Cookieness Evereat

Your head was literally pounding. The thoughts of everyone cramped into MJ and Ned's new apartment bombarding your brain, causing it to pound against your skull. MJ could tell that you were out of your element, her hand naturally outstretching towards yours. The brand of wine your sister loved filled the wine glass that she was attempting to put into your hands. "MJ, you know I never drink!" You yelled towards your sister, the loud music making your voice seem like a whisper. Before MJ could answer, her boyfriend Paul came in-between you both, his hands pulling MJ in by her waist. You made an annoyed face when you noticed they were suddenly kissing in front of you. Having to stop yourself from rolling your eyes, the dozens of minds that were surrounding you abnormally went silent. The hairs on your neck standing up as a response to you hearing the world grow quiet for the first time. For once in over two decades of living, you felt peace. Panic bursting into the back of your mind since silence was never something you've ever encountered. Scanning the room for some type of disturbance, your eyes zeroed in on a man who wasn't talking to anyone, his presence standing a few feet across from you. The browns of his eyes fixated on the wine glass that was shaking in your hands. Attempting to infiltrate his mind, you were met with resistance. The feeling of him pushing your mind out abruptly feeling like a dive into the coldest ocean on the planet. The man's eyes softened, his left hand harshly gripping and squeezing the stems of the flowers in his hand. The saddened expression that graced his face did little to mask the hurt in his soul. Overly confused for the first time in your life, you cautiously watched as the handsome man approached MJ, his brown eyes reflecting the dim light illuminating the filled apartment. "Hey, I don't think I've ever met you before..." MJ said, her thoughts trailing off at the end in attempt to get an answer out of this devilishly handsome stranger. "Oh yeah!" The brown-eyed male broke eye contact with you, the redness on his cheeks signaling his shy demeanor to activate. Your mind already seeing the act this man was putting on. "I live nearby and decided to bring a housewarming gift. My name's Maynard." He shared, giving the flowers to MJ. As you watched your sister thank him and put the flowers in a vase, you tried to get past the barrier of Maynard's mind. Feeling the pressure in your head increase, you stared at Maynard's forehead, trying to get past his mysterious mind. Seconds past, the thundering pressure in your body increasing heavily. Before you could get a hold of yourself, your knees gave out. The sound of the wine glass that was once in your hand, now smashing against the ground now echoed around you. A hiss drawing from your mouth when you felt glass crunch against your hands. Groaning, you attempted to stand up. "Hey Y/N, are you okay?" Maynard exclaimed, his body suddenly mirroring yours as he knelt beside you. His hands suddenly curved around your elbows, bringing you up to a standing stature. The right side of your body leaning into the left side of his, small electric shocks crawling all throughout your body. Your mind suddenly hyper fixated on the muscles you felt rub against you. Choking on your words, you were rendered speechless. The mind you were unable to penetrate was somehow still fighting against your abilities. "Please tell me you guys have a med kit somewhere?" Maynard asked MJ. "The last door on the left of the hallway. In the cabinets by the toilet." Your sister's eyebrows furrowing with worry when she saw the blood on your palms.

The electricity you were feeling from the body against yours increased as Maynard seemed to take his time leading you towards the bathroom. He escorted you in, sitting you down on the closed toilet lid before getting the med kit. Your mind now remembering something that occurred a few seconds ago. Turning towards you, Maynard froze at the puzzled expression on your face. "You said my name..." Your words suddenly ringing in Maynard's now panicked mind. "I've never met you and yet you know my name?" You exclaimed in disbelief. The suspicion on your mind growing tenfold when you saw a flash of an unreadable emotion cross Maynard's eyes. Ignoring your questioning gaze, Maynard reached for your blood-filled palms and applied alcohol to the cuts. Scrubbing with all his might, "That's weird..." He whispered to himself for reassurance, the healed skin of your palms rendering his thoughts to a pause. "There's blood but no cuts."

Snatching your hand away from his, the static between you both grew intensified. The air around the both of you charged with gravity that only you were aware of. Or so you thought. Feeling the panic multiply in your mind, you hopped off the closed toilet seat and dashed for the bathroom door. Maynard's body collided with the door, halting your alarmed body from leaving the space you both occupied. "Wait!" Maynard yelled, his voice suddenly filling with desperation. "I know you." He explained. Squinting with unbelievability, "We've never met." You said back, the bite in your voice doing little to heal his vulnerable state. "Before the blip. Before all of this..." Maynard's voice suddenly cracked at the end, his fingers loosening from the grip they had on the door. You shook your head, fully aware and confident that you've never seen this man a day in your life. Seeing the doubt in your eyes, Maynard rushed towards you, the sclera and pupils of his eyes suddenly turning pitch black. The sunken expression he once wore morphed into confidence, determination and strength. A smirk began to form at the left corner of mouth, your heart immediately beating aggressively in your chest. Your mind registering that this was a different version of Maynard.

Unable to stop your telepathic abilities, your mind attempted to bypass the shield of his mind. With swiftness you didn't encounter before, you fell into another world. The heart that belonged to your body skipping a beat as you registered something. You landed inside a mind that cherished many memories with you. Your heart plummeting to the pit in your stomach as the most painful reality struck. You had no recollection of these memories.

Power couple af. You both go out on patrol with each other and city has never been safer. Criminals see Peter show up and are like ok we can handle Spider-Man there's 7 of us. Then you land next him and they collectively go, "Oh shit..."

If Peter gets hit a little too hard he likes to be funny and say "I'm gonna tell my girlfriend you hurt me and she's gonna kick your ass." They look at him so confused before they get their lights punched out by you.

He wants to swing you around the city but he knows flying is way cooler. You both go on flights through the city and other places from time to time. Peter has no shame about it either, he loves being in your arms and being close to you. 🖤

Not everyone gets the chance to have a girlfriend from space, except Peter Parker. He fights for his life not to brag about the fact you're from Krypton. There's a lot of things about you that are worth bragging about but, he can barely keep it in. If he ever comes close to saying it you grab him like this:

He loooooves introducing you to Earth stuff you haven't seen or tried before. Ice cream, arcades, and concerts are all potential dates for him to plan. He gets so excited when you ask where or what something is, he loves telling you everything about it. He's just yapping about museums and you're not even listening, you're just admiring his expressions.

Peter loves to not so subtly try to get you to use your powers in a non combat situation, a lot. "Babe my drink is kinda warm...do you think you could, I don't know...cool it down?🥺" "Baby could you weld these two pieces together with your...heat vision?" and his soldering tool is like 3 ft away. "Sweetie could you change that light bulb, it's a little to high for me." "Peter, you can literally climb walls." "Please?🥺" You always end up doing it anyway.

When you cuddle you love to listen to his heartbeat, even when you're apart you listen for it, miles, states and countries away. When you told him this he got embarrased. "That means you can hear everytime I like, fart or use the bathroom or...you know other stuff." he says sheepishly. "Peter is fine I know when to stop listening, that stuff doesn't bother me." you say. He sighs in relief but still tries to pee really quietly when you're around.

He's always there to comfort you when you feel homesick, it hurts him so deeply that he can't fix it for you. He knows getting you to talk about your memories back home helped. The look on your face while you lay on his chest describing things from your childhood makes him so soft. He'll even ask questions about Kryptonian culture which makes you light up.

He worries about you regardless of you being indestructible, not just your physical well being but emotional too. He understands the toll it takes being a hero and on some level the last of your kind. He's so deeply empathetic about it, that's why he tries to make you feel at home as much as possible.

He likes to sun bathe with you after a big battle, you look so beautiful in the sun light. You do make sure he has sunscreen on cause you love being out there for a while. Otherwise he'll end up as red as his suit.

Overall he's just completely wonderstruck over you, not just cause you're from another world but you're such a kind and powerful person. He knows if he's ever in trouble you'll be there in seconds.

The building is strangely quiet, that’s the first thing you notice as you climb up the stairs, a stack of two cardboard boxes in your arms, chin resting on the very top of one, just enough that you can see the next stair. Because of course the elevator wasn’t working on the day that you need to move in. Because life is just like that. 

            “Woah, hey!” a voice calls out from behind you, deep and light in the same instance, the sound a shock from the previous silence, your body seizing, shaking, a slight jump, the top box sliding off your arms and falling, hitting the stair ahead of you with that peculiar thump of cardboard against, well, anything. 

            “Shit!” you hiss, looking down at the box on the step, at the one in your arms before glancing over your shoulder, looking for the owner of the voice, the one who startled you. 

            “Let me help,” the voice says again, this time from beside you and you turn, startling again, breath hitching but not just from fear because there beside you is one of the single-handedly most attractive men you’ve ever seen with dark curly hair, curls falling onto his forehead, partially obscuring the dark brown colour of his irises, the corner of his lips curled up into a half-smile. A kind of crooked grin that sets your heart alight. 

            He bends down, lifting the box from the stair in front of you, your breaths ragged for a moment more before you blink, shaking off the daze and forcing yourself to smile, the kind of practiced smile that you learned long ago for school pictures and talks with older people who always want to tell you how to live your life. 

            “Thanks,” you tell him and he smiles at you, a full smile, one that sets your heart alight as the two of you climb the stairs, a comfortable silence descending. He seems like the type of guy who would never push for conversation, who is okay with silence, familiar with it. 

            “What floor?” he asks you as the two of step onto the fifth floor landing. 

            “This one,” you tell him, stepping forwards, your back against the heavy metal door, pushing against it, pushing it back, swinging it open and holding it while he steps through. You step away from the door and out into the floor, stepping around him, shifting the box to one arm, reaching for your keychain in your pocket, pulling the bright, bedazzled SOURcharm from your hoodie, flipping it to grasp the key, stepping forwards and slipping it into the lock of 502. 

            “We’re neighbours,” he says from behind you and you turn towards him, pushing your door open, keys slid back into your hoodie pocket. 

            “Are you new here?” you ask him, one eyebrow arching as you step backwards into your new apartment, him following you with the last of your boxes. 

            “To the building?” he asks you, his voice confused, eyebrows knitting together, nose crinkling and you can’t help but roll your eyes as you step into your kitchen, setting the box down on the counter by the sink. 

            “No,” you call out as he follows you, setting the second box beside the first, “to New York. Because if so, you’re neighbours with the right person.”

            “Why?” he asks, his voice growing suspicious. Like he suspects that you’re hitting on him, which objectively he’s attractive enough to be hit on, you are just not the kind of person to do said hitting on. “Because you’ll show me around?”

            “No,” you reply, drawing out the word, making it as long and dramatic as possible, your eyes drifting around your crappy apartment, a true New York experience. “Because I’m new and haven’t you always wanted a buddy to explore a new city with? You know, experience everything with someone who also has no experience with said things? Because, honestly, it’s scientific at its base. You experience one thing and the other experiences something else and you’ll get the clearest picture of New York by comparing the two new experiences.” Your voice has risen and sped up in the way it does when you get excited, your hands moving with your words, gestures always arising when you’re interested in a topic, an experiment. 

            But this guy…he doesn’t look annoyed by it, rather the way his lips are curved into a smile that seems soft if a smile can be such a thing, suggests that he…he might like it. 

            “Yeah,” he whispers, one hand reaching up to brush his curls back from his forehead, showing eyes the colour of melted chocolate glimmering in the dim lighting of your apartment, “I’m new.”

            “So,” you say, both eyebrows arching as you peer at him, “buddies?” His smile widens, dimples showing in a way that makes your breath hitch, but you ignore it, simply reaching your hand forward for his. You’re good at ignoring things especially when they’re related to your feelings. 

            “Buddies,” he agrees, taking your hand in his, the callouses on his skin rubbing against yours in a way that is strange, but not unpleasant. His grip is firm, his hand is warm and the smile he gives you bright. He’s like sunshine in a person. 

            “Well,” you tell him, letting go of his hand and walking towards your door, putting it between your body and him, using it as a shield against emotions you’re going to need to tamp down, ignore, shove past and aside. “Thanks for your help.” He nods, stepping out of your apartment and turning, eyes narrowing as you begin to close the door. 

            “Peter!” he calls out, the words loud and echoing in the hallway, his face flushing a deep red, face shifting into embarrassment as he continues, his voice barely audible, barely a whisper as he says, “my name…it’s…it’s Peter.” He sounds so nervous as he says it that a small smile blooms across your face as you look at him, at the way he’s glancing down and away from you, cheeks flushed bright red. 

            “My name’s Y/n,” you tell him and he looks up, the motion abrupt and rapid, so fast you worry that he’s going to get whiplash. 

            “Nice name,” he whispers, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he waves, watching as you close the door, the sound of the latch clicking ominous and final. Not really, because no sooner have you closed it than have you wrenched it open again, seeing him still standing there, looking slightly frozen. 

            “You want to find a place to get hot dogs?” you ask him and he startles, like you did on the stairs, nodding and you nod once, back at him, ducking back to your kitchen, pulling your wallet from your bag and tucking it into your pocket before slipping out and closing your door, locking it behind. “Let’s go, buddy!”

            “Sooo,” you say, your legs hooked over the fire escape ledge, your hot dog in one hand, the other pressed against the metal grate beneath you. 

            “Sooo what?” Peter asks, his mouth slightly full, the sounds of the words off and you glance over at him, a smile threatening to form on your face at the way mustard is smeared on his cheek. 

            “Um…you have a little something,” you say, taking the napkin from your lap and leaning forwards, wiping it away, his eyes locked on you, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, hard. “Anyways,” you continue, looking away from him, back to the New York City skyline, the napkin set to the side, “I was going to ask what you do.”

            “I, um, I’m going to NYU,” he says and you look back at him, a smile blossoming on your face, the kind of smile you have when you’re genuinely excited, when something has genuinely made you happy. A smile you’ve kept smiling at Peter. 

            “Me too,” you tell him, your voice light in a way that it rarely is, in a way it hasn’t really since you packed up all your stuff to move alone to the city of your dreams. The city that’s strange and rings with a hollow sort of loneliness, except for right now on a fire escape ledge, the skyline twinkling like stars. “What are you studying?”

            “Engineering,” he says, his voice quiet, unsteady, just a little unsure, his gaze turned away from you as he sets the wrapper from his hot dog down beside him, brushing his hands together, brushing crumbs off of them. 

            “What’s your specialty?” you ask him and he glances back at you, surprise glimmering in his warm eyes, eyebrows knitting together, lips quirking up just a bit like he’s pleased that you’ve surprised him. 

            “Hold up,” he says, “what are you studying?”

            “Engineering,” you tell him, your smile growing wider as the surprise shifts to a pleasant kind of shock in his eyes, like he didn’t expect to have something in common with you. “Specifically,” you continue, “biomedical engineering focusing upon neuroengineering.”

            “A brain girl,” he says and you nod, the smile pleased as you turn away from him, back to the skyline of the city that never sleeps. The city you used to dream of as a kid. You lean back, your back slumping against the grated brick wall of the apartment building, your wrappers set aside, hands in your hoodie pockets, gaze trained on the blinking, twinkling lights of the city. “I’m in biotech,” he says and you let out a low whistle as he turns back to look at you, his body leaning forwards against the railing. “What?”

            “And I thought I was a nerd,” you tell him and he tosses a balled up napkin at you, one which you swat away with a laugh, one light and bright that has him pausing, just looking at you like one looks at an oasis in the desert. “What?” you ask, a familiar heat flooding your face the kind that comes from embarrassment. Or the fear of it. “Do I have something on my face?”

            “No,” he whispers, scooting himself back over the grating to slump beside you. “I just haven’t had something like this in a long time.”

            “Well,” you tell him, letting your head rock to the side, rock to face him, eyes blinking once before focusing on him, tiredness seeping into your bones, to your eyelids, “you have it now.” The smile you give him is hesitant, but he returns it, taking your hand in his, palms against one another, his fingers closing around the sides of your hand, a slight, gentle squeeze given. 

            “Yeah,” he says. “I guess I do. We do.”

            “Yeah,” you agree, your gaze darting away from him, flutters in your stomach that are unfamiliar, but also familiar. “We do.”

            Peter knows that he should stay away from you, that he should avoid you if he knows what’s good for him. That all knowing you will cause is danger, put you in harm’s way the way it did Ned and MJ, but he doesn’t want to stay away from you. You, the girl who didn’t look at him for a one-night stand, but a friend. Someone to experience New York City with for the first time. 

            You were lonely, but braver than he’s ever been and you were so…enthusiastic about the comparing of experiences that how could he ever say no to you. He just couldn’t. There’s just something about you that drew him in and the late night talks that keep happening, legs dangling over the fire escape, whispers carried to one another on the breeze, watching as New York lives on, gleaming and twinkling, just make him want to stay more. 

            Like last night, when you fell asleep beside him and he lay you down, your head on his lap, his hand smoothing down your hair over and over while you slept on, safe and content beside him. He’d whispered to you then, even though you couldn’t hear him, that he should stay away, but he just couldn’t seem to close the door on you. 

            “You know,” he’d said, “I should stay far away from you and keep you safe but…something about you keeps drawing me back. Like I can’t stay away from you, pretty girl.” That’s what he’s called you in his head, pretty girl, because you are. You’re pretty and you’re nice and you’re smart and you laugh too loud and too long and it’s just perfect and he knows in some way that he’s falling even when he wishes that he wasn’t. 

            Because he’ll just bring harm to you. That’s the nature of his life, isn’t it?

            But can’t he have a friend? Does he have to be alone? he wonders as he swings his legs over the edge of his bed, standing up on slightly shaky legs, tired from the fight yesterday and the classes he rushed to get to. 

            “PETER!” he hears you call, your voice echoing through the thin door of his apartment, palm flat, slamming against the door and he sighs, an annoyed sounding sigh even when he’s not really annoyed, but happy, excited. Excited in the way you make him because you live and you’re dragging him along with you. 

            “What?” he rasps as he pulls the door open, the clock reflecting 5:00 AM at him from its perch beside the door. You’re fully dressed, jeans and boots and an Olivia Rodrigo t-shirt on, a trench coat thrown over, arms crossed. 

            “It’s Saturday,” you tell him and he closes his eyes, sighing again, this time real as he leans his forehead against the door, tired and sore and so not in the mood for this. 

            “I’m aware.”

            “Then you’re aware of the fact that we’re looking for the best place to get breakfast,” you say, one eyebrow arched in the way you have when you’re annoyed, your hips canting, weight resting on your left foot, right loose. 

            “Right,” he sighs, pushing himself off the door and holding up four fingers to you, closing the door, saying, “four minutes!”

            “I’ll be waiting!” Maybe that’s what keeps drawing Peter in, the fact that you wait, that you never push, that you plan. That you’re so different from MJ, the girl he still loves, can’t entirely forget, can’t entirely erase no matter how hard he tries. Most of the time he still remembers that goodbye, holding her tight, but when he’s with you…he can see that there is a future. One where he’s okay. 

            “Why NYU?” he asks you, his hand wrapped around yours, the two of you walking on a path in Central Park, raincoats on, the sky grey and overcast, clouds hanging low, swollen with impending rain. “I mean,” he continues when you look back at him, your expression quizzical and so, so pretty that his breath catches in his throat, “why not MIT if you had the grades?”

            “I did have the grades,” you tell him, tipping your head up, eyes closing for a moment as you breathe in the smell of the rain. He knows that you do this often, that you like the stormy weather, has watched you climb out onto the fire escape when it rains to just stand there, arms wide, the rain soaking into your clothes. “I got into MIT, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia and Cornell, plus of course, NYU. But as a kid,” you pause, your head tipping back down, gaze falling on the cracked pathway, the lines of breaking. “As a kid, I dreamed of New York and NYU because…I don’t know…I just felt that it was right.”

            “Gotta say,” Peter says, squeezing your hand, breath hitching as you look over at him, lips curled into a soft smile, the kind you reserve for him, “that I’m glad you chose NYU.”

            “Me too, buddy,” you tell him, knocking your shoulder against his, his skin tingling, feeling alive in a way it hasn’t really. It’s felt like rubber stretched over bone and now it feels like skin, like he’s alive. 

            But is it selfish to love you?

            “Hey! Puppies!” you cry, tugging him along behind you, taking off towards the animal shelter set-up, puppies tumbling over one another and as he follows, as he watches you scoop a wriggling rottweiler mix into your arms, as he watches that puppy lick your face, eliciting a giggle, one that rings through the park and his heart, he finds he doesn’t care if it’s selfish to love you because he’s fallen anyways. 

            And he can love you from afar, be your friend. It doesn’t change that. 

            It won’t. 

            It can’t. Right?

            The stadium is packed full, your baseball cap pulled low, a newly bought Yankees jersey on, Peter beside you, his body radiating heat as the game goes on. You don’t entirely understand what’s going on having never been a baseball fan before, but it’s the Yankees and it’s iconically New York so you dragged Peter with you after saving up for the tickets. 

            It’s been six months of being buddies with Peter and it’s a sweet kind of torture because every minute that you spend with him, the more you learn about him, the more you feel for him. You don’t know if it’s love, if it can be quantified as such but it’s something. It’s something and you know you should stop hanging out with him, just give your heart a break, but something about him means that you can’t stop. 

            He just keeps drawing you back in. You’ve gone shopping with him, picking out books for one another based on vibes. You’ve spent hours together poring over engineering books and formulas, doing homework side-by-side and every time, there’s that moment when he looks at you with pupil-blown eyes and you think maybe, just maybe but then the moment passes and you curse yourself every time. 

            You curse the heart that just can’t stop hoping. It hurts to hope yet it doesn’t stop. 

            “HOLY SHIT!” Peter yells, standing up and pulling you with him, a baseball flying up at you and you shriek, lifting your hands to bat it away from you, but rather your fist closes on it and you’re left staring at the baseball in your hand. “YOU CAUGHT IT!” he cries and then his arm is around your shoulder and for a moment you can’t breathe because to breathe is to smell him, his uniquely Peter scent of vanilla and sandalwood and nutmeg. 

            The casual touch is the worst part of this torture. 

            “What…what do I do with it?” you ask him and he looks at you, face incredulous before he curls your fingers tighter over the ball, the fingers that had opened, holding the ball out to him like an offering. 

            “You keep it,” he tells you and there’s another moment. Another one where you think maybe, just maybe, his gaze dropping to your lips, his lips parting, but then he blinks and turns away, neck muscles rigid and you can feel that deflating, that crushing. That loss of hope. 

            “Will do,” you whisper, your eyes on him, on the line of his neck, of his jaw. Of him. You really hate hope. 

            The street is lit by the streetlights, dark descended while you were still in the stadium watching a game you didn’t really understand, holding a ball you didn’t mean to catch in your hands. 

            “Let’s go here,” you tell Peter, the two of you looking for a place to eat something sweet, a bakery just off to the side with lights blazing. 

            “No,” he says. “They suck.”

            “You’ve been there?” you ask him, lips curving up as you look at him, watching as his expression blanches, eyes go wide, calculations occurring in that wonderful brain of his. 

            “Yeah,” he says and then he tugs on your arm, pulling you towards a dimly lit diner, an overhang in red and black obscuring a sign that glimmers, refracting at you. “And this place is good.”

            “And how would you know that?” you ask him, tone leading, high-pitched in the way it is when you know something and you’re trying to pry what you already know from someone. 

            “Um…well…uh,” he swallows hard, gaze focused solely on the diner as the two of you run across the street, rushing just as headlights come up to the side, the two of you stepping onto the cracked and falling apart sidewalk as the car rushes past, a breeze blowing by you. 

            “You’re from New York, right?” you ask him and he looks over at you, shock writ upon his features as he pulls the door open, the two of you stepping into the diner, knocking dust and street litter from your boots on the mat. 

            “How’d you know?” he asks and you roll your eyes, sighing as the two of you cross to a table, him sliding in on one side of the booth and you frozen for just a minute. A part of you wants to sit beside him, but you know you shouldn’t, but as you go to slide in across from him, he pats the seat beside him and you slide in beside him, your side pressed against his, heart racing, racing, racing. 

            “No one just finds all of those places on the first try,” you tell him. “Plus…you have this look about you, like the city isn’t a marvel, but rather home. I don’t have that.”

            “So, you just knew?” he asks, his elbow on the table, cheek resting on his palm, attention locked upon you. “You just knew?”

            “I told you I’m smart,” you tell him and he smiles at you, your body alight with feelings and sensations and you look away from him, picking up one of the grease-covered plastic menus, the red binding fraying, plastic cracking in a way that tells you this place is good, well-loved. 

            “What will it take to earn your forgiveness?” he asks and you glance up at him, eyebrows knitting together, your heart climbing into your throat as you look at him, at the way he’s looking at you. Looking at you like you matter. 

            “You don’t have to earn it, Peter. I’m not mad, just curious. Why’d you lie?”

            “Because you were so…enthusiastic and I…I was enamoured by it and didn’t really want anyone else to be your buddy.” You swallow hard, your throat thick, tears stinging your eyes because of what can never be. 

            “Oh,” you whisper and he takes your hand in his, the one beside him, interlacing your fingers with his, resting the joined hands on his thigh. 

            “Do you want to go out with me?” he asks you, stare intense and you can feel your skin heating up, flushing, heart racing and you swallow hard again, mouth just a little bit dry. 

            “Aren’t we kind of already?” you ask him and you like how he ponders what you’ve said, his stare changing, shifting as he considers. 

            “I guess so,” he says. “I mean, we spend all our time together. We might as well just make it official.”

            “Official?”

            “Will you be my girlfriend?” he asks, his cheeks a bright red and you nod, the gesture fast and excited and then he’s letting go of your hand, shifting, hands coming to rest on your cheeks, pulling you to him and pressing a soft and lingering kiss against your lips. 

            It’s a kiss that tastes of first chances, of hope and promise. 

            It’s a kiss for the ages. 

            “I don’t want anything to really change between us, Peter,” you whisper one night, your body curled into him on the fire escape, the two of you watching the skyline of New York, entranced by it. 

            “Then it won’t,” he whispers and you lift your head from his chest to look at him, at the way his face is relaxed, his body safe and warm and not tense like it sometimes is. 

            “Promise?” you ask and he nods, leaning forwards, his lips pressing against yours, open-mouthed and hot, tongue sliding in like a promise, his grip tightening on you like he never wants to let you go. Never wants to lose you. 

            “Promise,” he vows, breaking away from the kiss, his forehead pressing against yours, his eyes closing like you’re his safe space. 

            You think you just might be.

            “Jesus!” you cry out, your back arching off the bed as Peter thrusts in for the first time, sliding in with ease, but the stretch still burns a little bit no matter how long he spent with his face buried between your legs, wanting to make this first time with him the best. It’s a good kind of burn though, a good kind of pain. 

            “’m sorry,” he breathes out, hips rolling slow and steady, the rickety bed still creaking beneath him. 

            “Don’t be sorry,” you whisper, your nails digging into his back. “Just go harder.” He looks at you, concern etched upon his face before he nods and it’s like he’s had restraint and then just lets go, driving in and out of you with force you didn’t really know he had. 

            It’s hard and fast and relentless, stimulating every part of you as he drives in and out, your body moving with the force, his lips hot on your neck and chest as he sucks hickeys into your skin, marking you, the bed creaking and creaking and creaking. 

            Honestly, the warning signs were all there, but you were too fucked out to notice and Peter was too obsessed with the feel of your walls clinging to him, to the taste of you on his tongue and the way you cry out his name, but the bed creaks one more time as Peter thrusts in and then it feels like the ground has given way, the bed breaking, landing on the floor with force. 

            “Shit,” Peter whispers, pausing in his rhythm, hands running over your body, not to turn you on, not to make love to you, but to check for injury. “You okay?” he asks and maybe it’s the way he asks, but you can’t help but let out a small giggle, one that grows as he looks at you with such horror on his pretty face. “Why are you laughing?”

            “We broke the bed,” you tell him, your voice high, a giggle itself. 

            “And that’s funny? Because I’m still inside of you and you laughing is not doing much for my confidence,” he tells you and you’re still giggling as you lift one hand to his cheek, his head moving into your hand, pressing in. 

            “I just think it’s funny that we broke the bed, Peter. We were already going to get noise complaints,” you tell him and his expression darkens, but not in an angry way, rather a horny way. 

            “We’re gonna earn those noise complaints,” he tells you and that’s all the warning you get before he’s thrusting back into you without abandon, your back arching up and into him again, the giggles turning to cries of his name. 

            It’s later, after, the two of you curled into each other on his broken bed when he rests his hand upon your cheek that he whispers, “I love you.” It’s like the world has stopped, your heart in your throat, tears stinging your eyes, but the good kind of tears. 

            “I love you too,” you whisper and he pulls you even closer against him like he’s trying to fuse the two of you together, just burrow into you. 

            And it’s the best sleep you’ve had in ages. The first time you’ve ever felt safe. 

            Peter’s tired as he swings into his apartment, ready to just peel his suit off and fall into his bed, the attic apartment better for his arrivals, better because it goes unnoticed, it’s not right next to your apartment. He can’t drag you into this if you don’t know. 

            He lands in his bedroom, hands drifting to his mask, pulling it off and preparing to toss it onto his bed when he shrieks, a figure sitting on the bed, arms crossed. 

            “Who the fuck are you?!” he yells, shooting a web at the figure only to hear your muffled groan of distaste. “Pretty girl?! Is that you?!”

            “Yeah, it’s me,” you tell him, voice flat with distaste, your figure pushing off the bed, rising and walking towards him, expression irritated, arms stuck to your torso by webs.

            “What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice gentle as he walks to you, pulling the webs from off your body, tossing them aside, his hands, still gloved in his costume, resting on your upper arms, grip warm and your expression softens. 

            “I figured out that you were Spiderman weeks ago and I’ve been waiting for you to tell me, but you haven’t and I was tired of waiting so I…you know, broke in.”

            “You broke into my apartment?” he asks and you nod, your hand coming to rest on his cheek where a bruise is forming from where the bad guy hit him. He hisses as you touch it, your touch achingly gentle but the skin so sensitive. 

            “I wanted answers,” you tell him and he walks the two of you backwards towards his bed, pulling you onto his lap, your body curling into him, fitting to him in a way that makes his heart ache in good ways and bad, guilt seeping in. 

            It’s a guilt that made him write a letter weeks ago to MJ, one to never be sent. He feels this deep guilt because he worries that he moved on too soon. But when he’s with you like this, feeling alive, feeling loved when to the rest of the world he’s naught but a ghost, he doesn’t feel guilty at all. He feels like he’s right where he belongs. 

            “Are you mad?” he whispers and you look at him, shock and hurt on your face as you press a soft, gentle, tender kiss against his lips, the taste of your cherry lip gloss slipping into his mouth.

            “Never,” you whisper and he relaxes, your hand tracing shapes on his still suit covered chest. “It’s just…can you tell me everything about Spiderman or…” you trail off, your gaze falling away from him, brow furrowing and he lets go of your thigh to reach up, pulling your face to him, making you look at him, his lips pressing against yours in a harder kiss, one that says forever. That says everything he needs it to say. 

            “I don’t want to have secrets from you,” he whispers and then he tells you everything. He tells you about his parents, the spider bite, the first villain, the meeting of MJ and the Europe debacle; Aunt May’s death, the other Spidermen, the erasure of himself from everyone’s memory. 

            He doesn’t know what he expected when he finished, but it wasn’t this, the way you hold his cheek so tenderly, so preciously, like he’s everything, your eyes warms and glimmering, full of love. 

            It wasn’t you whispering, “I know you, Peter. You’re not a ghost. Not to me. I didn’t know you before but I know you now. I don’t think that’s nothing.”

            “It’s not,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against yours. “It’s everything because you’re right. I’m a ghost to everyone, but you and I love you. More than that, I’m in love with you.”

            “Me too, Peter. I’m in love with you too,” you whisper and that’s how the two of you fall asleep, curled into one another, his suit still on. 

            And when he wakes in the morning, he doesn’t move, doesn’t shift, just pulls you closer. You, the only person in the world who knows him. All of him. 

            He wouldn’t trade that for the world. 

            “Peter!” you squeal as he swings into his apartment, scooping you up and running to the bathroom. “Put me down! You need to shower!”

            “I know,” he says, closing the door behind, peeling his suit off, standing there in nothing but his boxers before you, a tent noticeable. “You don’t expect me to do this alone, do you?” You laugh as he strips entirely naked and pulls your clothes off, guiding you into the shower and under the spray. 

            It’s not rough sex or fevered sex. It’s slow and gentle and full of kisses, lips gliding along skin, tongues against tongues. Him tracing the lines of your body with his mouth, whispering I love you against your body with every kiss. 

            It’s hot and sweet and perfect. Just like him. 

            You didn’t go looking for the letter, you went looking for your notebook that you left at Peter’s place two days ago, but you found the letter anyways. The letter written for the girl who forgot him, the girl he apparently never got over. 

            And sometimes, Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. Even if it breaks Peter Parker's heart. Maybe I'll never read this to you. Maybe I'm just writing this for me. Maybe that's my responsibility, to live alone with the truth. But the truth is I love you. 

            And I hope that deep down, something inside you remembers you love me too.

            You didn’t go looking for the letter, but you found it anyways when it fluttered out of the pages of his favourite book. Almost four years of being with him, of knowing him, every piece of him and it’s not enough. 

            It’s not enough because someone else holds his heart and you are just the other woman. You are the one warming his bed until some miracle occurs and she remembers and they can live happily ever after together. And you’ll be nothing but a footnote in his story. 

            An adventure without her. 

            The truth is I love you. 

            How many times has he said that to you, you wonder, your tears soaking into your pillow, body shaking with your sobs, blankets pulled up to your chin. 

            Logically, you know it could be old. That it doesn’t matter, that things changed, but you…don’t believe that. You have spent nearly four years loving him and he hasn’t loved you. Maybe he doesn’t even now. 

            Maybe he’s never loved you. How do you know? The problem is you don’t. 

            All you know is that your skin is seared with tears, throat thick, heart racing, chest constricting, lungs burning as you cry. As you cry everything out, sobs hurting your body, destroying you because you know that even after that, you will not leave him. Because you love him. 

            Because how can you leave him when you don’t know the truth of the letter? Maybe it’s old. Maybe he does love you.

            And life is good, isn’t it?

            You just need to cry right now. That’s all. 

            “Peter?” you call out, pushing his door open, stepping into his apartment in the attic, webs everywhere. You’ve been avoiding him for a week, the hurt of the letter still too fresh. It’s why you’re here now, you want to talk to him about it, get the truth behind it, but the apartment…it looks destroyed. 

            Furniture knocked over, webs on every surface, over all the walls. Nail marks on the walls, deep gouges. 

            “Peter?!” you call out, your voice urgent, worried, your heart beating a frantic rhythm as you step deeper into the apartment, hearing a strange sound from his room. “PETER!”

            “Go away!” you hear him yell, his voice hoarse, halfway between his voice and a deeper sound, a growl. “Just go away!”

            “No,” you call out, heart beating both out of fear and anger because you are here because you need answers and you’re not just going to be turned away. “No, come out here!” You hear him stand, shuffle out towards you and your breath hitches when you see him, eyes black, just black. “Peter? What’s wrong?”

            “I’m not…me,” he rasps, the black leaching away as he looks at you, body sweating, shaking, stumbling towards you. “I’m worried I’ll…hurt you.”

            “You won’t,” you whisper and then he’s there, pulling you against him, his body shaking as he holds you, his nose buried into the crook of your neck, breathing you in. 

            “It’s like…the world is dark…” he whispers. “Like I know…nothing. Nothing but you. Always you.” And then he’s pulling you down onto the floor, his body holding yours, tight, tight, tight like he can’t let you go. Like if he lets you go, he’ll lose you. 

            Like you’ll leave him. 

            And if he knows nothing but you…doesn’t that mean he loves you?

            “Peter,” you whisper, “is this because I’ve been avoiding you?” His grip tightens, a growl sounding deep in his throat. 

            “Mine,” he whispers and you swallow hard, guilt leaching into your bones as you shift, your hands brushing his hair back from his face, the black in his eyes leaching back to the warm, soft brown. “I think…maybe…it was a trigger. For my…change.”

            “Peter,” you whisper and he looks at you, warm brown eyes filled with tears. “I’m not leaving you. I’m not. I was dealing with some stuff and didn’t know what to do, but I’m not leaving you. I love you.” And that’s your truth—you love him. Deeply, like it’s a piece of you. 

            “Don’t leave,” he whispers and you press your forehead against his, hands still smoothing his hair back, his body shuddering beneath you. 

            “Never,” you whisper and that’s how you stay, held tight by him all night. Because he needs you. 

            And you need him too.

            “What if we…inhibit whatever is changing you?” you ask him the next morning, seated on the only intact chair in his apartment, pencil moving on the scrap piece of paper, formulas spilling out, a design sketching across the paper. “Like…Professor Banner did one. If we could inhibit this change in you, chemical or biological and prevent it from controlling you…that would be good right?”

            He turns from where he’s been struggling to make coffee around all the webs and destruction. “God, I love you,” he says and you roll your eyes, a pleased smile growing on your lips nonetheless. 

            “Well come on, biotech engineer! Can’t do this without you!”

            Peter knows nothing when the arachnid comes over him, takes over. It’s like the world is dark and everything is strange and foreign and so much. Too loud, too strong, too bright. It’s like he’s possessed, the real him shoved down, but one thing he does know. 

            You, always you. It’s like he’s engineered to know you, designed to love you. 

            He always knows you. 

            The arachnid in him always whispers mine and when Peter wakes up…he can’t argue with it. Because he’s never loved anyone like he’s loved you. 

            Peter doesn’t know how Jean Grey got into his apartment, but she did. She found the letter he wrote three years ago to MJ, back when he was feeling guilty, back before he’d spilled everything to you. Back before you became his everything. 

            But Jean Grey found the letter to MJ and once again he’s put her in danger. Because he loved her once, because he knew her. Because he misses her, not as a girlfriend, but a friend. The person he used to know. And he feels so guilty over putting her in danger again.

            Which is why he’s here, at MJ’s apartment, bursting in only to see you there too, sitting and talking with her, that soft smile on your face, the one he fell in love with all those years ago.

            “Babe?” he calls out and you turn, a question in your eyes. 

            “Why’d you ask me here?” you ask him and he can feel the ground shift underneath his feet as he looks at MJ, a smile on her face that he doesn’t know. One that’s wholly not her. 

            “You’re in MJ aren’t you, Jean?” he asks and the grin only widens as she nods, stepping around the kitchen counter, a knife in her hand. “Come on! Stab me, I can take it.”

            “It’s not for you, Peter,” Jean says, but it’s MJ’s voice and it hurts, hearing her voice say his name. “It’s for your girlfriend.” He barely has time to breathe, to speak before he’s watching MJ (Jean) plunge the knife into your stomach, your body bending into the gesture, folding in, a silent scream leaving your lips. 

            “NO!” he yells and he can feel the arachnid claw up into him, the inhibitor not yet finished as he crosses the room to you, your body falling into his arms. 

            “Peter, Peter. Peter,” Jean says, her words in a parody of MJ’s voice, dark and cruel and unrelenting, teasing and taunting. 

            “WHAT?!” he roars, turning, his arms still holding you, tears slipping down his cheeks. 

            “I’m giving you a choice,” she says and he realizes just how close MJ stands to the open window, the one that if she fell out of would kill her. “You choose one of them to save. There’s a right choice and a wrong choice, Peter. The right choice saves them both, the wrong choice has one die. Who’s it gonna be, Peter?” He watches as she climbs onto the window ledge, turning, preparing to jump, that cruel smile on her face. 

            “Peter,” you whisper, your hand reaching for him, your blood soaking your shirt, soaking the floor and he feels his body hitch, fold in on itself because he wants to stay with you, call the ambulance and save you, but he knows that MJ is the right choice. Because he failed her once and he can’t fail her again. 

            “I’m sorry,” he whispers and he lays you down on the floor, gentle and takes off, jumping out the window, arms wrapped around MJ, webs shooting up and out, carrying her away, carrying her to safety in Castle’s hideout. 

            “Wrong choice, Peter,” Jean whispers and then she’s gone and in her place is MJ, scared and terrified MJ who he explains some things to and she relaxes, going with him. He drops her off and then he’s rushing back, his heart feeling like it’s breaking as he races against time back to MJ’s apartment, hurrying and breaking, bursting back into the window, your body unconscious, the blade removed, a giant pool of blood beneath you. 

            “NO!” he cries, falling to his knees beside you, shooting webs into your stomach, using them to hold you together, the sound of the ambulance roaring, the webs soaking with blood and he holds you against him, crying, your pulse so weak. “NO! STAY! I LOVE YOU!” 

            And he stays with you until the EMTs take you away and then he leaves the apartment, needing justice. Needing to finish this. 

            For you. 

            “Why’d you do that to me, Jean?” you ask, your body lying flat in the meadow. A memory of yours that you’re in, that she’s in too. 

            “To show Peter the truth,” she says and you sit up, turning to look at her, a redheaded girl no older than you are, her face worried and tear-stained. “That sometimes you make the wrong choice and you have to live with that. With what it does.”

            “So, you killed me for that?”

            “No,” she says, sinking down beside you in the swaying grass. “No one was ever going to die. I called the ambulance as soon as he made his choice. I just need him to understand.”

            “Why Jean?” She looks at you, utterly broken. 

            “Because I have answers that I need and I keep making wrong choices. And I have no one.”

            “Not true,” you tell her and she looks at you, brows knitting as you reach for her hand, taking it in yours. “You have me.”

            “I almost killed you.”

            “But you were never going to let me die,” you tell her and watch as a single tear slips down her cheek. “You know, there’s this story I read once about sisters forged in blood. And I don’t know your story, Jean. But I can be that if you need it.”

            “Why?” she asks you, her voice not breaking so much as already broken. 

            “Because everyone needs someone. And you’re not evil, Jean. You’re just…you need someone and that can be me.”

            “I’d like that,” she says and the two of you lay back into the meadow, the ring of ambulance sirens just cutting through along with the echo of someone yelling stay. “I’ll see you later.”

            “Yeah,” you tell her. “Later.” And she disappears and you’re left with the knowledge that Peter didn’t choose you ringing in your heart, tears slipping down your cheeks until the light flares bright and pain flares stronger and the meadow winks out and the hospital lights wink in. 

            “She’s back!”

            But back to what, you wonder. What’s there for you now in a city where you’ve only really found pain?

            When you got discharged from the hospital, the first thing you did was pack up all your stuff, the acceptance to Oxford for your Ph.D finally chosen. Two weeks before you fly out. Two weeks before you leave New York behind for good. 

            You took your stuff to your best friend, Gwen’s house where you’ve been ever since, camping on her couch, alternating between crying your eyes out and going out only when you know that Peter will be busy with work. The times where you’ll never cross paths. 

            He didn’t choose you. He chose MJ. He had the chance to save you both and he saved her because he didn’t see the fact that he could have caught her with a web while staunching the flow of blood from your wound. Choosing you was the right choice but he didn’t think at all. He just said sorry and took her to safety. 

            He left you to die. 

            He left you to die like you were nothing. 

            You can’t stay around him because when you look at him, how will you ever see anything but the man who left you to bleed out? How can you forgive him?

            You can’t. 

            You just can’t. 

            So, you’ll bide your time before you fly out, before you leave New York, leave the fucking country behind, finding safety at Oxford, at the hallowed halls you’ve always wanted to be at. 

            You’ll leave Peter behind and move on with your life. 

            Because you deserve that.

            Because he didn’t choose you. He’ll never choose you. You were just the Other Woman. 

            Peter didn’t want to meet with Ned, but he’s spent weeks moping over you, over the fact that everywhere he looks you’re not there. The arachnid is not happy, but it can’t do anything, not now that Peter can control it. Not now that he knows that it’s him. 

            He went because he just wanted to know if he could remember him and he wasn’t expecting that spark, the handshake or the way Ned cried after he said Peter. He wasn’t expecting him to remember. 

            “You really love her?” Ned asks now, the two of them in his attic apartment, piecing Legos together to form the Millenium Falcon. 

            “I really do,” he answers, pressing a block down and Ned sighs, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head at him. 

            “Then dude! You have to get her back.” Peter looks at Ned, red just tinging his vision, the urge to smash the work of several weeks still there, the darker side always going to be there. 

            “How, Ned? I chose MJ and she thinks I left her to die! I doubt she’ll believe anything I have to say.”

            “If you really love her,” Ned says, leaning forwards in his chair, arms resting on his knees, hands folded under his chin, “then show her. Put everything on the line for her and tell her everything. Even if it means leaving it all behind.”

            “But what if she still says no?” Peter whispers. 

            “But what if she says yes, man?”

            The airport is far too loud for this early in the morning and you’re still sad, that particular sadness of leaving your life behind swirling in your gut, the sight of Gwen’s teary face as she waved goodbye still eating at you now while you sit, waiting for the time to board. Waiting for the time to leave it all behind. 

            At least that was until you heard your name being called in a voice you never wanted to hear again. You turn in your chair, taking in the sight of Peter, his curls brushed out of his face, hooded jacket on, dark blue jeans and the Rolling Stones shirt you bought him one Christmas on his frame. 

            He looks good. And that hurts. You turn back around, ignoring him, hoping he doesn’t come closer, but of course you aren’t that lucky, his footsteps, his unique rhythm echoing behind you as he steps around to sit down beside you, his hands folded in his lap, attention focused on the large windows exposing the planes. 

            “When Harry Met Sally,” he says and you glance at him, surprise etching on your face, throat thickening and lungs burning as you look at him. 

            “What?” you ask, your voice thick in that way a voice is when you’re holding back tears, that image of his masked face whispering sorry still too strong. 

            “Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, blue, popcorn and milk duds. You hate coding but you love calculating. You love watching sunrises but hate watching sunsets. You like the moon more than the sun but the sun more than the stars. You hate sleeping with the windows open. You love sleeping with your arms out of the covers. You love when we cuddle. You love coffee, so much so that if we cut you open, you always say that you’d bleed caffeine.”

            “Peter,” you whisper and he looks over at you, his face creased with pain, tears slipping down his cheeks over and over again, his face carved with the rivulets of grief. “Peter, you didn’t choose me. You left me to die. How can…How can I-I forgive you?” Tears are slipping down your cheeks now and he sighs, reaching for your hand, fingers interlacing through yours. 

            “I chose wrong,” he whispers. “I know that now. I could have saved you both, but all I thought in that moment was that I had already failed MJ and that I didn’t want her to die because I felt guilty. But I went right back for you. I must have broken a thousand speed records to get back to you. 

            “I held you as you bled. It were my webs that saved you, staunching the blood flow. I held you until the EMTs arrived. I yelled and begged and pleaded for you to stay, but you were unconscious, you didn’t hear me. But I was there.” He looks at you with such pain that you reach forwards, hands cupping his cheeks, thumbs wiping away his tears. 

            You look at him and in his eyes, you see the truth there. You know he’s not lying. You know he loves you. That he would do anything for you. That he loves you. That it wasn’t fake. 

            You weren’t the other woman after all. 

            “Peter,” you whisper, your voice still hitching with the tears, “I forgive you…but I can’t stay here. I can’t stay in New York.”

            “I know,” he whispers and then a figure steps up beside him, two carry-on bags on his shoulders. 

            “I’m Ned,” he says and you can feel a bit of shock in your system, this man, Peter’s best friend. The one who forgot him. “And yeah, I remember.”

            “I’m coming with you,” Peter says. 

            “While, actually,” Ned says. “We’re coming with you because he’s following you and I’m following him because I’ve gone four years without my best friend and not any more. Also, I’m mission control so… you know. He needs me.” He sits down beside Peter and Peter elbows him, a choked giggle escaping from your throat as you wave at Ned. Peter whispers, “Shut up” at Ned and it only makes you laugh harder. 

            “But what about Spiderman?” you whisper and he looks at you with such love as he pulls you against him that it feels for a moment like you’re complete. 

            “I’m always gonna be him,” he says. “It’s not the city that matters. It’s you. I can be Spiderman anywhere so long as my home is there. As long as you’re there, because, pretty girl. You’re all that matters to me. Where you go, I go.”

            “I hope you like rain,” you whisper and he pulls back, pressing his forehead against yours. 

            “I love it,” he whispers and then he’s kissing you, hard and deep and fast and you were wrong before. Your first kiss wasn’t a kiss for the ages. 

            This is. 

            Because this is the moment that you became real. 

The bell on the front door chimed and Peter took in the sight before them. He had been here many times before, mostly to get flowers for May’s grave but also to see the girl who owned the store. In another lifetime, you would know his name when he walked in through that door. In another lifetime, Dr. Strange would’ve never casted that spell.

“Hi, welcome to- Frank! You asshole!” You shout as they walk into the shop, disgust filling your face. “You got some nerve walking in here, acting like ain’t nothing wrong.”

Peter could almost hear his heart shatter as you spoke. For four years he has been waiting for you to say something other than “cash or card,” something other than “I hope your girlfriend likes the flowers.” And now, your words weren’t even for him.

“Who the hell is this kid?” You look over at Peter, sympathy replacing a little bit of the disgust. “Hey bud, you know who this guy is right? You don’t want to be hanging around something like that.”

Frank laughed, “See, sweetheart, this is why you have no friends. You’re lucky I like you because otherwise, you’d have no one to talk to.”

“That’s not true. The New Avengers happen to like me very much…they just don’t trust me.”

“Why not?” Peter asked.

“Too self destructive, er- I was,” You muttered, going back to assembling bouquets as you were before they entered. “After my dad died, I had a little bit of a rough patch…

“No, Yelena, please,” You cried, trying to grab the former assassin’s arm. “Don’t do this. Give it back.”

“I’m sorry, little one, but we can’t help you when you are like this,” Yelena frowned, dumping the cheap liquor down the sink. 

“I hate to say it,” John Walker chimed in. “But Yelena is right. This isn’t a way to live, Y/N. You’re 19, how did you get that crap anyways? Your father wouldn’t want his daughter to be a depressed drunk.”

You scoffed, turning towards Walker as tears filled your eyes, “First off, how dare you?! You have never even met my father! In fact, he’d probably be proud that I was following in his footsteps.”

“Y/N,” Bucky sighed, pinching the bridge between his nose. “You are creating weapons of mass destruction and distributing them out like their pieces of candy. Do you even know who you are selling those bombs to or what they are going to use them for?”

“A job’s a job, Barnes. I thought you of all people would understand that,” you glared at the man with the silver arm.

He shook his head, “Not for you, Y/N. You are better than that and you know it. Do you know how many people would be upset to see you living like this? A shell of the young girl they knew that used to run around the tower, begging to be brought on missions so she can make a difference.”

“Stop talking,” you covered your ears, closing your eyes.

“No, you are going to listen,” Bucky put his hands on your arms, pulling your hands away from your ears.. I understand that you are grieving your father and everyone else that we lost, hell, we all are! But you don’t see all of us moping around all the time!”

Tears fell freely down your cheeks as you hiccuped, “I- I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to do with myself. All I know is how to build and hurt.”

Yelena placed a hand on your shoulder, “What you need to do is focus on little potato stuff. Like that Spider-Man-”

Yelena kept talking but you didn't hear any of it. A sharp ringing noise took over your hearing and pain was shooting throughout your body. You stumbled backwards, accidentally bumping into the counter behind you. Flashes of a boy with a soft smile, brown hair, and a red suit came across your vision. You groaned in pain as you brought both hands up to rub your forehead, trying to dissipate the ache.

“Kid?” Walker came over and softly shook your shoulders. “Are you there?”

“I- grrr,” You cried out, the pain throughout your body increasing, like it was looking for a source that wasn’t there. The name Spider-Man was ringing through your head along with memories of the Statue of Liberty and Doctor Strange. “I need to go.”

“What? You can leave like this.” Bucky said.

“You killed my grandparents,” You pushed past him. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Bucky was stunned and didn’t respond as you walked out the door.

“And,” You turned back, opening one eye slightly to see Yelena and Walker. “Stay out of my flower business. I don’t need any of your help. I’m a Stark for goodness sake. Tell Bob I’ll miss him.”

With that, you slammed the door and walked back to your lab that was hidden in the back of your shop.

…That’s how Frank and I met. But, I’m better now.”

How could he not have noticed? In the past years that he’s been coming in, Peter had noticed those heavy eyebags that followed you around but he just had assumed those came with being a Stark.

“But, I’m still having these… headaches or visions sometimes. I don’t know what to call them,” You sighed, picking up a stem of roses. “Because of that, I can’t really be reliable yet, not in the way they need.”

“Visions of what?” Peter raised an eyebrow.

“Of none of your business,” you scoffed, turning back to Frank. “Why does he ask so many questions?”

Frank smirked, “I wonder the same thing.”

“Look if you’re here to buy…” Your voice trailed off as you looked around for anyone that could be listening. “You know I don’t do that shit anymore, Frank. Yelena and Bucky told me that if I can stay out of trouble for a little while-”

“That’s not why I’m here,” Frank rolled his eyes. “I need- well, really, this kid needs your help.”

Peter could just feel the questions racking up in his head. What were you selling that Frank needed? What visions were you having? Do you remember him?

You let a small smile slip, shocked mostly from what they're asking of you, “Really? My help?”

Frank nodded then turned to the boy who also nodded very earnestly, “Please, the whole city is counting on me to solve this problem and I can’t do it without your help.”

“Why don’t you ask Spider-Man? Didn’t he just save us all from that mutant girl?” You asked, putting out some more flowers. As you did so, you accidentally knocked over the glass vase next to you. Peter sensed it was going to happen and used his organic webs to catch it before it could spill water or shatter on the floor.

You looked at the vase, now covered in webs, then slowly back to Peter.

“I, actually, am Spider-Man,” he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. 

You could feel your body twitch when he said that but you played it off with a smile,  “Well, of course you are. I already knew that.”

“W-what?” The boy stuttered. “How could you have known that?”

“I’m a Stark, I know everything,” You winked at him, tossing your hair behind your shoulder.

“She’s bluffing,” a man walking into the store said. He had a mop of dark hair on his head, covered by a navy cap. The man sported a heavy leather jacket. Curiously, one of his hands was completely silver. Peter recognized him from the fight against Thanos.

“Shut up, Barnes,” You rolled your eyes before turning back to Parker. “So, organic webs, huh? That’s disgusting.”

Peter laughed, a little harder than he should’ve, thinking about the first time that he heard you say that.

“So,” you spun around in the lab chair, taking to break the awkward tension that had overtaken the room. “Peter, how do your webs work?”

This Peter, the oldest of the three of them, smiled, “Well, mine’s organic so it comes out of me.”

“...like out of your wrist, right there?’ You asked, observing the man’s arm.

“Mhm,” He nodded. “It shoots out from right here and I can do basically all the same stuff as your Peter.”

“Organix webs…” You muttered again. “That’s disgusting.”

“To some people,” the oldest Peter smiled again.

“Excuse me, one moment," You said to Frank, who muttered ‘what the hell’ under his breath. “Bucky, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be helping Yelena and Alexei?”

“Yeah, well, I needed a break,” He gave you a look like that should’ve been obvious.

“And so you chose to come here?” You laughed as the man shrugged. “Fine, but you’re not just hanging around. Will you go to the back and start picking off some thorns?”

“Sure thing, kid.” Bucky nodded as he slipped behind the counter and went into the back.

Frank smirked, “You got the Winter Soldier doing your dirty work?”

“Yeah, he owes me,” You sighed before looking over at Peter again. “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself properly yet. I’m Y/N Stark,” You put out your hand for him to shake.

Peter froze. He did know you, very well. He knew your favorite movie, how you liked your coffee, how beautiful you looked when you woke up in the morning. 

“I’m Peter Parker,” He put his hand out as well, hesitant to shake yours.

Once your two hands met, you seemed to be pulled back into a memory:

There were two soft knocks on your door, a sign that your dad was about to enter.

“Hey, bug,” Tony smiled, seeing you over at your desk, working on your homework. “Can I talk to you really quick? I have someone I want you to meet.”

You took out one of your earbuds and closed your textbook, “Sure, dad, but make it quick. I have a major project due to- woah.”

A chestnut haired boy walked in, looking roughly the same age as you. He had soft eyes and creamy skin, with a smile that could light up a whole room. He would’ve been the most beautiful thing you have ever seen if it weren’t for the fact that he looked like he was going to vomit.

“Parker, this is my daughter, Y/N,” your dad nodded to you. “Y/N, this is Peter Parker. He is my new intern in the lab.”

“Hi,” you stood up, walking over to the two men. “It’s nice to meet you, Peter. I hope my dad isn’t giving you too much trouble.”

“Trouble? What trouble? I, he’s been very nice. I’m Peter,” the boy tried to smile, putting out his hand.

You laughed, shaking it, “Well, of course you are. I already knew that.”

“What? How could you have known that?”

“I’m a Stark, I know everything.” You smiled. “Besides, my dad just said it, remember?”

“What? Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m just really nervous,” Peter wiped a sweat bead from his forehead.

“Anyways,” Tony cleared his throat. “I need someone to give Peter a tour of the tower but I have a meeting that I have to get to. Think you could help me out here, bug?”

“Of course, let’s go, Peter.” You grabbed the boy’s hand and led him out the door.

You groaned, stumbling backwards as a tear fell down your cheek, “What the fuck was that?”

Peter looked terrified and Frank had a confused look on his face, “You good, kid?”

“I- ugh,” You groaned again, grabbing the counter to support yourself. Your head was pounding, like your brain was trying to rip itself apart. “Get Bucky. Quick.”

“Winter Soldier!" Frank yelled. “Get your ass out here!”

Bucky emerged from the back, “Wha- oh!” He was instantly at your side, easing you to the ground. “Easy there, Y/N. It’s going to be all right.”

“What’s happening?” Panic filled Peter as he watched you squirm in pain.

“She’s alright,” Bucky affirmed. “She gets these visions, or spasms, from time to time. Nothing to worry about. It’ll go away in a minute.”

“What causes them?” Frank asked.

“We’re not sure,” Bucky sighed. “It started a little more than four years ago. About a year after her dad died, when she was 17. It is caused by her hearing certain words but we still don't know what brings it on or what the source is.”

You whined, opening your eyes.

“You okay, Y/N?” Bucky asked, helping you back to your feet.

“Yeah, could you just get me some water?”

“Sure thing,” he said as he disappeared into the back again.

“I’m sorry,” You muttered to Peter. “I don’t know what brought that on.”

“It’s not your fault,” he gave you a comforting smile.

“Yeah, it is. You guys came to me for help and I still don’t know what the problem is.”

Peter took a deep breath, “There is a crime syndicate attempting to bomb New York to the ground and I was in charge of discovering who they are, who their leader is, and what they want. They are utilizing this super high tech bomb that, honestly, has Stark written all over it.”

You look at Frank, “You think I sold those guys weapons?”

Frank nodded.

You sighed, meeting Peter’s eyes, “Look, if it is true, that I sold them the bombs they are using, they’re still gonna be hard to track down. I haven’t sold anything other than flowers in well over a year so any information that I have on them, if any at all, will be outdated.”

“Please, Y/N,” Peter pleaded. “Anything will help.

“This seems like some big potato stuff and I’m not allowed-” You slowly turned towards Bucky, who was standing behind you with a small smile on his face and a water in hand.

“I think this would be good for you,” Bucky said. “It’d be a good way to get back up on your superhero feet and show Yelena and the others how valuable you could be to the New Avengers.”

“Okay,” you agreed. “Let’s see what I can do.”

ty for reading!!

By 5:30, you’d gathered yourself just enough to get through the doors. It was nearing the end of October and it was chilly enough that morning that you were bundled up: hoodie, coat, gloves, and a beanie all overtop your pajamas—you hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet. That decision was proving to do more harm than good as a chill cut through the thin material of your pants. You’d be lucky to make it back without freezing your legs off. 

Were you being just a tad bit dramatic? Absolutely, but the call of a warm breakfast sandwich and some hot chocolate was more than enough to get you energized.

The place you’d chosen was a bit farther than you usually walked, coffee shop storefronts and bodegas all starting to open taunted you as you walked past. Sure, these places were okay, not that you’d tried them. But the place you were headed had the best hot chocolate you’d ever tasted in your life even though you were pretty sure it was just Swiss Miss packets.

Your therapist, if you actually went back to see her, would praise you for walking as far as you were. “The exercise is good for you!” She’d say. And then, “You should take walks like that more often, you don’t leave your apartment enough.” And you’d nod, probably agreeing with her to some extent. But you had friends and you talked to your coworkers, so you were socializing at least!

The cafe was a 25-minute walk from your apartment building. That meant that you watched New York City wake up as you walked. By the time you reached the cafe, cars were already honking in the street, congested just as it passed the 6am mark. 

While it sucked sometimes, you were grateful that you didn’t have a car. Everything you needed was within a 10-minute walk from your apartment, sans the more than double excursion you were currently on. You strayed away from taking the subway. It was always too crowded and rarely anyone let you sit, not even to mention the terror that was taking your wheelchair on public transit. You couldn’t fathom doing it again. So walking, or rolling, it was. 

Somehow, even at 6 am on a Tuesday morning, the cafe had a line. Waiting was something you dreaded even more than walking. It wasn’t the patience part, you were fine on that front for the most part. It was the standing; the forcing your knees to lock in place and not give out before you reached the register.

It calmed you that the cafe was a somewhat familiar setting. It was a cozy little shop with 3 tables on one side of the storefront, and space for a line to form on the other. They had a huge case next to the register with all of their freshly baked goods. Muffins, bagels, pastries, you name it, they had it. You always ended up buying a loaf or two of their sourdough.

What made the cafe familiar, however, was the fact that it had been around since before you were born. You’d grown up taking trips to it with your grandparents long before they’d taken you in post-blip. It was here where you tried your first hot chocolate, no more than 5 years old. You’d begged and pleaded with your grandparents to get you a drink since they were getting their own drinks, and since you were too little to have coffee, hot chocolate it was. 

As you reminisced on the past, ignoring the sorrow that followed when you thought of your late grandparents, the line moved forward and the bell dinged, signalling another customer entering the store. You turned your head slightly, eyeing the newcomer and finding yourself pleased when you realized it was the guy you’d seen the day prior.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were stalking me.” You mused, turning your body to face the man who smiled when he recognized you.

He chuckled, eyes crinkling with crows feet that made you question just how old he was since the rest of his complexion was so young looking. “I swear, I’m not. I live a few blocks from here.” He answered, tone mirroring your own amused one.

You shuffled forward a bit as the line moved, the man following you. “So do you have classes this morning?”

“Uh, no, just ah- couldn’t sleep.” He finished, shrugging slightly. “What about you? What are you doing up so early?”

You smiled softly. “The same, actually. I woke up around 4 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I start work at 8 so I figured I would make the most of it and get breakfast out.”

He nodded at your answer, finding some familiarity in your words. “So, Mr. English major, what do you do for work?” He asked softly.

Your eyes crinkled at him using the same namesake. “I work in publishing, I’m an editor.”

You swore the sun was reflecting when he smiled. “That’s really cool.” He said as you both moved further up in line. There was only one person ahead of you now. 

“What about you? What do you do for work?” You asked.

He shrugged. “Freelance mostly. Honestly, I don’t really know what I’m gonna do with my life.”

You hummed. “I get that. You seem smart, I’m sure you’ll find something you love.”

He nodded, his smile lighter. “Yeah, I wanna help people. Always have.”

“Well, I don’t know too much about bioengineering, but sciencey stuff can usually be used for good.” You said feebly. You looked back to the counter and saw that the person in front of you was done ordering and it was now your turn. You gave the brunet a quick smile before turning back to the cashier. “Um, can I get a medium hot chocolate and a number three, please? Oh, and 3 plain bagels and a loaf of sourdough, please, thank you.” You felt awkward as you fished your wallet out of your pocket, paying for your order and giving the cashier your name for your food and drink. You then thanked them profusely when they handed you the bag of your additional baked goods.

You stood to the side as your..acquaintence or maybe friend?..ordered. He then gave his name for his order, Peter. It suited him, you decided. 

He smiled when he came to stand beside you. “Hot chocolate, huh?” He teased, a goofy grin on his face.

You shrugged, an equally big smile on your face. “I’ve never been that big a fan of coffee.”

“How can you be up this early and not want coffee?” He asked almost rhetorically, chuckling at what he probably thought was insanity.

“Anxiety? Pure adrenaline?” You shrugged once more, “I’ve been up for long enough that I’m pretty awake.”

He gave a nod. “Fair enough.”

You talked for a couple more minutes. He asked you about your job and the kinds of books you were working on. You asked him about the things he liked to do. You found you both had a love for all things fantasy, especially Star Wars. You learned Peter was just as much of a nerd and geek as you were.

“Do you have to get back soon?” He asked as your names were both called. 

“Not right away, I was planning on eating here.” You smiled, happy to spend more time talking to him. You shifted your bag and cane so that you could grab your order but Peter beat you to it, grabbing both of your orders with a sly grin on his face. 

The two of you settled in one of the tables, continuing to talk and muse about anything and everything. You talked as if you were old friends reconnecting. It was like you’d known him your whole life and yet he was a complete stranger.

He told you about his late aunt and you told him about your late grandparents. You’d both lost them around the same time. You also learned you were only a few months apart in age. It was like you were living the same life.

“Well, I’m headed this way.” Peter murmured as the two of you exited the cafe.

You smiled softly. “I am as well. Do you mind if I walk with you?”

He mirrored your smile. “Not at all. Here,” He offered to take your bag and offered out his free arm for you to hold on to. He was wearing that same ESU hoodie which was thin enough to feel just how firm his muscles were. You blushed as you wrapped your fingers around his bicep. It felt so intimate even though you’d done the same thing with your friends. You supposed it was because he was so beautiful and you harboured a small, yet growing, crush on the man.

When you reached your apartment building, you found yourself a burst of confidence. “Would it be okay if we exchanged numbers?” You asked, cheeks furiously red from more than just the chill of the weather. 

The smell of soy sauce and the different proteins simmering on the stove filled the apartment. It was a familiar aroma, one you tended to find most weeks. Dinner was just about ready and your friends should be walking in almost any moment now. They tended to be on time, at most 10 minutes late unless they texted you that they were running behind. 

Dinner tended to be on Wednesday. Mid-way through the week so Ned and MJ were usually too stressed from work to consider the prospect of dinner. You tended to plan for the weekly dinners throughout the week, finalizing your plan by Monday when you usually did your shopping. 

This week, dinner was on Monday. A slight wrench in your plans, hence going with a comfort meal of yours that you didn’t have to put too much thought towards or overly complicate it. But, MJ’s parents were visiting on Wednesday for god knows why, so Monday would have to suffice. Tuesday you could have leftovers, and Wednesday Ned would probably show up with takeout in an attempt to avoid the questions from MJ’s parents about why she lived with a man who wasn't her boyfriend. Her boyfriend who would conveniently be busy and give you and Ned another reason to dislike him. 

The lock clicked and your two best friends walked in. MJ was carrying a bag that she placed on the counter. Ned was at your side in an instant, a big goofy grin on his face once he noticed you were transferring the spam from the stove to a bowl with the rest of the components for your tailored fried rice dishes. 

“What can we do to help?” Ned asked after he and MJ said their hellos. 

You motioned to the cabinet that housed your dishes. “Grab plates or bowls and then we can eat.” You smiled warmly. 

The two of them plated their portions with each part that they desired. Your apartment was just slightly too small to have a real dining table, so dinners were often spent on the couch with bowls in laps or on foldout TV tray tables. 

“What are we watching tonight?” You hummed, settling into your usual spot, tucked into the corner of your sectional. 

MJ, on the opposite side of the couch to you, stretched out on the chaise, “There’s a documentary on Einstein that came out recently.”

“Or that movie we saw a few months ago, Project Hail Mary, came out on streaming recently.” Ned countered, sat between the two of you. 

“That was a good movie.” MJ and Ned both turned to look at you. “What’s your pick?”

You smiled sheepishly, “Gotta say I’m biased towards Ryan Gosling.”

“That’s my boy!” Ned cheered as you quickly cued up the movie. 

“Hey,” MJ nudged you. She was drying dishes while you washed them. “Are you doing okay?”

You shrugged, then nodded. “Yeah, just tired.”

MJ hummed. “Y’know, I’m guessing you would’ve told us if you hooked up with someone, so cut the shit.” She put the towel she’d been using down on the counter and put her hand on your shoulder. You bit your lip, knowing what was coming. “Where’d the bruises come from?”

“It’s not important.” You mumbled, continuing to wash the pan you’d been holding. 

Unsatisfied, MJ plucked the pan from your grasp and placed it down in the sink. She pried the hoodie away from your neck, inspecting the bruises that had finally started to shift from deep purple to now slightly yellowed. She sighed, releasing her grasp. “Who hurt you?”

“Where do you want me to start, in my childhood—“ MJ barked your name loud enough to stir Ned from whatever Spider-Man related article he had been engrossed in. “Fine! Jeez, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. I got mugged, Spider-Man saved me, Ned walked me home. I’m perfectly fine.” You let out a heavy sigh, feeling frustrated because you knew she would get overprotective about it. 

It wasn’t that you didn’t like how intense she could be, it just often overwhelmed you. The pestering questions about who did something and that she would confront them for you. And it’s not like she can travel to one of your coworker’s houses in Michigan to yell at them whenever they make a sly comment about your appearance. Some things just can’t be helped and you were okay with that.

MJ took one of your hands gently. “I’m glad you’re okay.” She started, “Did the police arrest them?”

You nodded, squeezing her hand. “Yeah, they’re getting charged with aggravated assault. I’m supposed to get a letter if I need to show up in court.”

She squeezed your hand in return. “Good, they deserve to get locked up for hurting you. Have you taken photos of the bruises?”

“Yeah, I emailed them over to the cops already.” You murmured. 

MJ pulled you in for a hug. “As long as they’re locked up and you’re safe, that’s all I care about.” 

You clutched at her sweater, tucking your chin in the crook of her neck. You met Ned’s eyes from the couch. He smiled softly and you gave him a loose thumbs up.

The sound of monitors beeping was overwhelming. It was too much, too loud. The image of your grandmother on the ventilator wasn’t something you could handle. 

You were curled into a ball just down the hallway from your grandmother’s hospital room. You knew she didn’t have much longer left. She hadn’t been improving no matter how many vaccines and antibiotics they gave her. She was going to leave you just like your grandfather had. But you couldn’t even face her to say goodbye. 

In the distance, the monitors started beeping rapidly. Alarms going off that you knew deep down were from your grandmother’s monitor. A handful of nurses rushed to her aid and all you could do was cry, mourning someone you hadn’t yet lost. 

The feeling was unbearable. It hadn’t been that long without your grandfather, and now your grandmother? It had to be a cruel trick from some higher power. You didn’t consider yourself super religious, but if you had to believe there was one out there, they were out to get you.

That feeling, it rooted itself deep in your stomach and stabbed you in the head. Your stomach gurgled nauseatingly, only pushed further by the overly sanitized scent of the hospital that burned your nose. It was a smell that would forever haunt you.

The feeling, you later decided, was shame. Shame for isolating yourself and avoiding death as if it was something that couldn’t touch you despite how sick you had been and how sick you continued to get. Death was something you still couldn’t figure out how to cope with. 

The shame pooled in your gut as you watched yourself curl further into yourself. It wasn’t real, you reminded yourself. Just a memory. One that you relived in your nightmares that had expanded tenfold after the void incident. 

The shame rooms had given your nightmares a burst of color in a sense. They’d added smells and sounds, and above all else, the shame you felt was dramatically increased. 

You felt it whenever you visited your grandparents' graves, when you awoke from the nightmares, and whenever the feeling decided to plunge into your veins and suffocate you. It was like shame was trying to kill you. And nothing you could do would stop it.

You always awoke in a cold sweat, panting and shaking, unable to stop the panic attack that always followed. 

Your throat burned, pain shackling it as if barbed wire had been tightly wrapped around your neck and pulled until you were suffocating. Tears fell down your cheeks as you clutched at your chest. Your heart was pounding rapidly and you feared that if possible, it would jump straight through your ribcage and onto your bed sheets. 

Your room was still dark, shades pulled tightly. You reckoned it had to be the early hours, but not quite dawn yet.

As your breathing struggled to steady, you focused on the things tethering you to reality. The soft texture of your blanket and the semi-cool temperature of your sheets. The stuffed bear you’d had since you were little, still remaining in your bed after so many years. Even in the low light, your eyes latched onto the stark red of the ribbon that was tied around the bear’s neck. It had loosened over time, but the familiar feeling was soothing.

You gently rubbed your fingertips along the ribbon, one side rough from the years, the other almost silk-like. The combined textures gave you something to focus on and eventually, your breathing evened out, leaving you with the residual shame from your nightmare.

You wiped the tears from your cheeks, breathing shallowly as you grabbed your phone. 4am. You were awake enough that you wouldn’t fall back asleep for at least another hour or two, and by then, you’d get at most an hour and a half before you’d have to start getting up for work.

It wasn’t worth it, you decided. And, after an hour of scrolling, you decided you’d make the most of the early start to your day and go for a short walk and get a breakfast sandwich before starting your work day. 

“Okay, that’s about all I had for this meeting. Does anyone have anything to add?” Your boss smiled kindly, waiting for any of your colleagues to speak up. “Alright, well, I’ll send an email out in a little bit just following up with the things we talked about and new assignments.” She called your name, “Hang around once everyone else leaves. I’ll talk to you guys in a bit!”

The rest of your colleagues left the call. Anxiety pooled in your stomach as you felt everyone’s eyes on you even though you were alone at your desk in your empty apartment. 

“So I just wanted to check in with you.” Your boss started and you subconsciously made yourself smaller, fearing she was going to reprimand you for something to do with your conditions. “I noticed some bruises around your neck during our meeting and I am mandated to ask if everything is ok at home? Are you safe?”

You let out a breath, almost feeling relieved. “Oh! Um, I got mugged over the weekend. I’m alright, I just bruise easily and they haven’t faded too much yet.”

She pursed her lips, nodding. “Alright, dear. Just be safe. Please reach out if you need anything.”

“Of course, have a good rest of your day, ma’am.” The call ended and you practically laughed. Those damn bruises. 

“Yeah I literally thought I was getting fired or something.” You laughed, phone pressed to your ear as you reached for a sauce jar on the top shelf. “Right? Like I bruise all the time so they aren’t really bothering me.” You rolled your eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m just taking it one day at a time.” You placed the jar in your basket turning and bumping into a guy that you swore appeared out of nowhere. “Ned, I’ll call you back— Dude, I’m so sorry.”

The guy smiled softly, hands splayed across your biceps, steadying you. “It’s fine, are you ok?”

You nodded. You could feel heat rushing to your cheeks as you stared at the guy in front of you. He was one of the prettiest men you’d ever seen. Curly brown hair, deep brown eyes that made the reflection of the fluorescent lights shine like stars. His hands felt strong and you suspected a sleeper build beneath the ESU hoodie he was sporting. 

“ESU?” You motioned to his hoodie. “I just finished my program there last year.”

“Oh nice, I’ve been taking online courses mostly.” His voice sounded so familiar, like he was in one of your classes but you would remember a pretty face like his. 

“Oh cool, what’re you studying?” You asked, shifting your weight and swapping your basket to the opposite arm as you leaned on your cane. 

“Bioengineering.” He answered. 

You let out a bubbling laugh. “Oh god you sound like my friends. Computer Science and Aerospace Engineering. Here I am with my English degree.”

He chuckled. “I would much rather code something than write essays.”

You shrugged. “Sure, as long as you don’t kill me when the AI overlords take over.”

“Yeah, right. As if aliens aren’t bad enough.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah but the Avengers beat Thanos and brought everyone back, I don’t think AI would be so kind.” You argued back, smirking. 

“Well that’s saying all AI is bad.” He pointed out. 

You cocked your head. “Generative AI is bad, in my humble anti-AI-English-major opinion. AI to like, cure cancer is better.”

“Agreed.” He grinned. 

You looked him over one more time, eyes landing on his basket. Ramen noodle cups, instant coffee, and some tissues. “Well Mr. Bioengineer, it was nice talking to you.”

“Likewise, Mr. English major.” He smiled, turning to walk the other way through the aisles. 

“Oh my god, Ned, I just talked to the hottest guy ever.” You were blushing like a teenage girl geeking out over some boyband.

“Oh yeah?” Ned hummed over the phone. “Was that the same guy you suddenly hung up with me to talk to?”

“Yeah, I almost slammed into him.” You got giddy thinking about his hands on your arms. “He was so pretty. You’d agree with me if you saw him.” Your phone was this time connected to your earbuds, thankfully since you no longer had a free hand with your cane in one and grocery bag in the other.

“I’m sure.” You could hear Ned typing in the background.

“What’re you working on?” You asked, pausing to fish your keys out of your pocket.

Ned hummed again, half-paying attention. “Just some freelance work. This dude was having trouble with a function on his website so I’m fixing it and improving some other stuff for him.”

“Ahh okay.” Your cane was balanced on your hip as you keyed into the building. “I’m about to get into the elevator so I’m gonna lose you again. Are we still good for dinner tonight?”

“Of course, MJ and I will be there at 6.” He answered quickly. “We’ll see you then.”

“See you then.” You smiled as Ned hung up the call and you stepped into the elevator. It had become a habit to call him when you were out running errands if neither him or MJ could accompany you. That way, he had some piece of mind when you were on your own. You supposed the company was nice even if it was a bit overbearing.

The elevator dinged and you stepped out onto your floor. You lived on the 8th floor of a 10-story building. It had a decent view and the elevator was always in working order which you were extremely appreciative of. You suspected the landlord took pity on you. She’d tried to be as accommodating as possible when you first toured the place, only a week after your grandmother had died.

Your apartment, room 816, was a 1-bedroom and 1-bathroom apartment with a full kitchen and living space, and your favorite amenity, the in-unit washer and dryer. That had been the biggest selling point for you. You’d put down a deposit the same day.

Your apartment was small, but cozy. In the time you’d lived there, you’d really managed to make it your own, with the help of Ned and MJ. The coziness was primarily due to the tall bookshelves that lined your living room. 4 of them to be exact. All but the fourth were completely full. You suspected that you had at most, 6 months before you would have to get rid of a bunch, or take a trip to IKEA to get another shelf. 

While you had a decent sized collection since you were a teen, your job sent you copies of every single book you had worked on, as well as some of the other books published by the company. On one hand it was nice because you always had something to read. But on the other hand, you had at least one whole bookshelf that you hadn’t read yet because the books sent to you were either books you weren’t interested in, or you just had so many that you couldn’t keep up. You were almost certain that if you had stopped by the mailroom, there would have been another package for you to add to your shelves.

MJ and Ned occasionally took books, but there were times when you would force them to take a box or slip a book or two into their bags when they weren’t looking. You were planning on pulling that again when they came over for dinner later that day.

Speaking of which, you had 4 hours to kill until they arrived. Which meant 2 hours of recuperation from your errand, an hour dedicated to getting ready, and the final hour dedicated to dinner prep and actually making the meal so it would be ready when they arrived. Dinner wasn’t anything too special, fried rice. It was a comfort food, and one that your friends enjoyed whenever you cooked it.

When you first started doing these weekly dinners, you’d made an effort to learn to cook their favorite foods even if it wasn’t something you particularly enjoyed yourself.

MJ had been surprisingly easy to learn to cook for. She loved grilled cheeses. Her first curated dinner was a homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese, with Haagen Daas for dessert, a pint for each person that you all ate while watching a movie.

Ned had been a bit harder to figure out. Not because you didn’t know what he liked, but because the dishes were more complicated. At one point you’d straight up asked for his Lola’s recipe cards for one of the dinners. But in the end, adobo had been one of his favorites.

The weekly dinners had started as a way to ensure that you would all see each other in person at least once a week. It was a weekly time where the three of you could all socialize and decompress all at the same time. It also gave you something to look forward to. 

You had been heavily in a depressive episode when MJ had first proposed the idea. But cooking had been something that you enjoyed and had learned how to do a lot when your grandparents got sicker. You were forced to learn, and it had been one of the most beneficial skills you’d learned. Of course, you were still learning, always trying to find new recipes that you thought your friends would enjoy. But you always liked to stick to some of the classics.

Tonight was fried rice. You would make a base of the rice, veggies, and egg. Your friends each preferred different things in their rice. MJ was a vegetarian and preferred the rice as is. Ned liked spam in his. So you always tried to have a few different options so that they could customize it to their tastes. 

New York has never exactly been a safe place. You were 7 when aliens attacked and destroyed half the city. You’d had to go stay with your grandparents for almost a year while your parents tried to figure out if the apartment building you lived in would be rebuilt–spoiler, they found some place else to cram into. Then, senior year, you and half of the rest of the universe snapped out of existence. The Blip. 5 years later, you returned and couldn’t find your parents. They moved out of New York and were deadset on never returning. Thankfully your grandparents took you in, until they passed that is. One after the other. Barely a year apart. Covid. Then of course, the incident that the government still has yet to explain. You had been walking down the block and out of nowhere you’re trapped reliving all of your traumas. And most recently, some mutant kid the government is looking for freezes and possesses people. 

Somehow, despite living through all of that and having to repeat senior year, you’d graduated with a bachelors in English and a minor in marketing. A weird mix, your college friends had called it. But it worked out, you got a job right after graduation as an editor for a decently big publishing company. It helped that you’d done an internship with them, shadowing an editor who proceeded to recommend you for a position. 

Through all that, you got sick. Really sick. It started not long after you got covid when it plagued your home and killed off your grandfather and left your grandmother in and out of hospitals until they stuck her on a ventilator and eventually she died too. You thought you just hadn’t fully recovered like your grandmother. But it got worse. You were fainting more than the average kid in their 20s. Then you had your first seizure. Scared the shit out of you and you begged your doctors to figure out what was wrong. 

Thankfully, your job was remote so you could hide your chronic illnesses for the most part. It helped that your zoom calls only showed your upper half, you could hide the days where you could barely walk and used your wheelchair to get around your apartment. You felt ridiculous and ashamed most of the time. You were young and healthy up until Covid hit. Not to mention the fact that through all of this, you’d been legally and medically transitioning. A lot of tears and vomiting and feeling like you should just give up. Who would miss you other than maybe your boss? You had no family left in your life. College friends had drifted almost instantly after graduation. It was hard to find reasons to keep going. 

And then Ned came into your life. It was dumb really. You’d joined a discord dedicated to building an app to track the superhero, Spider-Man. You helped edit some of the parts which resulted in you and Ned spending a lot of time talking. He would tell you about growing up and really having no one until he met his close friend and roommate, MJ. They almost felt like extensions of each other sometimes. 

He would tell you about the times that Spider-Man had saved him and his friends. How the hero must be one of his classmates–Flash–or one of his teachers–Mr. Harrington–which you told him was ridiculous. 

“Neither of them fit Spider-Man’s build or sound like him.” You’d argued on a call one night.

Ned rolled his eyes. “He could be using a voice modifier or using the suit to alter his appearance. I mean it’s a secret identity for a reason.”

“But that’s just ridiculous, MJ tell him!” You groaned.

MJ’s head popped into frame. “It is quite ridiculous.” She grinned, poking Ned.

It was nice, talking to them. They were the closest people you had to friends. And then they became even closer. 

You somehow managed to bump into them at a bodega by pure coincidence. Of course, you’d been on the verge of passing out, stopping in so that you could grab a gatorade and hopefully not collapse on the pavement.

And there they were, exactly as they were on camera. Ned, thankfully having shaved that abomination of a goatee, even by your standards, and MJ who was even prettier in person. Sometimes you couldn’t believe she’d never had a boyfriend or girlfriend before Paul. And Paul, he’d been there too that day. He’d been so confused why and how they knew you. You didn’t like him, even more so after meeting him in person. 

On the upside, you found out that Ned and MJ lived only a few blocks over, a 10 minute walk on one of your good days. They ended up visiting you more often than you visited them. So much so that they each had a spare key to your apartment. They’d insisted on it after witnessing one of your worst medical episodes, one that had landed you in the ER. 

And now, they were all you could think about as some asshole shoved you against the wall of an alleyway as another jammed a gun against your skull. Your eyes were welling up with tears as you clawed at the hands that clutched your jacket. Your cane had been kicked away from you. The adrenaline was pumping through your veins and you were certain all your vitals were going haywire.

“You’re gonna give us your wallet and phone,” The guy with the gun sneered. “And we’re gonna walk away, and you’re not gonna do shit, cripple.”

“Please, I seriously don’t have anything.” You choked out.

The guy that was holding you in place started digging through your pockets. As he pulled out your wallet, you heard the voice of your savior. “Hey asshole! I don’t think that belongs to you!”

In a flash, the gun that had been against your head was webbed to the wall, inches from you but now inoperable. The gunman’s hand was also conveniently webbed up. The other guy spun around, releasing his hold on you. His head whipped around violently as he tried to spot the one and only Spider-Man. 

You blinked and all of a sudden you were in the air. Spider-Man caught you as he pulled you up on the ledge he was perched on, brushing off the webbing he had used to yank you up from the pavement. He patted your shoulders, “Are you okay? I’ll be right back. Just stay here.” He jumped down and you could vaguely hear pained grunts. 

Your heartbeat was pounding in your ears. Blood rushing and growing louder than the busy streets of New York. Adrenaline never really mixed well with you. It wasn’t long before your head started feeling foggy and you slid down against the lip of the building. Pulling your knees up, you pressed your head against them, trying your best to slow your breathing down and tell your body that you were okay. 

This was too much. You needed to text Ned or MJ. You needed—you couldn’t feel your phone in your pockets and your wallet had been taken out of your pocket before Spider-Man had pulled you out of there. 

And then, he returned. “Hey, they’re all webbed up and I alerted the cops, they’re on their way.” He crouched down beside you. “Hey, are you okay?”

You just barely lifted your head up. Your vision was blurry even with your glasses on. The light hurt and you winced, closing your eyes and pressing your head back against your knees. 

“Woah, what’s wrong?” He asked again. “E.V. check his vitals.” He whispered to what you presumed was some robot in his suit. “Okay, your heart rate is really high and your blood pressure is low.”

“I need, um, gatorade or something salty.” You croaked out. “And uh, my cane, phone, and wallet.”

“Right, are you okay to move? I can hold you up or carry you, but I don’t wanna swing if it’s going to bother you.” He sounded nervous. You couldn’t blame him. He was used to fighting aliens and bad guys. Some nobody fighting incurable conditions isn’t something he’s equipped to deal with. 

“Once I get my cane I’ll be a bit better. I’m sorry.” You murmured, started to shift to get up. 

He was immediately attentive, taking one of your hands and wrapping his other arm around your back. “Hey, hey, hey, don’t say that. You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

You sniffled. “I just— thank you.” You offered him a weak smile. 

“Always.” He spoke softly. “Okay, wrap your arms around my neck and we’re gonna go slow.”

You nodded, holding onto his shoulders before tightening them around his neck when he lifted you with one arm secured around your waist. The other held onto the wall as he carefully scaled the wall until you had your feet safely on the ground once more. 

His arm stayed wrapped around your waist until your cane was in hand and you had some of your balance restored. “Where can I take you? Or is there someone you can call?” He asked next, gathering your clattered possessions from the ground. 

You blinked a few times. “Um, I can call my friends. Ned and MJ, yeah, I’ll call them. They don’t live too far from here.”

The masked man seemed to freeze up the moment you said those names, but you assumed it was just your vision still being not completely clear. “Oh, okay. I’ll wait with you until they get here.”

You nodded, finding Ned’s contact quickly as his and MJ’s were pinned. He was just more likely to be looking at his phone, coding genius and whatnot. 

Ned picked up on the second ring, just as you thought. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Um, can you or MJ come get me?” You mumbled, another wave of anxiety rushing over you at the thought of burdening your only friends with something as dumb as this situation. You already had the most notable hero of New York fretting over your every need. How pathetic was that?

“What happened? Where are you?” He asked quickly. 

You looked towards the street, trying to remember where exactly you were. You mumbled out the street number and the nearest sign logo. “I got mugged, Spider-Man is with me. I’m okay.”

“Dude, what! Spider-Man saved you? We gotta get a picture and update the Spidey-Tracker.” Ned stammered excitedly. 

You smiled softly at the pure excitement that radiated from him. “Well obviously. But uh, Ned?”

“Yeah?” 

“Can you bring some gatorade? I’m having a syncope episode.” You winced as you admitted it. 

“Dude, I was literally grabbing you a gatorade when you said that.” God you loved him. Not in a romantic way or anything, but he and MJ seemed to always know just how to take care of you. It probably helped that they’re both insanely smart and more than likely researched your conditions and potential comorbidities to bring up with your doctors. They’d even helped you research which wheelchair to get once you’d saved up enough and insurance agreed to pay a substantial sum. 

Your love for the two of them was almost enough to ease your guilt about asking so much of them, even though they never complained or had any issue with occasionally playing caretaker. Hell, MJ had nearly gotten into two different fights with people giving you shit for using different mobility aids. They meant so much to you, and it hurt knowing you could never repay them for everything they’d done for you. 

Ned would be there in 10 minutes. MJ had an interview, some sciencey position at Oscorp that you couldn’t remember the name of much less explain even if you did know. Spider-Man helped you sit down. The cops came while you waited. They took a brief statement and you explained a friend was coming to get you. 

Finally, Ned arrived and hugged you instantly. Relief flooded through your bones as you finally had someone familiar with you. The feeling cascaded through you once you chugged the whole bottle of gatorade. 

“Okay uh, you guys want me to walk you home or?” Spider-Man piped up. He put on an almost forced deeper even more New York accent. 

You raised a brow at him but ultimately ignored it. “We should be okay, I don’t live far.”

“I got him, don’t worry.” Ned smiled. 

Spider-Man seemed sad, if that was even possible to tell through the whole mask and putting on a front. He nodded and swung out of the alleyway, leaving you and Ned alone. 

“You okay?” Ned asked, holding out his arm for your free hand to hold onto. 

You shrugged. “I mean, about as good as someone who had a gun held to their head can be.”

“Jesus, dude. They had a gun? I thought it was just like a knife or something.” Ned looked at you, scanning for any visible injuries, eyes settling on the already darkening bruises around your neck. You looked away, shame pooling in your gut. Ned called your name but you shook your head, avoiding his gaze as you walked. “Is it just those bruises? Did Spider-Man get there before—“

“Yeah. It’s just those. I bruise easily, remember?” You let out a half-hearted chuckle. “Honestly, they barely touched me.”

“Okay, but MJ’s going to lecture you if she sees those.” Ned added. 

You sighed. “I know, please don’t tell her.”

“I won’t, but one of us should be with you when you go out.” Ned squeezed your arm. “Not even just because of the mugging, but you’re getting sicker. Until you get on meds that help you, you really shouldn’t go out alone.”

“I want to be independent.” You croaked out, eyes and throat burning as the thoughts you never dared verbalize were spoken by your best friend. “That’s the whole point of me getting the mobility aids and accommodating every aspect of my life.”

You could feel the pity radiating off of Ned as if you could look at him and physically see a glowing halo around him with bright flashing lights. “I know that, but I’m worried about you. MJ’s worried about you.” He paused as he reached the door to your apartment building. “We just want you to be okay. You’re our friend. We care about you.”

“I know, I just— I just want to lie down and rest.” You breathed out, keying yourself into the building. 

Ned didn’t leave your side until you were fully settled in bed with an assortment of hydration and salty snacks, your laptop cued up with your comfort show. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked, sitting on the edge of your bed. 

You nodded, tucking your chin into the hoodie you’d thrown on, partially as a way to cover up the bruises. “I’m ok, Ned. I’ll call if anything happens, I promise.” 

Ned gave a small nod, accepting defeat in that you wouldn’t let him help any further. “Okay.” He gave you a hug before heading out. 

She doesn’t bother questioning it after five or six rounds in one night over the Saturday of her last jobless weekend before the start of her new position the following Monday. It had done wonders for the stress in her body, the tense and worried state it was nearly permanently in. She’d gotten better at taking it all up to the hilt, stuffing it inside up to her stomach after taking an edible and throwing on whatever TV show could make decent background noise. She grins with her heavy lidded eyes falling closed while another load pumps inside her. The second one of the hour to be exact. That addicting feeling of her toy cock gradually just losing it, losing all control like her pussy did things that triggered this quick, heavy release.

She’ll hang around her home in nothing but her underwear and her robe, eating cookie dough ice cream straight out of the carton, higher than a dopey teenager stuck in her own element. It doesn’t take long for her to take her favorite toy and rut her clit against it until it got warm like some kind of horny genie lamp. And then like clockwork it fills up for her again like it’s getting hard, twitchy, and ready all just for her pleasure. In the very back of her head she thinks this thing is so real it could have the off chance of somehow getting her pregnant since the cum had the consistency and the warmth of a real breathing person.

When Monday inevitably arrives, she gives up making sure every single hair stays in place and just parts it all to one side, buttoning up her favorite coat as armor against the unpredictable weather. As she strolled along the streets to her new work building, petting the dogs passing by on their owners’ leashes and twirling the cord of her headphones, she imagines what kind of office would hire someone like her. Blunt, casual, some neurological differences that make it difficult to focus if the topic didn’t interest her. Virtually no prior experience in the field she’s been hired in. It didn’t feel real getting the call back to learn she’d been selected, but who the hell was she to call them stupid for picking her of all the candidates?

The hustle and bustle was apparent as soon as she entered the building, asking around with wide eyes where her section was, what floor was she supposed to go to. Everyone looked busy but remained patient and kind, directing her to her floor, telling her to find a tall, shaggy haired man by the name of Clark.

It wasn’t hard to seek him out of everybody else, large frame still evident even with his hunched over posture, diligently typing away on his computer. When he looks up she was struck to find that he was almost dangerously beautiful. Handsome, pretty, dorky, everything that had always baited her into making terrible decisions. Just by talking to him she could tell he had anxiety, stiff movements and facial expressions that had her wondering if he was nervous from the pressure of being in charge of a new hire, or if he was more specifically nervous about being around her in particular.

Clark is attentive and sweet, helpful and patient with her learning new things, getting used to the environment and what was to be the new routine. Picking up the mail, distributing the mail, transferring phone calls, helping Lois with office duties and finding supplies with low stock to re-order. Certain areas felt overwhelming but overall the job itself seemed mundane. The only thing sticking out to her was Clark and his antsy eyes and big arms, anxious ticks and shy smiles. How he bent over backwards to help her with just about every question thrown his way or another way, making himself of use to her in any way she may have needed.

On her smoke break she feels the rain start to pour within seconds of going outside, and although she’s walked through rain and shine plenty it was still a bit of a test to see how far Clark would actually go if she’d asked to take her home. And he was so eager, so easy. If she got to know him well enough and if they became comfortable enough, she could give him the nickname of being her own mister Yes Man. Yeah, of course I’ll take care of that for you. Yes, you don’t have to worry about that, I’ve got it. Yup, no worries. Yeah, I’ll get this going for you. He was so full of yes’s she almost wonders what the limit may be.

Throughout the day he reciprocates just about every glance, every minor, innocent brushing of arms and fingers and touches on each other’s shoulders, upper back, arms. He hands her a pen and she grazes his fingers entirely on purpose and doesn’t hide dragging the moment out. The more she does the more flustered he’s become.

When Jimmy meets her and shakes her hand, he pulls her aside to whisper in her ear that Clark is very, very single and she laughs so hard she snorts. And when Clark comes back from his lunch break wearing different trousers than he was before he left, she doesn’t attempt any subtlety at eyeing his new pants up and down and shrugging with a little knowing nod at what might’ve made him have to change. Clark makes up some half baked lie about spilling hot sauce on his other pair, and she nods enough to try convincing him she believes it.

After her training is done and the paperwork is filed and the day is finally, finally over she gets a nod from Clark across the room, tilting his head in the direction of the elevators with briefcase in hand. He nudged his glasses further up his face and sniffled, waving bye to staff and pressing the button to head down, holding the door open with an extended arm.

“Thanks so much again by the way,” she graciously squeezed the thick muscle of his upper arm as the elevator doors close. Clark’s turned bashfully red almost immediately, chin down at the ground pretending to look at his shoes.

“It’s nothing. I really wouldn’t want you um, getting all soaked out in the rain, that wouldn’t be right. I’m glad you felt safe enough to ask me.”

“Of course I did. You’ve been nothing but a big sweetheart. Seriously, if anyone’s intimidated by the height they could have one conversation with you and it’ll change their mind,” she laughs, meeting his wide eyes framed by his thick glasses. The elevators ding to alert they’ve arrived to their destined floor, Clark taking a second too long to process before shoving his arm back out to stop the doors from closing in on them again. His version of a curse word slips under his breath while he nearly drops his briefcase, clearly still tripping and stumbling his way out to the parking garage.

“Well I guess so. I’m not that tall. Maybe a little over average, but— I hope I’m not intimidating. Um, here, let’s go this way,” Clark awkwardly trails off, pointing to his little beat up blue vehicle parked way over in the corner. When he points it out she wonders how he even fits himself in there.

“Uh, usually I prop the drivers seat back for my legs. A little crammed but I’ve had her since I started driving. My Pa gifted me this, and she’s still been up and running good after all these years so I don’t really see a need for finding anything else.”

She nods her head and smiles, impressed. He doesn’t let her hand go even near the handle, ripping it open and holding it while she slides in and sets her bag down on the floor near her feet. “Wow. You know, that shows a ton of loyalty to keep one of these for years like you have. I like that.”

He sheepishly nods his head with curls moving on his forehead before gently closing the door and jogging over to the other side.

She takes in her surroundings, observing the little details. His hanging dog charm around the rearview mirror. Taking in all the neatness, the warm vanilla scented air fresheners. How the seat is propped back as far as it could possibly go to accommodate for his height. She notes how he kept himself a spare pair of glasses in one of the cupholders, another style than the ones he wore to the office. When he turns the car on, music began to boom through the speakers, jolting him with a twitch as he rushed to turn the volume all the way down, laughing through a string of apologies. She only giggles harder, clearly less upset than he was, more amused if anything.

Each mundane little thing about Clark piled more on to this growing irresistible urge to just make the plunge already, to crawl in his lap, to kiss him so hard his glasses get crooked and eventually fall right off his face. It became more tempting with each passing glance from the side, every accidental brush of her thigh with his hand while he shifted gears, a murmured apology with those signature pink cheeks. He always looked so embarrassed, and it somehow always served to really turn her on.

“Uh, so I’ll turn here right?”

“Yeah. Yeah just, just turn then you’ll go straight for a while. I’ll let you know when we’re approaching.”

Clark follows directions, going about five miles below the speed limit as he keeps his eyes on each house passing by, curiously wondering which one could be her home. Was it the well groomed, modern style with a picket fence, or an old school, overgrown lawn with an artsy mailbox?

He slows down more as the end of the street was coming, pulling off to the side as she pointed out her home. Clark forgets to hide how eager he is to scope it out, the little pink painted one story home with healthy plants branching out from their pots on the porch, the lady bug mat, the absence of any cars parked out front. Figures she must only get around anywhere on foot.

Rain still patters on the windshield as his windshield wipers barely keep up in time from the heavy drops, and puddles outside forming in the potholes of the road. Her plants looked to be the only happy ones to have some rain to quench them.

“This is me right here,” she reluctantly says, a sigh leaving her throat while she peers back over to the man in the driver’s seat. “I had fun, says a lot for a first day at a new job. Those are always pretty stressful but you’re such a great teacher that I know I’ll be in good hands,” she says, rubbing the lipgloss leftover on her lips together while eyeing him up and down, back and forth between his pretty face and his robust chest.

“I… I’m not that good, you just made it easy,” he disputes. “You asked all the right questions, you’re smart. I know you’ll get the hang of it real soon—“

“—You know, when I met Jimmy today he told me you were single,” she interjects before her mind could steer her away from the risky decision. “So was he… was he joking or was he—“

Clark groans loud, making a fist and then nearly slamming his forehead into it to hide his face, mortified that Jimmy set him up like this. To have this awkward interaction with his now co-worker.

“Gosh…. of course he did… that’s— no. I’m sorry he was acting inappropriate—“

“No as in you’re not single.”

Clark pulls his head back up, blinks, utterly confused.

“No, no I’m—“

“No as in yes?”

“N-No, no as in he’s right. I… I am, it’s just I didn’t want him disclosing stuff like that that to you, that information. Like as if you’d even care if a co-worker is single or not is ridiculous. If he makes you uncomfortable again I can talk to him, it doesn’t have to be a whole HR thing but if you want it to be I can absolutely help…”

She chews her bottom lip to prevent another shit eating grin from spreading onto her cheeks, placing a deliberate hand back on his upper arm to nab his attention, soothe any of his sudden woes.

“Listen, stop. Listen to me Clark. I was asking to clarify it with you because I was hoping that he was right,” she admits, a soft laugh not far behind the end of her small confession, trailing off with a rub of his shoulder, making him hold his breath and keen from the contact.

“You um. So you aren’t freaked out, you aren’t uncomfortable in any way? I just can’t imagine what it’s like, being a… a woman. A beautiful woman you know, like you, in a new workplace and having men be obnoxious on top of that—“

Clark stutters and takes a breather, shutting his car off and tilting his head up so his neck is exposed, blankly looking up at the ceiling.

“Clark.”

“Yeah?”

He doesn’t look back down or turn his head, Adam’s apple of his throat bobbing as he swallows more nerves down.

“I’m not uncomfortable. Not freaked out. And if you want me to just get my stuff and go, not mention any of this tomorrow, then I could,” she starts. Clark takes a deep breath in like he wants to interrupt, but she holds a finger up and he obeys, shutting his mouth closed. “Or,” she began. “I could kiss you for being so sweet, and we can act normal tomorrow, but you can give me another ride home if you aren’t busy again. And we can see where this goes.”

The drop of his jaw was nearly out of a cartoon, heartbeat throbbing so fast it might as well be audible in the quiet of the small space of his car. He can’t take his eyes off her, blinking ever so slightly when his eyes start to dry up. It looked like he wanted to pinch himself just to make sure everything was real.

“I… I really like the second option more. A lot.” he finally mutters. Licks his lips while staring down at hers like he had countless times today, this time with layers of restraint stripped away.

“I like the second option more too,” she chuckles at his dumbstruck face, soothing a palm over his thigh and rubbing his flexed muscles through his trousers. “I also noticed you changed your pants after lunch.”

Clark swallows while her face comes closer, nearly nose to nose, sharing and exchanging breath.

“Uh, yeah, yeah I….”

“That story about spilling some hot sauce was bullshit, right?”

Clark nods without a second thought, confirming everything she already knew.

“Did you have a little too much fun? Make too much a mess, had to end up changing before you got back to the office?”

“Yeah, yeah I did,” he bows his head down a bit, licking his lips again. Still close enough to smell her perfume, to stare at the glittery shine of her lipgloss, begging to know what it tastes like.

“I thought so.”

Clark doesn’t get another moment to think or conjure up a response before she’s leaning in and he’s dreamily shutting his eyes, humming into her mouth while she tilts her head to the side. Her nails splay out across his neck while he whimpers in her mouth, trying to keep up and savor the exquisite taste of her while he can. With plenty of hesitation trying to hold him back, he goes for it anyway and takes his own palm to the middle of her back, hugging her close to him while they kept making out like it wasn’t any different than coming home after years of being away.

“You’re really pretty, makes it really hard,” he pants. Pulls away but not too far, lips still brushing hers as he speaks.

She laughs right at him, tucking a curl behind his ear and adjusting his glasses so they’re straight again on his face. “Apt word choice there.”

“No! No I mean, that’s not what I meant….”

“As much as embarrassment looks cute on you, you don’t have to be,” she assures with another giddy laugh, kissing his cheek and leaving a subtle glossy mark on the skin. Then aims for each corner of his lips only to be pulled back in by him to get the heated momentum back up and running.

“You’re unbelievable,” he breathes. “I want to just… I wanna keep going forever.”

Shit, is he talking too much too soon?

“I mean you don’t have to, really, you can head home whenever you like… I only meant I like this a lot.”

She doesn’t let his overthinking become worse, just grabbing him by the collar and kissing him again. Adding tongue swirls into the mix.

“You taste like your Spearmint gum,” she observes. “Really nice.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Clark nods, his meek persona still in full swing even after having her tongue in his mouth. “You’d tell me if my breath was bad, right?”

“Of course I would.”

The pair still kept exploring each other’s kissing techniques, her hands stroking his arms and his chest while Clark’s stayed on the middle of her back in easy circles. It could’ve been ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes passing by while the rain hardly lightens up from pouring out from the gray clouds scattered in the sky. Clark offers to walk her up to the door so she could get home safe and dry, and she couldn’t pass up the offer, even if he kept reassuring her he didn’t mean to allude to any funny business. He takes off his own jacket to hover it over her head as they make the short trip, insisting he does it as to not get her hair wet.

“I like your plants, your place is cute. I can pick you up and take you home tomorrow if you’re up for that.”

She grins and gets up on her tippy toes to kiss him once again, an innocent little smooch he graciously accepts and reciprocates.

“And how about the day after that, and then the day after that, and the next week after that…”

Clark laughs at her and puts his jacket he’d been using to shield her from getting doused by the rain, squeezing her hip with another smile and going back in for yet another because it was too good to pass up.

“Absolutely. Rain or shine, I’ve got you.”

“Great. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Bright and early. Do you have my number? Wait, hold on,” she unzips her purse and shuffles through it before finding her keys, unlocking the door and barging inside. Clark remains respectfully at the doormat, not willing to push any boundary this early, besides a car makeout here and there. He watches her in blissful astonishment as she scribbles on a piece of paper, folds it up then marches back to put it in his front pocket herself.

“For emergencies. And you know, anything else.”

Anything, she says. Anything else. “Right. Yeah. I’ll text you.”

“Please do. And text me when you’re home safe!”

“I will,” he chuckles, leaning his head back down to steal another goodbye kiss before he walks back to his car with a pep in his step that he hasn’t had in a long, long time.

“Bye!”

She waves from her porch before he chastises her to get back to her house so she doesn’t stay in the rain, but she just sticks her tongue out at him then goes back anyway.

It all felt intoxicating. He wondered if he could even drive in such a distracted, head in the clouds state like this.

His gut fluttered with butterflies and his cheeks hurt from smiling so much, back on autopilot as he starts up the car, blasts the volume back up and turns back to the main road. It felt overwhelmingly unreal that he can still taste her lip gloss and how much it’s rubbed off on him. How he can still feel the ghost of her hands touching and caressing parts of him that haven’t been touched and felt like that. He has stars floating above his head like he’d been knocked the fuck out, unconscious.

Just as he’s venturing back to the street towards his place, his dick starts to feel wet against his left thigh. Still trapped by his boxers and his trousers, that same familiar sensation creeping back up on him before he could press the gas after a red light turns green. He clenches his jaw and tries to stay concentrated with tight hands on the wheel. Gasping when his dick starts tingling as he’s teased and rutted on by that same mysterious force, gliding him in between their lips, teasing their opening with his tip.

Clark barely makes it home and sticks his face in the steering wheel, licking his lips, breathing with his mouth stuck open. He feels when it goes inside, how the thrusts are long and filling and slow at first, excruciatingly wonderful as it’s taking him in down to his balls. Drenching him down with wet arousal on every pull out. His full body shivers again, butts his head against the wheel five times before accidentally bumping the horn.

Mortified with horror, he ducks his head down as much as he could and peaked around to catch only a few witnesses of his neighbors taking out their trash bins out on the curb. He awkwardly waves and subtly grabs onto his bulge through his trousers, dampness seeping through the fabric. With a braced huff, he counts to ten to enjoy the warm embrace before he’s exiting his vehicle, slamming the door and not bothering to fix his floppy hair before snatching his briefcase from the backseat, covering his crotch from the world and jogging to his door, soft rain still falling from above.

When he makes it inside he throws his belongings to the ground, rushes his clothes off akin to how he did on his lunch break earlier. As naked as he was born with those glasses still on, he lies back on the couch and clenches his jaw, absently thrusting up into the unknown heat. Feels the heat react with more tight clenches, taking his breath away. He closes his eyes and hugs a pillow to his abdomen while he pictures his new co-worker on top of him again, bouncing just like this wet heat on top of him right now. Wants her lipgloss to stick to his skin, wants to be engulfed in her hair, her perfume, her smile. Her laugh when she’s making fun of him.

Without any warning but the pit in his stomach squeezing and dropping, he cums like a fountain and it ripples out of him so fast it punches him into a straighter posture, all the sudden sitting up. He sees his own cum lathering his dick and his pubes, and he can distinguish the very moment she’s cumming not long later too.

After Clark lays there and chugs an old but full glass of water lying on his coffee table, he caught up to his breath as he tries to get himself together to draft up a text when he finds the energy to get up and pull that crumbled piece of paper out of his pant pocket.

With multiple tired, anxious tries of attempting to find some neutral ground between sounding caring and interested versus sounding desperate or obsessive, he takes a deep breath and presses send before he could talk his mind out of it.

Hey this is Clark. I made it back home safe awhile ago and forgot to let you know. Just wanna say I had fun and I’ll pick you up around 8:30 if that’s cool. Good night :)

Clark thinks of throwing his phone across the room to ignore the insecurities bubbling out of him. What else should I say. Was what I said too much. Will she even want to kiss me again? She said she’d tell me if my breath tasted bad. What if tomorrow things are different—

A text tone buzzed his couch cushion, phone screen lighting up. Surprised but delighted, he rips it back up off the couch and shoves it in his face to read carefully.

I probably had even more fun than you. Glad you’re home safe and I’ll see you tomorrow :) 8:30 sounds perfect Mr. Yes Man. I’ll be waiting out front for you, get good rest! goodnight!

Gobsmacked, he’s left re-reading the same words over and over and over until his eyes grew heavy and he knew time for bed was gonna have to be a little early tonight. He brushes his teeth, wishing he could keep the remnants of her lips on his mouth but knows he just has to wait until tomorrow for more kisses. With a hiss he scrubs his dick of the sloppy mess left thick and slathered on his entire lower half with a warm washcloth.

While he’s in bed he idly wonders what her nights looked like. If she spends them alone like Clark does. If she was more outgoing than him, had people over, went out more. If her life had more color on the pages than his. Dirtier thoughts naturally start to seep in after that, threatening to really take over the narrative he’s built in his mind. Does she touch herself nearly as much as he does? Can she cum multiple times if she’s coaxed? Does she take more charge or does she want him to take over? Or maybe she wanted both. He could do both.

Endless wonders still can’t help flooding his thoughts, so much so that they infiltrate his dream as he slowly drifts off to sleep. Dreaming of her on top of him, of playing with his tie before yanking on it to pull him around as she pleased. She got down further and nuzzled her cheek against his bulge through his office pants and took him out to lick it down like a lollipop was between his legs, even squeezing on him so good it hurt a little bit.

The dream ended with her on top and riding him, backwards cowgirl style, tight hold of his tie still in her fist. When he’s pulled out of his dream and awoken it’s around two in the morning, and somehow his dick had gotten just as wet and used in the night again, this time while he wasn’t even conscious. Clark thought he’d aged out of having any more dirty, raw, cum-in-his-pants type of wet dreams like these. He guessed that now after the day that he had and the girl that he met that everything was about to turn upside down.

. . .

thank you thank you to everyone who commented and reblogged and liked my first part im so happy you guys are enjoying its so fun reading everyone’s reactions :) i like the alternating POVs too for this between her + him

****(only able to fit 50 tags per post, I’ll make another one linked to this post so I can tag the rest!)

Clark sighs as the elevator door opens up to his office floor, trudging over to his desk and setting his briefcase down. Skips right over to their break room’s coffee maker to brew up a sugary full cup for the day ahead of him. Jimmy gave him a greeting with a rougher pat on the shoulder, jolting Clark in a reactionary shiver when he thinks back to being touched in bed by no one or something while he was withering all alone in his room.

He pushes his glasses up his scrunched up nose, letting out an almost disgruntled sounding hey.

Jimmy squints at him, noticing the offbeat attitude of his close friend and coworker. “You good, man? Sleep alright last night or did somebody take a hot piss in your Froot Loops?”

“Slept… slept fine, it’s just I’m kinda going through stuff right now. I don’t know.”

Clark swallows and stirs his steaming cup after dropping another sugar cube in. Jimmy pats his shoulder once again, trying to get Clark to meet his eyes with a tilt of his head.

“You know… maybe it’s about time.”

“What?”

“You know, dude, maybe it’s that time. Time for you to get yourself laid. I think it could help flush out some of these nerves in your system. You seem so tense. I know a few girls that would hop on that train, if you know what I mean.”

Clark turns beat red rather quickly, taking a long sip to gather his thoughts and come up with a response.

“Yeah you couldn’t have been any more direct actually. I… listen I understand, but it’s not that. Trust me, I’m getting… more than you think. I guess. Cause something like, something happened last night, I don’t even know how to explain it. And I liked….. it. It’s just really weird so maybe now’s not the time to discuss—“

Jimmy laughs a long, boyish giggle and slaps one of Clark’s broad shoulders, pulling Clark further aside into the corner with a look around for any coworkers meandering.

“Dude, I knew it. You found yourself a lady. You’ve been getting some and you haven’t been telling me. That’s really lame of you man, I thought our friendship had no barriers—“

“I haven’t met a— look, okay, it was weird, and I mean really really weird. I don’t know if you’ll understand it or if it’ll just sound crazy.”

“Whatever crazy thing you’re about to say, I’ve probably done crazier,” Jimmy assures with a knowing nod paired with a grin. “Trust me.”

“Uh, okay….” Clark clears his throat and lowers his voice, leaning down to Jimmy’s ear level. “Have—have you ever like, came untouched before? Felt someone…. down there…. even though no one else was in the room?”

Clark stares at Jimmy now, loosening the tie around his collar like he’s already broke out in another sweat just thinking about it. Wondering if it might happen again. If he has some odd guardian angel that likes to fuck him and look after him all at the same time.

“You mean you finished, no hands, completely dry? You’re living the dream. Should be more grateful. Why do you look so terrified right now.”

Clark closes his eyes and pinches his brows in a long sigh before nodding to Jimmy to follow him to the bathrooms after setting his coffee on his desk. With uneasy paranoia he peers down to check for any feet on the floor in the stalls before he continues.

“I… I don’t think you get it. It felt like someone literally rode me, like, put me inside them and came on my dick and everything. I wasn’t doing anything! Wasn’t even hard before it started happening, I was just reading. I don’t know how else to explain this or make it any clearer to you!”

Jimmy looks astounded after every word, awestruck with an open mouth. Even flashes of envy pass through his eyes while he chuckles and shakes his head. Typical Clark and his way of complicating things. Overthinking what truly sounded like a gift. “Sounds like a you’re being haunted by a friendly ghost that just wants to hop on that thing, dude. So what did it really feel like? And can I get one too?”

Clark closes his eyes and his mind goes back to last night. In the comfort of his soft sheets, legs sprawling out and taking over the entirety of his bed. How right when the plot of his novel started taking off he felt almost a tickle. A wiggle of what felt like a smooth, slithery tongue. It was unrecognizable when it started, like maybe he had an itch down there to scratch, or maybe some blood began randomly flowing down south.

When it became unmistakeable, too soft and wet to deny what was happening to him, he slammed his book shut with the bookmark in place and spread his legs wider, feeling the sweat breaking out. Feels his dick happily jump right into the warm invisible hole teasing his tip. He felt the hole clench down and struggle to take him all, slowly inching up and down like a bunny on top of what it could take. He clenched a fist at his side and held his dick up with a thumb, raising his hips gently into the heavenly heat. How the pace it had going stuttered when he did, probably in shock that he had more of himself to give.

Clark remembers crying with pleasure, pre cum getting drained out of him so effortlessly, so smoothly. Drool picks up on his tongue while he’s nearly going cross eyed, the pussy on top of him bouncing harder, bouncing faster—

“It feels— it feels unbelievable. I mean it was incredible,” Clark answers Jimmy’s question that had awkwardly hung in the air. “Haven’t felt anything like it before. Something might be seriously wrong with me.”

Jimmy raises a brow. “Watching too much porn? Just take a break. Meet a girl.”

Clark’s full body shivers, goosebumps now swarming up his arms and the back of his neck, making all the hairs there start to stand up. He feels an eager hand all the sudden grab onto his bare cock and slick their palm down, cold and wet like the hand had a puddle of lube to gloss him down.

If it hasn’t visibly shown up as a wet spot on his groin through his trousers yet, by the feeling of it it’ll start showing a dark spot soon. If he didn’t take his dick out it would surely start a puddle that would only dry as a fresh stain.

Clark takes a deep, shaky breath, turning over to grab onto the tile of the wall, resting his forehead against it and gripping like he’s engulfed in pain. Like his surroundings started spinning all around him.

“Woah, Clark. Dude. Take it easy. What’s happening?”

Jimmy gets closer to check on his friend but Clark can’t take it, shooing him off with a hurried no, it’s fine—just get out of here. I need a second. thanks!

“You sure you’ll be able to hold up the rest of today? You have enough leave. I’m sure Lois would understand—”

“Just, just…. I need to take a— I’ll take a ten, okay,” he whimpers, clutching onto the humiliating bulge growing so fast he already was showing a hefty print. “Maybe a fifteen. I can’t—I don’t know.” The hand stopped slicking up and down his cock and he feels it tease him by rubbing his length up and down a pearly wet slit, not yet having him enter.

He shoos Jimmy away and hurries to a stall, slamming it shut and locking it with his back to the door while his dick bobs around for more of her attention. Tingles sprout in his belly while his whole body starts to tense.

“Uh, okay,” Jimmy mutters. “Well I’ll leave you to it I guess? Here for you buddy. Don’t piss off your ghost girlfriend. Maybe next time she won’t fuck you as good if you do,” he laughs.

“Shut. The door. And shut. Up!” Clark howls, fumbling with his zipper and rushing to roll some toilet paper up into a ball for his tip when he’s hanging out of his boxers. He distantly hears his friend mumble a jeez, so touchy. sorry and the door creaks open and falls closed. With privacy at last, Clark is able to heave and thrust his hips gently into the beautiful, tight wet heat, little abstract murmurs and whimpers leaving his throat while his dick gets wetter, and wetter, and wetter.

“Don’t—Don’t, don’t want you to stop,” he quietly begs. Veins popping on his temple from all the straining his body is doing. “But I… I have to get back to work.”

Whatever is wrapped around his cock doesn’t pay his words any mind, sinking down all the way to his balls and creaming on his base the more they start their rough bouncing. Like they’re angry, like they’re taking everything out on his cock. Clark wished he knew what he did wrong, or maybe what he did right to deserve this kind of treatment from someone he couldn’t even see.

“I’m not gonna last, I’m not, it feels so good…. feels too good…. I can’t handle this again, not right now,” he breathes. Sees his tip bead more floods of pre cum and slip down the base of his cock, getting his balls messy with slick. The sound is obscene, with every up and down motion everything can be heard. How wet the pussy around him really is. How his cock stuffs it all the way through. If somebody came in right now, they would think he’s having real sex with a real body in this stall right now. When in all honestly, Clark doesn’t know what he’s having.

“Oh my gosh, gosh you’re more wet this time, you’re getting it so wet…. You’re gonna get me in trouble, wait…. please.”

The pussy on top of his dick starts to quiver, tremble and squeeze him down harder than before. Like it’s finally found release after a record of an eight minute round of going nuts on him like he’s nothing but a toy built strictly for their use.

Some cum that isn’t even his starts dribbling down on him, and that’s when the floodgates start to open. Clark can’t hold it anymore, and he doesn’t know how bad it’s gonna be trying to both cover his load and then clean it all up.

He whimpers and squeezes his eyes shut once again, knuckles turning white while he holds on for dear life and busts another long, drawn out nut into whatever this thing is that’s tortured him yet again. He spits out rope after rope of cum in the waiting piece of balled up paper and tries to catch it all there but a few stray drips do manage to burst out too fast for him to act. He sprays a part of the wall and whines a little no, please, please no, you made me cum too hard again, I need to get back to work.

The come down is always humbling. Seeing exactly how foolish he was acting as the sweat under his arms and on his face visibly stains his clothes and his skin. He managed to wipe off his messy cum lines off the wall and stuffs another rolled up ball of toilet paper down his boxers to soak up whatever else is leftover in his pants.

When he feels ready enough he’s still catching his breath and trying to get his blushing face under control as he heads over to the sink to splash some water on his face. Presses on the soap dispenser over and over again until more than a mountain of soap is bubbling in his palm, lathering his sticky, filthy hands.

Clark fights everything inside him to try and act natural when he heads back to his desk. Ruffles his hair more than necessary, tightens his tie, rolls up his sleeves.

The cup of coffee he’d made had lost most of its heat but Clark was so preoccupied in his head he doesn’t notice, still gulping some down and logging back into his computer to answer more messages and emails that were left for him. His eyes zone in on an email he’d been CC’d in from Jimmy and Lois about an upcoming new hire’s start date for their vacant Office Assistant position.

The email read that Clark would be assigned as the one primarily training her since he’d started out in her exact title position a year ago. Clark adds a thumbs up to the email and closes out of it to start on another assignment, thinking in the very back of his head that if his dick can’t control himself while he’s training said new hire next week he’d be blowing his brains out, not out of his cock next time.

Jimmy side eyes him from across the room, mouthing a you good? much to Clark’s bashful shake of his head, assuring him with a roll of his eyes and a tired response of yeah, I’m fine. shut up.

Lois comes out of the blue up behind him and drops a fat stack of paperwork on Clark’s desk with a tight smile.

“New hire coming in next week. You got my email right?”

Clark nods and leans back in his chair, casual as he can muster.

“She’ll have to mostly rely on you for help and onboarding, since me and Jimmy have too much going on. Travel, deadlines, some new leads finally getting back to us for interviews. So you’ll take her under your wing for us, yeah?”

“Of course. It’s not uh, it won’t be a problem,” he answers under his breath, taking another sorry sip of his lukewarm coffee. He hopes the thing in his pants won’t be a problem.

“You sure? Jimmy said you didn’t look well. You can’t call out and leave her all alone here on her first few days, it’s gonna be overwhelming in the start—“

“Jimmy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’m fine. It’ll get taken care of,” he promised.

“Alright, then don’t get her sick, got it?”

Clark wants to slap Jimmy for even bringing up his frazzled state to anybody in the office, mortified over what had taken place barely ten minutes ago, and how unpredictable his dick was gonna act for a while. Or forever. Who even knows at this point.

“My germs are all mine,” he swears, hands defensively up in the air. “Count on it.”

Lois gives him another one of her hard stares that basically told him she’d make him eat his words if he dared showing up to the office coughing, sneezing, puking. Clark was only worried about leaving his desk for twenty minutes at a time to get his dick rode by the same tempting mystical source he had yet to fully identify, let alone begin to understand.

It never left his brain even while he worked, back of his pen stuck in his mouth to chew on while he wrote up more emails and forwarded ones from their general inbox. Hours had gone by until he had about forty five more minutes left until he could be freed and finally head home, and Clark really thought he was in the clear of having another accident during work hours.

That was up until the fucking tease went at it again. The warm, sopping wet tightness wraps around his tip and slips him in, no mercy given. His dick springs back to life effortlessly, and Clark wants to cry.

He holds his head by covering his face with both hands, scooting his swivel chair forward so his crotch was safely hidden underneath. He drools an ungodly amount at the tip, feeling how eager this round was for her, how quickly she ruts against him and has him crying softly into the sleeve of his shirt.

Clark’s mewling and groaning is muffled into his arm, too helpless to hold in any of his noise when they move in sways up and down, switching off between going deep and going shallow with their pushes. Clark is beat red all over again, giving up after several minutes of unabashed torture and shielding his wet crotch with his briefcase pressed up against him, running off back to the toilets this time to sit down and breathe while undeniably enjoying everything being done to him. Fuck the last thirty minutes of his shift. Fuck the emails and the phone calls and the scans and the letters.

Clark shuts his eyes and actually smiles for a change as he eggs on whatever higher power bouncing on top of him to keep going. Nods his head and can’t help his soft murmurings of please, yeah, yeah keep doing that, you do it so good.

It might be his new imaginary best friend, or it might be his first sign to go to a mental hospital. Whatever it was, since it’s made Clark cum this hard, he guessed it couldn’t have mattered too much if it always made him feel this good.

. . .

The weekend was spent the same way. Getting his dick milked while he lied back and screeched every time she squeezed on him some way, somehow. He doesn’t answer anyone that texts him for plans, doesn’t do the dishes or take care of his laundry like how he’d hoped. No. He whines and stutters and cries, barely able to get in the shower without his dick getting trampled on.

It’s not a long shot to think he could be developing something. A mental illness. A haunted curse that plagues him with orgasms at all times of the night and the day. He’s one more round away from calling somebody to perform an exorcism or splash holy water on him to escape this succubus that had to be laughing in his face at how easy he is to rile up.

When Monday comes around again Clark doesn’t want to take any chances traumatizing the new hire with all the blotches of cum stains littering his pants. With a scoff and a sigh he steps each leg into a second pair of boxers to make slightly more effort into covering up. Even packs a backup pair in case both pairs he’s currently wearing are soiled by the end of the day.

After a hectic first hour of scanning and distributing the stack of morning mail from the bin, he slips a stick of gum on his tongue and gnaws on the flavor with his mouth open when an unfamiliar silhouette teeters closer towards the edge of his desk from the entrance.

Clark doesn’t get to looking up until she’s clearing her throat, playing with a strand of her hair with a smile aimed at the ground.

“Hi, sorry if I’m interrupting your work. I’m actually starting today,” she explains, eyeing him up from head to toe. Clark rips his head up at the voice and clears his throat, sitting up straighter and pulls a polite hand out.

“Oh! Oh, yeah that’s right. You’re our new hire. It’s nice to meet you, I’m Clark.”

She takes his hand with a laugh. Clark wished he understood what was funny. He joins in on it anyway, anxiously chuckling while he doesn’t stop shaking her hand in his. Realizing it had been well over ten seconds of her soft palm held up in his own long, gigantic fingers, he slips his hand off of hers, lingering in the awkward air of the moment.

She nods and scans her gaze around, peaking at the state of Clark’s desk. The endless string of sticky notes, the protein shakes, the tie he’d already taken off his neck. “So am I in the right place, or—“

“Yup. Yeah, yeah you found where you should be. I’ve been tasked to uh, help you fill all this out. After that we can get you started on some basics,” he breathes out, pointing to the stack resting on the side of his desk, sticky note on top with her name on it. Clark finds himself trying a little desperately to keep himself more cool, more composed. She’s the kind of pretty that made him nervous, suddenly aware of his undone appearance, of every awkward move he makes. He stops chewing his gum with as much rigor, clenches his jaw and scratches the back of his neck.

“I started out in the position you’re in, it’s real easy to move up,” he mentions, gathering up the paperwork and attempting to straighten it out before a quarter of the pages fall from his grasp in a pile. Beat red, Clark doesn’t do anything but stare at the ground and sigh before sheepishly joining in on her laughs.

“You’re pretty organized, aren’t you?” she chuckles, bending over to pick up the few documents that landed on the floor. Clark’s jaw even drops when he catches the smallest glimpse of her hot pink colored thong poking up above from her dress pants.

“Yeah. Yeah I really am, you know. Organization is key,” he nods, tight lipped smile still on his face. He takes the pages she hands him over, watching her subtly arch her head to smell something in the air. Fuck. What the fuck? Did he even put on any cologne this morning after draining his dick for the hundredth time?

Before he could shoot himself in the head with more irrational insecurities his mind makes up she soothed his very visible worry with another laugh and a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Is it me? Do I reek like sweat or something—?”

“No, no. You don’t smell bad, you’re fine. I was just trying to figure out if you were chewing Spearmint or not,” she assures. “I like it. Promise. You do not reek of anything,” she snorted through another laugh. Clark beams, looking around everywhere but her face. Afraid his face could give his every fleeting thought away.

Thank god. “Uh, oh yeah. Yeah it’s Spearmint. You want a piece? I have a new pack,” he offers. To his surprise, she snatches up a piece out of his hand hardly before he gets to offer it to her. Blinks dumbly while she opens it up and tears the piece in half, stuffing one in her mouth and giving the other half back to him.

“Uh—“

She smiles at him, chewing the gum out of one side of her cheek. “I have this oral thing. A fixation I guess. Chewing or having something in my mouth really helps me.”

The thing about Clark is, he has manners. Has restraint. Thought he was a good boy that didn’t go on and chase any tail that came into his orbit. Especially not a new pretty co-worker. He doesn’t want to think about putting different parts of himself inside her mouth just to calm her down. Or the color of her thong. Or that wicked smile and addicting perfume to match. Something tries to draw him in closer, reason with his conscience like she’s teasing little signals, it’s not like you’re her boss or anything. if you flirt back no one would know a thing.

Clark stops his zoning out and nods his head to agree. “I get it. Having stuff in my… in my mouth cools me off too. Like—like stress.”

“You shouldn’t worry yourself that much. Seems like you’re wound up pretty tight.”

He feels like there’s this window into his thoughts standing clear as day right above his head, broadcasting every fleeting thought or mood. When he tries to look at her, stare at her back the same way she stares at him, he just wanted to run away before his own dick caught up with him.

Clark scratches his chin and sheepishly nods with his head down, agreeing with a gentle mumble, yeah you know, just normal stuff, kinda on edge. Not like he randomly cums in his pants or anything. He quickly finds a way to change subjects by directing his focus back to the work left in front of them and guides her to sit over at her new desk to fill out some new hire paperwork. She taps him on the shoulder and grins when she says his name to ask him questions. He dutifully answers everything he can, emails some higher ups to get her logins to some of their systems and trains her how they go through their mail and answer consumer’s inquiries over the phone.

She takes just about everything in a stride. Overwhelmed of course by certain things that have nuances and will take more time getting used to. Clark introduces her to more staff, waves to Lois, makes the new hire her own cup of coffee after showing her their break room. Jimmy tries to raise a brow, even wiggles both of them up and down at him from behind her back, but it only makes Clark kick him in the shin and gruffly threaten him under his breath as he’s passing by while she wasn’t looking.

Clark sends her off to her first break, telling her to meet him back at her desk for more training later. Watches absentmindedly as she picks up her purse, snatched up a lighter from one of the pockets and stuck a cigarette behind her ear, waving goodbye and strolling out to the elevator doors. Before the elevator doors close he could see her take the stick from her ear and put it between her lips, probably a habit she’s picked up from that oral thing, Clark figured. He wants to stop himself from picking apart her business but he’s too intrigued to stop, still lost in thought at his desk while he takes a break of his own.

After spitting his piece of gum out he chugs a few thick swigs of his protein shake, spaced out in blank thought. A corner of his mouth smiles when he feels the other half of that stick of gum she’d torn off and given back. His dick twitches but ultimately stayed soft, undetected in his pants. He’d shamefully started wondering how the hell his dick was so well behaved, so normal today of all days. Not that it was a bad thing. He just found it curious. Why was this the first time in days his dick wasn’t getting swallowed, rode, or came on by whatever invisible force that clearly had been having its fun tormenting him? And will it ever come back to fuck him again?

Once Jimmy finds Clark alone at his desk wiping fingerprints off his glasses, he swats his shoulder and bashed one of his knees to his swivel chair, causing him to start spinning.

“What the hey, dude—don’t—“

“This could be your shot. All’s I’m sayin,” he shrugs. Sees Clark stop his chair and shove his friend forward, only enough power to knock him off his feet a little bit. “Hey, hey! That’s all I’m saying, I said!” he laughs and defensively puts both his palms up to shield himself from any more of Clark’s wrath.

“You can’t say that stuff. Don’t. She’s new, okay! And… and she needs my help learning everything around here. She doesn’t need some big oaf getting in her business, abusing power, or being… being weird towards her,” he concludes.

“Hey, opportunities sometimes fall right out of the sky. This one just fell right into your lap. And you’re not a fat oaf dude. Pfft, you actually think being her co-worker is gonna affect anything?”

“Uh, yes it does in fact. It will literally affect everything. You think it’d be appropriate for me to treat her like that?”

Jimmy shrugs again, ruffles Clark’s curls and says he should think about reconsidering some of his rules and start breaking them in order to finally get something he wants.

When she’s back from her break her hair is damp, fresh perfume sprayed on her coat to get rid of some of the stench from her cigarette. She looks refreshed, albeit a little more flustered than she was before she left. Her boots squeak slightly on the floor from stepping out on the wet ground outside. He thinks about complimenting her boots, her coat, her hair, thinks about complimenting her everything. But his words fall short after his voice cracks from the very simple greeting of hey, welcome back.

“Hey, can I ask you for a favor after work? It’s totally fine if you say no or if you can’t. You don’t have to give me any reasons,” she assures.

Already eager to know what she’s going to be asking of him, his ears perk and his posture straightens up as he scoots his chair over to her desk.

“Yeah of course. What’s up?”

“It started raining pretty hard and the forecast says it won’t stop until tomorrow morning. I actually walked here to work, and if it’s not any trouble, would you be able to give me a lift back home?”

Clark swallows an upcoming lump in his throat, feeling his palms start to get clammy. The mere thought of the proximity was enticing. Having her next to him, in his car. Her trust in him helping her with something as intimate as having her get back home safely. He tries to answer casually, like he’s a nonchalant guy — as if the offer wasn’t any big deal, wasn’t making his heart start to beat a little faster.

What comes out though is a horribly rushed, clumsy, stuttered —

“Ohyeahofcourse, you don’t even have to worry about it!”

Jimmy’s teasing still echoes through the hallway of his brain. About opportunities. About how sometimes they seem to fall right out of the sky. How this one has fallen right into his lap.

“Thanks so much Clark, I appreciate it. You’ve been the sweetest guy. I’m really lucky to have you here to teach me everything,” she praised. Turning his cheeks pink in all of two seconds with a flat palm on his broad shoulder, squeezing gently and holding the warmest smile.

“We’re lucky to have you. You’ve been— you’ve been great,” he gulps, trying to bring the focus back to her. “We don’t have too much more to fill out, but um, I don’t wanna overwhelm you with any more new things today. Let’s wrap up this paperwork then we’ll hopefully get you on those phones to practice the last hour.”

“Great! I’m almost finished with those. And for the record I do promise where I live isn’t far, I don’t wanna be too much an inconvenience,” she laughs. Clark shook his head again, ready to protest the very idea that she was asking too much. In truth, she was so stupid pretty that if she asks him to say his ABC’s backwards he’d still give it his best shot. She almost cuts off his attempt to deny it, straightening up some of the last pages left to read over and sign.

“You are not any inconvenience. If you are, then please keep inconveniencing me,” he says, flashing a toothy smile at her. He prays to himself that it comes out right, and to his delight, she grins back, adorable face expressing back to him, well, then don’t mind if I do. “with anything you need, I’ll be here.”

Is he being too much?

“Thanks, Clark. I owe you.”

Oh? What should you owe me?

He shakes off any perverted thoughts and spares a glance at his watch.

“Are you hungry? It could be lunch time. Up to you. We don’t clock in and out, we just have timesheets, so breaks are pretty flexible.”

“Yeah, I could eat.”

Clark’s head screams well there’s a full meal right in front of you.

“Great.”

. . .

He sees her head off to the break room and start chatting with Lois, smiling at her welcoming disposition while she checks in on how her training is going. Clark knows he has the option to stay, to ogle while he ate at his desk, but he feels like he has too much steam to blow off before handling the rest of the day. With a long final exhale, he adjusts his glasses and snatched up his keys to head back home for his lunch hour.

Once he’s back at his apartment he immediately sheds his god awful shoes and his suffocating button down before he’s lying flat on his back in bed, staring up at the wall. Trying to manifest that magical touch and beckon it to come back. Beg for it even. Wonders to himself if there’s some hidden way he hasn’t figured out yet to trigger it, or if it’ll always remain spontaneous.

Clenching his jaw he angrily starts groping his crotch, trying to feel himself out. He opens one eye to peer down at his dick and see if he just thought about it hard enough he’ll bring it back to life, feel that beautiful all consuming weight drip on top of him again.

“C’mon. C’mon, please… You… you’ve fucked me every day and I took it all last night, now I want it, I need it. Right here, please?”

Clark strokes his cock while it sways back and forth against his belly, mind already feeding into an idiotic fantasy of his new hire bending over, showing him her pretty colored thong. Maybe she’d pull her panties up higher so they’re peaking out further above her waistline, or maybe she’d pull them over to the side….

He raises his hips off the bed to thrust into his fist at the thought, pants still strung down barely past his groin. Figures if he shows back up to work the rest of the day in different pants, it’s his business and his business only, and so be it.

“Oh god it was so good last time, wish you could touch me like that again…”

He knows it’s pathetic. Everything he’s doing, everything he’s saying. While he grips the tip and twists particularly tight, he shamefully whimpers out his new hire’s name while his dick starts to drip into pubes. Messy, sticky, but gosh he needed this. Clark deeply misses the warmth on top of him, the hot teasing, the bouncing, and the thrill of not knowing what will happen next—

“Oh my god….”

. . .

part two

posting this cuz I’m so done looking at it already dear jesuslawd. if I should keep going somehow let me know I love coworkerXcoworker getting down and nasty. I like the idea of clark not knowing what’s going on and getting slobbered on by his work crush. fully no clue when/if the next part comes out oh my lawd. thanks soooo so much for all the love on the first little prelude:( im so obsessed with every reblog+comment

tag list: @emmaaagb @herejustforbuckybarnes @asthavraj @bitchy-bi-trash @gothgirlwannabe80 @snore-3 @noirecherie @lovergirl-007s-blog @tumlrwhore @glorydescent @forsakenskulltwist @brattybunnybby @unavurse

A groan that scraped from the very bottom of your soul left your chapped lips. Every muscle in your body felt tight and sore as you stretched. Between your thighs was a distinct, sticky, intimate dampness that told you exactly what had happened, and was still happening, hours after the fact.

Memories of your eventful Valentine’s Day came in a hazy, sensual montage. 

Clark’s large, warm, and gentle hands caressing the back of your head as you sucked him impossibly deep. His mouth, worshipful and demanding, left a trail of tingling skin and a constellation of tender marks blooming. His enthusiastic praises, words that made you blush even now, complimented every thrust. The feeling of being utterly, thoroughly loved, stretched to a breathtaking limit that only he could reach.

And the bed. The stupid, beautiful, now-broken bed.

Realization cut through the pleasant fog of afterglow. You shifted, and the mattress sank. Not the usual give of memory foam, but a structural, groaning wrong. A small, distressed sound of wood complaining followed your movements. A metallic tink as a loose bolt gave up its post.

You faintly remembered the headboard splitting sometime around round three. Or was it round four? You weren't sure…time got slippery right when Clark had your ankles almost to your ears and held you still while he filled you. Again.

A slow, simmering irritation began to heat your blood, chasing away the last vestiges of sleep. There were no words profound enough to convey how much you loved him, but you were so damn tired of Superman-strength defeating human engineering!

You took a slow, deliberate breath, preparing to turn and deliver the glare of the century to your sleeping husband, but the space beside you was already empty, the sheets cool.

Then you heard it.

From the kitchen.

The sounds of someone moving, given from the soft clink of a mug, the gentle scrape of a pan, topped off with carefree whistling.

Plus the unmistakable smell of bacon, eggs, and something sweet. Pancakes?

Oh, he already knew!

Of course, he knew. He probably heard the wood splinter in real time last night and had spent every second mentally drafting his excuses right after.

Footsteps approached the bedroom door with quite a pep.

The door creaked slowly, and Clark appeared, a vision of domestic bliss.

He was shirtless (damn him), his sleep pants slung low on his hips (damn him again), and he raven hair was a glorious, chaotic mess (no comment). He looked less like an icon and more like your husband, rumpled and warm from sleep. 

You finally pushed yourself up on your elbows, letting the sheet pool to your waist. The cool air kissed your bare skin, raising goosebumps. You didn’t bother to cover yourself.

Let him see. Let him witness the consequences (if he cared).

His brilliant blue eyes, so full of a love, flickered over your face first. They lingered on your mouth, where he’d kissed you there, slow and deep, for what felt like hours. His gaze traveled down, tracing the love bites on your neck, over the slope of your bare breasts, then lower, to the space between your covered thighs, and his expression softened with a possessiveness that made your stomach flutter.

Then his eyes found the bedframe.

His face changed. The softness evaporated, replaced by pure, unadulterated amusement. Like he’d taken one look at the split slat and thought, Yeah. That tracks. Like the evidence didn’t horrify him so much as… satisfy him.

His mouth twitched. His shoulders lifted in the barest shrug.

He looked like a man being shown photographic proof of his own crime and deciding the prosecution had a point, but the defendant also had excellent taste.

"Good morning, my love," he greeted (oh, he's laying it thick), pitched a tad higher than his usual morning rumble. eyes bright with that sunshine-dimples softness that always got him in trouble. "I was, uh…making breakfast. For you!"

A beat, like he was testing the waters. "How was your sleep?"

You just looked at him. Let the silence stretch.

He cleared his throat, clapped his hands once like he could reset the morning, and pointed vaguely in your direction as if you were a problem he could solve with enthusiasm.

"So. I—" he started, then stopped, eyes flicking back to the broken slat. The grin tried to come back, smaller now. "I heard a noise last night. Felt it. And I’m sure you did too. I was going to…" He trailed off, then rushed in with the only coping mechanism he trusted: fixing. "Hon, I can fix it. Right now. Two minutes. I’ll get my tools."

He took a step back, already turning, already reaching for problem-solving.

"Clark Joseph Kent."

Your voice stopped him cleanly. You kept it calm. The kind of calm that suggested you were being very generous—so far.

"I am sore," you said evenly. "I am… leaking." A small pause, just long enough to be a warning. "I am not supervising carpentry while you try to redeem yourself."

You gestured vaguely to yourself, to the sheets, to the bedframe that had sacrificed itself in the name of your marriage.

Clark turned back, and the amusement flickered. His eyes went wide with that devastating, boyish sincerity like he’d rather take a kryptonite-laced bullet than have you upset with him.

He crossed the room in three strides with long-legged urgency, and knelt on the floor, bringing his eyes level with yours.

It was such a deliberately humble posture, your heart gave a treacherous squeeze.

No! Be strong, woman!

"I’m sorry," he said, but there was a warmth in it that betrayed him. "I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I got carried away. I didn’t mean to—" He exhaled, helpless, honest. "I should’ve been more careful. Especially the last round."

The smugness faded the moment he saw your expression hold. Like a switch flipped. Like your irritation mattered more than his pride ever could.

His hand hovered under the sheet over your knee. "Can I?"

Polite. Devout. Still hints of smugness underneath.

You narrowed your eyes, letting the silence linger a beat too long on purpose, but eventually gave a tiny nod.

His hand settled on your knee, his thumb beginning those slow, circular strokes. His touch was warm, gentle. It was the kind of touch that said I’m sorry in a language he trusted more than words. 

His eyes scanned you, not with his x-ray vision, but with a hyper-focused, husbandly concern that was somehow more intense. He was taking inventory, checking for any reason to blame himself harder than necessary.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper. His other hand came up, his fingers tracing the edge of a love bite on your shoulder with a feather-light touch. "Here? Does this hurt?"

"No," you murmured. "It’s just a mark."

His fingers drifted to another on your collarbone. "Here?"

"Clark, I’m not broken." You caught his hand gently, holding it still. "I’m tender. And I’m a little annoyed. And I’m also absurdly in love with you, which is honestly making the annoyance worse."

That flicker of smugness tried to rise again—hopeful, delighted—before guilt drowned it, immediate and sincere.

"I’ll take care of this," he said quickly, like he could undo inconvenience with effort."I’ll buy a commercial-grade one. Like… hotel level. From a supplier. Or I’ll build one." His voice picked up speed as his brain launched into problem-solving golden retriever. "Gary and I can come up with something. Reinforced frame, steel supports, center beam, and I’ll sleep on the couch until it’s done."

Of course, his solution included exile.

"No!" you hissed, sharper than you meant to be.

Clark blinked, and because he was still, deep down, a farm boy with a martyr complex, slapped his forehead dramatically. "Geez. How careless of me." He pointed at the couch like it was a dungeon. "You take the couch, I’ll take the floor."

The idea of him banished anywhere was unbearable. You weren’t punishing him. You weren’t trying to prove a point. You wanted him close. Always.

"Oh my God, Clark! That’s not—" you cut yourself off, half-laughing, half-exasperated, because he was already trying to make himself smaller in the face of your inconvenience.

He paused, trying to look contrite, but his mouth kept threatening a smile.

"I’m making a sacrifice here!" he exclaimed.

"You’re being ridiculous."

He softened instantly, because you were laughing and exasperated and he hated that more than he liked being smug. "I’m trying to make it right."

"You can make it right by staying next to me," you said, half-laughing, half-commandeering. "You’re not sleeping anywhere that isn’t next to me." Then you added: "I’ll be mad for real."

His face crumpled in relief so profound it made something warm twist under your ribs.

"We only have one bed," you explained, edge leaving your voice entirely.

"Yeah, I know," he whispered, bringing his forehead to your knee, and he sounded so wistful it almost made you laugh. You stroked the back of his head.

"So maybe," you continued, drawling it out, "we stop treating it like a… like a launchpad."

You saw the struggle in his face. The way his cheek muscle twitched as he fought another laugh. He bit the inside of his cheek, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He failed. A small, helpless chuckle broke through. 

"It’s not my fault you make it really hard to control myself," he mumbled, ducking his head.

You couldn’t help it. A snort of laughter escaped you. It broke the remaining tension in the room like a sunbeam through cloud cover. 

"Ohhh, so it’s my fault?"

"Wait, no, that’s not what I—" he was thoroughly horrified by his implication. "No, of course not. It’s the bed’s fault. It’s shoddy craftsmanship. It’s…" He looked at the broken slat again and grimaced. "It’s me. I got carried away, because I always underestimate how much I love my wife." 

He said it so simply, so earnestly, that your breath caught in a way that had nothing to do with passion and everything to do with the sheer magnitude of your husband’s heart.

You reached out then, your fingers tugging into the soft cotton at his hip. "Oh, come here, you."

He moved carefully, bracing his weight on his arms, knees sinking into the mattress at your side, making the frame groan another soft protest. You slid your hand up, over the warm, solid plane of his stomach, to his chest. You could feel the steady, powerful beat of his heart under your palm.

"I’m not mad about the mind-blowing, toe-curling sex," you whispered. "Obviously."

"Obviously," he echoed, also agreeing with a pleased shrug.

"I’m kind of—" you rolled your eyes at yourself, because it was ridiculous to admit, but he deserved to hear it, "I’m kind of obsessed with it. That you can’t help but still get carried away with me because you’re you, and God, it drives me crazy sometimes."

"I’m mad at the adulting," you continued, tipping your chin toward the broken frame. "The calls, the measuring, the delivery window, the money. The whole production. That’s what I don’t want to deal with."

"Then I will," he promised, like it was nothing. "All of it. I just want you comfortable."

You sighed, instantly melting. "God, you’re such a good man," you blurted, pouting a little. "It’s actually unfair. Do you know how hard it is to stay annoyed at you when you’re like this?"

His thumb brushed your cheek tenderly, another wide grin already forming. "Okay. Well, I’m not sorry about that."

"Better not be, mister!"

You tilted your face up and kissed him. It was a slow, press of lips that was more reassurance than passion. The I’m-so-in love-and-I’m-just-dramatic kiss. He melted into it, his body easing against yours, his hand coming up to cradle your jaw.

When you pulled back, you shifted slightly, and the movement sent a fresh, warm reminder of last night’s activities sliding through you. A small, involuntary sound escaped your throat, a soft, breathy oh, Clark.

He paused. His eyes, which had been bright with relief, darkened instantly. The blue seemed to deepen, to focus. His gaze dropped to your mouth. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. 

"Hon," he whispered, a little husky from restraint, "I’m trying to be good."

"I know you are." You brushed your thumb over his lower lip, gentle and taunting, and watched his lashes flutter. "But there are… other ways to be close."

The look he gave you was one of pure, undiluted worship. 

"Tell me," he breathed. "Tell me what you need."

You bit your lip and nudged his shoulder lightly, guiding him enough to lean away. You kept your eyes locked with his as you slowly pushed the rest of the sheet away, baring your body fully to the cool morning air and his heated gaze. The sunlight painted your skin in gold, highlighting every curve, every mark and claim he’d left. You saw his chest expand with a sharp inhale.

"You’re so beautiful," he praised. "Every time. It still… it takes my breath away."

"Careful," you teased, breathy. "Flattery gets you in trouble."

His mouth twitched. "I think I'm already there."

You reached for him, your hand sliding down his chest, over the ridges of his stomach, to the waistband of his pants. You hooked your fingers in them. 

"These," you drawled. "Want ‘em off."

He didn’t need to be told twice. He stood, just for a moment, and pushed the pants down his legs, kicking them aside. He stood before you, fully revealed, and the sight of him—all that powerful, sculpted muscle, the sheer size and strength of him, hardened by his need for you—made a fresh wave of warmth pool low in your belly. The contrast never failed to thrill you: his immense, capable form, so completely at the service of your pleasure.

"Don’t look at me like that," he scolded lightly.

You smiled, sweet and smug. "Like what, baby?"

"Like you’re… proud of yourself."

"I am," you admitted simply.

He snorted. "Yeah. I figured."

He climbed back onto the bed with exaggerated care, distributing his weight, avoiding the broken spots. He stretched out beside you, propped on one elbow, his other hand coming to rest on your hip.

"Now, kiss me," you whispered with a smile, turnibg onto your side to face him, closing the small gap between you.

The kiss started tenderly. A soft meeting of lips, a gentle exploration. You sighed into it, your hand coming up to slide into his hair, your fingers tangling in the soft, thick strands. He made a low, approving sound in the back of his throat, his arm sliding under your neck to pull you closer.

"Wow," he murmured against your mouth, as if praising you for breathing.

"Stop that," you whispered, laughing quietly between pecks. "You’re making it worse."

"I’m not doing anything," he lied softly, resumed his affections.

The tenderness gradually bled into something more urgent. His lips parted, and your tongue met his in a slow, languid dance. The kiss deepened, grew wetter, hotter. You lost yourself in the feel of him, in the familiar taste and scent that was uniquely your Clark. His hand on your neck slid down to the small of your back, pressing you flush against him. You could feel the hard, thick length of him against your thigh, a persistent, heated pressure.

You broke the kiss, gasping for air. "Clark…"

"I know, sweetheart," he murmured, his lips trailing down your jaw to your neck, over your breasts. He didn’t suck, didn’t leave new marks. He just pressed soft, open-mouthed kisses along the sensitive skin, his breath hot against you.

"Just kissing. Just touching. Making my wife, my beautiful, perfect wife feel better."

Your chest tightened. Because he meant it. Because he always meant it.

"Such a saint," you purred, breathy with teasing.

He huffed a laugh against your throat. "I’m not a saint."

"No?" you whispered, smug. "Could’ve fooled me."

His hand, which had been resting on your back, began to move. It slid down, over the curve of your ass, then around, his fingers tracing the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, which you swore was egging you to misbehave.

He stopped short, his fingertips brushing along the outer swollen lip, not entering, just resting there, a teasing, coaxing, maddening presence as he toyed with the slick evidence of his last visit.

"Okay?" he asked, a rough whisper against your ear.

Nodding, whimpering as your hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk towards his touch.

"Need to hear you," he insisted, his fingers stilling. "After I broke our bed. After I made you so sore you can barely move. Need to hear what you want from me now."

He was offering you control, even as he held you utterly in his thrall. It was a delicious, maddening contradiction. 

"Touch me," you pleaded, the command urgent and clear. "Please, it’s okay. Just… touch me again."

That was all the permission he needed. His touch was exquisite in its gentleness. He knew your body, every fold, every secret place that made you tremble. His fingers moved with a slow, deliberate expertise, circling, stroking, applying just the right amount of pressure along your well-adored clit and still-slicked cunt.

"Oh, hon," he breathed, more to himself than to you. "You’re still so full. I did that to you, huh?"

Your body arched into his touch, gasps of pleasure escaping your lips as your eyes locked with his, sharing the moment's intensity. His other hand slid under your thigh opening you wider.

"That’s it," he whispered, his own breathing growing uneven. He watched your face, his eyes tracking every flutter of your lashes, every parting of your lips, every beat of your pulse. "You feel so good. Look so beautiful lying here for me."

His praise washed over you, amplifying every sensation. You craned your head, seeking his mouth again, and he met you in another searing kiss, swallowing your moans. His fingers continued their work, the rhythm building, coiling a tight, sweet tension low in your core. Your thighs trembled in his hand, your fingers clutching at his shoulders.

"Oh, s-shit... I’m… I’m close," you gasped against his mouth.

"I feel you," he murmured, pulling back just enough to lock his eyes with yours, a blue blaze through his dark lashes. "Eyes on me, yeah? Wanna watch you."

Your eyelids fluttered open, pleasure blurring your vision as you locked eyes with him. The intensity in his blue gaze—love, lust, devotion—felt like a tidal wave pulling you under. You clung to it, to him, your body shaking as his fingers worked their magic. 

"C-Clark!" you gasped, your voice breaking, "I love you, fuck—I love you!" the words spilling out in desperate, breathless chants as the tension coiled tighter. 

You held his stare, refusing to look away, even as your body arched, even as the first wave of your orgasm crashed over you and tore a series of moans and cries from your lips. Your eyes squeezed shut for a fraction of a second before you forced them open again, determined to let him see you, feel you, as you came apart. 

The pleasure crashed through you, hot and endless, and you watched his face soften with awe, his lips parting as he whispered, "I love you too."

As the tremors subsided, you collapsed back onto the ruined mattress, boneless and gasping. He slowly, carefully withdrew his hand, bringing his fingers to his mouth, his eyes still held yours with rapt fascination, and cleaned them with a slow, deliberate swipe of his tongue. 

"Taste so good. Taste like us. Like last night."

You let out a shaky laugh, still dazed. "You’re...you're ridiculous!" 

Then you tugged him by his bicep, guiding him completely over you. The bed creaked as he went willingly, bracing his weight on his forearms, his body caging you fully. The hard, hot length of him pressed against your stomach. You wrapped your jello-like legs around his hips, locking your ankles at the small of his back. 

"I want you, I—" you swallowed, at a loss for words. "Need you."

"Yeah?" he whispered against your lips. "Tell me how. I’ll be good. I’ll—" a swallow. "I’ll be gentle."

"Just stay still," you whispered, "Inside."

Clark understood, shifting carefully, a controlled power that made your heart race. He positioned himself, buckling lightly at the press of his cock, and then he was pushing in, so slowly, so incredibly slowly. There was a faint, slick shhh of wetness.

You were still sensitive from your climax, still stretched and tender from last night, and the feeling of him filling you, inch by delicious inch, made a fresh wave of slick form. A sharp, sweet ache bloomed into a deep, full pressure below your navel. You gasped, your nails digging into the hard muscles of his shoulder and biceps.

"Still alight?" he breathed, his forehead damp with sweat, his entire body tense with restraint as you adjusted.

"Y-yes," you managed. "Move, baby."

He sank the rest of the way in, until he was fully sheathed, until you could feel him everywhere. He collapsed onto his forearms, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his breath coming in hot, ragged gusts against your skin. He didn’t move, as you requested. He just held himself there, deep inside you, letting you adjust, letting the feeling of connection settle over you both.

This wasn’t about taking. This was about being. About closeness. About aftercare in its most primal form. You could feel every throb of his pulse within you, a steady, insistent rhythm. You slid your arms around his broad back, holding him as tightly as he was holding you.

"I-I love you," Clark said through gritted teeth, the words muffled but fervent. "I love—If I loved you less I might be able to—"

"—talk about it more," you finished with a helpless grin, turning your head to press a kiss to his temple.

Despite your own rules, you rocked your hips, just a tiny, subtle shift, and felt him shudder against you. "God, Clark. You romantic dork. You’re gonna kill me."

"Think you're gonna kill me first," he groaned, but he didn’t pull away. He pressed closer, if that was possible.

You both floated there, suspended in the quiet morning. The only sounds were your mingled breathing and the occasional, soft groan of the compromised bedframe beneath you. Sunlight warmed your tangled legs. You could still smell the coffee from the kitchen.

After a long, peaceful while, he stirred. He lifted his head, his eyes searching yours. "How do you feel?"

"Never better," you managed a weak nod, your body humming, every nerve alight. The annoyance was a distant memory, burned away by the warmth of his body and the depth of his care.

He smiled, that soft, boyish one with twin dimples. He began to move then, not with the driving, bed-breaking force of last night, but with slow, shallow rolls of his hips. It was barely movement at all, just a gentle, rocking connection that sparked fresh tendrils of pleasure, coiling around the deep, satiated ache. You met his rhythm, moving with him in a lazy, effortless sync.

His eyes never left yours. The eye contact was more intimate than before, a silent conversation that flowed between you with each slow thrust. You could see the love there, the devotion, the faintest shadow of guilt, and the blazing heat of his desire. 

You could also see the moment his control began to fray. His breathing hitched, his movements growing slightly less measured.

"I can’t think when you—look at me like that," he confessed, voice strained with brutal honesty. "Sweetheart, I’m losing it."

Your smile turned slow and wicked, even as your breath came faster.

"Thought you wanted to see me," you panted. "S-say it again. Tell me you’re losing it."

His lashes fluttered, jaw tightening. "I’m—" a shaky exhale, "—I’m losing it. Your fault, definitely."

"Oh, I know," you breathed, and the praise was a match to gasoline. "You’re doing so good for me."

"I-I’m close—can’t—You’re making me lose it," he warned, his voice strained. "G-gosh, hon—I—where–where do you—?"

You tightened your legs around him, walls fluttering as you drew him in even deeper. 

"I-Inside, always," you moaned urgently, raking your nails across his back as if coaxing him. "Come for me, baby. Come for your wife again."

It was all the encouragement he needed. His rhythm broke, his hips stuttering against yours. His eyes widened, his pupils swallowing the blue, and you watched, mesmerized, as pleasure overtook him. A low, guttural moan tore from his throat. He was beautiful in his release, his face a mask of vulnerable ecstasy. 

You felt the hot, sudden, familiar rush of him inside you, a profound, flooding warmth that seemed to go on and on, a testament to the unique biology of the man you married. You clenched around him repeatedly, milking every last pulse, holding him through the waves.

Clark was careful, even in his exhaustion, to keep most of his weight off you as he collapsed, utterly spent. He nuzzled into your neck, pressing soft, damp kisses to your skin. He mumbled sweet nothings between uneven breaths, the words slurred with satisfaction and devotion. Your fingers combed through his damp hair with each kiss, soothing, indulgent.

Eventually, he lifted his head. His eyes were lovestruck and lazy, that gooey, boyish look that always made you want to be insufferable about it.

"Y’know," he murmured, "Valentine’s didn’t end at midnight for me."

You made a sound that might’ve been a disbelieving scoff. "Oh?"

"It’s still happening," he said, and the corner of his mouth quirked. "As long as I get to be here next to you."

You snorted, muttered ‘Geez, you big ol’ mush’ under your breath, and caught him in a final slow, sweet kiss. When you parted, you nodded towards the kitchen, then blinked up at him sweetly. 

"So, I believe there was talk of breakfast, Mr. Kent?"

His laugh vibrated through his chest into yours. 

"Right! Stay put, hon. I got you!" 

He withdrew from you slowly, both of you wincing at the loss and the fresh, slick evidence of your joining that followed. He fetched a warm, damp washcloth from the connected bathroom quickly, and tended to you with utmost tenderness, listening carefully to your every sigh and sharp breath.

Only once he was satisfied with the way the sheets covered you, did he tug on his sweats and vanish into the kitchen.

You lay there, alone in the broken bed, surrounded by sunlight and the smell of sex and, still, coffee.

Proof of a marriage that was shamelessly, wonderfully alive.

Clark returned minutes later with a tray meticulously arranged like a peace offering and a love letter.

Fluffy waffles covered with exactly the right amount of syrup, scrambled eggs, a bowl of yogurt with honey, a small pile of strawberries, coffee in your favorite mug, and a tall glass of water.

He even brought a bottle of ibuprofen and your heating pad.

He set the tray aside for a moment, helped you sit up, propping pillows behind you. His hands were checking without hovering—here, there, too much pressure?— making sure you were comfortable. 

You let him fuss, because watching your Clark —your Superman—go soft and domestic with caretaking was its own kind of seduction.

Once you were settled, he placed the tray across your lap and gingerly climbed onto the bed beside you.

The bed creaked once more.

Clark paused mid-motion.

You lifted a brow.

He gave you the smallest, most unapologetic smirk (still worth it) and then immediately sobered, sliding closer with the gentleness of a man who worshipped your comfort more than his pride.

He watched you take the first bite of waffles, his eyes scanning your face.

"Well?" he asked.

"To die for," you complimented was an exaggerated moan, mouth muffled full of food. "As always, Chef Kent. Thank you."

He nodded and picked up a strawberry, holding it to your lips. You took a bite, the sweet juice bursting on your tongue.

"At this point," you said after swallowing, leaning your head against his shoulder, "we should just get a mattress on the floor."

Clark paused, his coffee mug halfway to his lips. He peered down at you, a mischievous look spread across his face. 

"That’s actually not a bad idea," he said slowly, all serious. "You’re brilliant!"

You laughed, bright and happy in the sunlit bedroom. "I was joking."

"Well, I’m not." You could see the gears turning in his head, the plans formulating. "Sturdy foundation. Low center of gravity. No frame to break." He nodded once like he’d solved world hunger. "I mean, it’s the perfect solution."

"Ah, so the great Man of Steel admits defeat not by kryptonite, but by a bedframe," you teased, nudging him with your elbow. 

He set his mug down slowly and turned to you, his expression soft and earnest again. He cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs stroking your cheeks.

"Defeated by the thought of you being uncomfortable," he corrected gently. "Conquered, completely, by you."

He kissed you then, a sweet, lingering kiss that tasted of coffee and strawberries. When he pulled back, he kept his forehead pressed to yours. 

"We only had one bed," he whispered.

"Just this one," you agreed. "We'll be slumming it like broke college kids for a while."

"And somehow," he started, pursing his lips, "you still choose it. You still choose me."

"Every day, baby," you promised, smiliing against him.

"Every day," he echoed, words filled with a wonder that never grew old.

The coffee cooled on the tray. The broken bed leaned on, a silent, ridiculous witness. In the warm pool of sunlight, wrapped in the careful, protective embrace of the man you loved—your sweet, prideful, impossible husband—you knew there was nowhere else you’d rather be.

.

Thank you for reading! Any likes + reblogs and comments especially are forever appreciated, and keeps me motivated!

You could feel the way he breathed against you that something was eating away at him.

"Clark?" You tilted your head toward his. "You've gone quiet on me."

You expected the usual from him. Maybe a lazy joke, a hum in your ear, a quick brush-off he gave when he was too full of love to make it into words. Instead, a deep sigh left him, and what followed was nothing you were prepared for tonight.

"Do you think I’d be a good father?"

The question sliced through the air like it had been waiting inside him for quite a long time.

It wasn't an 'if'.

It was a 'would'.

Freezing, you didn't answer. At least not right away. Not because you didn’t know, of course you knew, but from the sincerity of his worry.

The fact that this man who gave everything, who held the world together with two hands and a heart too big for his broad chest, could still doubt he’d be good at something as natural as love.

He hadn’t moved beneath you as you thought. As if any rustle of the sheets might scare you from answering. Like maybe he regretted saying this sliver of insecurity aloud.

Finally, you shifted until you were propped up on your elbow across his chest. His hand slipped from your waist in the movement, fingers brushing down your thigh to hold you still. The moonlight caught the planes of his face—cheekbones faintly flushed, jaw shadowed in softness, lashes low.

"Baby, what brought that on?" you asked softly.

Your fingers found his cheek, your thumb brushing warm skin and stubble until he turned into it slightly.

He blinked, summer sky blues flicking to yours for a second before sliding away again.

"There was this rescue earlier today. Apartment fire. Young family. The dad didn’t even hesitate to run straight back in for his son."

You nodded, remained silent.

"I got them out. They’re okay," he added quickly, because he knew that would be your first concern. "But later, I kept thinking: I won’t always be there. Not for everyone."

Sighing, you attempted to save him from his thoughts. "Oh, babe—"

"Then I thought: what if that was me. What if I’m out there handling something halfway across the planet, and you’re home alone, raising our child, managing everything. What if I’m chasing after another emergency that can’t wait? That's not fair to you and them."

"Baby—" you cut in softly again, aching for him, but he kept going, needing to let it out.

"I keep wondering if I’m being selfish," he went on, louder now, voice cracking slightly. "Wanting you. Wanting a family, knowing what I am. What I bring. What could follow me home and hurt you. What might happen if I fail to protect."

"Clark Joseph."

He looked at you then, full-on. Eyes a little wet, layered with doubt he never let anyone else see. Not even Lois. Not even the Justice Gang. But he’d let you in. He always had.

"You're an incredible husband, I married you knowing everything that came with the symbol," you started without flourish. "You'd also make an incredible father. Our child will grow up feeling safe with you, not just provided for."

His brow furrowed, just faintly, ready to counter.

"They would," you repeated, firmer now. "You care so deeply. You listen. You see everyone, even the ones that don't deserve it. You treat children like they matter. Like they’re already whole, not waiting to be useful."

You traced the worried wrinkles between his brows. Then his temple. The warm shell of his ear.

"I’ve seen how you hold the neighbors’ babies like they’re made of gold. How you stop to play peekaboo when you think no one’s looking. How you kneel in the street to speak to kids after disasters—always eye-level. Always kind."

You leaned forward slowly and kissed his forehead, then the corner of his mouth, then the spot where his pulse beat beneath his jaw.

"You already give everything you have, Clark. You hold the world together because you care so deeply. And the fact that you’re even thinking about this—worrying about how to protect our child that doesn’t even exist yet—that is exactly why you’d be a damn good father."

You moved your hand to his chest, right over where his heart beat strongest. He kept listening.

"I trust you and know you’d never leave us without making sure we were safe first. You’d never put the people you love second if you could help it. That’s not who you are. That’s never been who you are. You have more love in you than anyone I’ve ever met. You just have to trust that, too."

For a moment, neither of you moved. The quiet stretched between your words like acceptance sinking in, letting the weight of your assurance settle behind his sternum where your hand rested.

Then slowly, his hand rose, fingertips brushing along the nape of your neck, coaxing you higher and closer. 

When he kissed you, it was slow and fully laced with an answer that didn’t need language. One that said he was still afraid, but less so now. Not with you by his side.

Not with your words still echoing in his ears. Not with your faith.

The quiet that followed was a better kind than before.

Your chest felt looser. His grip around you had softened. Moonlight angled lower across the room now, shifting against the floorboards, and one of your feet brushed his calf beneath the blanket, and he didn’t pull away.

"Are you still thinking about it?" you murmured, cheek pressed to the firm stretch of his chest.

A hum rolled through him, vibrating against you. "Just… letting it settle."

"Settle…" you echoed, your fingers across the crease where the sheet had bunched between your torso. You played with the fabric idly. "Good settling or anxious spiraling?"

"Bit of both," he admitted, staying thoughtful, fingers grazing your hip. "Still don’t know if I’d be any good at the discipline part."

That made you lift your head, expression twisted in disbelief.

"Excuse me, what?"

Completely unbothered, he spared a side glance at you. "What? I’m serious."

"So you think I’m going to be the strict parent?"

His mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh again. "You get that voice when I don’t separate the whites!"

"Well, you know better!" You swatted his shoulder. "But which one of us gives stern, disappointed dad lectures to supervillains mid-fight on live-TV? On the daily?"

That made him laugh. Full-bodied, caught off guard. It rocked through his chest beneath your palms, made your stomach flip from the sheer sound of it.

"What? No, I don’t—"

"You do!" you shot back. "You used your Superman voice to stop a toddler tossing gravel at the ducks last week."

"Hon, she was chucking rocks! Those animals were defenseless!"

You shifted higher on his chest, kissed just below his jaw, smug.

"Face it, baby. You have The Voice and righteous authority act down. Even misbehaved toddlers flinch."

He rolled his eyes. "Didn’t know being a decent person and saving ducks from being stoned counted as parenting."

"Oh, it does." You kissed him again, slower this time. "Honestly, it kind of turns me on."

That caught him off-guard.

Clark blinked, slow and confused. "Wait, turns you on?"

Brows lifting, you shrugged with faux-casual ease, biting your lip. "It’s so hot when you talk like that."

Still propped on your elbows, one hand coasted the center of his chest, featherlight, feeling the way his muscles tensed and twitched under your palm. You let your nails scrape lightly on the way back up, and he swallowed hard.

"That voice," you drawled, closing your eyes and moaning a bit almost in pain. "The one you use when giving orders. Clearing buildings. Protecting people. The one that makes everyone shut up and listen."

Clark stayed quiet, his free hand tightening slightly on the sheets. He was more aware now. Watching. Listening. Humor had faded from his expression entirely.

"You know the one," you added, tone light, but your body already reacting to the memory of it. Your eyes flicked to his mouth, then lower, then back to his eyes.

"Every time I hear it, I squeeze my thighs together."

That earned you a sharp breath from him—a low, barely-there groan like he’d tried to swallow it too late.

"It’s not just the tone, " you went on, shameless. "It’s the confidence. The command. It does things to me. Gets under my skin."

You felt heat and slick bloom between your thighs even now, just talking about it. His hand had stopped moving entirely.

Your voice dropped lower, soft and teasing. "It’s not like I want to be turned on when you’re dealing with, like, a four-alarm fire, or telling Gardner to shut up and fall in line. But it’s like clockwork. The second you take command like that…"

Shifting a little to swing one leg over his, you made sure he felt the evidence of your body’s response. You weren’t trying to be coy anymore.

"I get so wet. My nipples get painfully tight. My cunt clenches around nothing, wishing you were already inside me," you rambled it like you were commenting on the weather.

Clark exhaled through his nose, sharp and shaky, and gripped the back of your thigh with one hand. You leaned forward on your elbows again, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then his jaw. His breath hitched when you bit lightly at his earlobe.

"When the time comes, when we have our first baby? You'll officially earn 'Hot Dad' status," you whispered gleefully against his skin. "Especially when you talk like that."

He frowned slightly, brain fogged. "What—what does that even mean?"

"It means you’d be a DILF, Clark."

"Again, what does that even mean?"

"D-I-L-F," you spelled it slowly, savoring it. "Dad I’d Like to Fuck."

The sound he made was somewhere between a sputter and a loud, exasperated groan. His hand slid from your thigh to your waist like he didn’t know whether to steady you or flip you.

"Jesus, honey—" he mumbled, flush climbing up his neck and spreading fast.

"Oh no, we’re not praying now!"

"That’s not real. People don’t think that's—"

"No, it's true," you tilted your head, smug now, fully sprawled across his body. "You’re already halfway there. Incredibly hot, stern, heroic. Sexy public-facing voice. You do know women out there think about you, right? Superman?"

His mouth opened like he was about to deny it, then closed again when he clearly couldn’t.

"Used to bother me when they'd go gaga over you, but then I started thinking," you tapped his chin, mischief evident in your gaze. "That I’m the one you come home to. I’m the one who gets that voice in my ear, in this bed, in me. "

Bedsheets rustled in the corner of your vision, and you caught the obvious tenting between his thighs. You bit your lip, holding back a delighted coo.

"Ohhh, I’ve thought about it so often," you confessed with more enthusiasm, trailing your nails down his chest again. "What it would be like to hear you talk like that in the bedroom. Not in the suit. Not saving the world. Just here," you leaned closer, lips brushing his cheekbone.

You kissed just beneath his ear, whispered, "Commanding me."

His cock twitched beneath the sheets.

"You want me to use it in here?" he whispered back, eyes gone half-lidded. "Really?"

Nodding enthusiastically with a grin, you parted your lips and thighs in tandem like you were already waiting for the next order.

He looked into your eyes for a while. Something in his gaze shifted, unspoken. It wasn’t fully playful anymore. Sure, it was still gentle, still him, but sharper. Focused.

It was a married look in the quietest, most ruinous way.

A warm, broad hand slid to the back of your neck. The other gripped your hip harder.

When Clark spoke again, it wasn’t the register he used in everyday conversation. It was the one reserved for when lives were on the line, when something big needed to obey, now.

"Come here."

Hearing it aimed at you made heat bloom fast and sharp through your body, straight to the places that already felt too awake.

Your response was immediate.

Crawling into his lap, knees bracketing his hips, the cotton sheets twisted beneath you with every frantic shift of weight. You hovered just above him, close enough to feel the heat of his straining cock between your legs, but not touching yet. You braced your palms against his chest, heart pounding, eyes on his mouth, ready for what came next.

Sitting up a little more, Clark rested his hands lightly on your thighs.

"Take your clothes off."

Oohhh, the way he said it. Your skin prickled.

You stripped fast, fingers slipping under your hem and beneath your waistband. You peeled your clothes and tossed it aside, baring yourself fully in the moonlight. The air in the room hit your nipples before his eyes did, and he reached out, brushing a thumb across the swell of one breast. You gasped at the contact.

"Do you like that?"

You nodded, breath shaky, back curving toward him to give him more purchase.

"Use your words, sweetheart," he coaxed, low and patient. "I want to hear it from your pretty mouth. Your pretty voice."

The pet name fell differently in that register. You squirmed in his lap, cunt tightened hard, already dripping.

"Yes," you whispered. "God, yes. I love it when you talk like that."

His free hand reached out, thumb grazed your lip, coaxing your mouth open, and you kissed it without thinking. That look was still in his eyes, cataloging reactions.

"More, please," you breathed, already trembling.

Clark’s grip on your hips tightened as he pulled you forward. Your knees slid closer, bracketing his ribs, and your thighs burned from holding yourself up, but you didn’t stop. You wanted the ache. You wanted to be good.

"Keep your legs open for me."

You spread wider with a desperate, impatient sigh, hips instinctively tipping forward. Your cunt throbbed, swollen and aching with how close and untouched you still were.

"That's my girl," he praised easily. "Stay just like that."

The words hit harder than anything else. Your head lolled with a whine, torso folding forward as if his attention alone was enough to pull you apart.

Clark leaned up on his elbows, soft lips brushing the swell of your breast before he took one nipple into his wet mouth, tongue dragging slowly over the peak while his hand cupped the other firmly, deliberate, circling the areola until your back arched and you couldn't help but rock once.

"Hey," he warned, pulling back just enough to speak. "Stay still. Let me take my time with you."

So you froze, arms shaking, knees burning, breath coming shallow and broken. Soft sounds spilled from your mouth as you hovered there for him, aching, needy, obedient.

His hand slid between your thighs, palm hot as his fingers spread you open with a few firm strokes.

"Oh—wow," he breathed, openly pleased. "She’s already soaking for me. Just like you said. She's so eager, sweetheart."

Two fingers pressed into your cunt to the last knuckle. You choked on a raspy gasp as the stretch made your walls clamp down hard.

"Easy," he hissed, "she's a little tense. Pretty girl needed this bad, huh?"

You sobbed out something that was meant to be his name and failed.

"Come on now," he hissed, thrusting deeper. "Let me hear you again. I know she’s got something to say."

"C-Clark!" you whimpered his name. Stuttering and soft at first. Then again, louder and bolder as he thrusted faster. "F-fu—hmm–Ah!Yes!"

He fucked you with his fingers with patient, ruthless precision, curling them up into the spongy spot that made your whole body tense and your head fall back.

"Look at that," he said, in awe. "She’s talking, hon. I want to hear her sing for me."

The squelch of your cunt grew louder, wetter, messier, the harder he pressed. You trembled above him, trying not to move, but your hips twitched with every delicious thrust.

"She missed me, huh?" he panted, dragging his mouth along your chest. "She missed this."

"She—she needs you," you gasped, near tears. "God, damn it Clark—she’s so fucking empty—"

"I know," he soothed, kissing your breastbone, curling his fingers harder. "I’ll take care of her soon. Always do."

Your pussy clenched again at the promise, fluttering around him, leaking down onto his wrist. It was shamefully loud and filthy the way your cunt slicked his hand, weeping for more.

"Mmm—fuck—yes—she’s yours, baby—she’s so yours—"

"That’s my good girl," he praised again, firmer.

"I—I'm close!" you choked out, voice high and panicked as your hands pawed his wrist and forearm. "So close—please—fuck!"

He thrust his fingers a little harder, then eased them out without warning, watching your face as your cunt grieved the sudden neglect. You nearly sobbed at your collapsing pleasure.

Clark quickly shifted beneath you, just enough to slide his hands down, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers. You sat back slightly, breath caught, watching as he eased them down over his thighs, lifting just enough to slip them off completely.

His cock sprang free—heavy, flushed, already wet at the tip from how long he’d been holding back. It rested against his stomach, thick and full and twitching faintly.

You moaned under your breath, hips twitching toward him.

He wrapped his hand around himself slowly, thick fingers closing at the base, stroking once, long, steady, letting you see every inch slide through his grip. Pre-cum smeared across his thumb, shining.

"I want you to look," he commanded, voice still low. "Look at what you do to me."

You did. God, you did. And when you reached for him without thinking, he caught your wrist gently. Not stopping you, but guiding. He pressed your palm to his cock, wrapped your fingers where he wanted them, made you feel how hard he was, how hot.

"Now do this nice and slow," he murmured. "Stroke me, sweetheart. Just like you always do."

You obeyed, using one trembling hand to slid up and down his length, feeling him throb against your palm. You watched the way his pretty eyes fluttered close and his hips flexed just barely as you pumped him again, slower this time, thumb circling the head, smearing the slick there.

"That’s it," he praised, his voice shifting now, more breathless. "That's my girl. J-just like that."

Once he was fully slick with your touch, he pulled your hand away, kissed your knuckles one by one. You were still soaked. Still shaking.

"Feel this first," he breathed, gripping the base of him. "Just close your eyes and feel."

Eyelids fluttering shut, you felt the blunt head of his cock glide through your swollen folds, feeling it drag up and down your sopping cunt, letting it circle your clit, to then tease your entrance.

It was so close, so hot, so hard. You whined, hips tipping forward, desperate to sink down on him.

"Easy," he reminded, hand firm at your waist. "Not yet. Stay right there."

You rocked just a fraction, clit brushing the underside of him, sparks shooting through your body.

"Oh—G-god—!" Your breath caught in your throat.

"Do that again," he grunted, voice gone thick. "S-stay right there for me."

Your resolve shattered.

Your hips began to move in small frantic rolls, just your clit against his cock, chasing friction, chasing release, teasing your entrance every few strokes.

"Shit," you whimpered, thighs shaking. "I’m close, I’m close, I'm so close—"

"That’s—it," he urged, Superman’s assertiveness through and through. "Let go f’me, hon. Don't hold back. I’ve got you."

"Okay, yeahyeahyeah—Ohhh fuck, baby—I love you—fuck—love you—"

Your orgasm broke like a high fever—violent, helpless, pulled from the weight of his voice, the molten heat of his cock gliding along your soaked folds, the way he made you hold still and listen. You shattered with a cry of his name, body trembling as each wave dragged you under, hips jerking forward on instinct, slick pouring down your thighs like a confession you couldn’t hold back.

It was messy, overwhelming, too much and not enough. Pleasure blurred the edges of your vision. He groaned deep in his throat, hands gripping your ass with bruising certainty, anchoring you to him as if afraid you might fall apart completely if he let go.

Even then, he didn’t take you.

Not yet.

You collapsed against him, forehead pressed to his neck, panting, lips chapped against his skin. His hands smoothed over your sweaty back, slow and calming, grounding you through the aftershocks.

When you lifted your head again, hair mussed, eyes glassy, you begged.

"Please," you gasped, strained. "Inside. Want you, need you—"

You weren’t playing anymore. This wasn’t part of the game.

"I’ll be good, I swear," you urged, frantic. "Please—please— fill me–"

Lifting you just enough, he sank you down onto him, slow and steady, letting you take every thick inch until your hips were pressed flush and your whole body was full.

You gasped with every slight push in, mouth falling wide open in a series of broken moans.

"Gosh, sweetheart," he groaned, eyes squeezing shut as his voice faltered a beat. "You feel—so good—So perfect for me."

Panting, your cunt gripped around him, stretching, fluttering, adjusting to his size, greedily pulling him in deeper.

One broad palm settled against your ass. "You wanna ride me?" he asked, a little breathless. "Or you want me to do the work?"

Mouth agape, you just blinked at him, too dazed, brain-fogged to make a decision.

Clark bit the inside of his cheek to tame an amused chuckle threatening to spill. His hips flexed up once. Sharp, deep, enough for the head of his cock to brush against your cervix.

You cried out, head thrown back, hands clawing at his abs, your answer clearly shaking loose, dressed up in your pretty voice.

And Clark grinned, still breathless, already starting to move.

.

Afterward, the room stayed hot.

The summer breeze and mind-blowing-knee-breaking sex worked against your body, struggling to calm down. Your skin still tingled and itched with leftover adrenaline, and your limbs felt like you’d sprinted uphill in a dream you weren’t ready to wake from.

You were boneless, breathless, and babbling, cheek pressed to Clark’s sweaty chest again, your mouth working faster than your lungs could keep up.

"Holy shit, baby. We—you—we have to do that again. Like in an hour! You were fucking incredible."

His chest shook beneath you, his fingers dragged in slow, absentminded circles along the base of your spine. His lips found your temple.

"I didn’t really do much?"

You shifted a little, one hand smoothing over the firm plane of his stomach, the other nudging his bicep.

"Liar! You did plenty! You said a lot. Give yourself more credit!"

Tilting your head up, you smiled smug and sleepy and in love in the way that made everything feel light again. He looked flushed, satisfied, but not nearly as flustered as he should be.

So you went on, intending to rectify that: "When you said, ‘keep your legs open for me’, and 'stay still' in The Voice, I just! Argh! Can't explain it!"

Clark groaned softly, covering his face with one hand. "Hon, you kept moving! I had to say something."

"It was so hot. So serious. I could barely think straight. You called my pussy ‘pretty girl', and I almost came right there!"

Pushing yourself upright, you ran your fingers through his damp curls, kissed his cheek, then his jaw, and kept going:

"I’m just saying, if you talked to me like that during any argument, we’d never finish one. You could say ‘sit down’ and I’d just fold. I’d sit. I'd beg. I'd probably get on my knees. Ohh, I know you'd like to see that."

Clark threw a forearm over his eyes with a dramatic sigh. "You’re unbelievable."

"You’re unbelievable," you shot back, grinning. "Big, bossy, DILF energy. You’re gonna be such a hot dad. Like... aggressively hot, with—"

"Stop—"

"—the stern voice, the control, the discipline—"

"Fine, fine!" he relented, dragging a hand down his face. "I get it! No need to circle back!"

He looked at you like he was praying silently. You softened a little, smiling into the corner of his mouth, then kissed the space behind his ear. Quieter now, but still playful.

"Seriously though, you’re going to be an incredible father, babe. You already carry the world in your hands. You’ll carry our kid the same way. When that happens for us. I can't imagine sharing this kind of life with anyone else."

The way his eyes softened, so delicate and tender, told you he believed it now. Whatever doubt he’d carried into the question had been worn down by your body, your voice, your trust.

There was no fear left in the space between you. Only peace. Only possibility.

Reaching under the blanket, Clark found your hand beneath it, and laced your fingers with his. He brought them both to rest over your stomach.

Nothing existed there yet. No child. No heartbeat. Just breath and skin and the maybe of it all. But his palm stayed, still and warm, as if promising he’d be ready. As if anchoring hope in flesh.

"Then I’ll do my best," he vowed, with more conviction than you thought possible. "Every day."

You leaned in and kissed the hollow just under his jaw, then the soft patch of his chest where you liked to rest your head. A whisper pressed into the skin just right over his heart.

"I know you will. You already are."

The silence that followed was softer. Weightless. Content.

...Until you ruined it.

Entirely too casual, you started, tipping your head up:

"So. Just checking: you've heard of DILF... would you hate it if I, like, maybe tried calling you daddy sometime?"

Clark blinked once. Then lifted his head very slowly to stare down at you, mouth agape. Eventually:

"Absolutely not."

You cackled at his firmness. "'Come on! Just a test run—"

"Nope."

"Okay, fine, I’ll workshop it," you conceded, poking his chest dramatically. "We’ll start with sir, ease into it. I’ll get that knee to bend eventually."

He ran a hand up your back and squeezed you, words muffled against your temple.

"Sweetheart, the only thing bending is you, if you keep talking like that."

"...Can you say that again, but in The Voice?"

.

Thank you for reading! Please don't forget to leave reblog or comment! Any of these are forever appreciated, and keep fics like this alive and writers motivated!

.

You tried to joke. Tried to mumble something about pregnancy and low blood sugar, about standing too long on swollen ankles, about growing a baby on a human body, ha ha, nature’s weird.

You didn’t say half-Kryptonian. You never said that in front of anyone with a white coat and a clipboard. You did, however, mention the kicking. The flips. The way you’d both watched your stomach ripple under the lamp on the nightstand while Clark’s whole face had gone bright with wonder.

Then the third time, you didn’t wake up on the tile at all.

You came back staring at MetroGen's white ceiling with an oxygen mask over your face, and the humiliation hit almost as hard as the symptoms—because this was your territory. Your department. Your coworkers.

Clark stayed glued to your side, his hand wrapped around your wrist like a cuff he refused to unlock, while your charge nurse and the attending traded grim glances and used words like arrhythmia and possible organ strain in voices that didn’t soften just because you knew the layout of every crash cart in the building.

Clark’s worried gaze kept lurching from your face to the curve under the hospital blanket.

After that, nobody laughed.

.

Somewhere between the first scare and the third, you’d let yourself believe in hope.

You’d let yourself pick a paint swatch on your phone at two in the morning, shoulder tucked into Clark’s chest, both of you whispering like the future could hear you. You didn’t choose bright pink or blue. You chose something gentle—warm, quiet, hopeful. A pale buttercream that looked like morning light.

Clark had smiled into your hair and said, "That’s a good color for her."

Her.

The word had landed in you like a spark.

After that, it was tiny things. The smallest onesie you’d ever held, folded into a drawer you and Clark kept opening just to reassure yourself it was real. Soft cotton with little stars. A pair of socks so miniature in Clark's palm. A ridiculous little knit hat with a tiny puffball that made you laugh until you cried.

You told yourselves you two weren’t getting ahead of it.

But you were married and so in love.

And you’d already started building a home in your head.

.

The obstetrician didn’t sugarcoat it.

You’d already collected three sets of grainy ultrasound photos and one perfect series from the fancy 3D machine—the one where the baby’s hand was curled up by their cheek and Clark had stared like he’d been shown the face of a god.

All of those images sat in a neat little folder in your bag while the doctor put the new scans up on a screen and spoke in a calm, even tone that made you want to scream.

"Your body is treating this pregnancy like a trauma, and it's struggling to keep up," she explained. "You have an unremarkable health history, but your heart and lungs are under continuous, extreme stress. I anticipate the strain to increase as the pregnancy progresses. We’re already seeing damage."

Clark’s thumb traced circles over your knuckles, your wedding ring, but his hand shook.

You heard the rest in pieces.

"Abnormal pressures for this gestation… fluid building where it shouldn’t… your blood vessels aren’t meant for this degree of volume and output… if it continues, we are not talking about if something catastrophic happens, only when."

The next image on the monitor wasn’t a cluster of shadows anymore.

It was a profile you knew by heart: rounded skull, clear spine, the fluttering cage of ribs. One tiny foot kicked like it always did when Clark talked near your belly—your little overachiever showing off on screen.

"We want this baby," you murmured, because that felt so important to put into the room. "We already… we felt her hiccup last night. We’ve picked out the crib. We want her."

"I know, Mrs. Kent," the doctor replied, and for a moment she wasn’t a specialist but someone who’d stood in too many rooms just like this delivering heartbreaking news. "But right now, carrying this pregnancy is killing you. With the readings we’re seeing and no clear underlying diagnosis… I have to be honest. Continuing increases the risk of sudden cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, stroke. Not in months—in days or weeks."

Your breath hitched.

She went on, gentler. "We can try medication. Hospital bedrest. Machines to support your heart and lungs. Those come with their own dangers, and there’s no evidence they’ll be enough given how… atypical your labs are. The safest option—for your life—is to terminate the pregnancy. I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Kent, truly."

The word dropped between all of you. Terminate.

There were baby clothes hanging to dry in your laundry room. There was painter’s tape on the nursery wall where Clark marked off where the dresser would go. The folder in your bag held a series of photos where Clark’s big thumb dwarfed the ghost of a hand pressed against the inside of your stomach.

She kept talking: steroids, ventilators, procedures that "might buy time" but came with risks she couldn’t quantify. You and Clark kept nodding, both of you pretending this was a normal high-risk pregnancy and not something no human chart was built for.

You couldn’t tell her the truth. Couldn’t explain that your body wasn’t just fighting pregnancy—it was trying to host something like their father, with cells that drank sunlight like a plant and bent steel like paper, that grew stronger every week in ways no textbook could predict.

On the way out, you both could feel it churning under your ribs, that wrongness. The weight of a secret the doctors couldn’t see, what you refused to reveal to protect Clark, and the insistence to set fire to the sweetest plans you’d ever made.

The baby fluttered once, sharp and insistent, as if to remind you they were there.

.

Clark couldn't stay at home once you were settled. He flew to clear his head, and you couldn't blame him.

The air over National City was cold and thin. He landed on Kara’s balcony so hard that the concrete under his shoes cracked. His hands were already in his hair, curls a riot from speed and panic.

Kara slid the glass door open before he even knocked, eyes wide, hair pulled into a messy knot like she’d been halfway through grading papers.

"What the hell, dude? Kal?" she hissed, quirking a brow. "Everything okay? What's going—"

"My wife, she’s alive," he blurted quickly. "For now."

The way his voice broke on the last word made her go still.

They sat at her kitchen table with mismatched mugs between them. He pushed the scans across the surface, the ones he shouldn’t have taken, the ones that meant nothing to human eyes and too much to his.

He added the latest ultrasound, too—the unmistakable outline of your baby, one hand tucked under their chin, mouth just barely open.

"We’re… we’re so far along now," he managed. "We’ve heard the heartbeat a dozen times. I’ve felt her kick. And it’s… it’s killing her, Kara. Her heart keeps stopping. Her lungs—there’s fluid, and the doctors don’t understand any of it, because they can’t know it’s not just human."

Kara’s blue eyes moved over the grayscale smear of your insides, her brow knitting. "You told them it was just… a high-risk pregnancy?" she pressed.

"What else could we do?" His hands shook as he threw his hands up, exasperated. " ‘Hi, my wife’s carrying a fetus that’s half alien, your machines don’t know what it’s doing to her, could you please fix it?’"

She flinched at the rare bitter edge in his voice.

"I've asked the League, but nothing. Is there anything?" he pleaded, brows pinched. "On Krypton—did we have tech? Protocols? Records of hybrid pregnancies? Some kind of incubator that can move the baby, something that lets her survive this—"

"Kal." Her voice was soft, but it cut straight through him.

He stopped.

Kara exhaled, staring at the scan like she could will a solution out of the pixels. "On Krypton… we barely understood our own physiology, let alone mixing it with another species," she admitted. "There were theories. Ethics debates. A few fringe scientists who wanted to try. But we didn’t get far enough to test any of it before the end."

He swallowed hard. "What about off-world tech? Is there anything that could… safely transfer the fetus, hold them until—"

"Even if something existed out there—somewhere—" She shook her head, eyes wet. "We don’t have it here. Not in time. Not safely. Anything we tried now would treat her like an experiment. And with how far along she is, how stressed her system already looks…" She bit her lip. "Kal, she might not survive the attempt."

He looked like she’d punched him.

"So that’s it?" he choked out. "I just… watch her die? Watch them both—"

"No." Kara reached across the table and held his wrist. Her grip was firm, grounding. "You do the thing that keeps her alive. Even if it’s the thing that breaks you both for a while."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "We had a name picked. She says it when she talks to her," he exhaled shakily. "She lies awake at night and reads out loud and they move when they hear her voice. We painted the walls this nice white but she calls it buttercream. I built a crib with my hands, slowly. She held my hand over her stomach and laughed when the baby kicked hard enough to sting even for me." His throat closed. "How am I supposed to go home and tell my wife the only way she lives is if… if our baby doesn't?"

"I know, Kal," Kara murmured, frowning. "I know how much this fucking hurts. But… if you force this, you’re gambling her life on a ‘maybe.’ You of all people know the odds have never been kind to our family."

That landed like a spear through his chest. Krypton. His birth parents. The pod. The way survival always came with a price.

Kara’s voice gentled. "You two are… you’re it. You’re the good I tell myself exists when the world is falling apart. Don’t throw that away on a chance."

She squeezed his wrist once more. "Whatever happens, you won’t be alone. You have Ma and Pa. You have me. You’ll still have all the other metahumans. And you and she… you’re strong enough to survive this. The strongest."

Clark left with the scans shoved back under his arm, Kara’s hug tight and desperate around his shoulders, her voice in his ear: You can’t save everyone. But you can save her. Don’t forget that.

For the first time that day, something that felt like hope burrowed its way into his chest: small, stubborn, centered around you. Not clean, never with this impossible choice. But it was there.

You didn’t talk about it that night. Not at first.

The nursery door was half-open when you came down the hall, your hand braced over the side stitch you got now just from walking the apartment. The faint smell of paint still lingered—warm yellow drying on the walls, the mobile Clark had hung turning lazily in the draft from the window.

You hesitated, then kept going.

Clark carried you to bed easily, even though you kept complaining that you felt heavy, swollen, and out of balance. He tucked you under his side, his warm palm spread over your sternum. His other hand didn’t stray far from your belly, like he couldn’t decide which heartbeat to guard more fiercely.

He kept tracking your rhythm out loud, like he couldn’t stop.

"There you are," he whispered. "Still here. Still here."

The baby rolled, a slow press outward against your skin. You both felt it—one more reminder that there were three of you in the bed, technically.

At some point, you realized Clark was crying.

You cupped his face, thumbs brushing away wetness he wasn’t even acknowledging. "Oh, Clark, baby," you soothed. "Look at me."

His eyes were red; not the glowing Kryptonian kind. Just a man about to give voice to something that would break his own heart.

"I can’t fix it," he confessed, voice heavy and scared. "I’ve flown to three different labs. I’ve talked to Bruce, to J’onn, to Kara… everybody that might help. Everything they can do is experimental or dangerous or both. They all say the same thing: your body can’t keep this up. Not with how far along we are. Not with how strong they are."

You felt another faint nudge under his arm and tried not to break with him. Yet.

"So we wait," you tried, even though you knew you were lying to both of you. "Maybe it stabilizes. Maybe they slow down. Maybe—"

"You almost died today," he burst out, louder than he meant to. The lamp rattled on the nightstand.

The baby startled at her father's outburst; you felt the sharp little jerk inside and flinched. He saw your hand curl protectively over your bump from his shout.

He swallowed hard, pulling his own hands back like he’d burned you. "I’m sorry," he rushed out. "Gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare either of you, I just—"

"I know," you murmured. Your voice wobbled. "I know, Clark."

He stared down at the duvet, at the faint stretch of fabric over your belly, at the spot where the tech had pressed down to show you the baby practicing breathing movements.

When Clark spoke again, his voice was as wrecked as you’d ever heard it.

"If we keep going," he whispered, then swallowed the lump in his throat. "I lose you."

You tried to breathe around the painful truth. "If we don’t, we lose her."

Reality sat between you, awful and sharp. You felt the baby roll, a slow, familiar press outward, and your eyes burned.

"I want them," you confessed, the words ripping out of you. "God, Clark, I want this baby so badly. I’ve already—" Your breath hitched. "I’ve already pictured her first day of school, and you crying more than she would, and her flying before walking, and wondered if she'll have your black hair—"

Your voice broke completely on your first sob.

"I know," he choked, collecting you in an embrace. "I know, sweetheart. I've already had a thousand moments with her, too. Your stubborness with my hair, her first word, me crying watching her get on the bus first day of school, her laugh, if she'd roll her eyes at me—"

You scrubbed at your face into his chest.

"I’m scared," you admitted after a few breaths, finally putting it in the room. "I’m so scared. Every time I stand up too fast, every time my chest feels tight—I keep thinking: is this it? Is this the time I don’t come back? And I picture you here, alone, with this crib and my shoes still by the door, trying to pretend you’re okay for everybody else."

He flinched like the image physically slapped him.

"I don’t want that for you," you admitted, pulling back slightly. "I don’t want you doing any of this without me. I don’t want you going to checkups alone, or repainting the nursery alone, or… or scattering my ashes alone because we were too stubborn to admit what was happening."

Your hand found his, fingers threading tight. "I love this baby girl," you said, firm even through the tears. "But I love you, too. I love you so much it makes me crazy. And I don’t want a future where you have to choose between being Superman and being a widower. I want to be here to nag you about your deadlines and steal your flannel and complain when you leave your socks everywhere."

He nodded once, jaw clenched so tight you heard his teeth grind. "We can try again someday if or when you're ready," he insisted, even though hope tasted like glass. "We can adopt. We can foster. We can be the noisiest aunt and uncle to every kid in Metropolis, Smallville even. We can fill this whole apartment with children, or a thousand plants, or just… just our two stubborn selves. I don’t care what it looks like, as long as you’re there."

He lifted his gaze, desperate. "I can’t build any of that if you’re not in it. I never want to tell you what to do but...I don’t want any version of forever where you’re not there to complain about my socks or steal my flannel or laugh at me when I burn the toast with my heat vision."

He finally looked at you, and there was nothing Superman in his eyes. No cape, no symbol. Just the love of your life, your husband, the man who’d knelt on this same bedroom floor to assemble a crib and then sat in it to test its strength until you’d told him it was for the baby, not for him.

"Can I choose you?" he whispered, and you’d only heard him plead like that once before—when he asked you to marry him, hands shaking, terrified you might say no when in your heart you knew the answer after your first kiss. "I married you for your whole life, not just until the worst day went wrong. I need you, more than I need anything else I could lose."

Your hand slid to his cheek, your other resting over the rolling curve of your stomach. You swallowed hard.

"Oh, Clark," you whimpered through your crying. "I don’t want you to wake up one day and realize the price of this was… me. I want to grow old with you. I want to be there when your hair goes gray and when your back finally starts to complain about flying. I want every boring Tuesday with you that we can get."

Tears spilled hot and relentless again. "I love you so much," you hiccuped, and suddenly saying it to your person felt like the most important part.

Your throat closed around the rest of it, but it tumbled out anyway, raw and genuine. "I don’t want to disappoint anyone. Not you, not the doctors, not… anyone. I don’t want to make the wrong call, but I'm scared."

Clark’s expression broke, quiet and helpless. He shook his head once, like he refused the idea on principle.

"You never could," he assured softly. "Not me. Not the people who matter. And I want you to hear me—this has to be your choice. A hundred percent yours. No guilt, no performing bravery for anybody, no trying to protect other people from your fear."

He leaned in, forehead nearly touching yours.

"I’ll be here for whatever you decide," he murmured. "I never want to tell you what to do, and I’m here to hold you while you choose what you want."

It wasn’t that you loved the baby less.

It was that you loved Clark, he loved you, you loved yourself, and somewhere in the middle of that was a hard, terrible mercy was the stubborn, fragile hope that there would still be a future for the two of you to fill, even if it didn’t look the way you’d painted on the nursery wall.

You closed your eyes, feeling the shape of your choice press against your ribs, against the steady thud of your trembling, beating heart.

"Okay," you breathed, barely audible. "Okay, Clark. We choose me. We choose us. Because I want us."

His shoulders sagged like someone had cut the strings holding him hostage, relief and grief slamming into him at the same time.

He pressed his forehead to your belly for a long moment, one hand splayed over the curve in wordless apology, before crawling up to gather you carefully against his chest.

"I’m so sorry, my star," he whispered into the cotton between you and the girl you wouldn’t meet. "Thank you for letting us know you were here. I promise I’ll take care of mama. I swear it."

You curled into him, hand fisted in his shirt, and despite the hollow terror in your chest, you felt something that almost resembled certainty: You were terrified. You wanted this baby. You loved Clark. You loved each other deep enough to survive this grief that had no clean edges.

And you were choosing to live that love as long as you possibly could.

.

You were admitted, where your hospital chart already flagged you as "high-risk" in screaming red letters. Nobody wrote down the real reason. Nobody knew why the numbers on your labs looked like they belonged to somebody else entirely, why your heart monitor had a habit of stuttering in ways the nurses whispered about at the station.

They moved you through a separate hallway, away from the cheery posters of first-trimester bellies and birthing classes. You clutched Clark’s hand and stared at the scuff marks on the floor instead of the doors.

Clark signed forms with hands that could catch falling planes without batting an eye, but couldn’t stop a pen from rattling against the clipboard.

"You don’t have to be in the room, honey," you murmured, when the nurse stepped out for a moment. Your voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. "If it’s too much…"

His head snapped up. "No, I am not letting you do this alone," he countered immediately. "Unless you don't want me there. Whatever makes you feel safest."

You searched his face. "I want you there, but you’ll hear… everything," you warned, your bottom lip caught between your teeth.

"I’m not leaving you for this," he replied quietly. "You want me, you got me. I promised ‘in sickness and in health,’ remember? That wasn’t just for the easy days."

You reached for him, and he instantly sank onto the edge of the bed, pressing his forehead to yours. Up close, you could see how tired he was, how many sleepless nights had stacked under his eyes that not even the yellow sun could ebb away.

"If there was any way to save you both…" he started, closing his eyes.

"I know," you breathed, and you did. If there were a choice where you all walked out of this, he would’ve torn the universe apart to find it.

You took his hand and guided it to your belly one more time. The curve rose under his palm, skin stretched over days and nights of whispered futures. He drew a slow breath, then leaned down—forehead resting lightly against your abdomen.

His voice was barely sound. "Hi, my Little Star."

The baby nudged faintly, a last, lazy roll. You closed your eyes, tears collecting fast.

"Thank you for choosing us," he murmured, wet and broken. "Even for a little while."

When he lifted his head, his expression was heartbroken cloaked in calm and strength.

"I’m sorry," you whispered, tears trickling down. "I’m so, so sorry."

He shook his head immediately. "Don't apologize," he urged, holding your knuckles to his lips to press firm kisses. "Don't be sorry for surviving."

You swallowed. "Will you hate me? Later?" you ventured, barely audible.

His breath hitched like you’d hit him.

"Never," he vowed, fierce and absolute. "You hear me? Never. This is something we’re doing together. If there’s blame, it sits on my shoulders, on my DNA, on whatever cosmic joke thought it was a good idea to mix Kryptonian and human without instructions. Not on you. You carried them as far as you could. You’re my life. You’re my miracle. Baby or no baby, that doesn’t change."

You let out a wet, broken laugh. "Always the hero."

"No, you are the hero. I'm just your husband," he corrected softly, so full of love and empathy. "Just the man who chose you, who will keep choosing you, for as long as I’m breathing. Kids or not. Powers or not. Just you and me, okay? That’s the part that’s forever."

When they wheeled you toward the procedure room, he walked beside the gurney, fingers laced with yours, lips moving in a steady stream of murmured love—memories of the first time he’d seen you in scrubs, the way you’d danced in the kitchen, the way you’d looked the day you told him he was going to be a father, the way he planned to make you laugh again someday even if it took a thousand bad jokes.

You held onto that as the lights blurred.

.

Afterward, you woke up to the soft beep of monitors and the steady warmth of a hand around yours.

The weight in your abdomen had changed—emptier, lighter, sore.

Clark was sitting in the world’s worst plastic chair, shoulders hunched, his thumb stroking absent circles over your palm. His lashes were wet.

"You’re okay," he murmured hoarsely as soon as your eyes fluttered. His other hand pressed, instinctively, over your heart. "You’re here. Your rhythm’s steady. The doctors say your vitals already look better."

You felt…hollow. Like someone had scooped out the inside of your life and left the shape of it behind without apology.

But the crushing weight on your chest was gone. You could draw in a full breath without your vision tunneling. Your heart felt steadier, less like a bird slamming itself against a cage.

Tears blurred the ceiling.

"I’m sorry, Clark," you whispered again, because grief didn’t care how logical the choice was, how medically necessary, how unanimously every specialist had urged it.

His chair scraped as he was on his feet in an instant, leaning over you, framing your face in his big, gentle hands. His lips brushed your hairline, your cheeks, the corner of your mouth—like he could kiss the apology away, like he could write I chose you and I love you into your skin over and over until it stuck.

"Hey," he said, voice rough, "No more sorry. You hear me? I’ve got you. I’m right here."

One thumb swept away a tear as fast as it fell. He rested his forehead against yours, closing his eyes like he was praying.

"I love you," he pledged, the words low and steady, like a vow he was re-making from the ground up. "Thank you for staying. For letting me have you longer. For giving us a chance at later. We’ll find our way there, I swear on it. However it looks, whatever it takes, we'll be better, we'll be ready—and I’m not going anywhere."

Your throat ached. You swallowed around it, fingers cradling his hands.

"I love you too, Clark," you answered back, the words more resolute despite the wave of tears. "I’m… I’m still here. With you. We loved her, and we're not done yet."

His face crumpled with relief, pain, and longing all at once. He pressed a kiss to your mouth, thumb skimming your jaw. "She was our first love, and we’ll love whoever comes after."

You turned your face into his palm, sobbing quietly as you muttered your appreciation, and he held you tight, stroking your hair, your back, your arms.

Later, when you were stronger, you would go home and stand in the doorway of the nursery together. You would decide, hand in hand, what to keep and what to change. Maybe the walls would stay buttercream. Maybe the crib would hold stuffed animals for a while. Someday, it would hold something else.

For now, Superman stayed in a plastic chair in a dim recovery room, his forehead resting against yours, whispering small, certain promises about all the mornings you’d still share.

About coffee in seasonal mugs. About walks in the park. About planting something in the window box come spring.

Clark listened, not for distant disasters, but for the most important sound he’d ever known:

The love of his life's steady and stubborn heartbeat, his favorite proof that love, somehow, had survived this too.

.

This story includes themes of serious illness, medical trauma, and conversations about terminating a pregnancy. It also explores grief, fear, and impossible choices between partners.

A note if this hits close to home:

If you’re going through something similar, you’re not alone and you are not a burden for feeling tired, scared, or conflicted. Stories like this are fiction; your real life and your safety matter more than any narrative. If this stirs up heavy feelings, please consider reaching out to someone you trust—a friend, family member, or a mental health professional—and, if you’re in crisis, a local helpline or emergency service. You deserve support, care, and gentleness in real life, too. 💛

.

Your back stuck faintly to the cool porcelain. Your skin prickled despite the cooler temperature, flushed and oversensitive. Your nipples were stiff, darker than usual, puckered tight. And your thighs, God, your thighs hadn’t stopped pressing together, knees drawn up, trying to trap some kind of friction between them, even if it hurt. Even if it made it worse.

The candles didn’t help. Neither did the low, elegant hum of the classical station drifting in from the living room. Everything felt like it was vibrating.

You reached blindly for another strawberry. Ripe. Cold. It burst between your teeth, and juice dribbled to your chin. You sucked it off with a small, breathless sound, heart hammering, eyes fluttering closed as heat pooled lower.

You hadn’t touched yourself. Hadn’t fantasized or flipped through old photos on your phone or even let your hand wander below the waterline. All you’d done was rest one palm over your stomach, slide it down slowly, tentatively, and whisper his name into the crook of your elbow, cheeks burning imagining his face, his hands, his abs. Sweet, steady, devastating handsome Clark. Your Clark.

And that was enough to light you up.

Okay, so you weren't just horny. Not just restless.

You were needy. Desperate. Aching and wet and floating on the edge of something that didn’t make any sense.

A quiet whimper left your lips, breath catching in your throat. The sound echoed louder than it should have in the tile-lined space. Curling forward, you rested your cheek against the rim of the tub, arms folded, your index finger drawing absent circles over the condensation on the tile. Your other hand trailed down to a piece of chocolate resting on a folded napkin beside the tub. The square was soft now, warm from the heat of the bath. You pressed it to your lips

Again, what the hell did Kara give you?!

Let's review: Dinner had been… normal. Sweet. Ordinary, if not for the way it had ended. The two of you tucked into takeout containers on the couch, hips brushing, laughing at the story Clark told about Jimmy leaving a single red rose on the new intern’s desk. It was 'anonymous', but obviously him.

Kara’s gift had been sitting in the fridge all week.

She’d stopped by the weekend before, dropped the box on your kitchen island with a shit-eating grin:

"Got these for you guys," she beamed. "Very rare. Total mood boosters. Or so I’ve heard!"

You hadn’t thought anything of it. The packaging was heart-shaped, the box glossy and red with little floral foil detailing. Just festive enough to be cute, just foreign enough to be intriguing. You figured they’d be perfect for dessert.

So you’d peeled the lid off, popped one of the rich chocolates into your mouth, followed it with one of the bright red strawberries.

And moaned. Loud. Instinctive.

"Dear God, this is almost better than sex," you’d declared, half-laughing, eyes fluttering closed, licking juice from your fingers with puckered lips. You tilted the box toward the light to read it.

It read: "Eltaea chocolates and Solari strawberries — Assortment!" A heart-shaped sticker was slapped on the center, and just below in Kara’s blocky handwriting: "Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy, bitches!"

Clark quirked a brow, arms crossed over his chest in mock protest, smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

"Here—" you grinned, already crawling into his lap, "—you need to try."

You’d fed him the same pair—one chocolate, one berry—your fingers still sticky, your grin too wide. He’d caught your wrist when you pulled back, kissed your fingertips slowly, then kissed you, just as slow. The taste of him mixing with the sugar still hadn’t left your tongue, even after he was called away.

A collapsed bridge. Gas leak. People trapped in traffic under debris. An emergency. 

He’d kissed your temple, forehead, and mouth again, tapping your ass as he motioned for you to shift off his lap. He whispered, "I’ll be right back, sweetheart. I promise."

That had been… what? Thirty minutes ago?

You blinked up at the ceiling, dazed.

Your thighs squeezed together again, and this time the pressure made your back arch. You felt slick even under the water, hypersensitive everywhere, your skin flushed and buzzing. You weren’t imagining this. This wasn’t nerves. Wasn’t routine desire.

Clark wasn’t even here. You rubbed your burning cheek against the cool tub’s edge and moaned loudly from frustration and ache, thighs twitching, nipples brushing against the cool porcelain.

You needed Clark.

.

The balcony door slid open with a dull, echoing thud ten minutes later.

"Sweetheart?"

A familiar voice carried down the hall. Fractured, pitched too high, like they had been running purely on adrenaline. "Where are you?"

Your throat was bone dry when you answered, voice coming out harsher than you meant it to, breathless and needy even to your own ears.

"In here," you called. "In the bath."

There was a pause. Then his quick footsteps thundered toward you.

He appeared in the doorway a heartbeat later and the sight of him stole the air from your lungs.

Soot streaked his jaw and collarbone. His suit was already peeled down to his waist, the top half hanging loose like he’d barely bothered with it, cape dragging behind him in a dark red spill. His curls were wild, pushed back from his forehead by frantic hands, damp with sweat. His chest rose and fell like he’d just flown through hell and back and hadn’t bothered to slow down once he’d crossed the city line.

And the second he saw you bare, lips caught between your teeth, knees drawn, and an expectant, longing look etched on your face.

"Oh," he breathed, bracing one hand on the doorframe. His jaw dropped just a hair, but his pupils were blown so wide there was almost no blue left. "Oh, baby. There you are. Nothing feels as good as coming home to you."

His voice cracked on the last word.

Crossing the room in two steps, he dropped to his knees beside the tub. His large, warm hands slid into your hair, thumbs pressing gently at your sweat-damp temples, fingers massaging behind your ears the way he always did when he was grounding you.

You leaned into him without thinking, forehead tipping toward his touch, breath shuddering.

"Your heartbeat," he whispered, voice husky. "I heard it. Out there. I felt it the whole time. It kept getting faster and I—" He swallowed hard, gaze flicking helplessly over your face, your throat, your chest, the way your breasts strained with every shallow breath. "Gosh, you’re burning up."

"Yeah," you murmured. "I feel… weird. Hot. And empty. Like something’s missing and it hurts." Your fingers curled weakly around his wrist. "Clark, do you feel weird? Because I think—"

You swallowed hard as another wave of pleasure rolled between your legs.

"B-because I think there was something in those treats Kara gave us."

Lifting a hand, you pointed clumsily at the open box perched on the side of the tub, unmistakably lighter than it had been earlier. 

Clark’s eyes followed the motion. His brow creased.

"How many did you eat?" he asked, frowning.

You blinked, trying to think past the fog. "I—I don’t know. The strawberries would’ve gone bad. And those chocolates are… Clark, they’re the richest damn chocolates ever." A breathy, almost-hysterical laugh slipped out. "I think I’m losing it. Oh, fuck."

He stared at you for a long moment, your pulse pounding loud and erratic in his ears, your sweet, warm, unmistakably you scent, just… amplified. Sharpened.

Then quietly: "I feel like I’m losing my mind, too."

He cupped your cheek, palm broad and steady, thumb brushing just beneath your eye. He leaned in close, nuzzling the side of your face like he couldn’t stand even the inch of space between you.

"You smell like sugar and skin and—" His breath hitched. "Hon, you smell so, so sweet. I could just eat you up."

"Well why don't you eat me out first? See how really sweet I am. My pussy misses you."

Before he could answer, shocked by your brazen vocabulary, your mouth was on his.

The kiss was desperate. Messy. All tongue and teeth and need, like you were trying to breathe him in. His lips dragged away from yours, trailing down your jaw, your cheek, your mouth again and again, chasing the taste of you like it might feed his ache, too.

You whined into the kiss, wet hands scrambling for him, gripping the remains of his suit at his hips, and pawing his growing arousal. You could see him, feel him, hard already, thick and heavy and right in front of you, and proximity made your whole body clench tighter.

"T-take your suit off!" you begged, patience running thin.

Brows furrowed, Clark's worry flashed through the haze. "You sure? If you’re not feeling well, we should—"

"No," you panted sharply, shaking your head, already rocking forward without realizing it. "No, I’m sure. I need you. My pussy needs you. Please, Clark."

Your eyes dropped to his chest, so broad, solid, and familiar, and still somehow devastating every time you saw it. To his large, farm-and-battle hardened hands. To the size of his beautiful cock, even still hidden, even restrained.

"I need you to touch me. Need you to kiss it better." Your pleaded softly. Filthy. Unfiltered. "Fuck me all better, Clark."

For half a second, he stilled.

Not because he didn’t want to. Because he wanted to too much.

His hands tightened at the lip of the tub, his gaze sharpened, listening, measuring, feeling the way your pulse fluttered too fast to his touch. The way your scent clung heavier in the steam. The way your body kept tipping toward him like he was a black hole.

"You’re definitely more affected," he murmured, low and strained.

You nodded helplessly, breath catching.

"Yes, yes, I ate more," you admitted. "I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About how good your tongue feels. How big you feel inside me, especially when you've made me cum and you still fuck me. About how empty I was without you. It kept getting worse."

His eyes flashed dark and devoted and tender all at once.

"Okay," he said quietly, decision settling into his bones. "Then I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you alone in this."

His thumb brushed over your lower lip, tender. Possessive.

"But if I get in that tub," he warned, voice rough. "I’m going to take care of you first. All the way. I need you to tell me if it’s too much, yeah?"

Your thighs trembled as you nodded, whispering, "It won’t be. It's all I want right now."

Clark exhaled, slow and shaking, started peeling off the rest of his suit. 

You watched his hands first. Big, steady, trembling slightly as he dragged the rest of the suit down his hips, his thighs. The cape fell behind him in a heap of crimson, forgotten. Every motion exposed more of him. Each shift of muscle made your mouth water. His abs flexed and rolled as he knelt, skin streaked with soot and heat, chest still rising like he’d been crossing galaxies to get to you.

Then his cock. Hard already. Thick. Leaking. Dark at the tip and heavy with want.

You whimpered, couldn’t help it, couldn’t hide it. Licked your lips before you even realized. Your thighs rubbed together beneath the water, desperate for friction, slick with want, and suddenly so loney and empty.

His eyes locked on yours, ravenous.

"Gosh, hon," he rasped, dropping back to his knees, stroking his shaft in front of you. "You want this?"

Unable to look away, you nodded frantically. Your mouth parted on instinct, rolling a little onto your knees ready to beg.

"I want you everywhere. I want your mouth—want to ride your tongue, baby—make me cry on your cock, please—"

Cutting off another string of obscene words, he kissed you slow, open-mouthed, heat and tongue and something desperate all over again. Then he pulled back, hands smoothing down your arms, over your hips, into the water.

"I’ve got you," he murmured. "I’ve got you, sweetheart. I'm here. Just let me…"

Clark climbed in. The water shifted around him, flowing up the sides of the tub, rushing over your hips as his weight displaced everything else. Too much man for the narrow porcelain space. Too much of your Clark.

His knees pressed to the porcelain. His chest hovered over yours. And still, he sank lower, fitting between your thighs.

His hands found the back of your knees and liften them up gently, water cascading down his forearms. He peered up at you beneath his lidded gaze, licking his lips.

"My poor girl," he whispered. "You’ve been like this—so needy—for how long? Remind me?"

You almost sobbed.

"A while," you whined, throwing a forarm across your eyes. "Since you left. I’m sorry, Clark—I couldn’t stop I—I tried, but—"

"Shh, honey." He soothed. "It's okay. I'm here now."

You let your head fall back against the tile. Exposed. Thighs wide, trembling. Your fingers wove into his curls without thinking, tugging him closer.

And Clark, sweet, steady, starving Clark, moved his grip from your knees to curve the shape of your ass, lifting you up, mouth hovering over your pubic bone just above the surface of the bathwater.

He sank.

The water shifted again, and then it was silent.

Soundless, thick pressure wrapped around you as his head disappeared beneath the surface. The air left your lungs in a rush. All you could hear was the frantic thud of your own heartbeat, the faint ripple of water against porcelain.

His tongue met your clit.

You gasped, loud, broken, shocked. The sound rang out against the tile, echoed once, twice, then faded into something small and sharp as your hips jolted clean out of the water.

Clark groaned, bubbles rising between your thighs, and held you down.

You clutched at his hair, fingers tangling tight, your body floating, weightless and trembling, as his mouth dragged through your folds again repeatedly.

There was no mercy. No pause.

Just your Clark anchoring you down with strong hands, his broad shoulders forcing your thighs open, his mouth sucking you clit like he’d been starved for this. He licked slow and deep, savoring, then flatter, broader, faster until his nose was nudging your clit and your mouth was falling open with a scream you couldn’t stop.

The sound of your own voice ricocheted off the walls.

"Oohhh fuuuck, right there! It—Ah! Feels—so good!"

He couldn’t answer. Could only hum, moan enough to vibrate through your cunt, lick deeper, faster all beneath the water.

"Clark—fuuuck—baby, please—"

It obscene in how good it felt. Every muscle in your body jerked. The bath splashed over the edge, water trailing down your spine as you thrashed, hips bucking against his face.

You came so hard you nearly sobbed, heat tearing through your stomach and bursting between your legs as your thighs squeezed around his head.

Mouth sealed to your cunt like you were the only thing he’d ever needed to eat again, he kept going. His fingers squeezed your ass, held you while his tongue kept working you through your high.

The next orgasm hit before the first had fully ebbed.

You cried, shaking, floating in the water, your grip in his hair and the tub tight and frantic, head tipped back against the tile as your body seized and sang. It was too much and not enough. You wanted more. You needed him deeper. Harder. Inside.

Finally, he resurfaced.

His face glistened. His lips were swollen and wet. His curls were plastered to his forehead, and his breath was ragged as if resurfacing the Mariana Trench, and his pupils were blown so wide his eyes looked black.

"You taste like heaven," he rasped, water dripping from his nose, his chin, splashing onto your chest. "So soft, so darn sweet. Like the perfect, juicy strawberry."

You were still heaving. Still floating. Your thighs trembled as you barely nodded.

Surging up, he kissed you deep, open-mouthed, tongue dragging against yours until you moaned and rutted against him, clinging to his shoulders like you were about to fall through the tub and through all the apartments below.

"I have to be inside you, sweet girl," he groaned, forehead pressed to yours. "I need to be. I’ll lose my damn mind if I’m not—please, sweetheart—let me have you. Make love to you."

"Y-yeah, make love," you whimpered, pawing at his chest, nodding frantically. "Please, Clark, just—I can't wait any more—"

He cut you off by kissing you hard again, restraint barely there, teeth grazing your lip, tongue pressing deep. Then he leaned back, breath shaking, shifting until his spine met the other end of the tub.

His cock stood hard and heavy between his thighs, the fat head dark and swollen beneath the rippling water, twitching like it already knew what was about to happen.

Your breath hitched.

God, he was big.

You always praised him, worshiped this delightful perk being his wife, but like this, bare and waiting, framed by white porcelain and aromatic candies and steam, it felt insane. Like your body had never felt this hungry wanting all of him before.

He lifted his arms, beckoned you, an invitation.

You crawled into his lap, knees sliding into the water on either side of his waist, skin brushing skin, heat everywhere. Your hands found his shoulders, solid and familiar, your mouth slack with want as you reached between your bodies, guiding him home.

When you sank down on him in one motion, the stretch punched the breath right out of you.

A broken sound tore from your throat as he filled you thick and unyielding and perfect. Your walls clenched around him like your body couldn’t believe he was finally there, like it was terrified he might disappear if you didn’t hold tight enough.

Clark’s head hit the back of the tub with a sharp thud, his hands flying to your hips, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks.

"O-oh, sweetheart—"

Your moan echoed off the tile, loud and unashamed, your whole body trembling with relief as you sank fully down, hips flush to his thighs.

"Yeah," you panted, dazed. "Yeah, baby—feel—feel good?"

You were soaked, frantic, tight around him, clenching like your body couldn’t bear to be empty another second.

You felt impossibly full. Stretched. Aching in the best way. The drag of him inside you made your spine arch, your nails scrape helplessly across his chest. He filled every inch, pressed deep enough to make your vision blur, like he was holding you open from the inside.

He was saying something. Trying to murmur soft reassurances, gentle pet names, something about taking it slow? But the aphrodisiac heat was roaring now, flooding your veins, making you reckless.

"No, fuck slow," you gasped, riding him hard. "I need you. Fuck, I love—absolutely fucking love your cock—"

Clark groaned, deep. "Honey—baby—slow down—"

"I can’t!" You moaned again, loud, breathless. "I feel like I’m gonna die if you’re not fucking me—harder—"

You slammed down again, the water rippling up your spine as you bounced on him, the edge of the tub creaking beneath you.

You sobbed. 

He touched them again, cupping you, and you rode him harder, whimpering, "That’s it, baby. That’s so good, god—touch me there again—yes—yes—"

His hands trembled as he obeyed, rolling your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, watching your face break open in pleasure as your pussy clenched down around him.

"You’re incredible," you babbled, barely coherent now. "So deep—so full—I love how you feel inside me—fuck, Clark—you were made to fuck me—ohh, I wanna make love to you—"

His mouth fell open, breath coming in ragged pulls as he let you take him faster, wetter, louder. His hips bucked helplessly beneath you, cock throbbing inside your tight heat, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as his whole body shook.

Your head lolled to your side, lids heavy and unfocused when you saw it. The box of strawberries and chocolates still perched on the edge of the tub. Something sharp and greedy sparked behind your eyes.

You reached for it with shaking hands, water sloshing dangerously as you leaned forward, the movement grinding you down on his cock in a slow, filthy roll.

Clark tried to say your name, tried to ask what you were doing, but you were already plucking another piece of chocolate and popping it into your mouth.

You moaned, loudly.

"Oh fuck," you breathed, eyes rolling to the back of your head. You leaned down and kissed him, chocolate dissolving between your mouths, your tongue sliding against his as you ground down again in one slow filthy circle.

"It tastes even better like this," you whispered. "Like sex and candy."

Clark whimpered—actually whimpered.

You picked up a strawberry next and fed it to him, your voice gone syrupy and twice as needy.

"Eat f’me, baby. You’ve been so good. Such a damn good husband, letting me use you like this—filling me up with your cock—working so hard—taking good fucking care of me—"

He bit into it helplessly, juice ran down his chin, glistening pink against the stubble of his jaw. Your tongue lapped it up, following to suck on his bottom lip.

"Fuuuuck—Claaaark—"

You barely remembered grabbing a piece of soft chocolate. You only knew it was melting between your fingers, sticky and hot from your skin. You were high on the way he filled you, on the way his cock curved inside you like it had been molded for your body, and without thinking, rubbed the piece across your breasts.

Chocolate smeared across your skin, across the curves and peaks of your pebbled nipples.

"God," he groaned, dragging his mouth across one chocolate-streaked breast, licking a path through the mess with obscene hunger. "You taste—hon, you taste incredible."

He closed his mouth over your nipple and sucked hard.

Your entire body snapped, spine arching, hands gripping his shoulders as your hips kept rolling, frantic and needy and utterly soaked.

"Yes—ooohh yes— Right there, right there!"

He groaned around your tit, licking and sucking until your nipple was red and aching, until the chocolate was gone and all that remained was spit and love bites.

Greed overpowered him, and he moved to the other breast with the same passion.

"Can’t—can’t stop," he panted, dragging his tongue across your skin, open-mouthed kisses pressed between your breasts. "You’re driving me insane—"

His hips bucked violently, cock slamming deep throughout, and you sobbed, dizzy with sensation and still craving more.

"I’m gonna —come again," you panted. "Gonna come on your big, beautiful, cock, baby, and you’re gonna give it to me, right? Gonna fill me up like I need, Clark—fill me—right, baby?"

"Yeah, I'll f–fill you up," he choked. "Sweetheart—if you keep saying things like that I won't last— you'll leak for days—"

"I want it," you begged, trembling all over. "Want you to fuck me full and keep it there—god, I want it so bad, want everyone to know—fuck a baby into me, Clark—I love you, Iloveyou, love you!"

Your nails raked down his chest, your rhythm faltering as you started to come again. Your whole body locked up, heat exploding through your stomach, your mouth falling open to chant his name that echoed through the whole damn apartment.

Clark was almost gone.

He surged up into you, loud, broken grunts spilling from his mouth as he chased his own release, and one–two–three—he pulsed deep inside, cum thick and hot, flooding you full and still not enough.

Your hips kept grinding through the aftershocks, both of you too far gone to stop, both of you moaning, panting, clinging.

He stayed buried inside, arms locked around your waist, mouth pressed to your shoulder, chanting sweet nothings and I love you's.

.

The bathwater had gone lukewarm without either of you noticing.

Chocolate smeared softly along the rim of the tub, half-melted and forgotten. One of the candles guttered low, wax spilling down its side, the flame trembling like it was tired of watching. The air was thick with steam and sweat and the lingering sweetness of strawberries crushed between fingers and mouths.

Clark’s arms cradled you close, one hand firm at your lower back, the other cupping your hip, keeping you settled. You were pruning, and you didn’t care. You didn’t want to move. You wanted to stay right here, boneless and full and buzzing, his body still anchoring you to the world.

You were still full of him.

Still warm and stretched and sensitive.

Still trembling in those aftershocks that never quite faded all the way out.

Your fingers traced lazy, distracted patterns over his chest, following the rise and fall of his breath, the faint scrape of stubble at his jaw when he dipped to press a kiss into your hair. The burn lingered in your blood like an ember that refused to cool.

Not satisfied. Just… softened enough to breathe and think again.

He shifted slightly, careful, one thigh braced, making sure you didn’t slip. He pressed a kiss to your temple, then your hairline. "You okay?"

You nodded, dazed and blissed out, cheek tucked into the crook of his neck. Your body gave a small, involuntary squeeze around him, and you felt him suck in a breath.

"Never better," you murmured. And it was mostly true. Because some part of you that still wanted more. Still throbbed and buzzed and reached.

Clark glanced toward the counter. The box sat there, damp at the edges, its lid askew. He reached for it absently, brows knitting as he tugged at the heart-shaped sticker plastered across the center.

It peeled away with a soft rip.

He squinted. Read. Once. Twice. One more time.

Then out loud, incredulous, voice climbing with each word:

"Eltaea chocolates and Solari strawberries…" He paused. Blinked. "Aphrodisiac Assortment?!"

Your head snapped up.

"Oh—oh no." You groaned and buried your face against his collarbone, mortification flooding hot through your chest. "There’s—there’s more—" You lifted your head just long enough to recite it with him. "‘Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy, bitches!’"

There was a beat of silence.

Then laughter. Wild, breathless, uncontained.

Clark laughed first, a disbelieving bark that shook his chest. You followed, shaking and helpless, pressing your face into his neck again as the absurdity of it all hit at once.

Kara. Of course, it was Kara. Your interstellar menace.

"Kara, what the fuck?" you wheezed, dragging your hands down your face, cheeks burning for a whole new reason. "We should—uh—probably not finish the rest, right?" You squinted up at him. "Take another bath. A proper one."

Still staring at your mouth, still swollen, still glossy; at your breasts, heavy, flushed, nipples dark and sensitive; at your thighs, splayed and distorted beneath the water, still trembling, still open around him, Clark's eyes narrowed, head tilted.

Then his gaze lifted back to your eyes.

"Nope," he said simply, a little pop on the 'p'. "We’re definitely finishing the rest."

You laughed, half-dazed, half-thrilled, and then yelped as he scooped you up without warning, water streaming off both of you. He held you with one arm under your ass, the other firm between your shoulder blades, his body still deep inside you, careful not to pull away.

"Clark—" you giggled, clinging to his shoulders, legs tightening around his waist.

"I’ve got you," he murmured, already kissing you, already moving. "And I’m taking you to bed."

He stepped out of the tub, slow and deliberate, keeping you tipped just enough so nothing spilled where it shouldn’t. You squirmed against him, still too sensitive, still buzzing, still aching in that delicious, half-satisfied way.

As he walked out, you reached back with arms outstretched towards the damp box of sweets still at the lid of the tub with a pout.

"Oh Gosh," He chuckled, shaking his head. He turned back and crouched until your fingers snatched the box with a triumphant little "Ah-ha!".

"You’re ridiculous."

You grinned at him, delirious and shameless, securely tucking the treats flushed to your chest. "You’re the ridiculous one for letting these go to waste!"

He carried you toward the bedroom, still inside you, still holding you close.

"Hon, you're absolutely right. We’re not wasting a thing," he said, chuckling.

You tugged him into a deep kiss and sighed, already burning again.

.

Thank you for reading! Any reblogs, comments, likes are forever appreciated, and keeps me motivated!

.

You were propped up on one elbow, straw tucked into the corner of your mouth like a chewstick, one leg folded beneath you in your chair, as always.  You were listening—or pretending to—but your expression had slipped into that quiet rebellion Clark had come to recognize. Your default setting in meetings that went on too long. The calm before the storm of absurdism.

Your face. Gosh, your face, a hilarious, expressive, incredible collection. A silent film reel of emotion.

It started small. A little eyebrow twitch. A slow blink of deliberate agony. Then you grimaced, drawing your brows together so fiercely you looked like you were mourning the end of Hamlet in real time. Your cheeks puffed out like a blowfish, and when Martin uttered the word "interagency," you gave Clark a full-body eye roll so sharp it looked like it might dislocate something.

He bit down a laugh so hard his molars ached, and turned away to rub his jaw under the guise of stifling a cough. Well-Meaning Martin didn’t deserve to be ignored, but Clark wasn’t just distracted. He was doomed.

You’d been deskmates for three years, and in that time, Clark had become fluent in a language spoken by only one person: you. Or more precisely: your face.

Your poker face was terrible. Your emotions were a slideshow on full display, written across your features in glorious, expressive high definition. And Clark—meticulous, quiet, observant Clark— learned to read them like scripture. He catalogued every shift of your mouth, every crease between your brows, every twitch of your nose like they were classified intel. The anatomy of a visage, your visage, was his secret specialty.

He knew your focused face when you and Lois combined your brain power to meet an impossible deadline. 

He knew your disgusted face when Steve Lombard dropped another locker room joke like it was clever and not a decade past expiration.

He knew your delighted face, but not the practiced newsroom smile, the real one that sparkled. The one that came out when you cracked a pun headline so good Perry barked a laugh and clapped your shoulder like you’d saved the paper.

He knew your gutted face. The way your eyes burned and softened at once. The way your lips wobbled when he returned from another "errand" with healing split knuckles and a bruised jaw, trying to pretend nothing happened. 

And then there were the ones he didn’t have names for.

The one where your lips parted just slightly and your eyes went a little unfocused when he rolled his sleeves up. 

The way your lashes dipped and your brows flicked inward, just for a second, the first time he accidentally called you darlin’ entirely on accident.

The way you smiled, mouth full of donut, sugar clinging to your bottom lip, as if he was sweeter than whatever you were eating.

The way your face went carefully blank when a new intern clutched his bicep for too long and laughed too hard at something he said. Blank, but not unreadable. Not to him

And just yesterday, when his hand brushed yours reaching for the breakroom coffee pot. You’d looked up at him like the air between you had turned to fire.

He didn’t know what it meant. Not for certain. But he hoped—God, he hoped—that you saw him the way he saw you. A story he’d never had the nerve to write, but one he ached to live in.

So he kept filing away your expressions like tabs in the margins of his heart. All of it—the faces, the silences, the almosts. It was a quiet kind of ache, the way he longed for you. An unspoken thing that lived in the space between desks. Between glances, cataloging it all and smiling like a fool behind his monitor.

"Mr. Kent," Martin barked on the line. "Still with me?"

Clark blinked. "Yep!" he squeaked, too fast, too high. He cleared his throat. "Still here. You got me."

His ears were hot. His pulse was louder than Martin. His eyes drifted to you again, and you pantomimed blowing your brains out with your neon yellow highlighter, collapsing into a dramatic sprawl across your keyboard like a death scene in a soap opera. 

He smiled into his fist. Bit back a laugh.

Martin, mercifully, started winding down. Something about following up tomorrow. Circling back.

You perked up at that, raising your fists in a silent cheer, grinning wide enough to make his stomach drop. Clark would’ve circled the sun if it meant seeing you smile like that again.

When the line disconnected, he slumped back in his chair with a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then something bounced off his shoulder. 

He turned and saw a wadded-up sticky note on the floor. He glanced your way, and you were biting your knuckle to keep from laughing, eyes dancing with mischief as you stared hard at your phone, hair falling in your face.

He picked it up. Smoothed out the note: My will to live: gone. Murder me with your tie.

Clark looked at you, chuckling softly. You glanced up, just a little glance, and smiled wider before flicking back down, and something broke open in him. He rose, folding the note and tucked it into his back pocket, and stepped around his desk to where you sat 

"Hey," he greeted, palm flat on your desk as he leaned down.

You looked up mid-sentence, mid-scroll, and your whole face shifted like a curtain had been pulled open—brows jumping, mouth parting just slightly, surprise giving way to something amused.

"Oh hiya! Wait—" you squinted dramatically, pointing to the sticky note that rested in his back pocket. "The note’s a joke, Clark. Don’t actually kill me, please."

He snorted, crouching a little beside your chair. "No promises."

You laughed, and he felt it bloom in his chest. You tilted your head, mouth quirking like you were already preparing your rebuttal.

Then he beat you to it.

"No, listen," he said, hands braced on his knees now, suddenly shy. "Are you—um. Are you doing anything tonight?"

Your expression shifted instantly. Clark watched it happen in real time—your brow pinching slightly in mock-thought, nose scrunching, lips pursing like you were considering pulling another one-liner from your arsenal.

But something about his tone must’ve registered.

Your teasing stalled. You blinked. Then softened. "No plans," you blinked slowly. "Why?"

He reached up, rubbed the back of his neck. "Would you want to get dinner with me?"

Your mouth dropped open just a little. Not theatrically, not with a joke locked and loaded. But quiet. Real stunned. Like your brain had short-circuited.

You looked at him like you didn’t want to mishear the question.

Then slowly, a new smile spread across your face. Not the mischievous one he knew from budget meetings or Friday night drinks shoulder-to-shoulder with Lois and Cat or the way you tried to hide your amusement during press briefings. Not the one you wore when praising him about Superman's latest victory.

This smile was shyer. Earnest.

"I—oh. Oh my gosh, sure," you bit your lip between a laugh, a little breathless. "Yes, Clark. I’d really like that."

A beat passed. And then, gentler still: "Love that, actually."

His ears rang.

He’d spent three years watching you do everything—type furiously, bite back arguments, mouth along to songs, pick the cheese off sandwiches, overshare during lunch breaks, fall asleep during stakeouts, laugh until your eyes crinkled—and somehow this was the one expression that gutted him most.

The glowing, giddy kind of yes you couldn't hide.

Clark swallowed. Hard.

"Great," he managed, nodding. "Hoped you would."

.

Dinner wasn’t fancy, at least not tonight. 

You sat shoulder to shoulder in a narrow booth at Camille’s Deli, tucked between a laundromat and a florist that always smelled faintly of wet stems. It was an easy, safe place where you could share fries and stories about the Planet and extracurricular near-misses without worrying about anyone overhearing, where the ketchup came in maroon‑tinted squeeze bottles, and the check was always handwritten, numbers slanted and looping from a server who smelled like cigarettes and a classic perfume.

Nervous laughter, maybe. A stumble through awkward conversation, perhaps. He’d braced himself for pauses that needed filling, for jokes that landed too hard or not at all, for the careful politeness of two people afraid to stomp on something built the past three years.

But instead, it was this. 

A warm pocket of familiarity. The easy hum of something well‑worn and trusted. And beneath it, threaded through every glance and brush of fabric, a quiet, electric sense that this moment had been waiting for them both to stop pretending it wasn’t inevitable.

Though it all, you were radiant. Not in a way that demanded attention, not in a way that tried. Just… open. Unfiltered. You licked salt from your thumb without thinking, laughed so hard at your own terrible joke that you snorted and immediately tried to cover it with a cough, eyes bright with embarrassment and delight all at once.

You teased him about how many phone chargers he’d "mysteriously" destroyed over the years, narrowing your eyes at him like a detective who already knew the culprit.

"You’re a menace to modern technology," you accused, mouth still full, clearly delighted.

He grinned, heat creeping into his cheeks. "Hey! I personally think I’ve come a long way since then."

"Oh, sure, sure sure," you nodded, waving a fry. "Just like how you’re media‑savvy, Mr. Man‑of‑Steel?"

He laughed, ducking his head. "Like I said. I’ve learned."

He told you about his Ma’s blueberry crumble—how the crust never looked like much, but always tasted like home, how the kitchen smelled like sugar and butter even days after, how he still couldn’t get it right on his own no matter how many voicemails Ma left him walking through each step.

He told you about the toaster incident, too. How he’d nearly shorted the whole house trying to make Pop-Tarts, how his Pa threatened to make it a lifelong ban, how he cried harder over the loss of cinnamon brown sugar than the sparks.

You laughed like you’d heard part of it before but still wanted to hear it again. Like you remembered him telling it in passing years ago, somewhere between print deadlines and vending machine snafus, but this version was softer, slower, closer. Your chin tilted toward him, fingers curled loosely around a napkin, and you leaned in like every single detail mattered.

He noticed, and he noticed he could no longer take his eyes off you. Not after tonight.

You were so close that your thigh pressed warmly against his beneath the booth, your shoulder brushing his with every laugh. Partway through a shared milkshake, your head settled gently onto his shoulder, like it had always known the shape of him. Clark went still, breath catching, every instinct screaming to kiss the top of your head, to close his eyes and pretend this was already something permanent.

His willpower won. Barely.

As always, your face gave away everything.

You sure liked his voice. (He could tell by the way you leaned in when it dropped a little lower, teeth catching on your bottom lip when he spoke quietly.)

You sure liked his hands. (He caught the way your gaze followed them when he took off his glasses to rub at his temple after an exasperating joke.)

You must like him. (He felt it in your smile, in the bloom of color in your cheeks, in the breathless laugh you let out when your fingers curled thoughtlessly into his bicep as you rested your head on his shoulder.)

Later, when the plates were pushed to the side and the night had mellowed to less jokes and more quiet, your voice slipped in like a sigh between topics.

"Hey," you murmured, tracing lazy circles over the fabric of his sleeve. "What’s your favorite quote again?"

Clark didn't even have to think. "‘The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.’"

You smiled, leaned deeper into his side.

"It's Robin Wall Kimmerer." He explained. "Reminds me of home."

"Of Smallville?"

His smile grew warmer, reminiscing. "Of the way wheat sounds when it’s dry. Of thunderstorms over the fields. Of my Ma’s hands in the dirt."

You exhaled, eyes fluttering shut like you could hear it. Smell it. Feel it.

Then you whispered, teasing and fond: "Sounds like poetry."

He would’ve told you you were the poem. The cadence, the rhythm, the thing he kept rereading in his head. But his brain short‑circuited faster than any toaster he’d ever broken.

The waiter dropped the check while Clark was still looking at you, like every blink might be a missed stanza, and you reached instinctively for your purse. Clark beat you to it, already taking out his wallet.

"Oh, let me—" you started.

But the waiter, a woman older than both of you, just smiled knowingly and patted your hand with a wink.

"Oh, hun. Let your boyfriend spoil you once in a while."

You blinked, startled, but didn't flinch. He just chuckled nervously, cheeks tinged rose, and handed over his card without hesitation.

Boyfriend.

He braced for a correction, but it never came. Instead, you smiled down at your water glass, warmth blooming up your neck, your bashful and delighted face clear as day as you eyed him over the rim.

When the waiter returned with the receipt, Clark tipped too generously, too giddy, and stood, helping you with your coat.

When you left the restaurant, the sky had gone heavy and dark, rain threatening but holding back, wind curling at the edges of your jacket. You walked close together beneath a flickering streetlamp, shoulders brushing, steps falling into an unconscious rhythm.

At your building’s stoop, you slowed, fingers lingering at your sides like you weren’t quite ready to let the night end. You looked up at him then, expression softer than it had been all evening, something shy and uncertain threading through your smile.

"This was nice," you smiled, small, bashful, entirely sincere. "Thank you."

He nodded, pulse hammering. "No, thank you. I thought it was nice, too."

A pause stretched between you. Your eyes dropped to his lips.

And Clark—God help him—leaned in the same time you did.

"Is this okay?" he whispered, lips hovering just close enough that he could feel your breath.

Your breath hitched, just a little. And then you met him halfway. 

The kiss was soft. Tentative. Like you were testing something long suspected, long hoped for, long-caged finally speak. 

Clark deepened it slowly, hands coming up to cradle your jaw, thumbs brushing along your cheekbones as if committing the feeling to memory. Your fingers curled into the front of his coat, knuckles pressing in with a little moan.

When you pulled back, your eyes stayed closed for half a second too long, then opened, watching him.

You tilted your head slightly, staring right into blue. "Clark?"

"Y–yeah?"

"I’ve always wondered," you murmured. "How long have you been watching me?"

He stilled. You weren’t teasing or accusing. More curious. Tender.

"I mean…" You let out a breathy laugh. "I see you, too, you know? When you think I’m not looking. I’m not blind."

His heart dropped straight to his shoes. He stepped back just slightly, enough to look at you fully. His hand slipped from your cheek to your shoulder.

"Three years," he confessed, voice quiet. "Since the day you became my deskmate, my friend."

Your lips parted. Your eyes searched his face like you were trying to read him the way he’d been reading you all along.

"I started noticing first," he went on, words spilling now that they’d been let loose. "The way you look when you’re focused. Or frustrated. Or trying not to laugh during staff meetings. I don’t think you know how expressive you are."

Clark exhaled, the truth easing out of his chest like a long‑held breath.

"I’ve cataloged so many of your faces," he said, voice rough. "The one you make when Steve says something off‑color and you fight the urge to throw a pen at him. The one when you land a perfect headline and Perry praises you in front of everyone."

You just stared, silent.

"The one when I’ve come back hurt," he added quietly. "That’s my least favorite. I don’t care for being the reason you look like that. Ever." He swallowed. "And the one when a new intern flirts with me, and you pretend not to care, but your eyes give you away."

"Hey!" you protested weakly. "Those girls were not professional—"

"But yesterday," he cut you off, "you made this particular one when I asked if you wanted the last donut with your coffee. You just smiled. But I swear—" His exhaled. "I’ve never wanted to kiss someone more."

Your lips wobbled, eyes glassy. He stepped into your space again, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth.

"I wanted to see one more," he murmured. "The face you’d make if I asked you on a date."

You didn’t speak. You just looked at him, backlit by the glow of the lobby lights, open and luminous and entirely unguarded.

"Can I—" he cleared his throat, eyes flicking down to your lips again. 

You just nodded, with that same radiant, giddy, yes-filled face.

So he did. Kissed you again. And again. And again.

.

You barely made it through your apartment door with dignity.

The lock clicked shut behind you, coats and work bags sliding from your shoulders and collapsing uselessly onto the floor, because Clark’s mouth was already everywhere, warm, intent, and aching, his hands framing your waist with eagerness that betrayed how long he’d been waiting to touch you like this.

Years, if he was honest.

Your fingers fisted in the front of his dress shirt, tugging him closer, closer still, until there was no space left to close, until impatience took over and you dragged him down by threading your hands into his hair.

Clark’s lips traced your jaw, lingered beneath your ear, moved slowly down the column of your throat. His hands slid under your blouse, thumbs brushing skin already pebbled with goosebumps, and when you shivered, he moaned softly, the sound vibrating against your collarbone.

He had dreamed about this. About you. About this exact moment of what it would feel like to finally stop watching, stop cataloging from afar, and start touching.

But the reality of your warmth, the way you arched into him without thinking, the way your breath went shallow and unsteady when he kissed the hollow at the base of your throat, surpassed anything his imagination had ever been brave enough to conjure.

You tugged his dress shirt loose and flung it somewhere behind you, fabric whispering against the wall as it fell. He undid his belt with clumsy urgency, hands shaking just slightly, while you shimmed out of your dress pants, bare skin revealed inch by inch. He unbuttoned your blouse, fingertips brushing where buttons had been, and when he unclasped your bra, your lips parted in a breathy sound he hadn’t known he was waiting to hear.

He paused, just for a moment, breath mingling with yours, eyes searching your face.

"Is this okay?" he murmured, voice husky, rough, thick with restraint.

You didn’t even have to speak. Your expression gave you away instantly: eyes dark, lips swollen and soft, body leaning into his without hesitation.

He kissed you again, deeper this time, hunger threaded through tenderness. His hands slid under your thighs and lifted you effortlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct. Clark felt the trust in that movement, the want, the unspoken yes of it, and it nearly undid him.

He kissed down your neck, between your exposed breasts, murmuring something too quiet to catch.

Every new inch of skin was a discovery. A revelation. A memory-in-the-making.

And every time he paused, chest heaving and hands slowed, he asked again, desiring your consent.

"Still okay?"

Yes. God, yes. Your face answered before your mouth did. Your body begged.

"Bedroom," you barely managed, already breathless, already soaked, already trembling against him.

Clark laughed, a little soft and stunned, because he still couldn’t believe this was real.

"You’re gonna have to remind me where it is, darlin’," he murmured, kissing the corner of your mouth like it wasn’t the first time he’d teased you, but was the first time he’d gotten to follow it through. "You know I’ve only walked your place a hundred times."

.

By the time he laid you against your bed, he was certain his heart was going to give out from the sight alone

You looked wrecked already, with hair loose and wild against your sheets, lips swollen and dark from his mouth, skin glowing with heat and want. Your body bore the imprint of his attention, the evidence of how thoroughly he’d touched you.

You were so beautiful like this, Clark thought. Open. Unguarded. His.

"Oh," you breathed suddenly, the word slipping out before you could stop it, hands lifting to cover your face as the weight of his gaze settled over you.

"That’s… that’s how you’ve always watched me." A quiet, trembling laugh. "Last three years."

Clark’s breath caught, tugging your wrists gently, lowering your hands with little resistance, pressing kisses to the backs of your palms before lacing your fingers with his. His voice softened instinctively.

"Hey. Hey," he soothed, brushing his thumb over your cheek, studying your bashful expression. "Don’t do that."

"I watch because you don’t hide anything," he reminded gently. "You feel everything right here." He tapped lightly between your brows. "And here." His mouth brushed yours, barely there. "And here."

His hand dipped then, index finger curling gently over your sternum, over your heart, lingering as if he could feel it racing beneath his touch.

"I can tell how good you’re feeling just by looking at you," he confessed. "So don’t hide, okay?"

You swallowed, eyes shining. "Okay."

Clark kissed his way down your body slowly, as if every inch deserved its own moment, its own attention. His mouth lingered, teased, mapped you until he reached between your damp thighs. He parted your folds gently, brushed his nose against your sensitive clit just hard enough to pull a sharp gasp from your throat.

Then flattened his tongue against you. Long. Slow. Precise.

"Jesus, Clark," you cried out, one hand white-knuckling the sheets, the other tangling desperately in his hair. 

Your moan sent a shiver down his spine. 

His cock throbbed painfully against his thigh as he groaned into you, holding your hips steady while his mouth learned you, tasted you, drank you in like he’d discovered something he hadn’t known he’d been starving for. He slipped two fingers inside you, stretching out your slick cunt, your face fell open in a brand new way.

"Still okay, darlin’?" he murmured as he pulled suddenly, lips brushing the sensitive skin of your inner thigh.

"Yes, baby—makin’ me—feel so good—go—go back—"

‘Baby.’ Hm. That was new. Good new. And that was all he needed.

His fingers worked in time with his mouth, pushing in and out slowly, thoroughly, and your legs shook hard enough he had to brace you with his forearm to keep you from sliding down the bed. He watched you through his lashes, undone by the way your expressions shifted with every new sensation: the crease between your brows, the slack drop of your jaw, the flush spreading down your breasts

Clark praised you without thinking, the words spilling out raw and honest.

"Love watchin’ your face," he breathed. "Knowing you feel so good. It’s all over. You’re so beautiful when you let go like this."

Your back arched, cunt clenching around his fingers tighter and tighter until you came with a broken cry. He didn’t rush you through your high. He followed, mouth lapping around your clit slowly until you sagged back into the mattress, trembling and spent. 

Then he kissed back up your body slowly, lips sticky with you until he hovered over your face. You looked dazed. Glowing. Ruined, in the most beautiful way.

"Hey," he whispered, bashful and earnest.

"Hiya," you laughed weakly, a little delirious, then tugged him down into a kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue, moaning softly when he sucked on your bottom lip. 

He pulled back just long enough to slide his boxers down, hands shaking now, breath caught somewhere between anticipation and awe. He still couldn’t believe this was really happening, and he might even fall apart before he even got inside you.

Your eyes dropped lower, reaching down, fingers brushing against him, face tender and curious and full of desire. "Hey, let me—"

Clark caught your hand gently, guiding it away. "Hey, no—you—you don’t have to."

"I know," you insisted, smiling as you squeezed his hand. "I want to."

His eyes fluttered closed for a second, jaw tight like he was warring with himself.

"I just—need to be inside you right now," he confessed. "Need to feel you around me. Been thinking about it for too long."

Your heart flipped. You let your head fall back against the pillow, exhaling through a grin you couldn’t quite suppress. "Okay, I hear you," you said, teasing now, the affection unmistakable in your voice. "Next time, then."

"N-next time?"

"Clark Kent. You can’t possibly think this would be a one-night-stand?" you narrowed your eyes as if challenging, and he shook his head.

"Good! I have plans. I mean, the way you just almost sent me to another dimension with your tongue? I’m never letting you go!"

His head dropped to your shoulder with a helpless, lovestruck laugh, his whole body shaking from how badly he needed you.

Then—

"Are—are you sure?" he asked one last time, voice hoarse, eyes finding yours in the dark like they were tethered there. "About this, too. Everything?"

"Yes, I’ve never been more sure," you whispered immediately, cupping his face, smoothing worry lines. "I'm on the pill, but I—I haven’t been with anyone in a long time," you admitted like a secret. "I think… I think I was waiting for you."

Clark’s chest tightened so hard it almost hurt. He bent forward and kissed you slow, hearing every word you hadn’t said, too.

"Me too," he said, voice breaking. "I didn’t want it if it wasn’t you."

He lined himself up and pushed in slowly, carefully, giving you time, watching your face. You gasped, eyes squeezing shut for a second before opening again, glassy and full of wonder.

"Are you okay?" he whispered.

You nodded, breath shaky. "Hm.. m-more than okay."

He bottomed out with a quiet groan, holding himself still while you gradually adjusted around him, warm and still tight. He almost came right there. 

When you finally nodded and he moved, he watched as you made new expressions.

Every flicker of your lashes. Every soft sound. The way your brows pulled when he hit just right. The way your jaw dropped when his thumb brushed your clit. The way your expression softened when he leaned down to kiss you, whispering praise against your lips.

"You f-feel incredible," he gasped. "You look—Gosh—you look so open. I can—t-tell how good this feels—for you. Don’t hide anything. I love— it—"

"You’re so, so incredible, Clark," you whispered frantically, cupping his face.

Your nails dragged down his back, and his thrusts faltered, hips snapping forward harder as your body clenched around every downstroke, desperate and needy. Your faces stayed close, eyes locked, and Clark saw it all there—pleasure, disbelief, joy, and something deeper that made his chest ache, but too afraid to name.

Regardless, he drank it in. Memorized it. Cherished it.

"I-I’ve wanted— this for so—so long," you choked out, tears slipping free as the pressure coiled tight in your belly, unbearable now, near breaking.

"Me— too, darlin’," he murmured, kissing you hard as you clenched tighter. "You have —no idea how long—Gosh—you're—c-close?"

You nodded frantically, panting, jaw slack, little whimpers escaping between each broken breath.

"It's okay—let go—," he said between pants. "Don’t— hold back. I —got you."

You moaned, loud and shameless, as you came with his name breaking from your throat, walls fluttering tight around him, and he buried himself deep and came with a groan, forehead dropping to your shoulder as he held you though each pleasurable wave.

.

Afterward, the world fell quiet in a way that made Clark understand why poets consumed themselves over stillness.

Because loosening his hold on you, even an inch, even just to shift the blankets or ease the throb of overstimulation… it felt like risking everything. Like something as soft and sacred as this might dissolve if he gave it the chance to.

You were still wrapped around him. Heavy-limbed and pliant, skin tacky with sweat, your breath warm and even where your face pressed to the crook of his neck. Your fingers moved in slow, absent-minded loops against his chest, tracing the shape of his collarbone, the slope of his pecs, the place over his heart where his pulse still galloped wild and undone. He felt you smile against his skin, a ghost of a grin at the corner of your mouth that he learned was for him and no one else. 

Clark didn’t want you to stop. Ever.

His arms cradled you close, one hand stroking idly at your hip, fingertips brushing in slow arcs like he couldn’t stop drawing love letters on your skin. The other traced your jaw, the soft hollow beneath your ear, the round of your cheek. Every place he’d kissed. Every place he’d hope to touch again before the night was through.

Your bodies were slick and warm with what had just happened, what had changed, what had always been there and finally cracked open into something neither of you could unsee.

Your breath hitched only once when he shifted, but you didn’t stir much. Just nuzzled closer. Sighed, long and slow. Relaxed into him like there was nowhere else in the world you could possibly be.

Clark could’ve wept for it. Could’ve stayed in that second forever.

"Doing alright?" he asked.

A sleepy nod, your hair brushing his collarbone. "Mhm."

He tilted just enough to look at you.

And there you were.

Eyes glassy and half-lidded, cheeks still pink, lashes clumped from dried tears, lips swollen and parted from where he’d kissed you too long, too deep. Your hair a wild mess against his skin. Your expression soft. Loose. Glowing.

You blinked up at him, and smiled. Not with amusement or mischief or the sharp-edged wit he’d spent three years trying to keep up with. But something raw. Something he’d never seen before, not like this.

You mumbled a joke then. Something about being broken. Maybe you. Maybe him.

He managed a laugh. Kissed your forehead in reply.

You melted further against him, and that was that. You tucked yourself beneath his chin, arm curled across his chest, eyelids fluttering to sleep.

And Clark stayed awake. Quiet. Contemplative.

He’d known so many of your expressions.

The snarl when your formatting crashed. The warm, genuine grin when the vending machine actually worked. The way your eyes lit when you spotted him scratch-free from an "errand." The little frown of concentration when you red-penned his drafts like they hadn’t already been reworked five times.

The way your face scrunched in confusion when he flirted too subtly. The way it broke open when he flirted not-so-subtly.

He’d catalogued it all. Stored it deep and safe.

But this wasn’t one he’d even dared to imagine.

His pulse stuttered. His breath caught in his throat.

Love?

He didn’t....Couldn't. Not yet. Wouldn’t dare say it. Not without you.

But God, did he hope.

.

By the next morning, everything at the Planet looked the same.

The city blinked through the high-rise windows, phones rang off their hooks, and Clark was back at his desk, half-listening to Martin from Coast City complain about oversight on a project that didn’t, frankly, didn't matter anymore.

He was nodding when needed, murmuring polite filler, but his focus had shifted. Again.

Because across from him, you were propped on one elbow, trying and failing not to smile every time

The look on your face told him everything—told him you’d been waiting, hoping, loving him quietly from the very beginning.

And just like that, he started earning it.

you looked at him. You wore that same expression as last night, and this morning before parting ways. The same softness. The same impossibly open, undeniably fond look that made Clark forget what words were supposed to mean when they weren’t yours.

You watched him like you already knew something he hadn’t had the courage to say, and you were waiting.

And that was more challenging than Martin’s voice droning in his ear, because Clark had no idea how to keep pretending.

The sticky note came flying before he saw your hand move.

It bounced off his shoulder, then his desk. He caught it without thinking. Unfolded it clumsily with one hand.

Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world,receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. -Kimmerer

His breath hitched, his mouth went dry, he didn't even recall accidentally ending the call with Martin because he stood—too fast, too obvious—and crossed to your desk and planted a hand next to yours before he could stop himself.

You didn’t say anything at first. Just tipped your head a little, looked up at him with that same face.

"Hiya!"

"Hey.

"Clark, I forgot to ask you something before you left this morning," you started softly. then tapped a finger lightly to your cheek. "You know this expression?"

Clark froze, blinking slow, as the moment expanded between you, the noise of the bullpen fading to static.

So many of your faces lived in his head. The snort-laugh when he brought you bad coffee. The eye roll when he said something earnest and you pretended it didn’t get to you. The gaze that lingered on his mouth just a second too long, that you always tried to pretend was about something else.

His gaze searched yours, suddenly hesitant. "No. I'm not sure I do," he was almost scared to hear the truth. "Tell me, please?"

You reached for his hand atop your desk, fingertips gliding along his knuckles, soft as a feather, touching him like he might break.

"This one," you started with a small grin, barely above a breath, "is love. No longer hiding."

You paused, just long enough to let him feel it settle. Then with a half-shrug like it was already obvious: "It wouldn’t have been a secret much longer anyway."

Clark’s breath caught.

Love.

This one is love.

Something seismic cracked open in his chest. The thing he’d been afraid to name. The thing that had followed him for years through paper deadlines, city rescues, and the smell of your shampoo drifting across his desk. The thing that had started in friendship and bloomed somewhere in the quiet places you never looked.

He swallowed hard, chest aching so hard it felt unbearable yet welcomed.

"I—" He paused. Breathed. Tried again. "I think… I’ve been wearing that face for years, too," he admitted quietly, brushing his thumb atop yours like it might help you believe him. "I just didn’t know how to say it."

You blinked at him, lips trembling a little.

He smiled, the kind that was unbearably honest and dimpled his cheeks.

"So if it was gonna come out anyway…" he leaned down, low and quiet, lips near your temple, words just for you. "…you should know I plan on spending the rest of my life earning that look again."

The look on your face told him everything. 

.

Thank you for reading! Any reblogs, comments, likes are forever appreciated, and keeps me motivated!