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The dull roar of the gala was left behind when you shut the glass door and escaped onto the terrace. Regret swelled up in you the moment the winter air nipped at your cheeks. But somehow the city felt quiet in comparison, and that was enough incentive. You cozied up against the railing, taking in the blinking lights of hundreds of thousands of lives playing out in rooms you’d never see and never know. You’d always felt more at home in a city - easy to be anonymous, easier on your soul to know there were people out there living full lives even if you weren’t one of them.
“Oh!”
You whipped around at the sound of the voice behind you and were met with a sheepish smile.
“I didn’t expect anyone else to be out here.”
You took in the handsome bespectacled man across from you as you rubbed your arms in a futile attempt at keeping warm. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a mess of dark curls. He was a vision, even in his slightly too small navy suit. Maybe the party wasn’t so bad after all.
“I see I’m not the only one looking for a little refuge,” you replied with a smile, gesturing towards the gala with a nod of your head. He laughed and then took in your thin excuse for a gown – a last minute purchase for a last minute invite – and immediately shucked out of his suit jacket and held it out towards you. You opened your mouth to protest but then weighed the pros and cons. If you didn’t take it you’d have to go back into the party and suffer sooner. And what could it hurt to borrow a jacket from a handsome man?
“I run warm, I swear,” he insisted with a gentle smile.
So, you turned your back to him and allowed him to slip it over your shoulders. His touch was light, respectful. But his breath was warm against the back of your neck where you’d brushed your hair out of the way. The scent of him was clean, crisp, with something musky beneath and you inhaled it deeply. When you turned back to him you murmured your thanks but he waved it away with his hand in the air and a shrug of his shoulders damn near up to his ears.
“Enjoying the view?” he asked. Well, yes, you wanted to reply. But you dragged your gaze back to the skyline and shrugged noncommittally. He let out a breath, something between a soft gasp and a huff of disbelief. “It still catches my heart a little when I look at it.”
“You’re clearly not from here,” you assessed with a laugh.
He ducked his head slightly, lips turning up in a shy smile, treating you to a flash of dimples. “That obvious?”
“It’s a good thing, I promise,” you assured, turning back to fully take him in. You looked him up and down. “I’m going to guess…midwest?”
His mouth popped open slightly before it closed again. “Kansas.”
You tilted your head slightly. “Small town?”
“Smallville, if you can even believe it,” he said with a laugh.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Smallville,” you said with a genuine smile and a hand extended in his direction – a small bridge in the space between you. “The places we’re from are always more beautiful through the eyes of someone else, isn’t that what they say?”
“Do they?” he asked, seeming a little breathless. Something warmed in your chest aside from the champagne.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you before at one of these things,” he said when he took your hand. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with the other.
“I’ve been away from Metropolis for a while,” you replied. You peered at him a little harder. “You, on the other hand, look awfully familiar.”
“Me?” he laughed in disbelief. “No, I’d remember if we’d met.”
It was said innocently enough but still it warmed your cheeks. He meant it. He had a kind of aching earnestness to him.
“Clark Kent!” you said finally, pressing a finger to his chest. “Very humble, Mr. Kent. To think I wouldn’t recognize The Daily Planet’s superstar journalist. A face like yours is hard to forget.”
Clark stammered a thanks and busied his hands fixing a tie that certainly did not need to be fixed. You noticed the tips of his ears had turned bright red – though maybe that could be charitably chalked up to the biting weather.
“You know me and I don’t know you - that hardly seems fair,” he said quietly. You told him your name and he repeated it back slowly, as if committing it to memory. As if the two of you would be in each other’s lives for a long time.
“Did I see you talking to Lex in there?” he asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. You blinked, suddenly remembering the party and the whole reason you’d found yourself here in the first place.
You nodded. “I guess he’s my boss now?”
“Luthor doesn’t hire just anyone, so you must be something special,” Clark said with a genuine admiration that took you aback.
“I must be,” you replied, leaning in toward him conspiratorily. He wasn’t joking before, he really did run warm. You could feel it radiating off of him. Clark was certainly charming, but you were a girl with enough wits about you to not go running your mouth to the biggest paper in town’s golden boy. Besides, you knew well enough how to mind an NDA, especially one freshly signed.
“So you moved back here for the job?” he asked.
“Something like that,” you replied. You turned your attention back to the city below and Clark pressed up against the railing beside you.
“You’re kind of a mystery, aren’t you?” he asked, a teasing smile on his lips, an inquisitive glint to his bright blue eyes.
You angled towards him and studied him. “I’m just not very good at this.”
Clark arched an eyebrow. “What?”
“The whole…networking thing. Mingling. Making a good impression.”
“Oh,” Clark said, seeming genuinely surprised. “I’m not networking. Are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shucks, I thought I was making a friend,” Clark said, feigning at being bereft. A large hand raked over his face. He peeked at you from between his fingers. You let out a laugh.
“If you’d like, I could show you around some time? I’ve been told I’m a great tour guide. Especially if you want to know all the best coffee places – I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Jitters,” Clark said, smile wide and boyish. You wanted to take him up on the offer, really you did. It would be nice to have a friend in Metropolis.
“I – yes. I’d like that.”
“It’s a date!” You liked the sound of that more than you should have permitted yourself. “And for the record?” Clark said, leaning in slightly towards you, like the two of you were sharing something important and secret and sacred. “You’re making a great impression.”
One Year Later
His head rested in your lap and you trailed your fingers lightly across the smooth skin of his furrowed brow. His eyes were pressed closed but you were unsure if he was asleep. You never really could tell. The tension didn’t ever seem to melt from that expanse of skin between his eyes, like he was fundamentally incapable of releasing worry from his body.
“I got you something to wear for the gala tomorrow,” he said quietly, startling you. “It’s in the closet.”
“Mhmm,” you hummed in response. The gala. You’d forgotten all about it. You’d been up to your ears in rooting out the cause of a shift in your data these past few weeks. A simple logging algorithm had gone haywire and thrown everything else into absolute chaos and –
“Go on, try it on,” he said, his eyes fluttering open. They were a sharp blue you were always taken aback by. When you didn’t move right away his fingers pinched at the back of your thigh. “Try it on.”
You slid from the bed, legs half asleep from being crossed beneath his weight for so long. Sure enough, there, in the closet hung a garment bag. Something vividly blue peeked through the zipper. Blue and expensive.
You shucked your pajamas begrudgingly and slipped into the dress, the silk settling against your body like a watery second skin. In front of the mirror, his fingers startled you as they brushed your bare waist before he zipped up the low back.
Then he wrapped his arms around you and pulled your back flush against his solid chest. He pressed his chin into the crook of your shoulder as his eyes met yours in the mirror.
“What do you think?” you asked as you smoothed your hands over the fabric covering your thighs. It wasn’t exactly your taste, but you knew it was his.
“I think people aren’t going to know what to do with themselves when they see you in this,” he murmured before pressing a fleeting kiss to the column of your neck.
“It’s not too much?” you asked. He grinned and ran his finger down the plunging neckline.
“It’s just enough,” he said and you knew it wasn’t really a compliment. Lex Luthor didn’t do compliments. And the smile on his lips didn’t belong to you. It belonged to whatever plan he had brewing. You were just a pawn. Just like you always were.
His hand slipped into the high slit and started to follow the curve of your thigh before he withdrew.
“Come to bed,” he whispered, his breath hot against your cheek. “Keep the dress on.”
“Uh uh, you’re going to ruin it before I even get a chance to wear it. I never get to wear blue!” you protested. And it was true – blue wasn’t exactly in the pre-approved color scheme. You wondered if perhaps he’d been trying something different for the sake of the Gala’s theme. Something something Solstice Something that basically boiled down to the old school prom classic: Winter Wonderland.
He turned back slowly and stared at the gown in the mirror. His brow furrowed somehow deeper and his mouth drew into that tight line you’d come to associate with displeasure.
“What color would you call this?”
It was your turn to frown. “I don’t know…cobalt?”
“Take it off.”
“Lex…”
He stepped closer, his hands clenched in fists at his sides. “Take it off.”
“I don’t understand what’s wrong,” you attempted, though you knew it was futile. There was, most often, no understanding what flipped Lex Luthor from fine to…decidedly not. But if you were a betting woman, you’d have made a lot of money on: it had to do with Superman.
You looked down at the dress again. Ah.
“I specifically asked for an icy blue. This is…this is…!”
He trailed off, waving his hand vaguely towards your form.
“Superman blue,” you said quietly. And it was enough. Lex grabbed ahold of you by the fabric of the dress and spun you around. You knew better than to invoke that name in front of him, but a little part of you liked to push. Just to see how far he’d go. How far it’d take you both before you went too far. That was almost the worst part. He never did.
“You want to wear Superman’s colors to my gala, hm? Embarrass me in front of the whole city?”
“Lex, please, you’re being ridiculous.”
“You think Superman will see you looking like you belong in his little harem and come and save you?”
“I don’t need saving,” you attempted, even if it was a borderline lie. It’d also be a lie to say you’d never imagined it. Superman sweeping you into his arms. Taking you away from Lex and the life you’d never meant to forge for yourself.
But of course, you didn’t deserve to be saved. You didn’t run when you should have and now…well, this was it. Lex Luthor and luxury and the death of your soul.
You’d never had good timing in your life. In fact, the last year had probably been the worst timing so far. You’d started work for LutherCorp fresh off your PhD program and Lex…well, Lex had been there. And familiar. And Lex had just come off a string of particularly disastrous relationships and you had been the next nearest thing.
More than once someone had asked you why you were with him. The thing was, you weren’t with him. Or at least, not in the way most people presumed. It wasn’t like if an article in The Daily Planet called you his girlfriend he would demand a retraction (and in fact, Cat was very careful to never suggest anything in that column of hers), but he also wasn’t calling you his girlfriend at home either.
If you asked him – and you would never – he’d probably just say you were a friend he also slept with.
It wasn’t untrue.
And it was fine. You weren’t sure you were capable of love anyway. Too analytical, too severe, too running the game theory of every interpersonal encounter to allow yourself to feel much of anything. Maybe people thought Lex had made you this way, but that wasn’t the truth. Not really.
You and Lex had met in college, circled around the same friend groups, maybe shared a drunken kiss or two. Maybe more. Because it was convenient and easy and you two had a fundamental understanding of one another that no one else could wrap their brains around. But you’d both never really had time for relationships. You were both workhorses. Fueled purely by Red Bull, spite and, in desperate times, a loosely mumbled prayer to the universe.
You knew, more than anyone, exactly how goddamn smart Lex was. That was the worst part. He could be saving the planet, solving humanitarian crises – things he had originally wanted to do. But along the way he’d lost sense of what saving the planet actually looked like. When it had arrived in Metropolis in the form of an alien, well, Lex had lost all sense of the common good.
He was in a race to prove himself some kind of god against an actual, honest-to-goodness nearly impervious Kryptonian. It was a fool's errand. You knew that. He knew that. But he’d sooner burn the world to the ground than admit as much.
He released his hold on the dress and you made to take it off, reaching for the zipper blindly. He turned you around again, hands suddenly gentle on your waist, and you thought for a moment he may have realized he was being absurd.
Instead he unzipped the dress before both hands ripped it straight down the back, tearing the garment in two. You let it flutter to the floor in a pile of wasted silk. You stood still, naked, in a pool of Superman blue and you couldn’t help yourself.
Superman, save me.
And then you stepped out of the pool and back into the real world and you let Lex Luthor put his lips on your skin and lead you to his bed.
The next morning a glam team arrived at your door and with them, a new gown. Black. Back to the usual uniform, then. The black velvet fit like a glove – just enough to be a diversion tactic if needed, but easy enough to fade into the background when Lex wanted. You were hoping for more of the latter – there was only one person you cared about seeing at the gala, and, if you were lucky you’d get a repeat of last year.
You submitted yourself to the beauty ritual without protestation and it wasn’t until your lipstick was being blotted that you surfaced from the storm of your thoughts. Your brain had been tangled up in equations, trying desperately to figure the source of the instability. And, occasionally, perhaps you’d had a thought or two about a dimpled smile and a mess of curls.
“You good?” your dresser asked as she took you by the hand and helped you into your heels.
You nodded sharply, a simple dip of your chin. “Of course.”
For some reason, the beginning of galas always reminded you of receiving lines at a funeral. You never could quite get your spirits up to the task. Good thing you were practiced at pretending. You’d just finished greeting the last of the guests whose names Lex had made you memorize when your gaze caught on a navy blue suit amidst a sea of black tie.
Clark Kent locked eyes with you and smiled. No roving gaze, no crooked, salacious grin. Just genuine warmth. He saw you. He always did. You must have been staring because he raised his hand in an awkward wave – like he wasn’t quite sure you actually saw him. But you did. Of course you did. You started to raise your hand but Lex’s arm hooked around your waist and dragged you over to talk to the mayor and his wife.
You didn’t hear anything anyone said, because no one was speaking to you. The mayor’s wife eyed you cautiously, and there was none of the usual understanding that sometimes passed between you and the silent dates of important people. You smiled a crinkled smile anyway. It didn’t matter that she didn’t remember you holding her hair as she vomited at last year’s gala after imbibing on too much champagne.
Somehow, you found yourself feeling more invisible than the previous year, a party where you had genuinely been there as just a guest. Of course, the evening had ended with you bent over Lex’s desk, your face pressed into the cherry wood, with Lex’s fingers knotted in your hair and you thinking about someone else, and that had been that.
Finally, Lex’s hand gave your hip a squeeze and then withdrew, a clear signal to make yourself scarce. Unchained at last, you finished your now-warm glass of champagne on the way to the bar before scooping up another and making your way to the terrace. Cold air woke you right up as you dipped out into the night.
Sure, Metropolis had its quirks – namely, alien invasions and interdimensional rifts. But it was so damn pretty.
And speaking of pretty…
“It’s…nice to see you again,” Clark said with a winsome smile. He pushed his glasses up his nose gently and then gestured at the empty patio. “History repeats itself.”
You were glad Clark remembered your chat from last year. Especially after you’d completely ghosted him afterwards. What he didn’t remember (and how could he?) was that you’d seen him rip that handsome little suit off – the event was technically black tie and god how Lex had bitched – and launch himself right off the roof in a blur of blue and red.
Clark Kent was goddamn Superman.
And you’d known for a whole year. Kept it close to your chest. A little something just for yourself. You didn’t really get to have secrets.
You smiled back at him. “As it so often does.”
“What a difference a year can make, huh?” Clark said with the same kind of wide-eyed optimism that had drawn you to him last year. You couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like to look at the world through his eyes.
“And what has this year brought Clark Kent?” you asked as you joined him at the railing. Metropolis sprawled out far below, lightly dusted in snow like an aggrandized Lemax Christmas village.
He looked down at his shoes as though he was embarrassed to be at the receiving end of a question.
“Oh, same old, same old. Coupla good bylines here and there.”
“I think you’re underselling yourself magnificently,” you replied. “But humility does look good on you.”
“And you? I think I heard something about you and a certain billionaire?” he teased, shuffling his feet slightly.
“Picking up a thing or two from Cat Grant, are we?” you replied demurely. “Think you’ll be able to get a tasty little pull-quote from me?”
You expected him to balk but he only smiled that charming, sincere smile of his. “I’m just making conversation.”
“This is all off the record, right, Mr. Kent?”
He smiled. “Clark, please.”
“Well then, Clark, this is all off the record, yes?”
“Of course,” he agreed. “Although, I must say, I’d love to sit down for an interview with you some time.”
You scoffed and took a sip of your champagne. “So you can get some sort of inside scoop on Lex?”
Clark frowned. “That’s not at all what I’m interested in.”
“What exactly is your area of interest, then?”
“You.”
He said it so simply and with the faintest teasing smile on his lips that you feared farm boy Clark Kent knew exactly how that sounded.
“What’s so interesting about me?”
“Are you kidding?” he practically exclaimed and you couldn’t help but smile at the way hapless, over-enthusiastic Clark had returned. “I read your dissertation.”
You choked rather unceremoniously on your champagne. “You did?”
You wanted to ask why, but you feared you knew the answer to that question.
“Now, I’ll be honest that I couldn’t make heads or tails of some of it. But what I did understand…it’s brilliant. Ethical, stable interdimensional space travel has a lot of potential applications.”
Your mouth hung open but you somehow came to your senses enough to clamp it shut. You inhaled sharply, finding your palm rather sweaty as you clutched at the glass in your hand like it was some kind of lifeline. “As flattering as that is, I can’t imagine it’s the kind of fodder your readers are interested in.”
He shrugged. “Maybe not. But they are interested in knowing about the whipsmart female scientist living in the shadow of Lex Luthor.”
“‘Living in the shadow of Lex Luthor’?” you repeated back. You knew he wasn’t wrong. You knew exactly what people said about you. It didn’t make it any less insulting.
Clark faltered. “Or, I mean, not exactly, uh, how I meant to frame it. It’d be more like a look inside LutherCorp! At the brilliant people who keep it running while Lex is the face.”
“You’re not really selling this very well, you know that?” you commented dryly before finishing the rest of your glass. Clark thrust his still-full glass towards you. You eyed him warily.
“I’m not much of a drinker, I have to admit. Just felt like I should be holding something to keep my hands occupied,” he admitted sheepishly and you couldn’t help but find it kind of endearing. You took the glass from his hand and downed it in one fell swoop. He only blinked rapidly, like he was reassessing you suddenly. “Oh!”
“What do you think your article on me will do exactly?”
“It’ll show people there’s more to you than meets the eye. They’ll see you.”
You swallowed hard. “I don’t need to be seen.”
“Does he see you?” Clark asked suddenly. For a moment, the world felt knocked off its axis.
“What?”
“Lex. Does he see you?”
You couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. “Lex doesn’t see anything that doesn’t directly serve him.”
“So you don’t serve him?”
It was an innocent enough question but you couldn’t help but smirk at him. “Sure, I serve him. But not in the way you mean.”
Clark practically choked.
“Too crass for corn-fed Clark Kent?” you teased.
“How’d you know I was corn-fed?”
“Have you seen yourself?”
“Fair enough,” he replied, ducking his head in that sheepish way you remembered so clearly. You remembered everything about him so clearly. You’d only known the man one night. But you could learn a lot about someone through their writing. Clearly, Clark had had the same thought about you. He scraped a hand across the back of his hair and smiled and something in your chest pinched.
“How is good ol’ Kansas these days anyway?” you asked in a trite tone.
Clark chuckled. “Kansas. Wait – ”
“Oh, I remembered, Smallville,” you taunted, really wishing you had another glass of champagne at your disposal for a coy little sip. And to quell the ache you could feel in your gut. It was strange, to be feeling anything at all.
“Sorry, I’m just, uh, used to correcting people.”
“People don’t listen.”
“You do.”
You nodded. “I do.” Then, because you couldn’t help it: “Does she listen?”
“Who?” the farm-boy stammered.
“The girl you go home to,” you offered, with a slight shrug of your shoulders. Like it should be obvious. There was something delicious about the way he went pink. An honest-to-goodness blush.
“There’s not…I couldn’t…um,” he cleared his throat. “I don’t date much. My work is…time consuming.”
“I’ll bet,” you said with a smile. Poor little Clark, with no one at home to warm his bed or his heart. It was strange to think that Earth’s mightiest hero was so lonely. You supposed he and Lex actually had something in common after all.
“I just keep odd hours. It wouldn’t be fair to…someone…” he trailed off.
“I understand what that’s like,” you replied quietly.
“But you have Lex…” Clark said, seeming genuinely confused. You pursed your lips.
“Does anyone have Lex?” you asked. Clark seemed to let that wash over him. “I have an old friend who’s now my boss who sometimes fucks me and sometimes parades me around on his arm but will never call me his girlfriend. So whatever that is. That’s what I’ve got.”
Clark was silent. You dragged a hand over your face. “Sorry, I should not have said that.”
His brow furrowed in a way that did not suit him at all and his jaw muscles visibly clenched. Damn you and your big mouth and your three(?) glasses of champagne on an empty stomach. “You deserve better than that.”
You barked out a laugh. “That’s certainly sweet but – ”
“But what?” Clark interrupted, something almost like anger in his expression. You were stunned into silence. “But you’ve made your bed and now you have to lie in it? I don’t believe that.”
“What do you think I deserve, then?”
“Someone who sees you.”
“Someone like you?” you countered. You expected him to look away, to fold under the explicit tension between you. But he didn’t. He looked at you with wide blue eyes that wanted to give you the world.
“You know, I meant what I said last year. I suppose you probably don’t have much use for a tour guide now, but, if you need a friend?” he offered. “I think I owe you a coffee.”
“Clark…” you sighed.
“What?” he asked, a gentle sound in his mouth. His expression was soft. Dangerously so. You shook your head and then simply shrugged.
“You’re a good man, Clark Kent. In a world that isn’t.”
“Isn’t always,” Clark replied. And it didn’t feel like an admonishment or a correction. To him, it was just a fact. That was the way he saw the world. For the lovely, flawed thing that it was. You wanted to be able to see the world the way he did. The way you once did - in what felt like a lifetime and a girl ago. You’re not sure you ever will again.
You smiled politely. “Sorry. I can be such a cynic sometimes.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “The world needs cynics, too.”
You couldn’t help but find his words a comfort, even if you sensed the weightiness he’d imbued them with – intentionally or not.
“Darling, what are you doing out here? I need you mingling,” Lex’s voice pierced the pleasant, thrumming silence between you and Clark.
“Ah, Kent, lovely to see you as always. Hope she wasn’t boring you to death out here.”
“Quite the opposite.”
Lex’s lips pressed into a firm line and you rolled up onto your toes to press a kiss to them. For a moment his attention was pulled from Clark, just enough time for him to forget his misplaced jealousy.
“Come on, Lex. I desperately need to warm up.”
He snaked an arm around your waist and pulled you into his side. You were almost back inside when he paused and turned back to Clark.
“You know, I have some thoughts about last week’s article, Kent.”
“I’m sure you do,” Clark replied back breezily.
You gripped your fingers into Lex’s jacket and dragged him halfway through the door before he could get into a war of quips with Kent.
“I’ll own the goddamn Daily Planet someday and then he’ll have to write whatever I goddamn please,” he muttered to no one in particular, and certainly not really to you.
“He wants to write an article about me,” you said, not really sure why.
Lex laughed in his humorless way. “Who’d want to read that?”
The rest of the evening passed in a blur of tight smiles, handshakes and polite silence. Lex was off somewhere in heated conversation while you leaned up against the bar, watching the catering team as they stripped the tables of their tablecloths. You dangled the straps of your heels from your index finger as you sipped slowly at one final glass of champagne.
Clark cleared his throat beside you. You’d seen him approaching but made a concentrated effort not to turn and look at him. You didn’t need him seeing more than he already had. He had his jacket draped over his forearm, his tie adorably loosened around his neck, the top button tastefully undone. There was a pleasant flush to his handsome face. He craned his neck and peered around the ballroom.
“Need a ride?” he offered. You snorted a quiet laugh. You couldn’t help it. There was something horrifically absurd about Superman offering you something as simple as a ride home. You gave a small shake of your head.
“Same time next year, Clark?” you teased with a smile. Clark smiled back and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose once more.
“I look forward to it.”
And you could tell he meant it. And you knew you would need it.
Except you didn’t make it to same time next year. Because two weeks later, Lex did something so categorically stupid it felt uncharacteristic.
It was supposed to stay entirely theoretical. Lex had promised you it would be. He’d promised it would stay between you two. But, then again, Lex had promised a lot of things.
The research wasn’t nearly far enough along – there was no stable way to open a rift that size. And yet Lex decided to try anyway. On your one day off from the lab. Like he knew you’d try to talk him out of it. Like he knew you’d be able to.
Instead, the rift, predictably unstable, began turning itself into a vacuum. Lex, to his credit, was able to close it. But the force required triggered a series of small earthquakes across the city.
And you just happened to be standing where the ground decided it no longer could stand.
You wish you could say that your life flashed before your eyes in a sun-soaked montage of pleasant memories but really all you could think was that Lex would probably be annoyed by your untimely death. So many unfinished projects.
Of course even that miserable thought didn’t last long because suddenly you were not falling. In fact, you were flying. The rush of wind might have made you cold but Clark was just so warm. You were back on your feet in the middle of the street before you could fully process the way his arms felt around you, but his hands lingered on your waist.
“Clark, you’re bleeding,” you gasped out, reaching for the wound weeping in his forehead. His grip on you fumbled slightly and his eyes widened. You weren’t even sure you knew Superman could bleed.
“What did you just say?” he breathed. It wasn’t an accusation like those words always were with Lex – it was pure and genuine shock. For the first time, Superman looked vulnerable.
You pressed the back of your hand to your mouth, feeling suddenly nauseated. So you decided to just try and gaslight your way through it. “S-Superman, you’re bleeding?”
He blinked slowly for a moment and then seemed to snap out of it as a small crowd of pedestrians pressed in. He righted you on your feet and then wiped his brow with his hand, only managing to smear blood and actually making it look much worse. You bit down on your lip to quiet a laugh.
“It’s – it’s just a scrape,” he finally managed to say and you found yourself nodding, but mostly you were distracted by how distracted he was. You hadn’t meant to throw him off his game like that…his name had just slipped from your lips like second nature. Up this close you could smell him – just the same as the night you’d first met. Frankly, it was surprising to you that more people hadn’t connected the dots from Clark to Superman. The data was all there – no one was looking at it like you.
“Superman!” someone called from the crowd and suddenly Clark seemed to remember you were in public. His hands fell from your waist and you made an active choice not to mourn the loss. You knew better than to be wanting.
The moment his gaze was off of you for just a moment, you turned and slipped away into the crowd. There was a hubbub behind you, you swore someone called your name, but your head was buzzing.
“Pardon me. Sorry! Excuse me!” you heard that voice again, somehow distinct above the rest of the gentle roar of the crowd. A hand wrapped around your bicep and turned you around.
“Hey,” Superman said, breathless and you weren’t entirely sure why. Superman didn’t get breathless. The man was panting like he’d run forever to catch you and not at all like he’d crossed the street to find you.
“Hey?”
Something conflicted passed through his gaze, bright blue eyes uncharacteristically unfocused.
“Can I check on you later?” he asked. Then he cleared his throat. Once. Twice. “I’d just like to make sure you’re okay. If that’s all right with you, of course.”
Your eyes searched his, looking for a want, a reason, an ulterior motive. You found nothing.
“I’d like that.”
And that was how it became a standing appointment. You with two mugs of hot chocolate clenched in steady fists, him with his suit and his cape and his dimples. Months of it. You’d started staying at your place a few extra nights a month, hoping he’d come by. You learned little pieces of him, about Krypton and Smallville. About his parents. His friends at work. Neither of you ever acknowledged the truth of it, which was that you knew him.
You knew his secret. But you kept it. Just as you’d kept it since the night you’d first met him.
One night, you decided to confess a secret of your own.
“I think I used to pray to you,” you commented suddenly, casually. Clark – Superman – practically choked hot chocolate out of his nose.
“What?”
“Or, I don’t know, praying maybe isn’t the word for it. Every time I thought for too long about all the choices that had led me to exactly this life I would think about what it would be like if you swept in and took me away from it all. If you saved me just like you save all the people of Metropolis. And I would think: Save me, Superman. Like some sort of drumbeat in my head. A reflex.”
“A spell,” Clark offered.
“Maybe,” you chuckled.
“I must have heard you calling,” he said quietly. “But I just can’t seem to save you.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m not the type to be saved, anyway.”
“No?” He seemed amused. But you weren’t joking. A quiet, tense moment passed before the slight, tight smile slipped from his lips. “Oh come on, you don’t really believe that.”
“I do. Just like you believe you don’t deserve to be happy. That it would be too dangerous.”
“I’ve never said that!” he argued, his voice peaking slightly. You smiled sadly at him.
“You didn’t need to. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. This? This is good. This is safe. Because I won’t ever actually leave and you won’t ever actually save me. But it feels nice to pretend, doesn’t it?”
For a moment, he looked like he wanted to argue with you. But then he took another sip and looked out over Metropolis. His knuckles blanched as he rotated the mug in his strong grip repeatedly. You pulled your jacket closer around you and let the ever-present hum of the city below wash over you again, the one thing constant and familiar aside from the man sat beside you. In the silence, he inched closer, tucking you under his cape and you had to resist the urge to let your head relax into his shoulder. It would be so easy. But it would also be so, so stupid.
He inhaled suddenly and sharply. “We could come up with a plan. To get you out. Maybe you could…maybe you could come stay with me?”
You put your hand on his and shook your head slowly. “Superman.” He winced at the sound of his own name.
“Come on, you know you can call me Cl – ”
You shook your head, interrupting him. “Kal-El, it’s okay. You can’t save everyone all the time.”
“But I want to,” he replied breathlessly, turning towards you. He lost the mug somewhere in the dark beside him in favor of grasping your hand. “You said it yourself - you want to be saved.”
“No, I was talking about a fantasy,” you argued. You knew why he couldn’t understand it, but it was still pissing you off. “My life…everything about me is wound up in Lex. If I leave I lose everything. He will blackball me, he will own my life’s work, and I will have nothing.”
“You’ll have me,” he replied, his eyebrows lifted in disbelief. You wanted to believe it. But you’d also spent months out on your fire escape with him. Could anyone have Superman?
“For how long? How long until the mystery of me wears off and you’re left with the reality? You like me now because you think I’m some damsel locked away in a tower and you’re going to climb up there and save me. But I’m not a good person, okay? I have built things…dangerous things…for Lex knowing full well the kind of man he is.”
His gaze was inscrutable so you decided to push harder. Remind Clark exactly who he was dealing with and why he needed to run far, far away. “I let him fuck me. I know everything he’s done and still I let him put his hands on me and in me and I let him kiss me and taste me. And I like it. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“I don’t care,” Clark said, his tone firm for the first time. There was something almost scolding in his tone, in the deep set of his furrowed brow. The worst part of all was that you knew he meant it. You reached up to smooth the space between his eyebrows before you realized you were doing it. He leaned into your touch, his long lashes fluttering shut over those beautiful eyes of his.
“You’re trying to make me hate you and I’m telling you it won’t work. It’s too late for that.”
“You don’t know me, Superman.”
He laughed slightly. “But I do. Look, you make a good cup of cocoa but that’s not why I’ve come here time and time again. I come for you. I like learning things about you: like the way you always use the same chipped mug because it was your grandma’s, that this apartment was hers and it was the one thing Luthor let you keep of your old life, and that your right leg always falls asleep faster than your left when we sit out here for too long, that you think about everything like it’s an equation that can be solved with just a little finesse, and that I can catch a glimpse of your real life through this window but that I can’t ever touch it. Because, sure, yes, that’s safer. But I think we’ve moved past safety, don’t you?”
Clark was a variable you hadn’t ever properly considered before. One that threw your logic and reason out the window. And that was precisely the problem. You didn’t know who you were without it.
“Please don’t…”
“Sometimes I think about what might have happened if I’d just bucked up the courage to ask you out at that first gala like I wanted to,” Clark mused.
You smiled tightly at him. “I think you did ask me out.”
“I offered to take you on a very friendly tour of local coffee shops in a city you grew up in,” he argued, almost offended.
“I knew what you really wanted, Kent,” you teased. Then you sobered slightly. “Thing is, I think the results would have been the same either way.”
“How do you mean?”
“I was already his. Contractually bound. And I knew what I was agreeing to by putting pen to paper. I mean, maybe not the sex originally, but I wasn’t totally naive,” you huffed. Clark looked a little scandalized, which you could understand. To someone like him love and sex were not transactional. “Anyway, he owns it all. My research, my thesis – he made it contractually impossible for me to do anything without him.”
“He doesn’t own you.”
“Doesn’t he?”
“Your worth isn’t contingent upon your work, you know that right?” Clark asked. His expression darkened. “You do know that?”
You huffed a laugh and shifted away from him. His warmth, his openness, his invitation. You chose to let the chill set in again. That was the way it was always going to have to be.
“There is no me if I leave. Everything I am is in that lab. I need you to understand that.”
“And I need you to know that’s not true. That’s just a convenient lie you’re telling yourself. This, you, right here! This girl I know on her fire escape. That’s all you. That’s outside of Lex Luthor. That’s outside of your work and your lab!”
His earnestness was almost enough. To be convincing. To be reassuring. To be an open invitation.
Almost.
“I think you’ve imagined this girl in your head who doesn’t exist,” you sighed, worrying a nail between your teeth. Clark pulled your hand from your mouth just as he had on many other nights. But it lingered, his fingers woven between yours. You turned fully towards him, not quite realizing how close you two were again until you were looking at him head on. Your resolve weakened slightly under his direct gaze. You could see him searching you for something, eyes slightly narrowed. Letting him look too long was a risk you couldn’t take. You leaned forward, your lips ghosting past his cheek.
“I hope you find her, Clark,” you whispered.
You pulled back but his hand caught the back of your neck on your retreat, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone.
“Tell me to stop trying to save you and I’ll stop,” he said quietly, his breath warm where it unfurled against your skin. You opened your mouth and then closed it. He leaned slightly closer again. “Just say the words.”
The buzzing of your phone in between you fractured the heavy silence.
“I should take this,” you said, thumb hesitating over your screen. You knew what you wanted to do. You knew what Clark wanted you to do.
And yet.
You had one leg in the windowsill before you picked up the call, head ducking under the frame.
“Hey, Lex.”
The air cracked like a whip outside and you turned back to see the curtains billowing back, two mugs of hot chocolate rattling in their saucers on the windowsill.
“Is it done?” he asked, tone sharp. Heat prickled at the back of your neck, your ears warm, your eyes strangely wet.
It had surprised you, initially, how long it had taken Lex to get wise to the Kryptonian calling at your window. Until you’d found out that morning he’d known all along. Convenient for him to study from afar. Until it wasn’t.
Your fingers itched where they’d touched Clark’s face.
“It’s done.”