. I just kept like- listening to her and every time she needed help, I was there.”

“So, you’ve been like… back in her life as Superman.” He nodded, licking his lips and leaning against the wall. It was a relief to get this off his chest. He’d been hiding and plotting, acting like he was on a top-secret mission to help you carry groceries.

“Why not just… tell her? Now?”

“I- it’s like admitting to her I was lying all that time. I hid so much. She’ll think I didn’t trust her or love her enough.”

“She already does.” Lois whispered, Clark’s head whipping up at the words, his knees nearly buckling.

“What did she say?”

“She said she supposed you had fallen out of love or just never loved her really. That you wanted to go away to college single.” Lois repeated what you had told her when you explained the situation in a more calmed and relaxed manner, less freaked out by the mention of his name. Clark’s face fell, his heart in his throat. That was the last thing that he wanted, and he said it wasn’t because he didn’t love you, but he guessed it sounded like a lie with the way he acted. His first two years in college were even celibate, too afraid he’d whisper your name into another girl’s mouth, or it would lead to him thinking about what he did and what you were up to. If you were sad or had moved onto other better, human-er guys.

“Couldn’t be further from the truth, Lois. She was… the sun before I learned about what it did to me. She felt just the same way. I was.. every good thing I am is because of her, everything that didn’t come from my parents. She was in the stars every night I looked up, it was consuming my DNA. I still think of her, dream of her. She’s like my sleep paralysis angel. So close but so far.”

“Jesus, dude.” Lois whispered, shaking her head to shake away one of the most haunting, depravedly romantic things she’d heard. Clark sighed, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes in a rough manner, to rid himself of the emotion pouring out of him every time he talked about you. That’s why he avoided it for so long, rejected it when his parents asked or brought up anything regarding to you.

“I don’t think it’s too late. If you wanted to.” Clark looked at Lois and swallowed her words with difficulty. How could it not be. You had a life that didn’t need him; a hot neighbour who called you sunshine, a dog more loyal than a tick, a job you were wonderful at. You made yourself into the person he wanted to be around to meet, to help, to love. Without him.

“Where would I even start?”

"How many times have I called you at ungodly hours for the same reasons? Deadline or disaster? Have you ever held it against me?" Was his counter, and before you replied with a deadpanned, "Actually, Clark, now that you bring it up..." He hurried on before you could finish.

He was A Man. A grown man who could survive five nights without making sweet, sweet passionate love to you.You needed to focus and rest, and he'd wait centuries to have your undivided attention if that was what loving you required. Fortunately, it was only until the weekend.

"I miss you, but most of all, I love you, sweetheart. It's fine!" All of this was said with his free hand locked around his knee, blunt nails pressing hard enough to leave pale crescents in the skin while he tried to force himself into believing it too.

But everyone knew the unspoken rule: anyone who said "it's fine!" that cheerful were liars.

.

The tension finally boiled over the second Clark stepped through his front door the following evening. He carelessly tossed his glasses and phone on his bedside table, pressed a fist to his mouth, and released a sigh heavy enough to empty his lungs.

Was it pathetic to be half-hard and aching just from missing you this badly? Or was that devotion? Yearning? Or, as Steve would undoubtedly tease with that little smirk, "whipped?"

Speaking of – Clark tugged his belt loose in a sharp tug. Dress shirt buttons followed. Zipper. Slacks shoved down his thighs, until he's whipping his cock from the confines of his slacks with a shaky, relieved sigh. The cool apartment air did nothing to help soothe the heat coursing through him.

If anything, fredom made the weight of his need more worse. The heavy pulse, the glossy bead already gathering at the slit, the way his length kicked against his stomach as though reaching for a body that wasn’t there.

He tried the cold shower first. Sensible, right? Stood under the icy spray, willing the rut to settle, willing his body to behave like the grown man he kept insisting he was. He rifled through unsexy thoughts: taxes, Perry's editorial calendar, the tamales Ma and Pa raved about when he last spoke to them.

Ninety seconds later, water was streaming over his closed eyes while every drop slipping down his chest became your fingers. Your palms spreading over his stomach. Your nails scratching lightly through the dark trail beneath his navel. Your warm mouth chasing the water lower, lower, until your knees struck tile and that pretty, wicked smile curved against the base of his cock.

He nearly broke the shower handle off with a frustrated growl, cock still brutally stiff between his legs, skin flushed crimson despite the chill.

In his haze, Clark climbed into the empty bed nude, triggering another cruel wave of reminders. Cold sheets welcomed him instead of your legs. Silence settled where your sleepy chatter should have been. No warm body curled beneath his arm. No soft complaint when he crowded too close. No hand wandering beneath waistbands because neither of you had ever been particularly convincing when pretending you only wanted to cuddle.

He stretched out across the sheets until his face buried into your pillow, inhaling the lingering scent of your shampoo, your shower gel, your favorite perfume dabbed behind your ear, you, you, you.

The scents went straight to his cock, and the urge hit like a meteor. With a pained whimper, Clark rolled onto his stomach and pressed his stiff, leaking member against the expensive sheets you bought when you first started spending the night.

Eight-hundred thread count, you’d told him proudly.

He wondered whether they were supposed to survive a sexually frustrated Kryptonian. Probably not.

.

The grinding began slowly, desperately, and experimental. Pleasure washed over him. Again, harder. Soon, wet smears marked every thrust, the motion creating a delicious friction against his sensitive tip, sharp enough to make his breath hitch.

Soon, slow wasn’t nearly enough to scratch that impossible itch.

His hips moved harder, faster, each desperate thrust leaving another damp streak across the fabric. His fists twisted into the sheets on either side of his head until the tendons rose along his wrists and the linen began to fray between his fingers. His tongue rested wetly against his bottom lip as he panted into your pillow, groaning each time his hips pressed down and the fabric dragged tightly along the underside of his cock.

The sounds spilling from him were embarrassingly primitive.

Low grunts. Broken breaths. A needy whine he would deny even under Kryptonite.

Eventually, they all melted into the only coherent thing he could say: your name.

Your name, muffled, over and over while your Clark humped the mattress in a poor attempt to fuck the fantasy of you out of his system. Bless his heart, it wasn't working.

If anything, it sharpened his hazy imagination into vivid, filthy focus. Your weight settling over him, knees planted wide on either side of his head, as you leaned forward in that sixty-nine position you’d joked about one too many times to make him suspect something.

You'd take his cock in hand with a slow stroke, press a kiss at the tip, stretching and hollowing your mouth around him until your nose brushed the heavy weight of his balls when you forced yourself deeper.

From underneath, he’d have the perfect view.

The generous curve of your plump ass hovered over his face. The delicate slope of your back arched deeper. The soft underside of your thighs framing his face while you lowered your core onto his mouth, already wet enough to leave a shining streak across his lips. His thumbs would dig into the soft flesh to keep you from clamping shut around his head while he buried his face between your legs. He would lick you messy, broad stripes through your puffy folds, sucking your clit until your hips bucked against his smothering mouth, then push his tongue into your dripping hole while the tip of his cock bruised the back of your throat.

You’d happily choke around his cock a little. The tight spasm of your throat wound squeeze the head.

Let your saliva spill down his shaft in warm, messy trails until it gathered along his happy trail, and he’d moan directly into your pussy,

"She's beautiful from this angle."

"She tastes so sweet."

"Shd clenched perfectly around my tongue just now. Please, sweetheart, please have Her do it again?"

Golly, Clark’s hips jerked hard enough to shove the mattress and frame several inches across the floor.

Continuing his fantasy, he would then coo about filling Her up so full, until She was overflowing with his come, until you were marked as his inside and out. At the same time, your mouth worked his cock with wet, sloppy determination, swallowing until your throat refused and pulling back with strings of spit still connecting your lips to the swollen tip.

He’d imagine you pulling off long enough to look over your shoulder, glassy-eyed and breathless, begging in a raspy voice to breed you, baby, put every drop where it belongs with his cum already on your tongue before he’d realize even giving it to you.

That scenario had Clark rutting faster, the bed creaking, squeaking, shifting under his barely-contained strength. His eyes suddenly flared hot with unrestrained heat vision, twin red beams scorching pinpoints through the mattress and most likely the floorboards before squeezing them shut.

Precum soaked a dark, sticky patch into the sheets beneath his cock, and his lower abdomen made every grind slick. A dark lock of hair clung to his forehead. His drool made the pillow damp against his cheek, and still.

Still, he couldn’t stop whining your name, couldn’t stop chasing the phantom sensation of your body molded along on his torso, and your slick coating his chin and dripping down his neck

Take him deeper. Sit down harder. Use his mouth.

Somehow, the fantasy deepened.

He’d pull you from his face and roll you beneath him before you finished. Your legs would be spread around his hips, knees pressed to your breasts while he lined himself up and pushed inside. He could almost feel you wet and hot around him. So, so tight after days apart that the first stroke would make both of you shake.

His mouth would cover yours while he fucked you open, tasting himself on your tongue and you on his lips. Every thrust would drive your body higher against the bed. Every needy sound you made would disappear into his mouth while the headboard struck the wall in a rhythm the neighbors could never mistake for anything else.

Mine. The word slid into the fantasy with frightening ease. My sweetheart. My girl. My perfect, exhausted Love

Spread beneath him and finally too ruined to think about anything else. Clark pictured his hand closing around your jaw, thumb slipping between your lips as he told you exactly what he intended to do.

Fill you, and keep filling you. Have my fingers gather my spend from your thighs and push it back deep before it tried to leak out again.

No matter how many times he admired the image of white from your swollen pussy, he groaned so loudly the windows trembled.

Gosh, how he wanted to breed you properly. To pin your hips down and fill you before the first load had stopped leaking.

Wanted your thighs sticky, your belly wet, the sheets beneath you soaked with both of you.

Wanted your voice exhausted because of him instead of work.

Until it stuck...or didn't.

The thought should have slowed him. Instead, it made his balls draw tight.

Did he want to watch your body change because of him? Did you? Or was this simply the rut talking? Some ugly, instinctive Kryptonian corner of him desperate to erase five lonely nights by marking you so thoroughly that even distance couldn’t make him doubt where he belonged—

With a mix of relief and disappointment, Clark came hard with a harsh cry of your name, hips jerking in short, punishing bursts as thick ropes of his spend spilled out onto the warm linen. More followed with each weakening thrust, hot come smearing along his cock and stomach as he continued to grind through the oversensitive aftershocks.

The orgasm left him shaking, heaving, and glazed in a cold sweat, drool still slick on his lips. His lips started to tingle from the real possibility of having you exactly like this on the weekend, letting him ruin you the same way he ruined these damn nice sheets, just more.

His spent cock give a weak, hopeful twitch.

.

The phone rang and Clark startled violently, eyes flying open as your name and that soft, smiling contact photo he’d taken one sleepy Sunday morning lit up the screen.

"Ahh, shoot!"

He fumbled for it, one frantic reach nearly sending the phone skidding off the table. He caught it on the second attempt and pressed it to his ear, swallowing against a throat gone dry, and breathing remained uneven.

Your suspicion came through the line immediately after his greeting."You sound funny. Everything okay?"

"Yeah—no, I’m fine." His voice cracked around the age-old lie. Clark cleared his throat, forcing something painfully casual into it. "Everything’s fine. Just… Superman duties, you know how it is. Tell me about your day."

You hummed, unconvinced, but too exhausted to press him. Instead, you continued talking, your voice low and worn-soft through the receiver, each affectionate little pause slipping beneath his skin. You told him about work, about a coworker who had nearly driven you insane, about the lunch you had forgotten to eat until far too late.

Clark listened, asked the right questions, and made the appropriate sympathetic noises between pauses. Guilt tightened his chest when you asked about his day, speaking to him in that drowsy voice you usually reserved for the minutes before falling asleep against his chest.

Unfortunately, another part of him remained painfully aware that you were lying in bed somewhere else. Perhaps wearing one of his old shirts you now claimed as yours. Perhaps curled on your side with bare thighs brushing together beneath the hem, touching the place where his body usually pressed against yours and missing him badly enough to ache too.

Clark knew better than to let his thoughts wander again, but then you called him baby once more.

His cock twitched against the cooling, sticky mess, then again. The spent length began to stiffen beneath his stomach, dragging slowly through his own come as blood rushed back into it.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut.

Your tired voice kept flowing through the phone, sweet and trusting, while he buried his face deeper into your pillow and inhaled what remained of your scent.

His hips shifted restlessly, chasing relief he had barely finished giving himself. Shame should have stopped him.

Instead, the idea that you were talking so innocently while he lay covered in his own release, getting hard again because you had called him baby of all things, made fresh need tighten low in his stomach.

Every filthy thought returned twice as vivid.

Your mouth. Your pussy. Your hoarse little plea to fill you.

How silly of him to think one damning orgasm would be enough.

How devastating.

@garfieldhollander @httpstoyosi @alexandritte80 @may-machin @snowsgames @athenxt @kristne13 @nobeautywithoutstrangeness @wtfrudoinhere @thel0v3hashira143

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but seeing clark kent walking around the office, showing off that stupid smile, with those stupid dimples, and eye crinkles, and his fucking dark ringlets -- that one that falls perfectly against his brow -- his dumb broad chest, his stupid long legs and thick thighs... it's actually obscene.

borderline indecent.

and he smiles at everyone.

he's not afraid to give his smiles away. the crooked way his lips lift when he greets them in the morning. the 'picture perfect smile' he gives you when he brings you a coffee -- one that you never ask for (but also never deny because at 8 am you're struggling to keep your eyes open).

the shy one he flashes along with his pink face when he's being adorably clumsy again. knocking over a cup of water all over his notes, tripping on nothing on the way to olsen's desk, or dropping an armful of papers, fresh from the printer.

and even when he hides his smile, you can still see those stupid dimples staring back at you. the politeness is etched into the way his perfect teeth bite down on his bottom lip as he tries to hide a grin when something embarrassing happens to someone because he's too nice to laugh. it makes you vibrate like a shaken bottle of coke ready to explode.

but you'd never admit that you do that. because don't stare at him or care about what he does at all.

because you dislike him.

everyone knows that.

except clark, that is.

---

you shuffle tiredly to your desk with a sigh, murmuring small 'good mornings' every now and then to the people you pass by.

the bag that hangs from your shoulder is barely zipped closed from how much stuff you haphazardly shoved in it before running out the door. despite having to wake up every day at the same time, you're still not a morning person.

"morning." an annoyingly bright voice calls out to you. your desk neighbor, the ever chipper clark kent, is already at your side before you can respond.

"clark." you greet him flatly without actually looking at him as you take off your jacket and drape it over the back of your chair. you sit down and start logging into your desktop, ready to start the day by replying to a handful of wordy and overdue emails. but at the corner of your eye, you can still see a stupidly broad figure at your side. "what is it?" you sigh, finally turning to acknowledge him.

"y-you, uh -- you dropped something on the way in." he gestures to whatever is in his hand, but doesn't show you immediately. of course, whatever he's holding is completely engulfed in his large hand, leaving you puzzled about what he could've picked up.

"could've just placed it on my desk?"

"no...i don't think i should..." he sounds nervous, looking around the workspace as if he's afraid someone would hear the conversation.

"give it to me" you exhale, holding out a hand so he can give you whatever it was that was making him so fidgety and shy. he carefully places the item in your hand, the plastic packaging warmed from his touch.

a silent pause rests between the two of you as those wide blue eyes, hidden behind a pair of oversized glasses, worry over your reaction.

you look down at the offending object: a condom packet with the phrase Ribbed For Her Pleasure plastered all over it, slightly crumpled from his fisted grip. and then you look back at him as your brain struggles to comprehend what was happening.

poor clark looks back sheepishly, like he's afraid to be near the small foil packet...and you.

this you know for a fact: in no way, shape, or form, would you have a condom in your work bag. or at all. it's been years since you bought condoms -- since you've been with anyone at all.

you almost stutter when you quickly defend yourself, "this isn't mine."

"yes it is." he says gently, "i-i saw it fall out of your bag when you walked in..."

you shake your head, "it's not though. i don't know how it got in there." you try to give it back to him, force it into his hand, but he immediately pulls back. "i don't want this!"

he holds his hands up as a way to appease your growing defensiveness, "look, it's fine. i won't say anything."

"no, clark, seriously--"

"we're adults! i'm not bothered." he laughs it off, "why would i be? i just don't want you to be embarrassed about it. but we don't have to keep talking about it -- y'know what, i'll actually forget about it." he starts nodding to himself, "yeah, let's forget about it."

his rambling would be cute if this were a different situation.

"but it's not mine! i'm not bothered because i have no connection to this thing!"

"well...me neither. i'm not bother--"

"heyyy, what's up guys?" jimmy chooses the best time to roll across the office and insert himself in the conversation. of course, he actually misses your desk the first time and has to awkwardly scoot backwards to get to the two of you.

as jimmy's squeaky wheels struggle to bring him over to your desk, you quickly shove the condom in your desk drawer. the last thing you need is a rumored office romance with clark of all people.

"having a little morning banter?" he jokes, patting clark on the back.

"nope." you answer quickly, plastering on a smile, "clark's just getting coffee orders. let him know yours before he goes."

"damn, he always asks you first," olsen teases, winking at clark who ignores him, "um, but yeah, can i get a chocolate chip frappe with extra whipped cream and--"

you take jimmy's yabbering order as a chance to get turn back to your computer, pretending to immerse yourself in your work as you ignore the boys. how the hell did that lubed-up latex get in your bag? and why did it have to be clark of all people who picked it up? the most vanilla-extra-virgin-farmer-boy to exist?

---

"i thought it would be funny..." lois defends with a laugh, "and it was! clark? holding a condom??"

"it's wasn't!" you groan, "he probably thinks i'm a sex fiend who fucks through the whole office!"

"since when do you care what clark thinks?" she quirks, smiling mischievously as you moan and groan about the embarrassing moment.

"i don't, but it's still humiliating." you huff dramatically, ignoring the fluttering feeling at the base of your stomach.

"i still don't get why you brush him off all the time. he's a nice guy and i think he likes you."

lois has been trying to push you towards clark for a while now. but you're pretty sure it's just because she knows how much it annoys the shit out of you.

there was a time when you were interested in the dark-haired man. from the first day he came in as a shy intern, you noticed him -- just like the others, of course. it wasn't like you felt butterflies stabbing the inside of your chest when he walked in or anything.

you just noticed him.

look, in your defense, it's kind of hard not to. a tall, handsome, young guy comes in, all smiley and cute, ready to work and be helpful.

why he came in as an intern, you had no idea. he's actually a few years older than you and you had a full-time position at the daily planet for about two years when he joined.

but clark was the perfect intern. always eager to help whether it involved coffee runs, printer jams, or passing out incoming mail, he was always bright and animated. he'd light up every time you'd talk to him, drinking in the reporting advice and stories that you'd tell him, fascinated by the work.

...and then he became a front-page reporter in a matter of a few months.

sure, clark sometimes edited and helped reporters with the formatting of stories, but suddenly coming out with an article on the front page of the paper without any prior experience? it's unheard of.

and it's all thanks to his connections to the big guy.

or so you've heard.

nobody actually knows his relationship to superman. and no one has seen them in the same room together, but if you ask the hero himself, he vouches for clark. and that was enough for mr. white to offer him a full-time job.

clark is cute, but you were turned off by his sudden mega-promotion. no amount of dimpled smiles and hot coffee can erase the fact that he got to your level, all because he was superman's little human pet.

okay, so fine, maybe you were a bit salty that he shot to the top with one interview, but there are other reasons why you don't idolize him like the rest of the daily planet.

first, his inconsistent presence at work. how can you be a good reporter if you're always getting sick, visiting family, or chasing a story that only gives you very vague information and a clearly staged photo of superman?

secondly, he's too nice. no one is that nice. no one actually says "oh golly" unironically. everyone is so trusting of clark, immediately welcoming him into the daily planet, as if he wasn't an intern only a few months ago!

has he done anything bad since he's been here? no.

not yet.

and third, he's a distraction. how are you supposed to be a good worker when next to you, poking out his cute pink tongue as he writes up his reports? the way his blue eyes squint behind his glasses to read the small font as his large fingers clumsily mistype over and over again.

ugh, it pisses you off that he can capture your attention so easily.

you swear he does it on purpose. why else would he be hanging around you so much?

maybe his whole evil plan is to take over the daily planet by distracting you so badly that you get fired! yeah, that sounds like a reasonable prognosis.

"yeah, no." you aggressively shake your head at lois' words. "i already told you, im not interested -- by the way, how did you even get the condom in my bag? i didn't even see you this morning."

"not telling," she grins, "and don't dodge the clark-talk! even when you're rude to him, he's still begging for your attention at the side of your desk like a sad little puppy dog."

"clark-talk? what is that? the name of a podcast or something?"

lois ignores your attempts at banter, "you said that you have a thing for dimples, didn't you?" you scoff and roll your eyes. here she goes again... "tall, dark, and handsome? like a certain 'superman'?" she wiggles her brows at you, "clark is close enough -- albeit a lot more clumsy, shy, and dorky."

you try to visualize clark in superman's spot. wearing the whole outfit, cape and everything, and it looks off.

"clark is nothing like superman." you decide, "he's not my type."

"not your type my ass. you're denying yourself for no reason."

you shrug, "i'm just saving myself for superman."

"good luck with that."

---

meeting superman is a lot like meeting a celebrity...in a sense.

your words are stuck in your throat as you stare up at the hero, so starstruck that the superman is actually standing right in front of you -- strong, confident, with his red cape blowing cinematically behind him (where is that wind coming from??) and looking back at you.

your small, worn notepad and pen are gripped tight in your hands as you think of what to say.

but you don't even get the pleasure of having the first word.

"it's nice to finally meet you," he offers a hand. you take it immediately, shaking it with nervous intensity. he smiles warmly at your giddy energy, and familiar dimples taunt you silently.

"m-me?" you barely choke out, "no, it's nice to meet you."

"please, the pleasure is all mine," his deep voice booms with confidence and charm as he leads you over to some deck chairs. you follow him eagerly. "so, clark kent told me that you were filling in for him today."

"um, yes, he said he wasn't feeling well..." you sit down and flatten out your notepad, hoping he wouldn't notice how crinkly it looks due to your nervous hands.

"that's too bad," his blue eyes bore into yours appreciatively, "but it's nice to see a new face."

you bite the inside of your cheek to keep from making a fool out of yourself. but you can feel a prickling heat rush up the back of your neck from his comment.

"it's truly an honor, sir." you clear your throat, masking your excitement with practiced ease. clicking your pen, you slip into work-mode, forcing yourself to stay as professional as you can. "so superman, the daily planet readers--"

"getting right into it, huh?" he jokes suddenly.

it throws you off.

"hm, w-was there something else...?"

"no," he dismisses your worries, " i just... wanted to get to know you a bit before you start writing about me. y'know since i usually only really speak to clark as i've built some trust with him..."

"oh, you can trust me!" you say quickly, "clark is my desk buddy, we talk every day. we're probably the closest out of everyone at the company."

"yeah?" he sounds unconvinced but shrugs, "well i guess he did entrust you with this interview..." you nod along with his words until he suddenly asks, "are you his girlfriend or something?:

"girlfriend?" your eyes widen, "me? and clark?"

"well, he talks about you often."

"h-he does?"

"mhm, he talks about how you're one of the most talented reporters at the company."

"no...no, not my boyfriend. strictly co-workers."

“i see…” his gaze drifts, as though your answer wasn't satisfactory to him. he changes the subject, "so what's the focus of this article? my last battle? more info about my past?”

"um, no, it's just a gossip column." you cringe inwardly as the words leave your mouth. moments after he, or rather clark, praised your 'talent' as a reporter, you're reduced to asking shallow, crowd-pleasing questions. "you're the "most eligible super" in north america. everyone wants to know the juicy detail of their favorite hero." it's a practiced line -- one every reporter opens with when conducting an interview like this.

"most eligible, huh? well, i guess saving the world has its perks," he chuckles. "what kind of details are the readers clamoring for?"

"well...first," you stare down at your writing pad as you go through the questions that clark hastily wrote down for you. "....what's your type?" your eyes peek over to him to gauge his reaction.

"my type?" he asks, amused by the juvenile question.

"yeah, like, are you willing to date non-supers?"

"well, i'm not sure if a human could...handle--" he clears his throat suddenly, stopping his sentence before he could clarify what exactly his significant other would be 'handling'.

you can see a pink flush start to creep up from the neckline of his super-suit. it's a familiar sight that has you thinking of a certain shy reporter.

"you see," he tries again, "being a super means having a demanding schedule. it would be selfish to expect someone to put up with my absences..."

you nod as you jot down his response, "so you'd rather go for a superhero?" you probe, "maybe someone like hawkgirl?"

"hawkgirl?" he seems taken aback by that proposal.

"oh, sorry, maybe the green lanturn then?"

"um...no, neither of them. they're just my colleagues -- and isn't guy seeing someone?"

"since last night, no," you say passively, "but knowing him, he'll probably find someone by this weekend."

he nods in agreement, "that sounds about right."

"anyway, second question. what does your ideal date look like?"

he tilts his head thoughtfully, seeming to give it genuine consideration. the little curl of hair that always seems to fall out of place brushes against his forehead.

"i'd say... something simple. i don't really go for flashy dates -- or public ones. overall, having quality time with someone i care about is more important to me than the location or activity."

"oh? so you've had private dates before?"

he smiles softly at your attempts to get more information out of him, "that's between me and my past dates."

"alright," you're a bit disappointed that he didn't take the bait, but you move on. "question three: what can a person do to get your attention?"

his eyes spark with amusement, "well...you already have my attention," he admits casually. you bite your lip at his answer, not expecting him to be so direct and off-script.

"what can the readers do to get your attention?" you try not to squirm under his gaze as you attempt to brush off his comment.

"right, the readers." he repeats, "okay, if we're being honest, confidence is intriguing to me. someone who knows what they want and isn't afraid to go after it." his stare holds yours for a beat longer than necessary before adding, "oh, but don't try too hard -- i can spot inauthenticity from a mile away...literally." he grins.

you quickly scribble down his words before the sound of your heartbeat can drown it out. "okay, final question, what do you look like as a boyfriend?"

he chuckles softly, leaning back against a nearby ledge with his arms crossed, relaxed yet radiating quiet confidence.

"i'm... attentive. sometimes too much," his voice lowers slightly, taking on a rare, almost vulnerable sincerity. it's a voice you feel like you've heard a thousand times, but it seems foreign coming out of superman's lips. "i disappear at weird hours for work emergencies," he pauses before adding quietly, "but i'd remember the little things. your favorite takeout after a long day. the way you take your coffee." his eyes meet yours, "and I'd never let you doubt how much you mean to me... even if I can't always say it outright."

there's something oddly specific in his words -- like he's describing someone else entirely.

"sounds...sweet." your voice is quiet as you slowly write his words down. you can imagine it, right then and there, how caring he'd be as a boyfriend. how he'd exceed in taking care of you -- but only when he has time to.

"it would be." he says sincerely.

after a beat of silence, you're reminded of the situation. you clear your throat, hoping it will remove whatever weird tension is in the air.

"okay, superman, that was the whole interview. thank you for your cooperation and time," you say lightly, closing your notepad quickly -- an attempt to keep all the wandering thoughts of this interaction from escaping you.

"are you sure i haven't given it all away? my type, my ideal date, my romantic side…" he feigns seriousness, raising an eyebrow. "you've got all the secrets now...but you haven't asked the most important question."

"i haven't?"

he grins, closing a bit of distance between you. you can't tell if it's the wind or if he is the one making the air between you feel electric. is that even one of superman's powers?

"don't you want to know my weakness?" he asks softly, "every superhero has one...even me."

you can't help but lean closer, "you'd tell me?"

his gaze holds yours, a teasing smile playing at the corners of his lips. his eyes seem to sparkle with a playful challenge, "promise you won't use it against me?" he murmurs, voice lower than before. his proximity is intoxicating, the city bustle seemingly far away.

you tilt your head like a curious cat, "oh, so is this off the record then?"

he nods, "yes ma'am. keep your pen to yourself." his hand gently wraps around your wrist before pulling you closer. your heart flutters.

"i'll try my best."

"good."

before you can respond, he steps back, body suddenly straightening as if hearing something only he could detect.

you hear him curse in a whisper -- crap

"um -- duty calls."