~Jasmine Dragon~

Your hands explore his naked torso, the dunes and moist valleys of his concave six-pack. You knead the fleshy pulp of his pecs. Your teeth graze them before trailing up towards his clavicle, his shoulder, the obsidian column of his throat.

His breath becomes heavier, faster.

You bury your face against the crook of his neck, letting his scent envelope you.

“You smell nice.”

Anubis doesn’t answer but you feel a contented growl rumble through his chest.

You guide his long snout towards your breasts. His tongue slides out and glides over their fullness before reaching one of your nipples; it hardens. You pull his face towards yours, wanting to kiss him. He’s uncertain how that works. He laps tentatively at your lips, but this time you part them, letting him into your mouth. A deep groan reverberates between you as he understands. Your lips wrap around his lower jaw before your tongue slides into his mouth. It’s warm and moist, lined with ridges and sharp teeth.

His heart is a bass drum that hammers against your hands on his chest.

A bead of sweat forms at his neck as your lips slope down the path of his V-line, settling on the plain above his belt.

His Adam’s apple bobs when you begin to unbuckle his belt. Anubis stops your hand.

“You are not required to.”

“Are you kidding? I want to.”

You try to continue what you’re doing but he grasps your hand, immobilizing it.

“I would not want to frighten you. My form...” He pauses “What lies there is unlike what you know.”

“Oh! Intriguing.” you say as you use your other hand to feel his huge bulge over his pants.

Anubis seems to give up, letting go of your hand and watching you with a look that is half eager, half wary.

In a second you undo his belt and start unbuttoning his pants when suddenly his muscles tense and his ears perk up.

“Thot’s coming.”

In a fraction of a second he hides you inside a cabinet and stands in front of it. Through the narrow slit in the door, you watch him adjust his belt, movements already composed.

Another god enters. His body is human, pale and skinny, with silver bracelets dangling around his arms. His head is that of an ibis. Thot, god of language.

“Good evening, Anubis. I was reviewing the records once more, and there seems to be something amiss. It’s troubling me.”

“Hello, Thot. How can I be of service?”

Thot seems about to say something but stops, instead looking intently at Anubis and around the room.

“Anubis, you look dif― This chamber seems... There’s something out of place.”

“All is as it has always been.”

Thot closes the distance, stepping right in front of Anubis, scrutinizing him. Luckily for you, birds don’t have such a keen sense of smell, or he would have smelled you all over him. Thot glances behind Anubis and he shifts his body imperceptibly, blocking you. But Thot, ever watchful, notices.

“You are being awfully furtive tonight.”

“State your purpose, Thot” a muted growl resonating in Anubis’ throat.

“Very well. Where is the missing soul?”

“No other soul passed through these gates.”

“You are hiding something, jackal, and I will uncover it.”

“I would never doubt that.”

“You are endangering what Horus worked so hard to build after your father’s deeds” Thot’s voice is laced with venom.

You see the muscles in Anubis’ back tense painfully at those last words, but he reins them in swiftly.

As the last echo from Thot’s footsteps fades, you crawl out of your hiding place. Anubis looks at you; all concern.

“We cannot stay here.”

He shapeshifts into a large black jackal, fur shining in the candlelight. He lowers his hind legs, urging you to climb onto his back.

You grip his fur as he bolts forward with sandstorm force. The stark power of his muscles shifts beneath your naked thighs. The speed is intoxicating.

The open desert breathes around you. Moonlight swells and crashes against your skin. Your arms wrap around his shoulders to keep from falling as cold wind lashes your face. Beneath you, the motion of his spine ripples upward, vibrating through your soaking pussy.

It catches you off guard when he stops short and lets out a howl that reverberates through your inner organs.

Finally, you arrive at a stone temple. Murals line the walls, depicting him and Thot performing the ceremony together. He leads you inside. It’s cozy, if a bit barren. Before you realize it, he shifts back into his original form.

“The other gods will demand to weigh your heart anew” he says gravely. “If they do, I will not be able to intercede. Before you lie two pa—”

But you don’t want to talk.

“Where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?”

The sound he makes is half resigned sigh, half chuckle, as he lets you push him down onto his sleeping furs.

“At last, I will get to see what you keep hidden down here,” you say as you unbuckle his belt once more and pull down his pants. “Oh… okay… wow.”

You are left speechless by the sight. He watches you intently, wary.

“How do you... use it?” You ask, astonished.

He releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. You can see his shoulders relaxing. His eyes darken with something hungry, lupine.

 "Touch me" he rasps.

The body part in question is a dense bloom of thin tendrils that writhe and pulse, each with its own cadence. It looks like a sea anemone. You place your hand over them and they latch softly, coiling around your fingers. Anubis' reaction lets you know how sensitive they are. His breath quickens before he lets out a throaty moan. You lick them and his breath hitches followed by a deep growl. The filaments wrap gently around your tongue before letting you go.

Enthralled by the effect you have on him, you spend a while worshipping Anubis' tendrils. But you want more.

“How do we...? I want to...”

“Oh, right. Like humans...             here you go”

He coils a lot ― though by no means all ―of the tendrils into a thick shaft, each filament retaining its independent motion causing a humming vibration.

“Is that OK?” He asks.

You straddle him, lowering yourself onto his seething shaft. The bundled filaments swarm inside you.

“Gods, wow!”

“Does it please you?” Anubis watches you diligently, attentive to any sign of discomfort.

“It feels so odd...but in a really, really good way.” You answer as you start rocking your hips in a slow rhythm.

“You are certain?”

“Yes! I am. I love it.” Your voice turns throaty, your breath growing heavy with each movement.

He offers his paws for leverage as you ride his shaft, eyes glazed and fixed on you. Moans spill from your mouth. You lean in to kiss him; this time, he knows how to respond. One of the tendrils still outside settles over your clit, fondling it, while others cling to your thighs.

You don’t expect it when he deftly turns you over, switching positions. Now on top of you, he pins both your hands over your head as he fucks into you. His chest brushes yours and you mewl against it with every deep thrust. He angles himself, so his writhing shaft hits all the right spots, causing your moans to shatter into helpless cries.

“Is this what you wanted?” he groans, his gaze holding you in place.

An airy “yes” is all you can manage, breathless, lost to speech and to the world.

He shifts you again, this time turning you onto your belly without pulling out. He pulls your hips higher, placing you on all fours. His paws grab your ass, dragging you closer, plunging deeper.

His snout sniffs the back of your neck; a low growl tears from his throat. He pulls you in even tighter and parts his jaws around the spot where your neck meets your shoulder. You feel the tips of his teeth against your skin, a warm, humming electricity pooling at each point of contact.

You find yourself aching for him to bite down. You tilt your head, offering your neck.

But he stops.

Your gesture alone makes him come hard, spilling inside you. Your pussy overflows with his cum. The way he twitches and pants makes you come right after.

He pulls you close, sniffing you as you both lie limp and spent.

“What was that? Did you want to bite me?”

“Forgive me, I do not know what took hold of me.”

“I didn’t dislike it. It felt like electricity, tingling―”

Anubis sits up, shocked at your words.

“It did what?” His eyes wide, his jaw tense.

“It―”

You’re interrupted by a violent wind tearing through the room, scattering everything in its path.

“That is Set, he must have realized something has gone awry”

The hairs on the back of your neck stand on end at hearing the infamous name.

“Do not fret. I would never allow him to reach you.”

“Why would he want to reach me?” you grimace.

“After what happened with your heart, he will want to use you against the other gods.”

“Why?”

He looks at you bemused, as if the answer was obvious.

“The scale did not settle.”

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Candlelight flickers across the stone floor and drips along the contours of his chiseled abs. Your breath hitches at the image as his muscles ripple under his skin. You’re dead, attending final judgment, yet all you can think about is the curve of his V-line as it dips behind his belt. The taut fibers of his shoulders. The rich flesh hinted at beneath his skin, dark as the fertile soil of the Nile.

As he approaches, his scent envelops you. Myrrh, wild cedar, and dry earth right before the rain. He towers before you. His paw pads graze the sensitive skin of your breasts, sending electric waves to your core as he reaches between them, deep into your chest. His movements are well practiced and clinical as he cradles your heart in his huge paw.

A jolt, not of pain, but of thunder. The coarseness of his pads presses against the tender flesh of your heart, like sun-warmed stone. A firm squeeze from his paw would mash it into a pulp, but his hold remains precise and measured, even reverent. A cold shiver races through you and all you can do is stare into those pitch-black eyes, dense with eons and with a cosmic, impersonal hospitality. And yet, the heat from that impossible intimacy is pooling like honey low in your belly. The closeness of his long snout makes the fine hairs along your neck stand, but not from fear.

Anubis pulls out your heart. Red and bright, it flutters like a small bird in his grasp. Its beat reverberates through the empty hall as he lays it carefully on the scale. The metal dish plummets, lifting the white feather high on the other side. But then—it rises. It finds a point above the feather, dips again, beginning a slow oscillation. Anubis watches, utterly still. He waits, as he always has, for the scale to settle.

Except it doesn’t.

Time stretches. Anubis remains still, patient. You shift, pushing sand across the stone floor with your foot. Eventually, he rises and leans over the scale.

“Strange.”

His voice is deep, resonating through the chamber and sinking low in your core. That’s the first word you’ve heard him speak. For the first time, he truly sees you, an intrigued look crossing his canine features. His long snout sniffs your heart, curious. It tickles.

Anubis is bemused. Across the spans of his eternities, the scale has never been inconclusive. He looks at you, then at the rocking scale, then back at you. He approaches. Moonlight licks his body, and you want a taste. He sniffs at you, his long snout damp and warm as it brushes your skin. His expression is one of pure, unguarded astonishment. Finally, he reaches for your heart again, intent on a closer examination. As he lifts it to his nose and snuffles at it, hot shivers course through your body. They spike at your nipples and condense into a liquid ache at the apex of your thighs. As he carefully inspects the organ, you arch, a silent, helpless writhe of pleasure.

Your reaction fascinates him. His dark tongue slides out and tentatively skims across the surface of your heart.

Its wet heat floods your body, and you can't suppress a strangled moan that echoes between you.

The alienness of that sound astounds him. He stares at you and something new flickers in his eyes, something hungry.

The weight of his gaze is so intense you instinctively break the silence

“Lick a lot of hearts down here?”

“No. Just yours"

“Ohh … what does it taste like?”

He licks across your heart once more, this time more deliberate. There's a mischievous glow in his eyes which he doesn't take off you.

The reaction is instantaneous, your knees buckle at the surge of pleasure, your nipples tickle from the inside as your arousal slicks the fabric of your panties.

Anubis freezes mid action. His nostrils flare. His pupils darken as he lets out a low guttural grunt.

“That smell…”

He sniffs the air around you, quickly tracking the scent directly to its source between your thighs. A giddy giggle escapes your lips. His snout is a grain of sand’s breadth from your skin and you gently stroke its fur. His dark, long tongue slides out and licks the soft curve of your inner thigh. A lush moan from you captures his attention once more and his face is now in front of yours. He sniffs your neck

“That sound… it thrums against my skin. It is pleasing”

Your breath catches in your throat. Before you know it, your hands are traveling the dunes and valleys of his torso. You lean in to smell his rich scent and your tongue slides along the skin of his neck. A deep growl reverberates in his chest and through your bones as your fingers track the geography of his pecs.

Anubis pins both your hands above your head with one huge paw. He trails his tongue along your neck all the way to your clavicles. His breath is hot against your skin. His fangs tear your top. His tongue traces the contours of your breast and licks your nipple into a tight peak that buzzes with desire. A gasp escapes your lips followed by a decadent moan that makes his ears twitch.

Your hand easily slips out of his grasp and maps the route of his v-line while your other hand interlaces its fingers with his. He seems to want to use both paws on you, but he still cradles your heart in one. For a moment he appears confused as to what to do with it. He walks over to the scale and is about to place it on the empty dish again but stops.

“I find myself in no haste to cross you over”

He returns to you, pressing your heart back into your ribcage. He leaves his paw there, feeling the tissues stitch back together, captivated by the violent hammering of your beat against his palm.

A rush of blood courses through your veins like a sandstorm. The heightened intensity of your newly perfused desire is almost too much to bear, a broken cry tearing through you. Anubis watches the flush spread across your skin, his pupils blown wide until his eyes are nothing but boundless black marbles. The scent of your arousal, now amplified, fills his senses until he lets out a low, jagged whimper.

Your eyes meet, stellar vastness against a warm pulse, each mirroring the same need. You place your arms around his neck, searching with your mouth for his. His tongue laps at your lips, a stranger to human kisses. He palms your breasts in his paws, teasing your nipples into aching points. His snout buries between them, sniffing and nibbling gently as he makes his way back down to the origin of the scent that fascinates him.

Impatient, you fumble with your clothes, trying to get them out of the way, which his fangs help you do. Kneeling before you, his nose hovers over your naked mount before sinking between your thighs. You tremble with want, but he seems to hesitate. You whimper at his pause.

“I need to know,” his voice rasps, strained. “Do you truly welcome this, or does my divinity press upon you?”

Your voice is a ragged whisper: “I do. I want this." You guide his head, pushing it against your throbbing pussy. “Taste me.”

As if unleashed, his tongue is on your slit before you can finish the last word. It explores your folds with reverent curiosity.

He grunts.

“I was… unprepared for such a tang. Tart… as unripe fruit."

“Is it… not pleasing?”

“Oh, it's pleasing.” His deep voice rumbling along your cleft. “It is intoxicating. And so wet… a lush hot spring. I might just—”

With that, his tongue pushes against your entrance. You gasp, hips buckling toward him involuntarily. A raw, breathless moan leaves your throat as it slides in. You are amazed by just how long it is, how deep it goes. Its flexible nature allows it to rub all the right places inside you.

As his expedition continues, he soon discovers a spot that makes your pulse rise and your moans explode into needy whimpers.

His ears perk up. “Those sounds are… immensely compelling.” He wraps his paws around your thighs, lifting you effortlessly and securing your legs over his shoulders as he pushes your back against a column. The cold stone a sharp contrast to his hot breath. “I think I shall make you repeat them.”

His tongue circles your clit a few times before sliding back inside you. His movements become rhythmic, relentless, devout, as your cries fill the empty hall.

You thread your fingers through the fur on the back of his head, pulling him closer. As you approach your climax, your juices downpour over his face and your walls clench around him, your cries breaking, feverish. His breath comes in ragged pants.

“Gods” he grunts against your flesh, sound muffled. The vibration of his voice against your tender core sends you over the edge and you bury your nails in his back. He just keeps worshiping you through the first orgasm of your afterlife.

Read part 2

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You walked.

That was apparently your great talent now…walking. Walking away from bars, from conversations and from Clark standing on sidewalks looking at you as though he could still fix things if he just chose the right sentence. 

Your eyes stayed unfocused on the crowd ahead of you while every muscle in your body held tension from the night before, your shoulders were stiff and your jaw sore from clenching it for hours without noticing. Metropolis moved around you at its usual merciless pace with horns blaring, women in pencil skirts marching to offices with coffee cups clutched like weapons and businessmen smoking outside newspaper stands and you drifted through all of it with the vague sensation that you had forgotten how to occupy your own body correctly.

Your steps finally slowed several blocks later when your attention snagged on a storefront window and there she was.

The dress stood on a mannequin beneath soft yellow lighting, navy blue with a full flowing skirt that dipped perfectly at the waist before spilling outward in expensive, dramatic folds. Pink details lined the collar, delicate enough to feel intentional instead of childish. Beside it sat the matching handbag and a hat perched at a jaunty angle that immediately summoned Ricky’s voice in your head.

‘Thank fuck someone convinced you not to wear those fucking hats of yours.’

You stared harder at the shoes…Now those were necessary, absolutely necessary.

You looked down at your own heels, the former Prada casualties of emotional devastation and sewer grates and narrowed your eyes thoughtfully. A woman could survive heartbreak, she could survive public intoxication, temporary imprisonment and accidental topless comedy but surviving ugly shoes? That was where dignity truly died.

You turned sharply, giving the storefront your back before your brain could start writing checks your bank account would mail back wrapped in funeral black. You had forty-five dollars and sticky coins. The phrase alone should’ve been enough to drag you toward financial responsibility because nothing about that outfit whispered good decision, it screamed future problem. So you forced yourself to keep walking, merging into the current of pedestrians and focusing on the back of whoever walked ahead of you.

Left foot, right foot…left foot…Don’t turn around.

So how, exactly, did you end up back in front of the same store twenty minutes later?

You stood there breathing hard, offended with yourself. “Predatory,” you muttered at the mannequin. “This is entrapment.”

Two hours later, after a quick shower in the boutique’s absurdly luxurious private dressing quarters, a fresh face of makeup and an entirely new outfit wrapped around your body with sinful perfection, you stepped back onto the street with your skirt flowing around your legs and your confidence artificially reconstructed by tailoring and lipstick.

Your eyes dropped toward the receipt in your hand. It read eight hundred fifty-one dollars and thirty-three cents. The amount was circled…Underlined, even.

You had needed to provide your address, your ID and what felt spiritually equivalent to a kidney before they finally allowed you to leave with it on. The saleswoman had smiled at you the entire time too, which made it worse. People should not look that elegant while financially ruining strangers.

Still, you looked incredible and if there was one thing your mother had accidentally taught you well, it was that devastation became significantly more manageable in a good outfit.

You folded the receipt and shoved it deep into your purse where numbers couldn’t hurt you anymore. You’d figure it out, you always did.

The taxi downtown cost another twenty dollars, which almost made you ask the driver to hit you with the cab instead but at least you remembered the name of the club.

The Talon looked completely different sober.

During daylight, the place lost most of its mystery. The neon sign appeared smaller, the stairs even steeper, the hallway narrower and considerably less glamorous than your drunken memory had painted it. You marched downstairs anyway, your new heels clicking sharply against the concrete, crossed through the hallway and stopped at the tiny window where the cigarette-smoking guy had been stationed the night before.

It was closed so you didn’t bother knocking. You just walked inside, oddly relieved you weren’t ten dollars poorer for the privilege.

“Hello?” you called out as your heels echoed through the empty club.

The smell hit first, it was a mix of stale alcohol, old smoke and industrial cleaner losing a long battle against decades of bad decisions. Then came the floor itself, tacky beneath your heels as you moved toward the stage, which looked smaller now and less magical. Without the crowd, without the laughter and lights blinding you into bravery, the stage barely reached your waist.

Strange how a platform could feel enormous one night and pathetic the next.

“What’s with the hat?”

You yelped, body whipping around so fast your purse smacked against your hip as you found the bartender from last night standing behind you carrying a large tub of glasses. Her eyes traveled slowly over your outfit, her expression caught somewhere between suspicion and slight disgust.

Your hand flew immediately to the top of your hat before you slowly removed it.

Satisfied, she walked past you toward the bar without another word and after one awkward second of standing there alone, you hurried after her. “Hi, uh…I’m–”

“Mrs. Kent,” she guessed immediately. The tub landed on the bartop with a loud clatter of glass against glass, before she pulled one out and started drying it casually while you approached.

“I took a cut of your earnings last night,” she informed you, motioning vaguely toward the stage with the towel. “Considering I coached you into getting a slot for that performance of yours.”

You laughed nervously and adjusted your grip on your purse. “I had low expectations anyway, so…” You shrugged weakly.

“Did you get enough to get home?”

“I assume not.” Your mouth flattened into a tight line. “Considering I woke up in a holding cell.”

You watched as she burst into laughter so suddenly she had to brace herself against the counter, shoulders shaking violently while she pointed at you with the glass still in hand. “You thought those cops were strippers, it was fucking hilarious.”

Your entire face drained. “I didn’t…” Your eyes widened in horror as you pointed urgently toward the stage. “I didn’t get naked up there, did I?”

She followed your finger thoughtfully. “Depends,” she answered carefully. “How well do you take lies?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you breathed, collapsing dramatically onto a bar stool. “When…exactly was that?”

While she talked, you slowly folded inward until your forehead rested on top of your crossed arms against the bartop. If you couldn’t see reality, perhaps reality would lose interest and leave.

“Uh…” She looked toward the ceiling as though replaying events chronologically required divine intervention. “Somewhere between seducing a drunk grandfather at the bar and talking about Mr. Kent for the third time.”

You groaned loudly from your position.

“Nobody could get you off that stage,” she continued cheerfully. “You had to be carried out–”

Your head snapped upward instantly. “Tits out?” you asked, horrified.

“Unfortunately,” she confirmed with a firm nod, studying you carefully afterward, probably checking if you were about to faint. “You could’ve mentioned you were a comic when I asked.”

“I’m sure I could’ve said lots of things,” you muttered, forcing yourself upright again with whatever remained of your dignity. Your hands crossed protectively over your new purse. “And I’m not.”

Her brows furrowed as she gestured toward the stage again. “Then what was that?”

You snorted tiredly. “Heartbreak? I don’t fucking know. I was drunk.”

She shook her head immediately. “You don’t hold a room like that by accident.”

“I exposed myself,” you reminded her, pointing directly at your chest. “There’s nothing accidental about that.”

“You don’t get it.” She tossed the towel over her shoulder and leaned against the bar properly now, watching you with the patience of someone preparing to explain gravity to a particularly stubborn child.

“What’s there to get?” you asked, almost laughing at how serious she suddenly looked standing behind that sticky bar with rolled sleeves, as though she were about to deliver life-altering wisdom instead of liquor recommendations.

She planted both palms on the bartop. “Last night doesn’t happen anymore, definitely not unannounced in shitty bars.”

You blinked at her.

“The business changed,” she continued, now waving the towel vaguely toward the empty stage behind you. “The comics changed. Everybody’s either angry, smug, too politically shallow or trying so hard to sound detached they forget to actually be funny. Nobody gets up there and bleeds anymore.” Her eyes narrowed on you. “Last night you had people crying laughing while simultaneously wanting to fistfight whoever broke your heart. That room defended your stage time like union workers protecting pensions. Last night was special.”

“It was special, alright,” you replied dryly, fiddling absently with the clasp of your purse. “I probably lost one of the most important people in my life and also my phone, which I’d really love to get back considering I cannot financially survive replacing it.”

She pointed suddenly toward your dress. You frowned and looked down…at the still attached tag, hanging there in plain sight beneath the sleeve like a little paper flag announcing financial instability dressed as elegance.

“What’s that then?” She asked, folding her arms.

“Half the reason I can’t afford said new phone,” you muttered, yanking the tag free with enough aggression to qualify as vengeance. “Six hundred and thirty dollars out of my eight hundred fifty-one dollars and thirty-three cents purchase…with tax.” You held the tag up between two fingers. “Which I need to pay back in two weeks or my next fun evening will end with a judge asking if I understand the charges.”

She stared at you for a long second. “Don’t you live in Midtown?”

You nodded cautiously.

“Can you afford that?”

You genuinely considered lying. Your pride stepped up confidently, took one look at your bank account and quietly sat back down. So after half a second, you slowly shook your head.

Her face tightened with fascinated concern, the same expression people wore while approaching raccoons. “What do you do?” she asked.

You frowned. “What do I do?”

“Yeah,” she said impatiently. “When you’re not flashing my customers for cab fare. Work.... employment…taxes? Human suffering under capitalism. Ringing any bells?”

You shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Her voice jumped an octave. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five. I’ve never–”

Her jaw dropped open, actually dropped like in old cartoons. “You’re twenty-five and you’ve never worked?!” The disbelief ricocheted around the club. “How do you live?”

You sighed heavily and rubbed your forehead. “A trust fund.” Then immediately pointed at her. “Could I please get my phone back before this conversation becomes legally humiliating?”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, it just lacked detail…massive detail…catastrophic detail but usually “trust fund” ended conversations nicely because people either got judgmental or jealous and both outcomes usually involved them shutting up eventually.

Apparently the woman before you preferred follow-up questions.

“How much money is in this trust fund?” she muttered while crouching behind the bar to rummage through boxes, her voice muffled beneath the sounds of shifting cardboard and clinking glass. “Because from where I’m standing, it seems to be doing a terrible job at funding your lifestyle.”

“Nobody asked it to perform miracles,” you replied under your breath.

“What’s the point of having a trust fund if you still end up shaking your tits onstage?” she called out.

“Nobody forced me to–”

“You were out of cab money!” she shouted back, emerging from beneath the counter carrying a box overflowing with phones. “Trying to get back to your amazing fucking Midtown apartment–”

“You’re making me sound awful.” You said flatly.

“Great! Because I’m jealous of you!” she shot back immediately, dropping the box onto the counter between you. “You wear stupid hats and six-hundred-dollar dresses and don’t have a job!”

You immediately started digging through the phones. The sooner you found yours, the sooner you could leave. “Why am I digging this deep?” you complained. “I was literally here yesterday.”

“Jackie likes to mix them up,” She answered with a dismissive wave before resuming her rant. “So what, you just tap a card and walk around buying hats all day?”

“Where is my phone?!” you snapped, holding up three identical black flip phones like evidence in a murder trial.

“What date’s on the box?”

“What?”

“There should be a date written somewhere on the side.”

You twisted the box around awkwardly until you found faded marker along the cardboard. “Uh…” Your eyes narrowed. “November…2005?” You looked up slowly. “You had me digging in a graveyard, what the fuck?”

“Oh.” She winced. “Wrong box. Give me that.”

She made a grabby motion with her fingers until you handed it over. Then she crouched again, muttering to herself while digging around under the counter like a woman searching through archaeological ruins instead of club property.

“This place is a fire hazard,” you informed the room.

“No argument here.” A second box appeared above the counter. “Try this one.”

And there it was. Your phone sat right on top of a small mountain of abandoned devices, looking strangely accusatory for an object that had spent the night in storage. You snatched it up immediately and turned it on. It had twenty percent battery and many, many missed calls, texts from Jimmy, Cat…Clark.

Your thumb hesitated before tapping into the thread and the deeper you scrolled, the worse your stomach felt.

Where are you?

Please answer.

Jimmy said you left alone.

I’m looking for you.

Sweetheart please just text me back.

Your throat tightened. You could practically hear him in every message, they were careful at first, then increasingly worried, probably typing faster than he usually did, sentences getting shorter as the night dragged on.

Your brain started spiraling immediately. You pictured him searching every street in Metropolis while you were somewhere yelling about dentistry and accidentally exposing yourself to strangers.

“How does it feel to be rich?” The woman behind the counter asked suddenly.

You startled so hard you nearly dropped the phone. With unnecessary speed, you shut it off and shoved it into your purse before looking back at her. “What’s your name again?”

She blinked. “Susie.”

You nodded once, hopped off the stool and offered her a smile so tight it barely qualified as one.

“Susie,” you said carefully, “when you find that out, you let me know.”

Her face softened a little at that…Well, she still looked abrasive enough to fight a parking meter but the sharpness around her eyes loosened.

You held her gaze another second before turning and heading toward the exit, chasing the fresh air waiting outside before your thoughts could start eating each other alive again.

Then you stopped halfway to the door, spun around and marched back in.

Suzie looked up immediately as you stormed towards her, snatched the forgotten hat off another stool and jammed it back onto your head with wounded dignity.

“I forgot my stupid hat,” you muttered before turning sharply and walking back out again, heels clicking furiously all the way up the stairs.

You made your way home for the first time in what felt like centuries instead of hours, exhaustion sitting deep in your bones beneath the adrenaline and leftover alcohol. The city had sobered around you while you still felt slightly untethered from reality, your new heels clicking sharply against cracked sidewalks as if they belonged to a woman significantly more composed than you currently were. 

By the time you reached your apartment building, your feet hurt, your makeup felt too tight on your skin and your stupid expensive hat kept threatening to slide off every time the wind picked up.

The front door to the building was broken again, hanging permanently ajar with the exhausted resignation of something that had given up begging for maintenance months ago. You stepped inside and immediately caught the familiar scent of old pipes, radiator heat, cigarettes and somebody cooking onions three floors too early in the morning.

The elevator, naturally, still didn’t work. You stared at the rusted metal doors for a long second anyway, just in case the building had chosen today to surprise you with progress but nothing happened.

“Fantastic,” you muttered. “Wonderful. Love doing cardio after devastation.”

Then you started climbing six flights of stairs in heels because suffering had become a hobby.

The higher you climbed, the stranger the building felt. Every floor looked crowded, cluttered with half-packed boxes and old furniture pushed carelessly against hallway walls. Lamps, chairs, rolled rugs and framed photos leaning against peeling wallpaper. You greeted neighbors as you passed them, smiling automatically while realizing with increasing concern that you had never actually seen most of these people before.

That alone felt embarrassing.

You had lived in this building for a year and somehow remained the woman who smiled politely in hallways while learning absolutely nothing about anybody around her. Meanwhile these people apparently had children, cats, bad marriages and dining tables they were currently dragging toward stairwells.

Every floor looked the same with boxes stacked outside apartment doors, belongings spilling into hallways and entire lives being condensed into cardboard…and worse, you started recognizing some of it.

The floral chair from apartment 3B. The old record player from downstairs. Mrs. Hernandez’s ceramic rooster collection sitting beside a pile of winter coats.

Your pace slowed, then quickened again the moment you reached the fifth floor and heard muffled struggling followed by a loud thump and a frustrated curse echoing down the hallway.

You started moving faster and that’s when you saw her.

“Imogene,” you blurted, eyes widening at the absolute disaster spread across the hallway between your apartments. Boxes towered everywhere, her front door propped open by furniture and overstuffed bags while she struggled to drag another cardboard box across the floor using all the strength of a woman built primarily from enthusiasm and caffeine.

She looked up immediately and gasped. “New outfit?” she asked brightly, brushing hair from her face before smiling at you with genuine delight. “I liked what you wore last night.”

Your eyes dropped briefly toward the dress.

“The store’s technically holding it hostage until I pay this off,” you admitted distractedly before shaking yourself back into focus. “Wait, where the hell are you going?” You gestured wildly around the hallway. “What’s all this?”

You leaned slightly past her and peeked into the apartment.

Everything was wrapped. The couch, the dishes…even her lamps were covered in newspaper and half the bookshelves were already empty. The place looked gutted, stripped of its warmth.

Imogene let out a tired laugh and disappeared back inside before emerging with another box balanced awkwardly against her chest.

“Should I start with the part where I can’t afford the apartment anymore,” she asked, breathless, “or the part where I can’t afford movers either?”

Your stomach dropped. “What?”

“A bunch of us terminated our leases.” Her voice lost some of its usual brightness as she nudged the box higher in her arms. “The conditions aren’t getting better and rent’s gone up three times this year alone.”

She stopped beside you and motioned with her chin toward a folded letter sitting on top of the box. You grabbed it automatically and unfolded the paper before reading it once.

Then again…and then a third time because surely your eyes were malfunctioning. Your attention kept snagging on the number printed near the bottom.

“Were you paying that?” you asked quietly, angling the paper toward her as if maybe she’d deny it. “Were you all paying that?” Your voice thinned near the end.

Imogene blinked at you then slowly tilted her head. “Are you not?”

You looked back down at the paper, then at her, then back at the paper again. “Will you take a ten-minute break?” you asked suddenly, already backing toward the stairs before she could answer. “I’ll come back down and help!”

“You don’t have to beg!” she called after you while dragging herself back into the apartment before collapsing dramatically onto her couch.

“What a way to spend a Sunday morning,” she groaned to herself.

You were already running upstairs.

Your hat nearly flew off twice as you climbed, purse smacking violently against your hip while the lease agreement crinkled angrily in your fist. By the time you reached the eighth and final floor, your chest burned and your temper had escalated into something holy.

The eighth floor belonged entirely to one person. The landlord’s son occupied the whole damn level while everyone else downstairs rationed square footage and shared plumbing trauma.

You started pounding on his door hard enough to rattle the frame, your knuckles stinging immediately beneath the force of it. When it finally swung open, you nearly punched him by accident because your body had fully committed to violence before your brain caught up.

He stood there holding a phone to his ear, startled enough that he instinctively stepped backward and opened the door wider.

You marched straight inside without invitation, heels striking the hardwood furiously while your chest still heaved from the stairs.

He laughed awkwardly into the phone. “No, man, the Metropolis Sentinels had that game. I won fair and square. If you’re too much of a pussy to pay the–”

You grabbed the phone directly out of his hand and launched it back into the hallway before kicking the door shut.

“What the fuck is your issue?” he demanded, voice pitching upward from shock.

“What’s my issue?” you repeated incredulously, waving the lease agreement directly in his face. “You misogynistic, green-bill-sucking prick, this is my issue.” You shoved the paper closer. “I want my lease and proof of payment for the last year. All of it. Now.”

“I’m busy,” he muttered weakly, motioning vaguely toward the front door and presumably, his phone lying somewhere beyond it.

“You were busy,” you corrected. “I solved that problem for you.”

You pointed toward the couch and he stared at you for one long second before finally moving toward his laptop with the exhausted posture of a man realizing this confrontation was no longer optional.

Meanwhile, you started pacing around the apartment…and noticing things.

“Oh, I see you don’t have a shower in your kitchen,” you called out loudly while wandering farther inside. “How lovely!”

You entered the hallway and froze dramatically.

“A hallway!” you exclaimed. “Wow. Incredible concept.” You started counting doors out loud. “One…two…three…four…five?”

Your voice echoed through the apartment while he hunched miserably over his laptop.

“And the paint isn’t peeling!” You dragged your fingers across a perfectly smooth wall. “Do you know my walls sweat when it rains?” You walked back toward the living room slowly, taking in the massive couch, the expensive rug and polished shelves. “It’s incredible being able to fit a couch in your home, isn’t it?” you asked sweetly, stopping beside him just as he turned the laptop around.

“Here’s your–”

“Give me that.” You snatched the laptop straight out of his hands before he finished speaking and immediately started walking while reading, forcing him to trail after you through his own apartment like a chastised assistant.

Two thousand eight hundred and sixty dollars…monthly.

2,860$.

You stared at the number so long it almost stopped looking real, your eyes tracing over it again and again while your brain desperately searched for the punchline. There had to be one, maybe an extra digit or a decimal point in the wrong place. Maybe Garrett was running some deeply illegal side business involving money laundering and emotionally devastating tenants because there was absolutely no universe where you had been paying nearly three thousand dollars a month to live in two hundred square feet with a shower positioned three feet away from your stove.

You looked up slowly.

“There’s…there has to be a mistake.” You pointed stiffly at the screen before turning the laptop toward him. “I haven’t been paying that.”

Garrett frowned at the screen, then nodded casually. “Uh…yes, you have.” He sat and leaned back into his couch, completely relaxed while your internal organs attempted mutiny. “Every fifth of the month, without fail. You even send it before invoices go out.”

Your brows furrowed hard enough to hurt. “I don’t get mail here.”

“Not from me.” He shrugged. “You always pay before I need to send anything over. No point wasting paper.”

“No, you don’t understand.” You shook your head, stepping closer with the laptop. “That money’s not–.”

“Lady, I don’t care if you have a sugar daddy,” he interrupted, looking you up and down with irritating confidence. “Honestly, considering I’ve never seen you repeat an outfit, I figured–”

“I don’t have a sugar daddy,” you snapped immediately, your voice cutting straight through his sentence. “And this fucking money isn’t mine.” You shoved the laptop back toward him hard enough to nearly drop it. “Is there a way to see who sends it to you?”

Garrett hesitated before taking back the laptop and clicking around through several tabs, muttering to himself while opening payment histories and digital copies of checks. You sat next to him impatiently, your heel tapping rapidly against the hardwood floor while your pulse climbed higher with every passing second before he stopped.

Your stomach tightened instantly as he slowly turned the laptop toward you…and there they were. Two names signed neatly at the bottom of every payment.

Your parents.

Your blood went cold so fast you swore you could feel it. For one dizzy second, your knees nearly buckled beneath you. You probably would’ve fainted too if you hadn’t been absolutely certain Garrett cleaned his belongings with expired milk and bad intentions.

You stared at the names while your thoughts crashed into each other violently.

Every argument and ignored phone call.

Every smug “How are you managing out there?” from your mother and every time your father asked if you were “done proving your point yet.”

Oh, they must’ve loved this. Funding your rebellion from a distance while waiting for you to crawl back home exhausted and grateful.

Garrett grinned from the couch, entirely too pleased with himself. “Looks like my mommy and daddy aren’t the only ones with money.”

You slowly lifted your eyes toward him, held his gaze then snapped the laptop shut directly on his fingers making him yelp loudly. 

“Get fucked, Garrett.” You stood and immediately marched toward the front door while he clutched his fingers dramatically behind you. “I’ll be gone by the end of the week!”

The door closed gently behind you despite your fury. Your mother had spent too much money on etiquette lessons for you to start slamming doors now. You stomped toward the stairs, muttering furiously under your breath while your mind spiraled around the realization that your entire independence had apparently been curated by your parents the same way museums handled fragile artifacts.

Then you spotted Garrett’s phone lying abandoned in the hallway. You stopped and noticed the screen was still lit.

“…Hello? Garrett?” a muffled voice called from the speaker.

Slowly, you bent down and picked it up. 

“Garrett?”

“Hey,” you replied sweetly. “Garrett’s a little busy right now, but he told me to place a bet on his behalf.”

There was a pause. “Uh…sure.”

You leaned your weight on one heel, smiling to yourself. “So tell me…what team’s guaranteed to lose?”

The man on the other end chuckled confidently. “Next game? Gotham Ravens for sure.”

“Great.” Your smile widened. “Garrett’s feeling brave today, so put ten grand on the Ravens winning.”

The silence between you stretched. “Are you sure?”

You looked toward Garrett’s apartment door then smiled wider. “Certain.” Your tone turned syrupy. “Have the day you deserve.”

You hung up immediately afterward, calmly dropped the phone onto the floor…and stomped on it with your heel. Once, twice…and one more for clarity and good measure.

You never listened much to those etiquette lessons anyway…

The screen cracked beneath your shoe with a satisfying crunch before you continued downstairs carrying the kind of peace usually associated with meditation retreats.

The rest of the day disappeared into cardboard boxes and staircases.

You helped Imogene carry half her apartment down six flights while she alternated between apologizing profusely and threatening to leave her mattress on the sidewalk for society to deal with. You watched her spend what little money she had left on taxis to a storage unit across town while you packed more dishes in newspaper and taped up boxes labeled things such as BOOKS?? and KITCHEN BUT NOT KNIVES.

At one point she cried over a lamp…at another point you nearly died carrying a small bookshelf downstairs in heels because apparently neither of you possessed practical footwear?

By the time you finally dragged yourself back upstairs late that evening, your entire body ached. Getting into your apartment required turning sideways through the front door because of the clothing racks between your bed and the window and far from the sweaty walls.

Your apartment looked less like a home and more like a glamorous hostage situation sponsored by fabric but at least the toilet had its own room.

You dropped your purse onto the bed and stood there quietly for a moment, looking around at the life you had spent the past year constructing piece by piece. You had rented dresses out and sold others. You even auctioned off pieces you genuinely loved, all so you could afford what you believed was the cheapest independence available to you and the entire time, your parents had been secretly footing the bill.

You sat heavily onto the bed and let yourself fall backward until you were staring at the ceiling.

The mattress pressed tightly between the drafty window and the first rack of light-colored clothes because light fabrics faded slower in sunlight. Your darker dresses and delicate fabrics hung farther away, protected carefully from the afternoon sun that leaked through the cheap glass.

You stared upward long enough that the cracks in the ceiling started looking organized and almost readable. They read:

Option A: Go home.

Thank your parents for secretly financing your apartment and gracefully allow yourself to be married off to some rich, intelligent man whose hobbies probably included polo and disappointing women emotionally.

You groaned immediately and rolled onto your side toward the window.

Option B: Go running back to Clark.

Ask to move in with him. He’d say yes before you finished asking because…well, he’s Clark. Then you’d spend every morning pretending not to flinch every time Lois’s name entered a conversation while slowly dying inside over his delicious pancakes.

Horrifying.

You rolled again, now facing the rows of clothing hanging beside your bed.

Option C: Since selling your remaining valuable pieces wasn’t an option anymore, you could always dig your trust fund card out of wherever you’d hidden it, carefully tape it back together after cutting it up a year ago and finally use the obscene amount of money sitting untouched in your account…Untouched being a technicality. 

You hadn’t spent a single cent from it.

Your eyes narrowed thoughtfully…all that money, more than enough to solve every problem currently suffocating you, just sitting there and waiting for you to…

“Nope,” you announced firmly to the room before temptation could settle in properly.

You exhaled hard and faced the ceiling again, flopping back against the mattress dramatically. “I need a job,” you informed with grave seriousness.

The room remained silent. Though honestly, one of the coats looked judgmental.

It had taken an unreasonable amount of restraint not to run after you right there on the sidewalk Saturday morning, not to ignore the way your voice cracked around sincerity and grab your wrist before you disappeared into the crowd entirely. Every instinct in Clark had screamed to follow, to insist you stayed long enough for the two of you to talk properly before whatever this was stretched and soured over the following days.

It took even more effort not to show up at your apartment Sunday morning carrying flowers and enough baked goods to feed half your building. Clark knew you too well for that or at least, he thought he did.

He could usually read you with terrifying accuracy. You wore your emotions everywhere despite believing the opposite. They sat in the way you walked, in how loudly you closed doors, in whether your jewelry matched your mood or fought against it entirely. Half the time Clark swore he knew what you were thinking before you did and what had screamed at him Saturday morning, while you stood there barefoot and furious in smudged makeup and scraped-up Prada heels smelling faintly of smoke, alcohol, expensive perfume and the exact same shampoo you used in college, was painfully simple.

Stay away from me.

Clark hated it but loving you had always required patience and trust too, so he stayed away…at least physically.

The rest of the weekend disappeared into replaying every second of Friday night with painful precision. Clark sat alone in his apartment for hours letting the memories run through his head over and over until they practically sharpened into film reels. Every expression and laugh, every strange pause that suddenly seemed important now.

He’d picked you up Friday evening.

You made him wait on the third floor landing because, according to you, “it’s the cleanest one,” though Clark privately suspected that wasn’t the real reason. You had never invited him all the way to your apartment door, not once. He respected it without question because whatever embarrassment sat underneath that boundary clearly mattered to you.

You had nothing to be ashamed of. He knew your upbringing, knew the kind of wealth you came from so he understood what this life probably looked like through your own eyes. You had grown up surrounded by polished floors, a maid and a doorman and now you lived in a building where the walls groaned all year round and somebody permanently smelled faintly of burnt toast.

He also knew you, knew how stubbornly independent you could be once your mind latched onto something. You planted your feet and suffered through things long after anybody reasonable would’ve accepted help…except where fashion was concerned.

Fashion apparently existed outside the laws of human survival.

Clark could still hear your footsteps descending the stairs toward him that night. He counted them absentmindedly because listening to you had become second nature years ago. Forty-two steps total, interrupted briefly by the six softer ones across the landing between floors.

Then came the stumble between the fifth and fourth floor followed immediately by your irritated muttering.

“For fuck’s sake,” you had hissed somewhere above him, voice echoing down the stairwell. “If your relationship requires this much screaming maybe just break up and save us all the acoustic trauma.”

Clark smiled despite himself just remembering it.

Then you appeared and honestly, the sight of you nearly stopped his heart.

You wore a vintage cocktail dress he’d never seen before, fitted perfectly through your curves before flaring softly at the hips whenever you moved. Your heels matched the dress precisely because they always did, you treated color coordination with the seriousness of military strategy. Tiny clip-on earrings glittered beneath the hallway light and one of those miniature purses dangled from your wrist, the kind barely large enough to hold lipstick and emotional instability.

You looked beautiful…hopelessly, devastatingly beautiful and Clark, despite all his abilities, had never once developed immunity to you.

“Hey, you,” you greeted brightly once you spotted him waiting below.

Clark nearly missed the words entirely over the sound of his own heartbeat. He blinked hard, forcing himself out of the trance long enough to step toward you and offer a hand over the final few stairs. Officially it was to help you descend safely in those heels…

Unofficially, he just wanted you closer faster.

“You look–”

You immediately looked down at yourself before he could finish, smoothing your hands nervously over the skirt.

“Is it too much for a bar?” you asked with sudden concern. “Because if somebody spills alcohol on this dress, I will have a heart attack and I haven’t kept up properly with the whole writing-a-will thing.”

Clark opened his mouth to reassure you but you kept going, suddenly resting one solemn hand against his forearm as if discussing state matters.

“My dresses go to you,” you informed him seriously. “But only to stare at. I don’t want you stretching them with your…” You motioned vaguely at his chest. “You know. Outerworldly physique. So…strictly visual appreciation.”

He bit back a laugh.

“My shoes go to Mrs. Alston,” you continued, counting carefully on your fingers. “That way I can continue supporting her business posthumously if she decides to sell them.” You paused thoughtfully. “Though honestly she might just keep them, and good for her because I’d take them to the grave myself if there were enough room in a coffin for both me and my footwear collection.”

Clark’s mouth twitched immediately.

“But I also need enough space to roll over laughing every time my parents get proven wrong,” you added with complete sincerity, adjusting your purse higher onto your wrist. “Priorities.” Then you sighed dramatically. “Besides, the woman has arches older than some countries and still walks better than me in heels. She’s earned them…And any money you find in my pockets or purses goes to Ricky,” you added firmly. “But distribute it slowly. I don’t want him thinking I became a better customer after death. That feels emotionally manipulative.”

Clark laughed softly then, warm and helplessly fond. “You’re never too much,” he told you, voice gentler now. “And you’re not dying.”

You looked unconvinced, then his eyes lifted toward the top of your head and he frowned immediately. “No hat?”

You straightened proudly. “No hat tonight. I’m exploring my horizons.”

Gosh. Clark genuinely thought he could melt straight through the staircase. His brows lifted as he fought a smile. “Does this bold new era mean we can eat at the bar instead of going to an actual restaurant first?”

You gasped in genuine offense. “No. I’m not a savage.”

You brushed past him dramatically, heels clicking down toward the next landing while Clark stayed frozen for one disastrous second trying to recover from how pretty you looked when pretending to be outraged.

Then your voice floated back up the stairwell. “Wait,” you called, turning halfway toward him. “You’re taking me to dinner?”

Clark finally started moving again, following after you while trying not to think too hard about how domestic that sounded coming from your mouth. “You handle martinis better on a full stomach,” he answered carefully.

He heard your smile before he saw it.

“You know me so well…it’s infuriating.”

Now it was Monday and Clark sat at his desk with his office phone pressed to his ear, listening to hold music that had looped so many times since nine in the morning that it had stopped sounding musical altogether and evolved into psychological warfare. The same tinny instrumental melody dragged through the receiver while he stared blankly at his computer screen, one elbow planted on the desk and the other hand rubbing slowly at his jaw hard enough to leave it pink.

“Hello?” the voice on the line finally asked.

Clark straightened immediately, blinking himself back into the present so fast his chair squeaked beneath him. “Yes. Yes, hello, I’m still here.”

“You said the heels were brown Strada?” the man repeated, his accent thick enough that Clark could practically hear the shrug accompanying it.

Clark closed his eyes for half a second. He looked down at the legal pad covered in increasingly desperate notes written in his own cramped handwriting. 

“Prada,” he corrected carefully for what had to be the tenth time. “They were Prada. Black leather.” He glanced at the translation open on his phone beside the keyboard before attempting the French again with disastrous pronunciation. “Uh le…le cuir. Cuir,” he repeated slowly, sounding deeply unconvinced in himself as he rolled his chair even closer to the monitor. “Your website says they’re still available. I can give you the product number.”

On the other end came a long thoughtful hum delivered with devastating Frenchness, which somehow worried Clark more than outright rejection.

“I can pick them up today,” Clark continued quickly, lowering his voice despite nobody paying attention to him anyway. “Paris, right? I can make it.” His eyes flicked toward the watch on his wrist automatically while calculations started running through his head. “Twenty minutes. Thirty tops and I can tip you…thirty percent?” He hesitated. “Do you guys do that kind of thing?”

Another pause. Then, “Désolé, monsieur. The website has not been…” Papers shuffled somewhere near the receiver. “…comment on dit…updated. Voilà, we are very sorry. Bonne soirée.”

The line went dead before Clark could answer. He sat there another second staring at the phone before slowly pulling it away from his ear. “H-Hello?”

Nothing.

Clark exhaled heavily through his nose and leaned back into his chair with the sort of careful restraint usually associated with men trying not to punch drywall. His eyes drifted toward the bright green word still glowing mockingly on the website listing.

“Disponible.” Even he knew that meant ‘available’.

“Apparently not,” he muttered darkly.

He dragged both hands through his curls before letting them fall over his face for a moment while he thought. There had to be another solution. He could offer to pay for the repairs he had very accidentally noticed while he stood opposite you on the sidewalk that morning but you’d reject his money before he even finished the sentence. He could sneak into your apartment while you were gone, find the damaged heels and take them to be repaired himself.

That idea lasted approximately four seconds before he discarded it.

First of all, you would notice immediately if somebody touched your things. Clark genuinely believed you could detect disturbances in your apartment the way bloodhounds tracked scent trails. Secondly, you owned enough nearly identical shoes to turn the entire operation into a nightmare and he would absolutely bring back the wrong pair by mistake. Third…and this felt most dangerous, he could never take them to your regular shoe repair woman because eventually, months later, she would absolutely mention in passing that a six-foot-four broad-shouldered man had arrived looking deeply guilty while swearing her to secrecy over your shoes.

And finally, Clark valued his life.

He was almost certain you possessed the capability to kill him with your bare hands if you discovered he had interfered with your closet.

“Any luck?” Lois stopped beside his desk holding a coffee in one hand and a stack of papers in the other, eyeing him with growing suspicion while Clark sat there looking one inconvenience away from spontaneous combustion.

Clark sighed and rubbed both palms down his face. “No. The heels aren’t available anymore.” His shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Lois frowned immediately. “I meant with tracking down the witness for my piece. You said you’d help.”

Clark went completely still.

Right…work. His job at the Daily Planet and his very human responsibilities. Keeping this job meant ‘money’, the thing required to buy replacement apology Prada heels.

“Right,” he said quickly, standing so abruptly his knee hit the desk. “Right, I’m on it.”

He started rifling through the disaster zone of papers scattered across his desk searching for the Post-it note he swore he’d written her information on sometime earlier that morning before becoming emotionally consumed by luxury footwear.

Lois watched him carefully while he searched. Her eyes drifted slowly toward his computer screen just in time to catch the fifteen open tabs displaying identical Prada heels before Clark panicked and started closing windows at superhuman speed disguised very poorly as normal typing.

“I could’ve sworn she already owns those shoes,” Lois noted casually.

Clark nodded once, distracted. “They got damaged the other night.” He swallowed. “I’m trying to…fix things.”

Lois leaned lightly against the edge of his desk, coffee still in hand and glanced toward the empty chair beside it. Your chair.

The one you occupied almost every morning when you burst into the newsroom overdressed and overcaffeinated, carrying gossip, complaints or existential crises while talking everybody’s ears off for an hour straight before wandering back out again. The bullpen always felt louder when you were there…easier too and now the chair sat untouched.

Lois checked the time on her watch before her gaze drifted toward Jimmy across the room. He had apparently been listening because the second their eyes met, he slowly widened his own and shook his head with deep seriousness.

“Don’t you dare ask,” Jimmy mouthed silently from across the bullpen, his expression grim enough to suggest national consequences if ignored.

So…naturally, Lois ignored him.

“Where is she, Clark?” she asked, setting her coffee down on Clark’s desk without bothering to ask permission first. “It’s almost ten. She’s never here after you.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Honestly, you’d think she got paid to arrive on time with how committed she is to barging in exactly three minutes before you sit down.”

Clark barely seemed to hear her. He was still searching through the same pile of papers he had already searched at least twenty times that morning, lifting folders only to stare blankly at whatever was underneath them before putting them back in entirely different places. There were sticky notes stuck to his sleeve, three pens uncapped beside the keyboard and an entire legal pad covered in names of luxury consignment stores across Europe.

He looked exhausted. Clark could survive weeks without sleep if necessary but this somehow looked worse…and emotional, which Lois didn’t do.

Finally, after another few useless seconds pretending to search for something that clearly wasn’t there, he exhaled heavily through his nose and looked up at Lois. “Couldn’t make it,” he admitted quietly before gesturing vaguely toward her. “Would you mind writing down again what you needed?”

Lois blinked. She had known Clark for years now, she had seen him walk calmly into interviews with dangerous politicians, survive impossible editorial deadlines and handle newsroom disasters with less visible defeat than whatever this was.

Her expression softened almost immediately.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said carefully. “I’ll figure it out. You just…” Her eyes flicked toward the ghost of the fifteen rapidly minimized browser tabs on his computer screen. “…keep doing whatever this is.”

Before Clark could answer, Cat entered the bullpen carrying her bag over one shoulder and immediately locked onto him the same way surgeons spotted active emergencies.

Clark straightened so fast hope practically radiated off him. “Cat, please tell me you found them–”

His voice died halfway through the sentence the second she shook her head. If he dropped back into his chair any harder, the darn thing was going to collapse before lunch.

“I’m sorry, Clark.” Cat grimaced sympathetically while setting her things down. “You know she’s terrifyingly good at finding rare pieces. I called everyone I know.” She crossed her arms. “Can’t you just get her something else?”

“Maybe a dress,” Jimmy offered carefully from his desk nearby, trying to sound useful. “Or a hat.” He nodded to himself, gaining confidence too quickly. “A fedora maybe…A very nice one. That ought to cheer her up.”

The silence afterward was immediate and devastating. Clark and Cat both looked at him with identical expressions usually reserved for witnessing small animals get hit by traffic.

Jimmy froze beneath the weight of their horror while Clark genuinely looked offended on your behalf.

Cat slowly lowered her empty coffee mug. “A fedora?” she repeated faintly.

Jimmy swallowed hard. “Isn’t that…” He looked between them nervously. “A style of hat?”

The look Cat gave him could’ve stripped paint off walls as Clark dragged one hand down his face.

Lois glanced between all of them now, her concern deepening rapidly as the atmosphere around Clark’s desk continued resembling hostage negotiations instead of workplace conversation.

“What is going on?” she demanded.

“They broke up.”

Steve appeared seemingly out of thin air directly behind Lois while sipping casually from his coffee mug, startling her hard enough that she physically lurched sideways.

“What are you talking about?” Lois snapped. “Broke up?”

Steve nodded solemnly. “Broke up,” he repeated. “Like the Beatles.” He took another sip. “Only worse because this affects me personally.”

“They didn’t break up,” Cat corrected immediately, refusing to allow terminology inaccuracies into the situation. “To break up they would’ve needed to actually be together first.”

Steve pointed dramatically toward the empty chair beside Clark’s desk and everybody looked at it…Clark specifically and the sight clearly hurt him spiritually.

“That feels like a breakup,” Steve insisted.

“It was more of an argument,” Jimmy corrected quickly, trying desperately to regain control of the narrative before Clark collapsed entirely. “A disagreement. That’s all.” He nodded too many times. “Right? We’re fixing it.” He looked toward Clark expectantly. “When she replies to our texts. Right, Clark?”

Clark did not answer. He stared down at his desk instead, jaw tense while everybody waited for him to reassure them and himself simultaneously.

The silence stretched long enough that even Lois stopped looking skeptical and started looking worried.

Steve cleared his throat awkwardly and stepped closer. “So…” he began cautiously, “am I still allowed to text her?” He pointed at himself. “I have a date tonight and I need fashion advice.”

Clark’s desk phone rang then and he practically attacked it. The receiver barely completed half a ring before Clark snatched it up so fast the cord nearly whipped off the desk.

“Yes, hello?” he answered immediately, voice carrying so much hope it made Jimmy wince sympathetically as everybody watched that hope die in real time.

Clark’s shoulders dropped inch by inch as whoever spoke on the other end continued talking.

“…Wrong desk,” he said eventually, quieter this time and hung up gently. The bullpen remained silent for another beat while Clark stared blankly at the receiver still in his hand before slowly placing it back down.

“She might not have found her phone yet,” he reasoned aloud, though the sentence sounded more directed toward himself than anybody else. “We don’t know.”

He had been trying not to overwhelm you. That was the problem. Every instinct in him screamed to go to your apartment, knock on your door and stay there until you opened it but the memory of your face outside the precinct kept stopping him cold. The exhaustion, the anger and the very clear don’t follow me written all over you.

So instead he had settled for restraint…and a handful of texts but no calls, or showing up uninvited with groceries and emotional support pancakes.

Clark was suffering immensely.

Lois stared at him with growing disbelief. “She doesn’t have her phone?” she repeated. “She checks auction sites more than I check the news.”

“She’ll answer eventually,” Jimmy offered weakly, though he sounded unconvinced now too.

Lois pointed directly at Clark. “Whatever you did, fix it.”

Clark looked vaguely stricken by the implication he had done something.

“Steve needs help,” Lois continued firmly, gesturing toward the man currently nodding solemnly into his coffee mug. “And we cannot all be single.”

Steve raised his mug slightly. “Morale’s already low.”

Lois inhaled deeply, visibly collecting herself and straightening. “Back to work. All of us.” except nobody moved. She narrowed her eyes then. “Now.”

Papers shuffled immediately across the bullpen while people reluctantly returned to pretending they were functioning professionals and not heavily invested in Clark Kent’s emotional crisis.

Clark stared at his computer another moment before quietly reopening the Prada tab.

You wore flats on Monday.

Not because they matched the outfit better, though they obviously did and not because your feet still hurt from the weekend, though they absolutely did. You wore flats because job hunting required stamina, resilience and occasionally the ability to flee with dignity from establishments pretending they’d “keep your résumé on file.”

You expected the day to go terribly…you had prepared for ‘terrible’. Still, you wore a cute dress and carried a structured little purse because unemployment was already humiliating enough without looking defeated on top of it.

By eleven in the morning, your optimism had died outside a bakery in Midtown.

You had walked up and down avenues for hours handing out résumés with the frantic determination of a suburban parent distributing Halloween candy nobody wanted. Except apparently the candy you were offering was sugar-free, joyless and made entirely from recycled fruit peels because nobody looked excited to receive it.

Most people barely glanced at the page before setting it aside politely. Some accepted it with the expression of someone being handed religious pamphlets in a parking lot and others skimmed the top line, saw your nonexistent work experience and immediately developed urgent tasks elsewhere.

At one point you realized you had been recycling the exact same copy of your résumé all afternoon because every employer kept handing it right back after pretending to read it. The edges had bent slightly by now and the paper no longer looked white to you and you had printed fifty copies.

Fifty.

There were currently forty-seven in your hands reminding you that apparently not even thrift stores wanted to hire a twenty-five-year-old woman whose primary qualifications included “good posture” and “knows the difference between ivory and cream.”

By lunchtime, desperation had started guiding your decisions.

You sat in a tiny coffee shop downtown and tried convincing yourself the refill they gave you tasted burnt because the beans were artisanal and not because the universe hated you. When they messed it up a second time, you briefly considered using your résumé to wipe the wet bottom of the mug out of spite and you actually did it too.

Then came the restaurant incident.

You had attempted to trick your way into speaking with the manager by pretending to ask detailed questions about wine pairings before casually pivoting into employment. Unfortunately, the manager had apparently been “on his way” for nearly an hour while you sat there slowly consuming a thirty-dollar pasta dish you absolutely could not afford anymore.

By the time he finally emerged from the kitchen only to say they “weren’t currently hiring,” you left with enough rage in your body to power small machinery.

You did not leave a tip…but you did leave a terrible Google review accusing the establishment of emotional negligence and overcooked linguine…which you deleted five minutes later while standing outside because guilt attacked quickly and viciously.

The afternoon continued in much the same fashion until eventually you discovered an awful truth…All roads in Metropolis somehow led back to the Daily Planet.

You stood across the street from the building staring up at it while taxis rushed past and your reflection floated faintly in the glass doors.

You could still turn around. Actually, you could sprint away if necessary because you were wearing flats, which made escape significantly more realistic than usual but if tomorrow resembled today even remotely, you were never going to find a job on your own. You needed help…advice and possibly divine intervention.

Unfortunately, all three of those things lived inside that building.

As you crossed the street, you prayed for several highly specific scenarios simultaneously.

Maybe Clark had left after lunch the way he usually did.

Maybe he’d called out sick, though the likelihood of Clark Kent oversleeping and simply deciding not to go to work ranked somewhere beside spontaneous meteor showers and pigs obtaining pilot licenses.

Maybe he was out saving someone.

Or maybe, and this possibility sat at the absolute bottom of the list, rancid and unwelcome, he had finally taken a personal day because Lois Lane had looked particularly good that morning and post-lunch temptation had apparently overpowered his fragile Kryptonian morals.

Yeah. Right…You nearly turned around again. You could run this time! And you had prepared.

Oh, you had prepared for Clark…Ever since the weekend, you had been operating under the assumption that he might appear at your apartment at any moment armed with concern and devastating eye contact, so you adapted accordingly.

You wore perfume he’d never smelled before. You wore dresses that hadn’t gone near your usual dry cleaner, mostly because you could no longer afford his services but also because Clark associated scents frighteningly well. The man could probably identify your emotional state by detergent alone. You also slathered yourself in heavily scented lotion in what felt less like skincare and more like predator evasion…and finally, and this part genuinely wounded your spirit…you wore a baseball cap.

A. baseball. cap.

You looked like a woman actively avoiding the media after committing tax fraud. Every time you accidentally caught your reflection in a window, nausea hit immediately. The cap alone felt criminal on your head, so you kept your eyes forward and pretended the sunglasses obscuring half your face also impaired your own vision.

You eventually slipped into the building or at least convinced yourself you had.

In reality, you probably looked deeply suspicious.

You knew the Daily Planet well enough to navigate it blindfolded, which only made your bizarre sneaking behavior worse. You kept your head down, walked quickly and avoided eye contact with such aggressive commitment that one intern physically stepped aside for you in alarm.

You made yourself smaller somehow despite the outfit, despite the purse and the fact that nobody in human history had ever described you as subtle.

The elevator ride nearly killed you. You stood in the corner clutching your purse and résumés while staring hard at the floor numbers, praying nobody from the bullpen stepped inside. The second the doors opened on Clark’s floor, you moved immediately but not toward the bullpen…absolutely not.

You took the long route to Perry’s office, which involved weaving through quieter hallways, ducking around corners and once crouching beneath a glass office window because you swore you heard Jimmy laughing nearby.

At one point you flattened yourself dramatically against a wall while an accountant walked past carrying folders but finally, after what felt like a hostage extraction mission, you spotted Perry entering his office muttering to himself while carrying a stack of papers beneath one arm.

Before he could fully close the door, you slipped into the office behind him with the speed of somebody avoiding both the IRS and confrontation. Your hand caught the edge of the door before it clicked shut and you gently but insistently pushed Perry farther inside while closing it carefully behind you, already twisting back toward the small glass panel to make sure nobody had seen.

“What the f–” Perry started around the cigar hanging from his mouth.

You shushed him immediately, one hand raised sharply while the other cracked the door back open two inches so you could peek through it. Reporters moved through the bullpen outside carrying folders and coffee cups and absolutely none of them seemed aware that you were currently conducting a deeply underfunded espionage operation in Perry White’s office.

Satisfied for the moment, you shut the door again and turned toward him dramatically.

“Perry,” you announced in a voice so unnaturally deep it scraped painfully against your throat. Dear fuck, you sounded like a detective from a radio drama who smoked tires recreationally.

His brows furrowed instantly, face twisting in confusion bordering on concern. You could see the exact moment recognition hit him and before he could say your name, you cut him off again with another aggressive shush.

“I’m here on official, very important business,” you informed him gravely. “I’d appreciate my identity being protected.”

Perry stared at you for a long second before slowly removing the cigar from his mouth. “Why are you talking like that?”

You cleared your throat hard enough to nearly cough up a lung and forced the voice lower again despite your vocal cords begging for mercy. “Secretive business,” you explained. “I have reason to believe figures associated with your current workplace are plotting against my client’s future success, emotional stability and potentially her very livelihood.”

You shoved the stack of résumés toward him with excessive seriousness.

“Furthermore,” you continued, “it appears my client is destined for greater things but is currently struggling to communicate that potential to the…” Your voice cracked midway through the sentence and collapsed fully back into your normal tone. “…working world.”

You winced, cleared your throat again and lowered your voice with renewed determination. “You, as a letter and…word professional, are uniquely qualified to tell me what’s wrong with that.”

Perry looked down at the résumés, then back up at you with absolutely no belief in anything currently happening.

You rolled your eyes and slid your sunglasses down just enough for him to see your face. “It’s me, Y/n.”

“I know it’s you,” he deadpanned immediately. “The only people dressing like that daily either live in Gotham penthouses or stand in front of cameras reciting lines approved by fourteen sober writers and one man named Leonard.”

He took another slow drag from his cigar while you sighed and dropped the ridiculous voice entirely before permanent damage occurred. “Can you just tell me what’s wrong with my résumé?”

Perry glanced back down at the pages in his hand. “You mean besides your name?” he asked honestly. “Because otherwise this is mostly decorative whitespace.”

Your frustration hit immediately. “No, it isn’t,” you argued, stepping closer to snatch one of the résumés back from him. “It has my education, I speak French and Russian, I’m excellent with textiles, I can cook…” Your words started picking up speed the more defensive you became. “I can identify archival runway pieces by touch alone and apparently none of that matters because I’ve walked half the city today handing these out and nobody wants them.”

You held the paper up accusingly. “I spent thirteen ninety-five printing these,” you informed him bitterly. “I’ve essentially been robbed in broad daylight by a copy shop.”

Perry shrugged without sympathy. “Why didn’t you print them here?”

You blinked. “What?”

“You can print things here for free.” He gestured vaguely around the office. “Long as I don’t catch you.”

Your jaw almost dropped. “Do you think I’d be dressed like this,” you hissed, motioning at the thrifted sunglasses and baseball cap currently destroying your style, “if I wanted to be seen entering this building?”

Perry narrowed his eyes slowly. “Right. Because my employees are apparently hunting you for sport.”

“Well…let’s keep all allegations hypothetical,” you muttered quickly. “I can’t afford a defamation lawsuit right now.”

“I was wondering why everyone turned their morning deadlines in on time,” he mused casually while taking a copy, handing the rest back to you and moving toward his desk.

You snatched them from his hand, removed the sunglasses fully and stared at him in disbelief. “So?”

Perry sat down heavily in his chair and looked over the résumé one more time with surprising attentiveness. “Visually? They’re fine,” he admitted. “You clearly know presentation but experience matters and right now you don’t have much of it.”

Your shoulders dropped slightly despite yourself.

“At your age, you’re missing about three years of practical work history,” he continued. “Nobody knows what to do with somebody whose qualifications are expensive taste and multilingualism.”

“That feels reductive.”

“It’s accurate.” He pointed at the paper. “Still, somebody’ll eventually take a chance on you. So keep trying.”

You nodded slowly even though the advice felt deeply unsatisfying considering you had hoped for a magical answer involving immediate employment and maybe free soup. “Great,” you muttered flatly. “Fantastic. Thank you for your wisdom, chief.”

You gathered that copy back into your stack and turned toward the door but paused before opening it, pointing sharply at him. “I was never here.”

Perry shrugged.

“And open a damn window or light a candle,” you added while wrinkling your nose. “This office smells like cigar ash and expired ambition and it’s seeping into your cashmere blend vest.”

You opened the door. Behind you, Perry looked down at his vest suspiciously before pinching the fabric between two fingers and lifting it to his nose. He frowned immediately.

“You’re not the boss of me,” he called out defensively.

“Clearly not,” you replied over your shoulder. “Since I lack experience.”

Then you shut the door behind you and immediately inhaled deeply once you hit the hallway again, the comparatively fresh air feeling heavenly against your lungs.

“Fuck,” you muttered under your breath while adjusting your cap lower over your face. “I need a cigarette.” And with that, you started toward the elevators again using the long route, peeking carefully around corners and avoiding the bullpen as if you were escaping federal surveillance.

Once you reached the elevator, you jabbed the button for your floor with enough force to suggest betrayal. Then you waited, very impatiently. Your leg bounced violently beneath your dress while you stared at the glowing numbers overhead as if hatred alone might drag the elevator upward faster. It sat one floor below yours for several agonizing seconds before finally groaning into motion and honestly, if modern technology had emotions, this elevator absolutely resented you personally.

When the doors finally slid open, the cab stood empty before you and relief hit immediately…clean, beautiful relief.

You stepped inside at once, pressed the button for the lobby and turned toward the doors while exhaling slowly through your nose. Your mission was almost over, you had survived the bullpen, Perry’s office, several near heart attacks and prolonged exposure to this baseball cap, which still felt spiritually offensive every time you remembered it was in contact with your scalp. Honestly, the possibility of lice had started sounding less upsetting than seeing your own reflection in it again.

The doors started closing and victory sat right there, just inches away…when a broad hand shot between the narrowing gap and stopped both metal panels with terrifying precision before they could meet fully in the center, the alignment so exact your mathematician father would’ve probably wet his pants at the mere sight of it.

Clark…of course.

He stepped inside calmly, pressed the button beside yours and took his place next to you while the doors résuméd closing before you both with a soft mechanical sigh that sounded suspiciously smug.

You were failing, catastrophically.

Your skin still felt sticky from the heavily scented lotion you’d practically bathed in before leaving your apartment, your dress scratched faintly against your waist because it hadn’t gone through your usual cleaner and your scalp had started itching beneath the cap approximately three minutes after putting it on. Your heart beat hard enough to qualify as a public announcement and the worst part, truly the very worst part, was that Clark could hear every single humiliating thud of it.

You adjusted your posture immediately and hugged the stack of résumés tighter against your chest.

“Hi,” Clark said softly. He kept his eyes ahead, which somehow made everything worse. He wasn’t looking at you because he clearly suspected direct eye contact might make you combust.

“‘Wassup,” you answered. The word felt disgusting leaving your mouth. Hell, you heard it yourself and apparently Clark did too because his head turned toward you almost instantly, confusion flashing across his face before he managed to hide it.

Clark looked you over as discreetly as possible. You smelled different, that itself was unfamiliar. Your perfume usually arrived before you did, expensive, soft and undeniably you. Now you smelled aggressively floral, like somebody had panicked inside a department store cosmetics aisle. Your dress looked less polished too, the fabric sitting differently across your body and…

“You’re wearing flats,” he noted carefully. Then his eyes lifted. “And a cap.”

His tone carried the same cautious concern people used while approaching injured deer beside highways.

“I’m aware,” you replied quickly and moved the résumés behind your back at once.

Clark’s brows lifted for half a second. “Has the vintage hat factory exploded?”

Your chest rose briefly. Fuck! There it was, that awful almost-laugh. Any other day, you would’ve laughed immediately and very loudly too. You knew it…Clark knew it and he also knew that you knew he knew it and suddenly the elevator felt approximately the size of a coffin.

“Funny,” you muttered flatly.

“What are you hiding?” he asked as he angled slightly, trying to look around you without making it obvious. He could’ve asked why you were acting suspicious. Why you were dressed like a woman evading both the media and tax fraud allegations and why you smelled so differently and looked exhausted and had avoided him for days but Clark knew you.

If you were hiding something, pressing too hard would only make you dig your heels in deeper…well, metaphorically speaking today since you lacked them. 

“Nothing,” you answered immediately. “Can you be normal for two seconds?” You turned and stabbed the elevator button again, once, twice and three times. “Why isn’t it moving?”

Despite every instinct warning him not to pry, Clark’s eyes dropped toward the stack behind your back anyway and widened almost immediately once he caught sight of the papers by using his annoyingly accurate x-ray vision.

“Are those résumés?”

You groaned and whipped toward him so fast the cap nearly slipped off your head again. “What the hell did you do to the elevator?” you demanded.

“Nothing.” Clark shrugged far too innocently.

You pointed aggressively toward him. “Clark Jonathan Kent, I swear to God if you’re making yourself heavier again to keep me trapped in here, I will scream so loud this entire building’s going to think we’re–”

“Are you looking for a job?” he interrupted and tried very hard not to sound stunned.

Unfortunately for you, Clark was absolutely making himself heavier, carefully enough so the elevator wouldn’t immediately fail but enough to stall the mechanism between floors. If he admitted that out loud, however, he’d also have to acknowledge the fact you had just used his full name and that alone threatened to turn his face pink and this was not the time to blush.

You stared at him, momentarily thrown by the question despite the fact you should’ve expected him to figure it out eventually. He could probably locate hidden government files by accident so hiding a stack of résumés behind your back inside a four-foot elevator never stood a chance.

“Can you not say it like that?”

He frowned. “Like what?”

“Like that,” you said immediately, motioning vaguely between the two of you. “With that weird inflection between the O and the B. It’s a job…Jobs are normal. I’m twenty-five, I should have a job. Jobs are good.”

The word started sounding less convincing every time you repeated it. You ripped the baseball cap off your head and crushed it in your hand with visible resentment.

Clark looked genuinely concerned now. “Why are you saying job so many times?”

You scoffed instantly. “Why are you saying it so many times?” Then you folded your arms tightly over the résumés before turning away from him altogether. “You already have one,” you muttered. “Respect the rest of us suffering through unemployment.”

He went quiet for a moment and you could practically hear him thinking, carefully choosing words the same way bomb squads approached suspicious wires.

“Why do you need a job?” he asked gently.

“Stop saying it like that,” you mumbled firmly.

He nodded once, considering again. Honestly, if preserving your dignity required him accepting responsibility for the weird tone, he would gladly take the fall.

“Okay,” he agreed softly. “Why do you need a J-O-B…question mark.”

You took a deep breath, mostly to buy yourself time, jaw tightening as the word landed anyway, spelled out and unavoidable. Smartass.

A believable lie required structure, confidence too and preferably less panic than whatever currently ricocheted through your nervous system every time Clark looked at you for longer than three consecutive seconds.

“Well…” you began carefully. “In an effort to become less like my mother, despite apparently inheriting her relationship with fashion at a genetic level, I’ve decided I won’t be financially supported by a man or a trust fund.” You nodded once, firmly and professionally. “So in order to fund my lifestyle, broaden my horizons and meet new people I can eventually classify as friends, I’m pursuing employment.”

There. Short, controlled and surface-level enough to survive scrutiny.

Clark nodded slowly, though his expression didn’t relax. He repeated your explanation silently in his head while watching you. You looked exhausted beneath the sarcasm and defensive posture, your heart still hammered unevenly against your ribs, fast enough he noticed immediately because he had spent years memorizing the ordinary sounds of you without really meaning to. Usually your heartbeat steadied around him but right now it stumbled all over itself.

So he chose his next words carefully. “What do you need from me?”

“Nothing.” You shook your head immediately. “Besides making yourself lighter and letting me off this elevator.”

Clark’s eyes stayed on you anyway because unsurprisingly, he needed more. More honesty, more explanation and more than the polished little speech you had clearly assembled out of panic and stubbornness five seconds earlier. Unfortunately, you didn’t know what you could give him without everything else spilling out afterward.

“I’m an independent woman, Clark.”

“Asking for help doesn’t mean you aren’t.”

You ignored that entirely. “I’m figuring things out,” you continued quickly. “I’m making mistakes and that’s okay. You don’t need to constantly save me like you do everyone else.”

Clark’s face softened almost immediately. “You’ve never needed me for that.”

“Exactly.” You nodded at once, relieved to finally grab onto one sentence that didn’t emotionally threaten you. “Great. Wonderful…we agree on something.” You turned and pointed sharply toward the elevator doors. “Can we also agree this thing needs to move?”

Clark didn’t even glance toward them. “Did you get your phone back?”

“Nope,” you answered, popping the P with excessive innocence…about three seconds before your phone rang loudly inside your purse.

The silence afterward turned catastrophic. Clark’s eyes dropped instantly toward the sound and you watched the exact moment suspicion crossed his face. Knowing him, he was probably already using x-ray vision in the name of friendship, concern and gross violations of personal privacy disguised as emotional support.

You swallowed. “It’s borrowed.”

The elevator lurched suddenly back into motion and your stomach dropped with it. You stared ahead while the floor numbers flickered downward one by one and tried very hard not to think too deeply about anything currently happening in your life. You didn’t know what you were doing anymore. You just knew you wanted your existence to belong to you fully, not to your parents or Clark, or to the humiliating orbit of longing and avoidance and pretending everything felt simpler than it actually did.

Beside you, Clark stood painfully still. He was trying hard to be gentle with you, careful and patient while every instinct in him wanted to push harder, ask better questions, solve the problem immediately and carry half your life upstairs himself if necessary but he kept forcing those instincts down because you clearly needed room to stand on your own feet.

Even if those feet currently wore flats.

The ride down passed in silence.

Once the elevator reached the lobby, you stepped out immediately and Clark followed close behind. The building entrance stood only a few feet away now, late afternoon sunlight bleeding faintly through the glass doors while people crossed outside along the sidewalk.

Clark stayed behind you with both hands shoved into his pockets, head lowered slightly as he watched his shoes move across the lobby floor.

You turned toward him before you could lose your nerve and tried not to be dramatic about it either. Your dress barely moved with you. Good, this moment did not deserve cinematic elegance.

He looked up immediately and straightened. God, he looked so hopeful…your sweet, terrible Clark.

You inhaled deeply and forced the words out fast before your survival instincts convinced you to flee. “I found out my parents have been paying for my apartment.” Your throat tightened immediately but you kept going. “Which means they’ve known where I’ve been living this entire time.”

Clark opened his mouth but you cut him off before he could speak.

“Not only that,” you continued quickly, “they’ve been doing so while I spent the past year struggling to make rent every month.” You laughed once, dry and humorless. “Rent I wouldn’t have been able to afford anyway, apparently.” Your grip tightened around the résumés. “So I have to move.”

He couldn’t keep quiet anymore and reacted instantly. “I’ll go get my things,” he said without hesitation, already motioning back toward the elevators. “We can have you packed and moved into my place tonight.”

You shook your head before he even finished. “No. Absolutely not.” Your voice stayed calm, which honestly made the refusal feel worse somehow. “This is the part where you tell me ‘good luck’ and I go deal with my own issues by myself.”

Clark’s expression tightened slowly, every word visibly hurting him. “This doesn’t have to be me saving you,” he said carefully. “Just think about it as a storage unit and a spare bed.”

You almost laughed at that. Almost. “Like I said, Clark, I’m not turning into my mother.” Your voice softened slightly. “I’ll figure it out.” Then you pointed toward him. “I’m only telling you because eventually you would’ve kicked down the door to my apartment after I moved out and traumatized the next tenant while he showered beside his turkey bacon.”

Clark blinked hard, face scrunching in confusion. “What?”

“My shower is placed three feet from the stove,” you explained flatly. “I never let you inside because you physically do not fit in that apartment.” You gestured vaguely with one hand now that the confession had started rolling downhill against your will. “I have so many clothes in there that I'm forced to sleep between the window and my fur coats.”

Clark stared at you silently. You pointed at him again before he could say anything compassionate and devastating. “I found that place without help and I’ll find the next one without help too. Financial or otherwise.” You paused briefly, fingers tightening around the crushed baseball cap still hanging from your hand. “I’ll text you the new address when it’s done…”

“From your…borrowed phone,” He guessed carefully, except the phone wasn’t borrowed. 

He had already seen the case while snooping in your purse, the half a photograph tucked beneath the plastic casing. The two of you crammed together inside some photo booth months ago, your face angled toward his while he looked hopelessly distracted by you instead of the camera.

Clark owned the other half. It sat beneath a magnet on his fridge beside grocery lists, takeout menus and a new postcard from his Ma that he still hadn’t answered.

You nodded anyway. “And it’s not an invitation,” you clarified quickly, backing up another small step across the lobby floor. “No showing up at my door with baked goods or brisket or emotionally supportive side dishes.” Your mouth twitched faintly despite everything. “It’s literally just a ‘don’t panic, I’m alive’ situation.”

He watched your face carefully, eyes following your movement.

“You deserve that much.” Your eyes had started watering and you clearly didn’t realize it yet. You kept retreating slowly toward the glass doors while speaking, like your body had already committed to leaving several minutes before the rest of you emotionally caught up. “You actually deserve a lot better than me not having the balls to text you back,” you admitted quietly.

The sniffle afterward nearly stopped Clark’s heart outright. He followed instinctively when you stepped backward again, brows pulling together while he tried to understand where exactly the conversation had collapsed into this. Five minutes ago you were arguing about jobs and elevators and now you looked like somebody standing too close to the edge of a cliff pretending not to notice the drop beneath them.

“And I’ve been really mean to you,” you continued quickly before he could interrupt. “Which honestly feels unfair in retrospect because the elevator weight thing was uncalled for but it also was at the playground when you did it on the seesaw and forced me to experience genuine frustration for the first time in my life.”

Clark blinked once as he nodded at your words because he simply did not know what else to do.

You pointed accusingly through glossy eyes. “I’m serious. I hated that…both times.” Your voice wavered harder now. “And I’m experiencing it again currently so maybe raise your standards for me a little and get angry already, so it’s easier for me to ignore you.” You sniffed hard and motioned vaguely back toward the elevators. “Go back upstairs, go to work and be emotionally responsible while I figure my life out.” 

Then you pointed directly at yourself. “Me. By myself.”

Oh. Clark saw it immediately then, it sat all over your face beneath the mascara and stubbornness and trembling composure you were trying desperately to maintain and the realization hit him so hard his stomach turned violently. 

You were preparing to disappear.

You had already done this once before with your parents. You ran when things became unbearable, untangled yourself quietly and figured everything out afterward from somewhere nobody could reach you, except this time the emotion underneath wasn’t anger, it was grief, deep enough Clark couldn’t even locate the bottom of it.

His hand lifted instinctively toward you before stopping midway because suddenly he didn’t know what would happen if he touched you right now. Whether you’d stay or break apart completely or apologize for crying while doing both simultaneously, so he hesitated and that hesitation cost him.

You turned before the tears could fully fall and walked toward the doors with your chin lifted stubbornly high despite the shine gathering in your eyes. Sunlight hit briefly across your face once the glass doors opened and Clark stood rooted in place watching you leave while every instinct inside him screamed to follow.

But you had asked for space and Clark Kent loved you enough to let that request wound him.

The doors closed behind you as Clark stared at them another second before dragging one hand over his face slowly, breathing hard through the pressure building in his chest.

He needed to find a replacement for those shoes…and he needed to do it fast.

You honestly didn’t know how you ended up back at the Talon.

Somewhere between forcing unwilling business owners to accept your résumé and deciding flats technically transformed walking into a financially responsible decision, your body had apparently chosen the destination for you. Cabs cost money and money had become an abstract luxury reserved for people with employment, stable emotional conditions and refrigerators containing more than expired yogurt and half a lemon you kept pretending still had purpose.

By the time you reached the Talon, the sky had darkened fully and your feet hurt in that dull, persistent manner reserved for long days and bad weeks. The baseball cap remained shoved bitterly into your purse where it belonged and the stack of résumés beneath your arm had started curling at the corners from overhandling. Honestly, the pages looked exhausted too.

The guy working the tiny booth in the hallway barely glanced up before holding out his hand automatically. “Phone and ten bucks.”

You ignored both requests completely.

“I’m not staying,” you assured him while flashing the stack of résumés at chest level like legal documentation. “I just need to leave one at the bar and then I’m gone.”

The poor man looked at you, looked at the papers and then made the deeply reasonable decision not to get involved in whatever emotional catastrophe this clearly was.

The second you stepped inside, the atmosphere hit you all over again.

The Talon wasn’t large but it clearly didn’t need to be. Noise packed the room tighter than furniture ever could. People crowded around tiny tables balancing cheap drinks and louder conversations while cigarette smoke clung stubbornly to the ceiling despite several very obvious fire regulations being violated simultaneously. Somebody laughed too hard near the back wall and glass clinked somewhere beside the stage. The room carried that warm, restless energy unique to bars filled with people trying not to go home yet.

As you moved toward the mostly abandoned bar, Susie’s voice cut sharply through the crowd.

“We don’t want your godawful impressions out there tonight,” she snapped.

You glanced toward the stage area just in time to see her physically withholding the microphone from a lanky man arguing passionately about his time slot. “You said I had ten minutes!”

“I’ll respect your ten minutes when the place is empty and I stop paying electrical bills,” Susie shot back while shoving past him. “Next time bring a guitar or a visible talent.”

The man continued protesting behind her while Susie marched toward the bar muttering to herself under her breath with the exhausted fury of somebody one inconvenience away from arson.

You slipped onto a stool near the end of the counter and quickly lowered your stack of résumés onto the bartop, trying to hide them beneath your arm before she noticed…too late.

“If you’re here to ask for the secret behind my financial success, we’re gonna need to reschedule,” Susie said while stepping behind the bar, then her eyes landed on the papers. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.” You exhaled heavily and rested your forehead briefly against your hand. “I’d ask for a drink but unfortunately I’m currently participating in poverty.”

Somebody beside you elbowed your arm while reaching for peanuts and you moved farther down the stool with visible annoyance.

Susie looked down at the résumés again, then toward the stage…and then back at you.

Her scheduled act had apparently vanished, the crowd noise had started thinning near the entrance and Susie possessed the survival instincts of a raccoon guarding trash behind a casino. She recognized a crisis immediately.

“Get up there.”

You blinked. “What?”

She grabbed the microphone from beneath the counter and dropped it directly in front of you. 

“I thought I made myself very clear when I said I’m not a comic.”

“Yeah, I remember that part.” Susie nodded. “I also remember the part where you said you don’t have a job.” She lifted your stack of résumés in one hand like a police officer displaying evidence to a jury. “And from the looks of this little tragedy,” she continued, shaking the papers once, “you need one. Or at least money.”

Her eyes widened pointedly at you, aggressively fishing for common sense. “So get your ass onstage. You save my ass tonight and I won't take a cut of your earnings.”

You looked toward the stage.

A few people sat scattered around the tiny tables beneath the dim lights. Somebody near the front laughed drunkenly at absolutely nothing. One woman smoked with the exhausted posture of somebody midway through a divorce and the microphone stand looked deeply judgmental under the spotlight.

Then you looked back at Susie and shook your head immediately. “I can’t go up there.”

“Why?” Susie frowned. “Because you’re emotionally stable?”

“No,” you answered honestly. “Because I’m sober and a coward.”

Susie stared at you for one second before turning away and returned with a shot glass. “Not water,” she informed you while setting it down firmly in front of you. “And it’s on the house if you get your tits up there.” Then she pointed vaguely toward your chest. “Without showing them this time, preferably.”

You blinked hard, almost insulted because…well, your tits were great. “Preferably?”

“Unless you want to.” Susie shrugged. “Modern times.”

You looked down at the vodka shot. Honestly, your entire life had already collapsed enough today that adding alcohol and public humiliation into the equation barely registered anymore. The worst thing that could happen was bombing in front of strangers and currently strangers already rejected you professionally across half of Metropolis.

You grabbed the glass and threw it back immediately.

The vodka burned straight down your throat and settled violently in your stomach like a threat from the gods themselves.

Liquid courage…or mild poisoning. It really depended on perspective.

You swallowed hard, grabbed the microphone and pointed at Susie with it. “Do I still get paid if nobody laughs?”

Susie shook her head and shrugged at the exact same time. “Bold of you to assume there’ll be money either way.”

You exhaled once before leaving the bar, walking onto the stage and immediately regretted possessing legs.

The platform barely lifted you two feet above the room but somehow that tiny elevation transformed every person in the club into a potential witness against you. Most people didn’t even look up right away. A couple near the back kept arguing over cigarettes, somebody laughed too loudly at the bar and one man sat fully sideways in his chair.

You stood there gripping the microphone with both hands and looked at them all. To the tired eyes, cheap drinks, wrinkled collars, women fixing lipstick in reflective spoons and the men pretending they weren’t staring at those women while staring hard enough to develop migraines. 

Nobody in the room looked carefree and nobody looked untouched by life either and suddenly your own humiliation stopped feeling that special.

Tonight, you weren’t jealous, you weren’t even angry…you were just another failure.

“I’m twenty-five and I’ve never had a job.” The microphone carried your voice farther than expected and slowly, conversation around the room began thinning. Heads turned toward you one by one, curiosity spreading unevenly through the crowd.

You nodded once as the silence settled heavier. “I’m twenty-five,” you repeated carefully. “And I’ll probably be homeless by the end of the week whether or not I find one.”

A few people laughed instinctively before realizing you weren’t technically joking yet, the silence afterward felt enormous.

You looked briefly toward the back wall instead of directly at anybody because if you made eye contact too early, you might actually die onstage and honestly that would create paperwork for everyone involved.

“Any of you ever run away from home?” 

A voice answered immediately somewhere near the back. “Yeah!”

You pointed toward them. “See? Thank you.” You paced once across the tiny stage, warming into the movement. “Whether your family was rich, poor, loving, terrible, emotionally constipated or weirdly obsessed with matching Christmas pajamas, running still means the same thing.” You shrugged lightly. “It just comes with different branded luggage.”

A few chuckles rippled through the room.

“I found out recently my parents have secretly been paying for my apartment.” You paused. “An apartment I have personally been struggling to pay for over a year.”

That statement got attention. “Oh yeah,” you nodded. “No, I was suffering. I sold shoes…purses and dresses I genuinely loved.” Your hand flew dramatically to your chest. “Do you understand the psychological warfare involved in selling a vintage Dior piece to make rent and then seeing some woman named Brenda wear it with orthopedic sandals?” The crowd burst into laughter.

“I struggled every month trying to pay twelve hundred dollars for what I genuinely believed was the most decent two-hundred-square-foot shoebox in Midtown Metropolis.” You held your fingers out narrowly. “And by shoebox, I mean if I inhale too deeply near the window, I get a whiff from the sewers down the street and the smell clings to the walls and develops over time like Eau de Parfum…It’s French…but the smell isn’t.” Laughter spread louder now. “The front door to the building stays broken eleven months out of the year. Not consecutively either….It’s better when it’s random…It keeps you humble.” You nodded seriously. “And the elevator worked once.”

People laughed already, sensing the rhythm now. “One time. One singular glorious morning after Friendsgiving.” You lifted one finger. “I got inside carrying leftovers and suddenly the machine discovered ambition.” You pointed toward the ceiling. “That elevator moved with purpose. It had dreams of grandeur…Also French.”

The room erupted.

“And then it died forever.” You spread your arms. “Gone. It never moved again and honestly? Looking back I should’ve taken more mashed potatoes because if I’d gotten trapped in there longer I could’ve sued the building and financially recovered.”

People barked laughter around the room now, shoulders shaking into drinks and tables.

“Instead,” you continued, leaning lightly against the mic stand, “my landlord Garrett keeps raising rent while smelling aggressively like blue cheese and unpaid child support.” The laughter exploded harder. “Oh, Garrett…” You sighed deeply. “Have I mentioned I got sent to etiquette classes growing up?”

A few groans of recognition came from women around the room. “Oh, you know.” You pointed immediately. “See? Survivors…all in the same place.” You straightened your posture instantly into stiff perfection. “They teach young girls how to sit upright.” You demonstrated elegantly. “How to crouch while wearing dresses if you drop something.” You bent carefully at the knees with mechanical precision while people laughed. “And of course they teach you how to keep your legs closed before marriage.”

You paused. “Curiously, they never teach boys this skill despite the fact every man on earth sits like his balls contain classified government documents requiring airflow.”

The room detonated and half the men immediately corrected their posture while women laughed loud enough to rattle glasses.

“They also teach us how to politely request services.” You smiled tightly. “‘Pretty please, may I see proof you’re robbing me blind?’” More laughter rolled through the room while you paced farther from the microphone stand now, confidence slowly overtaking panic.

“Because half the tenants are moving out after Garrett raised rent from like…” You tilted your head thoughtfully. “Two thousand dollars to almost three.” The crowd groaned. “Exactly.” You pointed. “And the place is falling apart. I mean, I shower three feet from my stove.”

People laughed already. “No, no, no. I’m serious.” You held up your hand solemnly. “One time I dropped conditioner into boiling pasta and genuinely considered whether a bay leaf might save it.” The room burst apart again. “Because it adds that…you know…and if you don’t, trust that the bay leaf does know.”

You paused, soaking in the laughter. “Only take that risk when inviting terrible people over obviously…” You nodded thoughtfully. “Like parents.”

People laughed and applauded simultaneously. “Not that mine ever visited,” you continued quickly. “The window for reconciliation closed somewhere around the fifth hidden rent payment.”

You could feel the room wasn’t just listening but also leaning in, even the people near the bar had stopped talking over you entirely. “Meanwhile Garrett lives beautifully.” You sighed dramatically. “Whole building’s collapsing but this man owns leather furniture and places sports bets like he’s funding organized crime.” 

You looked out over the room. “Who’s losing next week?”

“Gotham Ravens!” several people shouted immediately.

“Oh really?” Your face lit up maliciously. “That actually improves my evening because I placed ten grand on Garrett’s behalf that they’d win.”

The room exploded into screaming laughter and you lifted both hands immediately in surrender. “What? I had to get my money’s worth somehow!” You defended yourself through laughter. “And before anybody judges me, understand this happened during an emotionally charged moment involving his laptop, some crushed fingers…my heel, his phone…also crushed, by the way and the power of feminine rage.”

Somebody near the front almost choked laughing. “We’ll find out the results soon enough.” You nodded seriously. “Either he comes downstairs demanding money or he collapses so hard onto his floor that I hear the echo of empty pockets from my apartment.”

By now people were clapping between laughs. You breathed it in, actually and almost stupidly so, breathed it in. The fear had started melting somewhere around the pasta joke and now every reaction from the crowd hit your chest like oxygen after days underwater.

“I don’t know if any of you were here the other night when I accidentally publicly spiraled about Mr. Kent.”

Several people cheered loudly. Your eyes widened. “Oh my God.” You pointed accusingly. “So you’re all alcoholics, ‘cause that was barely seventy-two hours ago and you’re still wearing the same shirt.”

The room roared and people turned fully toward the stage now, even bartenders paused to listen. “I tried ignoring him.” You nodded seriously. “Very maturely too…I avoided texts and calls…I changed detergent and perfumes like I was fleeing the mafia...Yeah, very mature.”

Laughter crashed immediately. “But unfortunately I ended up at his workplace today after a long sequence of humiliations involving résumés and a baseball cap that made me look like I sold counterfeit cigarettes behind gas stations.” You mimed the cap and the room erupted again. “And somehow we got trapped in an elevator together.”

Whistles shot through the room instantly.

“Not like that.” You pointed sharply. “Although honestly if I die in a confined space, I’d prefer it happen beside a six-foot-four farm boy built like God lost restraint halfway through.”

The laughter turned almost violent and you bent slightly over the microphone, laughing too now.

“No because this man looked at my résumés like I’d confessed to crimes against humanity.” You shook your head. “He’s seen me wear dresses and heels to a farm…while sitting on hay bales like a deeply impractical Disney princess.” People clapped laughing. “He knows I don’t work!” you continued. “And somehow him finding out I needed a job made me more worried...and him even more handsome too.”

You widened your eyes dramatically.

“This man offered to house me, immediately. Practically offered financial sponsorship because apparently he believes Superman can save humanity but not society after I repeat an outfit publicly.” The room exploded. “And the worst part?” You laughed breathlessly. “I should’ve been offended…I wanted to be offended.”

You paused. “But then he looked at me with those stupid puppy-dog eyes and suddenly I started considering becoming a housewife…”

Groans and screams erupted everywhere, you laughed so hard you had to step away from the mic briefly.

“By choice! Which makes all the difference but still…It was humiliating.” You pressed your hand against your chest. “I practically collapsed right there near his perfectly polished shoes.”

Then you pointed firmly. “Which I will not be shining.”

The crowd cheered. “Guys, please.” You lifted your hands innocently. “I couldn’t even afford the vodka shot that got me up here. I need this manicure to survive the recession.”

You held your hands up while laughter rolled again and again through the room, then your expression softened slightly. “In that moment…” You exhaled carefully. “Him and my parents suddenly sounded the exact same to me.”

The room quieted instinctively.

“Not morally,” you added quickly. “Fuck no. My parents say it with old-money misogyny. Like true modern-day monsters.” You widened your eyes. “He says it like a golden retriever who accidentally gained muscles on his way to fetch the ball.” The room erupted again. 

“But still.” Your voice lowered slightly. “What happens when the monster loves you?”

A few murmurs drifted through the room now.

“No, seriously.” You paced slowly. “Whether it’s parents forcing a future onto you or a gorgeous farm boy asking you to move next door…” You shrugged lightly. “What are you supposed to do? Keep running? Stay close and hope love magically stops hurting?”

The room stayed quiet enough to hear glasses clink. You eventually sighed.

“Although honestly when the farm boy has broad shoulders and arms the size of civil engineering projects, your pulse starts relocating south and critical thinking becomes difficult.” 

The room lost its collective mind. People shouted, whistled and hit tables while laughing and you stood there grinning helplessly while the noise swallowed the room whole.

“That’s my issue!” you defended yourself through laughter. “Every time I almost develop emotional maturity, the gods send me a man shaped like good decisions and even better sex.”

The applause came immediately. You shook your head dramatically.

“If I had a nickel for every time that thought process improved my life financially–” You looked around the room slowly. “Well, obviously I wouldn’t be here begging strangers for rent money!”

The laughter rolled through the Talon one final time while somebody passed around the tip basket near the front. “Unlike Garrett,” you added quickly, pointing at it, “please contribute willingly.”

People applauded while dropping bills inside.

You looked out over the room then, properly this time. You stared at the smiling faces, at the people wiping tears from laughing so hard and at the way bodies turned fully toward you and for the first time in weeks, maybe months, you didn’t feel invisible.

“Thank you,” you said softly, still smiling through the adrenaline. “Seriously…and goodnight!”

The roll of applause hit all at once, it was loud and immediate. Truly genuine as it swallowed the room so completely you almost forgot to breathe while standing there beneath the lights, soaking it in with stunned eyes before finally glancing toward the bar.

Susie stood there applauding too as she gave you one sharp nod.

You smiled at her and returned it. 

You’d worry about your living situation once your ears stopped ringing from the applause. You’d maybe think about texting Clark back eventually too, though you were certain that loaded task required hydration, sleep and at least one controlled nervous breakdown beforehand. 

But if this was what happened after spending months begging to be seen, then maybe you should seriously consider investing in better hats…bigger ones preferably. Because if you kept talking like this, there was a very real possibility the entire city might start looking back at you…instead of up.

A/N: If you enjoyed this story, feel free to explore the archive for more! Liking and reblogging helps others discover my writing and comments always make my day, they’re a huge encouragement for me to keep creating. Thank you so much for reading!

You walked.

That was apparently your great talent now…walking. Walking away from bars, from conversations and from Clark standing on sidewalks looking at you as though he could still fix things if he just chose the right sentence. 

Your eyes stayed unfocused on the crowd ahead of you while every muscle in your body held tension from the night before, your shoulders were stiff and your jaw sore from clenching it for hours without noticing. Metropolis moved around you at its usual merciless pace with horns blaring, women in pencil skirts marching to offices with coffee cups clutched like weapons and businessmen smoking outside newspaper stands and you drifted through all of it with the vague sensation that you had forgotten how to occupy your own body correctly.

Your steps finally slowed several blocks later when your attention snagged on a storefront window and there she was.

The dress stood on a mannequin beneath soft yellow lighting, navy blue with a full flowing skirt that dipped perfectly at the waist before spilling outward in expensive, dramatic folds. Pink details lined the collar, delicate enough to feel intentional instead of childish. Beside it sat the matching handbag and a hat perched at a jaunty angle that immediately summoned Ricky’s voice in your head.

‘Thank fuck someone convinced you not to wear those fucking hats of yours.’

You stared harder at the shoes…Now those were necessary, absolutely necessary.

You looked down at your own heels, the former Prada casualties of emotional devastation and sewer grates and narrowed your eyes thoughtfully. A woman could survive heartbreak, she could survive public intoxication, temporary imprisonment and accidental topless comedy but surviving ugly shoes? That was where dignity truly died.

You turned sharply, giving the storefront your back before your brain could start writing checks your bank account would mail back wrapped in funeral black. You had forty-five dollars and sticky coins. The phrase alone should’ve been enough to drag you toward financial responsibility because nothing about that outfit whispered good decision, it screamed future problem. So you forced yourself to keep walking, merging into the current of pedestrians and focusing on the back of whoever walked ahead of you.

Left foot, right foot…left foot…Don’t turn around.

So how, exactly, did you end up back in front of the same store twenty minutes later?

You stood there breathing hard, offended with yourself. “Predatory,” you muttered at the mannequin. “This is entrapment.”

Two hours later, after a quick shower in the boutique’s absurdly luxurious private dressing quarters, a fresh face of makeup and an entirely new outfit wrapped around your body with sinful perfection, you stepped back onto the street with your skirt flowing around your legs and your confidence artificially reconstructed by tailoring and lipstick.

Your eyes dropped toward the receipt in your hand. It read eight hundred fifty-one dollars and thirty-three cents. The amount was circled…Underlined, even.

You had needed to provide your address, your ID and what felt spiritually equivalent to a kidney before they finally allowed you to leave with it on. The saleswoman had smiled at you the entire time too, which made it worse. People should not look that elegant while financially ruining strangers.

Still, you looked incredible and if there was one thing your mother had accidentally taught you well, it was that devastation became significantly more manageable in a good outfit.

You folded the receipt and shoved it deep into your purse where numbers couldn’t hurt you anymore. You’d figure it out, you always did.

The taxi downtown cost another twenty dollars, which almost made you ask the driver to hit you with the cab instead but at least you remembered the name of the club.

The Talon looked completely different sober.

During daylight, the place lost most of its mystery. The neon sign appeared smaller, the stairs even steeper, the hallway narrower and considerably less glamorous than your drunken memory had painted it. You marched downstairs anyway, your new heels clicking sharply against the concrete, crossed through the hallway and stopped at the tiny window where the cigarette-smoking guy had been stationed the night before.

It was closed so you didn’t bother knocking. You just walked inside, oddly relieved you weren’t ten dollars poorer for the privilege.

“Hello?” you called out as your heels echoed through the empty club.

The smell hit first, it was a mix of stale alcohol, old smoke and industrial cleaner losing a long battle against decades of bad decisions. Then came the floor itself, tacky beneath your heels as you moved toward the stage, which looked smaller now and less magical. Without the crowd, without the laughter and lights blinding you into bravery, the stage barely reached your waist.

Strange how a platform could feel enormous one night and pathetic the next.

“What’s with the hat?”

You yelped, body whipping around so fast your purse smacked against your hip as you found the bartender from last night standing behind you carrying a large tub of glasses. Her eyes traveled slowly over your outfit, her expression caught somewhere between suspicion and slight disgust.

Your hand flew immediately to the top of your hat before you slowly removed it.

Satisfied, she walked past you toward the bar without another word and after one awkward second of standing there alone, you hurried after her. “Hi, uh…I’m–”

“Mrs. Kent,” she guessed immediately. The tub landed on the bartop with a loud clatter of glass against glass, before she pulled one out and started drying it casually while you approached.

“I took a cut of your earnings last night,” she informed you, motioning vaguely toward the stage with the towel. “Considering I coached you into getting a slot for that performance of yours.”

You laughed nervously and adjusted your grip on your purse. “I had low expectations anyway, so…” You shrugged weakly.

“Did you get enough to get home?”

“I assume not.” Your mouth flattened into a tight line. “Considering I woke up in a holding cell.”

You watched as she burst into laughter so suddenly she had to brace herself against the counter, shoulders shaking violently while she pointed at you with the glass still in hand. “You thought those cops were strippers, it was fucking hilarious.”

Your entire face drained. “I didn’t…” Your eyes widened in horror as you pointed urgently toward the stage. “I didn’t get naked up there, did I?”

She followed your finger thoughtfully. “Depends,” she answered carefully. “How well do you take lies?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you breathed, collapsing dramatically onto a bar stool. “When…exactly was that?”

While she talked, you slowly folded inward until your forehead rested on top of your crossed arms against the bartop. If you couldn’t see reality, perhaps reality would lose interest and leave.

“Uh…” She looked toward the ceiling as though replaying events chronologically required divine intervention. “Somewhere between seducing a drunk grandfather at the bar and talking about Mr. Kent for the third time.”

You groaned loudly from your position.

“Nobody could get you off that stage,” she continued cheerfully. “You had to be carried out–”

Your head snapped upward instantly. “Tits out?” you asked, horrified.

“Unfortunately,” she confirmed with a firm nod, studying you carefully afterward, probably checking if you were about to faint. “You could’ve mentioned you were a comic when I asked.”

“I’m sure I could’ve said lots of things,” you muttered, forcing yourself upright again with whatever remained of your dignity. Your hands crossed protectively over your new purse. “And I’m not.”

Her brows furrowed as she gestured toward the stage again. “Then what was that?”

You snorted tiredly. “Heartbreak? I don’t fucking know. I was drunk.”

She shook her head immediately. “You don’t hold a room like that by accident.”

“I exposed myself,” you reminded her, pointing directly at your chest. “There’s nothing accidental about that.”

“You don’t get it.” She tossed the towel over her shoulder and leaned against the bar properly now, watching you with the patience of someone preparing to explain gravity to a particularly stubborn child.

“What’s there to get?” you asked, almost laughing at how serious she suddenly looked standing behind that sticky bar with rolled sleeves, as though she were about to deliver life-altering wisdom instead of liquor recommendations.

She planted both palms on the bartop. “Last night doesn’t happen anymore, definitely not unannounced in shitty bars.”

You blinked at her.

“The business changed,” she continued, now waving the towel vaguely toward the empty stage behind you. “The comics changed. Everybody’s either angry, smug, too politically shallow or trying so hard to sound detached they forget to actually be funny. Nobody gets up there and bleeds anymore.” Her eyes narrowed on you. “Last night you had people crying laughing while simultaneously wanting to fistfight whoever broke your heart. That room defended your stage time like union workers protecting pensions. Last night was special.”

“It was special, alright,” you replied dryly, fiddling absently with the clasp of your purse. “I probably lost one of the most important people in my life and also my phone, which I’d really love to get back considering I cannot financially survive replacing it.”

She pointed suddenly toward your dress. You frowned and looked down…at the still attached tag, hanging there in plain sight beneath the sleeve like a little paper flag announcing financial instability dressed as elegance.

“What’s that then?” She asked, folding her arms.

“Half the reason I can’t afford said new phone,” you muttered, yanking the tag free with enough aggression to qualify as vengeance. “Six hundred and thirty dollars out of my eight hundred fifty-one dollars and thirty-three cents purchase…with tax.” You held the tag up between two fingers. “Which I need to pay back in two weeks or my next fun evening will end with a judge asking if I understand the charges.”

She stared at you for a long second. “Don’t you live in Midtown?”

You nodded cautiously.

“Can you afford that?”

You genuinely considered lying. Your pride stepped up confidently, took one look at your bank account and quietly sat back down. So after half a second, you slowly shook your head.

Her face tightened with fascinated concern, the same expression people wore while approaching raccoons. “What do you do?” she asked.

You frowned. “What do I do?”

“Yeah,” she said impatiently. “When you’re not flashing my customers for cab fare. Work.... employment…taxes? Human suffering under capitalism. Ringing any bells?”

You shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Her voice jumped an octave. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five. I’ve never–”

Her jaw dropped open, actually dropped like in old cartoons. “You’re twenty-five and you’ve never worked?!” The disbelief ricocheted around the club. “How do you live?”

You sighed heavily and rubbed your forehead. “A trust fund.” Then immediately pointed at her. “Could I please get my phone back before this conversation becomes legally humiliating?”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, it just lacked detail…massive detail…catastrophic detail but usually “trust fund” ended conversations nicely because people either got judgmental or jealous and both outcomes usually involved them shutting up eventually.

Apparently the woman before you preferred follow-up questions.

“How much money is in this trust fund?” she muttered while crouching behind the bar to rummage through boxes, her voice muffled beneath the sounds of shifting cardboard and clinking glass. “Because from where I’m standing, it seems to be doing a terrible job at funding your lifestyle.”

“Nobody asked it to perform miracles,” you replied under your breath.

“What’s the point of having a trust fund if you still end up shaking your tits onstage?” she called out.

“Nobody forced me to–”

“You were out of cab money!” she shouted back, emerging from beneath the counter carrying a box overflowing with phones. “Trying to get back to your amazing fucking Midtown apartment–”

“You’re making me sound awful.” You said flatly.

“Great! Because I’m jealous of you!” she shot back immediately, dropping the box onto the counter between you. “You wear stupid hats and six-hundred-dollar dresses and don’t have a job!”

You immediately started digging through the phones. The sooner you found yours, the sooner you could leave. “Why am I digging this deep?” you complained. “I was literally here yesterday.”

“Jackie likes to mix them up,” She answered with a dismissive wave before resuming her rant. “So what, you just tap a card and walk around buying hats all day?”

“Where is my phone?!” you snapped, holding up three identical black flip phones like evidence in a murder trial.

“What date’s on the box?”

“What?”

“There should be a date written somewhere on the side.”

You twisted the box around awkwardly until you found faded marker along the cardboard. “Uh…” Your eyes narrowed. “November…2005?” You looked up slowly. “You had me digging in a graveyard, what the fuck?”

“Oh.” She winced. “Wrong box. Give me that.”

She made a grabby motion with her fingers until you handed it over. Then she crouched again, muttering to herself while digging around under the counter like a woman searching through archaeological ruins instead of club property.

“This place is a fire hazard,” you informed the room.

“No argument here.” A second box appeared above the counter. “Try this one.”

And there it was. Your phone sat right on top of a small mountain of abandoned devices, looking strangely accusatory for an object that had spent the night in storage. You snatched it up immediately and turned it on. It had twenty percent battery and many, many missed calls, texts from Jimmy, Cat…Clark.

Your thumb hesitated before tapping into the thread and the deeper you scrolled, the worse your stomach felt.

Where are you?

Please answer.

Jimmy said you left alone.

I’m looking for you.

Sweetheart please just text me back.

Your throat tightened. You could practically hear him in every message, they were careful at first, then increasingly worried, probably typing faster than he usually did, sentences getting shorter as the night dragged on.

Your brain started spiraling immediately. You pictured him searching every street in Metropolis while you were somewhere yelling about dentistry and accidentally exposing yourself to strangers.

“How does it feel to be rich?” The woman behind the counter asked suddenly.

You startled so hard you nearly dropped the phone. With unnecessary speed, you shut it off and shoved it into your purse before looking back at her. “What’s your name again?”

She blinked. “Susie.”

You nodded once, hopped off the stool and offered her a smile so tight it barely qualified as one.

“Susie,” you said carefully, “when you find that out, you let me know.”

Her face softened a little at that…Well, she still looked abrasive enough to fight a parking meter but the sharpness around her eyes loosened.

You held her gaze another second before turning and heading toward the exit, chasing the fresh air waiting outside before your thoughts could start eating each other alive again.

Then you stopped halfway to the door, spun around and marched back in.

Suzie looked up immediately as you stormed towards her, snatched the forgotten hat off another stool and jammed it back onto your head with wounded dignity.

“I forgot my stupid hat,” you muttered before turning sharply and walking back out again, heels clicking furiously all the way up the stairs.

You made your way home for the first time in what felt like centuries instead of hours, exhaustion sitting deep in your bones beneath the adrenaline and leftover alcohol. The city had sobered around you while you still felt slightly untethered from reality, your new heels clicking sharply against cracked sidewalks as if they belonged to a woman significantly more composed than you currently were. 

By the time you reached your apartment building, your feet hurt, your makeup felt too tight on your skin and your stupid expensive hat kept threatening to slide off every time the wind picked up.

The front door to the building was broken again, hanging permanently ajar with the exhausted resignation of something that had given up begging for maintenance months ago. You stepped inside and immediately caught the familiar scent of old pipes, radiator heat, cigarettes and somebody cooking onions three floors too early in the morning.

The elevator, naturally, still didn’t work. You stared at the rusted metal doors for a long second anyway, just in case the building had chosen today to surprise you with progress but nothing happened.

“Fantastic,” you muttered. “Wonderful. Love doing cardio after devastation.”

Then you started climbing six flights of stairs in heels because suffering had become a hobby.

The higher you climbed, the stranger the building felt. Every floor looked crowded, cluttered with half-packed boxes and old furniture pushed carelessly against hallway walls. Lamps, chairs, rolled rugs and framed photos leaning against peeling wallpaper. You greeted neighbors as you passed them, smiling automatically while realizing with increasing concern that you had never actually seen most of these people before.

That alone felt embarrassing.

You had lived in this building for a year and somehow remained the woman who smiled politely in hallways while learning absolutely nothing about anybody around her. Meanwhile these people apparently had children, cats, bad marriages and dining tables they were currently dragging toward stairwells.

Every floor looked the same with boxes stacked outside apartment doors, belongings spilling into hallways and entire lives being condensed into cardboard…and worse, you started recognizing some of it.

The floral chair from apartment 3B. The old record player from downstairs. Mrs. Hernandez’s ceramic rooster collection sitting beside a pile of winter coats.

Your pace slowed, then quickened again the moment you reached the fifth floor and heard muffled struggling followed by a loud thump and a frustrated curse echoing down the hallway.

You started moving faster and that’s when you saw her.

“Imogene,” you blurted, eyes widening at the absolute disaster spread across the hallway between your apartments. Boxes towered everywhere, her front door propped open by furniture and overstuffed bags while she struggled to drag another cardboard box across the floor using all the strength of a woman built primarily from enthusiasm and caffeine.

She looked up immediately and gasped. “New outfit?” she asked brightly, brushing hair from her face before smiling at you with genuine delight. “I liked what you wore last night.”

Your eyes dropped briefly toward the dress.

“The store’s technically holding it hostage until I pay this off,” you admitted distractedly before shaking yourself back into focus. “Wait, where the hell are you going?” You gestured wildly around the hallway. “What’s all this?”

You leaned slightly past her and peeked into the apartment.

Everything was wrapped. The couch, the dishes…even her lamps were covered in newspaper and half the bookshelves were already empty. The place looked gutted, stripped of its warmth.

Imogene let out a tired laugh and disappeared back inside before emerging with another box balanced awkwardly against her chest.

“Should I start with the part where I can’t afford the apartment anymore,” she asked, breathless, “or the part where I can’t afford movers either?”

Your stomach dropped. “What?”

“A bunch of us terminated our leases.” Her voice lost some of its usual brightness as she nudged the box higher in her arms. “The conditions aren’t getting better and rent’s gone up three times this year alone.”

She stopped beside you and motioned with her chin toward a folded letter sitting on top of the box. You grabbed it automatically and unfolded the paper before reading it once.

Then again…and then a third time because surely your eyes were malfunctioning. Your attention kept snagging on the number printed near the bottom.

“Were you paying that?” you asked quietly, angling the paper toward her as if maybe she’d deny it. “Were you all paying that?” Your voice thinned near the end.

Imogene blinked at you then slowly tilted her head. “Are you not?”

You looked back down at the paper, then at her, then back at the paper again. “Will you take a ten-minute break?” you asked suddenly, already backing toward the stairs before she could answer. “I’ll come back down and help!”

“You don’t have to beg!” she called after you while dragging herself back into the apartment before collapsing dramatically onto her couch.

“What a way to spend a Sunday morning,” she groaned to herself.

You were already running upstairs.

Your hat nearly flew off twice as you climbed, purse smacking violently against your hip while the lease agreement crinkled angrily in your fist. By the time you reached the eighth and final floor, your chest burned and your temper had escalated into something holy.

The eighth floor belonged entirely to one person. The landlord’s son occupied the whole damn level while everyone else downstairs rationed square footage and shared plumbing trauma.

You started pounding on his door hard enough to rattle the frame, your knuckles stinging immediately beneath the force of it. When it finally swung open, you nearly punched him by accident because your body had fully committed to violence before your brain caught up.

He stood there holding a phone to his ear, startled enough that he instinctively stepped backward and opened the door wider.

You marched straight inside without invitation, heels striking the hardwood furiously while your chest still heaved from the stairs.

He laughed awkwardly into the phone. “No, man, the Metropolis Sentinels had that game. I won fair and square. If you’re too much of a pussy to pay the–”

You grabbed the phone directly out of his hand and launched it back into the hallway before kicking the door shut.

“What the fuck is your issue?” he demanded, voice pitching upward from shock.

“What’s my issue?” you repeated incredulously, waving the lease agreement directly in his face. “You misogynistic, green-bill-sucking prick, this is my issue.” You shoved the paper closer. “I want my lease and proof of payment for the last year. All of it. Now.”

“I’m busy,” he muttered weakly, motioning vaguely toward the front door and presumably, his phone lying somewhere beyond it.

“You were busy,” you corrected. “I solved that problem for you.”

You pointed toward the couch and he stared at you for one long second before finally moving toward his laptop with the exhausted posture of a man realizing this confrontation was no longer optional.

Meanwhile, you started pacing around the apartment…and noticing things.

“Oh, I see you don’t have a shower in your kitchen,” you called out loudly while wandering farther inside. “How lovely!”

You entered the hallway and froze dramatically.

“A hallway!” you exclaimed. “Wow. Incredible concept.” You started counting doors out loud. “One…two…three…four…five?”

Your voice echoed through the apartment while he hunched miserably over his laptop.

“And the paint isn’t peeling!” You dragged your fingers across a perfectly smooth wall. “Do you know my walls sweat when it rains?” You walked back toward the living room slowly, taking in the massive couch, the expensive rug and polished shelves. “It’s incredible being able to fit a couch in your home, isn’t it?” you asked sweetly, stopping beside him just as he turned the laptop around.

“Here’s your–”

“Give me that.” You snatched the laptop straight out of his hands before he finished speaking and immediately started walking while reading, forcing him to trail after you through his own apartment like a chastised assistant.

Two thousand eight hundred and sixty dollars…monthly.

2,860$.

You stared at the number so long it almost stopped looking real, your eyes tracing over it again and again while your brain desperately searched for the punchline. There had to be one, maybe an extra digit or a decimal point in the wrong place. Maybe Garrett was running some deeply illegal side business involving money laundering and emotionally devastating tenants because there was absolutely no universe where you had been paying nearly three thousand dollars a month to live in two hundred square feet with a shower positioned three feet away from your stove.

You looked up slowly.

“There’s…there has to be a mistake.” You pointed stiffly at the screen before turning the laptop toward him. “I haven’t been paying that.”

Garrett frowned at the screen, then nodded casually. “Uh…yes, you have.” He sat and leaned back into his couch, completely relaxed while your internal organs attempted mutiny. “Every fifth of the month, without fail. You even send it before invoices go out.”

Your brows furrowed hard enough to hurt. “I don’t get mail here.”

“Not from me.” He shrugged. “You always pay before I need to send anything over. No point wasting paper.”

“No, you don’t understand.” You shook your head, stepping closer with the laptop. “That money’s not–.”

“Lady, I don’t care if you have a sugar daddy,” he interrupted, looking you up and down with irritating confidence. “Honestly, considering I’ve never seen you repeat an outfit, I figured–”

“I don’t have a sugar daddy,” you snapped immediately, your voice cutting straight through his sentence. “And this fucking money isn’t mine.” You shoved the laptop back toward him hard enough to nearly drop it. “Is there a way to see who sends it to you?”

Garrett hesitated before taking back the laptop and clicking around through several tabs, muttering to himself while opening payment histories and digital copies of checks. You sat next to him impatiently, your heel tapping rapidly against the hardwood floor while your pulse climbed higher with every passing second before he stopped.

Your stomach tightened instantly as he slowly turned the laptop toward you…and there they were. Two names signed neatly at the bottom of every payment.

Your parents.

Your blood went cold so fast you swore you could feel it. For one dizzy second, your knees nearly buckled beneath you. You probably would’ve fainted too if you hadn’t been absolutely certain Garrett cleaned his belongings with expired milk and bad intentions.

You stared at the names while your thoughts crashed into each other violently.

Every argument and ignored phone call.

Every smug “How are you managing out there?” from your mother and every time your father asked if you were “done proving your point yet.”

Oh, they must’ve loved this. Funding your rebellion from a distance while waiting for you to crawl back home exhausted and grateful.

Garrett grinned from the couch, entirely too pleased with himself. “Looks like my mommy and daddy aren’t the only ones with money.”

You slowly lifted your eyes toward him, held his gaze then snapped the laptop shut directly on his fingers making him yelp loudly. 

“Get fucked, Garrett.” You stood and immediately marched toward the front door while he clutched his fingers dramatically behind you. “I’ll be gone by the end of the week!”

The door closed gently behind you despite your fury. Your mother had spent too much money on etiquette lessons for you to start slamming doors now. You stomped toward the stairs, muttering furiously under your breath while your mind spiraled around the realization that your entire independence had apparently been curated by your parents the same way museums handled fragile artifacts.

Then you spotted Garrett’s phone lying abandoned in the hallway. You stopped and noticed the screen was still lit.

“…Hello? Garrett?” a muffled voice called from the speaker.

Slowly, you bent down and picked it up. 

“Garrett?”

“Hey,” you replied sweetly. “Garrett’s a little busy right now, but he told me to place a bet on his behalf.”

There was a pause. “Uh…sure.”

You leaned your weight on one heel, smiling to yourself. “So tell me…what team’s guaranteed to lose?”

The man on the other end chuckled confidently. “Next game? Gotham Ravens for sure.”

“Great.” Your smile widened. “Garrett’s feeling brave today, so put ten grand on the Ravens winning.”

The silence between you stretched. “Are you sure?”

You looked toward Garrett’s apartment door then smiled wider. “Certain.” Your tone turned syrupy. “Have the day you deserve.”

You hung up immediately afterward, calmly dropped the phone onto the floor…and stomped on it with your heel. Once, twice…and one more for clarity and good measure.

You never listened much to those etiquette lessons anyway…

The screen cracked beneath your shoe with a satisfying crunch before you continued downstairs carrying the kind of peace usually associated with meditation retreats.

The rest of the day disappeared into cardboard boxes and staircases.

You helped Imogene carry half her apartment down six flights while she alternated between apologizing profusely and threatening to leave her mattress on the sidewalk for society to deal with. You watched her spend what little money she had left on taxis to a storage unit across town while you packed more dishes in newspaper and taped up boxes labeled things such as BOOKS?? and KITCHEN BUT NOT KNIVES.

At one point she cried over a lamp…at another point you nearly died carrying a small bookshelf downstairs in heels because apparently neither of you possessed practical footwear?

By the time you finally dragged yourself back upstairs late that evening, your entire body ached. Getting into your apartment required turning sideways through the front door because of the clothing racks between your bed and the window and far from the sweaty walls.

Your apartment looked less like a home and more like a glamorous hostage situation sponsored by fabric but at least the toilet had its own room.

You dropped your purse onto the bed and stood there quietly for a moment, looking around at the life you had spent the past year constructing piece by piece. You had rented dresses out and sold others. You even auctioned off pieces you genuinely loved, all so you could afford what you believed was the cheapest independence available to you and the entire time, your parents had been secretly footing the bill.

You sat heavily onto the bed and let yourself fall backward until you were staring at the ceiling.

The mattress pressed tightly between the drafty window and the first rack of light-colored clothes because light fabrics faded slower in sunlight. Your darker dresses and delicate fabrics hung farther away, protected carefully from the afternoon sun that leaked through the cheap glass.

You stared upward long enough that the cracks in the ceiling started looking organized and almost readable. They read:

Option A: Go home.

Thank your parents for secretly financing your apartment and gracefully allow yourself to be married off to some rich, intelligent man whose hobbies probably included polo and disappointing women emotionally.

You groaned immediately and rolled onto your side toward the window.

Option B: Go running back to Clark.

Ask to move in with him. He’d say yes before you finished asking because…well, he’s Clark. Then you’d spend every morning pretending not to flinch every time Lois’s name entered a conversation while slowly dying inside over his delicious pancakes.

Horrifying.

You rolled again, now facing the rows of clothing hanging beside your bed.

Option C: Since selling your remaining valuable pieces wasn’t an option anymore, you could always dig your trust fund card out of wherever you’d hidden it, carefully tape it back together after cutting it up a year ago and finally use the obscene amount of money sitting untouched in your account…Untouched being a technicality. 

You hadn’t spent a single cent from it.

Your eyes narrowed thoughtfully…all that money, more than enough to solve every problem currently suffocating you, just sitting there and waiting for you to…

“Nope,” you announced firmly to the room before temptation could settle in properly.

You exhaled hard and faced the ceiling again, flopping back against the mattress dramatically. “I need a job,” you informed with grave seriousness.

The room remained silent. Though honestly, one of the coats looked judgmental.

It had taken an unreasonable amount of restraint not to run after you right there on the sidewalk Saturday morning, not to ignore the way your voice cracked around sincerity and grab your wrist before you disappeared into the crowd entirely. Every instinct in Clark had screamed to follow, to insist you stayed long enough for the two of you to talk properly before whatever this was stretched and soured over the following days.

It took even more effort not to show up at your apartment Sunday morning carrying flowers and enough baked goods to feed half your building. Clark knew you too well for that or at least, he thought he did.

He could usually read you with terrifying accuracy. You wore your emotions everywhere despite believing the opposite. They sat in the way you walked, in how loudly you closed doors, in whether your jewelry matched your mood or fought against it entirely. Half the time Clark swore he knew what you were thinking before you did and what had screamed at him Saturday morning, while you stood there barefoot and furious in smudged makeup and scraped-up Prada heels smelling faintly of smoke, alcohol, expensive perfume and the exact same shampoo you used in college, was painfully simple.

Stay away from me.

Clark hated it but loving you had always required patience and trust too, so he stayed away…at least physically.

The rest of the weekend disappeared into replaying every second of Friday night with painful precision. Clark sat alone in his apartment for hours letting the memories run through his head over and over until they practically sharpened into film reels. Every expression and laugh, every strange pause that suddenly seemed important now.

He’d picked you up Friday evening.

You made him wait on the third floor landing because, according to you, “it’s the cleanest one,” though Clark privately suspected that wasn’t the real reason. You had never invited him all the way to your apartment door, not once. He respected it without question because whatever embarrassment sat underneath that boundary clearly mattered to you.

You had nothing to be ashamed of. He knew your upbringing, knew the kind of wealth you came from so he understood what this life probably looked like through your own eyes. You had grown up surrounded by polished floors, a maid and a doorman and now you lived in a building where the walls groaned all year round and somebody permanently smelled faintly of burnt toast.

He also knew you, knew how stubbornly independent you could be once your mind latched onto something. You planted your feet and suffered through things long after anybody reasonable would’ve accepted help…except where fashion was concerned.

Fashion apparently existed outside the laws of human survival.

Clark could still hear your footsteps descending the stairs toward him that night. He counted them absentmindedly because listening to you had become second nature years ago. Forty-two steps total, interrupted briefly by the six softer ones across the landing between floors.

Then came the stumble between the fifth and fourth floor followed immediately by your irritated muttering.

“For fuck’s sake,” you had hissed somewhere above him, voice echoing down the stairwell. “If your relationship requires this much screaming maybe just break up and save us all the acoustic trauma.”

Clark smiled despite himself just remembering it.

Then you appeared and honestly, the sight of you nearly stopped his heart.

You wore a vintage cocktail dress he’d never seen before, fitted perfectly through your curves before flaring softly at the hips whenever you moved. Your heels matched the dress precisely because they always did, you treated color coordination with the seriousness of military strategy. Tiny clip-on earrings glittered beneath the hallway light and one of those miniature purses dangled from your wrist, the kind barely large enough to hold lipstick and emotional instability.

You looked beautiful…hopelessly, devastatingly beautiful and Clark, despite all his abilities, had never once developed immunity to you.

“Hey, you,” you greeted brightly once you spotted him waiting below.

Clark nearly missed the words entirely over the sound of his own heartbeat. He blinked hard, forcing himself out of the trance long enough to step toward you and offer a hand over the final few stairs. Officially it was to help you descend safely in those heels…

Unofficially, he just wanted you closer faster.

“You look–”

You immediately looked down at yourself before he could finish, smoothing your hands nervously over the skirt.

“Is it too much for a bar?” you asked with sudden concern. “Because if somebody spills alcohol on this dress, I will have a heart attack and I haven’t kept up properly with the whole writing-a-will thing.”

Clark opened his mouth to reassure you but you kept going, suddenly resting one solemn hand against his forearm as if discussing state matters.

“My dresses go to you,” you informed him seriously. “But only to stare at. I don’t want you stretching them with your…” You motioned vaguely at his chest. “You know. Outerworldly physique. So…strictly visual appreciation.”

He bit back a laugh.

“My shoes go to Mrs. Alston,” you continued, counting carefully on your fingers. “That way I can continue supporting her business posthumously if she decides to sell them.” You paused thoughtfully. “Though honestly she might just keep them, and good for her because I’d take them to the grave myself if there were enough room in a coffin for both me and my footwear collection.”

Clark’s mouth twitched immediately.

“But I also need enough space to roll over laughing every time my parents get proven wrong,” you added with complete sincerity, adjusting your purse higher onto your wrist. “Priorities.” Then you sighed dramatically. “Besides, the woman has arches older than some countries and still walks better than me in heels. She’s earned them…And any money you find in my pockets or purses goes to Ricky,” you added firmly. “But distribute it slowly. I don’t want him thinking I became a better customer after death. That feels emotionally manipulative.”

Clark laughed softly then, warm and helplessly fond. “You’re never too much,” he told you, voice gentler now. “And you’re not dying.”

You looked unconvinced, then his eyes lifted toward the top of your head and he frowned immediately. “No hat?”

You straightened proudly. “No hat tonight. I’m exploring my horizons.”

Gosh. Clark genuinely thought he could melt straight through the staircase. His brows lifted as he fought a smile. “Does this bold new era mean we can eat at the bar instead of going to an actual restaurant first?”

You gasped in genuine offense. “No. I’m not a savage.”

You brushed past him dramatically, heels clicking down toward the next landing while Clark stayed frozen for one disastrous second trying to recover from how pretty you looked when pretending to be outraged.

Then your voice floated back up the stairwell. “Wait,” you called, turning halfway toward him. “You’re taking me to dinner?”

Clark finally started moving again, following after you while trying not to think too hard about how domestic that sounded coming from your mouth. “You handle martinis better on a full stomach,” he answered carefully.

He heard your smile before he saw it.

“You know me so well…it’s infuriating.”

Now it was Monday and Clark sat at his desk with his office phone pressed to his ear, listening to hold music that had looped so many times since nine in the morning that it had stopped sounding musical altogether and evolved into psychological warfare. The same tinny instrumental melody dragged through the receiver while he stared blankly at his computer screen, one elbow planted on the desk and the other hand rubbing slowly at his jaw hard enough to leave it pink.

“Hello?” the voice on the line finally asked.

Clark straightened immediately, blinking himself back into the present so fast his chair squeaked beneath him. “Yes. Yes, hello, I’m still here.”

“You said the heels were brown Strada?” the man repeated, his accent thick enough that Clark could practically hear the shrug accompanying it.

Clark closed his eyes for half a second. He looked down at the legal pad covered in increasingly desperate notes written in his own cramped handwriting. 

“Prada,” he corrected carefully for what had to be the tenth time. “They were Prada. Black leather.” He glanced at the translation open on his phone beside the keyboard before attempting the French again with disastrous pronunciation. “Uh le…le cuir. Cuir,” he repeated slowly, sounding deeply unconvinced in himself as he rolled his chair even closer to the monitor. “Your website says they’re still available. I can give you the product number.”

On the other end came a long thoughtful hum delivered with devastating Frenchness, which somehow worried Clark more than outright rejection.

“I can pick them up today,” Clark continued quickly, lowering his voice despite nobody paying attention to him anyway. “Paris, right? I can make it.” His eyes flicked toward the watch on his wrist automatically while calculations started running through his head. “Twenty minutes. Thirty tops and I can tip you…thirty percent?” He hesitated. “Do you guys do that kind of thing?”

Another pause. Then, “Désolé, monsieur. The website has not been…” Papers shuffled somewhere near the receiver. “…comment on dit…updated. Voilà, we are very sorry. Bonne soirée.”

The line went dead before Clark could answer. He sat there another second staring at the phone before slowly pulling it away from his ear. “H-Hello?”

Nothing.

Clark exhaled heavily through his nose and leaned back into his chair with the sort of careful restraint usually associated with men trying not to punch drywall. His eyes drifted toward the bright green word still glowing mockingly on the website listing.

“Disponible.” Even he knew that meant ‘available’.

“Apparently not,” he muttered darkly.

He dragged both hands through his curls before letting them fall over his face for a moment while he thought. There had to be another solution. He could offer to pay for the repairs he had very accidentally noticed while he stood opposite you on the sidewalk that morning but you’d reject his money before he even finished the sentence. He could sneak into your apartment while you were gone, find the damaged heels and take them to be repaired himself.

That idea lasted approximately four seconds before he discarded it.

First of all, you would notice immediately if somebody touched your things. Clark genuinely believed you could detect disturbances in your apartment the way bloodhounds tracked scent trails. Secondly, you owned enough nearly identical shoes to turn the entire operation into a nightmare and he would absolutely bring back the wrong pair by mistake. Third…and this felt most dangerous, he could never take them to your regular shoe repair woman because eventually, months later, she would absolutely mention in passing that a six-foot-four broad-shouldered man had arrived looking deeply guilty while swearing her to secrecy over your shoes.

And finally, Clark valued his life.

He was almost certain you possessed the capability to kill him with your bare hands if you discovered he had interfered with your closet.

“Any luck?” Lois stopped beside his desk holding a coffee in one hand and a stack of papers in the other, eyeing him with growing suspicion while Clark sat there looking one inconvenience away from spontaneous combustion.

Clark sighed and rubbed both palms down his face. “No. The heels aren’t available anymore.” His shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Lois frowned immediately. “I meant with tracking down the witness for my piece. You said you’d help.”

Clark went completely still.

Right…work. His job at the Daily Planet and his very human responsibilities. Keeping this job meant ‘money’, the thing required to buy replacement apology Prada heels.

“Right,” he said quickly, standing so abruptly his knee hit the desk. “Right, I’m on it.”

He started rifling through the disaster zone of papers scattered across his desk searching for the Post-it note he swore he’d written her information on sometime earlier that morning before becoming emotionally consumed by luxury footwear.

Lois watched him carefully while he searched. Her eyes drifted slowly toward his computer screen just in time to catch the fifteen open tabs displaying identical Prada heels before Clark panicked and started closing windows at superhuman speed disguised very poorly as normal typing.

“I could’ve sworn she already owns those shoes,” Lois noted casually.

Clark nodded once, distracted. “They got damaged the other night.” He swallowed. “I’m trying to…fix things.”

Lois leaned lightly against the edge of his desk, coffee still in hand and glanced toward the empty chair beside it. Your chair.

The one you occupied almost every morning when you burst into the newsroom overdressed and overcaffeinated, carrying gossip, complaints or existential crises while talking everybody’s ears off for an hour straight before wandering back out again. The bullpen always felt louder when you were there…easier too and now the chair sat untouched.

Lois checked the time on her watch before her gaze drifted toward Jimmy across the room. He had apparently been listening because the second their eyes met, he slowly widened his own and shook his head with deep seriousness.

“Don’t you dare ask,” Jimmy mouthed silently from across the bullpen, his expression grim enough to suggest national consequences if ignored.

So…naturally, Lois ignored him.

“Where is she, Clark?” she asked, setting her coffee down on Clark’s desk without bothering to ask permission first. “It’s almost ten. She’s never here after you.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Honestly, you’d think she got paid to arrive on time with how committed she is to barging in exactly three minutes before you sit down.”

Clark barely seemed to hear her. He was still searching through the same pile of papers he had already searched at least twenty times that morning, lifting folders only to stare blankly at whatever was underneath them before putting them back in entirely different places. There were sticky notes stuck to his sleeve, three pens uncapped beside the keyboard and an entire legal pad covered in names of luxury consignment stores across Europe.

He looked exhausted. Clark could survive weeks without sleep if necessary but this somehow looked worse…and emotional, which Lois didn’t do.

Finally, after another few useless seconds pretending to search for something that clearly wasn’t there, he exhaled heavily through his nose and looked up at Lois. “Couldn’t make it,” he admitted quietly before gesturing vaguely toward her. “Would you mind writing down again what you needed?”

Lois blinked. She had known Clark for years now, she had seen him walk calmly into interviews with dangerous politicians, survive impossible editorial deadlines and handle newsroom disasters with less visible defeat than whatever this was.

Her expression softened almost immediately.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said carefully. “I’ll figure it out. You just…” Her eyes flicked toward the ghost of the fifteen rapidly minimized browser tabs on his computer screen. “…keep doing whatever this is.”

Before Clark could answer, Cat entered the bullpen carrying her bag over one shoulder and immediately locked onto him the same way surgeons spotted active emergencies.

Clark straightened so fast hope practically radiated off him. “Cat, please tell me you found them–”

His voice died halfway through the sentence the second she shook her head. If he dropped back into his chair any harder, the darn thing was going to collapse before lunch.

“I’m sorry, Clark.” Cat grimaced sympathetically while setting her things down. “You know she’s terrifyingly good at finding rare pieces. I called everyone I know.” She crossed her arms. “Can’t you just get her something else?”

“Maybe a dress,” Jimmy offered carefully from his desk nearby, trying to sound useful. “Or a hat.” He nodded to himself, gaining confidence too quickly. “A fedora maybe…A very nice one. That ought to cheer her up.”

The silence afterward was immediate and devastating. Clark and Cat both looked at him with identical expressions usually reserved for witnessing small animals get hit by traffic.

Jimmy froze beneath the weight of their horror while Clark genuinely looked offended on your behalf.

Cat slowly lowered her empty coffee mug. “A fedora?” she repeated faintly.

Jimmy swallowed hard. “Isn’t that…” He looked between them nervously. “A style of hat?”

The look Cat gave him could’ve stripped paint off walls as Clark dragged one hand down his face.

Lois glanced between all of them now, her concern deepening rapidly as the atmosphere around Clark’s desk continued resembling hostage negotiations instead of workplace conversation.

“What is going on?” she demanded.

“They broke up.”

Steve appeared seemingly out of thin air directly behind Lois while sipping casually from his coffee mug, startling her hard enough that she physically lurched sideways.

“What are you talking about?” Lois snapped. “Broke up?”

Steve nodded solemnly. “Broke up,” he repeated. “Like the Beatles.” He took another sip. “Only worse because this affects me personally.”

“They didn’t break up,” Cat corrected immediately, refusing to allow terminology inaccuracies into the situation. “To break up they would’ve needed to actually be together first.”

Steve pointed dramatically toward the empty chair beside Clark’s desk and everybody looked at it…Clark specifically and the sight clearly hurt him spiritually.

“That feels like a breakup,” Steve insisted.

“It was more of an argument,” Jimmy corrected quickly, trying desperately to regain control of the narrative before Clark collapsed entirely. “A disagreement. That’s all.” He nodded too many times. “Right? We’re fixing it.” He looked toward Clark expectantly. “When she replies to our texts. Right, Clark?”

Clark did not answer. He stared down at his desk instead, jaw tense while everybody waited for him to reassure them and himself simultaneously.

The silence stretched long enough that even Lois stopped looking skeptical and started looking worried.

Steve cleared his throat awkwardly and stepped closer. “So…” he began cautiously, “am I still allowed to text her?” He pointed at himself. “I have a date tonight and I need fashion advice.”

Clark’s desk phone rang then and he practically attacked it. The receiver barely completed half a ring before Clark snatched it up so fast the cord nearly whipped off the desk.

“Yes, hello?” he answered immediately, voice carrying so much hope it made Jimmy wince sympathetically as everybody watched that hope die in real time.

Clark’s shoulders dropped inch by inch as whoever spoke on the other end continued talking.

“…Wrong desk,” he said eventually, quieter this time and hung up gently. The bullpen remained silent for another beat while Clark stared blankly at the receiver still in his hand before slowly placing it back down.

“She might not have found her phone yet,” he reasoned aloud, though the sentence sounded more directed toward himself than anybody else. “We don’t know.”

He had been trying not to overwhelm you. That was the problem. Every instinct in him screamed to go to your apartment, knock on your door and stay there until you opened it but the memory of your face outside the precinct kept stopping him cold. The exhaustion, the anger and the very clear don’t follow me written all over you.

So instead he had settled for restraint…and a handful of texts but no calls, or showing up uninvited with groceries and emotional support pancakes.

Clark was suffering immensely.

Lois stared at him with growing disbelief. “She doesn’t have her phone?” she repeated. “She checks auction sites more than I check the news.”

“She’ll answer eventually,” Jimmy offered weakly, though he sounded unconvinced now too.

Lois pointed directly at Clark. “Whatever you did, fix it.”

Clark looked vaguely stricken by the implication he had done something.

“Steve needs help,” Lois continued firmly, gesturing toward the man currently nodding solemnly into his coffee mug. “And we cannot all be single.”

Steve raised his mug slightly. “Morale’s already low.”

Lois inhaled deeply, visibly collecting herself and straightening. “Back to work. All of us.” except nobody moved. She narrowed her eyes then. “Now.”

Papers shuffled immediately across the bullpen while people reluctantly returned to pretending they were functioning professionals and not heavily invested in Clark Kent’s emotional crisis.

Clark stared at his computer another moment before quietly reopening the Prada tab.

You wore flats on Monday.

Not because they matched the outfit better, though they obviously did and not because your feet still hurt from the weekend, though they absolutely did. You wore flats because job hunting required stamina, resilience and occasionally the ability to flee with dignity from establishments pretending they’d “keep your résumé on file.”

You expected the day to go terribly…you had prepared for ‘terrible’. Still, you wore a cute dress and carried a structured little purse because unemployment was already humiliating enough without looking defeated on top of it.

By eleven in the morning, your optimism had died outside a bakery in Midtown.

You had walked up and down avenues for hours handing out résumés with the frantic determination of a suburban parent distributing Halloween candy nobody wanted. Except apparently the candy you were offering was sugar-free, joyless and made entirely from recycled fruit peels because nobody looked excited to receive it.

Most people barely glanced at the page before setting it aside politely. Some accepted it with the expression of someone being handed religious pamphlets in a parking lot and others skimmed the top line, saw your nonexistent work experience and immediately developed urgent tasks elsewhere.

At one point you realized you had been recycling the exact same copy of your résumé all afternoon because every employer kept handing it right back after pretending to read it. The edges had bent slightly by now and the paper no longer looked white to you and you had printed fifty copies.

Fifty.

There were currently forty-seven in your hands reminding you that apparently not even thrift stores wanted to hire a twenty-five-year-old woman whose primary qualifications included “good posture” and “knows the difference between ivory and cream.”

By lunchtime, desperation had started guiding your decisions.

You sat in a tiny coffee shop downtown and tried convincing yourself the refill they gave you tasted burnt because the beans were artisanal and not because the universe hated you. When they messed it up a second time, you briefly considered using your résumé to wipe the wet bottom of the mug out of spite and you actually did it too.

Then came the restaurant incident.

You had attempted to trick your way into speaking with the manager by pretending to ask detailed questions about wine pairings before casually pivoting into employment. Unfortunately, the manager had apparently been “on his way” for nearly an hour while you sat there slowly consuming a thirty-dollar pasta dish you absolutely could not afford anymore.

By the time he finally emerged from the kitchen only to say they “weren’t currently hiring,” you left with enough rage in your body to power small machinery.

You did not leave a tip…but you did leave a terrible Google review accusing the establishment of emotional negligence and overcooked linguine…which you deleted five minutes later while standing outside because guilt attacked quickly and viciously.

The afternoon continued in much the same fashion until eventually you discovered an awful truth…All roads in Metropolis somehow led back to the Daily Planet.

You stood across the street from the building staring up at it while taxis rushed past and your reflection floated faintly in the glass doors.

You could still turn around. Actually, you could sprint away if necessary because you were wearing flats, which made escape significantly more realistic than usual but if tomorrow resembled today even remotely, you were never going to find a job on your own. You needed help…advice and possibly divine intervention.

Unfortunately, all three of those things lived inside that building.

As you crossed the street, you prayed for several highly specific scenarios simultaneously.

Maybe Clark had left after lunch the way he usually did.

Maybe he’d called out sick, though the likelihood of Clark Kent oversleeping and simply deciding not to go to work ranked somewhere beside spontaneous meteor showers and pigs obtaining pilot licenses.

Maybe he was out saving someone.

Or maybe, and this possibility sat at the absolute bottom of the list, rancid and unwelcome, he had finally taken a personal day because Lois Lane had looked particularly good that morning and post-lunch temptation had apparently overpowered his fragile Kryptonian morals.

Yeah. Right…You nearly turned around again. You could run this time! And you had prepared.

Oh, you had prepared for Clark…Ever since the weekend, you had been operating under the assumption that he might appear at your apartment at any moment armed with concern and devastating eye contact, so you adapted accordingly.

You wore perfume he’d never smelled before. You wore dresses that hadn’t gone near your usual dry cleaner, mostly because you could no longer afford his services but also because Clark associated scents frighteningly well. The man could probably identify your emotional state by detergent alone. You also slathered yourself in heavily scented lotion in what felt less like skincare and more like predator evasion…and finally, and this part genuinely wounded your spirit…you wore a baseball cap.

A. baseball. cap.

You looked like a woman actively avoiding the media after committing tax fraud. Every time you accidentally caught your reflection in a window, nausea hit immediately. The cap alone felt criminal on your head, so you kept your eyes forward and pretended the sunglasses obscuring half your face also impaired your own vision.

You eventually slipped into the building or at least convinced yourself you had.

In reality, you probably looked deeply suspicious.

You knew the Daily Planet well enough to navigate it blindfolded, which only made your bizarre sneaking behavior worse. You kept your head down, walked quickly and avoided eye contact with such aggressive commitment that one intern physically stepped aside for you in alarm.

You made yourself smaller somehow despite the outfit, despite the purse and the fact that nobody in human history had ever described you as subtle.

The elevator ride nearly killed you. You stood in the corner clutching your purse and résumés while staring hard at the floor numbers, praying nobody from the bullpen stepped inside. The second the doors opened on Clark’s floor, you moved immediately but not toward the bullpen…absolutely not.

You took the long route to Perry’s office, which involved weaving through quieter hallways, ducking around corners and once crouching beneath a glass office window because you swore you heard Jimmy laughing nearby.

At one point you flattened yourself dramatically against a wall while an accountant walked past carrying folders but finally, after what felt like a hostage extraction mission, you spotted Perry entering his office muttering to himself while carrying a stack of papers beneath one arm.

Before he could fully close the door, you slipped into the office behind him with the speed of somebody avoiding both the IRS and confrontation. Your hand caught the edge of the door before it clicked shut and you gently but insistently pushed Perry farther inside while closing it carefully behind you, already twisting back toward the small glass panel to make sure nobody had seen.

“What the f–” Perry started around the cigar hanging from his mouth.

You shushed him immediately, one hand raised sharply while the other cracked the door back open two inches so you could peek through it. Reporters moved through the bullpen outside carrying folders and coffee cups and absolutely none of them seemed aware that you were currently conducting a deeply underfunded espionage operation in Perry White’s office.

Satisfied for the moment, you shut the door again and turned toward him dramatically.

“Perry,” you announced in a voice so unnaturally deep it scraped painfully against your throat. Dear fuck, you sounded like a detective from a radio drama who smoked tires recreationally.

His brows furrowed instantly, face twisting in confusion bordering on concern. You could see the exact moment recognition hit him and before he could say your name, you cut him off again with another aggressive shush.

“I’m here on official, very important business,” you informed him gravely. “I’d appreciate my identity being protected.”

Perry stared at you for a long second before slowly removing the cigar from his mouth. “Why are you talking like that?”

You cleared your throat hard enough to nearly cough up a lung and forced the voice lower again despite your vocal cords begging for mercy. “Secretive business,” you explained. “I have reason to believe figures associated with your current workplace are plotting against my client’s future success, emotional stability and potentially her very livelihood.”

You shoved the stack of résumés toward him with excessive seriousness.

“Furthermore,” you continued, “it appears my client is destined for greater things but is currently struggling to communicate that potential to the…” Your voice cracked midway through the sentence and collapsed fully back into your normal tone. “…working world.”

You winced, cleared your throat again and lowered your voice with renewed determination. “You, as a letter and…word professional, are uniquely qualified to tell me what’s wrong with that.”

Perry looked down at the résumés, then back up at you with absolutely no belief in anything currently happening.

You rolled your eyes and slid your sunglasses down just enough for him to see your face. “It’s me, Y/n.”

“I know it’s you,” he deadpanned immediately. “The only people dressing like that daily either live in Gotham penthouses or stand in front of cameras reciting lines approved by fourteen sober writers and one man named Leonard.”

He took another slow drag from his cigar while you sighed and dropped the ridiculous voice entirely before permanent damage occurred. “Can you just tell me what’s wrong with my résumé?”

Perry glanced back down at the pages in his hand. “You mean besides your name?” he asked honestly. “Because otherwise this is mostly decorative whitespace.”

Your frustration hit immediately. “No, it isn’t,” you argued, stepping closer to snatch one of the résumés back from him. “It has my education, I speak French and Russian, I’m excellent with textiles, I can cook…” Your words started picking up speed the more defensive you became. “I can identify archival runway pieces by touch alone and apparently none of that matters because I’ve walked half the city today handing these out and nobody wants them.”

You held the paper up accusingly. “I spent thirteen ninety-five printing these,” you informed him bitterly. “I’ve essentially been robbed in broad daylight by a copy shop.”

Perry shrugged without sympathy. “Why didn’t you print them here?”

You blinked. “What?”

“You can print things here for free.” He gestured vaguely around the office. “Long as I don’t catch you.”

Your jaw almost dropped. “Do you think I’d be dressed like this,” you hissed, motioning at the thrifted sunglasses and baseball cap currently destroying your style, “if I wanted to be seen entering this building?”

Perry narrowed his eyes slowly. “Right. Because my employees are apparently hunting you for sport.”

“Well…let’s keep all allegations hypothetical,” you muttered quickly. “I can’t afford a defamation lawsuit right now.”

“I was wondering why everyone turned their morning deadlines in on time,” he mused casually while taking a copy, handing the rest back to you and moving toward his desk.

You snatched them from his hand, removed the sunglasses fully and stared at him in disbelief. “So?”

Perry sat down heavily in his chair and looked over the résumé one more time with surprising attentiveness. “Visually? They’re fine,” he admitted. “You clearly know presentation but experience matters and right now you don’t have much of it.”

Your shoulders dropped slightly despite yourself.

“At your age, you’re missing about three years of practical work history,” he continued. “Nobody knows what to do with somebody whose qualifications are expensive taste and multilingualism.”

“That feels reductive.”

“It’s accurate.” He pointed at the paper. “Still, somebody’ll eventually take a chance on you. So keep trying.”

You nodded slowly even though the advice felt deeply unsatisfying considering you had hoped for a magical answer involving immediate employment and maybe free soup. “Great,” you muttered flatly. “Fantastic. Thank you for your wisdom, chief.”

You gathered that copy back into your stack and turned toward the door but paused before opening it, pointing sharply at him. “I was never here.”

Perry shrugged.

“And open a damn window or light a candle,” you added while wrinkling your nose. “This office smells like cigar ash and expired ambition and it’s seeping into your cashmere blend vest.”

You opened the door. Behind you, Perry looked down at his vest suspiciously before pinching the fabric between two fingers and lifting it to his nose. He frowned immediately.

“You’re not the boss of me,” he called out defensively.

“Clearly not,” you replied over your shoulder. “Since I lack experience.”

Then you shut the door behind you and immediately inhaled deeply once you hit the hallway again, the comparatively fresh air feeling heavenly against your lungs.

“Fuck,” you muttered under your breath while adjusting your cap lower over your face. “I need a cigarette.” And with that, you started toward the elevators again using the long route, peeking carefully around corners and avoiding the bullpen as if you were escaping federal surveillance.

Once you reached the elevator, you jabbed the button for your floor with enough force to suggest betrayal. Then you waited, very impatiently. Your leg bounced violently beneath your dress while you stared at the glowing numbers overhead as if hatred alone might drag the elevator upward faster. It sat one floor below yours for several agonizing seconds before finally groaning into motion and honestly, if modern technology had emotions, this elevator absolutely resented you personally.

When the doors finally slid open, the cab stood empty before you and relief hit immediately…clean, beautiful relief.

You stepped inside at once, pressed the button for the lobby and turned toward the doors while exhaling slowly through your nose. Your mission was almost over, you had survived the bullpen, Perry’s office, several near heart attacks and prolonged exposure to this baseball cap, which still felt spiritually offensive every time you remembered it was in contact with your scalp. Honestly, the possibility of lice had started sounding less upsetting than seeing your own reflection in it again.

The doors started closing and victory sat right there, just inches away…when a broad hand shot between the narrowing gap and stopped both metal panels with terrifying precision before they could meet fully in the center, the alignment so exact your mathematician father would’ve probably wet his pants at the mere sight of it.

Clark…of course.

He stepped inside calmly, pressed the button beside yours and took his place next to you while the doors résuméd closing before you both with a soft mechanical sigh that sounded suspiciously smug.

You were failing, catastrophically.

Your skin still felt sticky from the heavily scented lotion you’d practically bathed in before leaving your apartment, your dress scratched faintly against your waist because it hadn’t gone through your usual cleaner and your scalp had started itching beneath the cap approximately three minutes after putting it on. Your heart beat hard enough to qualify as a public announcement and the worst part, truly the very worst part, was that Clark could hear every single humiliating thud of it.

You adjusted your posture immediately and hugged the stack of résumés tighter against your chest.

“Hi,” Clark said softly. He kept his eyes ahead, which somehow made everything worse. He wasn’t looking at you because he clearly suspected direct eye contact might make you combust.

“‘Wassup,” you answered. The word felt disgusting leaving your mouth. Hell, you heard it yourself and apparently Clark did too because his head turned toward you almost instantly, confusion flashing across his face before he managed to hide it.

Clark looked you over as discreetly as possible. You smelled different, that itself was unfamiliar. Your perfume usually arrived before you did, expensive, soft and undeniably you. Now you smelled aggressively floral, like somebody had panicked inside a department store cosmetics aisle. Your dress looked less polished too, the fabric sitting differently across your body and…

“You’re wearing flats,” he noted carefully. Then his eyes lifted. “And a cap.”

His tone carried the same cautious concern people used while approaching injured deer beside highways.

“I’m aware,” you replied quickly and moved the résumés behind your back at once.

Clark’s brows lifted for half a second. “Has the vintage hat factory exploded?”

Your chest rose briefly. Fuck! There it was, that awful almost-laugh. Any other day, you would’ve laughed immediately and very loudly too. You knew it…Clark knew it and he also knew that you knew he knew it and suddenly the elevator felt approximately the size of a coffin.

“Funny,” you muttered flatly.

“What are you hiding?” he asked as he angled slightly, trying to look around you without making it obvious. He could’ve asked why you were acting suspicious. Why you were dressed like a woman evading both the media and tax fraud allegations and why you smelled so differently and looked exhausted and had avoided him for days but Clark knew you.

If you were hiding something, pressing too hard would only make you dig your heels in deeper…well, metaphorically speaking today since you lacked them. 

“Nothing,” you answered immediately. “Can you be normal for two seconds?” You turned and stabbed the elevator button again, once, twice and three times. “Why isn’t it moving?”

Despite every instinct warning him not to pry, Clark’s eyes dropped toward the stack behind your back anyway and widened almost immediately once he caught sight of the papers by using his annoyingly accurate x-ray vision.

“Are those résumés?”

You groaned and whipped toward him so fast the cap nearly slipped off your head again. “What the hell did you do to the elevator?” you demanded.

“Nothing.” Clark shrugged far too innocently.

You pointed aggressively toward him. “Clark Jonathan Kent, I swear to God if you’re making yourself heavier again to keep me trapped in here, I will scream so loud this entire building’s going to think we’re–”

“Are you looking for a job?” he interrupted and tried very hard not to sound stunned.

Unfortunately for you, Clark was absolutely making himself heavier, carefully enough so the elevator wouldn’t immediately fail but enough to stall the mechanism between floors. If he admitted that out loud, however, he’d also have to acknowledge the fact you had just used his full name and that alone threatened to turn his face pink and this was not the time to blush.

You stared at him, momentarily thrown by the question despite the fact you should’ve expected him to figure it out eventually. He could probably locate hidden government files by accident so hiding a stack of résumés behind your back inside a four-foot elevator never stood a chance.

“Can you not say it like that?”

He frowned. “Like what?”

“Like that,” you said immediately, motioning vaguely between the two of you. “With that weird inflection between the O and the B. It’s a job…Jobs are normal. I’m twenty-five, I should have a job. Jobs are good.”

The word started sounding less convincing every time you repeated it. You ripped the baseball cap off your head and crushed it in your hand with visible resentment.

Clark looked genuinely concerned now. “Why are you saying job so many times?”

You scoffed instantly. “Why are you saying it so many times?” Then you folded your arms tightly over the résumés before turning away from him altogether. “You already have one,” you muttered. “Respect the rest of us suffering through unemployment.”

He went quiet for a moment and you could practically hear him thinking, carefully choosing words the same way bomb squads approached suspicious wires.

“Why do you need a job?” he asked gently.

“Stop saying it like that,” you mumbled firmly.

He nodded once, considering again. Honestly, if preserving your dignity required him accepting responsibility for the weird tone, he would gladly take the fall.

“Okay,” he agreed softly. “Why do you need a J-O-B…question mark.”

You took a deep breath, mostly to buy yourself time, jaw tightening as the word landed anyway, spelled out and unavoidable. Smartass.

A believable lie required structure, confidence too and preferably less panic than whatever currently ricocheted through your nervous system every time Clark looked at you for longer than three consecutive seconds.

“Well…” you began carefully. “In an effort to become less like my mother, despite apparently inheriting her relationship with fashion at a genetic level, I’ve decided I won’t be financially supported by a man or a trust fund.” You nodded once, firmly and professionally. “So in order to fund my lifestyle, broaden my horizons and meet new people I can eventually classify as friends, I’m pursuing employment.”

There. Short, controlled and surface-level enough to survive scrutiny.

Clark nodded slowly, though his expression didn’t relax. He repeated your explanation silently in his head while watching you. You looked exhausted beneath the sarcasm and defensive posture, your heart still hammered unevenly against your ribs, fast enough he noticed immediately because he had spent years memorizing the ordinary sounds of you without really meaning to. Usually your heartbeat steadied around him but right now it stumbled all over itself.

So he chose his next words carefully. “What do you need from me?”

“Nothing.” You shook your head immediately. “Besides making yourself lighter and letting me off this elevator.”

Clark’s eyes stayed on you anyway because unsurprisingly, he needed more. More honesty, more explanation and more than the polished little speech you had clearly assembled out of panic and stubbornness five seconds earlier. Unfortunately, you didn’t know what you could give him without everything else spilling out afterward.

“I’m an independent woman, Clark.”

“Asking for help doesn’t mean you aren’t.”

You ignored that entirely. “I’m figuring things out,” you continued quickly. “I’m making mistakes and that’s okay. You don’t need to constantly save me like you do everyone else.”

Clark’s face softened almost immediately. “You’ve never needed me for that.”

“Exactly.” You nodded at once, relieved to finally grab onto one sentence that didn’t emotionally threaten you. “Great. Wonderful…we agree on something.” You turned and pointed sharply toward the elevator doors. “Can we also agree this thing needs to move?”

Clark didn’t even glance toward them. “Did you get your phone back?”

“Nope,” you answered, popping the P with excessive innocence…about three seconds before your phone rang loudly inside your purse.

The silence afterward turned catastrophic. Clark’s eyes dropped instantly toward the sound and you watched the exact moment suspicion crossed his face. Knowing him, he was probably already using x-ray vision in the name of friendship, concern and gross violations of personal privacy disguised as emotional support.

You swallowed. “It’s borrowed.”

The elevator lurched suddenly back into motion and your stomach dropped with it. You stared ahead while the floor numbers flickered downward one by one and tried very hard not to think too deeply about anything currently happening in your life. You didn’t know what you were doing anymore. You just knew you wanted your existence to belong to you fully, not to your parents or Clark, or to the humiliating orbit of longing and avoidance and pretending everything felt simpler than it actually did.

Beside you, Clark stood painfully still. He was trying hard to be gentle with you, careful and patient while every instinct in him wanted to push harder, ask better questions, solve the problem immediately and carry half your life upstairs himself if necessary but he kept forcing those instincts down because you clearly needed room to stand on your own feet.

Even if those feet currently wore flats.

The ride down passed in silence.

Once the elevator reached the lobby, you stepped out immediately and Clark followed close behind. The building entrance stood only a few feet away now, late afternoon sunlight bleeding faintly through the glass doors while people crossed outside along the sidewalk.

Clark stayed behind you with both hands shoved into his pockets, head lowered slightly as he watched his shoes move across the lobby floor.

You turned toward him before you could lose your nerve and tried not to be dramatic about it either. Your dress barely moved with you. Good, this moment did not deserve cinematic elegance.

He looked up immediately and straightened. God, he looked so hopeful…your sweet, terrible Clark.

You inhaled deeply and forced the words out fast before your survival instincts convinced you to flee. “I found out my parents have been paying for my apartment.” Your throat tightened immediately but you kept going. “Which means they’ve known where I’ve been living this entire time.”

Clark opened his mouth but you cut him off before he could speak.

“Not only that,” you continued quickly, “they’ve been doing so while I spent the past year struggling to make rent every month.” You laughed once, dry and humorless. “Rent I wouldn’t have been able to afford anyway, apparently.” Your grip tightened around the résumés. “So I have to move.”

He couldn’t keep quiet anymore and reacted instantly. “I’ll go get my things,” he said without hesitation, already motioning back toward the elevators. “We can have you packed and moved into my place tonight.”

You shook your head before he even finished. “No. Absolutely not.” Your voice stayed calm, which honestly made the refusal feel worse somehow. “This is the part where you tell me ‘good luck’ and I go deal with my own issues by myself.”

Clark’s expression tightened slowly, every word visibly hurting him. “This doesn’t have to be me saving you,” he said carefully. “Just think about it as a storage unit and a spare bed.”

You almost laughed at that. Almost. “Like I said, Clark, I’m not turning into my mother.” Your voice softened slightly. “I’ll figure it out.” Then you pointed toward him. “I’m only telling you because eventually you would’ve kicked down the door to my apartment after I moved out and traumatized the next tenant while he showered beside his turkey bacon.”

Clark blinked hard, face scrunching in confusion. “What?”

“My shower is placed three feet from the stove,” you explained flatly. “I never let you inside because you physically do not fit in that apartment.” You gestured vaguely with one hand now that the confession had started rolling downhill against your will. “I have so many clothes in there that I'm forced to sleep between the window and my fur coats.”

Clark stared at you silently. You pointed at him again before he could say anything compassionate and devastating. “I found that place without help and I’ll find the next one without help too. Financial or otherwise.” You paused briefly, fingers tightening around the crushed baseball cap still hanging from your hand. “I’ll text you the new address when it’s done…”

“From your…borrowed phone,” He guessed carefully, except the phone wasn’t borrowed. 

He had already seen the case while snooping in your purse, the half a photograph tucked beneath the plastic casing. The two of you crammed together inside some photo booth months ago, your face angled toward his while he looked hopelessly distracted by you instead of the camera.

Clark owned the other half. It sat beneath a magnet on his fridge beside grocery lists, takeout menus and a new postcard from his Ma that he still hadn’t answered.

You nodded anyway. “And it’s not an invitation,” you clarified quickly, backing up another small step across the lobby floor. “No showing up at my door with baked goods or brisket or emotionally supportive side dishes.” Your mouth twitched faintly despite everything. “It’s literally just a ‘don’t panic, I’m alive’ situation.”

He watched your face carefully, eyes following your movement.

“You deserve that much.” Your eyes had started watering and you clearly didn’t realize it yet. You kept retreating slowly toward the glass doors while speaking, like your body had already committed to leaving several minutes before the rest of you emotionally caught up. “You actually deserve a lot better than me not having the balls to text you back,” you admitted quietly.

The sniffle afterward nearly stopped Clark’s heart outright. He followed instinctively when you stepped backward again, brows pulling together while he tried to understand where exactly the conversation had collapsed into this. Five minutes ago you were arguing about jobs and elevators and now you looked like somebody standing too close to the edge of a cliff pretending not to notice the drop beneath them.

“And I’ve been really mean to you,” you continued quickly before he could interrupt. “Which honestly feels unfair in retrospect because the elevator weight thing was uncalled for but it also was at the playground when you did it on the seesaw and forced me to experience genuine frustration for the first time in my life.”

Clark blinked once as he nodded at your words because he simply did not know what else to do.

You pointed accusingly through glossy eyes. “I’m serious. I hated that…both times.” Your voice wavered harder now. “And I’m experiencing it again currently so maybe raise your standards for me a little and get angry already, so it’s easier for me to ignore you.” You sniffed hard and motioned vaguely back toward the elevators. “Go back upstairs, go to work and be emotionally responsible while I figure my life out.” 

Then you pointed directly at yourself. “Me. By myself.”

Oh. Clark saw it immediately then, it sat all over your face beneath the mascara and stubbornness and trembling composure you were trying desperately to maintain and the realization hit him so hard his stomach turned violently. 

You were preparing to disappear.

You had already done this once before with your parents. You ran when things became unbearable, untangled yourself quietly and figured everything out afterward from somewhere nobody could reach you, except this time the emotion underneath wasn’t anger, it was grief, deep enough Clark couldn’t even locate the bottom of it.

His hand lifted instinctively toward you before stopping midway because suddenly he didn’t know what would happen if he touched you right now. Whether you’d stay or break apart completely or apologize for crying while doing both simultaneously, so he hesitated and that hesitation cost him.

You turned before the tears could fully fall and walked toward the doors with your chin lifted stubbornly high despite the shine gathering in your eyes. Sunlight hit briefly across your face once the glass doors opened and Clark stood rooted in place watching you leave while every instinct inside him screamed to follow.

But you had asked for space and Clark Kent loved you enough to let that request wound him.

The doors closed behind you as Clark stared at them another second before dragging one hand over his face slowly, breathing hard through the pressure building in his chest.

He needed to find a replacement for those shoes…and he needed to do it fast.

You honestly didn’t know how you ended up back at the Talon.

Somewhere between forcing unwilling business owners to accept your résumé and deciding flats technically transformed walking into a financially responsible decision, your body had apparently chosen the destination for you. Cabs cost money and money had become an abstract luxury reserved for people with employment, stable emotional conditions and refrigerators containing more than expired yogurt and half a lemon you kept pretending still had purpose.

By the time you reached the Talon, the sky had darkened fully and your feet hurt in that dull, persistent manner reserved for long days and bad weeks. The baseball cap remained shoved bitterly into your purse where it belonged and the stack of résumés beneath your arm had started curling at the corners from overhandling. Honestly, the pages looked exhausted too.

The guy working the tiny booth in the hallway barely glanced up before holding out his hand automatically. “Phone and ten bucks.”

You ignored both requests completely.

“I’m not staying,” you assured him while flashing the stack of résumés at chest level like legal documentation. “I just need to leave one at the bar and then I’m gone.”

The poor man looked at you, looked at the papers and then made the deeply reasonable decision not to get involved in whatever emotional catastrophe this clearly was.

The second you stepped inside, the atmosphere hit you all over again.

The Talon wasn’t large but it clearly didn’t need to be. Noise packed the room tighter than furniture ever could. People crowded around tiny tables balancing cheap drinks and louder conversations while cigarette smoke clung stubbornly to the ceiling despite several very obvious fire regulations being violated simultaneously. Somebody laughed too hard near the back wall and glass clinked somewhere beside the stage. The room carried that warm, restless energy unique to bars filled with people trying not to go home yet.

As you moved toward the mostly abandoned bar, Susie’s voice cut sharply through the crowd.

“We don’t want your godawful impressions out there tonight,” she snapped.

You glanced toward the stage area just in time to see her physically withholding the microphone from a lanky man arguing passionately about his time slot. “You said I had ten minutes!”

“I’ll respect your ten minutes when the place is empty and I stop paying electrical bills,” Susie shot back while shoving past him. “Next time bring a guitar or a visible talent.”

The man continued protesting behind her while Susie marched toward the bar muttering to herself under her breath with the exhausted fury of somebody one inconvenience away from arson.

You slipped onto a stool near the end of the counter and quickly lowered your stack of résumés onto the bartop, trying to hide them beneath your arm before she noticed…too late.

“If you’re here to ask for the secret behind my financial success, we’re gonna need to reschedule,” Susie said while stepping behind the bar, then her eyes landed on the papers. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.” You exhaled heavily and rested your forehead briefly against your hand. “I’d ask for a drink but unfortunately I’m currently participating in poverty.”

Somebody beside you elbowed your arm while reaching for peanuts and you moved farther down the stool with visible annoyance.

Susie looked down at the résumés again, then toward the stage…and then back at you.

Her scheduled act had apparently vanished, the crowd noise had started thinning near the entrance and Susie possessed the survival instincts of a raccoon guarding trash behind a casino. She recognized a crisis immediately.

“Get up there.”

You blinked. “What?”

She grabbed the microphone from beneath the counter and dropped it directly in front of you. 

“I thought I made myself very clear when I said I’m not a comic.”

“Yeah, I remember that part.” Susie nodded. “I also remember the part where you said you don’t have a job.” She lifted your stack of résumés in one hand like a police officer displaying evidence to a jury. “And from the looks of this little tragedy,” she continued, shaking the papers once, “you need one. Or at least money.”

Her eyes widened pointedly at you, aggressively fishing for common sense. “So get your ass onstage. You save my ass tonight and I won't take a cut of your earnings.”

You looked toward the stage.

A few people sat scattered around the tiny tables beneath the dim lights. Somebody near the front laughed drunkenly at absolutely nothing. One woman smoked with the exhausted posture of somebody midway through a divorce and the microphone stand looked deeply judgmental under the spotlight.

Then you looked back at Susie and shook your head immediately. “I can’t go up there.”

“Why?” Susie frowned. “Because you’re emotionally stable?”

“No,” you answered honestly. “Because I’m sober and a coward.”

Susie stared at you for one second before turning away and returned with a shot glass. “Not water,” she informed you while setting it down firmly in front of you. “And it’s on the house if you get your tits up there.” Then she pointed vaguely toward your chest. “Without showing them this time, preferably.”

You blinked hard, almost insulted because…well, your tits were great. “Preferably?”

“Unless you want to.” Susie shrugged. “Modern times.”

You looked down at the vodka shot. Honestly, your entire life had already collapsed enough today that adding alcohol and public humiliation into the equation barely registered anymore. The worst thing that could happen was bombing in front of strangers and currently strangers already rejected you professionally across half of Metropolis.

You grabbed the glass and threw it back immediately.

The vodka burned straight down your throat and settled violently in your stomach like a threat from the gods themselves.

Liquid courage…or mild poisoning. It really depended on perspective.

You swallowed hard, grabbed the microphone and pointed at Susie with it. “Do I still get paid if nobody laughs?”

Susie shook her head and shrugged at the exact same time. “Bold of you to assume there’ll be money either way.”

You exhaled once before leaving the bar, walking onto the stage and immediately regretted possessing legs.

The platform barely lifted you two feet above the room but somehow that tiny elevation transformed every person in the club into a potential witness against you. Most people didn’t even look up right away. A couple near the back kept arguing over cigarettes, somebody laughed too loudly at the bar and one man sat fully sideways in his chair.

You stood there gripping the microphone with both hands and looked at them all. To the tired eyes, cheap drinks, wrinkled collars, women fixing lipstick in reflective spoons and the men pretending they weren’t staring at those women while staring hard enough to develop migraines. 

Nobody in the room looked carefree and nobody looked untouched by life either and suddenly your own humiliation stopped feeling that special.

Tonight, you weren’t jealous, you weren’t even angry…you were just another failure.

“I’m twenty-five and I’ve never had a job.” The microphone carried your voice farther than expected and slowly, conversation around the room began thinning. Heads turned toward you one by one, curiosity spreading unevenly through the crowd.

You nodded once as the silence settled heavier. “I’m twenty-five,” you repeated carefully. “And I’ll probably be homeless by the end of the week whether or not I find one.”

A few people laughed instinctively before realizing you weren’t technically joking yet, the silence afterward felt enormous.

You looked briefly toward the back wall instead of directly at anybody because if you made eye contact too early, you might actually die onstage and honestly that would create paperwork for everyone involved.

“Any of you ever run away from home?” 

A voice answered immediately somewhere near the back. “Yeah!”

You pointed toward them. “See? Thank you.” You paced once across the tiny stage, warming into the movement. “Whether your family was rich, poor, loving, terrible, emotionally constipated or weirdly obsessed with matching Christmas pajamas, running still means the same thing.” You shrugged lightly. “It just comes with different branded luggage.”

A few chuckles rippled through the room.

“I found out recently my parents have secretly been paying for my apartment.” You paused. “An apartment I have personally been struggling to pay for over a year.”

That statement got attention. “Oh yeah,” you nodded. “No, I was suffering. I sold shoes…purses and dresses I genuinely loved.” Your hand flew dramatically to your chest. “Do you understand the psychological warfare involved in selling a vintage Dior piece to make rent and then seeing some woman named Brenda wear it with orthopedic sandals?” The crowd burst into laughter.

“I struggled every month trying to pay twelve hundred dollars for what I genuinely believed was the most decent two-hundred-square-foot shoebox in Midtown Metropolis.” You held your fingers out narrowly. “And by shoebox, I mean if I inhale too deeply near the window, I get a whiff from the sewers down the street and the smell clings to the walls and develops over time like Eau de Parfum…It’s French…but the smell isn’t.” Laughter spread louder now. “The front door to the building stays broken eleven months out of the year. Not consecutively either….It’s better when it’s random…It keeps you humble.” You nodded seriously. “And the elevator worked once.”

People laughed already, sensing the rhythm now. “One time. One singular glorious morning after Friendsgiving.” You lifted one finger. “I got inside carrying leftovers and suddenly the machine discovered ambition.” You pointed toward the ceiling. “That elevator moved with purpose. It had dreams of grandeur…Also French.”

The room erupted.

“And then it died forever.” You spread your arms. “Gone. It never moved again and honestly? Looking back I should’ve taken more mashed potatoes because if I’d gotten trapped in there longer I could’ve sued the building and financially recovered.”

People barked laughter around the room now, shoulders shaking into drinks and tables.

“Instead,” you continued, leaning lightly against the mic stand, “my landlord Garrett keeps raising rent while smelling aggressively like blue cheese and unpaid child support.” The laughter exploded harder. “Oh, Garrett…” You sighed deeply. “Have I mentioned I got sent to etiquette classes growing up?”

A few groans of recognition came from women around the room. “Oh, you know.” You pointed immediately. “See? Survivors…all in the same place.” You straightened your posture instantly into stiff perfection. “They teach young girls how to sit upright.” You demonstrated elegantly. “How to crouch while wearing dresses if you drop something.” You bent carefully at the knees with mechanical precision while people laughed. “And of course they teach you how to keep your legs closed before marriage.”

You paused. “Curiously, they never teach boys this skill despite the fact every man on earth sits like his balls contain classified government documents requiring airflow.”

The room detonated and half the men immediately corrected their posture while women laughed loud enough to rattle glasses.

“They also teach us how to politely request services.” You smiled tightly. “‘Pretty please, may I see proof you’re robbing me blind?’” More laughter rolled through the room while you paced farther from the microphone stand now, confidence slowly overtaking panic.

“Because half the tenants are moving out after Garrett raised rent from like…” You tilted your head thoughtfully. “Two thousand dollars to almost three.” The crowd groaned. “Exactly.” You pointed. “And the place is falling apart. I mean, I shower three feet from my stove.”

People laughed already. “No, no, no. I’m serious.” You held up your hand solemnly. “One time I dropped conditioner into boiling pasta and genuinely considered whether a bay leaf might save it.” The room burst apart again. “Because it adds that…you know…and if you don’t, trust that the bay leaf does know.”

You paused, soaking in the laughter. “Only take that risk when inviting terrible people over obviously…” You nodded thoughtfully. “Like parents.”

People laughed and applauded simultaneously. “Not that mine ever visited,” you continued quickly. “The window for reconciliation closed somewhere around the fifth hidden rent payment.”

You could feel the room wasn’t just listening but also leaning in, even the people near the bar had stopped talking over you entirely. “Meanwhile Garrett lives beautifully.” You sighed dramatically. “Whole building’s collapsing but this man owns leather furniture and places sports bets like he’s funding organized crime.” 

You looked out over the room. “Who’s losing next week?”

“Gotham Ravens!” several people shouted immediately.

“Oh really?” Your face lit up maliciously. “That actually improves my evening because I placed ten grand on Garrett’s behalf that they’d win.”

The room exploded into screaming laughter and you lifted both hands immediately in surrender. “What? I had to get my money’s worth somehow!” You defended yourself through laughter. “And before anybody judges me, understand this happened during an emotionally charged moment involving his laptop, some crushed fingers…my heel, his phone…also crushed, by the way and the power of feminine rage.”

Somebody near the front almost choked laughing. “We’ll find out the results soon enough.” You nodded seriously. “Either he comes downstairs demanding money or he collapses so hard onto his floor that I hear the echo of empty pockets from my apartment.”

By now people were clapping between laughs. You breathed it in, actually and almost stupidly so, breathed it in. The fear had started melting somewhere around the pasta joke and now every reaction from the crowd hit your chest like oxygen after days underwater.

“I don’t know if any of you were here the other night when I accidentally publicly spiraled about Mr. Kent.”

Several people cheered loudly. Your eyes widened. “Oh my God.” You pointed accusingly. “So you’re all alcoholics, ‘cause that was barely seventy-two hours ago and you’re still wearing the same shirt.”

The room roared and people turned fully toward the stage now, even bartenders paused to listen. “I tried ignoring him.” You nodded seriously. “Very maturely too…I avoided texts and calls…I changed detergent and perfumes like I was fleeing the mafia...Yeah, very mature.”

Laughter crashed immediately. “But unfortunately I ended up at his workplace today after a long sequence of humiliations involving résumés and a baseball cap that made me look like I sold counterfeit cigarettes behind gas stations.” You mimed the cap and the room erupted again. “And somehow we got trapped in an elevator together.”

Whistles shot through the room instantly.

“Not like that.” You pointed sharply. “Although honestly if I die in a confined space, I’d prefer it happen beside a six-foot-four farm boy built like God lost restraint halfway through.”

The laughter turned almost violent and you bent slightly over the microphone, laughing too now.

“No because this man looked at my résumés like I’d confessed to crimes against humanity.” You shook your head. “He’s seen me wear dresses and heels to a farm…while sitting on hay bales like a deeply impractical Disney princess.” People clapped laughing. “He knows I don’t work!” you continued. “And somehow him finding out I needed a job made me more worried...and him even more handsome too.”

You widened your eyes dramatically.

“This man offered to house me, immediately. Practically offered financial sponsorship because apparently he believes Superman can save humanity but not society after I repeat an outfit publicly.” The room exploded. “And the worst part?” You laughed breathlessly. “I should’ve been offended…I wanted to be offended.”

You paused. “But then he looked at me with those stupid puppy-dog eyes and suddenly I started considering becoming a housewife…”

Groans and screams erupted everywhere, you laughed so hard you had to step away from the mic briefly.

“By choice! Which makes all the difference but still…It was humiliating.” You pressed your hand against your chest. “I practically collapsed right there near his perfectly polished shoes.”

Then you pointed firmly. “Which I will not be shining.”

The crowd cheered. “Guys, please.” You lifted your hands innocently. “I couldn’t even afford the vodka shot that got me up here. I need this manicure to survive the recession.”

You held your hands up while laughter rolled again and again through the room, then your expression softened slightly. “In that moment…” You exhaled carefully. “Him and my parents suddenly sounded the exact same to me.”

The room quieted instinctively.

“Not morally,” you added quickly. “Fuck no. My parents say it with old-money misogyny. Like true modern-day monsters.” You widened your eyes. “He says it like a golden retriever who accidentally gained muscles on his way to fetch the ball.” The room erupted again. 

“But still.” Your voice lowered slightly. “What happens when the monster loves you?”

A few murmurs drifted through the room now.

“No, seriously.” You paced slowly. “Whether it’s parents forcing a future onto you or a gorgeous farm boy asking you to move next door…” You shrugged lightly. “What are you supposed to do? Keep running? Stay close and hope love magically stops hurting?”

The room stayed quiet enough to hear glasses clink. You eventually sighed.

“Although honestly when the farm boy has broad shoulders and arms the size of civil engineering projects, your pulse starts relocating south and critical thinking becomes difficult.” 

The room lost its collective mind. People shouted, whistled and hit tables while laughing and you stood there grinning helplessly while the noise swallowed the room whole.

“That’s my issue!” you defended yourself through laughter. “Every time I almost develop emotional maturity, the gods send me a man shaped like good decisions and even better sex.”

The applause came immediately. You shook your head dramatically.

“If I had a nickel for every time that thought process improved my life financially–” You looked around the room slowly. “Well, obviously I wouldn’t be here begging strangers for rent money!”

The laughter rolled through the Talon one final time while somebody passed around the tip basket near the front. “Unlike Garrett,” you added quickly, pointing at it, “please contribute willingly.”

People applauded while dropping bills inside.

You looked out over the room then, properly this time. You stared at the smiling faces, at the people wiping tears from laughing so hard and at the way bodies turned fully toward you and for the first time in weeks, maybe months, you didn’t feel invisible.

“Thank you,” you said softly, still smiling through the adrenaline. “Seriously…and goodnight!”

The roll of applause hit all at once, it was loud and immediate. Truly genuine as it swallowed the room so completely you almost forgot to breathe while standing there beneath the lights, soaking it in with stunned eyes before finally glancing toward the bar.

Susie stood there applauding too as she gave you one sharp nod.

You smiled at her and returned it. 

You’d worry about your living situation once your ears stopped ringing from the applause. You’d maybe think about texting Clark back eventually too, though you were certain that loaded task required hydration, sleep and at least one controlled nervous breakdown beforehand. 

But if this was what happened after spending months begging to be seen, then maybe you should seriously consider investing in better hats…bigger ones preferably. Because if you kept talking like this, there was a very real possibility the entire city might start looking back at you…instead of up.

A/N: If you enjoyed this story, feel free to explore the archive for more! Liking and reblogging helps others discover my writing and comments always make my day, they’re a huge encouragement for me to keep creating. Thank you so much for reading!

You walked.

That was apparently your great talent now…walking. Walking away from bars, from conversations and from Clark standing on sidewalks looking at you as though he could still fix things if he just chose the right sentence. 

Your eyes stayed unfocused on the crowd ahead of you while every muscle in your body held tension from the night before, your shoulders were stiff and your jaw sore from clenching it for hours without noticing. Metropolis moved around you at its usual merciless pace with horns blaring, women in pencil skirts marching to offices with coffee cups clutched like weapons and businessmen smoking outside newspaper stands and you drifted through all of it with the vague sensation that you had forgotten how to occupy your own body correctly.

Your steps finally slowed several blocks later when your attention snagged on a storefront window and there she was.

The dress stood on a mannequin beneath soft yellow lighting, navy blue with a full flowing skirt that dipped perfectly at the waist before spilling outward in expensive, dramatic folds. Pink details lined the collar, delicate enough to feel intentional instead of childish. Beside it sat the matching handbag and a hat perched at a jaunty angle that immediately summoned Ricky’s voice in your head.

‘Thank fuck someone convinced you not to wear those fucking hats of yours.’

You stared harder at the shoes…Now those were necessary, absolutely necessary.

You looked down at your own heels, the former Prada casualties of emotional devastation and sewer grates and narrowed your eyes thoughtfully. A woman could survive heartbreak, she could survive public intoxication, temporary imprisonment and accidental topless comedy but surviving ugly shoes? That was where dignity truly died.

You turned sharply, giving the storefront your back before your brain could start writing checks your bank account would mail back wrapped in funeral black. You had forty-five dollars and sticky coins. The phrase alone should’ve been enough to drag you toward financial responsibility because nothing about that outfit whispered good decision, it screamed future problem. So you forced yourself to keep walking, merging into the current of pedestrians and focusing on the back of whoever walked ahead of you.

Left foot, right foot…left foot…Don’t turn around.

So how, exactly, did you end up back in front of the same store twenty minutes later?

You stood there breathing hard, offended with yourself. “Predatory,” you muttered at the mannequin. “This is entrapment.”

Two hours later, after a quick shower in the boutique’s absurdly luxurious private dressing quarters, a fresh face of makeup and an entirely new outfit wrapped around your body with sinful perfection, you stepped back onto the street with your skirt flowing around your legs and your confidence artificially reconstructed by tailoring and lipstick.

Your eyes dropped toward the receipt in your hand. It read eight hundred fifty-one dollars and thirty-three cents. The amount was circled…Underlined, even.

You had needed to provide your address, your ID and what felt spiritually equivalent to a kidney before they finally allowed you to leave with it on. The saleswoman had smiled at you the entire time too, which made it worse. People should not look that elegant while financially ruining strangers.

Still, you looked incredible and if there was one thing your mother had accidentally taught you well, it was that devastation became significantly more manageable in a good outfit.

You folded the receipt and shoved it deep into your purse where numbers couldn’t hurt you anymore. You’d figure it out, you always did.

The taxi downtown cost another twenty dollars, which almost made you ask the driver to hit you with the cab instead but at least you remembered the name of the club.

The Talon looked completely different sober.

During daylight, the place lost most of its mystery. The neon sign appeared smaller, the stairs even steeper, the hallway narrower and considerably less glamorous than your drunken memory had painted it. You marched downstairs anyway, your new heels clicking sharply against the concrete, crossed through the hallway and stopped at the tiny window where the cigarette-smoking guy had been stationed the night before.

It was closed so you didn’t bother knocking. You just walked inside, oddly relieved you weren’t ten dollars poorer for the privilege.

“Hello?” you called out as your heels echoed through the empty club.

The smell hit first, it was a mix of stale alcohol, old smoke and industrial cleaner losing a long battle against decades of bad decisions. Then came the floor itself, tacky beneath your heels as you moved toward the stage, which looked smaller now and less magical. Without the crowd, without the laughter and lights blinding you into bravery, the stage barely reached your waist.

Strange how a platform could feel enormous one night and pathetic the next.

“What’s with the hat?”

You yelped, body whipping around so fast your purse smacked against your hip as you found the bartender from last night standing behind you carrying a large tub of glasses. Her eyes traveled slowly over your outfit, her expression caught somewhere between suspicion and slight disgust.

Your hand flew immediately to the top of your hat before you slowly removed it.

Satisfied, she walked past you toward the bar without another word and after one awkward second of standing there alone, you hurried after her. “Hi, uh…I’m–”

“Mrs. Kent,” she guessed immediately. The tub landed on the bartop with a loud clatter of glass against glass, before she pulled one out and started drying it casually while you approached.

“I took a cut of your earnings last night,” she informed you, motioning vaguely toward the stage with the towel. “Considering I coached you into getting a slot for that performance of yours.”

You laughed nervously and adjusted your grip on your purse. “I had low expectations anyway, so…” You shrugged weakly.

“Did you get enough to get home?”

“I assume not.” Your mouth flattened into a tight line. “Considering I woke up in a holding cell.”

You watched as she burst into laughter so suddenly she had to brace herself against the counter, shoulders shaking violently while she pointed at you with the glass still in hand. “You thought those cops were strippers, it was fucking hilarious.”

Your entire face drained. “I didn’t…” Your eyes widened in horror as you pointed urgently toward the stage. “I didn’t get naked up there, did I?”

She followed your finger thoughtfully. “Depends,” she answered carefully. “How well do you take lies?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you breathed, collapsing dramatically onto a bar stool. “When…exactly was that?”

While she talked, you slowly folded inward until your forehead rested on top of your crossed arms against the bartop. If you couldn’t see reality, perhaps reality would lose interest and leave.

“Uh…” She looked toward the ceiling as though replaying events chronologically required divine intervention. “Somewhere between seducing a drunk grandfather at the bar and talking about Mr. Kent for the third time.”

You groaned loudly from your position.

“Nobody could get you off that stage,” she continued cheerfully. “You had to be carried out–”

Your head snapped upward instantly. “Tits out?” you asked, horrified.

“Unfortunately,” she confirmed with a firm nod, studying you carefully afterward, probably checking if you were about to faint. “You could’ve mentioned you were a comic when I asked.”

“I’m sure I could’ve said lots of things,” you muttered, forcing yourself upright again with whatever remained of your dignity. Your hands crossed protectively over your new purse. “And I’m not.”

Her brows furrowed as she gestured toward the stage again. “Then what was that?”

You snorted tiredly. “Heartbreak? I don’t fucking know. I was drunk.”

She shook her head immediately. “You don’t hold a room like that by accident.”

“I exposed myself,” you reminded her, pointing directly at your chest. “There’s nothing accidental about that.”

“You don’t get it.” She tossed the towel over her shoulder and leaned against the bar properly now, watching you with the patience of someone preparing to explain gravity to a particularly stubborn child.

“What’s there to get?” you asked, almost laughing at how serious she suddenly looked standing behind that sticky bar with rolled sleeves, as though she were about to deliver life-altering wisdom instead of liquor recommendations.

She planted both palms on the bartop. “Last night doesn’t happen anymore, definitely not unannounced in shitty bars.”

You blinked at her.

“The business changed,” she continued, now waving the towel vaguely toward the empty stage behind you. “The comics changed. Everybody’s either angry, smug, too politically shallow or trying so hard to sound detached they forget to actually be funny. Nobody gets up there and bleeds anymore.” Her eyes narrowed on you. “Last night you had people crying laughing while simultaneously wanting to fistfight whoever broke your heart. That room defended your stage time like union workers protecting pensions. Last night was special.”

“It was special, alright,” you replied dryly, fiddling absently with the clasp of your purse. “I probably lost one of the most important people in my life and also my phone, which I’d really love to get back considering I cannot financially survive replacing it.”

She pointed suddenly toward your dress. You frowned and looked down…at the still attached tag, hanging there in plain sight beneath the sleeve like a little paper flag announcing financial instability dressed as elegance.

“What’s that then?” She asked, folding her arms.

“Half the reason I can’t afford said new phone,” you muttered, yanking the tag free with enough aggression to qualify as vengeance. “Six hundred and thirty dollars out of my eight hundred fifty-one dollars and thirty-three cents purchase…with tax.” You held the tag up between two fingers. “Which I need to pay back in two weeks or my next fun evening will end with a judge asking if I understand the charges.”

She stared at you for a long second. “Don’t you live in Midtown?”

You nodded cautiously.

“Can you afford that?”

You genuinely considered lying. Your pride stepped up confidently, took one look at your bank account and quietly sat back down. So after half a second, you slowly shook your head.

Her face tightened with fascinated concern, the same expression people wore while approaching raccoons. “What do you do?” she asked.

You frowned. “What do I do?”

“Yeah,” she said impatiently. “When you’re not flashing my customers for cab fare. Work.... employment…taxes? Human suffering under capitalism. Ringing any bells?”

You shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Her voice jumped an octave. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five. I’ve never–”

Her jaw dropped open, actually dropped like in old cartoons. “You’re twenty-five and you’ve never worked?!” The disbelief ricocheted around the club. “How do you live?”

You sighed heavily and rubbed your forehead. “A trust fund.” Then immediately pointed at her. “Could I please get my phone back before this conversation becomes legally humiliating?”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, it just lacked detail…massive detail…catastrophic detail but usually “trust fund” ended conversations nicely because people either got judgmental or jealous and both outcomes usually involved them shutting up eventually.

Apparently the woman before you preferred follow-up questions.

“How much money is in this trust fund?” she muttered while crouching behind the bar to rummage through boxes, her voice muffled beneath the sounds of shifting cardboard and clinking glass. “Because from where I’m standing, it seems to be doing a terrible job at funding your lifestyle.”

“Nobody asked it to perform miracles,” you replied under your breath.

“What’s the point of having a trust fund if you still end up shaking your tits onstage?” she called out.

“Nobody forced me to–”

“You were out of cab money!” she shouted back, emerging from beneath the counter carrying a box overflowing with phones. “Trying to get back to your amazing fucking Midtown apartment–”

“You’re making me sound awful.” You said flatly.

“Great! Because I’m jealous of you!” she shot back immediately, dropping the box onto the counter between you. “You wear stupid hats and six-hundred-dollar dresses and don’t have a job!”

You immediately started digging through the phones. The sooner you found yours, the sooner you could leave. “Why am I digging this deep?” you complained. “I was literally here yesterday.”

“Jackie likes to mix them up,” She answered with a dismissive wave before resuming her rant. “So what, you just tap a card and walk around buying hats all day?”

“Where is my phone?!” you snapped, holding up three identical black flip phones like evidence in a murder trial.

“What date’s on the box?”

“What?”

“There should be a date written somewhere on the side.”

You twisted the box around awkwardly until you found faded marker along the cardboard. “Uh…” Your eyes narrowed. “November…2005?” You looked up slowly. “You had me digging in a graveyard, what the fuck?”

“Oh.” She winced. “Wrong box. Give me that.”

She made a grabby motion with her fingers until you handed it over. Then she crouched again, muttering to herself while digging around under the counter like a woman searching through archaeological ruins instead of club property.

“This place is a fire hazard,” you informed the room.

“No argument here.” A second box appeared above the counter. “Try this one.”

And there it was. Your phone sat right on top of a small mountain of abandoned devices, looking strangely accusatory for an object that had spent the night in storage. You snatched it up immediately and turned it on. It had twenty percent battery and many, many missed calls, texts from Jimmy, Cat…Clark.

Your thumb hesitated before tapping into the thread and the deeper you scrolled, the worse your stomach felt.

Where are you?

Please answer.

Jimmy said you left alone.

I’m looking for you.

Sweetheart please just text me back.

Your throat tightened. You could practically hear him in every message, they were careful at first, then increasingly worried, probably typing faster than he usually did, sentences getting shorter as the night dragged on.

Your brain started spiraling immediately. You pictured him searching every street in Metropolis while you were somewhere yelling about dentistry and accidentally exposing yourself to strangers.

“How does it feel to be rich?” The woman behind the counter asked suddenly.

You startled so hard you nearly dropped the phone. With unnecessary speed, you shut it off and shoved it into your purse before looking back at her. “What’s your name again?”

She blinked. “Susie.”

You nodded once, hopped off the stool and offered her a smile so tight it barely qualified as one.

“Susie,” you said carefully, “when you find that out, you let me know.”

Her face softened a little at that…Well, she still looked abrasive enough to fight a parking meter but the sharpness around her eyes loosened.

You held her gaze another second before turning and heading toward the exit, chasing the fresh air waiting outside before your thoughts could start eating each other alive again.

Then you stopped halfway to the door, spun around and marched back in.

Suzie looked up immediately as you stormed towards her, snatched the forgotten hat off another stool and jammed it back onto your head with wounded dignity.

“I forgot my stupid hat,” you muttered before turning sharply and walking back out again, heels clicking furiously all the way up the stairs.

You made your way home for the first time in what felt like centuries instead of hours, exhaustion sitting deep in your bones beneath the adrenaline and leftover alcohol. The city had sobered around you while you still felt slightly untethered from reality, your new heels clicking sharply against cracked sidewalks as if they belonged to a woman significantly more composed than you currently were. 

By the time you reached your apartment building, your feet hurt, your makeup felt too tight on your skin and your stupid expensive hat kept threatening to slide off every time the wind picked up.

The front door to the building was broken again, hanging permanently ajar with the exhausted resignation of something that had given up begging for maintenance months ago. You stepped inside and immediately caught the familiar scent of old pipes, radiator heat, cigarettes and somebody cooking onions three floors too early in the morning.

The elevator, naturally, still didn’t work. You stared at the rusted metal doors for a long second anyway, just in case the building had chosen today to surprise you with progress but nothing happened.

“Fantastic,” you muttered. “Wonderful. Love doing cardio after devastation.”

Then you started climbing six flights of stairs in heels because suffering had become a hobby.

The higher you climbed, the stranger the building felt. Every floor looked crowded, cluttered with half-packed boxes and old furniture pushed carelessly against hallway walls. Lamps, chairs, rolled rugs and framed photos leaning against peeling wallpaper. You greeted neighbors as you passed them, smiling automatically while realizing with increasing concern that you had never actually seen most of these people before.

That alone felt embarrassing.

You had lived in this building for a year and somehow remained the woman who smiled politely in hallways while learning absolutely nothing about anybody around her. Meanwhile these people apparently had children, cats, bad marriages and dining tables they were currently dragging toward stairwells.

Every floor looked the same with boxes stacked outside apartment doors, belongings spilling into hallways and entire lives being condensed into cardboard…and worse, you started recognizing some of it.

The floral chair from apartment 3B. The old record player from downstairs. Mrs. Hernandez’s ceramic rooster collection sitting beside a pile of winter coats.

Your pace slowed, then quickened again the moment you reached the fifth floor and heard muffled struggling followed by a loud thump and a frustrated curse echoing down the hallway.

You started moving faster and that’s when you saw her.

“Imogene,” you blurted, eyes widening at the absolute disaster spread across the hallway between your apartments. Boxes towered everywhere, her front door propped open by furniture and overstuffed bags while she struggled to drag another cardboard box across the floor using all the strength of a woman built primarily from enthusiasm and caffeine.

She looked up immediately and gasped. “New outfit?” she asked brightly, brushing hair from her face before smiling at you with genuine delight. “I liked what you wore last night.”

Your eyes dropped briefly toward the dress.

“The store’s technically holding it hostage until I pay this off,” you admitted distractedly before shaking yourself back into focus. “Wait, where the hell are you going?” You gestured wildly around the hallway. “What’s all this?”

You leaned slightly past her and peeked into the apartment.

Everything was wrapped. The couch, the dishes…even her lamps were covered in newspaper and half the bookshelves were already empty. The place looked gutted, stripped of its warmth.

Imogene let out a tired laugh and disappeared back inside before emerging with another box balanced awkwardly against her chest.

“Should I start with the part where I can’t afford the apartment anymore,” she asked, breathless, “or the part where I can’t afford movers either?”

Your stomach dropped. “What?”

“A bunch of us terminated our leases.” Her voice lost some of its usual brightness as she nudged the box higher in her arms. “The conditions aren’t getting better and rent’s gone up three times this year alone.”

She stopped beside you and motioned with her chin toward a folded letter sitting on top of the box. You grabbed it automatically and unfolded the paper before reading it once.

Then again…and then a third time because surely your eyes were malfunctioning. Your attention kept snagging on the number printed near the bottom.

“Were you paying that?” you asked quietly, angling the paper toward her as if maybe she’d deny it. “Were you all paying that?” Your voice thinned near the end.

Imogene blinked at you then slowly tilted her head. “Are you not?”

You looked back down at the paper, then at her, then back at the paper again. “Will you take a ten-minute break?” you asked suddenly, already backing toward the stairs before she could answer. “I’ll come back down and help!”

“You don’t have to beg!” she called after you while dragging herself back into the apartment before collapsing dramatically onto her couch.

“What a way to spend a Sunday morning,” she groaned to herself.

You were already running upstairs.

Your hat nearly flew off twice as you climbed, purse smacking violently against your hip while the lease agreement crinkled angrily in your fist. By the time you reached the eighth and final floor, your chest burned and your temper had escalated into something holy.

The eighth floor belonged entirely to one person. The landlord’s son occupied the whole damn level while everyone else downstairs rationed square footage and shared plumbing trauma.

You started pounding on his door hard enough to rattle the frame, your knuckles stinging immediately beneath the force of it. When it finally swung open, you nearly punched him by accident because your body had fully committed to violence before your brain caught up.

He stood there holding a phone to his ear, startled enough that he instinctively stepped backward and opened the door wider.

You marched straight inside without invitation, heels striking the hardwood furiously while your chest still heaved from the stairs.

He laughed awkwardly into the phone. “No, man, the Metropolis Sentinels had that game. I won fair and square. If you’re too much of a pussy to pay the–”

You grabbed the phone directly out of his hand and launched it back into the hallway before kicking the door shut.

“What the fuck is your issue?” he demanded, voice pitching upward from shock.

“What’s my issue?” you repeated incredulously, waving the lease agreement directly in his face. “You misogynistic, green-bill-sucking prick, this is my issue.” You shoved the paper closer. “I want my lease and proof of payment for the last year. All of it. Now.”

“I’m busy,” he muttered weakly, motioning vaguely toward the front door and presumably, his phone lying somewhere beyond it.

“You were busy,” you corrected. “I solved that problem for you.”

You pointed toward the couch and he stared at you for one long second before finally moving toward his laptop with the exhausted posture of a man realizing this confrontation was no longer optional.

Meanwhile, you started pacing around the apartment…and noticing things.

“Oh, I see you don’t have a shower in your kitchen,” you called out loudly while wandering farther inside. “How lovely!”

You entered the hallway and froze dramatically.

“A hallway!” you exclaimed. “Wow. Incredible concept.” You started counting doors out loud. “One…two…three…four…five?”

Your voice echoed through the apartment while he hunched miserably over his laptop.

“And the paint isn’t peeling!” You dragged your fingers across a perfectly smooth wall. “Do you know my walls sweat when it rains?” You walked back toward the living room slowly, taking in the massive couch, the expensive rug and polished shelves. “It’s incredible being able to fit a couch in your home, isn’t it?” you asked sweetly, stopping beside him just as he turned the laptop around.

“Here’s your–”

“Give me that.” You snatched the laptop straight out of his hands before he finished speaking and immediately started walking while reading, forcing him to trail after you through his own apartment like a chastised assistant.

Two thousand eight hundred and sixty dollars…monthly.

2,860$.

You stared at the number so long it almost stopped looking real, your eyes tracing over it again and again while your brain desperately searched for the punchline. There had to be one, maybe an extra digit or a decimal point in the wrong place. Maybe Garrett was running some deeply illegal side business involving money laundering and emotionally devastating tenants because there was absolutely no universe where you had been paying nearly three thousand dollars a month to live in two hundred square feet with a shower positioned three feet away from your stove.

You looked up slowly.

“There’s…there has to be a mistake.” You pointed stiffly at the screen before turning the laptop toward him. “I haven’t been paying that.”

Garrett frowned at the screen, then nodded casually. “Uh…yes, you have.” He sat and leaned back into his couch, completely relaxed while your internal organs attempted mutiny. “Every fifth of the month, without fail. You even send it before invoices go out.”

Your brows furrowed hard enough to hurt. “I don’t get mail here.”

“Not from me.” He shrugged. “You always pay before I need to send anything over. No point wasting paper.”

“No, you don’t understand.” You shook your head, stepping closer with the laptop. “That money’s not–.”

“Lady, I don’t care if you have a sugar daddy,” he interrupted, looking you up and down with irritating confidence. “Honestly, considering I’ve never seen you repeat an outfit, I figured–”

“I don’t have a sugar daddy,” you snapped immediately, your voice cutting straight through his sentence. “And this fucking money isn’t mine.” You shoved the laptop back toward him hard enough to nearly drop it. “Is there a way to see who sends it to you?”

Garrett hesitated before taking back the laptop and clicking around through several tabs, muttering to himself while opening payment histories and digital copies of checks. You sat next to him impatiently, your heel tapping rapidly against the hardwood floor while your pulse climbed higher with every passing second before he stopped.

Your stomach tightened instantly as he slowly turned the laptop toward you…and there they were. Two names signed neatly at the bottom of every payment.

Your parents.

Your blood went cold so fast you swore you could feel it. For one dizzy second, your knees nearly buckled beneath you. You probably would’ve fainted too if you hadn’t been absolutely certain Garrett cleaned his belongings with expired milk and bad intentions.

You stared at the names while your thoughts crashed into each other violently.

Every argument and ignored phone call.

Every smug “How are you managing out there?” from your mother and every time your father asked if you were “done proving your point yet.”

Oh, they must’ve loved this. Funding your rebellion from a distance while waiting for you to crawl back home exhausted and grateful.

Garrett grinned from the couch, entirely too pleased with himself. “Looks like my mommy and daddy aren’t the only ones with money.”

You slowly lifted your eyes toward him, held his gaze then snapped the laptop shut directly on his fingers making him yelp loudly. 

“Get fucked, Garrett.” You stood and immediately marched toward the front door while he clutched his fingers dramatically behind you. “I’ll be gone by the end of the week!”

The door closed gently behind you despite your fury. Your mother had spent too much money on etiquette lessons for you to start slamming doors now. You stomped toward the stairs, muttering furiously under your breath while your mind spiraled around the realization that your entire independence had apparently been curated by your parents the same way museums handled fragile artifacts.

Then you spotted Garrett’s phone lying abandoned in the hallway. You stopped and noticed the screen was still lit.

“…Hello? Garrett?” a muffled voice called from the speaker.

Slowly, you bent down and picked it up. 

“Garrett?”

“Hey,” you replied sweetly. “Garrett’s a little busy right now, but he told me to place a bet on his behalf.”

There was a pause. “Uh…sure.”

You leaned your weight on one heel, smiling to yourself. “So tell me…what team’s guaranteed to lose?”

The man on the other end chuckled confidently. “Next game? Gotham Ravens for sure.”

“Great.” Your smile widened. “Garrett’s feeling brave today, so put ten grand on the Ravens winning.”

The silence between you stretched. “Are you sure?”

You looked toward Garrett’s apartment door then smiled wider. “Certain.” Your tone turned syrupy. “Have the day you deserve.”

You hung up immediately afterward, calmly dropped the phone onto the floor…and stomped on it with your heel. Once, twice…and one more for clarity and good measure.

You never listened much to those etiquette lessons anyway…

The screen cracked beneath your shoe with a satisfying crunch before you continued downstairs carrying the kind of peace usually associated with meditation retreats.

The rest of the day disappeared into cardboard boxes and staircases.

You helped Imogene carry half her apartment down six flights while she alternated between apologizing profusely and threatening to leave her mattress on the sidewalk for society to deal with. You watched her spend what little money she had left on taxis to a storage unit across town while you packed more dishes in newspaper and taped up boxes labeled things such as BOOKS?? and KITCHEN BUT NOT KNIVES.

At one point she cried over a lamp…at another point you nearly died carrying a small bookshelf downstairs in heels because apparently neither of you possessed practical footwear?

By the time you finally dragged yourself back upstairs late that evening, your entire body ached. Getting into your apartment required turning sideways through the front door because of the clothing racks between your bed and the window and far from the sweaty walls.

Your apartment looked less like a home and more like a glamorous hostage situation sponsored by fabric but at least the toilet had its own room.

You dropped your purse onto the bed and stood there quietly for a moment, looking around at the life you had spent the past year constructing piece by piece. You had rented dresses out and sold others. You even auctioned off pieces you genuinely loved, all so you could afford what you believed was the cheapest independence available to you and the entire time, your parents had been secretly footing the bill.

You sat heavily onto the bed and let yourself fall backward until you were staring at the ceiling.

The mattress pressed tightly between the drafty window and the first rack of light-colored clothes because light fabrics faded slower in sunlight. Your darker dresses and delicate fabrics hung farther away, protected carefully from the afternoon sun that leaked through the cheap glass.

You stared upward long enough that the cracks in the ceiling started looking organized and almost readable. They read:

Option A: Go home.

Thank your parents for secretly financing your apartment and gracefully allow yourself to be married off to some rich, intelligent man whose hobbies probably included polo and disappointing women emotionally.

You groaned immediately and rolled onto your side toward the window.

Option B: Go running back to Clark.

Ask to move in with him. He’d say yes before you finished asking because…well, he’s Clark. Then you’d spend every morning pretending not to flinch every time Lois’s name entered a conversation while slowly dying inside over his delicious pancakes.

Horrifying.

You rolled again, now facing the rows of clothing hanging beside your bed.

Option C: Since selling your remaining valuable pieces wasn’t an option anymore, you could always dig your trust fund card out of wherever you’d hidden it, carefully tape it back together after cutting it up a year ago and finally use the obscene amount of money sitting untouched in your account…Untouched being a technicality. 

You hadn’t spent a single cent from it.

Your eyes narrowed thoughtfully…all that money, more than enough to solve every problem currently suffocating you, just sitting there and waiting for you to…

“Nope,” you announced firmly to the room before temptation could settle in properly.

You exhaled hard and faced the ceiling again, flopping back against the mattress dramatically. “I need a job,” you informed with grave seriousness.

The room remained silent. Though honestly, one of the coats looked judgmental.

It had taken an unreasonable amount of restraint not to run after you right there on the sidewalk Saturday morning, not to ignore the way your voice cracked around sincerity and grab your wrist before you disappeared into the crowd entirely. Every instinct in Clark had screamed to follow, to insist you stayed long enough for the two of you to talk properly before whatever this was stretched and soured over the following days.

It took even more effort not to show up at your apartment Sunday morning carrying flowers and enough baked goods to feed half your building. Clark knew you too well for that or at least, he thought he did.

He could usually read you with terrifying accuracy. You wore your emotions everywhere despite believing the opposite. They sat in the way you walked, in how loudly you closed doors, in whether your jewelry matched your mood or fought against it entirely. Half the time Clark swore he knew what you were thinking before you did and what had screamed at him Saturday morning, while you stood there barefoot and furious in smudged makeup and scraped-up Prada heels smelling faintly of smoke, alcohol, expensive perfume and the exact same shampoo you used in college, was painfully simple.

Stay away from me.

Clark hated it but loving you had always required patience and trust too, so he stayed away…at least physically.

The rest of the weekend disappeared into replaying every second of Friday night with painful precision. Clark sat alone in his apartment for hours letting the memories run through his head over and over until they practically sharpened into film reels. Every expression and laugh, every strange pause that suddenly seemed important now.

He’d picked you up Friday evening.

You made him wait on the third floor landing because, according to you, “it’s the cleanest one,” though Clark privately suspected that wasn’t the real reason. You had never invited him all the way to your apartment door, not once. He respected it without question because whatever embarrassment sat underneath that boundary clearly mattered to you.

You had nothing to be ashamed of. He knew your upbringing, knew the kind of wealth you came from so he understood what this life probably looked like through your own eyes. You had grown up surrounded by polished floors, a maid and a doorman and now you lived in a building where the walls groaned all year round and somebody permanently smelled faintly of burnt toast.

He also knew you, knew how stubbornly independent you could be once your mind latched onto something. You planted your feet and suffered through things long after anybody reasonable would’ve accepted help…except where fashion was concerned.

Fashion apparently existed outside the laws of human survival.

Clark could still hear your footsteps descending the stairs toward him that night. He counted them absentmindedly because listening to you had become second nature years ago. Forty-two steps total, interrupted briefly by the six softer ones across the landing between floors.

Then came the stumble between the fifth and fourth floor followed immediately by your irritated muttering.

“For fuck’s sake,” you had hissed somewhere above him, voice echoing down the stairwell. “If your relationship requires this much screaming maybe just break up and save us all the acoustic trauma.”

Clark smiled despite himself just remembering it.

Then you appeared and honestly, the sight of you nearly stopped his heart.

You wore a vintage cocktail dress he’d never seen before, fitted perfectly through your curves before flaring softly at the hips whenever you moved. Your heels matched the dress precisely because they always did, you treated color coordination with the seriousness of military strategy. Tiny clip-on earrings glittered beneath the hallway light and one of those miniature purses dangled from your wrist, the kind barely large enough to hold lipstick and emotional instability.

You looked beautiful…hopelessly, devastatingly beautiful and Clark, despite all his abilities, had never once developed immunity to you.

“Hey, you,” you greeted brightly once you spotted him waiting below.

Clark nearly missed the words entirely over the sound of his own heartbeat. He blinked hard, forcing himself out of the trance long enough to step toward you and offer a hand over the final few stairs. Officially it was to help you descend safely in those heels…

Unofficially, he just wanted you closer faster.

“You look–”

You immediately looked down at yourself before he could finish, smoothing your hands nervously over the skirt.

“Is it too much for a bar?” you asked with sudden concern. “Because if somebody spills alcohol on this dress, I will have a heart attack and I haven’t kept up properly with the whole writing-a-will thing.”

Clark opened his mouth to reassure you but you kept going, suddenly resting one solemn hand against his forearm as if discussing state matters.

“My dresses go to you,” you informed him seriously. “But only to stare at. I don’t want you stretching them with your…” You motioned vaguely at his chest. “You know. Outerworldly physique. So…strictly visual appreciation.”

He bit back a laugh.

“My shoes go to Mrs. Alston,” you continued, counting carefully on your fingers. “That way I can continue supporting her business posthumously if she decides to sell them.” You paused thoughtfully. “Though honestly she might just keep them, and good for her because I’d take them to the grave myself if there were enough room in a coffin for both me and my footwear collection.”

Clark’s mouth twitched immediately.

“But I also need enough space to roll over laughing every time my parents get proven wrong,” you added with complete sincerity, adjusting your purse higher onto your wrist. “Priorities.” Then you sighed dramatically. “Besides, the woman has arches older than some countries and still walks better than me in heels. She’s earned them…And any money you find in my pockets or purses goes to Ricky,” you added firmly. “But distribute it slowly. I don’t want him thinking I became a better customer after death. That feels emotionally manipulative.”

Clark laughed softly then, warm and helplessly fond. “You’re never too much,” he told you, voice gentler now. “And you’re not dying.”

You looked unconvinced, then his eyes lifted toward the top of your head and he frowned immediately. “No hat?”

You straightened proudly. “No hat tonight. I’m exploring my horizons.”

Gosh. Clark genuinely thought he could melt straight through the staircase. His brows lifted as he fought a smile. “Does this bold new era mean we can eat at the bar instead of going to an actual restaurant first?”

You gasped in genuine offense. “No. I’m not a savage.”

You brushed past him dramatically, heels clicking down toward the next landing while Clark stayed frozen for one disastrous second trying to recover from how pretty you looked when pretending to be outraged.

Then your voice floated back up the stairwell. “Wait,” you called, turning halfway toward him. “You’re taking me to dinner?”

Clark finally started moving again, following after you while trying not to think too hard about how domestic that sounded coming from your mouth. “You handle martinis better on a full stomach,” he answered carefully.

He heard your smile before he saw it.

“You know me so well…it’s infuriating.”

Now it was Monday and Clark sat at his desk with his office phone pressed to his ear, listening to hold music that had looped so many times since nine in the morning that it had stopped sounding musical altogether and evolved into psychological warfare. The same tinny instrumental melody dragged through the receiver while he stared blankly at his computer screen, one elbow planted on the desk and the other hand rubbing slowly at his jaw hard enough to leave it pink.

“Hello?” the voice on the line finally asked.

Clark straightened immediately, blinking himself back into the present so fast his chair squeaked beneath him. “Yes. Yes, hello, I’m still here.”

“You said the heels were brown Strada?” the man repeated, his accent thick enough that Clark could practically hear the shrug accompanying it.

Clark closed his eyes for half a second. He looked down at the legal pad covered in increasingly desperate notes written in his own cramped handwriting. 

“Prada,” he corrected carefully for what had to be the tenth time. “They were Prada. Black leather.” He glanced at the translation open on his phone beside the keyboard before attempting the French again with disastrous pronunciation. “Uh le…le cuir. Cuir,” he repeated slowly, sounding deeply unconvinced in himself as he rolled his chair even closer to the monitor. “Your website says they’re still available. I can give you the product number.”

On the other end came a long thoughtful hum delivered with devastating Frenchness, which somehow worried Clark more than outright rejection.

“I can pick them up today,” Clark continued quickly, lowering his voice despite nobody paying attention to him anyway. “Paris, right? I can make it.” His eyes flicked toward the watch on his wrist automatically while calculations started running through his head. “Twenty minutes. Thirty tops and I can tip you…thirty percent?” He hesitated. “Do you guys do that kind of thing?”

Another pause. Then, “Désolé, monsieur. The website has not been…” Papers shuffled somewhere near the receiver. “…comment on dit…updated. Voilà, we are very sorry. Bonne soirée.”

The line went dead before Clark could answer. He sat there another second staring at the phone before slowly pulling it away from his ear. “H-Hello?”

Nothing.

Clark exhaled heavily through his nose and leaned back into his chair with the sort of careful restraint usually associated with men trying not to punch drywall. His eyes drifted toward the bright green word still glowing mockingly on the website listing.

“Disponible.” Even he knew that meant ‘available’.

“Apparently not,” he muttered darkly.

He dragged both hands through his curls before letting them fall over his face for a moment while he thought. There had to be another solution. He could offer to pay for the repairs he had very accidentally noticed while he stood opposite you on the sidewalk that morning but you’d reject his money before he even finished the sentence. He could sneak into your apartment while you were gone, find the damaged heels and take them to be repaired himself.

That idea lasted approximately four seconds before he discarded it.

First of all, you would notice immediately if somebody touched your things. Clark genuinely believed you could detect disturbances in your apartment the way bloodhounds tracked scent trails. Secondly, you owned enough nearly identical shoes to turn the entire operation into a nightmare and he would absolutely bring back the wrong pair by mistake. Third…and this felt most dangerous, he could never take them to your regular shoe repair woman because eventually, months later, she would absolutely mention in passing that a six-foot-four broad-shouldered man had arrived looking deeply guilty while swearing her to secrecy over your shoes.

And finally, Clark valued his life.

He was almost certain you possessed the capability to kill him with your bare hands if you discovered he had interfered with your closet.

“Any luck?” Lois stopped beside his desk holding a coffee in one hand and a stack of papers in the other, eyeing him with growing suspicion while Clark sat there looking one inconvenience away from spontaneous combustion.

Clark sighed and rubbed both palms down his face. “No. The heels aren’t available anymore.” His shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Lois frowned immediately. “I meant with tracking down the witness for my piece. You said you’d help.”

Clark went completely still.

Right…work. His job at the Daily Planet and his very human responsibilities. Keeping this job meant ‘money’, the thing required to buy replacement apology Prada heels.

“Right,” he said quickly, standing so abruptly his knee hit the desk. “Right, I’m on it.”

He started rifling through the disaster zone of papers scattered across his desk searching for the Post-it note he swore he’d written her information on sometime earlier that morning before becoming emotionally consumed by luxury footwear.

Lois watched him carefully while he searched. Her eyes drifted slowly toward his computer screen just in time to catch the fifteen open tabs displaying identical Prada heels before Clark panicked and started closing windows at superhuman speed disguised very poorly as normal typing.

“I could’ve sworn she already owns those shoes,” Lois noted casually.

Clark nodded once, distracted. “They got damaged the other night.” He swallowed. “I’m trying to…fix things.”

Lois leaned lightly against the edge of his desk, coffee still in hand and glanced toward the empty chair beside it. Your chair.

The one you occupied almost every morning when you burst into the newsroom overdressed and overcaffeinated, carrying gossip, complaints or existential crises while talking everybody’s ears off for an hour straight before wandering back out again. The bullpen always felt louder when you were there…easier too and now the chair sat untouched.

Lois checked the time on her watch before her gaze drifted toward Jimmy across the room. He had apparently been listening because the second their eyes met, he slowly widened his own and shook his head with deep seriousness.

“Don’t you dare ask,” Jimmy mouthed silently from across the bullpen, his expression grim enough to suggest national consequences if ignored.

So…naturally, Lois ignored him.

“Where is she, Clark?” she asked, setting her coffee down on Clark’s desk without bothering to ask permission first. “It’s almost ten. She’s never here after you.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Honestly, you’d think she got paid to arrive on time with how committed she is to barging in exactly three minutes before you sit down.”

Clark barely seemed to hear her. He was still searching through the same pile of papers he had already searched at least twenty times that morning, lifting folders only to stare blankly at whatever was underneath them before putting them back in entirely different places. There were sticky notes stuck to his sleeve, three pens uncapped beside the keyboard and an entire legal pad covered in names of luxury consignment stores across Europe.

He looked exhausted. Clark could survive weeks without sleep if necessary but this somehow looked worse…and emotional, which Lois didn’t do.

Finally, after another few useless seconds pretending to search for something that clearly wasn’t there, he exhaled heavily through his nose and looked up at Lois. “Couldn’t make it,” he admitted quietly before gesturing vaguely toward her. “Would you mind writing down again what you needed?”

Lois blinked. She had known Clark for years now, she had seen him walk calmly into interviews with dangerous politicians, survive impossible editorial deadlines and handle newsroom disasters with less visible defeat than whatever this was.

Her expression softened almost immediately.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said carefully. “I’ll figure it out. You just…” Her eyes flicked toward the ghost of the fifteen rapidly minimized browser tabs on his computer screen. “…keep doing whatever this is.”

Before Clark could answer, Cat entered the bullpen carrying her bag over one shoulder and immediately locked onto him the same way surgeons spotted active emergencies.

Clark straightened so fast hope practically radiated off him. “Cat, please tell me you found them–”

His voice died halfway through the sentence the second she shook her head. If he dropped back into his chair any harder, the darn thing was going to collapse before lunch.

“I’m sorry, Clark.” Cat grimaced sympathetically while setting her things down. “You know she’s terrifyingly good at finding rare pieces. I called everyone I know.” She crossed her arms. “Can’t you just get her something else?”

“Maybe a dress,” Jimmy offered carefully from his desk nearby, trying to sound useful. “Or a hat.” He nodded to himself, gaining confidence too quickly. “A fedora maybe…A very nice one. That ought to cheer her up.”

The silence afterward was immediate and devastating. Clark and Cat both looked at him with identical expressions usually reserved for witnessing small animals get hit by traffic.

Jimmy froze beneath the weight of their horror while Clark genuinely looked offended on your behalf.

Cat slowly lowered her empty coffee mug. “A fedora?” she repeated faintly.

Jimmy swallowed hard. “Isn’t that…” He looked between them nervously. “A style of hat?”

The look Cat gave him could’ve stripped paint off walls as Clark dragged one hand down his face.

Lois glanced between all of them now, her concern deepening rapidly as the atmosphere around Clark’s desk continued resembling hostage negotiations instead of workplace conversation.

“What is going on?” she demanded.

“They broke up.”

Steve appeared seemingly out of thin air directly behind Lois while sipping casually from his coffee mug, startling her hard enough that she physically lurched sideways.

“What are you talking about?” Lois snapped. “Broke up?”

Steve nodded solemnly. “Broke up,” he repeated. “Like the Beatles.” He took another sip. “Only worse because this affects me personally.”

“They didn’t break up,” Cat corrected immediately, refusing to allow terminology inaccuracies into the situation. “To break up they would’ve needed to actually be together first.”

Steve pointed dramatically toward the empty chair beside Clark’s desk and everybody looked at it…Clark specifically and the sight clearly hurt him spiritually.

“That feels like a breakup,” Steve insisted.

“It was more of an argument,” Jimmy corrected quickly, trying desperately to regain control of the narrative before Clark collapsed entirely. “A disagreement. That’s all.” He nodded too many times. “Right? We’re fixing it.” He looked toward Clark expectantly. “When she replies to our texts. Right, Clark?”

Clark did not answer. He stared down at his desk instead, jaw tense while everybody waited for him to reassure them and himself simultaneously.

The silence stretched long enough that even Lois stopped looking skeptical and started looking worried.

Steve cleared his throat awkwardly and stepped closer. “So…” he began cautiously, “am I still allowed to text her?” He pointed at himself. “I have a date tonight and I need fashion advice.”

Clark’s desk phone rang then and he practically attacked it. The receiver barely completed half a ring before Clark snatched it up so fast the cord nearly whipped off the desk.

“Yes, hello?” he answered immediately, voice carrying so much hope it made Jimmy wince sympathetically as everybody watched that hope die in real time.

Clark’s shoulders dropped inch by inch as whoever spoke on the other end continued talking.

“…Wrong desk,” he said eventually, quieter this time and hung up gently. The bullpen remained silent for another beat while Clark stared blankly at the receiver still in his hand before slowly placing it back down.

“She might not have found her phone yet,” he reasoned aloud, though the sentence sounded more directed toward himself than anybody else. “We don’t know.”

He had been trying not to overwhelm you. That was the problem. Every instinct in him screamed to go to your apartment, knock on your door and stay there until you opened it but the memory of your face outside the precinct kept stopping him cold. The exhaustion, the anger and the very clear don’t follow me written all over you.

So instead he had settled for restraint…and a handful of texts but no calls, or showing up uninvited with groceries and emotional support pancakes.

Clark was suffering immensely.

Lois stared at him with growing disbelief. “She doesn’t have her phone?” she repeated. “She checks auction sites more than I check the news.”

“She’ll answer eventually,” Jimmy offered weakly, though he sounded unconvinced now too.

Lois pointed directly at Clark. “Whatever you did, fix it.”

Clark looked vaguely stricken by the implication he had done something.

“Steve needs help,” Lois continued firmly, gesturing toward the man currently nodding solemnly into his coffee mug. “And we cannot all be single.”

Steve raised his mug slightly. “Morale’s already low.”

Lois inhaled deeply, visibly collecting herself and straightening. “Back to work. All of us.” except nobody moved. She narrowed her eyes then. “Now.”

Papers shuffled immediately across the bullpen while people reluctantly returned to pretending they were functioning professionals and not heavily invested in Clark Kent’s emotional crisis.

Clark stared at his computer another moment before quietly reopening the Prada tab.

You wore flats on Monday.

Not because they matched the outfit better, though they obviously did and not because your feet still hurt from the weekend, though they absolutely did. You wore flats because job hunting required stamina, resilience and occasionally the ability to flee with dignity from establishments pretending they’d “keep your résumé on file.”

You expected the day to go terribly…you had prepared for ‘terrible’. Still, you wore a cute dress and carried a structured little purse because unemployment was already humiliating enough without looking defeated on top of it.

By eleven in the morning, your optimism had died outside a bakery in Midtown.

You had walked up and down avenues for hours handing out résumés with the frantic determination of a suburban parent distributing Halloween candy nobody wanted. Except apparently the candy you were offering was sugar-free, joyless and made entirely from recycled fruit peels because nobody looked excited to receive it.

Most people barely glanced at the page before setting it aside politely. Some accepted it with the expression of someone being handed religious pamphlets in a parking lot and others skimmed the top line, saw your nonexistent work experience and immediately developed urgent tasks elsewhere.

At one point you realized you had been recycling the exact same copy of your résumé all afternoon because every employer kept handing it right back after pretending to read it. The edges had bent slightly by now and the paper no longer looked white to you and you had printed fifty copies.

Fifty.

There were currently forty-seven in your hands reminding you that apparently not even thrift stores wanted to hire a twenty-five-year-old woman whose primary qualifications included “good posture” and “knows the difference between ivory and cream.”

By lunchtime, desperation had started guiding your decisions.

You sat in a tiny coffee shop downtown and tried convincing yourself the refill they gave you tasted burnt because the beans were artisanal and not because the universe hated you. When they messed it up a second time, you briefly considered using your résumé to wipe the wet bottom of the mug out of spite and you actually did it too.

Then came the restaurant incident.

You had attempted to trick your way into speaking with the manager by pretending to ask detailed questions about wine pairings before casually pivoting into employment. Unfortunately, the manager had apparently been “on his way” for nearly an hour while you sat there slowly consuming a thirty-dollar pasta dish you absolutely could not afford anymore.

By the time he finally emerged from the kitchen only to say they “weren’t currently hiring,” you left with enough rage in your body to power small machinery.

You did not leave a tip…but you did leave a terrible Google review accusing the establishment of emotional negligence and overcooked linguine…which you deleted five minutes later while standing outside because guilt attacked quickly and viciously.

The afternoon continued in much the same fashion until eventually you discovered an awful truth…All roads in Metropolis somehow led back to the Daily Planet.

You stood across the street from the building staring up at it while taxis rushed past and your reflection floated faintly in the glass doors.

You could still turn around. Actually, you could sprint away if necessary because you were wearing flats, which made escape significantly more realistic than usual but if tomorrow resembled today even remotely, you were never going to find a job on your own. You needed help…advice and possibly divine intervention.

Unfortunately, all three of those things lived inside that building.

As you crossed the street, you prayed for several highly specific scenarios simultaneously.

Maybe Clark had left after lunch the way he usually did.

Maybe he’d called out sick, though the likelihood of Clark Kent oversleeping and simply deciding not to go to work ranked somewhere beside spontaneous meteor showers and pigs obtaining pilot licenses.

Maybe he was out saving someone.

Or maybe, and this possibility sat at the absolute bottom of the list, rancid and unwelcome, he had finally taken a personal day because Lois Lane had looked particularly good that morning and post-lunch temptation had apparently overpowered his fragile Kryptonian morals.

Yeah. Right…You nearly turned around again. You could run this time! And you had prepared.

Oh, you had prepared for Clark…Ever since the weekend, you had been operating under the assumption that he might appear at your apartment at any moment armed with concern and devastating eye contact, so you adapted accordingly.

You wore perfume he’d never smelled before. You wore dresses that hadn’t gone near your usual dry cleaner, mostly because you could no longer afford his services but also because Clark associated scents frighteningly well. The man could probably identify your emotional state by detergent alone. You also slathered yourself in heavily scented lotion in what felt less like skincare and more like predator evasion…and finally, and this part genuinely wounded your spirit…you wore a baseball cap.

A. baseball. cap.

You looked like a woman actively avoiding the media after committing tax fraud. Every time you accidentally caught your reflection in a window, nausea hit immediately. The cap alone felt criminal on your head, so you kept your eyes forward and pretended the sunglasses obscuring half your face also impaired your own vision.

You eventually slipped into the building or at least convinced yourself you had.

In reality, you probably looked deeply suspicious.

You knew the Daily Planet well enough to navigate it blindfolded, which only made your bizarre sneaking behavior worse. You kept your head down, walked quickly and avoided eye contact with such aggressive commitment that one intern physically stepped aside for you in alarm.

You made yourself smaller somehow despite the outfit, despite the purse and the fact that nobody in human history had ever described you as subtle.

The elevator ride nearly killed you. You stood in the corner clutching your purse and résumés while staring hard at the floor numbers, praying nobody from the bullpen stepped inside. The second the doors opened on Clark’s floor, you moved immediately but not toward the bullpen…absolutely not.

You took the long route to Perry’s office, which involved weaving through quieter hallways, ducking around corners and once crouching beneath a glass office window because you swore you heard Jimmy laughing nearby.

At one point you flattened yourself dramatically against a wall while an accountant walked past carrying folders but finally, after what felt like a hostage extraction mission, you spotted Perry entering his office muttering to himself while carrying a stack of papers beneath one arm.

Before he could fully close the door, you slipped into the office behind him with the speed of somebody avoiding both the IRS and confrontation. Your hand caught the edge of the door before it clicked shut and you gently but insistently pushed Perry farther inside while closing it carefully behind you, already twisting back toward the small glass panel to make sure nobody had seen.

“What the f–” Perry started around the cigar hanging from his mouth.

You shushed him immediately, one hand raised sharply while the other cracked the door back open two inches so you could peek through it. Reporters moved through the bullpen outside carrying folders and coffee cups and absolutely none of them seemed aware that you were currently conducting a deeply underfunded espionage operation in Perry White’s office.

Satisfied for the moment, you shut the door again and turned toward him dramatically.

“Perry,” you announced in a voice so unnaturally deep it scraped painfully against your throat. Dear fuck, you sounded like a detective from a radio drama who smoked tires recreationally.

His brows furrowed instantly, face twisting in confusion bordering on concern. You could see the exact moment recognition hit him and before he could say your name, you cut him off again with another aggressive shush.

“I’m here on official, very important business,” you informed him gravely. “I’d appreciate my identity being protected.”

Perry stared at you for a long second before slowly removing the cigar from his mouth. “Why are you talking like that?”

You cleared your throat hard enough to nearly cough up a lung and forced the voice lower again despite your vocal cords begging for mercy. “Secretive business,” you explained. “I have reason to believe figures associated with your current workplace are plotting against my client’s future success, emotional stability and potentially her very livelihood.”

You shoved the stack of résumés toward him with excessive seriousness.

“Furthermore,” you continued, “it appears my client is destined for greater things but is currently struggling to communicate that potential to the…” Your voice cracked midway through the sentence and collapsed fully back into your normal tone. “…working world.”

You winced, cleared your throat again and lowered your voice with renewed determination. “You, as a letter and…word professional, are uniquely qualified to tell me what’s wrong with that.”

Perry looked down at the résumés, then back up at you with absolutely no belief in anything currently happening.

You rolled your eyes and slid your sunglasses down just enough for him to see your face. “It’s me, Y/n.”

“I know it’s you,” he deadpanned immediately. “The only people dressing like that daily either live in Gotham penthouses or stand in front of cameras reciting lines approved by fourteen sober writers and one man named Leonard.”

He took another slow drag from his cigar while you sighed and dropped the ridiculous voice entirely before permanent damage occurred. “Can you just tell me what’s wrong with my résumé?”

Perry glanced back down at the pages in his hand. “You mean besides your name?” he asked honestly. “Because otherwise this is mostly decorative whitespace.”

Your frustration hit immediately. “No, it isn’t,” you argued, stepping closer to snatch one of the résumés back from him. “It has my education, I speak French and Russian, I’m excellent with textiles, I can cook…” Your words started picking up speed the more defensive you became. “I can identify archival runway pieces by touch alone and apparently none of that matters because I’ve walked half the city today handing these out and nobody wants them.”

You held the paper up accusingly. “I spent thirteen ninety-five printing these,” you informed him bitterly. “I’ve essentially been robbed in broad daylight by a copy shop.”

Perry shrugged without sympathy. “Why didn’t you print them here?”

You blinked. “What?”

“You can print things here for free.” He gestured vaguely around the office. “Long as I don’t catch you.”

Your jaw almost dropped. “Do you think I’d be dressed like this,” you hissed, motioning at the thrifted sunglasses and baseball cap currently destroying your style, “if I wanted to be seen entering this building?”

Perry narrowed his eyes slowly. “Right. Because my employees are apparently hunting you for sport.”

“Well…let’s keep all allegations hypothetical,” you muttered quickly. “I can’t afford a defamation lawsuit right now.”

“I was wondering why everyone turned their morning deadlines in on time,” he mused casually while taking a copy, handing the rest back to you and moving toward his desk.

You snatched them from his hand, removed the sunglasses fully and stared at him in disbelief. “So?”

Perry sat down heavily in his chair and looked over the résumé one more time with surprising attentiveness. “Visually? They’re fine,” he admitted. “You clearly know presentation but experience matters and right now you don’t have much of it.”

Your shoulders dropped slightly despite yourself.

“At your age, you’re missing about three years of practical work history,” he continued. “Nobody knows what to do with somebody whose qualifications are expensive taste and multilingualism.”

“That feels reductive.”

“It’s accurate.” He pointed at the paper. “Still, somebody’ll eventually take a chance on you. So keep trying.”

You nodded slowly even though the advice felt deeply unsatisfying considering you had hoped for a magical answer involving immediate employment and maybe free soup. “Great,” you muttered flatly. “Fantastic. Thank you for your wisdom, chief.”

You gathered that copy back into your stack and turned toward the door but paused before opening it, pointing sharply at him. “I was never here.”

Perry shrugged.

“And open a damn window or light a candle,” you added while wrinkling your nose. “This office smells like cigar ash and expired ambition and it’s seeping into your cashmere blend vest.”

You opened the door. Behind you, Perry looked down at his vest suspiciously before pinching the fabric between two fingers and lifting it to his nose. He frowned immediately.

“You’re not the boss of me,” he called out defensively.

“Clearly not,” you replied over your shoulder. “Since I lack experience.”

Then you shut the door behind you and immediately inhaled deeply once you hit the hallway again, the comparatively fresh air feeling heavenly against your lungs.

“Fuck,” you muttered under your breath while adjusting your cap lower over your face. “I need a cigarette.” And with that, you started toward the elevators again using the long route, peeking carefully around corners and avoiding the bullpen as if you were escaping federal surveillance.

Once you reached the elevator, you jabbed the button for your floor with enough force to suggest betrayal. Then you waited, very impatiently. Your leg bounced violently beneath your dress while you stared at the glowing numbers overhead as if hatred alone might drag the elevator upward faster. It sat one floor below yours for several agonizing seconds before finally groaning into motion and honestly, if modern technology had emotions, this elevator absolutely resented you personally.

When the doors finally slid open, the cab stood empty before you and relief hit immediately…clean, beautiful relief.

You stepped inside at once, pressed the button for the lobby and turned toward the doors while exhaling slowly through your nose. Your mission was almost over, you had survived the bullpen, Perry’s office, several near heart attacks and prolonged exposure to this baseball cap, which still felt spiritually offensive every time you remembered it was in contact with your scalp. Honestly, the possibility of lice had started sounding less upsetting than seeing your own reflection in it again.

The doors started closing and victory sat right there, just inches away…when a broad hand shot between the narrowing gap and stopped both metal panels with terrifying precision before they could meet fully in the center, the alignment so exact your mathematician father would’ve probably wet his pants at the mere sight of it.

Clark…of course.

He stepped inside calmly, pressed the button beside yours and took his place next to you while the doors résuméd closing before you both with a soft mechanical sigh that sounded suspiciously smug.

You were failing, catastrophically.

Your skin still felt sticky from the heavily scented lotion you’d practically bathed in before leaving your apartment, your dress scratched faintly against your waist because it hadn’t gone through your usual cleaner and your scalp had started itching beneath the cap approximately three minutes after putting it on. Your heart beat hard enough to qualify as a public announcement and the worst part, truly the very worst part, was that Clark could hear every single humiliating thud of it.

You adjusted your posture immediately and hugged the stack of résumés tighter against your chest.

“Hi,” Clark said softly. He kept his eyes ahead, which somehow made everything worse. He wasn’t looking at you because he clearly suspected direct eye contact might make you combust.

“‘Wassup,” you answered. The word felt disgusting leaving your mouth. Hell, you heard it yourself and apparently Clark did too because his head turned toward you almost instantly, confusion flashing across his face before he managed to hide it.

Clark looked you over as discreetly as possible. You smelled different, that itself was unfamiliar. Your perfume usually arrived before you did, expensive, soft and undeniably you. Now you smelled aggressively floral, like somebody had panicked inside a department store cosmetics aisle. Your dress looked less polished too, the fabric sitting differently across your body and…

“You’re wearing flats,” he noted carefully. Then his eyes lifted. “And a cap.”

His tone carried the same cautious concern people used while approaching injured deer beside highways.

“I’m aware,” you replied quickly and moved the résumés behind your back at once.

Clark’s brows lifted for half a second. “Has the vintage hat factory exploded?”

Your chest rose briefly. Fuck! There it was, that awful almost-laugh. Any other day, you would’ve laughed immediately and very loudly too. You knew it…Clark knew it and he also knew that you knew he knew it and suddenly the elevator felt approximately the size of a coffin.

“Funny,” you muttered flatly.

“What are you hiding?” he asked as he angled slightly, trying to look around you without making it obvious. He could’ve asked why you were acting suspicious. Why you were dressed like a woman evading both the media and tax fraud allegations and why you smelled so differently and looked exhausted and had avoided him for days but Clark knew you.

If you were hiding something, pressing too hard would only make you dig your heels in deeper…well, metaphorically speaking today since you lacked them. 

“Nothing,” you answered immediately. “Can you be normal for two seconds?” You turned and stabbed the elevator button again, once, twice and three times. “Why isn’t it moving?”

Despite every instinct warning him not to pry, Clark’s eyes dropped toward the stack behind your back anyway and widened almost immediately once he caught sight of the papers by using his annoyingly accurate x-ray vision.

“Are those résumés?”

You groaned and whipped toward him so fast the cap nearly slipped off your head again. “What the hell did you do to the elevator?” you demanded.

“Nothing.” Clark shrugged far too innocently.

You pointed aggressively toward him. “Clark Jonathan Kent, I swear to God if you’re making yourself heavier again to keep me trapped in here, I will scream so loud this entire building’s going to think we’re–”

“Are you looking for a job?” he interrupted and tried very hard not to sound stunned.

Unfortunately for you, Clark was absolutely making himself heavier, carefully enough so the elevator wouldn’t immediately fail but enough to stall the mechanism between floors. If he admitted that out loud, however, he’d also have to acknowledge the fact you had just used his full name and that alone threatened to turn his face pink and this was not the time to blush.

You stared at him, momentarily thrown by the question despite the fact you should’ve expected him to figure it out eventually. He could probably locate hidden government files by accident so hiding a stack of résumés behind your back inside a four-foot elevator never stood a chance.

“Can you not say it like that?”

He frowned. “Like what?”

“Like that,” you said immediately, motioning vaguely between the two of you. “With that weird inflection between the O and the B. It’s a job…Jobs are normal. I’m twenty-five, I should have a job. Jobs are good.”

The word started sounding less convincing every time you repeated it. You ripped the baseball cap off your head and crushed it in your hand with visible resentment.

Clark looked genuinely concerned now. “Why are you saying job so many times?”

You scoffed instantly. “Why are you saying it so many times?” Then you folded your arms tightly over the résumés before turning away from him altogether. “You already have one,” you muttered. “Respect the rest of us suffering through unemployment.”

He went quiet for a moment and you could practically hear him thinking, carefully choosing words the same way bomb squads approached suspicious wires.

“Why do you need a job?” he asked gently.

“Stop saying it like that,” you mumbled firmly.

He nodded once, considering again. Honestly, if preserving your dignity required him accepting responsibility for the weird tone, he would gladly take the fall.

“Okay,” he agreed softly. “Why do you need a J-O-B…question mark.”

You took a deep breath, mostly to buy yourself time, jaw tightening as the word landed anyway, spelled out and unavoidable. Smartass.

A believable lie required structure, confidence too and preferably less panic than whatever currently ricocheted through your nervous system every time Clark looked at you for longer than three consecutive seconds.

“Well…” you began carefully. “In an effort to become less like my mother, despite apparently inheriting her relationship with fashion at a genetic level, I’ve decided I won’t be financially supported by a man or a trust fund.” You nodded once, firmly and professionally. “So in order to fund my lifestyle, broaden my horizons and meet new people I can eventually classify as friends, I’m pursuing employment.”

There. Short, controlled and surface-level enough to survive scrutiny.

Clark nodded slowly, though his expression didn’t relax. He repeated your explanation silently in his head while watching you. You looked exhausted beneath the sarcasm and defensive posture, your heart still hammered unevenly against your ribs, fast enough he noticed immediately because he had spent years memorizing the ordinary sounds of you without really meaning to. Usually your heartbeat steadied around him but right now it stumbled all over itself.

So he chose his next words carefully. “What do you need from me?”

“Nothing.” You shook your head immediately. “Besides making yourself lighter and letting me off this elevator.”

Clark’s eyes stayed on you anyway because unsurprisingly, he needed more. More honesty, more explanation and more than the polished little speech you had clearly assembled out of panic and stubbornness five seconds earlier. Unfortunately, you didn’t know what you could give him without everything else spilling out afterward.

“I’m an independent woman, Clark.”

“Asking for help doesn’t mean you aren’t.”

You ignored that entirely. “I’m figuring things out,” you continued quickly. “I’m making mistakes and that’s okay. You don’t need to constantly save me like you do everyone else.”

Clark’s face softened almost immediately. “You’ve never needed me for that.”

“Exactly.” You nodded at once, relieved to finally grab onto one sentence that didn’t emotionally threaten you. “Great. Wonderful…we agree on something.” You turned and pointed sharply toward the elevator doors. “Can we also agree this thing needs to move?”

Clark didn’t even glance toward them. “Did you get your phone back?”

“Nope,” you answered, popping the P with excessive innocence…about three seconds before your phone rang loudly inside your purse.

The silence afterward turned catastrophic. Clark’s eyes dropped instantly toward the sound and you watched the exact moment suspicion crossed his face. Knowing him, he was probably already using x-ray vision in the name of friendship, concern and gross violations of personal privacy disguised as emotional support.

You swallowed. “It’s borrowed.”

The elevator lurched suddenly back into motion and your stomach dropped with it. You stared ahead while the floor numbers flickered downward one by one and tried very hard not to think too deeply about anything currently happening in your life. You didn’t know what you were doing anymore. You just knew you wanted your existence to belong to you fully, not to your parents or Clark, or to the humiliating orbit of longing and avoidance and pretending everything felt simpler than it actually did.

Beside you, Clark stood painfully still. He was trying hard to be gentle with you, careful and patient while every instinct in him wanted to push harder, ask better questions, solve the problem immediately and carry half your life upstairs himself if necessary but he kept forcing those instincts down because you clearly needed room to stand on your own feet.

Even if those feet currently wore flats.

The ride down passed in silence.

Once the elevator reached the lobby, you stepped out immediately and Clark followed close behind. The building entrance stood only a few feet away now, late afternoon sunlight bleeding faintly through the glass doors while people crossed outside along the sidewalk.

Clark stayed behind you with both hands shoved into his pockets, head lowered slightly as he watched his shoes move across the lobby floor.

You turned toward him before you could lose your nerve and tried not to be dramatic about it either. Your dress barely moved with you. Good, this moment did not deserve cinematic elegance.

He looked up immediately and straightened. God, he looked so hopeful…your sweet, terrible Clark.

You inhaled deeply and forced the words out fast before your survival instincts convinced you to flee. “I found out my parents have been paying for my apartment.” Your throat tightened immediately but you kept going. “Which means they’ve known where I’ve been living this entire time.”

Clark opened his mouth but you cut him off before he could speak.

“Not only that,” you continued quickly, “they’ve been doing so while I spent the past year struggling to make rent every month.” You laughed once, dry and humorless. “Rent I wouldn’t have been able to afford anyway, apparently.” Your grip tightened around the résumés. “So I have to move.”

He couldn’t keep quiet anymore and reacted instantly. “I’ll go get my things,” he said without hesitation, already motioning back toward the elevators. “We can have you packed and moved into my place tonight.”

You shook your head before he even finished. “No. Absolutely not.” Your voice stayed calm, which honestly made the refusal feel worse somehow. “This is the part where you tell me ‘good luck’ and I go deal with my own issues by myself.”

Clark’s expression tightened slowly, every word visibly hurting him. “This doesn’t have to be me saving you,” he said carefully. “Just think about it as a storage unit and a spare bed.”

You almost laughed at that. Almost. “Like I said, Clark, I’m not turning into my mother.” Your voice softened slightly. “I’ll figure it out.” Then you pointed toward him. “I’m only telling you because eventually you would’ve kicked down the door to my apartment after I moved out and traumatized the next tenant while he showered beside his turkey bacon.”

Clark blinked hard, face scrunching in confusion. “What?”

“My shower is placed three feet from the stove,” you explained flatly. “I never let you inside because you physically do not fit in that apartment.” You gestured vaguely with one hand now that the confession had started rolling downhill against your will. “I have so many clothes in there that I'm forced to sleep between the window and my fur coats.”

Clark stared at you silently. You pointed at him again before he could say anything compassionate and devastating. “I found that place without help and I’ll find the next one without help too. Financial or otherwise.” You paused briefly, fingers tightening around the crushed baseball cap still hanging from your hand. “I’ll text you the new address when it’s done…”

“From your…borrowed phone,” He guessed carefully, except the phone wasn’t borrowed. 

He had already seen the case while snooping in your purse, the half a photograph tucked beneath the plastic casing. The two of you crammed together inside some photo booth months ago, your face angled toward his while he looked hopelessly distracted by you instead of the camera.

Clark owned the other half. It sat beneath a magnet on his fridge beside grocery lists, takeout menus and a new postcard from his Ma that he still hadn’t answered.

You nodded anyway. “And it’s not an invitation,” you clarified quickly, backing up another small step across the lobby floor. “No showing up at my door with baked goods or brisket or emotionally supportive side dishes.” Your mouth twitched faintly despite everything. “It’s literally just a ‘don’t panic, I’m alive’ situation.”

He watched your face carefully, eyes following your movement.

“You deserve that much.” Your eyes had started watering and you clearly didn’t realize it yet. You kept retreating slowly toward the glass doors while speaking, like your body had already committed to leaving several minutes before the rest of you emotionally caught up. “You actually deserve a lot better than me not having the balls to text you back,” you admitted quietly.

The sniffle afterward nearly stopped Clark’s heart outright. He followed instinctively when you stepped backward again, brows pulling together while he tried to understand where exactly the conversation had collapsed into this. Five minutes ago you were arguing about jobs and elevators and now you looked like somebody standing too close to the edge of a cliff pretending not to notice the drop beneath them.

“And I’ve been really mean to you,” you continued quickly before he could interrupt. “Which honestly feels unfair in retrospect because the elevator weight thing was uncalled for but it also was at the playground when you did it on the seesaw and forced me to experience genuine frustration for the first time in my life.”

Clark blinked once as he nodded at your words because he simply did not know what else to do.

You pointed accusingly through glossy eyes. “I’m serious. I hated that…both times.” Your voice wavered harder now. “And I’m experiencing it again currently so maybe raise your standards for me a little and get angry already, so it’s easier for me to ignore you.” You sniffed hard and motioned vaguely back toward the elevators. “Go back upstairs, go to work and be emotionally responsible while I figure my life out.” 

Then you pointed directly at yourself. “Me. By myself.”

Oh. Clark saw it immediately then, it sat all over your face beneath the mascara and stubbornness and trembling composure you were trying desperately to maintain and the realization hit him so hard his stomach turned violently. 

You were preparing to disappear.

You had already done this once before with your parents. You ran when things became unbearable, untangled yourself quietly and figured everything out afterward from somewhere nobody could reach you, except this time the emotion underneath wasn’t anger, it was grief, deep enough Clark couldn’t even locate the bottom of it.

His hand lifted instinctively toward you before stopping midway because suddenly he didn’t know what would happen if he touched you right now. Whether you’d stay or break apart completely or apologize for crying while doing both simultaneously, so he hesitated and that hesitation cost him.

You turned before the tears could fully fall and walked toward the doors with your chin lifted stubbornly high despite the shine gathering in your eyes. Sunlight hit briefly across your face once the glass doors opened and Clark stood rooted in place watching you leave while every instinct inside him screamed to follow.

But you had asked for space and Clark Kent loved you enough to let that request wound him.

The doors closed behind you as Clark stared at them another second before dragging one hand over his face slowly, breathing hard through the pressure building in his chest.

He needed to find a replacement for those shoes…and he needed to do it fast.

You honestly didn’t know how you ended up back at the Talon.

Somewhere between forcing unwilling business owners to accept your résumé and deciding flats technically transformed walking into a financially responsible decision, your body had apparently chosen the destination for you. Cabs cost money and money had become an abstract luxury reserved for people with employment, stable emotional conditions and refrigerators containing more than expired yogurt and half a lemon you kept pretending still had purpose.

By the time you reached the Talon, the sky had darkened fully and your feet hurt in that dull, persistent manner reserved for long days and bad weeks. The baseball cap remained shoved bitterly into your purse where it belonged and the stack of résumés beneath your arm had started curling at the corners from overhandling. Honestly, the pages looked exhausted too.

The guy working the tiny booth in the hallway barely glanced up before holding out his hand automatically. “Phone and ten bucks.”

You ignored both requests completely.

“I’m not staying,” you assured him while flashing the stack of résumés at chest level like legal documentation. “I just need to leave one at the bar and then I’m gone.”

The poor man looked at you, looked at the papers and then made the deeply reasonable decision not to get involved in whatever emotional catastrophe this clearly was.

The second you stepped inside, the atmosphere hit you all over again.

The Talon wasn’t large but it clearly didn’t need to be. Noise packed the room tighter than furniture ever could. People crowded around tiny tables balancing cheap drinks and louder conversations while cigarette smoke clung stubbornly to the ceiling despite several very obvious fire regulations being violated simultaneously. Somebody laughed too hard near the back wall and glass clinked somewhere beside the stage. The room carried that warm, restless energy unique to bars filled with people trying not to go home yet.

As you moved toward the mostly abandoned bar, Susie’s voice cut sharply through the crowd.

“We don’t want your godawful impressions out there tonight,” she snapped.

You glanced toward the stage area just in time to see her physically withholding the microphone from a lanky man arguing passionately about his time slot. “You said I had ten minutes!”

“I’ll respect your ten minutes when the place is empty and I stop paying electrical bills,” Susie shot back while shoving past him. “Next time bring a guitar or a visible talent.”

The man continued protesting behind her while Susie marched toward the bar muttering to herself under her breath with the exhausted fury of somebody one inconvenience away from arson.

You slipped onto a stool near the end of the counter and quickly lowered your stack of résumés onto the bartop, trying to hide them beneath your arm before she noticed…too late.

“If you’re here to ask for the secret behind my financial success, we’re gonna need to reschedule,” Susie said while stepping behind the bar, then her eyes landed on the papers. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.” You exhaled heavily and rested your forehead briefly against your hand. “I’d ask for a drink but unfortunately I’m currently participating in poverty.”

Somebody beside you elbowed your arm while reaching for peanuts and you moved farther down the stool with visible annoyance.

Susie looked down at the résumés again, then toward the stage…and then back at you.

Her scheduled act had apparently vanished, the crowd noise had started thinning near the entrance and Susie possessed the survival instincts of a raccoon guarding trash behind a casino. She recognized a crisis immediately.

“Get up there.”

You blinked. “What?”

She grabbed the microphone from beneath the counter and dropped it directly in front of you. 

“I thought I made myself very clear when I said I’m not a comic.”

“Yeah, I remember that part.” Susie nodded. “I also remember the part where you said you don’t have a job.” She lifted your stack of résumés in one hand like a police officer displaying evidence to a jury. “And from the looks of this little tragedy,” she continued, shaking the papers once, “you need one. Or at least money.”

Her eyes widened pointedly at you, aggressively fishing for common sense. “So get your ass onstage. You save my ass tonight and I won't take a cut of your earnings.”

You looked toward the stage.

A few people sat scattered around the tiny tables beneath the dim lights. Somebody near the front laughed drunkenly at absolutely nothing. One woman smoked with the exhausted posture of somebody midway through a divorce and the microphone stand looked deeply judgmental under the spotlight.

Then you looked back at Susie and shook your head immediately. “I can’t go up there.”

“Why?” Susie frowned. “Because you’re emotionally stable?”

“No,” you answered honestly. “Because I’m sober and a coward.”

Susie stared at you for one second before turning away and returned with a shot glass. “Not water,” she informed you while setting it down firmly in front of you. “And it’s on the house if you get your tits up there.” Then she pointed vaguely toward your chest. “Without showing them this time, preferably.”

You blinked hard, almost insulted because…well, your tits were great. “Preferably?”

“Unless you want to.” Susie shrugged. “Modern times.”

You looked down at the vodka shot. Honestly, your entire life had already collapsed enough today that adding alcohol and public humiliation into the equation barely registered anymore. The worst thing that could happen was bombing in front of strangers and currently strangers already rejected you professionally across half of Metropolis.

You grabbed the glass and threw it back immediately.

The vodka burned straight down your throat and settled violently in your stomach like a threat from the gods themselves.

Liquid courage…or mild poisoning. It really depended on perspective.

You swallowed hard, grabbed the microphone and pointed at Susie with it. “Do I still get paid if nobody laughs?”

Susie shook her head and shrugged at the exact same time. “Bold of you to assume there’ll be money either way.”

You exhaled once before leaving the bar, walking onto the stage and immediately regretted possessing legs.

The platform barely lifted you two feet above the room but somehow that tiny elevation transformed every person in the club into a potential witness against you. Most people didn’t even look up right away. A couple near the back kept arguing over cigarettes, somebody laughed too loudly at the bar and one man sat fully sideways in his chair.

You stood there gripping the microphone with both hands and looked at them all. To the tired eyes, cheap drinks, wrinkled collars, women fixing lipstick in reflective spoons and the men pretending they weren’t staring at those women while staring hard enough to develop migraines. 

Nobody in the room looked carefree and nobody looked untouched by life either and suddenly your own humiliation stopped feeling that special.

Tonight, you weren’t jealous, you weren’t even angry…you were just another failure.

“I’m twenty-five and I’ve never had a job.” The microphone carried your voice farther than expected and slowly, conversation around the room began thinning. Heads turned toward you one by one, curiosity spreading unevenly through the crowd.

You nodded once as the silence settled heavier. “I’m twenty-five,” you repeated carefully. “And I’ll probably be homeless by the end of the week whether or not I find one.”

A few people laughed instinctively before realizing you weren’t technically joking yet, the silence afterward felt enormous.

You looked briefly toward the back wall instead of directly at anybody because if you made eye contact too early, you might actually die onstage and honestly that would create paperwork for everyone involved.

“Any of you ever run away from home?” 

A voice answered immediately somewhere near the back. “Yeah!”

You pointed toward them. “See? Thank you.” You paced once across the tiny stage, warming into the movement. “Whether your family was rich, poor, loving, terrible, emotionally constipated or weirdly obsessed with matching Christmas pajamas, running still means the same thing.” You shrugged lightly. “It just comes with different branded luggage.”

A few chuckles rippled through the room.

“I found out recently my parents have secretly been paying for my apartment.” You paused. “An apartment I have personally been struggling to pay for over a year.”

That statement got attention. “Oh yeah,” you nodded. “No, I was suffering. I sold shoes…purses and dresses I genuinely loved.” Your hand flew dramatically to your chest. “Do you understand the psychological warfare involved in selling a vintage Dior piece to make rent and then seeing some woman named Brenda wear it with orthopedic sandals?” The crowd burst into laughter.

“I struggled every month trying to pay twelve hundred dollars for what I genuinely believed was the most decent two-hundred-square-foot shoebox in Midtown Metropolis.” You held your fingers out narrowly. “And by shoebox, I mean if I inhale too deeply near the window, I get a whiff from the sewers down the street and the smell clings to the walls and develops over time like Eau de Parfum…It’s French…but the smell isn’t.” Laughter spread louder now. “The front door to the building stays broken eleven months out of the year. Not consecutively either….It’s better when it’s random…It keeps you humble.” You nodded seriously. “And the elevator worked once.”

People laughed already, sensing the rhythm now. “One time. One singular glorious morning after Friendsgiving.” You lifted one finger. “I got inside carrying leftovers and suddenly the machine discovered ambition.” You pointed toward the ceiling. “That elevator moved with purpose. It had dreams of grandeur…Also French.”

The room erupted.

“And then it died forever.” You spread your arms. “Gone. It never moved again and honestly? Looking back I should’ve taken more mashed potatoes because if I’d gotten trapped in there longer I could’ve sued the building and financially recovered.”

People barked laughter around the room now, shoulders shaking into drinks and tables.

“Instead,” you continued, leaning lightly against the mic stand, “my landlord Garrett keeps raising rent while smelling aggressively like blue cheese and unpaid child support.” The laughter exploded harder. “Oh, Garrett…” You sighed deeply. “Have I mentioned I got sent to etiquette classes growing up?”

A few groans of recognition came from women around the room. “Oh, you know.” You pointed immediately. “See? Survivors…all in the same place.” You straightened your posture instantly into stiff perfection. “They teach young girls how to sit upright.” You demonstrated elegantly. “How to crouch while wearing dresses if you drop something.” You bent carefully at the knees with mechanical precision while people laughed. “And of course they teach you how to keep your legs closed before marriage.”

You paused. “Curiously, they never teach boys this skill despite the fact every man on earth sits like his balls contain classified government documents requiring airflow.”

The room detonated and half the men immediately corrected their posture while women laughed loud enough to rattle glasses.

“They also teach us how to politely request services.” You smiled tightly. “‘Pretty please, may I see proof you’re robbing me blind?’” More laughter rolled through the room while you paced farther from the microphone stand now, confidence slowly overtaking panic.

“Because half the tenants are moving out after Garrett raised rent from like…” You tilted your head thoughtfully. “Two thousand dollars to almost three.” The crowd groaned. “Exactly.” You pointed. “And the place is falling apart. I mean, I shower three feet from my stove.”

People laughed already. “No, no, no. I’m serious.” You held up your hand solemnly. “One time I dropped conditioner into boiling pasta and genuinely considered whether a bay leaf might save it.” The room burst apart again. “Because it adds that…you know…and if you don’t, trust that the bay leaf does know.”

You paused, soaking in the laughter. “Only take that risk when inviting terrible people over obviously…” You nodded thoughtfully. “Like parents.”

People laughed and applauded simultaneously. “Not that mine ever visited,” you continued quickly. “The window for reconciliation closed somewhere around the fifth hidden rent payment.”

You could feel the room wasn’t just listening but also leaning in, even the people near the bar had stopped talking over you entirely. “Meanwhile Garrett lives beautifully.” You sighed dramatically. “Whole building’s collapsing but this man owns leather furniture and places sports bets like he’s funding organized crime.” 

You looked out over the room. “Who’s losing next week?”

“Gotham Ravens!” several people shouted immediately.

“Oh really?” Your face lit up maliciously. “That actually improves my evening because I placed ten grand on Garrett’s behalf that they’d win.”

The room exploded into screaming laughter and you lifted both hands immediately in surrender. “What? I had to get my money’s worth somehow!” You defended yourself through laughter. “And before anybody judges me, understand this happened during an emotionally charged moment involving his laptop, some crushed fingers…my heel, his phone…also crushed, by the way and the power of feminine rage.”

Somebody near the front almost choked laughing. “We’ll find out the results soon enough.” You nodded seriously. “Either he comes downstairs demanding money or he collapses so hard onto his floor that I hear the echo of empty pockets from my apartment.”

By now people were clapping between laughs. You breathed it in, actually and almost stupidly so, breathed it in. The fear had started melting somewhere around the pasta joke and now every reaction from the crowd hit your chest like oxygen after days underwater.

“I don’t know if any of you were here the other night when I accidentally publicly spiraled about Mr. Kent.”

Several people cheered loudly. Your eyes widened. “Oh my God.” You pointed accusingly. “So you’re all alcoholics, ‘cause that was barely seventy-two hours ago and you’re still wearing the same shirt.”

The room roared and people turned fully toward the stage now, even bartenders paused to listen. “I tried ignoring him.” You nodded seriously. “Very maturely too…I avoided texts and calls…I changed detergent and perfumes like I was fleeing the mafia...Yeah, very mature.”

Laughter crashed immediately. “But unfortunately I ended up at his workplace today after a long sequence of humiliations involving résumés and a baseball cap that made me look like I sold counterfeit cigarettes behind gas stations.” You mimed the cap and the room erupted again. “And somehow we got trapped in an elevator together.”

Whistles shot through the room instantly.

“Not like that.” You pointed sharply. “Although honestly if I die in a confined space, I’d prefer it happen beside a six-foot-four farm boy built like God lost restraint halfway through.”

The laughter turned almost violent and you bent slightly over the microphone, laughing too now.

“No because this man looked at my résumés like I’d confessed to crimes against humanity.” You shook your head. “He’s seen me wear dresses and heels to a farm…while sitting on hay bales like a deeply impractical Disney princess.” People clapped laughing. “He knows I don’t work!” you continued. “And somehow him finding out I needed a job made me more worried...and him even more handsome too.”

You widened your eyes dramatically.

“This man offered to house me, immediately. Practically offered financial sponsorship because apparently he believes Superman can save humanity but not society after I repeat an outfit publicly.” The room exploded. “And the worst part?” You laughed breathlessly. “I should’ve been offended…I wanted to be offended.”

You paused. “But then he looked at me with those stupid puppy-dog eyes and suddenly I started considering becoming a housewife…”

Groans and screams erupted everywhere, you laughed so hard you had to step away from the mic briefly.

“By choice! Which makes all the difference but still…It was humiliating.” You pressed your hand against your chest. “I practically collapsed right there near his perfectly polished shoes.”

Then you pointed firmly. “Which I will not be shining.”

The crowd cheered. “Guys, please.” You lifted your hands innocently. “I couldn’t even afford the vodka shot that got me up here. I need this manicure to survive the recession.”

You held your hands up while laughter rolled again and again through the room, then your expression softened slightly. “In that moment…” You exhaled carefully. “Him and my parents suddenly sounded the exact same to me.”

The room quieted instinctively.

“Not morally,” you added quickly. “Fuck no. My parents say it with old-money misogyny. Like true modern-day monsters.” You widened your eyes. “He says it like a golden retriever who accidentally gained muscles on his way to fetch the ball.” The room erupted again. 

“But still.” Your voice lowered slightly. “What happens when the monster loves you?”

A few murmurs drifted through the room now.

“No, seriously.” You paced slowly. “Whether it’s parents forcing a future onto you or a gorgeous farm boy asking you to move next door…” You shrugged lightly. “What are you supposed to do? Keep running? Stay close and hope love magically stops hurting?”

The room stayed quiet enough to hear glasses clink. You eventually sighed.

“Although honestly when the farm boy has broad shoulders and arms the size of civil engineering projects, your pulse starts relocating south and critical thinking becomes difficult.” 

The room lost its collective mind. People shouted, whistled and hit tables while laughing and you stood there grinning helplessly while the noise swallowed the room whole.

“That’s my issue!” you defended yourself through laughter. “Every time I almost develop emotional maturity, the gods send me a man shaped like good decisions and even better sex.”

The applause came immediately. You shook your head dramatically.

“If I had a nickel for every time that thought process improved my life financially–” You looked around the room slowly. “Well, obviously I wouldn’t be here begging strangers for rent money!”

The laughter rolled through the Talon one final time while somebody passed around the tip basket near the front. “Unlike Garrett,” you added quickly, pointing at it, “please contribute willingly.”

People applauded while dropping bills inside.

You looked out over the room then, properly this time. You stared at the smiling faces, at the people wiping tears from laughing so hard and at the way bodies turned fully toward you and for the first time in weeks, maybe months, you didn’t feel invisible.

“Thank you,” you said softly, still smiling through the adrenaline. “Seriously…and goodnight!”

The roll of applause hit all at once, it was loud and immediate. Truly genuine as it swallowed the room so completely you almost forgot to breathe while standing there beneath the lights, soaking it in with stunned eyes before finally glancing toward the bar.

Susie stood there applauding too as she gave you one sharp nod.

You smiled at her and returned it. 

You’d worry about your living situation once your ears stopped ringing from the applause. You’d maybe think about texting Clark back eventually too, though you were certain that loaded task required hydration, sleep and at least one controlled nervous breakdown beforehand. 

But if this was what happened after spending months begging to be seen, then maybe you should seriously consider investing in better hats…bigger ones preferably. Because if you kept talking like this, there was a very real possibility the entire city might start looking back at you…instead of up.

A/N: If you enjoyed this story, feel free to explore the archive for more! Liking and reblogging helps others discover my writing and comments always make my day, they’re a huge encouragement for me to keep creating. Thank you so much for reading!

You'd been into Frankie Morales for a few months now but just like Romeo and Juliet you two couldn't be together. All because of your cockblocking brother Santi who stood in your way into Frankie's pants. Pants with a very prominent bulge at that!

Every time you checked out his hot best friend at a party or a casual get-together, Santi hissed into your ear, "Don't even think about it!" Every time you noticed Frankie's brown eyes linger on you, your brother would pull the man of your wet dreams aside and read him a lecture. Probably something about you being too young for him, or Frankie's lifestyle being too chaotic to share with his precious sister, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Of course, you still loved your brother and his concerns were reasonable. Santi wanted only the best for you, and dating a military guy, who was away most of the year, doing some risky shit, wasn't the life he envisioned for you. Still it was hard to suppress anger, burning in your chest. Who gave him the right to say who you could or couldn't date?

Being fed up with Santi's control, you finally decided to act and get Frankie to dick you down behind your brother's back.

A perfect opportunity arose when Santi left for a week-long work trip. Frankie and him were roommates so as soon as your brother’s plane took off you appeared on their apartment’s doorstep with your bags. Batting your lashes at the man, you lied that your building had a rat infestation and Santi offered you his room to stay in during the extermination. Frankie furrowed his eyebrows. He wasn’t an idiot and probably greatly doubted that his friend let his younger sister live with him but luckily for you there was no way to check it — Santi was in some remote country in the middle of nowhere, impossible to contact. You applied all your acting skills to sound convincing and your pleading eyes softened the man’s already tender heart.

“Thank you, Frankie,” you purred, stepping through the door, biting your lip and hiding a triumphant smile.

And just like that the game was on. Frankie and you began living together and you were doing everything in your power to seduce him. You made sure to wear as little clothing as possible, parading around the house with your ass and tits almost out but to your dismay Frankie avoided you like a plague. As soon as you would settle next to him on the sofa, ready to watch whatever he had on at that time, he fled to his room under some lame excuse.

You even tried to cook for him and he seemed grateful when you did, but always stayed respectful, praising you, while you needed him to disrespectfully bend you over the kitchen counter and fuck your brains out.

Nothing seemed to work. The week was almost over and you were getting desperate until an idea popped into your mind. The plan was quite ballsy but you saw no other option to get that cock. It was a matter of ‘go big or go home’. Literally.

One evening when Frankie was in the apartment you ran yourself a nice bubble bath in the shared bathroom, undressed, hoping it was the last time you wore clothes that night, and got in. You took a deep breath of the sweet strawberry scent and laid back comfortably in the hot tub. Show time!

“Frankieeee!” You shouted, calling your new roommate. “Frankieee!!”

A few seconds later you heard his velvet voice from behind the door.

“Yes?”

“Frankie, I need your help,” you whined loudly so he could hear. “I’m taking a bath and I already got in but .. ugh.. I forgot something in my room.”

“What? Towels?” Frankie’s voice was getting quieter — he was probably on his way to your bedroom.

“No-no-no! It’s … Can you get me my vibe, please.”

There was ringing silence behind the door until Frankie cleared his throat and asked,

“Your what?”

“My vibe! Vibrator, Frankie.… Can you bring it to me? The bedside table. Top drawer.”

His nervous chuckle followed your words.

“Sweetheart…,” he started saying but you interrupted him,

“Oh, c’mon! We’re both adults. Don’t be such a prude!”

That did it. His ego was probably hurt by your name calling and you heard a sigh.

“‘K. Second.”

Your lips spread into a grin. Everything was going according to plan.

A few moments later you heard footsteps.

“Here”, Frankie said and his hand appeared in the door gap. You giggled, seeing him carefully holding your toy only with his finger tips.

“Frankie, I’m in the tub,” you reminded him with a slight annoyance in your voice. “Can you give it to me, please?”

He seemed hesitant so you added,

“There’re lots of bubbles. You won’t see a thing.”

“Ok,” he said after another sigh and then raised his voice to announce, “I’m coming in!”

Oh poor, clueless Frankie! Thinking that you don’t want him to see you naked meanwhile that was the main thing you’d been after for months.

He walked in with his eyes squeezed shut, his head turned away from you, his cheeks rosy with embarrassment, and you smiled at how unbearably cute he was.

But adoration wasn’t the only thing you were feeling. Frankie was wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and a dark t-shirt and your hungry eyes immediately slid over his big strong body. Even submerged in water you got wetter, checking him out.

“Hey, don't be silly!” you giggled. “You can look, I’m all covered.”

The man slightly opened his eyes, holding his arm stretched so you’d take the vibe from him, yet you didn’t rush to do it. You waited until he was standing by the tub. His gaze quickly slid over the foamy water surface and his chest expanded. You hoped that a twitch of his brow was a sign of disappointment. He couldn’t take a peek and it was on purpose — you didn’t want to seem desperate though you definitely were.

“See? Nothing scandalous,” you said, giving him a sweet smile, and only then took the vibe from his big hand.

“Santi’d kill me if he saw us right now,” Frankie mumbled with a nervous smile, watching you grab the toy at the base and start ‘mindlessly’ gliding the other hand up and down the shaft. Of course, you knew what you were doing.

“Santi wouldn’t do shit,” you said confidently, playing with the sex toy in your hands. “And he’s not the boss of me. I’m a big girl.”

Frankie hummed, his eyes glued to your wet hand that was slowly jerking off the toy. When you swiped your thumb over the silicone tip, the man swallowed hard, and you had to drop your head to hide a happy smile.

To your joy Frankie wasn’t in a rush to leave the room. Instead he crossed his arms in front of his broad chest, and gliding his thumb over the lower lip, mused,

“Never seen this model before.”

Your surprise was so big that you almost dropped the vibe into the water. Having collected yourself quickly, you asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible,

“Really?” At that point your heart was pounding, your pussy was aching, your core was burning with desire. Being naked with the man you’d wanted for so long, you were a horny mess. Still you took a deep breath and said, looking up at him, “It’s a popular model. They call it ‘the rabbit’.”

“Rabbit?” Frankie chuckled, his cheeks growing red. You nodded. “Yeah, because of the ears I guess.” You immediately seized the opportunity to paint him a vivid picture.

“This part…,” you glided the tip of your finger up the shaft, “— goes inside me. And this one —,” you pinched a thinner, smaller part with little ‘ears’ - “—stimulates my clit.”

You glanced at Frankie as you finished talking, hoping to see the effect of your words. And hell yeah you did! The man was listening to you with his eyes half-lidded, rubbing his scruffy cheek with a big palm, while his chest was rising and falling rapidly. He was shifting on his bare feet, getting progressively hard, judging by the tent in his sweats.

When Frankie caught you looking at his crotch he cleared his throat and quickly grabbed a towel off the rack to hide his hard-on.

“I’m not getting out yet, Frankie,” you smiled. He was so cute when he was embarrassed.

“Oh, ok… yeah… just… this one’s not fresh,” he mumbled, nodding down at the towel in his arms. “I’ll get you a new one.”

You were afraid he’d leave under that shitty excuse, but Frankie surprised you again and stayed by the tub.

“And... won’t it malfunction? In the water I mean,” he said, his brows furrowed in concentration, as if he was talking about a car or something but his pupils were blown out, his forehead was sweaty and not from the heat of the bath.

“Oh no, it’s water-resistant. I use it all the time when I take a bath.”

You wanted— no, needed him to have those images flooding his mind, so you continued, still running your fingers over the toy.

“It helps me unwind after a long day. Being single, I have to find a way….” You sighed and glanced up at Frankie. It seemed like he wasn’t breathing, mesmerized by your words and movements, but you had no mercy for the man so you went for the kill.

“It’s a little thick for me though,” you complained, your lips in a pout. “I always need prep.”

Frankie let out a half hum-half moan and then coughed to cover up the noise he’d made. Meanwhile you kept going,

“See, I can’t put it in all at once, I usually let it buzz against my clit first, to slowly open me up.”

You could hear Frankie panting as he was listening to you. His hand darted to his crotch under the towel and he adjusted himself.

You knew that it was it, the moment for the final strike. You searched for Frankie’s eyes and then purred, as seductively as you could,

“Frankie…. Wanna watch me use it?”

The man opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, and then chuckled nervously, probably thinking you were joking.

“I’m serious,” you stated, your eyes glued to his.

Frankie’s smile disappeared and he clutched the towel closer to his crotch.

“Santi..,” he started.

“…Isn’t here,” you finished his sentence with a wink and then lowered your voice to a whisper. “And I’m very good at keeping secrets.”

Frankie nervously bit his lower lip and shook his head.

“No— shit, I —,” he was inching back towards the exit and fear squeezed your heart — what if he leaves right now? What if your plan fails? What if he isn’t interested in you at all and you’ve been living in a delulu land, thinking that he likes you.

When Frankie came up to the door, you were ready to cry from embarrassment. ‘I’ll pack my shit and go home,’ you thought.

Frankie’s hand was on the handle for a few long as hell seconds. Then he slowly turned around and faced you.

His expression set your body on fire — his eyes were dark, they lacked the usual warmth, instead you saw fiery lust and need in his blown out pupils.

He leaned back against the door and breathed out, “Show me.”

Frankie’s order turned you on so much, you almost came on the spot. He looked incredibly hot at that moment — arms crossed, muscles bulging, sweatpants showcasing a fat boner, his cock’s outline visible even in the steamy bathroom. You needed all that meat inside you! The stakes were really high (and huge) so you decided to give Frankie a good show.

With a ‘shy’ smile you turned the rabbit on and soft buzzing filled the room. Frankie took a sharp breath when you submerged it in the water.

“Gonna start slow,” you announced, resting your head on the rim of the tub. Then you closed your eyes and pressed the working vibe to your clit.

“Ahhhh… feels so good,” you breathed out, telling the absolute truth. The toy was sending waves of pleasure through your body, already aroused to the maximum, and your crush watching you made it a million times hotter. Your eyes fluttered open and you looked at Frankie.

He was standing by the door, his expression concentrated, and despite his relaxed posture he seemed to be as tense as a guitar string.

Not breaking eye contact you let out a soft moan and Frankie visibly shuddered.

“Fuck…,” he murmured. “You playing with your …?”

“My clit, yeah,” you whimpered. “Shall I put it inside? What do you think?”

Frankie’s lips parted and he ran his hand through his damp curls.

“Shit, yeah… put it in.”

“Ohhh,” you suddenly whined with exaggeration, drawing your brows together and pouting your lips. “It’s gonna hurt.. my tight pussy ain’t ready yet.”

Frankie pushed himself off the door, his eyes widened, and walked closer to you, his hands raised.

“No, fuck, sweetie, I... please, don’t hurt yourself,” he said in panic.

You were staring at him for a few seconds, making him sweat, until your pout disappeared.

“I’m fucking with you, Frankie,” you giggled and his jaw dropped. Then he smiled and cursed under his breath, the tension leaving his body with a deep sigh of relief.

“You're pure evil,” he chuckled and rubbed his flashed face with both hands.

Your heart fluttered from how adorable he was, but your pussy was still empty so you got to work. You spread your thighs wider under the water and nudged the tip of the toy at your entrance.

“I’m putting it in, Frankie.”

He gave you a curt nod, his eyes intent.

You rested the back of your head on the bathtub rim, then slowly began pushing the shaft inside you, your eyes closed, lips parted. You let Frankie read your expression and imagine what was happening under the water.

“I’m so full already and it’s just half inside me,” you murmured, not opening your eyes. Frankie was breathing loudly, just like you and, your imagination drew you a delicious picture that it was his cock sliding inside you.

“Ahhhh, Frankie,” you whimpered, feeling yourself on the brink of ecstasy from the vision.

“I’m here, baby.” You heard him much closer and opened your eyes. Frankie was standing an arm length from you now, watching you as he was palming his huge bulge. The sight shot a lightning through your body and your pussy began pulsing around the toy.

“Are you..?” Frankie asked and you nodded, squeezing your eyes shut, and arching your back.

The movement made your tits jump out of the water and Frankie groaned.

“Sweetheart, I can see..”

“S’ok…want you to look,” trembling with ecstasy you begged him.

The pleasure waves were rolling over you for what felt like eternity and the foamy water was splashing on the floor while your body was shaking in the tub.

After one orgasm with Frankie by your side you were a mess. Your hair was wet, your breaths ragged and fast, your limbs shaking. But you had to concentrate. You needed to hit a homerun and come on Frankie’s cock.

He seemed wrecked, too, and you were afraid that he’d bust right into his sweatpants. You had to act fast. ‘That load must end up in my pussy,’ you thought. ‘Or in my mouth at least.’

You carefully pulled the toy out and whined glancing up at Frankie.

“It was good but it doesn’t compare to the real thing.” Frankie nodded absentmindedly, probably still shell shocked from the sight of his best friend’s sister coming in front of him.

“Frankie, baby, want to give me “the real thing”? You said loudly, waking him up. Frankie blinked a few times, took a deep breath and then sat on the edge of the tub. You could smell his cologne, that’s how close he was. He looked deep into your eyes and rasped,

“Come for me one more time. Then I’ll fuck you.”

Oh. Dear. God.

Frankie’s voice, usually soft and gentle, was now gruff and coated with lust. His tone and the order made you shiver even in the hot tub.

Suddenly you felt small, just a girl being under the command of this bigger stronger man. His sudden dominance shot electricity straight to your pussy.

You didn’t make him wait. Completely speechless you switched the toy on and brought it underwater and to your needy cunt.

“Frankie,” you whispered, putting your free hand over his, and feeling what you needed, the man got on one knee next to you right on the wet floor.

“M’here, sweetie,” he assured you, watching your face while you were inserting the vibe inside your core. “That’s it.. jus’ like that, babygirl. Make yourself feel good for me.”

His eyes —two black pits of desire — were sliding over your face, twisting with pleasure, your wet neck and glistening chest, now out of the water and fully exposed. Besides, the foam wasn’t as thick as before, it was floating here and there in patches, so Frankie could surely see your naked body, your hand holding the vibe between your legs, your folds spread open.

“You’re so hot,” he breathed out, almost choking on the words.

You could say the same about him. Your heart eyes were set on Frankie, the man you’d been craving for so long. His handsome face was inches from yours and you wanted to count every freckle, lick a stripe along his scruffy jawline, taste the wetness on his plush lips.

“Kiss me,” you muttered, your voice shaky with need. A little smile appeared on his lips before he pressed them to yours. The kiss was soft and slow at first but moments later animalistic hunger overtook you both and it grew desperate and intense. Your free hand wrapped around the back of his neck, holding him close, his tongue plunged into your mouth and tangled with yours. He was drinking your whimpers, leaving his own moans on your lips. You were plunged into an ocean of ecstasy with him kissing you, with your pussy being stimulated by the vibe.

Yet you needed more. You needed Frankie.

“Baby,” you whined, parting from his lips. “I don’t want the toy. I want you.”

Frankie looked into your pleading eyes and nodded.

“Pull it out.”

You did what he said and let the rabbit fall on the floor with a thud.

“How many fingers do you want, princess?”

The pet name made you purr. You were so turned on you could probably take his whole fist but it seemed too extreme for the first time so you replied,

“Two’s fine.”

Frankie nodded. He placed his big palm on your knee, then slowly slid it down your wet inner thigh and into the water. When his fingers reached your heat, you gasped softly and bucked your hips. Watching your face intently, Frankie cupped your pussy and gave it a light squeeze, making you moan.

“Oh yeahhhh..,” you whined as he was gently massaging your folds. Soon you started squirming with anticipation so Frankie leaned closer to your face and kissed you again. As you were sucking on his tongue, he pushed two of his fingers inside you. You took a sharp breath, swept away by the sensation of his thick digits plunging into your core, curling inside you and pushing on the soft spot. His thumb wasn’t resting either— he was rubbing your puffy clit slowly and steadily, bringing you closer to your orgasm with every stroke of his fingers.

When you started trembling on the brink of a second orgasm, Frankie parted from you to watch your ecstatic expression.

“You’re doing amazing, sweetheart. Opening up for me real good.”

He was scissoring your cunt with his two fingers, whispering into your ear,

“You think your little rabbit is a challenge to take? You haven’t seen my cock.”

Your jaw dropped and if your pussy could scream she would.

Then Frankie brought his free hand to your wet breast and his fingers closed on your pebbled nipple. He was twitching it with a perfect pressure, his eyes on your face, his other hand fingering your pussy under the water. A loud whine rang in the room as you started unraveling for a second time, while Frankie was making you see stars.

“Good girl,” he praised you and leaned down to suck your nipple into his hot mouth. He was swirling his tongue around your hardened bud, prolonging your orgasm, while your walls were clenching around his moving fingers.

When your body relaxed, Frankie kissed you again but as amazing as it was you couldn’t wait for what he’d promised.

“Frankie,” you whined. “Fuck me.”

He chuckled, rubbing the tip of his nose against yours and said the words you’d been dreaming of hearing — “Let’s get you to my room.”

You were grateful when Frankie stood up and offered you his hand because your legs were weak and shaky from all the climaxes.

When you slowly rose up, dripping water, Frankie froze.

“Wow,” he muttered, shamelessly ogling your dripping naked body.

“I hope it’s a good wow,” you said playfully.

“It is, princess. You’re beautiful.”

You could stand like that forever — being under Frankie’s gaze filled with admiration and lust made your heart sing and pussy purr but the ache in your core reminded you why you’d been doing all that. After you stepped out of the bath, Frankie dried you off with a towel, his hands running up and down your body carefully as if you were made of glass. Soon he was carrying you in his arms, bridal style, to his bedroom. Your arms were thrown around his neck and you were nuzzling it.

“You smell so good,” you whispered, darting your tongue out to get a taste of his skin. He chuckled and kissed your temple.

Frankie’s bedroom was typical for a bachelor- a little messy, with minimum of furniture and only practical things around. You had no time to appreciate the room decor though, your mind was set on one thing, your pussy was begging to be fucked.

Frankie strutted to the bed and as soon as he carefully lowered you on the covers you threw the towel off your body and sat on your knees stark naked. When you were with Frankie, a birthday suit was the only thing you wanted to wear.

“You’ll get cold,” Frankie muttered, looking concerned, but you shrugged his comment off. Your body was on fire because of him and putting on clothes was the last thing you wanted to do. So you pulled him onto the bed, straddled his lap and pressed your hungry pussy to his clothed hard-on.

“You’ll warm me,” you purred, pushing your tits against his torso. He whispered ‘naughty girl’ before his lips found yours. You were making out, your hips rolling, your heat grinding against his cockbulge, probably leaving stains all over his sweats.

Then your body betrayed you — you shivered in Frankie’s arms.

“Baby, you’re cold,” he said, parting from your eager lips.

“Ugh! sometimes I hate how sweet you are!” You grumbled and looked around. “Ah!” You jumped off his lap, hating it immediately, and grabbed a flannel shirt that was lying on a chair. You quickly threw it on and rushed to return to his lap.

“Happy now?” You asked him with a smile, your hands on Frankie’s shoulders. He swallowed hard as his eyes were travelling over your still barely covered body.

“You look so hot in my clothes.” The praise made you bite your lip and you purred,

“I bet you look hot without them.”

Frankie chuckled and pulled you close for another kiss. Meanwhile your hand slithered down to the hem of his shirt and you tugged it up and off him.

Your mouth began salivating right away — his chest was broad and strong, a little hairy just how you liked it, his soft belly with a happy trail made your brain short-circuit.

You glided your palms over his pecks down to his stomach, hooked your fingers under his sweats waistband and batted your lushes at him.

“Frankieeee, take them off,” you whined, tugging on his pants.

“Not so fast, babygirl,” he smiled, taking your hands in his.

You were ready to cry with frustration but he brought his lips to your ear and murmured.

“Lemme taste you first.”

Suddenly he let out a groan, flipped you on your back, and pinned you to the bed with his heavy body.

The whiplash made you gasp but you happily opened your legs and arms for his big frame.

He gave you a passionate kiss but soon his lips began traveling down your body.

Holy fuck! You thought, realizing where he was heading. You were buzzing with excitement when he opened his shirt on you to pepper open-mouth kisses all over your breasts. He sucked on your nipples, humming from pleasure, giving attention to both buds. You knew your pussy was going to be the best stop so when he climbed all the way down, your thighs were thrown apart, his meal already served.

“Damn,” he breathed out when his eyes landed on your blooming cunt. His jaw slackened, his gaze clouded, he was staring at your heat for a few moments.

You were barely breathing, waiting for what he was going to do next.

“Wanted to do it for so long,” Frankie murmured and looked up at you from between your legs.

You opened your mouth to ask “Really?” but only a moan escaped your mouth when his lips reached your pussy. He started leaving soft kisses over your folds, your inner thighs, slowly and sensually driving you crazy with lust. His beard and moustache were a bit tickly but you didn’t care. You knew you’d come the second he gave some love to your clit, but as if being aware Frankie of that avoided touching it.

“You wanted me?” You asked, trying to ground yourself to a conversation.

Frankie looked up at you and nodded.

“Since the day we’ve met.”

You couldn’t believe your ears. “What?”

“Yeah,” Frankie said quietly, his lips dancing all over your spread pussy. “Santi stopped me from asking you out.”

“Arghhhh, asshole,” you growled, your eyes rolling to the back of your head with pleasure, and Frankie chucked.

“Yeah. I feel a little bad though…he’s gonna be mad.” Frankie glanced up at you with a trace of worry in his dark eyes before his tongue licked a stripe from your hole to your clit.

“Fuck him,” you moaned.

Frankie smiled against your folds and then took a deep breath of your scent, his nose nudging your clit. He whimpered and the sound made you clench and gush right onto his bearded chin.

Frankie hungrily licked it off and began eating you out in earnest.

“Look at this little pussy…,” he mumbled to you or to himself in between kisses and licks. “Delicious. No one can keep me away from her now.”

You giggled but your cheer soon evaporated when Frankie pushed your thighs down with his strong hands, opened his mouth wide and fully covered your wet pussy with it. His tongue pushed between your folds and he started swirling it around your twitching clit, meanwhile sucking on your pussy like he wanted to eat it whole.

“Fuckkkkkkkkk,” you whined, losing your mind from the noises, the sensation and the sight between your legs. The hottest man you knew — Frankie Morales, was feasting on your leaking cunt, moaning and slurping, slurping and moaning.

“Frankieeee,” you screamed, clutching his soft curls in your clammy hands. The man groaned and said, still ears deep in your pussy,

“Just like that, baby, keep saying my name.”

“Frankie- Frankie- Frankie- Frankie,” you chanted, closing and opening your eyes, trembling from immense amounts of pleasure.

When Frankie began sucking on your clit, massaging it with his lips, your back arched off the bed and clasping the covers between your fingers you started coming hard, your thighs tense under his palms. While you were thrashing and sobbing beneath him, Frankie brought his mouth lower and began drinking your juices which were seeping generously out of your clenching hole. Every nudge of his nose against your clit made you jerk with another ecstatic shock.

You’d never had such a perfect oral before and your lashes were covered in tears when Frankie plopped on the bed next to you.

“You ok?” He asked you as you were lying motionless and brain dead from all the orgasms. When you didn’t respond he cupped your face and rubbed your cheek with his thumb.

“We don’t have to continue today, princess. I see how spent you are …”

“Nonononono,” you hastily chanted, your eyes opened widely, your head shaking left and right frantically. “I’m good! Let’s fuck!”

Scared to death that Frankie’s cock would slip out of your hands, you sat up, threw his shirt off your body and quickly straddled Frankie’s hips.

He hissed and pulled you closer onto his stomach.

“Sorry, m’painfully hard,” he explained and you grinned at the thought.

“Then let me deal with it, baby,” you purred and lifted up on your knees. You moved behind his huge bulge and carefully slid his sweats and boxers down. As soon as your eyes ran down his happy trail, your pussy started tingling and you were ready to scream with excitement when Frankie’s cock was finally revealed to you. It made an epic entrance - it popped out of its confines eagerly, hit his lower belly, precum drops flying everywhere, and began bobbing in front of your widened eyes. You’d never thought you’d fall in love with a cock but at that moment you definitely did.

“Wow,” you commented, your lips parted in awe. Frankie smirked and grabbed the jumping dick by the base.

“Is it a good wow?” He repeated your earlier question and you giggled.

“Absolutely,” you nodded, still staring at the cock you’d been after. It was long and thick, bigger than anything you’d ever taken.

“I’ve been told it was too big a few times…I don’t know if you’ll enjoy… “ Frankie was looking up at you with concern in his eyes, chewing on his inner cheek.

Your jaw dropped. With every other man in the world you’d think it was a humble-brag. But not with Frankie. You were sure that his worry was genuine and real, that he cared about your pleasure and comfort more than about his own needs.

“Hey,” you gave Frankie a warm smile and wrapped your palm around his hand that was holding his cock. “You’re perfect. I’ll take as much as I can today but … a size queen title would suit me I think.”

Frankie laughed and you saw tension leaving his body.

“Yeah, please, stop if it hurts.”

Not scared at all, you scooted forward and pressed your mound to his thick shaft. His tip was at your navel and you both were gawking at how deep he’d be inside you. You swallowed hard but couldn’t wait to sink on all that meat.

Yet the desire to tease him overtook you. Frankie let out the neediest noise when you began grinding your pussy against his shaft, leaving your slick all over the soft skin there, his cock veins bulging underneath, glistening with your wetness. You played with him like this for some time, reveling in the sounds he was making, edging him and yourself.

“Princess, please…”, it was his turn to beg and when you heard his hoarse voice full of need and lust, you folded immediately.

Your hips flew up and you hovered over his waiting cock before your hole met his tip.

“Fuckkkkk,” you breathed out, taking his crown slowly but steadily, your hand splayed on his torso. He dipped his head into the pillow, his mouth opened, as you kept sinking on him inch by inch, your walls stretching around his girth.

“Is it all in?” You asked with your voice shaky, feeling unbelievably full.

“Ahh… not quite, baby. It’s ok, though… stop here,” Frankie blubbered, sounding drunk.

“No!” You whined. “Want all of you!”

Frankie choked on another moan, his stomach tense, hands gripping your hips tighter. You were driving him crazy with your pussy and you loved it.

“Ok, ok,” he gruffed and licked his thumb before bringing it to your clit. “Lemme help, my size queen.”

He began rubbing your slicked up bud with a perfect pace, not flicking it like a light switch like some of your exes had done, but drawing tight circles over it.

“So good…,” you whimpered, your pussy loosening up for his huge cock. Frankie’s caress really helped and soon you felt a cushion of his balls under your ass.

You both breathed out with satisfaction but soon Frankie pulled his brows together.

“I won’t last, baby. You’re so damn tight.”

“It’s ok, it’s ok,” you assured him and rolled your hips, drawing a moan out of the man. “Come inside me.. I’m on a pill.”

“Dios…” Frankie muttered, with his jaw slacked, his eyes hazy and dark. You were riding him and he placed his big hands on your bouncing tits. He was kneading them, twitching your nipples, groaning loudly.

You weren’t silent either, your moans were mixing with his, and the lewd music of your shared pleasure filled the room.

Frankie’s lustful gaze was hungrily sliding over your naked body, his puppy eyes gone, now you saw an animal in them, hungry and passionate.

“This is what you wanted, huh? My cock deep inside you? Right here…,” he placed his palm on your lower belly, probably feeling his huge cock under your sweaty skin.

You nodded eagerly, turned up to the maximum with the way he was talking to you.

“Yeah…played your little games, naughty little girl…lured me to the bathroom so I’d give it to you good…”

“You are… you feel so good, Frankie,” you chanted, dancing on his cock, moving sensually, giving him something to remember.

The adoration in his eyes added to your ecstasy, his thumb was still working your clit, and soon you began exploding in front of his clouded eyes, eagerly sliding up and down his long shaft, riding out the climax that was making you shake and moan. You’d probably collapse if not for Frankie’s big hands around your waist, holding you up.

“S’my—girllll,” Frankie praised you and immediately started squirting his cum against your fluttering walls, filling you like an eclair with his creamy load.

Your pussy milked him till the last drop, till his balls were empty, and happy with your work, you fell on Frankie’s chest.

He wrapped his muscular arms around you and held you close, while both of you were catching your breath.

You’d fall asleep like that, with him inside you, but Frankie turned onto his side, taking you with him. Then he covered both of your bodies with a blanket and pulled you closer.

You felt him nuzzling your hair and breathe in your scent. It made you smile.

Despite being content and well fucked, you couldn’t help but ask,

“Frankie… it’s not gonna be our last time, right?” You were looking at him with Bambi eyes, scared to hear the answer. After experiencing all that, you knew in your heart that you wouldn’t want to call Frankie just your brother’s best friend again.

“I told you…,” Frankie muttered, resting his forehead against yours. “No one can keep me away from you now. You’re mine.”

Mine!

You doubted that you’d ever smiled as widely as at that moment. His words filled your chest with so much joy you squeaked and threw your arms around his broad shoulders.

You finally had him, finally felt his heart beating against yours, finally had access to his huge cock, finally saw unconcealed admiration in his beautiful kind eyes.

Suddenly fear panged your heart. With all the scheming and thirsting over the man, you forgot to ask yourself. What’s next?

You parted from Frankie abruptly, your eyes widened.

“You know that Santi has a gun, yeah?”

Frankie chuckled.

“He has a few, actually.”

You whined and began chewing on your thumb nail nervously. You knew Santi wouldn’t do anything to you but to his friend? What if he’d want to fight him? What if they’d hurt each other. The consequences of your horny actions suddenly began to feel very real and upcoming.

Seeing your worried expression, Frankie cupped your cheek and leaned closer to your face, searching for your eyes.

“It’s gonna be fine, princess. I’ll fight for you if I had to.”

You mewled in terror and he added hastily, “not like that! Not physically. I’ll talk to Santi. I’ll make him accept it… accept us.”

You slowly nodded, feeling a little better. Then a thought popped into your naughty head so you clang to his body and whispered,

“But… can’t we sneak around for some time?”

“See each other in secret?”

You nodded, your mind drawing you pictures of forbidden hook-ups, fucking in the bathroom at parties, Frankie’s palm over your mouth, keeping your moans from being heard.

“It’ll be so hot…,” you mumbled with your eyes clouded by lust.

“It will be,” Frankie groaned, grabbing your asscheek with his hand and pushing his already hard cock against you. “But until Santi’s back…” he pinned you to the bed, settled between your legs, and whispered, brushing your lips with his, “I’m gonna use every second I have to make you scream as loudly as you can.”

Frankie swallowed your needy “yes, please” and pierced your wet pussy with his big cock.

Thank you for reading! Please comment and reblog if you enjoyed the fic! I'd love to know what you think💞

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