J

By the millionth trip to the hallway mirror, you dropped all pretenses and admitted you weren't fixing anything, just needed somewhere to channel all that restless heat.

The earrings caught the low light as you tilted your head, and your mind instantly supplied the filthy image of them swaying and tinkling while Clark’s hands fisted your hair, guiding you as you rode his cock deep and desperate.

Your perfume had warmed against flushed skin, the pulse beneath it fluttering wildly at every elevator groan or passing footstep—imagining his face buried there instead, licking, sucking, nipping marks into your throat while he growled your name.

Even your lipstick, a shade worn with the purpose to make Clark stammer half his sentences and forget all the manners Ma drilled into him, remained exactly where you’d painted it. No matter how many times you licked and pressed your lips together.

You leaned closer to the mirror, pouting, dragging your palms down your waist and over your hips exactly the way you wanted his to: rougher, needier, gripping, squeezing, digging hard enough to leave faint bruises that would heal under his apologetic kisses later. You adjusted one strap, one that hadn't even moved a single inch, imagining his fingers slipping beneath and yanking it down, too.

Pathetic, you thought. Absolutely pathetic. Dressed up and wound this badly for him.

You pictured exactly how he would’ve gone. He’d come through the door giddy and grinning, still windblown from the city, broad shoulders filling the entryway, keys clinking into the bowl. One shoe off, hand still on the doorknob, glasses slipping down his nose as a sweet greeting died in his throat: “Honey, I’m ho—oh gosh,” in that deep, raspy voice.

Or, “Sweetheart," in that strained, drawn-out way that somehow sounded like profanity.

Or your name, whispered as if he’d just found nirvana in the hallway of his own apartment.

His eyes would’ve gone to your face first because he was a good man, but not that good. They would've dropped to your throat. Then your dress, to the inviting plunge of cleavage, the curve of your waist beneath your own restless hands. Then, inevitably, helplessly, back up to your shaded lips that made him so lovesick and stupid.

In two strides, Clark'd pressed you against the wall, hands sliding under your dress to find you already soaked, fingers teasing your clit while he groaned against your lips and you moaned reminders about dinner plans.

Nothing big or expensive.

Just you and him, a candle-lit table, his hand warm at the small of your back, thumb brushing the curve of your hip, fingers pinching the meat of your ass whenever he thought no one was looking. You’d lean into him, swat his chest playfully, tug him down by the collar to kiss the hinge of his jaw, and feel the sharp catch of breath against your cheek. Let your ankle stroke against his inner thigh under the table. Watch him try to keep his voice steady while you playfully smiled at him over your menu, like you hadn’t already decided the night would end with a much sweeter, messier kind of pie for dessert.

But by minute fifty-three, a new scenario had taken over.

A slow turn in the hallway.

A sharp, lifted brow.

Maybe a wounded little, "Oh, baby. You remembered where we live?" if you felt especially cruel enough.

You’d make Clark work for your smile, let him chase you around the apartment with those apologetic, puppy-dog eyes, scolding him to freshen up. Let him put those big hands on your hips, press up behind you, and murmur apologies against your neck until you believed him. Maybe allow him to press a kiss or two to your shoulder, your wrist, the corner of your mouth.

Maybe you’d even let him drop to his knees and eat you out right there against the wall, your fingers in his thick mess of hair, riding his tongue until you came with his name on your lips.

Maybe allow him to do it over and over, until you finally let him off the hook like always.

Because this wasn't the first time, and wouldn't be the last.

It came with the territory of loving Clark Kent, and the heavier territory of loving Superman. Missed reservations, movies paused halfway through, solo showers. Sometimes the whole city seemed to reach for him at the same time you did, and the cruel, noble thing was that you usually stepped back first.

You knew that. You loved that about him. You hated that about him a little tonight.

And because you knew Clark, because you loved him, because you were not interested in building any argument out of a rescue he couldn’t ignore, you hadn't checked the news.

Hadn’t opened your phone to search "Superman". Hadn’t refreshed the Planet’s breaking alerts or texted Lois. Hadn’t doom-scrolled shaky footage of smoke or sirens or blue-and-red blurs cutting through the sky.

You’d left your phone face down next to your purse like that made you mature, responsible, as if ignorance could quiet your wild imagination from filling in every possible reason he wasn’t home yet.

If there was a reason, he would tell you.

If there was blood, he would hide it badly.

If there was guilt, God, it'd be written all over his face.

-

You were still leaning toward the mirror, blotting your lipstick again, when the balcony door exploded inward.

Okay, not literally, but the force of Clark’s landing hit the apartment like a thunderclap. The curtains snapped like a whip. Your lipstick tube jumped clean out of your fingers and struck the floor, rolling beneath the console table as you stifled a yelp.

Then came the frantic scrape of the door, the rush of cold night air, and Clark’s boots hitting concrete, then hardwood, too fast, too heavy, every step like a hammer striking stone.

Your heart lurched into your throat as you spun around, shocked silent.

Clark was already pacing, one hand dragged through his raven hair hard enough to displace the stubborn curl at his forehead. His chest rose and fell like he’d flown across the edges of the vast universe holding his breath. He looked wired. Furious. Worn down to the bone. Like whatever happened out there sunk its claws into his shoulders and followed him home.

Every thought of playfully guilting Clark vanished clean out of your head.

"…Clark? Baby?" you breathed, nose crinkling as a burnt aroma curled around your senses. "What's wrong? Are you—?

At the sound of your voice, he turned so sharply he nearly tripped over his own boots.

It nearly broke your heart, the way his frantic blue eyes settled over you, softening just a touch. The dress. The earrings. The lipstick. The two miserable hours written all over your face. For one suspended second, he looked exactly like the Clark you’d imagined in the hallway, stunned, lovesick, and ruined by the sight of you.

Then guilt struck his features like lightning.

"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry," the words tumbled out in a breathless rush before you could say another thing. "I know I'm late. I know. There was a—a chemical fire and—and the containment team couldn’t get close enough without getting hurt, so I had to—the whole building was about to—Gosh, the entire east wall was ready to buckle, and I tried to be fast, I really did, but if I moved too fast the firefighters would probably turn to mush—and I couldn't do that—-"

He gestured helplessly, pacing again, the apologies and explanations spilling out of him like an avalanche burying any hope of organizing his thoughts.

That’s when you noticed the scorch marks.

His blue suit stretched tight across his shoulders, dark with sweat and smoke. His cape fluttered behind him in a singed, ragged mess, the bottom edge frayed. Black streaks of soot smeared across his chest, across his family crest, across the strong line of his jaw. It was his abdomen that made your stomach twist.

The fabric had been eaten clean through, the edges curled and blackened like something caustic splashed him. Beneath it, his skin was whole. Thank goodness. Smooth and unbroken under the ruin, still Clark, still impossibly untouched in the ways that should have reassured you.

But it didn’t. While the suit was destroyed, your Clark was still shaking.

“—and I knew we had dinner reservations,” he bemoaned, both hands moving now, one pinching the bridge of his nose, the other clenched around something you hadn’t got a good look at yet. “I knew, I swear I knew, and I kept thinking I could still make it if I just got everyone out. Then a second tank ruptured, and I thought, "Good Gosh, are there no other heroes out tonight," then I felt horrible thinking that, so I went back in, and—”

You frowned, worried.

Of course you were.

Always, when it came to your Clark.

But standing there with your pulse in your throat and between your thighs, taking in the ruined suit clinging to him like a second skin, the ash on the same cheekbones you kissed this morning, the heat coming off his body in waves, the raw, breathless guilt in his voice…some low, terrible, needy part of you curled awake and wanted.

Wanted him closer. Wanted your hands on him. Wanted to peel the ruined suit off inch by inch and find out how much of that frantic, superhuman energy he could spend on you.

You bit the inside of your cheek, frowning deeper, looking as grave as Clark felt.

Then his left hand shifted against the moonlight, and you finally saw them: flowers.

A bouquet of deep red roses, crushed almost beyond dignity in his tense fist. The stems were bent. A few petals had scattered across the balcony tiles during his landing, bright as little drops of crimson against the concrete and hardwood.

“Clark," you interrupted, lips slightly parted.

He stopped mid-stride.

You pointed. “Flowers?”

He blinked, looking down at his own hand as if he’d never seen it before.

"Fl—oh. Yeah." He sighed, shoulders sinking. "Bought them just after clocking out. Called ahead, was supposed to drop them off, have the waiter bring them out before the appetizers, or when you sat down. I hadn't decided. I was going to pretend I had no idea what was happening, which sounds so silly saying it aloud— because—because you always know when I’m lying, but I thought maybe if I did it badly enough, it would be charming—"

Endearing, utterly charming, painfully attractive word vomit paired with disheveled hair, ragged breaths, smoke-smudged skin, and the kind of rippling muscles the ruined suit was doing absolutely nothing to hide.

Shit. You wanted him now.

"—I guess we’ll never know, because I’m two hours late and the roses are destroyed and I smell like a poorly managed high school chem lab—"

"Clark, stop!" you called, firmer than you meant to.

The rambling died in his throat.

His eyes lifted to yours, then moved over you slowly this time, not in panic or apology, but with a stunned, helpless heat that landed everywhere his hands desperately wanted to. Your face. Your lips. The line of your throat. The dress hugging your waist, your hips, the soft rise and fall of your breasts as your breathing changed under his attention.

Ah, there he was. Not exactly the fantasy. Arguably better.

Very late, soot-streaked, holding ruined flowers, staring at you like the whole burning city had fallen away and left him with nothing but this apartment, this hallway, and you.

Your thighs pressed together before you could stop them.

"Sweetheart,” he swallowed faintly, drawling it out like a curse.

Swallowing a moan, you asked instead. "Did everyone make it out alive? Safe?"

He nodded, still staring.

"Then it's okay, everything is okay, promise." Clearing your throat, you stepped toward him quickly. "What's important is you are home, too. Alive and safe. What you need is to get out of that suit. It's ruined."

"I can fix it,” he countered, still watching your lips with that dazed expression. "The suit, I mean. Gary can—"

"The Fortress is thousands of miles away."

You stopped right in front of him, close enough to smell the smoke and something metallic and sharp tingle in your nostrils. Close enough to feel the warmth rolling off him, to see the soot caught in the laugh lines and dimples beside his mouth, to watch his unmarked skin shift and tense beneath the torn, ruined fabric every time he breathed. "We can deal with it tomorrow."

Clark glanced down at himself, brows pinched. "Right. Tomorrow. I'm sorry, I should probably—"

"Clark?" you nearly whimpered.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Shut up."

You rose onto your toes, caught the back of his neck, and pulled him down, snuffing further protests.

For half a second, he held still, too careful, too Clark, one ruined bouquet hanging limply at his side, and the other hand hovered near your shoulder. Then you kissed him harder, one hand sliding into the damp hair at his nape while the other curled into the collar at the front of his suit, and whatever restraint he had left cracked.

Clark groaned against your lips, the sound vibrating through your chest.

His free hand found your waist, still trembling with leftover adrenaline, and yanked you flush against him, no longer gentle. You felt every hard inch of him: the solid wall of his chest, the ridges of his abs through the torn suit, and the thick, unmistakable bulge of his cock already straining against your belly. He tilted his head, lips parting wider, tongue sliding hot and urgent against yours.

The kiss quickly turned hungry, messy, open-mouthed with his apology, with your impatience, with the two hours you’d spent wanting him and the whole ruined night he’d carried home in his chest.

Soot from his jaw smudged your cheek. Your lipstick smeared across his mouth and chin as he chased the connection, sucking on your tongue before nipping your bottom lip hard enough to make your knees buckle and a fresh wetness to flood your panties.

One of his hands slid down to grip your ass, squeezing the flesh and pulling you tighter so you could grind against the rigid length of him.You moaned into his mouth, nipples tightening against his chest, your soaked cunt throbbing with every roll of his hips.

God, you wanted nothing more than for Clark to rip the dress off and fuck you right here, bent over the console table or legs wrapped around his waist with your back pressed against the windows, taking every thick inch until you were dripping down his cock and screaming his name.

You broke the kiss only enough to breathe against his lips, one hand still fisted tight in his hair, tugging just the way you knew made him weak.

“Baby,” you murmured huskily, lips brushing his. “I can help take the suit off.”

Bracing his thighs, you lowered yourself to your knees before he could argue, the movement making your earrings sway and tinkle softly just as you'd imagine.

The position put you at eye level with the scorched gash in his suit. You reached up, fingers hovering over the blakened edges, and began carefully peeling it away from his skin. The material, though thick and clinging stubborn even in pieces, gave way under your persistent hands.

Beneath it, Clark's abdomen was warm. Whole. Trembling when your knuckles grazed along his hip bone.

Above you, Clark made a sharp, strangled groan and immediately looked away, jaw rigid, the ruined bouquet still clutched in his white-knuckled grip as the last thread of his composure.

Pursing your lips to stifle a giggle, you worked the torn section free, exposing more of him: the ladder of his ribs, the hollow of his pelvis, the dark trail of hair that disappeared beneath the waistband. You let your gaze follow that trail hungrily, licking your lips.

Sure, the suit was always tight, but now it was impossible to miss the pronounced ridge of his erection, pressing against the red fabric of his briefs, curving and straining upward, the thick head already leaking.

Oh, your poor, guilty, late, soot-streaked Superman, trying so hard to be polite when his body had very clearly remembered what yours had been aching for the last two painstaking hours.

"Hmm, I know you like what you see," you purred, looking up at him through your lashes, pulse fluttering wildly at your throat.

A choked sound tore from his heaving chest.

"I—you—it's the dress," he stammered, his free hand hovering near your cheek, fingers twitching. You spared him the pain and leaned into his touch, letting him cup your face.

"The dress?" you blinked up, wide-eyed, mock-innocent, drawing your shoulders forward so your cleavage spilled forward.

"And the earrings. Plus, your smile. Your voice. That lipstick," he finally admitted, almost desperate. "And you. Mostly you. Entirely you, actually. You're so beautiful. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Even during the fire, I kept picturing you waiting for me, and I was late, and the reservations, and the roses, and—"

He swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing, abdomen tensing. “The reservations. Can we still—”

“Dinner’s not happening tonight,” you explained gently, glancing at the wallclock with exaggerated sorrow. “The restaurant stopped seating twenty minutes ago. Hell, even fifteen minutes after our reservation lapsed.”

His shoulders sank once more, thumb stroking your cheek with heartbreaking tenderness when you glanced up at him. "Yeah, I figured."

"But," you continued, curling your fingers into the waistband of his suit, tugging it down. "I am hungry."

The sound Clark made when his thick, flushed, slick-at-the-tip cock sprang free was half groan, half profanity prayer.

You wrapped a hand around the base, fingers barely meeting. The sight of him, so hard and leaking in your palm made your mouth water with primal anticipation.

Leaning in, you licked a slow, wet stripe up the underside, tracing every vein from root to tip. He was proportional to everything else about him. Which meant he was a lot, and received a lot of licks. Clark’s entire body jerked with every drag of your tongue. The hand grasping the flowers eventually let go. Petals scattered as he gripped the back of your neck with that perfect blend of gentleness and desperate strength you’d fantasized about.

"Oh," he begged. "Hon, please."

Drawing a breath, you took him past your plush lips and into your warm mouth.

For a moment, you stayed still to feel the weight of him on your tongue. To savor the taste of salt and skin. You sighed dreamily, eyes rolling back, hollowed your cheeks, and sank down, down, down, until your nose buried into the thatch of dark hair at the base, until the head nudged the back of your throat and you had to pull back just enough, gasping, gagging, drawing more breath.

Your eyes watered, paying no mind to wipe them away. Saliva pooled messily down your chin, over his balls, dripping onto the valley of your breasts. You went right back, messier, wetting, pushing further until your throat fluttered and squeezed around his thickness. Your earrings tinkled with every enthusiastic bob of your head.

“Baby—you're— incredible,” Clark managed, each word bashful and strained between ragged breaths.

The hand cupping your cheek slid down your shoulder with a grunt, thumb tracing your collarbone before tugging the strap of your dress gently until it fell, then the other. The fabric peeled away onto your waist, baring your breasts to the cool air. His broad, callused palm groped one immediately as he groaned.

"Your mouth, the way you take me—so deep—that lipstick—"

You whimpered around his cock at the praise, the high-pitched vibrations making his hips twitch. Lipstick smeared across his shaft in streaks, marking him exactly the way you’d imagined while waiting. You took him to the root again, throat fluttering around his thickness, swallowing deliberately so the tight muscles milked him. Your pulse raced against his cock with every heartbeat.

"Gosh—" His hips bucked involuntarily harsher that time. He immediately stilled, a flush creeping up his neck. “Sorry, sorry, hon, I didn’t mean to—”

Clark’s hand tightened at the back of your neck, the other gripping your shoulder, holding you steady as his thighs trembled beneath your touch, with the willpower not to fuck your face the way he fucked your cunt.

“No—more—sorry's,” you quickly warned when he tried to apologize for another sharper buck, sucking harder in retaliation despite the radiating ache in your cheeks and jaw.

The wet, rhythmic squelching of your mouth working him filled the room. You pulled off just long enough to lap at his slit, tongue swirling through the leaking fluid, then took him whole again.

His hand on the back of your head, then loosened, then tightened again, like he couldn’t decide whether to pull you closer or push you away. He was babbling praises now, sweet praises spilling from his lips between raspy moans.

"You’re so good to me—so darn good—how are you so good at this—your mouth, your tongue—" A guttural sound broke his sentence in half when you swirled your tongue at the base, curving your head. "You look so beautiful like this. W-with that darn lipstick, I said that — alright r-right? I wanted—I want you all night. All day. Every second I was out there. I couldn't stop—"

Through his ramblings, his generous, callused fingers dragged through the thick strings of saliva dripping down your chin and onto your chest, using the messy spit as slick, warm lube to glide over your skin. He spread it across your stiff nipple in slow, meaningful circles, making them glisten.

His palms traded sides, giving attention to the neglected breast, sending sparks straight to your clenching cunt, the perfect counterpoint to the frantic, greedy rhythm of your mouth. The wet heat of your mouth, the cool air on your skin, the rough pad of his thumb made you moan louder and longer than before.

"Yes," Clark hissed. "Yes, jus'—just like that, hon. I love—when you sound like that. I love—when I can feel it. When you—”

You pulled off just long enough to lap at his slit, tongue darting out and swirling, then sank back down, taking every inch until your nose pressed against his pelvis and you swallowed around him.

Clark’s eyes fluttered shut, chest heaving, jaw clenching so tight the muscle jumped beneath his filthy sweat-slicked skin. "I’m—I can’t—Hon, you’re going to make me—I'm gonna—ohh sh—shoot—"

His words dissolved into breathless moans. Low. Broken. The kind of sounds you'd happily spend eternity coaxing from him. You felt him familiar throb against your tongue, thick and pulsing. His hand fisted tighter in your hair, the other gripping your shoulder hard enough to leave faint bruises that would be soothed under his kisses later.

With a broken cry that rattled through his chest, Clark came.

Hot, thick spurts flooded your throat in heavy waves. You swallowed every drop, throat fluttering and milking him while your lipstick left fresh smears along his length.

You kept sucking gently long after, nursing him through the oversensitivity until his legs shook and soft, whimpers slipped from his lips.

Only then did you pull off with a wet pop, thin gleaming strings of saliva and cum connecting your swollen, glossy lips to his still-twitching cock, dripping meassily onto your breasts.

Clark stared down at you like you’d hung the moon, the stars, and made the sun rise every day just for him, blue eyes dazed, tender, overflowing with love. His hands trembled as they cupped your face, thumbs brushing away tears and spit from your cheeks and lipstick-smeared lips as you gasped your breath, all while whispering hushed words of praise and affection.

Suddenly, he lifted you by the waist, pressing your bare back against the cool window. The glass fogged beneath your heat as he dropped to his knees, rucking your dress high up onto your waist. Your legs draped instinctively over his wide shoulders, heels digging between his shoulder blades.

"I need—" he started, and then stopped, nuzzling against the soaked crotch of your panties, inhaling deeply, lips nipping at your swollen clit through the fabric with silent, pleading permission.

"I know, baby," you cooed, carding your fingers through his thick, messy curls, tugging just right. Your voice was deliciously raspy from how thoroughly you’d taken him. "You’re hungry. I can help with that, too."

The soot-stained suit still hung off him in tatters.

Scattered rose petals littered the floor around you both like crimson confetti.

And the night had barely even started.

.

.

Clark’s night had been a particular kind of hell. He didn't remember landing on your terrace.

One moment he was standing in the cratered ruin of what used to be a warehouse district on the outskirts of Metropolis, his hands still trembling from the echo of kryptonian fists meeting flesh, and the next he was here—boots silent on the weathered tile, the city sprawling beneath him like a circuit board of light and shadow.

The villain had called himself Pavor. A meta-human with the unsettling ability to weaponize fear, to reach into the deepest, most vulnerable parts of a person's mind and pull out their nightmares made manifest. Clark had faced worse. He'd faced world-enders and reality-benders, creatures from the Phantom Zone and gods from distant pantheons. But Pavor had done something that none of the others had managed.

He'd made Clark watch you die.

Not just once. A hundred times. A thousand. Each death more intimate and horrible than the last. A car accident on a rain-slicked street where Clark was too slow, too far away, his super-hearing catching your final breath across seven city blocks. A terminal illness that ate through your beautiful, laughing body while Clark held your hand and felt the life drain out of you, powerless to stop it because even he couldn't cure the incurable. An explosion in your apartment building that he arrived at two minutes too late, your favorite mug still warm on the kitchen counter, your scent still lingering in the hallway.

The worst one—the one that still had his hands shaking even now—was the simplest. You'd been walking home from the grocery store, a bag of oranges in your arms, and a man with a gun had wanted your wallet. In the vision, Clark had been standing right there. Right. There. And he'd still been too slow. The bullet had entered your chest before he could move, and you'd looked at him with such confusion, such betrayal, as if to say why didn't you save me? when you didn't even know he was there at all.

The villain was neutralized now. Sedated in a meta-human containment cell, his fear-dust swept up by biohazard teams. But the images lingered, burned into Clark's brain like afterimages from a nuclear blast.

He needed to see you.

The thought was urgent, desperate, clawing at his chest with something that felt dangerously close to panic. He needed to see your face, to hear your heartbeat, to feel you—warm and solid and alive—under his hands. The rational part of his mind, the part that had been doing this for almost two years, told him to go home first. Change out of the suit. Put on the glasses and the flannel shirt and the carefully constructed persona of Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter. That was the agreement, wasn't it? Not a formal one, not something you'd ever demanded, but something he'd built between you anyway. With you, he got to be just Clark. Not Superman. Not the symbol, the icon, the guy who caught planes and deflected asteroids. Just the man who burned his toast in the morning and left his socks on the bathroom floor and kissed the back of your neck while you were trying to make coffee.

But tonight, the thought of putting on that mask felt unbearable. Like another layer of separation between him and the thing he needed most.

So here he was. Boots on your terrace. The cape heavy on his shoulders, the House of El crest emblazoned across his chest. He'd never shown up like this before. Not once. You knew who he was—he'd told you, three months into the relationship, sitting on this very terrace with his heart in his throat and the words “I'm Superman” tasting like broken glass in his mouth—but you'd never seen him like this. The suit had always been something that happened somewhere else, in a different part of his life, the part he tried so hard to keep separate from the quiet sanctuary he'd found with you.

The sliding door was unlocked. It was always unlocked when he visited, a small act of faith that still made something in his chest ache. He could see you through the glass, curled on the couch with a book in your lap and a mug of tea steaming on the side table. You were wearing his university sweatshirt—the one he'd almost thrown away a dozen times because it was faded and threadbare, but you'd fished it out of the donation bag and claimed it as your own. Your hair was loose around your shoulders, still slightly damp from a shower, and you were absently chewing on your lower lip the way you did when you were concentrating.

His knees nearly buckled.

He'd watched you die tonight. He'd watched your eyes go dark and your heart stop and your blood pool on pavement, on tile, on the pristine white sheets of a hospital bed. He'd screamed your name in a dozen different nightmares, had reached for you a thousand times and come up empty. And here you were, reading one of your favorite books with your feet tucked under you, completely unaware that somewhere across the city, a so called God had been weeping over your corpse.

Clark slid the door open and you looked up immediately, a smile already forming on your lips—and then froze. Your eyes went wide, traveling from his face down the length of his body, taking in the suit and the cape and the way he was standing there like a man who'd just survived something he couldn't name.

“Clark?” Your voice was soft, uncertain, already tinged with concern. You set the book aside and rose from the couch, moving toward him slowly, carefully, the way you might approach a wounded animal. “Baby, what's wrong?”

He tried to speak. Tried to form words, to explain, to apologize for showing up like this without warning. But the sound that came out of his mouth was closer to a sob, raw and broken, and suddenly he was crossing the room in two strides and pulling you into his arms.

The contact nearly undid him.

You were warm. So impossibly, achingly warm, your body fitting against his like you'd been made to be there. Your heartbeat thrummed against his chest, steady and strong and alive, and Clark buried his face in your hair and breathed you in. Lavender shampoo. The faint trace of the tea you'd been drinking. Something underneath that was just you, the scent he'd committed to memory months ago, the one that meant home.

“Clark.” Your hands came up to cup his face, gentle but insistent, pulling back just enough to look at him. Your thumbs swept across his cheekbones, catching tears he hadn't realized he'd been shedding. “Talk to me. Please.”

He closed his eyes, leaning into your touch. “There was a man tonight,” he said, and his voice came out rough, scraped raw. “He could—he could show people their fears. Make them real, somehow. In their minds.” He swallowed hard, and the next words came out on a shudder. “He showed me you. Dying. Over and over again. I watched you die so many times, and every time—every single time—I couldn't save you.”

Your breath caught. He felt it, felt the slight hitch in your chest, the way your fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on his jaw.

“Clark,” you whispered.

“I know it wasn't real.” The words came faster now, tumbling out of him like water through a broken dam. “I know that. I've dealt with fear-manipulators before, I know how it works, I know none of it actually happened. But I couldn't—I couldn't shake it. I couldn't stop seeing your face, couldn't stop hearing—” His voice cracked. “I needed to see you. I needed to hold you. And I couldn't go home and change first, I couldn't put on the glasses and pretend to be someone else for one more second, because I'm not—I'm not someone else, not with you, I've never been someone else with you, and I just—”

The words were coming too fast now, tripping over each other, spiraling. Clark could feel it building in his chest—that familiar, terrible pressure, the one he'd learned to recognize over years of burying things too deep. His heart was hammering, which was ridiculous because his heart didn't do that anymore, hadn't done that since he was a teenager learning to control his powers, but here it was, pounding against his ribs like a caged animal. His breathing was too quick, too shallow, and he couldn't seem to get enough air even though he didn't technically need to breathe at all, not really, not the way you did, but his body didn't seem to care about technicalities right now.

She's dead. She's dead and you're hallucinating and any second now you're going to blink and she's going to be gone and you're going to be back in that warehouse with her blood on your hands and—

“Clark.”

Your voice cut through the spiral like a blade through silk. Not loud. Not demanding. Just there, steady and warm and impossibly, impossibly present.

“Clark, look at me.”

He couldn't. He couldn't look at you because if he looked at you, he'd see the bullet hole or the sickness or the closed eyes or one of the thousand other ways he'd watched you die tonight, and he couldn't—he couldn't—

Your hands moved from his face to his shoulders, and then you were guiding him, gently but firmly, until his back hit the wall beside the sliding door. Not hard—you didn't have the strength to move him if he didn't want to be moved—but he went willingly, bonelessly, because some deep part of him recognized that you were trying to anchor him, and he needed an anchor more than he needed air.

“There you go,” you murmured, and your hands were on his chest now, right over the S-shield, and he could feel the warmth of your palms even through the suit. “I've got you. I'm right here. Feel my hands, Clark. Can you feel them?”

He nodded, a jerky, desperate motion. Your hands. He could feel your hands. Smaller than his and soft and warm, pressed against the symbol of his house, against the place where his heart should have been beating out of control but was instead starting, slowly, to calm.

“Good.” You stepped closer, and now your body was pressed against his, not in a way that was sexual but in a way that was grounding, solid and real and undeniable. You were warm all along his front, from his chest to his thighs, and he could feel every point of contact like a lifeline. “Now breathe with me, okay? Just breathe. In...” He felt your chest expand against his. “...and out.”

He tried. He really tried. But the images were still there, flickering behind his eyelids every time he blinked, and his breath came out in a shuddering gasp instead of anything resembling controlled.

“That's okay,” you said, and your voice was so soft, so impossibly gentle, like you were soothing a spooked horse rather than the most powerful being on the planet. “That's okay, baby. Just try again. In...”

This time, he followed. His chest rose against yours, and he felt the way you smiled—felt the curve of your lips against his collarbone where you'd pressed your face.

“Good. So good. Now out...”

He exhaled, and some of the pressure in his chest went with it.

“That's it.” Your hands started moving on his chest, slow circles over the fabric of his suit, soothing and repetitive. “You're doing so well, Clark. Just keep breathing with me. In...”

She's warm. She's warm and she's solid and she's here.

“...and out.”

Her heart is beating. I can hear it. I can feel it.

“In...”

It's not the vision. The vision was cold. She was cold in the vision.

“...and out.”

She's not cold. She's never been cold. She's the warmest thing I've ever known.

“In...”

She's alive.

“...and out.”

She's alive. She's alive. She's alive.

Clark's eyes opened. He hadn't realized he'd closed them. And there you were—your face tilted up to his, your eyes soft and patient and full of so much love it made something in his chest crack open all over again. But this time, it wasn't the bad kind of cracking. This was the kind that let light in.

“Hi,” you said softly, and there was the barest hint of a smile playing at your lips.

“Hi,” he managed, and his voice was wrecked, scraped raw, but it was his again.

Your hands slid up from his chest to his face, cradling his jaw, your thumbs tracing the curve of his cheekbones. You were so gentle with him, so careful, like he was something precious rather than something dangerous. He didn't understand how you did it. Didn't understand how you looked at him—at the suit, at the symbol, at the man who'd just fallen apart in your arms—and saw something worth holding.

“I'm here,” you said, and it wasn't the first time you'd said it tonight, but somehow it felt different now. Slower. More deliberate. Like you were pressing the words into his skin, making sure they stuck. “I'm here, Clark. I'm not a vision. I'm not a hallucination. I'm not going to disappear.”

He opened his mouth—to apologize, probably, because apologizing was what he did, was what he'd been training himself to do since he was old enough to understand that his existence was complicated—but you shook your head slightly, your thumbs pressing gently against his lips.

“No,” you said. “Don't. Don't apologize for needing me. Don't apologize for falling apart. You're allowed to fall apart, Clark. You're allowed to be scared and tired and overwhelmed and human, even if you're not—even if you're more than that. Especially because you're more than that. You carry so much. All the time. You never stop. You never let yourself just... be.”

Your hands moved from his face to his hair, pushing back the dark waves that had escaped the gel, your fingers carding through the strands with a tenderness that made his eyes sting.

“So here's what's going to happen,” you continued, and your voice was still soft but there was something underneath it now, something fierce and protective and utterly, utterly sure. “You're going to stand here with me for as long as you need to. And I'm going to hold you. And you're going to feel me—every part of me—and you're going to let yourself believe that I'm real.”

You took one of his hands—his stupid, heavy, dangerous hands, the hands that could punch through steel and crush diamonds—and pressed it flat against your chest, right over your heart.

“Feel that?” you asked.

He felt it. Of course he felt it. He could feel the steady thrum of your heartbeat against his palm, could feel the expansion of your lungs with every breath, could feel the warmth of your blood moving through your veins. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever felt.

“That's me,” you said. “That's my heart. It's beating because I'm alive, Clark. I'm alive, and I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not for a very, very long time, if I have anything to say about it.”

“But you can't promise that,” he whispered, and the words came out broken, aching, almost childish and he didn’t stop himself. “I can't protect you from everything. I couldn't in the visions. I tried, and I couldn't, and what if—what if one day—”

“Then we'll deal with that day if it comes.” Your voice was firm, unyielding, nothing like the soft, soothing tone from before. This was the voice you used when you were drawing a line in the sand, when you were refusing to let him spiral any further. “But it's not today, Clark. Today, I'm here. Right now, I'm here. And you're here. And we're together, and we're alive, and we love each other, and that's enough. That has to be enough, because it's all we have.”

You lifted his hand from your chest and pressed a kiss to his palm, right in the center, your lips warm and soft against his skin. Then you turned his hand over and kissed his knuckles, one by one, a slow and deliberate ritual.

“These hands,” you said between kisses. “These hands have caught airplanes. These hands have held up buildings. These hands have saved the world more times than I can count.” You looked up at him, and your eyes were shining. “But do you know what my favorite thing about these hands is?”

He shook his head, not trusting his voice.

“They hold me,” you said simply. “They hold me when I'm sad. They hold me when I'm scared. They hold me when I'm happy and when I'm angry and when I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open. They hold me like I'm something precious, something worth protecting. And every time you hold me, I feel safe. Not because you're Superman. Because you're you. Because you're the man who loves me.”

A tear slipped down his cheek. You caught it with your thumb, wiping it away like it was nothing, like it didn't matter that he was crying in front of you for the second time tonight.

“I love you,” you said, and the words were so simple, so small, and yet they filled every empty space in his chest. “I love you, Clark Kent. I love the reporter and the hero and the farm boy from Kansas. I love the man who burns toast and leaves socks on the floor and cries at dog commercials. I love the man who showed up on my terrace tonight in his Superman suit because he was scared and he needed me. I love all of you. Every broken, beautiful piece.”

Clark let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for hours. The tension in his shoulders—the tension he hadn't even realized was there until this moment—began to ease. The images were still lurking at the edges of his mind, but they seemed dimmer now, less urgent, like nightmares fading in the light of morning.

You stepped back just enough to look at him properly, your hands sliding down to rest on his hips. Your eyes traveled over him—the suit, the cape, the S-shield—and instead of fear or uncertainty, he saw something else. Something that looked like wonder. Like acceptance. Like love, pure and simple and absolute.

"You know," you said, and your voice was lighter now, teasing at the edges, “I've always wondered what this suit would feel like. Before meeting you, of course.”

Despite everything—despite the nightmares and the panic and the tears—Clark felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Your fingers traced the edge of the S-shield, following the curve of the symbol. “It's softer than I expected. I always imagined it would be... I don't know. Hard. Impenetrable.”

“It is,” he said. “Impenetrable, I mean. Mostly.”

“Hmm.” You looked up at him through your lashes, and there was something in your expression now that made his breath catch for an entirely different reason. “And yet I can still feel you through it. Still feel how warm you are. Still feel your heart beating.” Your palm pressed flat against his chest, right over the symbol. “Still feel how much you love me.”

Clark's hands came up to cover yours, pressing them more firmly against his chest. “I don't know how to explain how much I love you,” he said, and his voice was raw but steady now. “I don't have words big enough. I don't have gestures grand enough. I just... I love you. I love you in ways I didn't know I could love someone. I love you in ways that scare me, because it's so much, and if I ever lost it—if I ever lost you—”

“You won't,” you said, and it wasn't a promise—not really, not one either of you could guarantee—but it was close enough. It was hope, and sometimes hope was all anyone had.

You rose up on your toes and kissed him, soft and slow and sweet. It wasn't the desperate, frantic kiss you always have. This was something else. Something that felt like a vow. Like a benediction. Like you were trying to pour every ounce of love you felt into him through the simple press of your lips.

When you pulled back, your eyes were bright, and your smile was the one he fell in love with—the one that crinkled the corners of your eyes and made him feel like he'd come home.

You kissed him again.

But now, it wasn't a gentle kiss, not the soft, sweet kind you usually shared over morning coffee or lazy Sunday afternoons. This was urgent, desperate, your mouth slanting over his like you were trying to pull the pain out of him through sheer proximity. Your fingers tangled in his hair, not caring that the gel he used to keep it tamed was probably leaving residue on your palms, and you kissed him until he forgot how to breathe.

When you finally pulled back, your eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I'm here,” you said, fierce and quiet all at once. “I'm right here, Clark. I'm not going anywhere.”

He made a sound—something broken, something grateful—and kissed you again. And again. And again, each kiss softer than the last, until he was just pressing his lips to your forehead, your temples, the corner of your mouth, the pulse point at your throat where your heartbeat still sang its steady, beautiful rhythm against his skin.

“I love you,” he said against your neck. The words felt too small for the enormity of what he felt, but they were all he had. “God, I love you so much.” He murmurs, nipping at your neck. “Can I take you to bed?,” he said softly, and his voice had shifted into something lower now, something that made his stomach tighten. “Please. I need—I need to feel you. All of you.” All you did was nod and that, besides that look in your eyes, was all he needed.

He started to lift you—one arm under your knees, the other around your back, the way he always did because he could and because you made that delighted sound every single time—but you pressed a hand to his chest and stopped him.

“No,” you said, and there was a new edge to your voice. Something determined. Something that made him pause, his hands stilling on your hips. “No, Clark. Tonight, I was going to—I was going to take care of you.” Your fingers curled into the fabric of his suit, right over where his heart was hammering. “When I saw you standing there, in the suit, looking like you'd seen a ghost—I thought, “okay. I've got this. I'm going to hold him. I'm going to love him. I'm going to make him forget every single terrible thing he saw tonight”.”

His throat tightened. “Sweetheart—”

“But then you kissed me.” Your voice softened, your thumbs tracing small circles against his chest. “And I felt how much you needed this. Needed me. Not in a way that I could fix by being on top, or by taking control. You needed to hold me. You needed to feel me underneath you, alive and warm and yours.” You looked up at him, and your eyes were so full of love that it almost hurt to meet them. “So I'm not going to fight you for it. But I am going to get this suit off you first.”

Clark blinked. “What?”

A small smile tugged at the corner of your mouth—the first real smile he'd seen from you since he'd arrived, and god, it was like watching the sun come out after months of rain. “You heard me, Kent.” Your hands moved to the clasp of his cape, fingers working with a determination he'd only ever seen you apply to stubborn jar lids and particularly difficult crossword puzzles. “I love you. I love that you showed up here like this, that you trusted me enough to come to me when you were falling apart. But I am not having sex with you while you're wearing enough spandex to make a 1980s rock band jealous.”

A surprised laugh escaped him—shaky, wet, still caught somewhere between a sob and actual humor. “It's not spandex. It's a Kryptonian combat weave—”

“I don't care if it's woven from the beard hairs of Zeus himself,” you interrupted, finally managing to unhook the cape and letting it pool to the floor in a dramatic puddle of red. “It's coming off.”

And just like that, something in his chest loosened. Just a little. Just enough for him to remember that this was you, that you'd never once treated him like a symbol or a savior, that you'd always been more interested in the man beneath the armor than the armor itself.

“Help me with the boots,” you said, already reaching for the zipper on the side of his right boot, and Clark found himself sinking onto the edge of the couch, letting you kneel in front of him and pull each boot off with a kind of focused intensity that made his heart ache.

You worked in silence for a moment, the only sounds the soft rasp of fabric and your steady breathing. When both boots were off—thrown unceremoniously into the corner, where they landed with two heavy thuds—you looked up at him, and your hands came to rest on his knees.

“Stand up,” you said softly.

He stood and you rose with him, your hands sliding up his thighs to hook your fingers into the waistband of the suit. “Arms up,” you murmured, once you saw it was a two piece suit and he obeyed, lifting his arms above his head as you peeled the top half of the suit off him in one smooth motion. The Kryptonian fabric whispered against his skin, and then he was standing in front of you in nothing but the blue undersuit and you paused, your hands flat against his chest.

“There he is,” you whispered, and your voice cracked just slightly on the last word. “There's my Clark.”

He couldn't speak. Couldn't form words around the lump in his throat. He just stood there, trembling under your touch as your hands explored the landscape of his chest—the scars you'd memorized months ago, the hard planes of muscle, the places where his heartbeat pulsed warm against your palm.

“Let me see all of you,” you said, and it wasn't a demand. It was a question, soft and open, and Clark nodded because he couldn't say no to you. Not tonight. Not ever.

You peeled the undersuit off him slowly, almost reverently, your knuckles brushing against his stomach, his hips, the sensitive skin at his sides. When it pooled at his feet and he stepped out of it, leaving him in nothing but his briefs—black, plain, the kind he bought in multipacks from the department store because who was going to see them anyway—you made a sound low in your throat that made his cock twitch.

“Beautiful,” you breathed, and your hands were on him again, tracing the lines of his hips, the jut of his hipbones, the soft trail of hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his briefs. “You're so beautiful, Clark.”

“Sweetheart, mmhm I—” His voice came out strangled.

“Shh.” You pressed a finger to his lips, then replaced it with your mouth, kissing him slow and deep. “You said you needed to take care of me tonight. So take me to bed. But I want you naked when you do it. I want to feel you—all of you—nothing between us.”

He lifted you then—finally, finally—and you wrapped your legs around his waist with a quiet moan, your center pressing against the thin fabric of his briefs, and he could feel how warm you were, how ready, and it took every ounce of his considerable self-control not to just take you against the wall right there.

The walk to your bedroom was short but eternal. He could feel your heartbeat against his chest, fast and steady, and your mouth was on his neck, your teeth scraping against the sensitive skin just below his jaw, and by the time he laid you down on the bed, he was so hard it was almost painful.

You reached for the hem of his sweatshirt—the one you were wearing, the one that still smelled faintly of him underneath your shampoo—and pulled it over your head in one fluid motion. You weren't wearing anything underneath, and Clark made a sound like a wounded animal at the sight of you, bare and beautiful and spread out on the sheets like an offering.

“Clark.” Your voice was soft but steady. "”our briefs. Off. Now.”

He couldn't help the broken laugh that escaped him. “Bossy tonight.”

“You almost died in a who knows where and then watched me die a thousand times in your head,” you said, and your eyes were serious now, deep and unwavering. “I think I'm allowed to be bossy.” A pause. “Besides, you're the one who wanted to take care of me. Can't do that if you're not even undressed yet.”

He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his briefs and pushed them down, his cock springing free, hard and flushed and already leaking against his stomach. Your eyes dropped to it, and your lips parted, and Clark felt a surge of heat so intense it nearly knocked him off his feet.

“Come here,” you said, reaching for him. “Come here, I need you, honey.”

He crawled onto the bed, settling over you, his weight braced on his forearms so he wouldn't crush you. The contact was overwhelming—skin to skin, chest to chest, his cock pressing against your thigh—and you both groaned at the same time.

“I kept hearing your heartbeat stop,” he admitted, the words spilling out of him in a whisper as he pressed his forehead to yours. “In the visions. It would just... stop. And I would scream, and it wouldn't start again, and I couldn't—” He pressed his face into your neck, breathing you in. “You have to understand. I've heard things. Seen things. In all my years doing this, I've witnessed horrors that would break most people. But nothing—nothing—has ever hurt like watching you die.”

Your hands slid down his back, fingers digging into the muscles there, pulling him closer. “I'm here,” you said, and your voice was steady even though your eyes were wet. “Feel my heartbeat, Clark. Feel it.”

He did. He pressed his ear to your chest, right over your heart, and listened. thrum-thrum, thump-thump. Steady and strong and real. Your hand came up to cradle the back of his head, fingers threading through his hair, and he felt the vibration of your voice through your ribcage as you spoke.

“I love you,” you said into the quiet. “I love you, I love you, I love you. That heartbeat is yours. It's always been yours. Every single beat, from the moment we met until the moment I die—and I'm not dying tonight, Clark, I'm not dying anytime soon—every single one of them is for you.”

He kissed his way down your body. Slowly. Deliberately. Each kiss a confirmation, a reassurance, a tiny prayer of gratitude. He kissed the spot where your pulse beat at the base of your throat. He kissed the hollow between your collarbones. He kissed the swell of your breasts, took one nipple into his mouth, and you arched beneath him with a cry that went straight to his cock.

“Clark, mmhm oh fuck”

He sucked gently, then harder when your fingers tightened in his hair, and your other hand scrabbled at the sheets like you were trying to anchor yourself. He switched to the other breast, giving it the same attention, and your hips were rolling against his, your wetness slick against his stomach.

“Please,” you gasped. “Please, Clark, I need you inside me—”

He lifted his head, looking down at you. Your eyes were dark, your lips parted, your chest heaving. You were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and he'd seen galaxies born and die.

“Not yet,” he said, and his voice was rough but steady now. “I'm not done taking care of you.”

He kissed lower, trailing his mouth down your sternum, your stomach, the soft curve of your belly. When he reached the waistband of your pajama shorts—the tiny cotton ones you wore to bed, the ones with the little strawberries on them that made him smile every single time—he hooked his fingers into them and pulled them down your legs along with your underwear, tossing them somewhere behind him.

And then you were bare beneath him, open and wanting, and Clark settled between your thighs like he was coming home.

He kissed the inside of your knee. Then your thigh. Then higher, and higher, until his breath was hot against your center and you were shaking, your hands fisting in the sheets.

“Clark—”

“Shh,” he murmured, and then he licked you—one long, slow stripe from your entrance to your clit—and the sound you made was enough to bring him to his knees if he hadn't already been there.

You tasted like heaven. Like home. Like everything he'd been desperate for since the first nightmare had taken hold. He buried his face between your thighs and worshipped you, his tongue drawing patterns on your clit, his fingers sliding inside you and curling just so, and you were crying out his name, your hips bucking against his mouth. He loves spending his time with you, licking, sucking and sometimes his teeth are involved.

“That's it,” he murmured against you, and the vibration made you whimper. “Let me hear you, my love. Let me feel you. I need to know you're real, sweetheart, I need to feel you come apart for me—”

You came with a shattered cry, your whole body convulsing, your thighs clamping around his head, and Clark didn't stop. He licked you through it, gentler now, softer, until you were pushing at his shoulders with trembling hands.

“Too much,” you gasped. “Too much, honey, I can't handle more.”

He crawled back up your body, kissing you so you could taste yourself on his lips. Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him close, and he could feel your heart hammering against his chest.

“I love you,”he said, and it came out like a prayer. “I love you, I love you, I love you so much, baby.”

“Then fuck me,” you said, half-laughing, half-sobbing. “Please, Clark, I need to feel you deep inside.”

He reached between you, positioning himself at your entrance, and paused. Looked down at you. Your eyes were wet, your face flushed, your lips swollen from his kisses. You looked utterly wrecked, and utterly here, and something in his chest cracked open and healed all at once.

“Talk to me,” he said, and his voice was raw. “While I'm inside you. I need to hear your voice. I need to know you're with me.”

“I'm with you,” you said, and your hands cupped his face, pulling him down until your foreheads touched. “I'm always with you, Clark. Now please—”

He pushed inside you. Slowly. So slowly. Inch by agonizing inch, watching your face the whole time—the way your eyes fluttered shut, the way your lips parted, the way you gasped his name like it was the only word you remembered how to say. When he was fully seated, buried to the hilt inside your heat, he stopped. Just held there, letting you both adjust, letting himself feel every pulse and flutter of your body around him.

“Gosh,” he breathed. “Oh Gosh, you feel so good, my love.”

“I know.” Your voice was wrecked. “I know. Move, Clark. Please.”

He pulled back and thrust forward, and the sound you made was obscene, perfect, the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. He set a rhythm—slow at first, deep and deliberate, each thrust a reaffirmation that you were here, you were alive, you were his.

“I watched you die,” he said, and the words came out between thrusts, ragged and raw. “I watched you die in a hospital bed. I watched you die in a car crash. I watched you die in something that could be our shared home.” His voice broke, and he thrust deeper, and you moaned. “I watched a man shoot you in the chest while I was standing right there, and I couldn't—I couldn't, oh damn.”

“Clark.” Your hands were everywhere—his face, his shoulders, his back, pulling him closer, holding him like you could keep him from flying apart. “I'm here. I'm here. Feel me—feel me, honey.”

He did. He felt the way you clenched around him, the way your nails dug into his shoulders, the way your heels pressed into the backs of his thighs, urging him deeper. He felt your heartbeat thrumming against his chest, faster now, matching the rhythm of his hips. He felt the wetness on his cheeks—tears, his or yours, he couldn't tell anymore—and the warmth of your breath against his neck.

“You're so beautiful,” he said, and he was crying now, actually crying, the tears falling onto your face and mixing with yours. “You're so beautiful and I can't lose you, I can't—”

“You won't.” You kissed his tears, your mouth soft and desperate against his cheeks, his eyelids, the corner of his lips. “You won't lose me, Clark. I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here. I'm right here, I'm right here, I'm always here.”

Your words became a chant, a mantra, a prayer, and Clark fucked you through it, hard and deep and desperate, his hand sliding between your bodies to rub your clit in tight circles.

“Come for me,” he said, and it wasn't a request. “Come for me, sweetheart, I need to feel you—I need to know you're real, that you’re here, that you’re mine.”

You shattered. Came apart around him with a cry that was almost a scream, your body convulsing, your inner walls clenching around him like a vice, and Clark followed you over the edge with a groan that was torn from somewhere deep in his chest. He spilled inside you, wave after wave, his hips stuttering as he buried himself as deep as he could go.

For a long moment, there was nothing but breathing. Nothing but the sound of your hearts—his steady and strong, yours fast and fluttering—and the rustle of sheets as you both trembled through the aftershocks.

Clark collapsed beside you, pulling you into his arms, your head tucked under his chin and your legs tangled with his. He could feel your tears on his chest, could hear the little hitches in your breath as you cried, and he held you tighter, his lips pressed to the top of your head.

“I'm sorry,” he said after a long moment, his voice muffled by your hair. “For showing up like this. For—for dumping all of that on you. You didn't sign up for all this mess, baby.”

“Stop.” Your hand pressed flat against his chest, right over his heart. “Don't you dare apologize. Not for this. Not for needing me.” You tilted your head back to look at him, and your eyes were red-rimmed but fierce. “I signed up for all of you, Clark Kent. The good days and the bad ones. The nightmares and the morning coffee. The cape and the glasses. You don't get to hide parts of yourself from me just because you think they're inconvenient or scary or too much.”

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, then your nose, then your lips. “I love you,” he said, because the words were inadequate but they were all he had. “I love you more than I know how to say.”

You smiled—that soft, devastating smile that had undone him from the very first moment he'd seen it—and snuggled closer, your ear pressed over his heart.

“Then show me,” you said quietly. “Every day. For the rest of our lives.”

Clark looked down at you—at the tear tracks on your cheeks, the love in your eyes, the way your body was pressed against his like you were trying to crawl inside his skin and stay there—and he felt something shift. Something settle. Something that felt like hope.

“I will,” he said, and his voice was steady now. Certain. “Every day. For the rest of our lives.”

Outside, the city hummed its endless night-song. Inside, wrapped in each other and the quiet aftermath of love, Clark Kent let himself believe that everything might just be okay.

He had you, after all. And that was enough. That was everything. You are his everything.

You at his stove. Him passing the salt before you asked. Flour on his shirt from when you’d accused him of hovering and flicked it at him. Tomato sauce smudged across your cheek after you leaned in to taste from the spoon he held to your lips. 

Clark knew his gaze lingered lately.

Maybe because his apartment started keeping you even after reluctant good-bye's and good-nights: your mug beside his coffee maker, his blanket you stole when you were cold, your stack of books claiming his nightstand with a bossy little, “Trust me, Kent. These are good.”

Somewhere along the way, his favorite part of every day had become waiting for your knock at his door. 

And now, his neighbor's record player crackled through the paper-thin walls. A familiar opening harmonica kicked in as a bright and bold croon followed.

Hey, hey, baby!

You perked up, turning to him with hands clasped to your chest. “Oh, I love this song, Clark!”

He grinned. Of course he knew that! He knew everything you loved with your whole heart.

Before he could answer, you traded the wooden spoon in his grasp for yours and tugged him closer.

“C'mon! Dance with me! I need the practice!”

Clark didn't hesitate. One broad palm settled low on your waist, fingers splayed as he drew you in. The other laced tighter through yours. Your bodies pressed flush from the start, and he couldn't help but tease you.

"'Kay, but careful," he spun you toward the dining table. "Can’t risk burning Metropolis’s star actress before her big audition tomorrow."

Your laugh warmed him clear through as you slid over the hardwood in imperfect sync, singing under your breath while the kitchen gathered around you in all its mess: flour streaked across his shirt, sauce bubbling too hot on the stove, a dusting of parmesan on the counter, your script abandoned dangerously close to a smear of olive oil.

I said, "That’s the kind of gal I’d like to meet."

Your hip brushed against his thigh on the turn, then again, cheekily. Clark’s hand hand dared to slid lower. Flour dusted from his shirt onto yours as your breasts pressed against him after each twirl and twist.

"She’s so pretty," Clark sang again, eyes holding yours as the words no longer felt borrowed. "Lord, she’s fine."

Your lips pressed together, and you ducked your face into his chest bashfully before he could see too much of what all of this did to you.

But Clark felt it.

Your fingers curled tighter around his bicep.

Your breath caught against the cotton of his shirt.

Clark’s thumb traced a slow circle over your spine as he dipped his head close enough to catch the scent of your shampoo beneath garlic and basil.

"I’m gonna make her mine, all mine," he sang against your hair.

He heard your heartbeat jump instantly, and so did his.

Finally, you looked up at him, face illuminated in the golden kitchen light.

"All mine," you mouthed back, squeezing his hand.

Traces of city noise, music, the sauce, your script all faded beneath the rush of blood in his ears.

All he saw was his best friend. His favorite person.

The one who had been with him through every bad day, every small victory, every lonely stretch of life he'd never quite knew how to fill.

The woman he wanted beside him for every tomorrow he could imagine.

One flour-dusted hand rose to your cheek, thumb swiping gently at the tomato sauce there, but neither pulled away after it was gone.

Gosh, you were so close.

Close enough to notice the way your head tipped just so with a half-lidded gaze fixed on his lips.

Close enough that if he ducked his head just a tad lower—

I wanna know if you’ll be my—

A violent hiss erupted behind him, and you both startled apart gaspin.

“Shit, Clark! Our dinner!” you yelped, slipping from his embrace to point.

Clark groaned, lunging to cut off the stove while you scrambled for a dish towel, wiping at the spill with shaky hands and laughing like you hadn’t just almost kissed him in the middle of his ruined kitchen.

The pasta was spared, the kitchen still stood, the actress unscathed. And whatever almost happened between you was merely...delayed.

Because when Clark looked back at you, still smiling at him like he hung the moon and eyes lingering on his lips.

—my girl. Hey, hey, baby!

Only one thought remained.

Soon.

He was going to ask you to choose him differently.

I'm gonna make her mine, all mine.

.

.

Ma Kent snorted softly from across the table. “At this point, that baby’s probably ninety percent mashed potatoes.”

Clark looked entirely unashamed. “They will be a very healthy, growing baby.”

You bit back a smile.

That was the thing about Clark during your pregnancy, he hovered.

Did you need water? A pillow? Another blanket? Less blanket? A snack? Different snack? Did your back hurt? Were your feet swollen? Had you rested enough? Too much? Was the baby kicking enough? Too much?

The man treated your pregnancy like the world’s most important mission.

And it made him very, very easy to fluster.

And suddenly, sitting there at the table with Ma and Pa Kent, watching your husband lovingly shovel corn onto your plate like he was personally responsible for feeding both you and the baby, the idea struck.

You looked down at your half-full plate thoughtfully.

Then, very gently, you asked, “Clark… am I allowed to have some more?”

Clark didn’t even look up.

“Of course,” he said immediately, mouth still full, already spooning another helping onto your plate. “You barely ate any! Here, have more chicken too.”

You pressed your lips together. You continued carefully, in the smallest voice you could manage. “Are you sure?”

Clark blinked at you. “Sure about what?”

“That it’s okay for me to eat more?”

Clark stared at you for a long moment. Then looked at your plate. Then at you again.

“…Yes?” He sounded deeply confused.

You nodded solemnly, “Okay,” and resumed eating.

Clark reached for the biscuits.

“You want another one?”

“Yes please.”

“Here you go, my love.” He handed it over immediately.

You sighed as your prank failed, silently waiting for another opportunity.

-

Said opportunity was when Ma Kent brought out dessert.

Her specialty peach cobbler was still warm, the smell filling the kitchen instantly.

“Oh my goodness,” you sighed dramatically. “That smells amazing.”

Ma Kent smiled warmly. “Go on, honey, have some.”

You coached your face to look anxious, worried, then slowly turned toward Clark.

“…Am I allowed?”

The room went silent.

Clark froze with the serving spoon halfway in his hand.

Ma Kent blinked. Pa Kent’s expression changed immediately into a frown.

“Allowed?” Ma Kent repeated.

You looked down shyly. “Well… I just wanted to check first.”

Clark looked like his soul had briefly left his body.

“Why would you…what do you mean allowed?” 

You kept your face perfectly straight. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Upset me?” Clark nearly choked. “Why would it upset me?”

Ma Kent’s eyebrows shot up.

Pa Kent set down his fork, slowly and very carefully.

Clark turned toward you so quickly his chair squeaked against the floor.

“Honey, what are you talking about?”

You blinked innocently. “The cobbler.”

“The cobbler…”

“Yes.”

Ma Kent turned to Clark at the same time he looked at you incredulously.

“Clark,” she said carefully, “why would she need permission to eat dessert?”

“I—she doesn’t!” Clark’s brows were furrowed with concern, slowly feeling like he was unnecessarily put on the hot seat. “Why would you need my permission to eat cobbler?!”

You shrugged lightly. “Well, you may not want me to eat any more.”

Ma Kent slowly turned toward her son.

“Clark Joseph Kent.”

Clark’s eyes widened in immediate horror.

“No! No, no, no—Ma, I swear—”

Pa Kent crossed his arms.

Clark looked even more panicked.

“I have literally never stopped her from eating anything in her life! She eats whatever she wants, whenever she wants. I've actually been actively encouraging her to eat more because she sometimes forgets in the afternoon and the doctor said…" He caught himself, and looked back at you. "What is going on?”

You tilted your head. “But maybe you didn’t want me eating cobbler specifically?”

“Why would I not want you to?!”

Clark looked moments away from a full system shutdown.

“Honey,” he said frantically, stumbling over every word, “I have never, not once, told you what you can or can’t eat. Or do. Or wear. Or…anything!”

Ma Kent was now openly suspicious. “Clark…”

“No! Ma, listen to me—I swear, she does whatever she wants! Constantly! Happily! And I support her! Enthusiastically!”

You nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true.”

Clark pointed at you wildly. “See?!”

“But maybe secretly you don’t like how much I eat?”

Clark looked genuinely devastated.

“What?! No, Ma, Pa, listen to me. I’ve never told her not to do anything she wanted! Ever! If anything, she tells me what to do!”

He turned back to his parents, fully distressed now.

“I am not controlling! Right? I’m not controlling.”

Pa Kent finally spoke, voice low. “Son…”

Clark turned toward him in absolute panic. “Pa, I swear to God, I have never denied her anything in my entire life! I don't restrict her eating. I don't restrict ANYTHING! I don't tell her what to do. I would never." Clark's voice had taken on the slightly desperate quality of a man watching a small fire and patting his pockets for something to put it out with. "She has complete autonomy over everything. Every single thing. I've never once told her she couldn't eat or do or–"

"Clark," you said.

“--have anything she wanted, I mean she went through a period in the second trimester where she wanted a very specific brand of crackers at two in the morning and I flew forty minutes to three different stores to find them, I have the receipts, I can show you the receipts–”

“Clark.”

“--and I don't know what this is right now but I need everyone at this table to understand that I am not and have never been–”

“CLARK.”

He stopped his rambling.

He looked at you.

You were smiling. A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

Then suddenly you were laughing so hard you had to hold your stomach.

The entire table stared at you.

“Oh no,” Ma Kent whispered, already realizing.

You wheezed helplessly, tears gathering in your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you gasped. “I’m sorry…I was joking.”

Silence.

Clark blinked.

“…What?”

You covered your face, laughing harder. “It was a prank, baby.”

Clark stared. Ma Kent burst into laughter instantly.

Pa Kent leaned back in his chair.

Clark remained frozen. “You…”

“I’m sorry,” you laughed again. “You were just so easy to fluster.”

Clark looked deeply betrayed.

“I thought Pa was about to kill me.”

You grinned at Pa, “He was in on it,” you confessed, remembering how Pa chuckled gruffly when you told him about your plan.

Clark dropped back into his chair dramatically, pressing a hand to his chest.

“I cannot believe you.”

You leaned over and kissed his cheek sweetly.

“I’m sorry I scared you, honey. You're a wonderful husband," you said. "Why do you still have the receipts?"

He put his arm around you, and you could feel him giving up on the wounded dignity, the whole structure of it just gently collapsing.

"Souvenirs," he said again, quieter, “I didn’t want to forget anything about your pregnancy. And so that I could show our baby that I would do anything for them.”

You smiled at him, cupping his cheek tenderly before giving him a kiss. Clark turned pink.

"Forty minutes,” he reminded you, “Three stores."

"I know."

"In the rain."

"It wasn't raining."

"It was drizzling." Clark sighed deeply. 

You laughed, then immediately reached for the cobbler.

Clark instinctively grabbed the serving spoon and loaded a giant portion onto your plate.

Everyone at the table burst into laughter again.

Clark looked around defensively.

“What? She’s eating for two.”

-

taglist

@vql3rie @celestialend @diannelucille @minienix @evermoresivy

@nixandtonic @bl00dstained @vestafir @sweettbepbo @icybarness

@skzvibes-blog @sweetheartdiariess @blackwidownat2814 @zandra-42 @ysuftmikey

@soupiemeowmeow @bookishbabyyyy @DreamingofTomorrow @1-800-peakyblinders @kissesofstars

@qtmoonies @Casiopea2 @buckystwilight_ @buckystwilight @princess76179

@kaiparkerwife @vinecstasy @averyhotchner @angelicp0etry @multifandom-loser

@ladamari68 @httpstoyosi @jakesphere @alina02 @kaorisakamotofan

@randomfangirlof @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @animegamerfox @thychuvaluswife @clarkclit

@tayhobart @obsessedwthdilfs @kneelarhmstrung @helalokithor @loveelylani

@kissmxcheek @toplinehyunjin @jvanilly @angelbunny222 @sheslikecherrypie

June 1st - Joy To The World - Three Dog Night / “I never understood a single word he said”

June 2nd - I Wanna Be Bad - Willa Ford / “No I can't promise that I won't do that”

June 3rd - Mack the Knife - Bobby Darin / “And he shows them pearly white”

June 4th - Right Place, Wrong Time - Dr. John / “But I'm having such a good time”

June 5th - Hey! Baby - Bruce Channel / “I'm gonna make her mine, all mine”

June 6th - Therefore I Am - Billie Eilish / “I don't think I caught your name”

June 7th - Jump (For My Love) - Pointer Sisters / “I know you like what you see”

June 8th - Living La Vida Loca - Ricky Martin / “I feel a premonition”

June 9th - Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye / “Like when you said you felt so happy you could die”.

June 10th - Pink Pony Club - Chappell Roan / “Every night's another reason why I left it all”

June 11th - Little Bitty Pretty One - Thurston Harris / “Tell you a story”

June 12th - Tainted Love - Soft Cell / “I cannot stand the way you tease”

June 13th - Town Without Pity - Gene Pitney / “Only those in love could know”

June 14th - Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry / “Til you die?”

June 15th - Bad Habits - Ed Sheeran / “I got nothin' left to lose, or use, or do”

June 16th - Every Breath You Take - The Police / “Every smile you fake”

June 17th - Say Something - A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera / “It was over my head”

June 18th - Come and Get Your Love - Redbone / “What's the matter with you”

June 19th - Raise Your Glass - P!nk / “You can choose to let it go”

June 20th - All Shook Up - Elvis Presley / “Who do you thank when you have such luck?”

June 21st - Animal I Have Become - Three Days Grace / “I can't control myself”

June 22nd - Wonderwall - Oasis / “Because maybe”

June 23rd - I Believe In A Thing Called Love - The Darkness / “We'll be rocking till the sun goes down”

June 24th - Groove Is In The Heart - Deee-Lite / “No, I couldn't ask for another”

June 25th - Rude - MAGIC! / “I hate to do this, you leave no choice”

June 26th - Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler / “There's nothing I can do”

June 27th - The Dark End of the Street - James Carr / “That's where we always meet”

June 28th - Northern Attitude - Noah Kahan (with Hozier) / “If I get too close”

June 29th - Mr. Brightside - The Killers / “But it's just the price I pay”

June 30th - Don’t Speak - No Doubt / “I know what you're thinkin'”

Downstairs, Clark stood at the stove with one eye on the eggs and one eye on Jon, who was sitting on the counter, pressing both fists into a lump of playdough that was supposed to be, apparently, a flower. There was flour on his cheek. There was also flour on the ceiling, and Clark had decided not to investigate how it got there.

"Is it good?" Jon asked, holding up what appeared to be a flat, vaguely circular blob.

"It's perfect, buddy."

At the kitchen table, Leia was bent so close over her piece of paper that her nose was nearly touching it. Two cards were already finished and lined up in a row. The first had a drawing of four of you standing in front of the house, stick figures with wild crayon hair. The second had a poem she had copied and then decorated with many hand-drawn hearts and stars. Now she was making a third.

"Leia," Clark said gently. "More cards?"

"Yes, daddy," she said, without looking up. “But this one is different."

"How is it different?"

"The other two are from you, me, and Jon. This one is just from me."

Clark shrugged and turned back to the eggs.

Jon slid off the counter, landing with a thud, and padded over to look at his sister's work. "Pretty," he announced, patting her hair with a floury hand, leaving a small white print. Leia looked at him carefully, and decided to let it go.

"Okay," Clark said, sliding the eggs onto the plate and turning off the stove. "We’re ready to go.”

"I carry the tray, Daddy!" Jon was already running toward the counter, arms up, reaching.

"Jon…"

"I carry it. I'm big."

Clark crouched down to his level. Jon's face was serious, the same look he got when he was trying to put his own shoes on.

"Okay," Clark said. "You carry it. But I'm going to put my hands right here, just in case."

Jon nodded. "Okay. But I'm really carrying it."

"You're really carrying it."

"You're just helping a little bit."

"Just a little bit."

-

You heard them coming up the stairs.

You heard Jon's voice, hushed with great effort and not quite succeeding, saying "shhh, shhh, shhh" the whole way up. You heard Leia whisper "I know, I'm being quiet." You heard the low, warm sound of Clark murmuring something to Jon about the tray, steady and careful.

You closed your eyes and kept your breathing slow.

The door creaked open.

"She's sleeping," Jon whispered, at full volume.

"Jon," Leia whispered back.

"Mommy’s sleeping, we have to be quiet."

"I know, you have to be quiet."

"I am being quiet."

You bit the inside of your cheek.

"Okay," Clark said softly, "nice and easy, let's put it right here."

There was a careful shuffling, the soft thump of the tray settling on the nightstand, and then a long pause. You could feel all three of them looking at you.

And then Jon, unable to contain himself for even one more second, climbed up onto the bed, crawled across the mattress on all fours, and put both hands on your face.

"Mommy. Mommy, wake up. Mommy."

You opened your eyes.

His face was inches from yours, wide-eyed and beaming, flour still on his cheek. "HAPPY MOMMY’S DAY!" he shouted, and then immediately looked at Leia, silently telling her that it was her cue.

"Happy Mother's Day, Mommy," Leia said, and she was trying to sound calm and grown-up about it but her smile was giving her away completely. She climbed up on the other side and laid the stack of cards in your lap. "We made you cards. We couldn't pick the best one, so you get all of them. There are three."

"Three of them?” You asked.

"The third one is just from me."

You looked at Clark, who was standing in the doorway with a quiet expression he got on mornings like this, leaning against the frame, watching. He smiled at you.

"Come here," you said.

He came and sat on the edge of the bed, and you looked at the tray: eggs, toast, a small glass of orange juice, and a slightly crushed flower that might have come from the backyard, sitting in a cup of water. Jon immediately pointed at the flower.

"I picked it," he said.

"It's beautiful, Jonny bear."

"I know." He crawled into your lap and settled there, tucking his head under your chin.

You looked through the cards one by one while Leia watched your face carefully, tracking your reaction to each one. The drawing of the family. The poem with the hearts and stars. And then the last one, the one just from her. It was simpler than the others. On the front she had drawn what looked to be a portrait of you, and inside she had written “My mommy is the prettiest mom in the world. She gives great kisses and hugs”.

You held it for a moment.

"Did you like it?" Leia asked.

"I love it," you said. "Come here."

She leaned in and you kissed the top of her head, and Jon, not wanting to be left out, tilted his face up toward you too, so you kissed his forehead as well, and he made a satisfied sound and burrowed closer.

You ate your breakfast in bed with Jon in your lap, Leia leaning against your shoulder flipping back through her own cards to point out details you might have missed, and Clark beside you, his arm easy and familiar around your back. The sun came through the curtains slow and golden. Jon fell almost back asleep against your chest. Leia eventually settled too, curled into your side with her eyes drooping, still holding the crayon drawing of the four of you in front of the house.

Clark pressed a kiss to your temple.

You stayed like that for a long time.

Later, after the slow untangling of limbs and the transferring of a drowsy Jon to the couch with a blanket, after Leia had gone to find her book, you and Clark stood at the kitchen sink together doing the breakfast dishes.

You were handing him the pan when he set it aside, turned toward you, and kissed you, warm and unhurried.

When he pulled back, he stayed close. His forehead almost touching yours. And then he turned his head slightly, lips near your ear, and whispered, "I don't know what I did to deserve this. Any of it. I want you to know that I know that. I'm so happy. I'm so grateful for you."

You closed your eyes.

You had heard him say it before. Last Mother's Day, standing almost exactly here, the sun coming through this same window. And the Mother's Day before that, when Jon was still a baby and Leia had carried the card downstairs herself, enormously proud. And the first one, years ago, when it was just the three of you and everything felt new and a little terrifying and he had looked at you like you had given him everything.

Every year. The same words, more or less. Like a thing he needed to say and you needed to hear, a ritual that belonged to both of you now.

You leaned into him. His arms came around you.

Outside, you could hear Leia's voice drifting in from the other room, narrating something to herself, and the occasional soft sound of Jon on the couch, not quite asleep.

Clark would say it again next year. And the year after that. For all the years to come, as many as you had, he would find you somewhere ordinary and say it like he meant it, because he did, because that was who he was.

You thought about the cards on the nightstand upstairs. The flower that Jon picked.

You tilted your head up and kissed him again, soft and slow.

"I know," you said quietly. "Me too."

-

“So,” Clark started, leaning against the counter and folding his arms. "The kids have never seen the Atlantic."

You looked at him.

"It's a nice day on the coast," he said. "I checked."

"You checked."

"Cape Hatteras is seventy-three degrees right now."

"Of course you know that."

"Light wind. Almost no cloud cover." He tilted his head slightly. "Two hours by car. Approximately four minutes the other way."

From the living room, as if on cue, Jon's voice drifted in. "Daddy, are we doing something fun?"

Clark raised his eyebrows at you. You dried your hands on the dish towel.

"If I get sand in places I don't want sand," you said, "that's on you."

Clark smiled. "I'll take full responsibility."

"You always say that."

"And I always mean it."

When you told the kids, Jon fell off the couch. He rolled onto the floor and immediately jumped up with his arms in the air like it didn't happen. "BEACH!"

Leia gasped, grabbed your arm with both hands, and shook it. "Are we actually going or is this a maybe?"

"We're actually going."

She let go of your arm and turned to Jon. "We're actually going."

Jon, who had been spinning in a circle, stopped spinning. "BEACH," he said again, with renewed emphasis.

Clark was already carrying a bag from somewhere with everything already in it, and you squinted at it with suspicion.

"Did you pack this already?"

"I had a feeling."

"Clark."

"You were always going to say yes."

You had absolutely been always going to say yes.

-

Jon, it turned out, had opinions about altitude that he had not previously had the opportunity to express. Specifically, he wanted to see. He kept craning around in Clark's arm trying to look down, saying "whoa" in a very small voice, over and over. "Whoa. Whoa, Daddy. Whoa."

"I see it, buddy."

"That's tiny."

"That's a farm."

"It's tiny."

"We're very high up."

Jon considered this for a moment, looking down at the tiny farm. "Cool," he decided, and relaxed against Clark's shoulder.

Leia, tucked against your side with her hair absolutely everywhere despite the ponytail she'd started with, pointed at a river below them and said "what's that" and then before you could answer pointed at something else and said "what's that." You gave up trying to answer in sequence and just held her and let Clark handle the navigation.

Four minutes. He had said four minutes and he had not been lying, which was somehow the most Clark Kent thing about the whole situation. The landscape shifted, and the light changed, and then there was a long blue line on the horizon that got wider as you dropped lower, and the air tasted different all at once, salt and openness, and Jon lifted his head off Clark's shoulder and said, very quietly, "Water."

"That's the ocean," Clark told him.

Jon stared at it. "It's big," he said.

"It's very big."

"Is it the biggest?"

"It's one of the biggest." You told him.

Jon stared at it for another long moment. "Okay," he said, in the tone of someone filing this information away carefully.

-

Clark set you all down in a quieter stretch of beach, easy and gentle, the sand pale and wide and the waves rolling in slow. It was a gorgeous day. Seventy-three degrees, just like he'd said, and you hated a little bit how right he always was about things like that.

"I need to change," you said, taking the bag from him. You had grabbed a change of clothes in the rush before leaving. "You've got them?"

Clark looked at the children. Jon was already sitting down in the dry sand, pressing both hands into it with an expression of deep interest. Leia had taken her shoes off and was walking toward the waterline.

"I've got them," Clark said.

You headed up toward the public changing areas, which were not far. The walk took maybe five minutes. The changing took another five.

When you came back, following the path back down toward the beach, you heard Leia before you saw them.

"Again!" she was saying. "Do it again!"

You came around the low dune and stopped.

Clark was standing in the sand with his shirt and shoes off, and as you watched, he planted his hands and went into a cartwheel. Clean, easy, unhurried, a full rotation with his legs straight in the air before he landed back on his feet.

Leia and Jon were watching him with identical expressions of absolute wonder.

You stood very still. You did not want to interrupt this.

"AGAIN," Jon said.

Clark did it again.

"Okay," Leia said, with the gravity of someone accepting a challenge. "I'm going to do that."

"Alright, sweetie." Clark nodded, hands on his hips, "Do you want me to show you how to–"

"I know how."

Leia did not know how. Both hands went down, she got one leg up, and then the whole thing just sort of listed sideways and she went into the sand shoulder-first, rolling to a stop and ending up on her back looking at the sky.

There was a pause.

"I meant to do that," she said.

"Absolutely," Clark agreed.

Jon, who had been watching Leia, decided he had learned enough. He stepped forward, bent down, put his hands in the sand, and then simply fell directly onto his face.

Not a cartwheel. Not even an attempt at a cartwheel. Just a small determined boy tipping forward and going down.

The sound he made on impact was mostly just surprised.

The laugh came out of you before you could do anything about it. You were laughing properly now, and Clark turned toward the sound of you and saw you standing there, and the smile that crossed his face was wide and completely unguarded.

Jon pushed himself up from the sand. He had it on his nose, his chin, both cheeks. He looked at his hands. He looked at Leia. He looked at Clark.

"I did it," he said.

"You really did," Clark said.

Leia sat up with sand in her hair and pointed at you. "Mommy was watching!"

"I know," Clark said. "I heard her laughing from over there."

"I wasn't laughing," you said, walking toward them and absolutely still laughing.

"You were," Leia said. "It's okay. I'm going to do it for real next time." She stood up and brushed sand off her arms. "I was just warming up."

Jon was still sitting where he'd fallen. He looked up at you as you reached them and held both arms up, the universal signal.

You crouched down and picked him up, sand and all.

"Did you do a cartwheel?" you asked him.

"Yes," he said.

"It was very good."

"I know."

He put his sandy head on your shoulder, already losing interest in cartwheels now that the ocean was right there, and pointed toward the water. "Can we go?"

"Yeah, baby. We can go."

-

Hours later, Clark brought his family home. He carried Jon upstairs and got him into dry clothes, somehow without waking him. Jon stirred once, muttered something that might have been "ocean," and went back under.

Leia was tired but fighting it, operating on the seven-year-old principle that sleep was something that happened to other people. She sat on the bed wrapped in a towel and accepted the cup of warm apple juice Clark brought her and watched you with the expression she sometimes got, the thinking one, where you could almost see something turning over behind her eyes.

"Mommy," she said.

"Yeah, little star?"

She looked at Clark. Something passed between them.

Clark set his own cup down. "Actually," he said, "I think now is a good time."

"Now is a good time for what?" you asked.

Leia was already off the bed.

She came back from the hallway closet carrying something with both hands, carefully.

It was a book. A real one, or close to it, hardcovered, wrapped in brown paper that had been decorated with flowers and stars and hearts and what appeared to be a dog that was probably meant to be Krypto. Across the front, in Leia's careful handwriting and Jon's rather more enthusiastic scribbling, it said FOR MOMMY.

She held it out to you.

You took it. It was heavier than you expected.

"We made it," Leia said. "Me and Daddy. And Jon helped."

"Jon picked some of the pictures," Clark said. "He was very decisive about it."

"He kept pointing at the ones with food in them," Leia added.

"That's fair," you said. Your voice came out a little unsteady and you didn't try to fix it.

You pulled off the paper carefully. Leia watched you.

The cover underneath was a deep blue, and in the center was a photo you recognized immediately: the two of you on your wedding day, not the posed portrait, not the formal one, but the candid someone had caught of the moment just after, when you were both still laughing about something and Clark had his forehead tipped toward yours and neither of you were looking at the camera. You had always loved that photo. You had not known he had printed it.

You opened it.

The first pages were the wedding.

Not just the ceremony, but all of it. The chaos of getting ready. The moment before you walked out, caught by someone from the side. Clark at the end of the aisle and the particular look on his face that you had seen in the photos before but that still hit you the same way every time, like he couldn't quite believe it, like he was trying to memorize you.

Your first dance. The cake. The late part of the night when shoes had been abandoned and someone had put on something ridiculous and everyone was dancing badly and happily and you were laughing into Clark's shoulder.

You turned the page.

The hospital. Leia, hours old, bundled tight, eyes scrunched shut against the light. Clark holding her with an expression you did not have words for, had never had words for. And one of you, just after, looking down at her with your whole heart on your face.

You pressed your fingers to your mouth.

"Keep going," Leia said softly, sitting close beside you now.

There were years in that book.

Leia's first birthday, cake everywhere. A vacation you'd taken when she was barely one, some small town, and a photo of Clark carrying her on his shoulders while she grabbed fistfuls of his hair. Ordinary Sundays. A Christmas morning with wrapping paper knee-deep. Leia's first day of school, backpack nearly as big as she was, chin lifted.

Then Jon. The hospital again, that same late-night quality of light, and Jon so small, so new, and Leia holding him for the first time, leaning over very carefully to look at his face with serious expression before announcing that he was okay.

You laughed at the memory.

More years. Jon learning to walk, caught mid-tumble, laughing anyway. The four of you at the park, at the table, in the backyard. Small moments, ordinary ones, the kind you lived inside of without always knowing you were building something.

And then, near the back, a page that was more recent. This past year. Jon asleep on Clark's chest on the couch. Leia reading with her legs over the arm of the chair the way you always told her not to sit. The four of you at the kitchen table, Sunday breakfast, everyone slightly disheveled, no one performing anything for anyone.

Home.

The last page was a letter.

Handwritten on paper that had been glued in carefully, a little crooked, which somehow made it better. Leia's handwriting, her best, each letter formed with effort. And at the bottom, in Jon's wide wandering scrawl, his name. He had also drawn a star next to it, and what might have been a cat, and a number four for reasons known only to him.

It was not a long letter. Leia was seven, and she had written it herself, and it said what it needed to say.

She wrote that you were the best mother in the world, and she had thought about this carefully and was sure.

She wrote that you were the best mom because you always knew when something was wrong even when she didn't say anything, and she didn't know how you did that but she was glad.

You were the best mom because you made her and Jonny feel safe.

And then, near the end, in the same careful handwriting, she had written, "If me and Jon got born again, we would choose you to be our mommy again. Forever and ever and ever."

You didn't try to hold it together.

You weren't sure you could have even if you'd wanted to, and you didn't want to, not here, not with the three of them right there watching you with so much love it was almost too much to be inside of.

Leia climbed into your lap and put her arms around your neck. "Don't be sad, Mommy," she said, against your cheek.

"I'm not sad," you told her. "I promise I'm not sad. This is the other kind."

She pulled back to look at your face, checking, the way you had always checked hers. Whatever she found there seemed to satisfy her, because she settled back against you and let out a long breath.

Jon appeared at your elbow.

He had woken up somewhere in the middle of the letter, soft-eyed and rumpled, drawn by the sound of your voice. He looked at you, at Leia, at the book in your hands. He reached up and patted your face with one small hand, very gently.

"Okay, Mommy?" he asked.

"More than okay, baby," you said.

He nodded, satisfied, and climbed up too, wedging himself into the remaining space, and you made room for him. Clark moved to sit beside you now, his arm coming around all three of you, solid and warm and steady.

You leaned into him.

He pressed his lips to the side of your head and kept them there for a moment.

"Leia stayed up very late three nights this week working on that letter," he said quietly, just for you. "She kept starting over because she said it wasn't right yet."

You looked at your daughter. She was pretending not to have heard this. She had her face turned away with nonchalance.

"Well, she got it right."

She turned back. Her eyes were a little bright. She lifted one shoulder in a shrug that did not fool you at all. "I just wanted to say it correctly."

"You did, baby girl."

The sunset came the way May sunsets do, spreading color across the whole sky.

The four of you sat on the back porch. Blankets had materialized. Jon was back asleep, curled against your side with his shell still in his hand, carried all the way from Cape Hatteras. Leia was leaning on the porch railing watching the sky go pink and orange.

Clark had his arm around you. He hadn't stopped touching you all day in small ways, a hand at your back, fingers through yours, the easy and unthinking language of someone who has loved someone for a long time and doesn't see any reason to stop.

"Good day?" he asked.

You looked at Jon's sleeping face. At Leia pointing out a color in the sky to herself, quietly, just noting it. At the scrapbook sitting on the table behind you.

At the sky, going gold, going rose, going the deep and luminous blue of something ending well.

"Best one yet," you said.

Clark pressed a kiss to your temple. "I'll take that," he said. "And I'll do better next year."

"You cannot do better than this year."

"Watch me."

You laughed, soft, so as not to wake Jon. Leia turned around at the sound of it and smiled at you for no particular reason. You smiled back.

The sky kept going. You had the warmth of your family around you, the day settling into evening, and the unrepeatable gold of this one hour in this one May.

-

taglist

@vql3rie @celestialend @diannelucille @minienix @evermoresivy

@nixandtonic @bl00dstained @vestafir @sweettbepbo @icybarness

@skzvibes-blog @sweetheartdiariess @blackwidownat2814 @zandra-42 @ysuftmikey

@soupiemeowmeow @bookishbabyyyy @DreamingofTomorrow @1-800-peakyblinders @kissesofstars

@qtmoonies @Casiopea2 @buckystwilight_ @buckystwilight @princess76179

@kaiparkerwife @vinecstasy @averyhotchner @angelicp0etry @multifandom-loser

@ladamari68 @httpstoyosi @jakesphere @alina02 @kaorisakamotofan

@randomfangirlof @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @animegamerfox @thychuvaluswife @clarkclit

@tayhobart @obsessedwthdilfs @kneelarhmstrung @helalokithor @loveelylani

@kissmxcheek @toplinehyunjin @jvanilly @angelbunny222 @sheslikecherrypie