why can’t it ever be enough? @satellite-evans - Tumblr Blog

Imagine Clark Kent planning to propose to reader, but he gets so flustered and nervous that when he kneels, all he can muster is a desperate, breathy, “Please.” Saw this idea from a woman sharing her proposal story on twitter!! 🫦🫦🤤🤤

The star that leads to you

Pairing: corenswet!clark kent x fem!reader

⟡ Main Index | ⟡ Archive for Earth-181938

a/n: The plan was for this to be 5k words long TOPS but i'm a bottom so...

Classification: (Suggestive) Fluff | Moderate workplace PDA, suggestive comments and explicit/implied sex scenes w/superpowered intimacy (destruction of the bed), normal relationship anxiety and overthinking, sci-fi talk and kryptonite exposure, use of superpowers in daily life.

Word count: 10,3k

Divider by me ;)

The days leading up to any leave or holiday were always the most chaotic. In journalism, there was no such thing as getting ahead. No matter how many drafts you filed, how many interviews you wrapped up or how many loose ends you tied off, the work simply piled up somewhere else, waiting for your attention.

You made your way through the bullpen with Jimmy trailing closely behind. For the past few days, a persistent unease had settled beneath your skin. Everyone seemed to need something from you before you left, another question, task or last-minute request, and on top of that, you couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.

Eyes appeared to follow you wherever you went.

Right now, though, the only thing demanding your attention was Jimmy's steadily rising panic.

"I…I can't do that." He shook his head again, likely for the hundredth time that morning.

"Jimmy, it's just my email." You stopped at the coffee station, reaching for your mug and filling it. "All I'm asking is that you log in once a day, check if anything's worth investigating and follow up if necessary." You stirred your coffee before lifting your eyes to him. "You won't have much to do…Lois will be helping too."

"What do I do if he contacts you?" Jimmy asked quietly, watching your hands move with nervous intensity.

"What if who contacts me?" you asked, only sparing him a brief glance.

"You know." He shrugged. "Superman."

A laugh escaped you as you picked up your mug and started back toward your desk, taking a sip as you walked. "You think Big Blue has an email address?"

"I…" Jimmy frowned as he tried to explain himself. "Well, I believe he's a modern man."

You snorted into your coffee.

"Who knows," he continued. "Maybe he'll want to meet up. To…talk."

You stopped beside your desk and turned to face him fully, narrowing your eyes. "About what?"

"I don't know." Jimmy lifted both hands. "Whatever it is you two usually talk about."

"Sure, Jimmy. Maybe he'll need help setting up an email account." You nodded thoughtfully. "Let's just hope nothing too big happens while I'm gone so I can enjoy some uninterrupted rest."

As you spoke, your gaze drifted across the bullpen and landed on Clark.

Your eyes narrowed immediately at his staring but the moment your eyes met, he jerked into motion. His attention snapped downward as he began fumbling with the papers on his desk, shuffling folders that clearly didn't need sorting and reaching for things that weren't there.

You had only held his gaze for all of two seconds before he folded completely under it, which was suspicious. Your attention lingered on him even as Jimmy continued talking.

"Alright, but just in case, tell him I'm perfectly fine with meeting in dark alleys during pouring rain and all that." Jimmy nodded once, looking entirely too eager for the possibility.

"He's more of a rooftop kind of guy, but I'll pass the message along." The reply came automatically, your focus already elsewhere. “Thanks Jimmy.”

Your gaze dropped to your own desk as Jimmy finally wandered off. Taking your seat, you looked over the organized chaos spread across the surface and got to work clearing away the last of it, though most of the clutter simply disappeared into drawers and folders. You wanted to return to a clean workspace, not a disaster waiting for you after a week away.

Your final drafts had already been submitted and every article due before your leave had been filed and approved. There were still two hours until lunch and for the first time in days, there was nothing immediately demanding your attention.

You intended for the following week to be dedicated entirely to rest. Well, rest and unpacking the mountain of moving boxes currently occupying Clark's apartment, which was now yours too.

The thought alone made you look up.

Clark now sat perfectly still at his desk, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the bullpen. His head was tilted slightly, his attention caught by something none of the rest of you could hear. If there was one thing you'd learned about him, it was that there usually was something, a distant cry for help, an emergency unfolding miles away or a hundred voices filtering through the world at once.

You watched him for a moment until he rose from his chair, the movement quick and purposeful. He reached for his messenger bag, slinging the strap over his shoulder as he stepped around his desk, his eyes finding yours immediately.

The look was familiar, it was the same one he always gave you right before disappearing. You pushed yourself to your feet and followed after him, weaving through the bullpen until the two of you reached one of the quieter hallways.

"How bad is it?" you asked worriedly.

The question and tone had nothing to do with your upcoming week off. You were never worried about canceled plans, you were worried about Metropolis. If Superman was needed in the middle of a workday, something somewhere had gone terribly wrong.

Clark suddenly turned and you barely had time to react.

The momentum of your hurried pace carried you directly into his chest and as always, the impact barely moved him. Before you could stumble back, his arms were already wrapping around your waist, pulling you closer as he dipped his head and pressed his lips to yours.

It caught you completely off guard. You knew kissing with your eyes open wasn't particularly romantic but you couldn't help the way they widened in surprise. For a moment, all you could do was stare at him as you failed to kiss him back.

Only when he pulled away did you finally speak. "That bad?" you asked, eyes searching his face frantically.

Clark blinked as his brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"You have to go to your other thing, right?" You gestured vaguely. "I know you heard something."

The confusion on his face matched your own. Still, his arms remained around you.

"I did." He forced himself to pause and collect his thoughts because keeping things from you had never gotten easier. "It isn't bad, sweetheart. I just need to go check it out."

At the same moment, footsteps echoed from farther down the hallway, so he reluctantly released you. Neither of you was particularly interested in becoming a more serious conversation for Human Resources yet.

You cleared your throat as Clark adjusted the strap of his bag and the silence stretched until the employee rounded the corner and disappeared again.

"Will you be long?"

"I'm not sure." He shook his head softly.

You nodded. "Be safe…I'll cover for you."

Your hand came up to pat his chest before you stepped back. Already turning toward the bullpen, you glanced down at your watch, mentally calculating how many hours "checking something out" usually translated into but a few steps later, another thought occurred to you.

"Oh… anything special I should make for di–" You turned to face him just as a rush of wind swept through the hallway. Your words died instantly and the corridor stood empty, Clark now gone. You sighed. "Takeout it is."

Muttering to yourself, you turned and headed back toward the bullpen.

Lately, Clark had been acting strange, not in the usual "I'm the last son of a dead planet" kind of way. This was different, he was distracted, restless and keeping himself busier than usual. At first, you'd assumed it had something to do with the upcoming week off. Maybe he felt guilty about stepping away from work for that long and the idea of slowing down made him uneasy, but you'd made it clear more than once that the vacation wasn't meant to be a break from who he really was.

You would never ask that of him. Clark Kent could take a week off but Superman never truly could, which only made his recent behavior feel all the more unusual.

You supposed your concern must have been written all over your face.

"Where is he?" Lois stopped in front of Clark's desk, a thick folder tucked beneath her arm.

The question snapped your attention away from his absence. Straightening your shoulders, you forced your expression into something more neutral before walking over.

"His parents needed him at the farm." You motioned vaguely toward the elevators.

Lois looked unconvinced. "He was supposed to send Perry a final draft for tomorrow's print edition."

"Is that it?" You pointed toward the folder she held. She barely lifted it before you plucked it from her grasp and pivoted back toward your desk. "I'll do it."

You dropped into your chair and opened the file immediately.

"It isn't exactly impartial." Lois crossed her arms.

"It never will be, Lois." You flipped through the first few pages of his notes. "We're about to move in together and I doubt he'd react particularly well to me firing him when I become Editor-in-Chief."

Your grin finally earned a small laugh from her.

"Besides," you continued, glancing back down at the paperwork, "I need something to do, otherwise today is going to feel even longer than it already does."

The humor faded from her face. "Is something wrong?" Her voice lowered enough that the question felt genuine rather than curious.

You opened your mouth, then stopped. For a moment, you simply stared down at the pages in front of you. "I don't know. I'm usually really good at reading him." Your fingers paused against the pages. "But I just can't do it."

"You can't?" The surprise in her voice was immediate as she settled herself on the corner of your desk. "You think it's about the two of you moving in together?" she asked. "If it is, don't. You've been together for so long…most people would've expected you to move in together the second you both got to Metropolis."

A soft laugh escaped you. "No. No, that's not it…I mean, I hope not." You leaned back in your chair. "It's all going well." The words came easily because they were true. "As much as I love him, moving in with my first ever boyfriend straight out of college would've been a terrible idea."

Your smile softened. "We learned how to live separately first…how to have our own lives. I think that was the right decision and I know he does too."

Lois nodded. "So what's the problem?"

You hesitated, then cleared your throat and rolled your chair a little closer, lowering your voice despite the noise of the bullpen around you. "Have you ever wanted something so badly that you're afraid to call it what it is?"

Her brows knitted together. "Is that supposed to be a riddle?"

You laughed despite yourself. "No." Your gaze drifted away, settling somewhere beyond the bullpen. "There's something I want this whole situation to be..." The words felt strangely fragile once spoken aloud, like giving them a voice somehow made them more real. "What if I start asking the questions I want to ask and find out it isn't?" Your fingers toyed absently with the edge of the folder. "Then I'd be mad at him for not wanting to move at the pace I want to move at."

Lois watched you carefully and for once, she didn't rush to answer. "This isn't a race."

A small smile tugged at your mouth before quickly fading. "If it were, he'd win…I just wish I knew what we're running toward now." Your voice dropped quieter. "And if he still wants to get there with me…precisely."

You let out a long breath, hoping it would carry away some of the anxiety that had been nesting in your chest for weeks. The truth was, you had never once believed Clark would leave you, that fear had never existed.

You knew how he looked at you when he thought you weren't paying attention, you knew the certainty behind every promise he made, every plan he included you in and every future conversation that naturally assumed you'd be standing beside him.

The fear wasn't losing him, it was timing and getting it wrong.

Had moving in together been too soon? Was he having second thoughts now that it was actually happening? Maybe he simply wasn't ready to leave behind living alone, he needed more time before taking another step forward and the answer was that simple…Or maybe you were working yourself into knots over something that had never crossed his mind at all.

"You're one hell of a reporter, Y/n." A smile tugged at the corner of Lois's mouth. "I've never known you to hesitate when it comes to asking questions."

She pushed herself off the desk and headed back toward her own.

The conversation ended there but her words lingered as your eyes wandered across the bullpen again and they landed, inevitably, on Clark's empty desk.

His abandoned coffee cup still sat beside his keyboard and a stack of notes remained exactly where he'd left them. Everything still looked normal, so why didn't it feel that way?

You couldn't keep living with the uncertainty and maybe it was time to stop dancing around the questions that had been circling your mind for months, but as much as you wanted answers, you'd never been someone who forced them out of Clark, never someone who cornered him into confessions he wasn't ready to make.

Your gaze lingered on the empty desk for another moment before moving to the clock. Only five more hours and you'd finally be out of this place.

Clark flew to the Fortress of Solitude at a speed he'd never thought he could reach, responding to a signal from the Superman robots. He absolutely hated hiding things from you, no matter how good the reason but this was taking longer than planned. It didn't just involve the usual planning and sourcing, this was as close to science as he'd ever get.

The cold arctic air caressed his skin as he sped up, the crystalline structure growing in the distance as it revealed itself to him.

His feet eventually sank into the snow as the doors parted before him. The Fortress received him the way it always did, silently, the crystals catching his footsteps and scattering them into nothing. Four was already standing at the central console, two of the other robots positioned at the secondary array flanking what Clark recognized as the solar concentrator, reconfigured into something smaller and more precise than he'd last seen it.

"Sir, you're here." Gary, the fourth Superman robot, turned before Clark had fully cleared the entrance.

"I got your signal," Clark told him as he moved to the center of the main room.

"I calculated twenty minutes before your arrival." Four's optical sensors held on him a moment.

Clark didn't answer. He crossed closer to the console, eyes already moving over the readings. "Tell me."

Gary turned back to the array. "The theory is sound. Whether the application holds is a separate question." He indicated the containment chamber at the center of the concentrator, it was small, built for a single stone. "The isotope that produces the radiation is not inert by nature, it requires destabilization. Conventional neutralization attempts have failed historically because they addressed the emission rather than the source."

Clark’s brows furrowed. "You went after the isotope directly."

"We modeled different broad approaches over the last year. Sixteen produced either incomplete neutralization or structural destruction of the sample." Gary paused. "The seventeenth is this. Concentrated solar saturation at a specific frequency, not broad spectrum, which scatters. The isotope absorbs until it cannot sustain the radioactive chain. It burns out rather than being suppressed."

He looked at the chamber. "And the stone?"

"Structurally intact in our simulations. The color will change, the green is a function of the active radiation. Once the isotope is spent, the stone retains its crystalline structure but loses the glow. It will read as pale…residual hue only."

Clark was quiet for a moment. "You said it would only work on a very small piece."

"Correct. The solar saturation has to penetrate the sample completely and evenly. A larger stone creates differential exposure, the exterior burns out and the interior remains active. At the scale you require–" Gary moved to the secondary console and brought up the dimensional rendering, a stone large enough to yield a single, flawless diamond. “–full penetration is achievable. We have run the model four hundred and twelve times over the last hour."

"And it holds?"

"In simulation. Yes." Another beat. "We will not know with certainty until we attempt it on an actual sample."

Clark exhaled slowly, he'd known that was coming.

"You cannot be present for the extraction phase," Gary continued, without inflection, as if this were simply logistical. "Or the initial handling. Your proximity to an active sample at that size would still produce symptomatic response. We will handle and chamber the stone. You will monitor from the secondary console at a distance of approximately fifteen feet. Once it is inside the concentrator and sealed, the chamber will contain the emission. You can approach then."

"And the concentrator–" Clark glanced at the machine. "Same as the healing protocol?"

"Modified from it. The frequency is different as healing requires broad cellular stimulation. This requires narrow isotopic targeting but the core mechanism is the same." Gary looked at him directly. "It should not harm you. The chamber is sealed, the emission goes inward, not out...but again, it’s a hypothetical."

Clark nodded once. He stood there a moment, looking at the small containment chamber and the re-rigged concentrator, it’d been a year of work sitting quiet and precise on a console in the Arctic.

"You've been thorough," he said finally.

"You were specific about what it needed to mean, sir." Gary nodded, as Clark turned to look at him. "When you told me what the ring was for," He continued. "I did not think imprecision was appropriate."

"And the piece I chose?" Clark asked, looking around for it.

One of the other Superman robots pushed a closed lead box onto the console. "Still untouched, sir." Twelve nodded. "As are the other uncut stones, as you requested."

"The band?" Clark asked as One approached, opening a chamber on his own structure and revealing it.

Clark reached for it and held it up to the light between his fingers. He still remembered waiting for you to fall asleep so he could measure your ring finger, holding his breath the entire time, terrified you might wake and catch him in the act. The memory made warmth settle in his chest.

"It's perfect," he said quietly.

"It must be, sir. You've been working on it for almost a year," Gary spoke.

"And it's finally done."

Gary lifted a cautionary finger. "Remember there are still hypotheticals, sir. We must test the machine."

Clark shook his head. "It's going to work and when it does, I want her here for it." He turned to look around the Fortress, taking in the crystalline walls, the hum of advanced technology and the sanctity of the space. "You know the plan." His gaze swept across the main chamber. "I want this place spotless and the sunglasses ready." He drew a breath, letting the weight of the moment settle over him. "The day has come…I can’t wait any longer." He turned back to the robots. "Thank you, all of you."

"No need to thank us, sir, as we will not appreciate it. We have no consciousness, we are merely automatons here to serve," Gary reminded him.

Clark simply pressed his mouth into a thin line, long accustomed to their peculiar bluntness while some of the Superman robots scurried away, already beginning to clean. Gary, however, lingered.

"Shall we prepare for the baby?"

Clark's head snapped toward him, eyes slightly widened. "What baby?"

"My knowledge indicates it is a natural succession of events, sir."

He smiled despite himself, shaking his head. "Let's prepare for a ceremony first…That's if she says yes."

"She will," Twelve said brightly in passing, already carrying a stack of crystalline components toward the secondary console.

"Shall we rehearse the speech?" Gary pressed. "We have yet to hear it."

"No can do, Gary." Clark's voice was gentle but final. "And you won't...It’ll be for her ears only."

He stuck around long after, helping clean and organize with no real need other than the comfort of keeping his hands busy. He had thought about the day plenty, in the small hours of the morning when sleep wouldn't come, during long flights over empty ocean and in the moments just after saving the world when everything went quiet again. He had imagined it a hundred different ways, in a hundred different places and it had to be perfect.

You got home late, stopped at the door as you still couldn't quite figure out how the new lock worked. After a moment of fumbling that felt much longer than it should have, you finally managed to push inside, carrying takeout bags and immediately running into scattered moving boxes in the dark.

"Fuck," you muttered under your breath as you reached for a light switch and turned it on. "Clark?" You called into the silence of the apartment, leaving the bags on the kitchen counter.

You then walked toward the bedroom, weaving around moving boxes you'd take care of soon, phone already in your hand as you dialed his number.

You pressed call, setting the phone on the bed as you began to undress.

Back at the Fortress…

"Superman, we have intercepted a call from your human lover."

Clark chuckled, shaking his head as he moved gear out of the main room. "There's no other kind, Gary. It's just 'lover.' Please, patch it through."

There was a soft crackle and then, "Clark?” Your voice slipped through the sound systems, warm and familiar and Clark felt the anxiety in his chest ease at the sound of it.

"Hi, sweetheart. Everything okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Where are you? I'm at your–" A pause, then a quiet correction. "Our place...Any idea when you'll be back? It's starting to get late."

Clark realized then that he'd lost track of time completely. He began heading toward the exit, your voice trailing after him as you launched into what was clearly the beginning of a longer rant. The sound of you faded from the Fortress's speakers and transferred directly into his ears as he lifted off, flying fast in the direction of your voice.

He heard you kicking off your shoes and the soft thump of your pants hitting the floor.

"I'm not saying I'm worried and I don't expect you to always be back at a certain time…That's just not reasonable. I mean, I knew what I was getting into before we ever started dating–" Then came the sound of the closet door sliding open as you were surely, definitely, picking a shirt of his to sleep in. "Not that it's complicated or anything. I feel like that word has never really applied to us. I mean, I hope not. You've never been complicated to me, even after you told me who you really were."

He heard the rustle of fabric as you peeled off your shirt and the soft sound of your bra hitting the floor. Clark flew even faster.

"I remember telling you Kal was a pretty good name," you said and he could hear the smile in your voice. You cleared your throat, "I also remember that one time I moaned it while we were–"

A faint breeze drifted through the room, making you turn to the window to check if it was open. You suddenly screamed, shirt clutched to cover your naked chest as your heart hammered so loud he could count every individual beat.

Clark unexpectedly stood there unmoving and smiling unapologetically, hair slightly messy from the flight. "Having sex?" He continued for you, grin widening. "I also remember."

You exhaled a sharp breath, rapidly pulling his shirt over your head, feeling his eyes on you, "I get carried away."

He shrugged, still grinning. "It's happened more than once."

Your eyes narrowed at him, already desperate to change the subject. "Mind making a little more noise next time? I intend to live long."

He stepped toward you, wrapping both arms around you and pulling you to his chest. "You make enough noise for the both of us, don't you think?"

"Ha. Funny." You said dryly because it was true. Once close to him, you felt his chest while observing his face as you always did, checking for injuries. He looked untouched, which was always ideal, but… "You're really cold."

He smiled and something changed in his expression. "Do you know where you packed the winter clothes?"

You blinked, eyes going to the moving boxes and suitcases scattered across the bedroom, your mind already cataloging the rest of the clutter throughout the apartment. "I'm not sure. Why?"

Clark let go of you, eyes scanning through the boxes as he activated his x-ray vision.

"It's about to be summer, Smallville…And I don't think you've ever needed them."

He walked out of the bedroom, looking into boxes as you trailed behind him, accidentally stepping on the long cape pooled at his feet.

"Oops, sorry," you muttered as you coughed yourself with a gentle hold on his shoulders.

"You're going to need them."

"Need what? Apologies?" you asked, lifting a brow.

"Winter clothes," he specified with a breathy chuckle, stopping by a box that read ‘Kitchen’ in your handwriting.

"In June?" You watched as he opened the box anyway. "That says ‘Kitchen’, Clark."

He fumbled for a second as he lifted it from a pile and put it on the ground, then he carefully opened it and pulled out your winter coat by the hood.

"That's why it was so light," you said under your breath.

"We're taking a trip tomorrow."

Your eyes widened slightly as you searched his face and found no humor there. "Did you use that little trick to find my passport and book the trip?"

"Never needed a passport to fly Clark Kent Airlines." He grinned.

"Never needed a coat to sit on a plane." You shrugged with a gentle smile. "Where are we going?"

Clark's smile faltered. His eyes searched the room, looking for anything to change the subject and landed on the takeout bags still sitting on the kitchen counter. "We should eat dinner before it gets too cold," he said, already reaching into the box and pulling out a scarf, hat and gloves. "You'll need your snow boots too." He set everything on the couch, almost distractedly and walked right past you into the bedroom, already peeling off his suit.

Your eyes followed him, narrowing at the deflection. "Good thing we have a microwave." You noted as you followed after him. "You've been acting weird lately."

"Weird?" He echoed with a light, forced chuckle. "There's nothing weird about me…Besides the obvious." He paused, pulling his shirt over his head. "Which you like telling me you love." There was another pause, longer this time. "You still do, right?"

"You mean the part of you that likes to take me along while soaring through the sky?" You questioned hypothetically, already nodding to yourself. "Yeah."

"That's good…That’s really good." He reassured himself more than you as he changed into a plain shirt and plaid pajama pants. "That you still do."

"I don't like how you keep saying 'still,'" you pointed out quietly, looking at him as if you could read his mind…and you probably could, if you weren’t suddenly scared of what you might find.

He chuckled breathily, stepping toward you and placing both hands on your arms, caressing them gently. "You're making me really nervous right now."

You narrowed your eyes at him again. "I weirdly think you're doing that to yourself." You paused, letting the words settle. "I love you, Clark…No amount of weirdness is going to change that."

His hands went to your face, cupping your cheeks slowly, thumbs brushing over your skin with so much love in his eyes that it made your chest ache. Tomorrow had to be perfect..because you were.

"I'll fly slowly," he murmured, in an attempt to reassure you.

"No, you won't…and that’s fine," You laughed softly, poking his stomach playfully. "Just make sure you hold me tight."

He pulled you closer, pressing a kiss to your forehead that lingered long enough to make your eyes flutter shut. "I love you so much," he confessed against your skin. "I don't know how to hold you any other way."

Moments like that had a way of dissolving whatever fear or doubt had quietly accumulated and that night was no different. By the time you had dinner and you'd both found your way to sleep, there was nothing left to worry about.

The next morning was perfect. Genuinely and unqualifiedly perfect, the kind that felt almost unfair in how completely it arrived. No alarm pulled you out of it, no distant sound of something collapsing somewhere that would take him away before you'd finished waking up, just sunlight coming in at an angle through the curtains and Clark, who woke up like he had nowhere else to be and no intention of pretending otherwise.

He pressed kisses into your skin slowly and without urgency and the morning dissolved the way good mornings do, in warmth, weight and the breathlessness of someone who loves you, knows how to show it…and how to make you feel it. You lost track of time entirely and you didn't try to find it.

At some point he slipped away. You hadn't noticed the exact moment, sometime in the narrow window between you getting up and the shower warming, enough time for him to go somewhere and come back, which for Clark could mean almost anywhere. When you stepped out of the bathroom, towel around your chest, a bouquet was sitting on the kitchen counter and beside it, breakfast, already plated and still warm.

You ate together at the counter, knees touching, talking through where the art should go and whether the bookshelf fit better against the east wall or broken up between two rooms.

It wasn't much later that he started mentioning getting out for the day.

You didn't question it. You started getting everything he'd laid on the couch the night before, working through the layers methodically while he stood somewhere behind you watching you with an expression you couldn't fully read.

"I think you should add another scarf," he suggested. "Just in case."

You looked at yourself in the mirror, at the coat, hat, gloves, boots and the scarf that already looped twice around your neck… and it was June. "Clark." You turned to look at him with a gentle, reassuring smile. "This is enough…You'd think we were going to the Arctic."

You meant it as a joke. You were already smiling when you said it, turning back to the mirror to adjust the hat which meant you didn't see his face go completely still behind you.

Flying with Clark was its own category of experience, one that didn't get easier to explain the more times you did it, only more familiar. The first five minutes were always the same, your stomach hadn't made peace with the altitude yet, your eyes stayed forward or shut and some part of your brain spent the whole time insisting that this was not how bodies were supposed to work but underneath all of it, was certainty. He had never once made you feel like you might fall, not for a second. His arms around you were absolute, his chest solid and warm against your cheek and the cold that hit everything else somehow didn't touch the space he made around you.

"We're almost there!" he called over the wind.

You didn't answer, only nodded against him and held on.

Then, gradually, the quality of the air changed as the speed bled out of it. You felt him adjusting his descent in small corrections and a minute later your feet met the ground with a soft crunch that traveled up through your boots and into your knees. It was snow, fluffy and undisturbed in every direction.

You kept your eyes shut even as he released you and you stood on your own.

"Sweetheart." He called softly, you could hear the smile in it. "You didn't need to close your eyes."

"Oh. I thought I'd–" you started explaining as they fluttered open.

The light hit first, that particular brightness that had no equivalent, white reflecting white under a sky that was almost cloudless. You blinked against it, adjusting and inevitably, as you looked around, your gaze landed on the structure in the distance and everything else stopped.

Your lips parted.

It rose from the landscape like it had grown there, which in every way that mattered it had. It was an eruption of crystal spires reaching at different angles, pale blue-white and enormous even from that distance, catching the flat Arctic light and fracturing it into something that barely looked real.

You took a few steps toward it without deciding to.

"Is that your–" you started, pointing at it in awe as the words died somewhere between your throat and your lips. You stood frozen in the snow, staring at it.

Clark stepped beside you, footsteps quiet in the snow as the wind tugged gently at his cape. Your shoulders almost brushed when he spoke, "I'll show you around."

You faced him then. He was smiling down at you with his hand extended between you, patiently waiting for you to take it, which of course, you did.

The two of you walked the remaining distance without rushing. There was no path, no track worn into the snow from use, no indication that anyone came and went from this place by foot. Just the flat white expanse and the crystal rising out of it and now, appearing behind you in a clean double line, your footprints beside his. You looked back once at the trail you were leaving and felt something open up in your chest that you weren't entirely prepared for.

He had never brought anyone here, you understood that without needing it said. This was the place that belonged to the man beneath everything else, the person who was both Clark Kent and Superman and neither of them entirely. He was bringing you into that, he was walking you to the door of the most private place he had and holding your hand while he did it, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

You looked up at the Fortress as it grew larger with every step, feeling the weight of being trusted with something irreplaceable.

His thumb moved slowly, across the back of your hand as the entrance came into view and the doors began to open before him.

The inside of the Fortress opened up in a way that made you stop walking for a second without meaning to. Everything climbed, walls, ceilings and structures you didn't have names for, all of it crystalline and catching the same pale light from a dozen different angles at once. It was somehow colder and warmer at the same time, the air sharp but the light itself almost golden where it pooled. You could feel Clark watching you take it in, his hand still wrapped around your gloved one, waiting for you to need him to say something.

"Welcome back, sir."

You turned at the voice as footsteps approached from your right. For a moment, you simply stared.

Clark had talked about the Superman robots before, he'd mentioned their names, their functions and the way they helped maintain the Fortress but none of those descriptions had prepared you for seeing them in person.

"Ms. Y/l/n. I have long possessed information regarding you. It is noteworthy to finally confirm your existence through direct observation.”

You looked up at Clark first, a small laugh escaping before you could stop it, then back at the robot in front of you, eyes dropping briefly to the number four stamped into his chest plate.

You smiled softly. "Nice to finally meet you too, Gary."

Gary turned smoothly toward two more robots crossing the floor behind him. "I have observed that Superman references us during conversations with his human lover…Identifying the species is unnecessary, as there is no other kind of lover for him." A brief pause, as if confirming the data was correctly filed. "This is Twelve. She is new."

You looked at Twelve and smiled.

Twelve looked back, head tilting slightly in your direction. "Oh, she looked at me!"

Seven approached next, arms already extended, holding a folded red blanket and a metallic blue thermos. Gary continued without missing a beat. "We have prepared warm blankets and tea. The tea has been heated for three minutes to the ideal temperature of eighty degrees Celsius, with two sugars, per Superman's specification."

"I'll take the tea." You took the thermos from Seven, wrapping both hands around it gratefully. "Don’t think the blanket will be necessary. Clark already had me wrapped up like a burrito before he swept me off my feet…Literally." You took a sip, the warmth spreading through your body.

"'Swept off my feet,'" Gary repeated, processing it audibly. "This is a common idiom among your kind. I hope you also intend it in the romantic sense, in the event further confirmation is required."

You narrowed your eyes slightly, glancing up at Clark. "Confirmation for what?"

Clark cleared his throat, a little too quickly. "Let me, uh, give you a tour." His hand found the small of your back, gently steering you down the hall before you could press further.

"We shall prepare for the activities, then," Gary said, already turning toward the main room. "The clock is, figuratively, ticking."

"Thanks for the tea!" you called back over your shoulder, lifting the thermos in salute.

"They're not very good at saying 'you're welcome,'" Clark told you quietly as you walked.

"Noted."

He smiled as he watched you sip more tea. "So…what do you want to see first? The glass bedroom or the bathroom? The toilet seat is heated."

You stopped walking, eyes widening slightly at the possibility of a glass bed. "Are you serious?"

His grin only widened, he shook his head. "There's no glass bedroom."

You let out a breath, shaking your head as you started walking again. "They’re doomed…The Superman robots are certainly learning from your sense of humor, Clark. Your jokes are setting their development back by decades...They need an upgrade."

"We should probably get you better winter gear, then. If you're going to be spending more time here." He glanced over at you, already thinking out loud. "I'll look into some kind of heating system." He kept walking, leading you down the corridor. "There aren't many rooms, but there's one I really want you to see."

You looked over at him, slowing your steps. "Clark…wait."

The teasing had dropped out of your voice entirely and he heard it instantly. He stopped and turned to face you and for a moment neither of you said anything.

You chose your words carefully, offering a reassuring smile. "You've already trusted me with so much…and I'm honored to be here, truly, I am, but..." You shook your head slowly. "You don't have to do this, any of this."

He listened in out of worry, the way he sometimes did without really meaning to, to your heartbeat. It was steady and still unafraid, just nervous in the ordinary way. "What do you mean?"

"This is your legacy, Clark. It's a piece of where you come from. It could just be yours…I'd understand that.” You paused, “Once I've seen it, I can't unsee it. I’ll become a part of it too, whether you meant for it to or not."

He stepped closer, taking your unoccupied hand in his. "I've always wanted you to know all of me...every piece, if you're willing to hold it." His voice dropped, steady and certain. "This isn't a sacrifice, sweetheart. Showing you this doesn't cost me anything…You've always belonged at the center of who I am. This–" he glanced around, at the crystal stretching up into the light, "–this is just proof of it."

You nodded slowly. Your breath caught and you sniffled, blinking hard against the sudden sting in your eyes. "Do you happen to know the temperature at which tears freeze?" you asked, voice thick.

He laughed softly, pulling you gently forward by the hand as he led you toward the next room. "Yeah, I think a heating system really would be a good idea."

"Wouldn't a heating system melt the whole place, though?"

"It's Kryptonian crystal," he explained. "Not ice. It can withstand a lot more than that. It's just naturally cold in here."

"Well, insulation would ruin the aesthetic anyway, so think it through." you decided and felt him softly squeeze your hand.

He spent the better part of an hour walking you through the Fortress. Through the rooms that mattered and rooms that didn't but that he showed you anyway because you asked, small alcoves of crystal that hummed faintly when you got close enough. You stayed in a state of quiet awe through most of it but the room that stopped you completely was the one lined with his suits. Row after row, the same emblem rendered over and over in different materials and ages, the symbol of an entire dead world that he had carried across galaxies and made his own among people who barely understood what it meant.

You felt his eyes on you the entire time, watching you take it in and no matter how simple or obvious your questions were, he answered every one of them and you could hear the smile in his voice with each one.

Eventually, the two of you made your way back to the main room, where all of the Superman robots stood arranged in a loose half circle and at the center, set on a low pedestal, sat a small sealed box. You knew exactly what was inside before you directly saw it, that particular sickly green you'd only ever glimpsed in passing, in places you tried not to look too long.

Your hand tightened around Clark's, your first instinct pulling him back half a step.

"It's okay, sweetheart." His voice was steady, hand staying exactly where it was, not pulling away from yours. "Gary?"

Gary approached, holding out a pair of sunglasses toward you. "Please keep these on until we give the all clear," he said. "Your eyes are not equipped to withstand what you are about to see."

You took them carefully, turning them over once. They looked like ordinary sunglasses, maybe a little heavier and the lenses a shade darker than you expected.

You slid them on. "Is this some kind of science class?"

"I certainly won't be the one teaching it," Clark said, the corner of his mouth lifting. He looked past you toward the console. "Gary, are we ready?"

"Whenever you are, sir." Gary moved toward the main console, where two of the other robots were already standing by, lights along their forearms beginning to pulse in slow sequence.

"Clark, what's going on?" you whispered, eyes flicking between the box and his face.

"I wouldn't let anything happen to you, you know that, right?" He squeezed your hand as his gaze met yours.

"You, on the other hand–"

"I like experimenting." He shrugged, like it cost him nothing.

Your eyes widened slightly, "With Kryptonite? Since when?"

"Uh…a year, give or take." He smiled down at you and then his eyes lifted to Gary, he nodded once. "Gary. We're ready."

Gary moved to the console without hesitation and the rest of the robots fell into position around the central platform like they'd rehearsed it a hundred times, because they had.

Twelve lifted the small box from the pedestal, carrying it with both hands toward the center of the room, where a shallow chamber sat recessed into the crystal floor, lined with something dark and metallic that looked nothing like the rest of the Fortress.

"That’s a containment chamber," Clark said quietly to you as his thumb moved slowly over your knuckles. "Built specifically for this."

"Sir," Gary said, eyes still on the console, "might I suggest you and Ms.Y/l/n retreat to the secondary platform. Fifteen feet, as discussed."

Clark's hand tightened slightly around yours. "Come on."

He guided you back, until you were standing on a raised section of crystal floor that put you above and away from the chamber. From there you could see the whole room laid out steps beneath you, the concentrator rising above the platform like an enormous lens angled toward the sky, panels of crystal catching light that wasn't there yet.

Seven lifted the lid of the box and even through the dark lenses the green light intensified, throwing long shadows across the floor, catching every facet of the Fortress and scattering it back in shades of sick emerald. Nestled inside, on a bed of dark fabric, sat the stone. Smaller than you'd expected and uncut, glowing from somewhere deep inside itself like it had a pulse of its own.

Twelve lifted it with a pair of long, articulated tools and lowered it carefully into the chamber. A transparent shield slid closed over the top, sealing it in. The glow didn't stop but it dimmed, pressing against the inside of the shield like something trying to get out.

"Sample secured," Gary announced. "Beginning calibration."

The concentrator began to hum. It started low, almost beneath hearing, a vibration that traveled up through the crystal floor and into the soles of your boots. Far above, panels began to rotate, realigning toward the chamber below and what little Arctic sunlight there was began to gather and bend, funneling down through the lens.

"Finally," Clark breathed, watching it. "We've been working on this for so long…there’ve been thousands of simulations." His jaw worked once. "I didn't want to tell you until I knew it would work."

"Tell me what?” You asked quietly, eyes never leaving the scene as worry crept in. “And do you actually know?"

"I trust the math." He nodded firmly.

The column of light reached the chamber and the room changed color. For a moment the green and the gold fought each other, the stone lit from above in concentrated solar light while it pulsed back against it, radiating that same sickly glow like it was resisting. The light intensified in stages, the hum climbing in pitch and beside you Clark's hand went rigid in yours.

You immediately looked away from the machine, eyes moving across his face, searching instinctively for every symptom you'd learned to recognize over the years. "Clark? What’s happening?"

"It's fine." His voice was rough. The green glow spilling from the chamber reflected across his face as he kept his eyes fixed on the stone. His fingers tightened once more around yours. "This is the part where it resists…Gary said it would resist."

"Isotopic activity decreasing," Gary reported. "Forty percent…Thirty-five."

You watched his shoulders ease slightly, the tension starting to bleed out of him the way it had a moment ago and then it spiked.

The green flared violently, brighter than it had been at any point and the hum from the concentrator stuttered, a half second of dissonance that set your teeth on edge. Clark's hand crushed around yours, hard enough that you gasped and beside him his knees buckled enough that you felt him catch himself right on time.

"Sir." Gary's voice changed, the flatness cracking for the first time. "Output is exceeding modeled parameters. Fifteen feet is no longer sufficient at this intensity…I recommend immediate retreat."

"No." Clark's voice came out through his teeth, low and rough.

Twelve approached. "Sir, your vitals–"

"I said no." He straightened, forcing it, his free hand braced against the crystal wall beside you, now that sweat had broken out along his hairline despite the cold. "This is the spike before it breaks…It has to be. We modeled this."

"We modeled a spike.” Twelve corrected and for the first time there was something almost uncertain underneath the calculation. “Not this one."

"Clark, baby." Your voice cracked. Both your hands were on his arm now, gripping tightly enough to feel the tension underneath his skin, the controlled violence of him holding still on purpose. "Clark, please, if it's hurting you–"

"It's not going to last." He said it through gritted teeth, eyes locked on the chamber, on the violent pulse of green fighting against the gold. "It's a means to an end. It has to burn through, that's the whole point, it can't resist forever–" He cut himself off, breath hissing out through his nose and you felt his legs lock, refusing to let his body do what it wanted to do, which was fold.

"Gary," he called, "how much longer?"

"Unknown. The output is not behaving according to any modeled curve."

"Then we wait." His hand gripped yours again like an anchor. "We wait."

The green surged again and this time you heard him make a low and involuntary sound. His head dipped slightly as if something heavy had pressed down on him. His eyes shut for a second and every muscle in his jaw worked under the strain, the effort visible in the smallest movements of his face.

"Clark, look at me." You said as you stepped in front of him, both hands coming up to his face, so he’d look at you. His eyes opened and once they found yours, they held on. "Whatever this is about…it’s not worth the pain."

"It is…" His voice was barely above a whisper now. "You’ll see."

The green light convulsed one more time, violent and bright, the air around the chamber shimmering hard enough to blur the shape of it until it broke, the same way ice breaks, all at once, the resistance simply gone. The green collapsed inward on itself and the gold flooded in to fill the space it left behind and the hum of the concentrator dropped, smoothed out and settled.

"Isotopic activity," Gary announced and there was no mistaking the relief in it now, flat as he tried to keep it, "Twenty percent…Twelve percent...Six percent."

Clark's head lifted as he watched over your shoulder, eyes moving away from yours while yours simply couldn’t. He exhaled, long and shaking and you felt the tremor in his body ease as you too turned to watch.

"Two percent," Gary continued. "Zero point eight…Zero point three…Zero point zero…one." He paused. "Within acceptable margin…The sample is inert."

The column of light thinned, it drew back up into the ceiling and the panels above began to rotate closed and the machines powered down in sequence as the Fortress went quiet.

The shield over the chamber slid back and where the green stone had been, something else sat now, pale and almost colorless, holding the ambient light of the room differently than it had before, no longer pulsing or alive with that sickly glow.

Your lips parted at the sight as Clark straightened slowly, drawing himself back together piece by piece before stepping down from the platform and offering you his hand. You took it, following him as your eyes met his.

“It’s okay,” he said before you could ask. “I’m okay. It’s over.”

You crossed the floor behind him while every robot in the room stood motionless, watching him the same way you were. He stopped at the edge of the chamber and looked down at the stone for a long moment before reaching in and picking it up with his bare hand.

Nothing happened.

He stood there holding it, turning it slightly, watching the light shift across its surface and you realized you’d stopped breathing somewhere in the last minute and hadn’t started again. He looked up, found your gaze and set a gentle hand against your cheek.

“It’s safe now. You can remove your glasses,” he said, still looking at you.

Your hands were already moving. The Fortress returned in full, unfiltered color as you stepped closer to him, staring at Clark holding something small and pale in his open palm, like the last few minutes hadn’t happened at all, like he’d been waiting this entire time just to show you this.

You swallowed. “I think…we need a breather,” you said, mostly to yourself.

You were already turning toward the nearest corridor when Clark suggested he take you somewhere outside. It took him only a moment to follow your movement and you didn't see what all the shifting and movement among the robots behind you had been about but only felt the change in atmosphere as Clark caught up.

His arm slid around your waist and a second later, the ground dropped away.

Air rushed past as he lifted you into the sky, carrying you through the open structure of the Fortress until the cold Arctic light returned in full. He set down on a platform high among the tallest crystalline spires, where the wind moved freely and the horizon stretched wide and white.

Snow shimmered below and the sky was pale, endless.

“I don’t…” You let out a breathless laugh, the wind catching at your words. Your eyes swept the view once before you turned back to him. “I’m not sure what I just saw in there.”

Your voice tightened slightly. "And trust me, I tried to keep my eyes open through all of it, but you scared me." You gave his chest a firm hit with your fist. "What were you thinking, Clark Kent?"

The impact barely moved him, it only made him chuckle lightly.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, his gaze stayed on you, unreadable in that scary way that always came just before something important.

Slowly, he reached into his belt and your attention locked instantly.

He pulled out a carved band, holding it between two fingers like it mattered too much to be careless with. You could hear, or maybe just feel, your heartbeat speed up, loud enough that it felt like it filled the space between you.

He reached in again and produced a small, rough stone, one that bent the light in a way you'd never seen any diamond do, every facet catching a slightly different shade as it turned.

You watched as he closed his hand around it and when he opened his palm again, fragile shards fell away, revealing a small, clear stone underneath, which he carefully set into the first empty socket on the band.

You blinked, eyes following his hand as he reached in again and drew out another rough stone, this one glowing faintly the same way the untouched walls of the Fortress had. He crushed it the same way, the stone giving under his grip, not shattering so much as yielding, and a larger stone emerged from inside it, settling into its place on the band.

Then he reached into his belt one last time and pulled out the disabled kryptonite. Of the three, it was by far the clearest, though somehow it still caught the light in a way none of the others quite managed.

He crushed it in his hand and set the final ‘diamond’.

You stared at the ring as his eyes began to glow red, the heat focusing into two narrow beams that swept carefully along the edges of each setting, sealing the stones into place. Once he was satisfied they were secure, he lifted the ring to his lips and let out a slow breath of super breath, cooling the metal until it no longer shimmered with heat.

Your heart was pounding now, lips parting slightly as you watched him lower himself onto one knee, his eyes never leaving yours. When his knee touched the platform, he paused, drew in a breath that seemed to cost him more than it should have and swallowed. He held the ring up toward you and whatever he'd rehearsed every day for the past year caught somewhere in his throat.

"...Please."

Your brows lifted slightly, lips curving into a smile you couldn't have stopped if you tried, your heart stumbling so hard in your chest you thought you might actually faint.

It was all a blur of mumbled words, tears, tight embraces, breathless laughter and the strange sensation of height shifting under your feet as the hours folded into one another. You slid your glove off so he could finally slip the ring onto your finger and in the space of a heartbeat the both of you were already cutting through the sky, Clark holding you close as the arctic shrank into light beneath you.

What followed was a mess of emotion and surging energy you had never seen from him in that state. You made it home in record time and the first stop had been the bedroom, the both of you, but especially Clark, letting go of everything he had been holding back. Everything that had stayed trapped behind restraint finally spilled out, fast and unguarded, until the bedframe gave way under the force of it and you both broke into breathless laughter in the aftermath.

After that, everything blurred again.

You sat on the couch as a streak of motion moved through the apartment, Clark unpacking every box in milliseconds, placing everything exactly where you had mentally mapped it out. The remaining cardboard vanished just as quickly, carried away like it had never been there. He returned almost immediately after, kneeling at the edge of the couch in front of you with the same restless energy still burning through him, only now softened by relief and joy. You met it halfway on the carpet, where time stopped mattering in any real sense.

It was late when the rush finally eased into something his body could keep up with at a normal human pace. Only then did you think about food.

You ended up on the kitchen counter, one hand lifted as the ring caught the warm light and threw it back in shifting color. Clark stood at the stove shirtless, moving between pots and fridge with distracted focus, adding things, adjusting heat and insisting you needed to eat before you fell asleep. You had been fighting sleep for a while already, after so many rounds, caught between exhaustion and the aftershock of everything.

The cold air from the opened fridge brushed your bare legs and it brought back the memory of earlier that day without warning.

“Tell me again,” you breathed, eyes fixed on the ring.

Clark stopped, whatever he was doing was abandoned in an instant. He stepped closer, placing both hands on either side of you against the counter, caging you in gently without pressure. His gaze didn’t go to the ring at first. It stayed on you, studying your face and reaction, like that mattered more than anything else he had built.

“Jewel Kryptonite,” he started, voice calmer now.

His hand lifted slightly as he spoke, indicating the first stone.

“I found it in the Fortress but it comes from the Jewel Mountains of Krypton. Its primary function was amplifying psychic abilities…telepathy and mental projection for Kryptonians. In my case…” He hesitated, just briefly, choosing the right way to place it. “It represents my mind…my subconscious, dreams, grief and memories. The parts of me nobody reaches…the parts I want you to have access to.”

He shifted his attention to the largest stone, the one in the middle.

“The Fortress crystal…origin and inheritance. It’s everything I was given, my legacy, my people’s knowledge…Krypton on Earth and Kal-El’s home.” His eyes softened slightly as they stayed on you. “Which you've gone out of your way to love and accept too in ways I never expected or thought possible.”

A quiet breath left him before he continued.

“And the last one but not least…never that.” His thumb brushed lightly against your hand where the ring sat. “Disabled green kryptonite. That was the hardest part and the reason this took so long…It’s what I trust you most with, my vulnerability…but not the only one.”

His gaze lifted fully to yours at that.

You moved closer instinctively, arms sliding around his shoulders and pulling him in as if distance had become unnecessary. You raised your hand again, watching the ring catch the light between you both.

“Who you come from… who you are… and what you trust me with,” you murmured, more to yourself than anything else. Then something else caught your attention.

“What about the band?” you asked softly. You had noticed it earlier, the faint engravings when the light hit just right, the House of El symbol hidden in the design, it was subtle but definitely intentional.

It was clear nothing about it had been accidental.

He exhaled through a small smile. “Everything I am,” he said, quieter now, “set into the thing that led me to you.”

Your brows softened.

“I made it out of my ship.”

The confession pulled the breath straight out of you. “It took you a year,” you said, voice catching slightly, “and so much effort and thought and I–”

"I love you." His voice caught, eyes filling again as they held yours. "I loved you the day I met you…I love you today,” He paused, “Y/n, I'll love you long after we leave this Earth."

You sniffled as a tear slipped down your cheek before you even realized it had formed but still, you smiled, voice cracking with emotion. "And I'll love you as long as it exists."

Clark lifted a hand, thumb brushing the tear away with a tenderness that contrasted everything else about him and gently tilted your face toward his as he pressed his lips to yours, leaving no distance between what he had built and what he had finally given away.

He might have been unable to say anything when he was down on one knee, but that didn’t mean he had no words for you. He simply doubted they existed in any language and if they did, they had a terrible tendency to fall galaxies short.

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!

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