ickbite

[ickbite]

Why was one direction buying a teenage girl

[ickbite]

WHEN THE SUN HITS !

pairing: religious!jake x pastorsdaughter!reader

synopsis: when you move into Jake's small town, he sees everything differently. He finds himself dedicating less time to his everyday activities and more time thinking of you.

note: okay so im christian so im writing for what i know... mentions of God and stuff included in like every sentence & Church boy Jake worshipping you — enha masterlist.

The church was colder than you had expected.

Even though the late afternoon sun had started dipping behind the thick pines, the chill inside this ancient building was biting, like it had seeped deep into the stone walls and refused to leave. You stepped through the heavy wooden door carefully, boots scraping on the uneven flagstones, your breath visible in the stale air. It smelled faintly of melted wax, damp wood, and a faint hint of incense long extinguished—something lingering from a prayer said years ago, maybe.

You pulled your coat tighter around yourself, wrapping your arms over your chest with a knot twisted in your stomach. For a moment, you wondered if this place even wanted visitors anymore—if it was resigned to loneliness. Your father had told you this was just a temporary thing to “keep the church ready for the new priest. Clean up. Pray. Stay until they arrive.” His voice had been brisk, almost impatient. He never mentioned how isolated it would be, how heavy the silence might feel. You’d been told it would be quiet but you hadn’t been prepared for this.

The interior was cloaked in shadows, the stained glass windows casting fragmented colors onto the cracked pews and dust-thick floorboards. The thin light caught on shards of broken glass, and the air was still enough that dust motes floated lazily, like tiny spirits trapped in amber.

You took another step forward, the sound of your heels muffled but insistent. That’s when you noticed him.

A boy knelt near the altar, head bowed low, his hands clasped tightly as if gripping something fragile, invisible. He wore a threadbare choir robe, the hem frayed and too long, pooling slightly around his thin ankles. His hair was soft brown, tousled, with a few rebellious curls falling over his forehead.

You thought at first he was a statue — frozen in prayer, unmoving.

Then, without warning, he looked up.

His eyes were wide and deep brown, almost golden in the flickering candlelight, and for a heartbeat, it felt like he saw straight through you. His gaze was so intense and so sudden it made you shiver. It was not the look of curiosity, but something heavier — awe, fear, hope, maybe all tangled together.

His lips parted just enough to whisper a single word, “angel?”

You blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

The boy rose slowly, like he was afraid to break the fragile stillness of the room. He was taller than you’d expected, maybe a little older than you, but he moved with a kind of delicate grace, like he was half-afraid of his own shadow. “I prayed,” he said softly, voice barely more than a breath. “I prayed to God to send me someone. Someone kind, someone to stay with.”

Your fingers tightened around the strap of your bag, you forced a polite smile. “I’m not here for long. My father’s the caretaker, and I’m just helping him until the new priest arrives.”

He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he took a tentative step toward you, eyes never leaving yours. “What’s your name?” he asked quietly.

You hesitated. It was such a simple question, but in this strange place, with this strange boy who seemed part child, part something else entirely, it felt like a test yet you told him your name carefully.

He repeated it, whispering it to himself like a prayer, his voice a soft hum in the heavy air.

“Y/N,” he breathed, his eyes shining in the candlelight. “It’s beautiful, I’ll say it when I pray tonight.”

Your heart fluttered despite the cold, an odd warmth blooming somewhere deep inside your chest.

He paused, then added, almost shyly, “I’m Jake,” his voice was soft, reverent.

“I sing in the choir, I light the candles, I’ve been here alone since Father Micha got sick… and left.”

“Left?” The word felt strange on your tongue.

Jake nodded slowly, eyes clouding with something like sadness. “They said he passed away. No one came to replace him, it’s just been me and the silence.”

You glanced around the church again. Dust coated the altar, hymnals lay forgotten and warped with age, and a large window to your right had been boarded up, the rough wood splintered and dark.

“How long have you been here?” you asked, voice low.

“A long time.” He shrugged, but it was more a gesture of helplessness than nonchalance. “Long enough to stop counting.”

You wanted to ask more — about where he ate, where he slept, how he managed to live here all alone — but the questions caught in your throat. The loneliness in his eyes was too raw, too fragile.

Instead, you took a breath and asked, “Can I… touch you?” You barely recognized the words as they left your lips.

His head snapped up, eyes wide and startled. “Touch me?” His voice trembled, like a boy who’d never been allowed to hold a toy for fear it might break.

“Yes.” You swallowed the sudden lump in your throat. “Just… a hand. If that’s okay.”

Jake’s lips parted, like he wanted to say yes but wasn’t sure he was allowed. Then, slowly, he reached out. His fingers brushed yours so lightly it felt like a feather grazing your skin.

His hand was warm. Rough from years of work you couldn’t imagine. And trembling.

You looked into his eyes and saw a flicker of wonder — like he was discovering something miraculous for the first time.

“You’re real,” he whispered, barely daring to believe it.

You nodded. “I am.”

For a long moment, you both just stood there, connected by that single, trembling touch.

Then Jake looked away, voice soft and faraway. “Do you believe in miracles?”

You thought about it, about everything you’d learned in church, all the prayers said and unanswered.

“I don’t know,” you admitted.

Jake smiled then, but it wasn’t quite a smile. It was a fragile thing, like a candle flame fighting against a draft. “I do,” he said simply. “I believed God would send someone to me. And then you walked through the door.”

You wanted to reach out and touch his face, to reassure him that you weren’t a vision or a test.

But before you could, Jake dropped to his knees again, hands pressed to the cold stone floor. His voice lowered to a trembling whisper, “I won’t ask for anything more. I just want you to stay.”

Your breath caught. You felt a thousand questions swirl inside you, but none found their way out.

You moved closer, kneeling beside him. The chill in the air wrapped around you both, but his closeness was a strange comfort.

“I won’t leave,” you said, quietly, trying to sound certain even if you weren’t sure yourself.

Jake bowed his head, lips moving in a prayer you didn’t understand. The words slipped out fast and low, repeated like a chant, folded into the silence. You caught your name over and over. Whispered prayers asking God to keep you safe, to never let anyone take you away. Your skin prickled beneath his gaze when he finally looked up. There was something in his eyes now — something beautiful and terrible all at once. Possession, worship, and a darkness that whispered of broken innocence. A candle flickered wildly beside him, wax melting too fast and dripping like tears onto the cold stone.

You stood, suddenly aware of how late it had become.

“I should get some rest,” you said softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

Jake’s eyes never left yours as he replied, “I will pray for you tonight. I’ll ask God to protect you.”

His voice was steady but hollow underneath, like the sound of a bell ringing in an empty hall.

You hesitated at the door, feeling the weight of his stare settle on your back. Then you heard it — a breathless, fierce whisper, almost too low to hear: “If anyone tries to take her from me… may God punish them.”

You didn’t look back.

But you could feel his eyes burning into you all the way down the stone steps, into the night outside.

—

The room your father gave you felt like it had been sealed shut for years.

It creaked when you opened the door, hinges groaning with age. The scent hit you first — stale air, something vaguely herbal and sour, as if time had tried to preserve the room but failed halfway through. Dust coated every surface: the windowsill, the little wooden nightstand, the chipped ceramic basin in the corner that hadn’t seen water in who-knows-how-long. Even the crucifix above the bed was dulled, tarnished with age. Christ hung limp and bent on the cross, as though the weight of all these years had pulled Him downward. You sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress crunching faintly beneath your weight. It was thin, almost hollow, and cold even through your clothes. You rubbed your arms, staring at the small window above the bed. It looked out toward the woods — black trees pressed tightly against the frame like they wanted in.

Sleep didn’t come, not even close.

You lay back eventually, curling under a wool blanket that smelled like mothballs and forgotten prayers. You stared at the ceiling. The walls creaked occasionally — not loudly, but softly, like breath. The crucifix watched you from above, crooked. You imagined the nails in His palms rusting quietly in the dark.

You tried not to think about Jake, but it's impossible not to think of the way he said your name — like it had tasted good in his mouth, like it was sacred. You thought about how he’d looked at you. Not like a boy, not even like a man. He looked at you the way someone might look at a relic, or a miracle. With devotion, hunger, awe. You had seen many kinds of affection before — fleeting, ordinary kinds. This was something different. This was dangerous.

That was when you heard the singing. Faint at first, not even a melody — just a sound, soft and aching, like a lullaby hummed through closed lips. It came from the chapel. 

You sat up slowly, the blanket falling away. The floor was freezing under your feet. You wrapped a shawl around your shoulders, unsure why you were moving at all. You told yourself it was curiosity. But really, it felt like being pulled.

You opened the door into the hall and found the air thicker somehow — heavier, perfumed with wax and something bitter-sweet, like burning oil. The hallway glowed faintly with candlelight, gold bleeding under the cracks of the chapel door at the far end. You walked toward it, barefoot, careful not to make a sound.

When you opened the door, you forgot how to breathe.

The church had been transformed, there were candles everywhere… dozens, maybe hundreds. Placed on every flat surface — along the altar, the ends of pews, the railings, the floor, even nestled inside the windowsills where shards of stained glass painted firelight onto the walls. The air shimmered with heat. Shadows flickered like wings.

In the middle of it stood Jake.

He faced the altar, back to you, his hands clasped tight over his chest. His head was tilted slightly up, eyes closed. And he was singing — quietly, like he was afraid the building might collapse if he raised his voice too loud. The sound of it was… haunting. Raw. Like the song wasn’t made of music but of longing, of desperation softened into something holy.

Latin, probably. But you didn’t need to understand it to feel how heavy it was. You stepped forward, and the wood underfoot betrayed you with a soft creak.

Jake stopped.

The silence that followed was immediate — sharp, fragile, like glass. He turned slowly.

When he saw you, the stillness on his face broke into something unguarded. Not surprising and not guilt, but instead joy.

“You came,” he breathed, as if he'd known you would. As if he'd been waiting. “I knew you would.”

You stepped into the light, the heat of the candles brushing against your skin. The room was warm now, like a breath. You had to swallow before you could speak.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Jake’s lips curved faintly, but it wasn’t a smirk or a grin. It was… reverent. Soft. “I didn’t want you to.”

He moved toward you, slow as a shadow. “I lit them all for you.”

“All of the candles?” you asked, glancing around at the flames dancing wildly across the pews.

He nodded once, solemn. “This is how heaven looks, isn’t it? If you’re here… I want it to feel right.”

You shook your head. “Jake, I’m not—”

“You are,” he said immediately, as though he’d been expecting your denial. “You haven't seen it yet but I do. You’re not like other people.”

Your breath caught as he drew closer, the light flickering across his face, catching on the curve of his cheekbones and the slight tremble in his bottom lip. He looked shaken, elated, maybe even afraid.

“I used to pray for God to show me proof He still loved me,” he whispered. “And then you arrived. He sent you.”

You opened your mouth, heart racing. “Jake—”

He reached for you, but stopped just short — his fingers hovering near your wrist, as though waiting for permission.

“May I?” he asked.

You nodded, unsure why.

His fingertips brushed yours. The contact was so light it barely registered, and yet his eyes fluttered closed. He let out the smallest breath.

“I’ve never touched anything so soft,” he whispered. “Not silk or water. Nothing could ever compare to this.”

You said nothing, your heart beats in your throat.

“I don’t want to… ruin it,” he continued. “Desire is a sin. I know that. But worship isn’t. I can worship. I want to.”

He looked at you then — not just looked. He saw you. In a way no one ever had. You felt like he could see your thoughts, your guilt, your uncertainty. And yet he didn’t flinch.

“I want to kneel at your feet,” he said. “Like they do in the old paintings. Like the saints did. If I could carve a statue of you, I would.”

You took a step back, but gently. “I think you’re confused.”

Jake tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowed just a fraction — not in anger. In focus. “No. Not confused. Awakened.”

You stared at him.

The air between you shimmered. He was close enough now that you could see the candlelight reflected in his eyes — flickering, fevered. You could smell the wax, the faint smoke curling into his robe’s folds.

“I should go back to bed,” you said, softly.

Jake blinked. His expression cleared, softened. “I’ll walk you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he said gently. “Please.”

You nodded, slowly. There was no real danger in his voice. And still — something beneath your skin told you this was not a boy simply being kind. This was a boy who had already decided you were his religion.

He walked beside you in silence, the long hallway aglow with the spill of candlelight from behind. When you reached your door, he paused.

“I’ll stay outside for a while,” he said. “Just until you sleep. I don’t want the dark near you.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but stopped yourself. And maybe, somewhere deep inside, a part of you was afraid of what the dark might whisper if he left.

You went inside, you didn’t close the door, and when you lay back in your bed, the crucifix crooked above your head, you could hear it:

Jake.

Sitting just beyond the door, whispering your name over and over between quiet prayers, between breaths, between the long silences that stretched like candle smoke.

Your name, repeated like a hymn. A vow. A spell.

And though your eyes fluttered closed, you knew: he would stay there until dawn, watching over you, keeping vigil, not as a boy but as something else entirely.

—

The church always seemed to breathe differently at night. The wind whispered through the old trees like it was reciting psalms, and the candles you lit for evening prayer flickered like they knew something you didn’t. Shadows stretched long down the nave, caught between the golden glow of flame and the velvet darkness pooling in corners. You’d gotten used to the hush of the place — the way every sound seemed louder when the world went quiet. The rustle of your skirts, the creak of the pews, the click of your rosary beads.

You knelt at the altar as always, hands clasped in prayer — but you couldn’t concentrate. Not with the knowledge that he was behind you.

The choir boy who had started to feel like a ghost in your shadow.

You’d found him again that morning, sweeping the church steps long before anyone had asked him to. His eyes had met yours with a strange intensity, like you’d just caught him in a confession — even though he hadn’t said a word yet.

And now, as your lips murmured quiet devotion, you could feel him kneeling a few feet behind you. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel. The way the air bent around his presence was strange. Sweet. Suffocating.

“Do you pray for forgiveness?” his voice broke the silence softly, tentative, as if he was scared of himself for speaking.

You hesitated before answering. “Yes. Sometimes.”

“For what?”

You lowered your hands and turned your head just slightly, enough to see him through the low candlelight. “For not understanding Him. For failing to love fully. For doubt.”

Jake’s eyes didn’t blink. “You’re not supposed to doubt. You’re not supposed to sin.”

A nervous laugh escaped you. “Everyone sins, Jake.”

He blinked slowly, like your words didn’t make sense in the language of his world. “Not you.”

You sat back slightly on your heels, watching him. He was still in his choir robe, pale linen nearly glowing against his skin, which always looked a little too translucent — like he hadn’t seen sunlight in years. His fingers were clenched in his lap, as though he was trying to keep himself from reaching out.

“You always say things like that,” you murmured. “Why?”

His lips parted, eyes wide like he was trying to swallow a hundred confessions at once. “Because… when I see you, it hurts. In my chest. Right here.” He pressed a trembling hand to his heart. “It feels like I’m being punished for something. Like I did something wrong in another life and this is my punishment — watching something holy and never being able to touch it.”

You were still. The candles trembled with you.

“I’m not holy, Jake,” you said softly. “I’m flesh. Just like you.”

He shook his head once, fast. “No. No. I’ve watched you light every candle like it was a sacrament. I’ve seen the way you kneel like you’re carrying the weight of other people’s prayers. When you walk, you don’t sound like the rest of us. Even the floor doesn’t complain when it holds you.”

You stood, heart thudding hard against your ribs, “Jake, that’s not—”

“You healed that bird,” he said suddenly, voice breaking. “That sparrow, remember? Its wing was twisted. You were supposed to let it die, but you didn’t. You stayed up all night and fed it bread soaked in milk. You prayed over it. It flew again.”

Your breath caught.

He rose to his feet, slower than you did, but with more reverence — like this wasn’t a conversation but a ritual. Like this wasn’t love but worship.

“Jake,” you whispered, “you don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do,” he breathed. “I understand now.”

He reached for your hand but stopped an inch short, fingers hovering, trembling. His eyes darted from your wrist to your face, and he asked like it was the last question he’d ever be allowed to speak: “Can I touch you?” it’s never innocent, always a tone of something more sinister lingering. He meant it like someone asking to touch the cloth of a relic. The hem of Christ. The edge of something divine. He meant it with hunger buried beneath the reverence — and fear.

You nodded, just once. He let out a broken breath, like he hadn’t expected you to say yes.

Then his hand closed around yours. His skin was warm, and his palm was slightly calloused from wood and stone and hymn books. He held your fingers gently at first, like he was afraid of hurting you. Then his other hand followed, clasping yours between both of his — and he sank to his knees to your feet. The edge of your skirt brushed his chest.

He looked up at you like a man who had wandered the desert and finally found water. “You’re so warm,” he said. “So alive.”

You couldn’t move. His grip tightened just slightly, and his voice dropped lower. “I used to pray for salvation,” he whispered. “Now I only pray that you never leave me.”

The candle beside you sputtered, then steadied again. You wanted to say something — anything — but your mouth had gone dry.

Jake looked down at your joined hands like they were an altar, and he pressed his lips to your knuckles, eyes fluttering shut.

Not with the way his breath lingered.

Not with the way he whispered, “Amen,” like it was the name of a lover.

And not with the way his eyes opened a second later, and held a kind of dark, shining promise.

You knew, then. If you ever tried to leave — if you ever dared — he would pray.

And someone, somewhere, would bleed for it.

—

The wind outside whispered against the old stained glass as if trying to claw its way in.

You lit a candle with shaking fingers, cupping your palm around the flame. It flickered against the curve of your cheek, casting golden halos against the walls of your small room. The only room in the church that still smelled faintly of roses — from the soaps you brought, or maybe from the way you always carried something softer than this place ever earned.

You were sitting on the edge of your narrow bed, your knees drawn up, your long nightgown trailing like a pool of light across the floorboards. You hadn’t expected him to come so late.

But Jake knocked softly anyway. Twice. Then the door creaked open like it already knew he’d never be turned away.

He stepped inside, barefoot, his white choir robe loosely tied at the waist, sleeves too long, collar slightly askew. His hair was still damp from the evening rain — slicked back but curling faintly at the edges, a boyish softness beneath the holy exterior. He held his hands in front of him like he always did in prayer.

You looked up. “Jake. It’s late.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he murmured. “I keep… I keep thinking about you about God too but mostly about you.”

His voice was thick with something he didn’t understand yet. Or maybe he did, and just didn’t have the words for it. You watched his eyes — wide, watery, a little too bright.

You offered him a seat near your small writing desk. He sat on the floor instead. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I know I shouldn’t be here.”

You shook your head gently. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”

His breath caught. “But it feels wrong. And right. All at once. It feels like sin, but it feels like grace, too. When I see you — I mean — when I’m near you, I feel like I’m standing at the gates of heaven.”

You exhaled slowly. The candlelight danced across his features, highlighting the delicate planes of his face. He looked so young, so devoted, and so desperately confused.

“Jake,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper, “why do you come to me like this?”

His head dropped to your knee. He knelt fully now, hands clutching the fabric of your nightgown like it was a sacred relic. “Because you’re the only thing I know is real.”

“God is real,” you replied, heart beginning to race.

He shook his head. “I believe in Him because I saw you. You’re proof. I think I was born to serve something beautiful, and then He sent you, and I knew — you were what I was waiting for.”

Your breath hitched. You reached down, brushing a lock of his wet hair behind his ear. He shivered at your touch.

“I don’t know if I’m the angel you think I am,” you whispered.

Jake looked up. “You’re more. You’re flesh and soul and light and warmth. When I hear your voice, it sounds like a psalm. And when I dream… it’s always you.”

His hands climbed higher, slowly, reverently. They didn’t grope. They trembled. They hovered, then touched your ribs, the curve of your waist, the place where your heart beat fast.

“I don’t know what to do with this feeling,” he said hoarsely. “All I know is I want to be near you. I want to… I want to be yours. In any way you’ll let me.”

You swallowed.

“Have you ever… touched someone before?” you asked, barely managing to speak.

He blinked slowly, eyes round and dark. “No,” he said. “Only in prayer. Only when I imagined their soul belonged to you too.”

The words did something to you. Something deep. Something dangerous.

You leaned forward.

His lips parted, surprised. “You’re going to kiss me?”

“If I do,” you whispered, “are you going to fall to your knees again?”

He nodded slowly. “Only if you want me to.”

So you kissed him.

It started soft. Your lips ghosted over his. He gasped. Like a boy tasting something forbidden and holy all at once. He didn’t know where to put his hands — so they found your face, then your shoulders, then your back. He touched you like you were breakable and glowing, like if he held you wrong, God Himself might strike him down.

But nothing happened — except warmth. Blinding, soft warmth.

You pulled him to the bed.

His breathing turned shallow. His fingers splayed across your back, then dipped lower, then trembled at the feel of your thigh beneath the cotton. You didn’t rush him. You let him worship you.

Jake groaned softly when you pulled the robe from his shoulders. His chest was pale, smooth, the cross pendant around his neck cold against your skin when he leaned in to kiss you again.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he murmured against your mouth.

“You don’t need to know,” you said. “Just stay.”

And he did, whispering your name like a hymn and touching you like a man who thought he’d burn for it.

[ickbite]

10 Things you hate about Clark Kent.

━━━ © bitterballad

PLOT! You had just moved to Metropolis from Gotham after quitting the Gotham Gazette. You thought it would be a breeze. But there's 10 things about your coworker that irk you more than you ever thought.

WARNINGS! corenswet!clark. gotham!reader. clark is kinda submissive in this... sorry. overstimulating. oral (fem receiving). unprotected p in v (wrap b4 u tap). kinda service top clark? but he gets submissive.

NOTES! i watched superman with my boyfriend and i need to dick down clark with every bone in my body. i had sm fun writing this. thank you to my baby girls out there, i see u. word count is 7.2k btw!

1. You hate that he’s always late.

Metropolis is cleaner than Gotham, sure. Shinier. The streets sparkle like they’ve never seen a body chalked on the pavement, and people here walk a little faster—like they’re going somewhere they actually want to be. But beneath the polish, it’s the same grind. New City, same newsroom. 

You should’ve known The Daily Planet wouldn’t be much different than The Gotham Gazette. The coffee is just as burnt, the interns just as sweaty, and deadlines still loiter like stormclouds, waiting to downpour. You expected chaos. What you didn’t expect was Clark Kent.

He’s late.

Every. Damn. Day.

You hear him before you see him—always the same: the hurried shuffle of too-big shoes, the frantic slam of a shoulder against the swinging glass door, and the apologetic murmur of “Morning” that barely beats out the time clock.

You don’t even look up from your monitor. “It’s 9:47.”

Clark wheezes into his cubicle—which, of course, is right next to yours. His tie is crooked, his glasses fogged, and his hair’s got a single, infuriatingly perfect curl bouncing on his forehead like it was placed there by angels. 

“Yeah,” he huffs. “Sorry. There was traffic.”

There’s always traffic in Metropolis. But that excuse is wearing thin, especially when he is the only one in the building who acts like he has to physically leap over it. 

You finally glance up, deadpan. “You know who else got stuck in traffic today? Me. Lois. The kid from copy who literally rides a unicycle to work. We all still made it to work on time.”

He runs a hand through his hair and smiles sheepishly, like that’s supposed to mean something. And somehow, it always does—with everyone else. Lois laughs it off. Perry yells, but only half-heartedly. Even Cat calls him “Smallville” like it’s an inside joke and not an indictment of his incompetence. 

But you?

You are not charmed.

You’re Gotham born and bred. You’ve filed stories from under police tape, from fire escapes, from alleys where the blood was still wet. You didn’t claw your way out of that city just to share a byline with a man who treats deadlines like vague suggestions and shows up to work looking like he just wrestled a tornado.

Again!

“You’ve been late every day this week, Kent,” you mutter, turning back to your monitor. “If you’re aiming for a record, congrats. You’re winning.”

He’s quiet for a beat. You think you’ve shut him up, finally. But then—“I’ve never really been good at winning things,” he says softly, almost like he’s talking to himself. 

You glance at him from the corner of your eye. There’s something about the way he says it, not pathetic. Just… strange. Like maybe he means something bigger. You almost ask. 

Almost.

Instead, you scoff and shake your head. “Try winning a Pulitzer. Might help your case.”

He grins again, that irritating, dimpled grin, and unpacks his bag like he didn’t walk in almost an hour later. You hate that he’s always late. You hate that nobody seems to care. You hate that he never has a good excuse, but still somehow gets away with it.

And most of all?

You hate that you’re starting to care enough to notice.

2. You hate his 'aw shucks' act.

If Clark Kent’s lateness is a thorn in your side, then his personality is the knife twisting next to it. 

Not that it’s a bad personality, exactly. That’s the problem. On paper, he’s the perfect coworker—polite, humble, well-liked by every living soul in the building. He holds elevators. He offers to do coffee runs even when it’s pouring. He once helped Carol from Archives fix the jammed printer with nothing but a safety pin and a hopeful smile.

People adore him. They smile when he walks into the room. Laugh at his dumb jokes. Trust him. 

You do not.

Because you’ve been watching. You’ve been taking mental notes since week two. That “aw shucks, I’m just a small-town guy from Kansas” routine is too well rehearsed. No one is that gentle and that oblivious. No one stammers through meetings and then turns in a perfect copy by the end of the day. No one is that clumsy—spilling coffee, tripping over wires—and yet somehow always lands on their feet.

You didn’t come from Gotham to fall for the world’s oldest trick.

So when he chuckles nervously after Lois slaps him on the back for landing a quote from the Steel Syndicate leader—a quote you had been chasing for a week—you grit your teeth and mutter:

“Oh, give me a break!”

Clark turns to you, blinking. “Sorry?”

You don’t bother to fake it. “You play the ‘golly gee’ routine, but you’re sharper than you act. And frankly, it’s annoying.”

His brows knit behind his glasses. “I’m not acting.”

You arch an eyebrow. “Right. You just accidentally out-interviewed me and walked away with the best lead we’ve had all quarter.”

He laughs, scratching the back of his neck, all bashful. “I really wasn't trying to one-up you. I just—I guess he liked me?”

You scoff. “Of course he did,” you mumble. “Everyone does. Must be the charm of your down-home, butter-wouldn’t-melt-bullshit!”

“I’m from Smallville,” he says, like that explains everything.

You lean forward across your desk, voice low. “I’ve met people from Smallville. They don’t act like they’ve never heard someone curse before.”

Clark shrinks back slightly, like your words sting, but there’s a twitch of something else in his eyes—like he’s fighting a smile.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse,” he offers gently.

You narrow your eyes. “I save it for when I’m alone. Or keep it in my head. Like right now, for example. Internally? It’s a full symphony of four-letter words.”

He snorts, an actual snort, then claps a hand over his mouth like he’s embarrassed by it. That’s when you realize something terrifying. He’s not pretending to be harmless.

He is harmless.

And that somehow makes it worse.

Because no one is harmless in this job. Not in journalism. Not in Metropolis. Especially not if they’re good at it. And Clark? Despite the dopey smile, the apologies, the way he trips over every desk in the bullpen. Clark is very good at it.

You hate that his small town bullshit works. You hate that it makes people underestimate him. You hate that it almost worked on you. But the worst part? You’re starting to realize it’s not an act. It’s who he is.

And that makes you want to scream.

You hate how he somehow always got the exclusive.

There’s something sacred about how the word exclusive in a newsroom. It’s the holy grail—the thing that earns you front pages, corner offices, Pulitzers. You’ve chased exclusives down back alleys, stayed on hold for eons, bribed a coffee-stained secretary with two croissants and a MetroCard just to get one measly quote from a crooked city councilman

But somehow, Clark Kent just gets them.

Every. Fucking. Time.

He never brags. That would at least make him bearable. He just shows up—late, of course—shrugs off his coat, and drops a crisp interview transcript on Perry’s desk like he tripped over it on the sidewalk.

It’s infuriating.

You first noticed it during the Union Square train derailment. Superman was spotted hauling survivors out of the wreckage. No reporters got near him. Police kept everyone back. Even Lois couldn’t get close. And she's Lois!

But the next morning?

There it was: Superman Speaks on Metropolis Disaster by Clark Kent.

You stared at the byline like it had personally offended you. Your fingers hovered over your keyboard as you read the quote—exclusive, lengthy, insightful. Too insightful.

“He said that?” you asked Clark across the bullpen.

Clark blinked. “Uh, yeah. He flew by while I was walking back from a source.”

You narrowed your eyes. “And what, he just… pulled you into the sky for a heart-to-heart?”

Clark smiled, bashful. “We’ve talked a few times.”

You nearly choked on your burnt coffee.

A few times?

Since then, it’s been quote after quote. Superman says this. Superman warns that. Every piece is conveniently labeled “as told to Clark Kent.” You’ve pitched a dozen stories with solid leads, real impact, and Perry still passes them over in favor of Clark’s Superman exclusives.

You’ve tried to ask how he does it. Casually. Aggressively. Once while both of you were on a stakeout at a warehouse near Suicide Slums, you even offered him your last protein bar if he’d just tell you how the hell he keeps finding Superman.

Clark just smiled. That soft, maddeningly patient smile, and said, “I think he trusts me.”

Trusts him.

Like Superman sits around rating journalists on a Yelp scale.

You stare across the bullpen now, watching Clark quietly type something into his terminal. He looks like a librarian. One of those sleepy, gentle ones who offer you a tissue when you cry reading To Kill a Mockingbird. 

And yet somehow, he gets the hero in blue to spill his guts.

You hate it.

You hate that it makes you question your own work. You hate that you keep looking for the cracks in his story, the thing that explains how he’s doing this. You’ve doubled-checked timestamps. Scrubbed security footage. Asked sources. Nothing adds up. 

No one sees Clark talking to Superman.

And yet Clark knows things. Small details. Direct quotes. Reassurances Superman has never given anyone else.

You lean back in your chair and stare at the ceiling. Either Clark Kent is the luckiest man in Metropolis… or he’s hiding something.

And you don’t believe in luck.

You hate that he doesn't talk shit.

Newsrooms run on gossip.

That’s just a fact.

You don’t survive in this field—not in this city—without learning to weaponise information. It’s part of the culture. You swap barbs while the coffee brews, trade snark over late-night edits, hurl critiques and conspiracies like dodgeballs. Everyone does it. It keeps you sane. Keeps you sharp.

Except Clark.

Clark doesn’t talk shit.

At first, you assumed it was a tactic. A kind of passive power play, let everyone else tear each other down while he keeps his hands clean and his halo polished. You even waited for him to crack. Made space for it.

Lois stormed past your desks muttering, “If I have to rewrite one more of Franklin’s clickbait trash, I swear to God—” and you turned to Clark, ready.

Nothing.

He just said, “Franklin’s trying to juggle two kids and night school. He’s doing the best he can.”

You blinked. “That’s your take? Really?”

Clark smiled, easy. “Well, it’s not like yelling about it helps.”

You stared at him for a full beat, then scoffed, Wow. How do you make ‘reasonable’ sound so smug?”

He laughed. Not mocking. Not defensive. Just… amused.

It keeps happening.

Gina in Copy fakes sick twice in one week to go see her boyfriend in Coast City. Nobody buys it. You expect Clark to at least comment. Something gentle, like “Must be nice to have a love life” but he just covers her calls without being asked.

When Jimmy blows a quote in a city council interview, you hear three people mutter about it near the break room. Clark hears too. You watch his eyes flick in that direction, but he doesn’t engage. He just brings Jimmy a coffee the next morning with no explanation.

You don’t get it.

You’ve worked with assholes and saints and everything in between. But there’s always a crack. A vent. A gripe. A single “Jesus Christ, can you believe this guy?” at happy hour.

Clark? He smiles, he listens. He takes the fall for other people's mistakes, and never once asks for anything in return.

It’s not that he’s quiet. He barks. He just doesn’t bite. 

You should hate it. Actually, no, you do hate it.

Because it makes you feel mean. Makes you feel like every time you roll your eyes or mutter something under your breath, you’re the one slinging mud at a guy who just… doesn’t throw it back.

He’s not better than you. That’s what you tell yourself. He’s not better. He’s just boring. But that’s not true, is it?

Because when Carol’s mom lands in the hospital, he’s the one who quietly organizes a grocery drop-off.

When Perry has a meltdown over a typo in the Sunday headline, Clark doesn’t flinch. He just calmly fixes it. Compliments the new intern’s formatting, and reminds Perry to breathe.

When you come in one morning with three hours of sleep and that coil, pre-caffeine snarl already at your lips, he places a black coffee on your desk without saying a word.

You hate how it makes your chest tighten.

You hate that he makes kindness look easy—not loud or performative or fake, just… part of him.

You hate that you’re starting to notice how often his eyes go soft when someone’s having a bad day.

You hate how your shoulders drop just a little when he walks in.

You hate how, for all the ways he frustrates you, he never gives you a real reason to hate him back.

You tap your pen against your notebook and glances at him—across the bullpen, bent over his desk, tie askew, glasses sliding down, that same stupid curl on his forehead. He’s reading something, mouth twitching like he might laugh, and you watch him longer than you mean to.

You shake yourself.

No.

This is just a strategy. Observation. Knowing your competition. It’s not softness. It’s not a crush. It’s not a slow-burn, late-blooming kind of fondness, the kind that sneaks up on you when you’re too tired to fight it.

It’s not.

You just hate that he doesn’t talk shit. That’s all.

You hate how he remembers everything you say.

You’re not the type of person who expects people to remember things.

You’ve had too many conversations die halfway through a sentence. Too many men nod politely, only to ask you the same question a week later like they never heard your answer the first time. You’ve learned to file your words under ‘for now’—disposable, temporary, forgettable.

Clark Kent doesn’t see it that way.

You noticed it during your first lunch break, maybe two weeks in. You’d been ranting—venting, truly—about how every salad in Metropolise comes pre-drenching in some sort of smug artisanal vinaigrette. You weren’t even talking to him. Just muttering to yourself while stabbing a piece of limp kale in the breakroom.

The next day, he passed you a plain turkey sandwich from the deli on 6th and said, “They don’t just dressing unless you ask. Though you might like it.”

You blinked at him

“You remembered that?” you asked, caught off guard.

Clark shrugged with a smile. “You seemed passionate.”

You were half convinced it was a fluke. But it wasn’t.

Because the pattern kept happening.

You mentioned once—once—that your favorite weather is when it rains but the sun’s still out. A week later, during one of those golden, misty drizzles, he caught up to you on the steps and said, “Looks like your kind of day, huh?”

You told him offhandedly that your least favorite movie trope is the girl tripping while running. Three nights later, you passed each other in the hallways after working late, and he asked if you’d seen the new action flick in theaters. “No tripping heroines, I promise.”

You said that once your dad used to call you ‘kid’ and that one one’s used the word since.

He’s never called you that. But you catch him hesitating once. Mid-sentence. Like it’s on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it.

You don’t know how to feel about that.

Because you never asked him to remember. You never wanted him to.

You’ve known people who remember birthdays because Facebook reminds them. Or likes and dislikes so they can use them later. But Clark? He never uses it. He just stores it. Quietly. Thoughtfully. Like your words matter. Like they’re puzzle pieces he’s collecting, not to solve you, but to understand you.

And maybe that’s what bothers you most.

Because no one’s ever tried to understand you.

Not really.

Gotham trained you to guard your secrets with blood. To keep your walls high, your smile sarcastic, your stories brief and impersonal. But Clark listens like he’s trying to paint a picture of your in his head, one brushstroke at a time.

And you despise it.

You hate that it makes you feel seen. 

You hate that it makes you feel real.

You hate that it makes you wonder how much you’ve remembered about him.

You glance at his desk. Same stupid Superman bobblehead he swore he didn’t buy himself. Same chipped Kansas mug. Same pair of extra reading glasses tucked into the drawer, just in case.

You remember that he doesn’t like spicy food. That he uses semicolons like they’re going out of style. That he hums the theme from Star Wars when he’s writing something he’s proud of.

You remember that his middle name is Joseph, but he doesn’t like it because it was his dad’s.

You remember way too much.

So maybe you don’t hate that he remembers everything you say. Maybe you hate that you’ve started doing it too.

You hate that he looks at you like he sees you.

There’s a kind of look people give you when they think they know who you are.

Back in Gotham, it was always the same—calculating, wary, sometimes impressed. You were the youngest on the crime desk, the loudest in the pitch room, the one with the sharpest elbows and the thinnest armor. People look at you like a problem to solve or a rival to beat.

But that’s not how Clark looks at you. He looks at you like you’re someone. Not a headline. Not a byline. Not the girl from Gotham with a chip on her shoulder and a pen like a scalpel.

Just you.

And it drives you batshit crazy.

Because it’s not just in meetings, when you sneak up and catch his gaze across the table—it’s in the little moments. When you’re half-asleep at your desk and he walks by with a fresh coffee. When you’re biting your tongue in an argument and he gives you a look like he already knows what you want to say. When you laugh—really laugh—and you see him watching like it’s a rare event he doesn’t want to interrupt.

It’s too much. Too soft. Too honest. You don’t want to be known like that. Not by him. Not by anyone.

But he keeps doing it. Like it’s effortless. Like seeing you, the real you, the messy and angry and guarded parts is just what happens when he looks at someone.

And you hate that you notice it. And you hate that some small, quiet part of you never wants him to stop.

You hate how nervous he makes you.

You’re not nervous around people.

You’ve been yelled at by corrupt mayors. Cornered by gang members for writing the wrong names in the right story. You’ve told a Gotham crime boss to spell his name correctly if he wants to be quoted. You know how to stand your ground, spine straight, heart steady.

But Clark makes you so nervous that you might shit your pants.

Not in the usual nervous way—not in the way bad people do. He doesn’t threaten or belittle or hover too close. No, Clark stands a respectful distance away and still somehow manages to get under your skin. He fidgets when you talk. He laughs at your sarcasm. He listens like he’s memorizing you on purpose. 

And lately… you’ve been messing things up.

You dropped your pen the other day. Three times. In one meeting.

You forgot what you were saying mid-sentence when he looked at you—just looked at you—like the whole room had gone quiet except for you.

You called him Clark and it came out soft, almost breathless, and it startled you. Like your mouth knew something your brain just hadn’t caught up with yet.

When you brushed against him near the elevator, shoulder to shoulder, your pulse stuttered. Not fear. Not irritation. Something else. Then it hit you.

You like him.

God, you like him.

You like his stupid glasses and his kind eyes and the way he always holds the door for people even when they don't say thank you. You like the way he scribbles notes in the margins of his reporter’s notebook and the way he lights up when someone says the words human interest. You like that he takes his job seriously without ever acting like he’s the smartest man in the room.

You like that he’s good. You trust him. And that might scare you more than anything else on this planet.

You hate that he makes you nervous, because it means your guard is down. And you never let your guard down. Especially not for someone like him. Especially not when he might possibly, slightly, maybe, feel the same way.

Because if he does.. if he does… you’re not sure what happens now.

You hate how he’s Superman.

You almost died today.

Not in the dramatic, flashing-lights-before-your-eyes kind of way. More like sudden and sharp. One second, you were walking past LexCorp Tower with a coffee in hand. The next, the sky cracked open with a sound like the earth tearing apart, and something enormous. A ship? A drone? It spiraled out of control and straight into the street.

You didn’t scream. Not at first. Your body froze instead, the kind of instinct that Gotham should’ve removed. Get big, get loud. Scare the monster away from you.

But flight or fight invited a friend to the party. Fawn. And she told you not to move a muscle. To get small. Get still. And pray to Jesus of Nazareth that the monster passes.

It didn’t.

It was coming right for you.

And then, just like every headline you’d ever written about him, Superman was there.

He was a blur at first. Then red. Then blue. Then everything stopped. The drone crumpled against the pavement thirty feet away, a crater the size of a bus sinking into the asphalt. Wind whipped around you, debris in your hair, your coffee exploded on the ground. And in the center of it all, standing perfectly fine like the chaos had bent around him on purpose—

Him. 

Superman.

He turned to you, eyes impossibly soft for someone who could tear steel apart with his bare hands. “Are you hurt?”

You nodded dumbly. Maybe you shook your head. You don’t remember. Your voice wasn’t working.

He gave you a smile, the kind that should’ve made you feel safe. It did. But it also unsettled something deep in your chest. Almost like recognition.

He took off again in a gust of air and cape and godlike power, and you stood there shaking, your hands empty.

That night, you sat cross-legged on your couch with the local news running in the background, half-heartedly typing notes for tomorrow’s article. You watched grainy footage of Superman returning a flaming car to the street like it was a paper toy. You watched people cheering, waving, chanting his name.

You knew he was a hero. You knew he’d saved countless lives. But seeing him up close? Feeling the air shift around him, the sheer weight of him?

It rattled you.

And yet, what kept circling in your brain wasn’t just the blur of the cape or the force of the landing. It was his eyes.

The way he looked at you.

Like he knew you. Like he saw you.

And then your fingers stopped moving.

Because you’d seen that look before.

Early this week. At the Daily Planet. In the elevator, when you’d complained about the vending machine eating your dollar. 

Clark had looked at you like that.

You stared at the paused frame on your screen. Superman mid-turn, mid-expression.

You grabbed your phone, opened the gallery. A photo Jimmy had taken at Lois’s birthday last month. Clark, standing beside you with that same crooked smile. Same jawline. Same posture.

Your heart sank.

No.

You looked again. 

You zoomed in.

And all at once, every thing—every late arrival, every exclusive quote, every ‘You okay?’ after a tremor, every ‘How did he know?’—every moment fell into place like puzzle pieces you’d been too close to see. 

Clark Kent is Superman.

You sat there frozen, blinking at the screen as a sick kind of heat spread through your chest. You hate that he’s Superman.

Not because he’s dangerous. Not because he lied—though God, he did.

You hate it because you were just starting to fall for Clark. Sweet, awkward, late-to-everything Clark. Now you’re not sure where Clark ends and Superman begins.

And worst of all? You’re not sure which one of them you’re in love with.

You hate how he touches you.

You told yourself it was for the story.

That inviting Clark over to your apartment — late, after deadline, with a six-pack in the fridge and the lights dimmed just enough to feel casual — was journalistic strategy. You even made a notepad with scribbled questions, highlighted sources in your phone, and pulled up three articles from the Planet’s archive as “references.”

But deep down, you knew exactly what you were doing.

Clark knocked once. Polite. Timid. He always knocked like he didn’t want to disturb you, even when he had to enter the bullpen three minutes before a press conference with ink on his tie. You opened the door and didn’t let yourself look too long at the way his glasses slid down his nose or how the sleeves of his white button-down were rolled to his forearms.

He stepped in, soft-voiced as ever. “You said you needed help with something?”

“An article,” you said, breezy. “About Superman.”

And God, you said his name like a test.

Clark blinked. Just once. Just barely. But you caught it.

You offered him a beer. You talked. You took notes on nothing. And he sat there — not relaxed, exactly, but trying to act like he was. He always had this charming nervousness to him. But now that you knew — knew — it wasn’t nerves. It was restraint. It was a man constantly folding himself into something smaller to pass unnoticed.

You kept waiting for him to lie.

He didn’t.

So you forced his hand.

You said it like it didn’t cost you anything: “You’re Superman.”

Silence. Stillness. The longest pause you’d ever heard.

He didn’t deny it.

He didn’t laugh it off.

He just looked at you.

And it was like the air in the room shifted. Something cracked open between you. Not hostile. Not afraid. Just honest.

“You’ve known?” he asked quietly.

“I figured it out after the LexCorp thing. The way you looked at me.”

He closed his eyes. Like he was trying to protect you from something — or maybe protect himself from what he already knew was coming next.

“I never meant to lie,” he said. “Not to you.”

“But you did,” you replied. “Every day.”

And you should’ve been furious. You should’ve thrown him out. Written the article. Exposed everything. But you didn’t.

Because all you could think about was the way he looked at you in the cratered street. The way he always hovered a second longer when your hands brushed. The way he saw you — really saw you — even before you ever knew who he was.

And the way he touched you now, when he reached across the table to cover your hand with his own — gentle, grounding, warm.

You hated it.

You hated the way the contact burned up your arm and across your chest like he’d set your blood alight. You hated how steady it felt, how calm, how wanted. You hated the way it made you lean in, just slightly, like gravity was tugging you toward him.

“You’re mad,” he said.

“I should be.”

He swallowed. “Are you?”

You looked at him — really looked — and saw all of it. The weight of two lives. The softness behind the cape. The man who brought you coffee when you were hungover. The man who pulled a collapsing building off a school bus.

Clark Kent. Superman. Both. All.

And you hated that he made you feel like this. Hated the way his fingers curled around yours like he’d been waiting to do it for months. Hated that your heart was pounding so loud you were afraid he could hear it.

You stood.

He stood too.

You should’ve said something. Pulled back. Cut it off.

But when he stepped forward, eyes locked on yours — when he hesitated, like he needed your permission — and when you didn’t stop him—

His mouth met yours, and the world dropped out.

You hated the way it made you forget every single reason you were supposed to hate him. Hated the way his hands were patient, reverent, like he was memorizing the shape of you. Hated the way you melted into him like you’d done this a thousand times in another life.

You hated the sound you made when he pressed you gently against the wall. Hated the tremble in your breath when his lips found the spot just beneath your jaw. Hated how badly you wanted him — and not just the cape. Not just the secret.

Him.

Clark.

You pulled him closer.

And in that moment, you didn’t hate anything at all.

You didn’t mean for it to go this far. You meant to confront him. To unearth the truth. To hold him accountable. 

But now his hands are at your waist—warm, grounding, familiar—and he’s kissing you like he’s spent decades thinking about it. Like he’s imagined it in quiet mornings between bylines and burning buildings. Like it’s the one indulgence he never allowed himself to have.

Your fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt. “Tell me to stop,” he breathes against your skin. You don’t. Because you’ve wanted this. Hated how much you’ve wanted this.

Not just tonight. Not just since he walked through your apartment door with that bashful smile and that stupid, careful politeness like he didn’t have a goddamn clue you were about to wreck both of your lives.

No, you’ve wanted this since the second week at the Planet. And you’ve finally got it.

You fist his shirt and push him back against the wall, chest heaving, and when he looks at you with wide eyes and his lips parted, looking so vulnerable in a way that makes your throat ache, something inside of you snaps.

“You’re such a fucking liar.”

His breath stutters. “I didn’t want to—”

You cut him off with your mouth.

And that’s all it takes.

The kiss is desperate. Messy. Teeth knocking, breath uneven. His hands roam over you like he’s been starving for it, like he’s been dreaming about this for years. One palm slides up your back, the other fists in your hair, and you moan against his lips before biting down, just enough to make him groan.

You push him toward the bedroom.

He lets you.

You straddle him the second he hits the bed, pressing your helps down until you feel him twitching beneath his slacks, already hard, already straining. You grind slowly, deliberately, and his head drops back with a strangled sound.

You kiss him again, slower this time. Meaner. Like a punishment. Like retribution for every late arrival, every Superman scoop, every time he looked at you like you hung the fucking moon.

When you break away, you lean down, your mouth brushing his ear. “I hate you.”

His breath catches. His grip on your hips tightens.

“I hate how soft you pretend to be. I had that stupid fucking ‘golly gee’ act like you’re not hiding the most dangerous secret in the world. I hate that you touched me like I mattered, like you meant it.”

“God,” he breathes, almost broken. “Say it again.”

“I hate you, Kent.”

And then his hands are everywhere.

He rolls you over, yanking your shirt off so fast the fabric nearly rips. His mouth crashed to your neck, trailing heat down your collarbone, between your breasts, across your ribs. When he pulls back to look at you, there’s something primal in his gaze. Starved. Worshipful.

“Tell me where you want me,” he rasps.

You lean up on your elbows. “You’re Superman. Figure it out.”

His growl vibrates through your chest before he drops to his knees at the edge of the bed, dragging your pants down your thighs. He doesn’t stop to tease. Doesn’t play coy.

His mouth is on you in seconds.

Hot. Wet. Perfect.

You cry out, hips jerking, but his hands grip your thighs and hold you down, unmovable. His tongue flicks in tight, devastating circles, and then he flattens it. Slow and deliberate, until your eyes roll back in your head.

“Fuck—Clark—”

He moans against you, like the sound of his name falling from your lips is the only thing he’s ever wanted.

Your fingers tangle in his hair. “I hate this. I hate how good you are at this.”

He groans again, deeper, louder. You feel him rutting slightly against the mattress like he’s getting off just from tasting you.

The thought makes you whine.

It’s almost unfair how good he is at this. Like he’s memorized you.

He finds your clit again, circles it with obscene precision, and you arch off the mattress with a sharp gasp.

“You’re close,” he whispers against you. “I can feel it.”

“I’m going to kill you,” you pant.

“I’ll die happy.”

Your orgasm hits like a wave crashing through you, hot and heavy and blinding, You cry out, sharp and breathless, thighs trembling around his head. Clark doesn’t stop. He licks you through it, soft and reverent. Like he wants to savor every second.

You look down at him, wrecked and panting. “I still hate you,” you manage.

He grins, a real one this time, crooked and infuriatingly gorgeous. “Good,” he says. “Then you’ll hate this even more.”

And just like that, he’s crawling back up your body, slotting himself between your legs, the head of his clothes cock nudging against your soaked entrance.

And he’s still hard. Rock fucking hard.

You blink. “Jesus Christ.”

He pulls his pants and boxers down as his smile widens. “Not quite.”

You punch his arm. He laughs, but the sound dies quickly when he lines himself up and pushes in, slow and smooth, inch by inch. 

You both groan. You clench around him instinctively, and his jaw locks.

“You feel—fuck. Better than I dreamed.”

“You dreamed about this?”

He leans in, kisses you hard. “Every night.”

You’re still trembling from the first wave when Clark pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes dark, pupils blown wide like he;s been holding back an entire storm.

You arch up into his hands, desperate and aching. His lips descend again. This time with hungry insistence, sucking bruises into your skin—neck, collarbone, chest—a map of possession in deep, dark purples. You try to catch your breath but he pins your arms above your head with one hand, the other trailing fire down your ribs, across your stomach.

“Don’t move,” he commands, voice trembling like it’s torture holding himself back.

You whimper, and the sound sends a shudder right through him. He nips at your inner thigh, then drags his tongue over your clit again, slower, more torturous. You didn’t even notice that he pulled out. Your legs shake uncontrollably, and he groans. A ragged, desperate sound, a whimper escaping past his lips.

“Please,” you breathe, and he smiles like you just handed him the universe.

But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t slow down.

His fingers slide inside you, circling, pressing that one perfect spot that makes your back arch and your breath catch in your throat. “God,” he pants, his mouth pressing wet kisses along your hipbone.

You’re drowning in pleasure, desperate for release. But Clark pulls back suddenly, his eyes dark and gleaming. “Not yet.”

You glare at him, frustrated and needy.

“You’re going to remember this,” he promises, voice low and intense. “Every damn moment.”

His mouth covers yours again, hot and insistent, teeth grazing your bottom lip as his fingers move faster inside you. He kisses and sucks at your neck, marking you like he’s carving your name into his skin. 

Another wave crashes through you, your body shaking with the force of it. Clark doesn’t miss a beat, he keeps licking, sucking, teasing until your hips buck wildly and you're crying out his name, desperate and undone.

He hums—a deep, satisfied sound—as he pulls you into a long, slow kiss, tongue swirling around yours, possessive and needy.

“Round three,” he whispers against your lips, voice shaky but still full of hunger. “I’m not done with you.”

You shiver, heart pounding as he slides his hands under your shirt again, fingertips tracing fire trails across your ribs. He’s relentless, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re gasping, trembling under the weight of his touch. Your body still singing from the last orgasm Clark coaxed out of you. But he’s not done. Not even close.

His hands tremble as he touches you. The way he looks at you now—wide eyes, desperate, like he’s about to break—makes something wild flare inside you.

He’s not the untouchable hero tonight. He’s yours. And you own every inch of him.

His fingers shake as they ghost over your hips, then he trails a slow and reverent path back up his own body, touching himself briefly. You watch, breath hitching, as his hands work, fingertips teasing, tentative.

He looks up, eyes pleading.

You reach for him, your hands bold now, fingers wrapping around the hard length. He whimpers, a soft and needy sound, and his hips jerk forward, pressing into your grip.

You kiss him hard, biting his lower lip as you tug his jeans down just enough to free him. His skin is impossibly warm under your touch, slick with heat and desire.

Clark’s breathing is ragged, his chest rising and falling quickly. He presses himself against you, hands tangled in your hair, holding you close like he’s afraid to let go.

You take control, guiding him down until he’s lying back, breathless and vulnerable. You straddle him, sliding your heat against his ache. His hands cup your hips, trembling, and he whimpers softly as you begin to move.

“Fuck,” he groans, voice thick with need. “So good… God, you’re so good…”

His eyes squeeze shut, mouth falling open, exposing raw, desperate pleasure. He’s never been like this, the strong and invincible Superman, not when it comes to you.

He whines when you shift, when you grind, when you tease that sensitive spot that makes him arch into you, hips jerking uncontrollably. Then you sink down onto him.

“Please, don’t stop,” he begs, voice breathy and broken. 

Your hands slide over his chest, feeling the rapid thumb of his heart beneath your palms. He’s lost, undone, and it’s yours to keep. You ride him slowly, building, driving him higher, feeling every shiver and gasp as his pleasure months.

He whimpers your name over and over, voice cracked and raw. “More.” He begs, fingers clutching your hips tighter. You give it to him.

Faster now. Harder. The room fills with the sound of skin sliding, ragged breaths, and his desperate, needy whimpers. When he comes, it’s shuddering and loud—hips bucking wildly, mouth open in a ragged cry. 

You collapse against him, breathless, hearts pounding together in a thunderous rhythm. He pulls you close, lips brushing your hair, whispering your name like a prayer. And you hate that you don’t want this to end.

You hate that you love him.

You told yourself it wasn’t possible.

Not with Clark Kent—Mr. Always-Late, Mr. Aw‑Shucks, Mr. Exclusive‑Scoop Superman. The man who made you roll your eyes before you even opened his email. The man who kept secrets that could’ve rewritten your career. The man you once swore you'd never let in.

And now you’re waking up tangled in his arms, back pressed against his chest, his breath warm against your neck. He’s asleep—still shirtless, still soft beneath the weighted duvet like he’s the one who needs comfort, not the other way around. Your mind whips through all the reasons you shouldn’t feel this calm. This safe. This full.

You hate him.

You hate how he made you laugh at that stupid coffee joke you said while complaining about the crime desk. You hate how he trails kisses along your eyelids when you’re half-awake just to check if you're really real. You hate that he’s Superman—because knowing he could see the world in one blink, yet he chooses to stay here, beside you… it almost hurts.

You roll over carefully and catch his gaze.

He blinks. “Morning.” His voice is rough, like he’s just been dragged out of a dream you wish you were in too.

 You raise an eyebrow. “Morning? You know you’re not even supposed to exist before 8, right?”

He grins softly, stretching, then wraps an arm around you again. “I got a day off,” he says. “Superman’s on vacation.”

Your lips twitch. “Vacation. That’s rich.”

He chuckles into your shoulder. “So you don’t mind.”

You scoot back enough to face him. “I mind that you’re gorgeous at 7 a.m. and I can't even hate you for it.”

He quirks his mouth. “Sorry.”

“Oh no, it’s fine.” You tap the bridge of his nose with a finger. “Let the world survive without Superman for one day. Let me hate you slightly less.”

He laughs, and it’s the softest thing in the room. Your chest tightens. You’ve hated him for a lot of things—his lateness, his lies, his speed-of-light heroism—but none of it compares to the strange ache of joy when he smiles at you this way.

“We should get breakfast,” he says, voice low like he’s testing gravity. “I know this place downtown that has killer cinnamon rolls.”

You sit up. Hair messy, pajamas rumpled. You cross your arms. “I hate cinnamon rolls.”

He scowls in mock horror. “Not real humans dislike cinnamon rolls.” Then softer: “Fine. We’ll go anywhere you like.”

You narrow your eyes. “I’ve lived decades off burnt coffee and reuse foam. I don’t crave anything sweet.”

He’s thoughtful for just a beat. “Okay. Black coffee and stale bagels it is.”

A grin tugs at your lips. It’s so utterly him to tease. So… effortless. You're flooded with old habits—cynicism, sarcasm—and they feel braver than you thought.

But then his thumb brushes gently over your hand. And underneath the banter you suddenly realize how loud your heart is.

You clear your throat. “But seriously—I hate that I love you.”

He stills beside you. Heartbeat thunders under his palm.

“You know,” he says quietly, voice cracking just a little, “I hate how worried I get when you pull investigative duty alone.”

Your gut clenches. “You’ll fly here if anything happens.”

He nods. “In five seconds.”

You stare at him. Really stare. This is not Superman breathing next to you—this is Clark. Vulnerable. Human. Loving.

In that moment, all the hate evaporates.

“We’re a mess,” you laugh softly, looking away.

He brushes a strand of hair behind your ear. “Best mess I’ve ever been in.”

He kisses your temple lightly. Tender. Long. Enough that you’ve lost count of everything you should hate about him.

And you hate that this moment isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning.

taglist: @ickbite @halfwayhearted @pedriache @n4wst4r @crs6n

[ickbite]

THE MAN WHO CANT BE MOVED !!

Pairing: vampire!sunghoon x vampire!reader

Synopsis: ever since one faithful night in Vienna, Sunghoon hasn’t stopped chasing you, no matter how difficult you make it for him.

Note: someone requested this i hope i did it justice :-( — enha masterlist

Venice wore her decay like perfume. The fog swirled thick over the canals, clinging to marble and wrought iron like lace draped over a corpse.

The city groaned with history—every stone kissed by blood, every shadow filled with ghosts who spoke in tongues no one remembered. Tonight, it was dressed in gold, wrapped in the finery of a masquerade at Palazzo Ravena.

Sunghoon stood just beyond the gilded gates, half-shrouded in moonlight, fully cloaked in dread. The weight of your name sat on his tongue, bitter and heavy, like the first taste of old blood after too long without feeding.

He hadn’t seen you in seventy-three years, though he’d memorized every city you’d passed through since. You were always somewhere. Always just out of reach. Always vanishing before he could beg you not to.

Tonight, he was done chasing rumors. Tonight, you were real.

He stepped through the grand archway and let the palace swallow him whole. The scent of you struck first—rose petals crushed underfoot, blood spiced with hunger, and something colder still… something like winter.

Inside, the ballroom glittered with candlelight, shadows dancing behind silk masks and fluttering gowns. But he saw you instantly, the way a starving man finds the first drop of wine in a room full of mirrors.

You stood in the center of the ballroom like a flame that refused to go out, laughter spilling from your lips like it belonged to someone mortal. A deep red gown clung to you like sin, and your smile sliced through the crowd like a blade dressed in velvet.

You were in someone else’s arms, of course. Always were. Some youngblood, freshly turned by the look of his too-smooth skin and the way he held you like he hadn’t learned you were a forest fire in disguise.

Sunghoon could hear your voice even above the waltz—low, amused, dangerous. You always sounded like a dare. Like a promise you’d never keep.

And still, his feet moved.

He crossed the ballroom slowly, the music swelling and crashing like waves between you. No one stopped him. No one dared. He had that look in his eyes again—the one that said he’d waited centuries for this moment, and he wouldn’t be turned away.

The youngblood’s grip on your waist tightened when Sunghoon approached. Possessive. Foolish. You raised an eyebrow, and your smile widened like you were already bored.

Sunghoon stopped just beside you, hands at his sides, voice calm as ice and twice as sharp. “Leave us.”

The fledgling blinked, startled. He looked between the two of you like he didn’t understand the story he’d wandered into. “Excuse me?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Sunghoon said, eyes never leaving yours. His tone was polite enough to be dangerous.

Your lips parted in that amused little curve, the one that meant someone was about to bleed. “Now now, Hoonie,” you purred, voice wrapped in silk. “You’re going to make me blush. I told you not to chase me.”

He didn’t smile. He never did when you called him that. Not anymore. “You said you were going to Rome.”

“I lied,” you said simply, turning your head like the conversation was a game you could win without playing. “It wouldn’t be fun if you always knew where I’d be.”

He stepped closer, close enough that you would feel the press of his presence, ancient and aching. “You vanished in Seoul. Not a word. Not even blood on the sheets.”

“You always get so dramatic,” you said, but your fingers twitched against your wine glass. “I left. Like I always do.”

“And I waited,” he said, quieter now. The words tasted like iron. “Like I always do.”

You turned back to the noble beside you and tapped his chest gently, twice. Dismissive. Bored. Lethal. “Run along, darling. I’ll find you when I’m bored again.”

The young vampire faltered, lips parting in confusion—but one glance at your eyes made him think twice. He disappeared into the crowd without another word, like he was never there to begin with.

Now it was just you and him.

Always you and him.

“You’re angry,” you said, your voice suddenly softer, almost sweet. “Did you miss me that much?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sunghoon said, jaw tight. “You’re always gone before I can tell you.”

You took a slow sip of your glass and tilted your head, pretending to think. “So tell me now. Tell me what I already know.”

“I waited through wars,” he said, stepping closer still. His voice cracked like old parchment. “Through cities falling. Through centuries of silence. You always make me wait.”

“And you always do it,” you replied, shrugging one bare shoulder. “That’s what makes it beautiful.”

He looked at you like you were a knife he kept twisting into his own heart. “Don’t you ever get tired?”

“Of being wanted?” you asked. You leaned in, close enough to kiss, close enough to ruin. “No. I never get tired of that.”

“Of running,” he said. His voice was barely more than breath now, but it carved through you like a prayer in reverse.

You faltered for just a second, only one.

But then you smiled again. “I don’t run, Hoonie. I drift. Like smoke. Like old songs. Like forever.”

“Same result,” he whispered. “You still leave.”

You leaned forward and pressed your lips to his cheek. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t mercy. It was a promise you’d never intend to keep. “Then stop chasing me,” you said. “Let me be the ghost I was meant to be.”

And with that, you turned away.

Another man reached for your hand before Sunghoon could even stop you. You let the stranger guide you into another waltz, your eyes already far, far away.

Sunghoon stood alone under the chandelier, bathed in flickering gold, every line of him tense with ache. The taste of you lingered like a poison. You were always gone too soon, always just out of reach, always turning love into a wound he couldn’t let scab.

But he would follow you again. Of course he would. Because no one ever told him how to stop.

⸻

The corridor behind the ballroom was quiet—too quiet. Silk curtains swayed in the breeze from an open window, and the candlelight was low, flickering weakly like it knew something was coming. The scent of wax and old roses clung to the stone, the shadows stretching long behind every pillar. You didn’t look back, but you didn’t walk fast either.

You knew he’d follow. He always did.

The ballroom had become suffocating the moment you saw him—his voice slipped beneath your skin like a memory you thought you’d buried alive. So you slipped away, without looking back, knowing full well he’d notice. He always noticed. And he never let you go, not really.

You paused at the end of the corridor, resting one hand on the cold windowsill as Venice shimmered below you in silence. The canals were black as ink, the air thick with the perfume of damp stone and night. The city, so decadent in its decay, seemed to breathe beneath your fingertips.

And then the air shifted.

You didn’t need to turn to know it was him. The sensation of Sunghoon’s presence was always the same—quiet and crushing, like standing at the edge of a long-forgotten tomb and knowing something inside still waits for you. He didn’t speak right away. He never did. He just watched you, the way he always did, like he was trying to memorize the shape of your back in the candlelight.

“You always find me,” you said finally, your voice softer now, laced with something like regret. You turned your head just enough to show him your profile. “Even when I make it hard.”

He didn’t answer immediately. His footsteps echoed softly as he approached, each one deliberate, each one soaked in the weight of centuries. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough around the edges.

“I thought if I stayed away long enough, maybe I’d forget how you sound,” he said. “But then you laugh, and it ruins everything.”

You laughed again now, quietly, just to prove him right. “You should’ve stayed away,” you said, still not quite looking at him. “It would’ve been easier.”

“For who?” he asked, and for the first time his voice cracked. “You? You’ve never done anything the easy way.”

You turned to face him fully now. The candlelight danced across his face, catching in his eyes—those same gold-flecked eyes you’d seen through wars, plagues, empires rising and falling. He was so beautiful when he was angry. And he was always angry with you.

“I would’ve burned cities to forget you,” he said, taking a step closer. “But even ash smells like you.”

“Dramatic,” you whispered, though the words tasted like glass in your mouth.

“It’s not drama,” he said, and his voice dropped lower, like he was afraid of what he was about to admit. “It’s what you made me.”

You looked up at him then. At his mouth. At the scar on his jaw from the night you found him bleeding beneath a castle wall in 1831. At the way his hands had curled into fists even though he wasn’t planning to use them.

“I didn’t make you love me,” you said. “You did that all on your own.”

“And you fed it,” he snapped. “Every time you kissed me. Every time you bled for me. Every time you left without saying goodbye.”

You didn’t speak. There was nothing to say that would make him feel better, and nothing you could offer that wouldn’t feel like a lie.

Then he reached out—slowly, cautiously, as if you might vanish if he moved too fast. His hand found your cheek, fingers cool against your skin, and the weight of that touch sent something cracking down your spine. It wasn’t the touch of a lover. It was the touch of someone desperate to be remembered.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he whispered. “I don’t want to beg for scraps of you. I want all of you. Or nothing.”

Your breath caught.

Ultimatums were dangerous. They made things real. And you weren’t built for real. You were built for moments. For glances. For seduction that never turned into permanence. But gods, you wanted him. Maybe just for a second. Maybe just to feel something.

So you kissed him.

You leaned in slowly, brushing your lips over his like you were asking a question you didn’t want the answer to. For a moment he was still, like even he didn’t believe this was happening. And then he kissed you back with everything he was—desperate, aching, immortal.

You tasted like centuries. Like sorrow. Like red wine and smoke and something broken.

He tasted like loyalty soaked in blood. Like he’d been starving for you for a hundred years and finally let himself bite.

When you pulled away, his hands trembled at his sides. You touched his mouth with your thumb, gently smearing the blood you hadn’t meant to draw. You didn’t apologize.

“You shouldn’t let me kiss you when I don’t mean to stay,” you murmured.

His fingers caught your wrist before it dropped. He held it with reverence, like it was the only proof he had that this was real. “Then make it mean something,” he said. “Just once.”

You didn’t answer.

You slid your wrist from his hand, soft and slow, like silk being pulled from a wound. Then you stepped back into the shadows and disappeared, the way you always did. The way he always knew you would.

He didn’t move.

He never did.

Because even now, he knew he’d follow you tomorrow.

And the day after that.

And the century after that.

⸻

You were gone again.

Slipped through the cracks of his life like silk through desperate fingers, like perfume left behind on an empty pillow.

The old manor echoed with nothing but his quiet footsteps now, and you knew he’d search every shadow for a trace of you.

That was part of the cruelty you fed on—not the leaving, but the knowing he’d follow.

You didn’t vanish because you were afraid.

You vanished because it was in your blood to haunt.

And Sunghoon—sweet, soft-hearted Sunghoon—was the only one who ever tried to keep up.

He didn’t ask where you went.

He already knew the answer would taste like wine and salt and lies.

Vienna.

Barcelona.

Somewhere decadent and aching with old secrets, somewhere your kind still passed for human.

You liked cities that hurt to love—just like you.

And he followed.

Always.

His love for you was not gentle.

It was a hunger—a devotion so deep it bordered on ritual.

You felt him long before you saw him again.

London this time.

A city foggy with ghosts and gaslight, the kind of place where your heels echoed like a warning.

You liked it here.

It reminded you of your worst selves.

You sat in a jazz bar beneath a stone bridge, velvet beneath your legs and the sound of music curling like smoke around your shoulders.

There was a man across from you.

He smiled too easily, talked too loud, and touched your wrist as if it belonged to him.

You let him.

You were good at pretending.

But the moment you felt him outside—the moment his presence bloomed in your chest like a sickness—you stopped listening.

Your heart betrayed you before your face did.

It always did when it came to him.

He waited across the street for longer than he needed to. You watched him through the fogged glass, leaning in shadow like something from a war story, drenched in the kind of patience you never earned.

You didn’t wave.

You didn’t smile.

But you let him see you.

And that was enough.

⸻

When he finally stepped inside, your breath didn’t hitch.

You were too practiced for that.

You simply tilted your head, as if to say, Took you long enough.

He didn’t say your name.

He never did.

There was no need.

“You look tired,” you said coolly, dragging your nail along the rim of your wine glass.

The drink was expensive.

You didn’t taste it.

“Maybe I’m tired of chasing you,” he replied, and the weight of it slid between your ribs like a dagger wrapped in velvet.

You didn’t flinch.

You leaned into the sting.

“That’s a lie,” you said, smiling like sin.

“And you know it.”

He sat beside you, the stranger at your table vanishing into the background like they always did. No one could compete with the gravity the two of you pulled between your bones.

It was ugly and it was beautiful.

The singer on stage crooned something about loneliness, and the whole bar exhaled like it understood.

You didn’t.

You were never lonely, not when he was looking at you like this.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” you asked him, voice low and curious, like the question hadn’t burned on your tongue for years.

“Is it devotion or is it madness?”

His eyes held yours; unblinking, unforgiving.

“Because you’re mine,” he whispered.

And there it was again.

The spell you’d cast over him lifetimes ago, still blooming in his throat like a curse.

You turned toward him fully then, chin lifted, lashes heavy.

“You poor thing,” you said, voice dripping with affection you didn’t know how to name.

“If I’m yours, why do I keep running?”

He leaned in close.

So close your lips could’ve touched if you breathed a little deeper, so close you almost let yourself forget how this always ended.

“Because part of you wants me to catch you.”

That was the most dangerous thing he’d ever said.

Because maybe, just maybe, it was true. You didn’t move away and that, perhaps, was the greatest cruelty of all.

Because the bar would close and the lights would dim.

The singer would stop bleeding her heart into the microphone and when he turned to take your hand you were already gone.

⸻

You found him in a town that didn’t exist on maps anymore.

The sign had rotted, and the roads had cracked, but you could smell him in the air like ash clinging to old velvet.

It had been a century since the chapel.

A hundred years of crumbling cathedrals, broken mirrors, and pretending the moon didn’t call your name with his voice.

You had kissed strangers who didn’t kiss back, you had danced alone in crowded rooms, you had flirted with fire, with danger, with death—but none of it touched you the way he did.

You told yourself you had moved on.

You even laughed sometimes when people whispered his name in the shadows.

But time is not a cure for vampires, it’s just a longer way to suffer.

You found him in a manor that leaned like it was tired of standing. Its windows were shattered, its vines grew like veins. It was beautiful in the way abandoned things always are.

The door groaned when you pushed it open, and the scent of him hit you like a fist. Blood, books, and that god-awful cologne he wore in Vienna.

He had never changed.

Even now.

Your heels echoed on the marble floor. Your fingers brushed dust from the railing like you were touching a relic.

Then you saw him.

He was sitting in a chair by a fireplace that hadn’t been lit in years.

His hair was longer now, his frame thinner, but it was still him.

Still Sunghoon.

You didn’t say his name right away, you only watched him. He didn’t flinch when you stepped closer.

He just looked up, like he’d known this moment was coming since the last one ended.

“Didn’t think you’d come,” he said, voice rough like it hadn’t been used in decades.

You shrugged softly, but your throat burned.

“I always come back,” you whispered.

“Even if I don’t want to.” He smiled, and it was ruined and soft and perfect.

Like a poem left out in the rain, you walked toward him slowly. Every step felt heavier than the last.

Not because you were afraid but because love still lived in your bones like a sickness.

“I went everywhere you weren’t,” you said.

“I tried to forget you.”

He looked up at you fully now, eyes the same shade of sorrow you remembered.

“I never tried to forget you,” he said.

“That was the difference.”

You swallowed, even though you didn’t need to.

Your heart didn’t beat, but your chest ached. You knelt in front of him, pressing your forehead to his knees. The silence between you was louder than thunder

“I’m tired,” you whispered.

He didn’t ask what you meant.

He knew.

You were tired of games of eternity, of pretending the blood you drank didn’t taste like guilt.

“I chased you for a century,” he said, voice shaking.

“I don’t know who I am without the ache of wanting you.”

You looked up at him then, and your eyes burned like the first sunrise you ever saw. Maybe this was what dying felt like; If love could die.

“You still want me?” you asked.

He reached down, touched your cheek like you were something holy, “I want you more now than I did the day I first saw you.

I want every version of you—even the one that runs.”

You didn’t run this time. You leaned forward and kissed him, slow and deep and devastating. It wasn’t lust, it wasn’t hunger, it was grief dressed up as devotion.

When you pulled away, you rested your head on his chest.

You couldn’t hear a heartbeat, but you swore you felt one. Maybe it was yours, maybe it was his, maybe it was the ghost of what you could’ve been.

“I don’t want forever,” you said softly.

“I don’t care,” he replied.

“I only want you.”

You closed your eyes.

The wind outside howled like it was mourning something.

The manor creaked like it was exhaling its last breath.

But inside—inside you were whole for the first time in centuries.

You whispered, “Then let’s end this together.”

And in the dark, you sank your fangs into him, and he let you.

Not because he wanted to die—

But because he wanted to belong to you.

For the first time.

For the last time.

Forever.

[ickbite]

OMFG you’re my new addiction I’m obsessed with your work pls tell me there’s more parts to the dc Jake x oc 😭 I love their dynamic sm it’s like sunshin x grumpy and also kind of forbidden love but not really and it’s like so hot and I want more of them so bad 😩

I lovee writing it but i also hate … I’m so bad at writing superheroes LMAOO if the first one gets 1k likes I’ll drop a part 3 :3

[ickbite]

As someone who has spent the last week violently obsessed with DC and that loves enhypen, I love you

Heres a surprise just for u then 😉 -> click here!!

[ickbite]

YOU ARE THE ONLY EXCEPTION!!

part 1 -> part 2

pairing: supermanson!jake x batmandaughter!Reader

synopsis: despite being the daughter of a top tier sleuth, Batman, you weren’t the best at hiding your new situationship with Supermans son.

note: do u guys even read these :/ — enha masterlist

The Watchtower training deck was technically closed, the last system shutdown logged at 0200. But you stood barefoot on the mat anyway, gloved hands tightening the strap on your sparring gear. The shadows made you feel calmer. You weren’t in uniform, neither was he.

Jake was behind you before you sensed him, leaning in with that annoyingly casual heat of his.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he murmured, voice lower than usual, like a secret he wanted to keep in your ear.

You didn’t flinch, even as your skin prickled. “Didn’t feel like it.”

Jake stepped around you, all golden skin and lazy muscle in a worn black tee and training pants that hung low on his hips. “What a coincidence,” he said, grinning, “I’m not really feeling it either.”

You exhaled sharply, walking past him to the center of the mat. “You here to fight?”

He tilted his head. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

The look you gave him was unreadable. But it lasted a second too long. Neither of you said what was already understood. You’d kissed him the first time after a mission in Metropolis that went wrong. He’d kissed you the second time in your quarters, post-spar, sweat still dripping down his neck. It wasn’t dating, it wasn’t nothing.

There were no rules, only late-night visits, and silence before and after.

“Come on, Y/N,” he said, stretching lazily, “one round.”

“You never win,” you replied, circling him.

Jake’s eyes dropped briefly to your mouth. “Yeah, but I always enjoy losing to you.”

You lunged, he dodged, your forearm hooked his shoulder and in a flash, he swept your ankle, sending you rolling. You countered and locked him at the waist, he twisted. You landed on top of him and hovered there, breath shallow.

His hands found your thighs, anchoring you in place without shame. “You’re getting predictable.”

“You’re getting cocky,” you shot back.

His voice dropped as his grip tightened slightly. “That’s not all I’m getting.”

You didn’t move.

Your faces were close—too close for this to be about sparring anymore. You hated how he made this look effortless, like this didn’t crack something open inside you every time it happened.

You leaned in, your voice a whisper. “We’re not doing this again.”

Jake just smirked, eyes dark with want. “Then stop.”

He kissed you first. It wasn’t careful. It never was. It was teeth and heat, his fingers sliding under the hem of your shirt, yours tangled in his hair. Your body knew the rhythm before your mind caught up. You let it happen… again.

Because you never stopped him and he never stopped you. Minutes later, your bodies collapsed on the mat, tangled and flushed. The overhead lights hummed quietly above you, the only witness to your fling. He was quiet beside you, but his fingers brushed your knuckles.

You didn’t look at him. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

Jake’s breath was steady. “Right, just having fun.”

You hated how empty the words sounded when you said them out loud. But neither of you corrected the lie.

———

The warehouse was crawling with mercs.

You’d swept the perimeter, clearing the side entrances with minimal force, silent as death. Jake had gone high — through the rafters, golden glow dimmed to almost nothing, like a dying sun in stealth mode. You could hear the voices of the men below. They were armed. Nervous. Ready to kill.

You pressed a finger to your earpiece. “North end’s clear. I’ve got eyes on the hostages.”

“Copy,” Jake’s voice crackled in, low and steady. “Disarm the guard near the crates. I’ll take the ones by the van.”

His voice had that calm confidence, that smooth purr that used to irritate you. Now it just made your stomach twist.

You moved in, fast and quiet. One guard — a big guy with a scar across his jaw — barely had time to turn before your boot hit his chest and sent him crashing backward. He hit the crates with a satisfying crack and slumped.

A flash of golden light lit up the far end of the warehouse. You turned just in time to see Solaris punch through the side of a van, then grab the driver by the collar and slam him into the pavement like it was a pillow fight.

Always the dramatic one.

“Showoff,” you muttered, dodging bullets as another wave of mercs emerged from the shadows.

“Jealous?” Jake said through the comms, his voice breathless with adrenaline.

You scowled, ducking behind cover. “Of your complete disregard for subtlety? Yeah, I’m dying of envy.”

“Thought you liked it when I was rough.”

Your heart did a stupid flip. You grit your teeth and fired back, “Not the time, Solaris.”

But he was already beside you a second later, glowing and grinning like this was all foreplay. He threw a punch that knocked a guy out cold, then turned to you with that maddening glint in his eye.

You shoved him. “Focus.”

“I am focused.”

“On me, apparently.”

His mouth twitched. “Can you blame me?”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. Not when your blood was still hot from the fight, and your fingers were itching to reach for him the same way they had last night — desperate, silent, trembling.

The last merc fell with a groan. The hostages were safe, your mission complete. The warehouse was quiet again, except for the sound of your own breathing and Jake’s, not quite close enough to touch.

He looked at you then. Really looked.

“You alright?” he asked, voice softer.

You nodded. “Yeah. You?”

He stepped forward. His fingers brushed your wrist. The gesture was small, barely noticeable, but it made your breath catch.

“I hate seeing you in danger,” he said.

You stared at him, confused. “You’ve seen me fight a hundred times.”

“I know.” He paused. “I still hate it.”

You blinked. That… wasn’t part of the arrangement.

You said no feelings,” you reminded him.

“I didn’t say I’d follow the rules.”

Silence stretched between you. Heavy. Electric.

And then you were pulling him toward you, or maybe he was pulling you — it didn’t matter. His lips met yours again, hard and aching, like he needed to prove something with his mouth. Maybe that he wasn’t lying. Maybe that he didn’t know how to stop.

You kissed him like you were angry about it, like you were angry at yourself.

And when you finally pulled apart, you didn’t say anything because admitting what this was would make it real.

⸻

You walked into the kitchen like nothing was wrong. Your hair was still slightly damp, hoodie zipped to your collarbones, and your steps were a little too careful to be casual.

Jay glanced up from the stove, spatula in hand and suspicion already brewing behind his eyes. He looked you up and down once, eyes narrowing the way they always did when he smelled a secret.

“You’re up late,” he said, flipping the eggs but never breaking eye contact. His tone was neutral, but his brother senses were fully activated.

You shrugged and reached into the cupboard for a glass, trying to act like your neck wasn’t covered in faint red marks. “Didn’t sleep well,” you replied, voice scratchy. “I tossed around a lot.”

Niki was already at the table, hood up, hunched over a bowl of cereal that had turned into paste. He squinted at you, his mouth hanging open mid-bite. “That’s not your hoodie.”

You froze for half a second before scoffing. “Okay, Sherlock.”

Jay turned slightly, brows lifted. “He’s not wrong.”

You didn’t look at either of them, instead pouring water with a little too much focus. “Maybe it’s mine. Ever think of that?”

Niki leaned back in his chair with a dramatic stretch. “Nah. Yours don’t hang like that. That one’s too long in the sleeves.”

Jay crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. He was smiling, but not the kind that made you feel safe. “So… whose is it?”

“It’s just a hoodie,” you replied, gripping the glass. “You’re both so dramatic.”

Niki nodded, as if your over-defensiveness confirmed something. “You didn’t come home last night.”

You blinked, careful not to make it a flinch. “I did. You were asleep.”

Jay wasn’t buying it. “No, I wasn’t. I stayed up working on recon reports, and your door didn’t open once.”

You swore silently and leaned back against the sink, feigning a casual posture. “I was with someone. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Someone?” Jay echoed, clearly fighting a smirk. “Like a guy someone?”

You blinked innocently. “Could be.”

Niki’s eyes lit up like he was watching the first five minutes of a soap opera. “Are you seeing someone?!”

You groaned and rolled your eyes, refusing to give them that satisfaction. “God, you guys are like bloodhounds.”

Jay didn’t move, but he was very much still assessing. “So, who is it?”

“I’m not telling you,” you said firmly, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl and biting into it like punctuation. “Because you’ll do the brother thing. And I’m not in the mood.”

“We don’t always do the brother thing,” Niki said defensively. “Sometimes we chill.”

“You once Googled the name of a guy I liked and found his uncle’s criminal record,” you said flatly.

Jay grinned, unbothered. “It was public info.”

“Anyway,” you said, waving a hand. “This isn’t serious.”

“Okay,” Jay said, still watching you. “But if you’re sneaking around, we’re allowed to be a little curious.”

“Curious is fine,” you muttered. “Interrogation is not.”

You moved to leave, hoping the awkward heat on your cheeks would fade if you escaped fast enough. But of course, Niki had one last thing to add.

“You are glowing, though,” he said, sipping the last of his cereal milk. “Like post-makeout glow. Just saying.”

You flipped him off and walked away with your apple, ignoring the smirk you could practically feel on Jay’s face.

The second your bedroom door clicked shut, your shoulders sagged with relief. Your phone buzzed before you even made it to the bed.

Jake

Survive the inquisition?

You snorted under your breath and collapsed onto your mattress, thumbing out a reply as you bit into your apple again.

You

Barely. I think Niki suspects I’m dating aqualad or something

Jake

I mean, Solaris is basically hotter aqualad with a better tan. Think about it….

You

He said I was glowing.

Jake

You were. Multiple times, if I remember correctly.

You choked on your own spit and smacked a pillow over your face to hide your grin. Jake had a gift for being infuriatingly cocky, and unfortunately, it worked on you.

You

They can never know it’s you. They’ll kill you.

Jake

Let them try. I’d die with my face between your thighs.

You stared at your phone, half-shocked and half-turned on, biting your lip so hard it stung. God, he was reckless. And God, you liked it.

You

You’re the worst. Come over tonight?

Jake

What time do you want me?

You

That’s a loaded question.

Jake

And I’m loaded with answers.

You laughed so hard you had to bury your face in the pillow again. If your brothers ever found out who Solaris really was… well, Jake might not actually survive. But damn, he’d die smiling.

⸻

You left the door unlocked on purpose.

It wasn’t like you wanted to look eager. But the truth was, ever since the texts stopped around nine, you’d been hyper-aware of every creak in the hallway, every car door that slammed outside, every passing shadow.

By eleven, your heart was a small, traitorous drum in your chest. You didn’t know why tonight felt different. Maybe because Jay had been unusually quiet at dinner. Maybe because Niki kept looking at your phone screen like he could read it from across the table.

You were curled up on your bed in nothing but a big shirt and thigh-high socks, a sad excuse of “not trying” even though your lip gloss was freshly applied and your legs were shaved down to the skin.

Then you heard it.

A knock. Two soft taps against the doorframe — not your front door. Your bedroom.

Your breath caught before you even turned.

Jake stood there, golden in the low hallway light. He hadn’t even stepped inside yet, and already the air shifted, tighter, hotter, like your room was holding its breath too.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at you like you were the answer to a question he hadn’t meant to ask out loud.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said softly, voice edged with tension, like he was mad at himself for coming. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

You swallowed hard and sat up straighter, your fingers tightening around your blanket. “You always say that. Then you show up anyway.”

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, quiet, careful — but not slow. “That’s because I always mean it.”

Your chest ached. There was something heavy in the way he looked at you tonight, something raw, like he was balancing on the edge of restraint and barely holding on.

“I heard your voice in my head,” he said, now close enough that your knees almost brushed. “And then I couldn’t hear anything else.”

Your lips parted, a breath escaping before you could catch it. “You’re dangerous.”

Jake’s eyes flicked to your mouth and stayed there. “And you keep leaving the door open.”

You were the one who reached for him. You didn’t even think — just curled your fingers in the front of his jacket and pulled him forward until his forehead met yours and his breath warmed your lips.

“We’re playing with fire,” you whispered.

Jake’s hand came up to cradle your jaw, his thumb brushing along your cheekbone with aching slowness. “Fire never bothered me”

He kissed you like you were the only safe thing in the world and the only thing worth destroying. Your hands found his collar, his hair, anything to hold onto as he pushed you gently back onto the bed.

The sheets twisted under you. The air filled with the quiet slide of fabric, the low catch of breath, the sound of your name breaking under his tongue like a prayer.

Every touch was familiar, but desperate. Like he didn’t know when he’d see you again. Like this could be the last time, and he didn’t want to waste a second.

“You’re not staying the night,” you said breathlessly, even as you pulled him closer.

Jake’s laugh was soft and hoarse against your throat. “You’re the one who asked me to come.”

“Doesn’t mean you get to sleep over.”

“You always say that,” he whispered, lips brushing your jaw, your ear, the soft place beneath it. “And then you fall asleep with my hand between your thighs.”

You hit him with a pillow, but he caught your wrist and kissed the inside of it, lingering there just long enough to make your stomach twist.

And just like that, you were back in that dangerous rhythm — one where the rules blurred, and you couldn’t remember who crossed the line first. But you’d remember tomorrow, you always did.

You woke up in someone else’s shirt, and for once, you didn’t bother pretending it wasn’t a mistake.

The fabric smelled like ozone and heat, like city wind and cologne that clung a little too long to your skin. You sat up slowly, blinking at the light pooling through your blinds, feeling the faint sting of a bruise beneath your collarbone and the raw pull of something deeper under your ribs.

Jake was already gone. He always was.

He never stayed, not longer than a blink, not longer than the warm trace of a hand slipping from your jaw just before the window creaked open.

You hated that you were starting to get used to it.

Padding down the hall in that hoodie — too big, too warm, too obviously not yours — you tried not to limp. But the ache in your thigh betrayed you anyway, a silent pulse of reminder that last night hadn’t just been heat and kisses and hands tangled in hair.

The manor was almost unnervingly quiet. That kind of quiet only rich, haunted places knew — velvet-thick and expectant.

You entered the kitchen and immediately regretted it.

Jay was already there.

He was leaning against the island, sipping something from a matte black mug, wearing sweatpants and suspicion like a second skin. His hair was damp, curling a little at the ends, and his eyes snapped to you the second your foot hit the tile.

He didn’t say anything right away. Just took in the hoodie, the half-laced boots, the faint tremor in your stance, and then raised a single brow.

“You look like hell,” he said eventually, voice sharp around the edges of sleep. “Or like someone who had a really interesting night.”

You rolled your eyes but didn’t offer a comeback. Your throat was dry, your knee was aching, and your patience for Jay’s overprotective big brother act was already wearing thin.

“I’m just getting water,” you muttered, crossing to the sink.

Jay didn’t stop watching you. His gaze followed every step, calculating, familiar in that way that made your skin crawl.

“You sleep in someone else’s bed,” he said after a pause, “or did you just forget where yours is?”

The cup in your hand trembled slightly as it touched the faucet. You kept your back to him, lips set in a line. The air in the kitchen had shifted — heavier now, coiled like a spring.

“I’m not doing this with you, Jay,” you said, your voice quiet but firm. “Not today.”

Jay moved from the counter, mug still in hand. His steps were casual, but the tension rolling off of him was not. He came to stand a few feet from you, far enough for safety, close enough to corner.

“Someone flew in from the roof again last night,” he said, tone low and clipped. “You really think I don’t notice that?”

You swallowed the burn in your throat and turned slowly, clutching the glass to your chest like it might shield you.

“I needed air.”

Jay scoffed. “You needed air so badly you let a walking solar flare sneak into your bedroom?”

He didn’t say Jake’s name. Of course he didn’t. Jake hadn’t given them one.

“He’s not what you think,” you said after a long silence. Your fingers clenched tighter around the glass.

Jay gave you a look — skeptical, infuriating, almost pitying. “No? Then what is he?”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

Jay’s voice dropped, quiet but razor-sharp. “Because to the rest of us, he’s an unstable, masked, unidentified flier with no known allegiances and a flair for dramatics. To Bruce, he’s a security threat. To me, he’s someone who keeps ending up on your radar — and in your room.”

Your hands were shaking now. You set the glass down before it could slip and shatter across the marble.

“He’s not dangerous.”

Jay’s mouth twisted. “Says the girl walking like she got dropped off a rooftop.”

You turned away again, this time to pace, to breathe, to pretend the burn in your throat was just from swallowing too fast. “You’re blowing this out of proportion.”

“I’m not,” Jay snapped, suddenly louder, sharper. “You think I don’t know the signs? I’m not an idiot. He’s not just flying around Gotham for sightseeing. He’s here for you, and you’re letting him in.”

You looked at him then — really looked — and saw more than just anger in his face. There was fear too. And maybe even guilt.

“I’m not a kid,” you said, voice hoarse. “You don’t have to protect me like one.”

“I’m your brother,” he bit back. “It’s literally my job.”

The weight of those words settled between you like concrete. And just as you were about to retort, another set of footsteps approached.

Measured. Heavy. Familiar.

Your dad.

You froze.

Jay turned just slightly, eyes flicking to the doorway.

Bruce Wayne entered the kitchen with a tablet in one hand and a look that could disarm a bomb. His suit jacket was off. His sleeves were rolled. His stare was already zeroed in on you.

“You’re limping.”

Three words. No warmth. Just observation, like always.

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Tried again.

“It’s nothing,” you said. “I tripped.”

Bruce looked up from his tablet slowly. “Where?”

Your jaw locked. “Outside.”

Jay didn’t say a word. But you felt his stare burning a hole into the back of your head.

Bruce walked to the counter, set the tablet down, and leaned against the marble like he already knew the next five minutes would be uncomfortable.

“Are you seeing him again?” he asked, voice flat.

Your chest constricted.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

His tone didn’t change. But it didn’t have to. Bruce had perfected the art of disappointment without volume.

You looked down at your boots. “It’s not what you think.”

Bruce stepped closer.

“He was spotted within two miles of the manor three nights in a row. He’s not subtle. He’s not cleared. And he’s definitely not family.”

You didn’t speak— you couldn’t. Because if you opened your mouth, you were going to say something you’d regret.

Bruce’s next words were cold steel. “Cave. Now.”

He didn’t wait for you to follow. He didn’t need to. The silence he left behind in the kitchen was suffocating.

Jay waited until your dad’s footsteps faded down the hall.

Then he looked at you. And this time, he wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t scolding.

He was just… scared for you.

“You better figure out if he’s worth all of this,” he said softly. “Because once Bruce knows, there’s no going back.”

———

The Batcave’s stillness felt like judgment. The hum of the Batcomputer was the only thing breaking the silence, casting shifting shadows across the stone walls and making your spine straighten beneath the scrutiny of your father—both as Batman and Bruce Wayne.

He didn’t look at you right away, his back turned as he brought up the surveillance feed from your last mission. The footage played in sharp resolution, but you barely registered it. You were watching him instead—waiting for the moment he’d speak and knowing it would cut.

“I paired you with Solaris to teach you how to work with others,” Bruce said at last, voice low and deliberate. He turned toward you slowly, the cowl removed, but his expression no less severe. “I didn’t mean this.”

His words dropped like cold steel between you.

You didn’t flinch, but you felt something lodge behind your ribs, twisting tight. “You told me to trust a partner. I did.”

He stepped closer, jaw tight, gaze burning through you. “You let your guard down. With him.”

“I didn’t let my guard down,” you shot back, standing your ground though your pulse thundered in your ears. “I let him in. There’s a difference.”

Bruce’s silence was more pointed than a shout. His hands flexed at his sides, the cape brushing the floor behind him as he turned away to gather his thoughts, or his temper.

“Kal-El’s son,” he muttered under his breath, as if saying it aloud would make it make sense. “Do you understand what that means? What he’s capable of?”

“I do,” you said, voice steady despite the burn in your throat. “But he’s not trying to be a god, he’s just trying to be… good.”

Bruce exhaled sharply, not quite a laugh, not quite a scoff. “Intentions don’t matter when you have that kind of power. A single mistake and people die.”

Your chest tightened. “He hasn’t made that mistake. He’s saved lives—mine included.”

There was a pause, and then Bruce turned back toward you, his voice softer but no less serious. “You’re my daughter. I’ve trained you to see threats before they announce themselves. You don’t get to forget that just because he smiles at you differently.”

You held his stare, refusing to let yourself shrink beneath it. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have taught me to think for myself if you didn’t want me to make choices you don’t agree with.”

He didn’t respond right away. His jaw clenched, and something unreadable passed behind his eyes—part worry, part guilt, all father.

“I won’t tell you who to be with,” he said at last. “But don’t mistake silence for approval.”

“I wasn’t asking for approval,” you said quietly. “Just understanding.”

Bruce turned away again, this time facing the computer. “Then understand this: If he ever hurts you—intentionally or not—I will end him. Kryptonian or not.”

You didn’t say anything. You couldn’t.

The warning hung in the air like smoke, and somewhere deep in the cave, a ripple of sound echoed like the distant flapping of wings.

Because no matter how far you ran or who you let touch your heart, you would always be the Bat’s child.

And he had just reminded you of exactly what that meant.

———

The bar your friend Wonyoung picked was sleek and dim, the kind of place with warm gold lighting and velvet booths, somewhere people went to be seen—if not recognized. You sat across from her, swirling your mocktail half-heartedly, your knee bouncing beneath the table like your body didn’t know how to relax even when you weren’t wearing kevlar.

“Okay, you’ve officially stared a hole through the menu,” Wonyoung said with a teasing smile, leaning over to nudge your hand. “You good? Or is Gotham’s nightlife too much for even you?”

You blinked, forcing yourself to look up and smile, though the motion felt stiff and artificial. “I’m good. Just… tired, I guess. It’s been a week.”

“That’s why I dragged you out,” she said, twirling the straw in her drink. “You’re always disappearing. You need to, like, talk to boys. Have a little danger—but the fun kind. Not your usual brooding type.”

You gave a quiet laugh under your breath, wondering what she’d say if she knew your “usual type” wore a cape, punched terrorists, and showed up uninvited on your rooftop at 3 a.m. Still, you said, “I think I’ve had enough danger for a while.”

“You’re twenty-two, not forty,” Wonyoung sighed dramatically. “I swear, you’re like a retired war general in a backless dress.”

“I didn’t pick the dress,” you reminded her, glancing down at the black slip she’d shoved into your arms before dragging you out. It was silk and scandalous and did nothing to protect your identity or your peace of mind.

Wonyoung waved you off. “It’s doing what it needs to do. Now—look around. You’re hot. The world is full of options.”

You didn’t bother looking. You knew exactly what kind of people filled places like this. Rich kids, corrupt heirs, masked criminals pretending not to be.

But then the back of your neck tingled, in that same precise way it did on rooftops just before something stupid happened.

You turned your head.

And there he was.

Jake.

Not Solaris. Not in armor or goggles or bleeding in your arms. Just Jake. A black button-up rolled to his elbows, a silver chain around his neck, and that maddening, slow grin that made him look like he owned every shadow in the room.

He leaned against the bar like it owed him something, the neon lighting behind him tracing his jaw in quiet reverence. He hadn’t seen you yet—but it didn’t matter. You felt the ground shift anyway.

Wonyoung followed your gaze. “Oh, damn. Who is that?”

You swallowed hard and looked away, the motion too fast to be casual. “Nobody. Just… someone I know.”

Wonyoung raised an eyebrow and sipped her drink. “are you sure you don’t know him?”

“Yes,” you muttered, lying badly. You kept your eyes on your glass, your heart thudding too hard for someone who’d just taken a vow of chill.

She grinned, catching the way your ears turned pink. “You should talk to him.”

“No,” you said instantly. “He’s… not my type.”

“Really? Because he looks exactly like the type you pretend not to have.”

You couldn’t argue. Not when you suddenly felt his presence before you saw it—his silhouette drifting into your peripheral vision like a storm cloud moving across the moon.

“Hey,” Jake’s voice was soft, almost amused. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Your eyes flicked up, and there he was. Up close, he was worse. Warm skin, unfair lips, and a glint in his eye that said he remembered everything. Every scrape, every breathless stare, every moment you pretended didn’t count.

“I could say the same,” you said, voice even. But your grip on your glass tightened.

Jake didn’t look at Wonyoung. He was focused on you—only you. “Didn’t peg you for this scene.”

“You don’t know what kind of scenes I like,” you replied, lips curving faintly.

His gaze dropped to your mouth for a second too long. “I could guess.”

Wonyoung coughed into her drink, eyes bouncing between the two of you. “Hi. I’m still here.”

Jake smiled politely at her but didn’t introduce himself. His attention slid back to you like you were the only person in the world.

“I’ll go get another round,” Wonyoung said, standing abruptly. “You two… catch up. Or whatever it is you’re doing.”

You shot her a look, but she was already gone, floating toward the bar like the wingwoman she absolutely thought she was.

Jake slipped into the seat across from you, forearms resting on the table, heat radiating off him like a low-burning fire.

“I’m off-duty,” you said flatly, not sure what game he was playing.

“Me too,” he replied. “Thought I’d get a drink. Maybe talk to a pretty girl I know.”

You tried to hold onto the usual irritation, but it was thinner now, more brittle. Because there was something dangerous in the air tonight. Not the rooftop kind. Not gunfire or sirens. But tension. Heavy and slow, curling under your skin like smoke.

“Why here?” you asked. “Why now?”

Jake leaned in slightly. His voice dropped, warm and velvet smooth. “Maybe I like seeing you without the mask.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t—not with how loud your heart was beating. Somewhere behind you, Wonyoung was flirting with a bartender.

And here, in this golden-lit booth, the world narrowed to two people who shouldn’t be this close—out of uniform, out of excuses.

Jake tilted his head, eyes scanning your face like he wanted to memorize it. “Tell me to leave.”

You didn’t — you couldn’t and he smiled like he knew that.

———

You weren’t supposed to care.

You weren’t supposed to be watching, hidden in the shadowed rafters of the Gotham clock tower, eyes pinned on the two figures in the training ring below. But there you were — crouched above like a gargoyle, heartbeat too loud in your ears, watching him.

Jake moved with a kind of casual power, like he wasn’t even trying. His dark shirt clung to him with every sharp motion, and that same damn smirk played on his lips every time Jay went in for a strike and missed by an inch.

“Not bad,” Jake said, breath even despite the workout. “For someone who doesn’t fly.”

Jay snorted, throwing his escrima sticks aside. “I don’t need wings to land a hit.”

“You sure about that?”

They kept circling each other, a strange rhythm building between them. A quiet understanding. It twisted something inside you. That was supposed to be your spot. You were the one who knew Jake’s timing down to the breath. You were the one who knew where he’d dodge before even he did.

But now, you were on the sidelines. And you hated it.

You didn’t know if it was because of what happened the last time you and Jake patrolled together — that kiss in the alleyway after a fight, the one that turned into hands under suits and a night tangled in silence — or if it was just Bruce pulling strings again. Either way, you’d been benched.

And Batman didn’t offer explanations.

The doors below creaked open. You stiffened as the man himself stepped in — cape dragging like storm clouds, mouth set in a straight line.

“Good,” Batman said, eyes flicking between Jay and Jake. “You two are syncing up faster than expected.”

Jake wiped sweat off his brow, shrugging. “I follow the lead.”

Jay tossed him a towel. “We make it work.”

Batman gave a nod, but his gaze shifted — just for a second — toward the upper ledge where you crouched in silence. You weren’t sure if he saw you. Probably did. He always did.

“Nightwing,” Batman said. “Solaris. I’m assigning you both the East End for tonight’s patrol. That territory’s unstable, and I want to see how you operate as a unit.”

You flinched.

Jay glanced up, brow furrowed. “What about Y/N?”

Batman’s jaw tightened. “She’ll be covering ground solo tonight.”

There was a beat of silence. Jake’s head tilted slightly, like he didn’t like that answer either — but he said nothing. Not in front of Bruce. Not when every movement in this cave echoed with judgment.

Your chest felt tight. Like something had been taken without warning. Like someone had chosen for you.

As the two boys started moving toward the lockers, Jake’s eyes drifted up. Just for a split second. Just enough to see you perched in the dark. You didn’t move.

But his gaze lingered. And his mouth twitched — just barely — like he remembered too much.

Jay didn’t notice.

Batman was already halfway gone.

And you? You stayed still, swallowed by shadow, watching your partner walk away with someone else.

———

Jake peeled off his gloves, fingers sore but steady, mind somewhere else entirely.

The sparring had been fine — good, even. Jay fought like someone who had spent his entire life under pressure, every move calculated, every step tight. Jake respected that. He respected him. But none of it settled the quiet buzz in the back of his skull, the one that always seemed to flare up when she was nearby.

He had seen her.

Just for a moment — above them, draped in shadow like she belonged there. Watching. Silent. Dangerous. Beautiful.

Jake dragged a towel across his neck and tossed it aside. He didn’t say anything.

Jay’s voice broke the silence. “She’s pissed.”

Jake blinked. “Yeah.”

Jay sat down on the bench across from him, stretching his arms back. “You know, she hasn’t said it, but I can feel it. Bruce didn’t loop her in until after the assignment. That’s not how we do things.”

Jake’s mouth twisted into something like a frown. “I figured.”

Jay eyed him. “Did something happen?”

Jake looked away, pretending to focus on the stitching of his gauntlet. “Between me and your sister?”

Jay nodded, waiting.

Jake shrugged, lazy but not quite relaxed. “Depends on what you mean by ‘something.’”

Jay let out a short laugh. “I’m not blind, man. She looks at you like you pissed her off and kissed her in the same breath.”

Jake didn’t respond.

Jay leaned forward, elbows on his knees, tone more serious now. “I don’t know what went down, and honestly, I don’t need to. But if you’re gonna keep working with us, especially with her, you better figure your shit out. Because if you mess with her head, you’re not just gonna have Batman on your ass.”

Jake’s eyes finally met Jay’s. No smirk this time. No teasing.

“I never meant to mess with anything,” he said, voice low. “But I think I already did.”

Jay studied him for a second, then stood. “Then fix it. Or back off.”

Jake didn’t move. He just stayed there, staring at the floor, feeling the weight of it all press against his ribs.

The last time he touched you — your lips, your waist, the warmth of you pressed up against him in the dark — it hadn’t felt wrong. It had felt inevitable. Like they were both crashing toward something neither of them could stop.

He had let it happen.

And now? He wasn’t sure if he regretted it… or just regretted that you weren’t beside him right now.

———

You stared at the wall of the cave like it had personally offended you. The shadows flickered across stone, your reflection warped in the glass of the Batcomputer monitors. Behind you, footsteps echoed faintly — someone moving, someone talking. Not to you.

Of course not to you.

Your arms were crossed tight over your chest, a habit you picked up from your father. Bruce had that same stiff posture whenever he’d made a decision he knew would piss someone off.

This one had.

Jake and Jay. Jay, your brother. You could maybe understand that. But Jake? The golden boy with the cocky smirk and that goddamn voice that always dipped when he was speaking just to you?

He wasn’t even family. He wasn’t even trained the way you were. Not in the cave. Not with them.

And yet there he was — paired with your brother on a mission meant for you.

“Did you know?” you said, loud enough for Jay to hear as he came up the ramp from the lower training room. Your voice was calm, but it had a sharpness to it. Razor-thin.

Jay didn’t flinch. He barely blinked. “Kinda figured you’d be mad.”

“I’m not mad,” you lied immediately. “I’m—”

“—Pissed,” Jay finished for you. “Rightfully so.”

You turned your head just enough to glare at him.

Jay sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. “It wasn’t my call. Bruce didn’t want to put you with him again until you both ‘learned to separate emotions from strategy.’ His words.”

Your jaw clenched. “You mean he’s punishing me for getting involved.”

Jay raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”

You didn’t answer.

The silence stretched long enough for someone else to fill it — and of course, he did.

Jake’s voice carried softly down the hall. “Didn’t know I was the root of all Gotham’s drama.”

You stiffened but didn’t turn. You didn’t have to. You could feel him the way you felt static in the air before a lightning strike — loud in the quiet, sharp in the chest.

Jay gave you a look and muttered, “I’m gonna… leave you two to it.”

He patted Jake on the shoulder on his way out. Jake barely reacted.

He came closer. Slowly. Almost cautiously. He stopped a few feet behind you. “You didn’t answer his question.”

“Which one?” you said, eyes still on the monitors.

Jake’s voice was gentler now. “Did you get involved?”

Your hands curled into fists at your sides. You hated the way your body responded to that voice — the low timbre, the warmth, the memory it stirred. It wasn’t fair. None of this was.

You turned to face him, slow and steady. “I got involved when I realized I was the only one being kept out of the loop. I got involved when I saw you standing beside my brother wearing my spot.”

Jake blinked, but didn’t back off. “You think I took something from you?”

“I think you let it happen,” you snapped.

The air between you crackled.

He didn’t move for a long moment. Then finally, he said, “You’re right.”

It stunned you quiet.

Jake stepped forward, one pace. “I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t ask where you were. I just said yes. Because when Batman gives you a shot, you don’t say no.”

You looked at him, jaw tight. “And when I give you a shot?”

Jake’s mouth twitched — not quite a smile, not quite regret. “I think I already screwed that up.

You wanted to yell. You wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him. You wanted to kiss him again and slap him right after. But instead, you stayed quiet.

Because all that tension from before — the stolen touches, the secret rendezvous, the things neither of you could name — it was all still there.

And it scared you how much you still wanted it.

———

He didn’t hear you enter.

That was the first red flag.

You were always loud when you were mad. Loud footsteps, presence, accusations that landed like grenades, made to blow through his composure. But this time? The air shifted — that was all.

Jake stood barefoot in the middle of his small apartment, a towel slung over his shoulders, hair still damp from the shower. The lights were low, no music, just the low hum of the city below and the weight of his own breathing.

When he turned around, you were already there — leaning against the wall by his window, arms folded, still in your suit. The shadows cast across your mask like war paint, your eyes dimly visible beneath it.

His chest tightened.

“How’d you get in?” he asked, voice low, careful. You weren’t radiating fury. You were colder than that. Controlled. Coiled.

“You left the window unlocked.” Your voice was deadpan. “You always do when you’re spiraling.”

Jake looked away. “Didn’t think you were still keeping track.”

You didn’t answer, the silence said enough.

He reached for his shirt, slipping it on slowly. It clung to his back where he hadn’t fully dried off. He hated how you were watching him. He hated how much he liked it, too.

“I’m not here to fight,” you said finally, pushing off the wall.

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Sure about that?”

“No,” you admitted. “But I’m too tired to keep pretending I don’t care.”

That sentence landed with more force than a punch. Jake exhaled, shaky, and met her eyes fully.

“I didn’t ask to be paired with Jay,” he said. “If it were up to me…”

“But it’s not,” you interrupted, sharp again. “It’s never up to us, is it?”

He stepped closer, just once. You didn’t move.

“You think I wouldn’t choose you?” Jake said. “Even now?”

You tilted her head, something flickering behind her mask. Hurt. Hope. Hunger.

“Don’t say that unless you mean it,” you said.

Jake swallowed hard. “I’ve never meant anything more.”

For a second, it was like the air broke open between them. Like the world tilted. Like if he reached out now, you’d either slap him or kiss him.

You moved first.

Your fingers curled into the front of his shirt. You didn’t yank him in, just pressed. Like you were testing if it would break you. If it would break him.

“I shouldn’t be here,” you murmured, your voice trembling in its restraint.

[ickbite]

INSTEAD OF GHOSTIN !!

pairing: ghost!reader x student!sunghoon

synosis: Sunghoon found it strange how no one noticed you except for him and how he can see you and no one else.

note: i started writing and then it gave bunny girl senpai dont hate i loveeee anyways enjoy :3 also started writing third person midway bc im tired i think i fixed it but lmk if i didnt— enha masterlist

There were a million people Park Sunghoon was supposed to notice. The class president who sat next to him in calculus and laughed too loudly at his jokes, or the person who kept DMing him emojis and low-res selfies, or even the barista at the campus cafe who had started writing little hearts next to hisname on the cups. His world was loud and fast-moving—a blur of hands reaching for him and voices calling his name.

But he noticed you.

And that was strange, because he wasn’t supposed to. You didn’t fit in the rhythm of his life, didn’t play any part in the choreography of his days. You moved on a different beat—one too quiet, too still, too subtle for most people to hear. But he heard it. Somehow, he always did.

The first time he saw you, you were in the library. Not in the main area with the tables and chargers and overpriced vending machine coffee, but in the old reading room tucked at the back, where the windows were tall and the air smelled like a grandparents house. You sat in the farthest corner, in an old green armchair that had probably been there since the school was built. You weren’t reading of writing, just sitting there, hands folded in your lap, staring at the rain sliding down the glass in long, unbroken streaks.

He hadn’t meant to stop walking.

But something about the way you sat—frozen and unbothered by the noise of the world—made him freeze, too. It was like you didn’t belong to the moment he was in. Like you’d been cut out from another time and pasted into the present without warning. He stood there too long. Long enough to wonder if you were real.

You didn’t look up, you didn’t move, you just stayed still, like you were waiting for something that would never come.

He didn’t say anything.

Didn’t even realize he’d held his breath until he left the library and his lungs screamed for air.

Later that night, at dinner, he asked Jungwon, “Hey, was there a girl in the library earlier?”

Jungwon was scrolling through his phone, chewing with one side of his mouth. “There’s always a girl in the library, that’s where they go when they want to avoid Jake.”

“No, I mean—this one was alone. In the reading room, long dark hair, kinda pale, she was just sitting there.”

Jungwon blinked, then shrugged. “Didn’t see her.”

⸻

He thought that would be the end of it.

He told himself maybe he’d imagined you, or maybe you were a transfer student who didn’t know anyone yet, or someone from the art building who wandered into the wrong hall. But days passed, and then he saw you again.

It was late in the afternoon, that weird slanted hour where the sun paints everything gold and the school feels eerily quiet, like it’s holding its breath before the night shift kicks in. He had just finished a meeting with his coach and was cutting through the auditorium hallway when he saw you sitting on the edge of the stage stairs.

Same posture, same stillness, your arms wrapped around your knees like they belonged there, your eyes looking somewhere far away.

He paused halfway down the hallway, hand still resting on the door to the music room. You didn’t look up, didn’t flinch, didn’t do anything to acknowledge him. But he felt it again—that tug in his chest, subtle and strange, like gravity had shifted its center and pulled him toward you.

He watched for a second too long, heart fluttering with no good reason.

Then he kept walking.

That night, he couldn’t stop thinking about the way you looked under the stage lights, like someone caught between existence and absence. Like a secret the school was trying to keep.

⸻

It happened again.

And again.

You’d appear in corners, behind glass, at the edge of mirrors, in the reflection of windows as he passed by empty classrooms. You were never loud, never moving quickly, always there and then not.

No one ever talked to you, no one ever sat beside you. It was like everyone else’s world curved around you like light around a black hole. And every time he tried to point you out to someone, the reaction was the same.

“You’re being creepy, dude.”

“Maybe you should just get laid”

One time Heeseung, finally over his friend’s continuous venting about the girl finally asked, “What’s her name?”

And Sunghoon with sad eyes and a sad heart could only respond with, “…I don’t know.”

It should’ve ended there.

But it didn’t.

⸻

He started checking attendance.

It wasn’t hard—he sat near the front of most classes, and his teachers always read names out loud, always took time writing checkmarks. But yours was never called.

Not once.

One day, in his history of the Americas class, he turned around in the middle of roll call. You were there, same desk, same expression. Eyes fixed on the window like the clouds were speaking to you. The teacher called the next name without pause, skipping yours like you’d never existed at all.

His pulse sped up.

He turned back around, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t understand something—and that scared him more than he wanted to admit.

He began writing everything down.

A separate note in his phone.

Date. Time. Place. Description.

March 3rd, 6:12 p.m. / music hallway / she was sitting on the stairs again, wore a white sweater I haven’t seen anyone else wear this year. Looked sad. Didn’t look at me.

March 6th, 8:45 a.m. / library / same green chair. Same hair. Rain again. Why is it always raining when she’s there?

March 8th, 4:02 p.m. / 3rd floor stairwell / she was walking up, I was walking down. We passed each other. She looked right at me. I didn’t imagine it. I swear I didn’t.

It became a habit, some kind of ritual he couldn’t help but doing.

He almost worshipped you, thinking about you to the point where he sometimes dreamt about you.

The dreams didn’t have stories, just scenes. You standing in the snow, barefoot and quiet, your hair tangled by the wind. You whispering something behind a curtain he couldn’t pull back. You holding something in your hands, something small, broken, glowing faintly, and trying to give it to him.

He always woke up before you spoke.

⸻

Then came the day he saw you in the practice room.

He was the last one there, stretching lazily after hours of choreography, music still playing low from the speaker. His arms were sore, his legs ached. He stood by the mirror, wiping sweat off his neck, when he looked up—and saw you behind him, reflected in the glass.

You stood just outside the doorway; not moving, not blinking, only watching him.

He spun around.

You were gone.

⸻

It was driving him insane.

He needed answers, needed to know your name, needed to know why he was the only one who saw you—why he couldn’t stop seeing you.

And one day, he cracked.

You were standing near the windows by the old music hall, sunlight bleeding around your figure like the universe had drawn a halo around your outline. It was quiet there, no one else lingered in that part of campus. Just you and him.

He didn’t think.

He just walked toward you.

Each step felt like crossing some invisible line he wasn’t supposed to pass, but he kept going.

You didn’t flinch when he got closer and especially you didn’t vanish. He stopped a few feet away. His hands were cold.

“…Hey,” he said softly, the word escaping his mouth like it had been waiting too long to be spoken.

You turned your head toward him slowly and your eyes met his. They were wide and quiet, full of something that didn’t belong to this world.

“Hi,” you whispered back, like the sound hurt, like it was the first time in who knows how long you talked.

“I see you everywhere,” he said, his voice breaking slightly, “How come no one else does?”

Your lips twitched, definitely not a smile, it was something smaller.

“I know.”

Sunghoon had never been the type to look for trouble. He didn’t go snooping through things that weren’t his, he wasn’t nosy, he didn’t gossip outside his group, he liked his life clean, quiet, organized—schedule color-coded, calendar full, future mapped out like a skating routine he’d already perfected. But he hadn’t been able to think about anything else.

Because what did that even mean? What kind of person just vanishes? What kind of person knew they weren’t supposed to be remembered?

⸻

He spent the weekend buried in records. It started with student files.

He didn’t even know where they were kept until he cornered a senior from the student council and lied (badly) about needing “archives for a journalism project.” She gave him a suspicious look but eventually pointed him toward the admin building’s basement, where all the paper records were boxed and stacked like they hadn’t been touched in years.

He went on Sunday, long after everyone had cleared out.

The building smelled like old glue and fluorescent lights. The air was stale, like it hadn’t been breathed in a long time. He ducked past the unlocked storage room door and stared at the rows of dusty boxes, most unlabeled, some bent and torn from age.

He wasn’t even sure what year to check. He didn’t know your name, your grade, or even if you were still supposed to be here.

So he started from the beginning.

And the further back he went, the more wrong everything felt.

He expected the records to be messy.

What he didn’t expect was gaps.

There were pages missing, attendance sheets torn at the bottom, files from one specific class with entire names blacked out or worse, erased completely, like someone had gone through the effort of making it look like those people never existed at all.

One box in particular was labeled simply: Class 3-D – 20XX

The year was smudged.

The lid was sealed with old masking tape that peeled up in flakes, he opened it and was hit with the smell of mildew and time. Inside were shredded fragments of folders. Some pages had been scribbled over in red pen, others were blank entirely.

But one file caught his eye.

It wasn’t labeled, no name on the tab, no ID photo. Just a faint, handwritten note in pencil on the corner:

“March – vanished.”

His skin went cold.

He picked it up and flipped through it carefully, heart pounding with every turn of the page. Most of it was empty. But there was a single report paperclipped to the back—a disciplinary record.

The date matched last March.

The student’s name had been crossed out violently, like someone wanted to erase it.

But in the notes section, someone had written:

“Claimed she was still attending class. Reported missing, but no official record of enrollment. No family contact. No resolution.”

“Still seen by multiple staff members after date of disappearance. Eventually dismissed as rumor or mistaken identity.”

Sunghoon stared at the page for a long, long time.

Then he read it again.

Still seen after date of disappearance.

Still seen.

His hands shook.

Because you weren’t a rumor, you were real, and he had seen you without a doubt.

⸻

The next day at school, everything felt sharper. The colors too bright, the silence between bells too loud. He sat in class, eyes flicking to the back of the room every few minutes. You weren’t there. You never were when he wanted you to be. You always appeared when he wasn’t looking—when he was half-turned, or distracted, or vulnerable.

But he couldn’t stop scanning the corners anyway.

At lunch, he didn’t even pretend to sit with the others, he grabbed his tray and wandered to the back of the school building, past the music rooms and the courtyard students rarely used.

And there you were.

Sitting on the edge of the fountain, legs tucked beneath you, skirt fluttering in the wind. Your hair looked damp like you’d been caught in the same rainstorm he’d seen in his dreams the night before.

He stopped in his tracks.

“You’re not real,” he said out loud before he could stop himself.

You didn’t flinch, only tilted your head, looking at him with something like sadness. “I was.”

Sunghoon stepped closer, heart in his throat. “Why are you still here?”

“I don’t know,” your voice was barely louder than the breeze, “maybe because you saw me.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

You smiled faintly, “I don’t think its suppose to.”

He sat beside you on the fountain ledge, legs stretched out, tray forgotten. He didn’t say anything for a long time.

Neither did you.

It was the closest you’d ever been. Close enough to notice the way your fingers curled against your skirt, close enough to see that you didn’t cast a proper shadow in the sunlight, close enough to feel how the air got just a little colder where you sat.

“…What’s your name?” he asked again, quietly.

You shook your head. “You won’t remember it.”

“Try me.”

You looked at him, long and hard, like you were memorizing his face. Then you said it.

Soft, gentle, just above a whisper—He heard it, he swore he did.

But a moment later, it was gone.

Slipped right through his mind like water through cupped hands. He blinked, panicked, trying to reach for it again.

“What—what was it? What did you say?”

You just smiled.

“I told you,” you whispered. “You’ll forget.”

⸻

That night, he dreamed of you again.

This time, you stood at the edge of the school roof, your hair whipping around you in the wind. Your hands were outstretched. You were glowing—faintly, like light caught between worlds. Your mouth moved.

He couldn’t hear what you said.

But when he woke up, there were tears in his eyes and your name burned on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t say it.

⸻

Sunghoon sat at the edge of the school rooftop, the wind curling through his hair and tugging at his blazer like it had something urgent to whisper. Below, the campus stirred—students crossing the courtyard with backpacks slung lazily, teachers lingering by windows with coffee, the distant hum of a P.E. whistle echoing over the gym. It was all ordinary, comfortably real.

But he didn’t feel real, not anymore, not since you.

His hands fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, pulling out the folded scrap of paper he’d scribbled on during math class. One name, written three times over as if saying it more could pin it down:

Y/N. Y/N. Y/N.

He stared at it like a prayer.

“You’re doing it again,” Jungwon said, appearing beside him with a bottle of banana milk and a skeptical look. “Brooding on the roof like a drama character. You know that’s concerning, right?”

Sunghoon blinked, “Have you ever heard of someone named Y/N?”

Jungwon peeled back the straw from his drink and stabbed it into the carton. “Y/N… who?”

“Just Y/N, maybe in 3-B… that’s all I know.”

He waited for recognition, anything.

But Jungwon just gave him that small, polite frown people wear when they’re trying not to say you sound insane.

“There’s no one named that I think,” he said. “I would know. I used to sit in there for chemistry tutoring last semester. You sure you didn’t just dream this person?”

Sunghoon’s chest tightened, he sat back slowly, eyes returning to the folded paper in his hand. The ink looked smudged now, like it was fading.

“I didn’t dream her,” he muttered.

Jungwon sighed, patting him on the shoulder like he was being kind. “Maybe you should go home early today. You’ve been… weird lately. You don’t even eat lunch anymore.”

Sunghoon didn’t respond. His appetite had gone missing the same way you did.

———

He found you again near the school gardens, crouched beside a row of drooping hydrangeas like they were the only things left in the world worth tending to. You didn’t look up when he approached.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“You’re early.” You touched one of the petals, brushing away dust. “You usually find me after the final bell.”

“I needed to see you.”

That made you pause. You glanced over, one hand still resting on the flowerbed. “Did something happen?”

“I tried to talk about you.”

Your lips parted just slightly, not quite a smile, not quite alarmed. “And?”

“No one remembers you.”

The words hung heavy in the air between them. Even the breeze seemed to falter.

“I told Jungwon your name. He acted like I was making it up. I asked a teacher who takes attendance, you’re not on the roster. Not on any list, not in any club, you’re not—” His voice cracked there. “You’re not anywhere.”

Your expression didn’t change. Not really. But your eyes did—flickering with something that looked like regret.

“I told you,” You said quietly. “People don’t remember me.”

“I do.” He knelt beside her, reaching out instinctively. His hand hovered inches from yours. “I remember you every day.”

“You’re not supposed to.”

“I don’t care what I’m supposed to do.” He swallowed hard. “I’m not going to let this go. I don’t know what’s happening to you, or what this is, or why it’s only me—but I’m not walking away. I’ll fight the whole world if I have to.”

For a moment, silence wrapped around them like silk. The garden, the wind, the muted sound of life in the distance—it all went still.

Then you whispered, “you don’t even know what I am, Sunghoon.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I know you’re real. Because I’ve never felt more awake in my entire life than when I’m with you.”

You looked at him like he was breaking your heart and maybe he was. But maybe he wanted to stitch it back together.

⸻

That night, Sunghoon didn’t sleep. He stayed up scouring forums, ghost stories, urban legends, strange medical articles about memory blackouts. Anything that could explain why you had vanished from the minds of everyone but him.

And somewhere between a Reddit thread on “time anomalies” and an old Japanese folklore wiki, he found a line that chilled him:

“Some souls are too tethered to fade, but too forgotten to live. What lingers is memory, trapped in form. Sometimes love is the only thread keeping them here.”

He stared at the words for a long, long time.

Then he whispered your name one more time.

Y/N.

And hoped the universe was still listening.

He didn’t bring his camera to school often. It was too nice of a lens for casual shots, and besides, people always acted weird when he had it. But today, he didn’t care what anyone thought. Today wasn’t about practice or lighting or composition.

Today was about proof.

He met you behind the music building again, the same place he’d first seen you a few weeks ago when you were humming to herself and watching dust swirl in the air like it had secrets. You sat on the rusted bench with her legs crossed and your cardigan sleeves pulled over your hands like you were trying to stay small in a world too wide.

“You brought that for me?” You asked, pointing to the camera slung around his neck.

He nodded. “I want to take your picture.”

You blinked. “Why?”

“Because I’m scared I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone. Because no one remembers you, and I’m starting to forget what your voice sounds like when you’re not here. Because maybe—if I have proof—you’ll stay.”

There was a long silence. Then you said, “Okay.” Soft. Like you were saying goodbye and yes all at once.

He adjusted the lens, fiddling with the light. Your face was framed by ivy-covered bricks and pale morning sun. He could feel his heart in his throat as he pressed the shutter.

Click.

Another.

Click

One more, just in case

Click.

You looked like a dream someone would never forget, like you should be unforgettable.

He checked the photos, they were perfect. The sunlight caught your hair just right, the way it always curled behind her ear. Your cardigan sleeves swallowed her hands like always, there was even a faint smile. It was you.

“You want to see?” he asked, turning the camera toward you.

But when he looked again you weren’t in the photos.

Not one, not even a smudge, just an empty bench like you’d never been there at all.

Sunghoon stared, his hands went numb.

You leaned forward slowly, reaching for the camera like it was a memory you could almost touch. “It won’t work,” you said. “Things don’t hold on to me. Not cameras, not paper, not phones. I tried for years.”

“You’ve… done this before?”

You nodded. “I once left my name carved into a tree. I came back the next day and it was gone. I mailed myself letters. The envelopes vanished before they arrived. Even mirrors won’t hold me. That’s why I don’t look in them anymore.”

Sunghoon shook his head, backing up like the truth was making the world tilt. “But I saw you. I see you.”

“You’re the only one,” you whispered. “And I don’t know why.”

⸻

That night, Sunghoon recorded a voice memo.

He locked himself in his room and hit record, pressing the mic close to his mouth.

“My name is Park Sunghoon. Today is Monday. I talked to Y/N again. She’s real. She sat beside the music building and we talked about photos and mirrors. I tried to take a picture of her and it didn’t work. But she was there. She was there. She wore that same stupid cardigan she always does, and she smelled like mint and rain. Her voice… it’s soft, like she’s not used to being heard. I don’t know what’s happening. But I have to hold onto her. I have to.”

He hit stop and stared at the saved file.

Then he went to bed. Just for a little while.

⸻

When he woke up, the voice memo was gone Not deleted. Just never there.

⸻

The next day, he walked through school with a growing hole in his chest. People waved. Teachers called his name. The world was steady but he couldn’t feel any of it.

Then he saw you—across the courtyard, sitting alone under the cherry tree that never bloomed this time of year. You were waiting for him with that familiar small smile, like he was the last warm thing in your cold little universe.

And even though he knew nothing would hold, nothing would last, and the world would keep trying to forget you—

Sunghoon ran toward you anyway.

⸻

He brings you a bag of jelly candies and a soft peach drink that’s still cold from the vending machine. You don’t remember the taste of cold things, yet you sip it anyway, grateful for the gesture, even though it slips through you like everything else.

“You always wear that cardigan,” Sunghoon says, sitting beside you on the steps behind the old gym. His shoulder brushes yours. You feel it, even if it doesn’t leave warmth behind.

“I used to have more clothes,” you murmur, fingers curling around the frayed sleeves. “But they faded with everything else. This is the only one that stayed.”

He nods, like he understands. But he doesn’t. Not yet.

You tilt your head, studying the shadows under his eyes. “You didn’t sleep again.”

“I couldn’t,” he admits. “I kept dreaming about you disappearing. Or worse—me forgetting.”

You look away.

He doesn’t know how close he is.

“Then tell me something,” he says gently, “before I lose you again. Something real. A memory.”

You hesitate. Not because you don’t want to tell him—but because you’re not sure how much you can say without the world cracking open.

Still, his gaze holds steady. And for once, you want to be seen.

“The first thing I remember,” you begin, “is wind.”

He listens, silent.

“I was standing on a hill. It was raining, but not hard. Just that soft kind of drizzle that feels like the sky’s too tired to cry properly. My hair was wet, and I wasn’t cold, but I was… waiting. For something. Or someone. But no one came.”

You wrap your arms around yourself, the fabric of your cardigan thin as paper now.

“The world looked strange. Too bright, too quiet. I remember yelling—just to see if anyone could hear me. No one did.”

Sunghoon’s jaw tightens. “When was this?”

You shake your head. “I don’t know. It could’ve been a week ago or years. Time doesn’t move for me like it does for you.”

He leans closer. “You said you tried to leave notes, carve your name. Were you—always like this?”

Your breath catches.

“No,” you whisper. “I was real once. But something happened. And then the world… forgot.”

He’s quiet, his eyes searching yours like he’s trying to pull the truth out piece by piece.

“I don’t want to forget you,” he says, voice low. “Even if it breaks the rules.”

That makes you laugh softly. “There are rules?”

“There are always rules,” he mutters. “But I don’t care about them.”

You watch him, his anger, his softness, his need to keep you even when the universe refuses to.

“Tell me something real about you,” you say, changing the subject before you give too much away.

He blinks, caught off guard.

You smile. “It’s only fair.”

He leans back, arms resting behind him as he thinks. “Okay. I used to want to be a figure skater.”

You laugh. “Seriously?”

“Dead serious,” he says. “I was obsessed with it when I was a kid. I used to watch Olympic clips on repeat and try to copy the jumps on our kitchen floor.”

You grin. “That’s adorable.”

“I thought it was cool,” he says, mock-offended. “But I gave it up.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “People made fun of me, said it wasn’t manly, said I was better off doing something else.”

“That’s stupid,” you say. “You would’ve been good. You still move like a skater, you glide when you walk.”

Sunghoon gives you a strange look, one that lingers too long.

“What?”

He shakes his head, smiling faintly. “It’s just—you remember details… about me and no one else even remembers you.”

You lower your gaze.

“Why do I remember you?” he asks again. “Why me?”

You don’t answer.

Because the truth is too cruel, the answer would mean he’s already in too deep, if he knew he’d never sleep again.

Instead, you take another sip of the drink you can’t taste and pretend it soothes your throat And Sunghoon just watches you like you’re the only real thing left in his world.

The festival is alive in ways you’ll never be. The streets are blooming with laughter, chatter, neon lights, and the sweet sting of grilled sugar.

It should be overwhelming, all this sound and scent and movement, but you drift through it like wind through a screen door. Nothing quite touches you, not in the way it should.

Your feet move beside his, but you don’t feel the ground. You hear your own voice talking to him, but it echoes in your head like someone else’s memory.

Sunghoon glances at you sideways, and you hate the way he notices everything. He notices too much, especially when you try to keep things small and quiet.

“You’re doing that thing again,” he says, brushing against your shoulder like a tether. “Where you look like you’re not really here.”

You laugh, and it comes out too light. “Maybe I’m not.”

He stops walking, and his hand closes around yours so fast you barely register the touch. It’s warm, startlingly so—so real you freeze.

And for a split second, you feel it too. The pressure. The heat. The impossible contact of being touched and known.

But it flickers. Just like that—it’s gone. His hand is still holding yours, but the warmth fades like it never belonged to you.

“You felt that,” he breathes, eyes locked on yours like he’s trying to memorize the exact second something shifted. “Tell me you felt that.”

You want to lie, but you can’t. You nod instead, and his face breaks into something too raw to name.

He pulls you through the crowd with a new urgency, like holding onto you might keep something from slipping away. You let him.

The lantern stall is glowing gold and soft like a memory. Paper orbs bob in shallow buckets of water, and each one holds a candle and a secret.

“Write something,” he says, handing you the pen like it’s a test. “Anything you want. A wish, maybe.”

You look down at the paper lantern, and your hands tremble a little. Wishes feel dangerous when you’re not sure the world even hears you anymore.

“I don’t think it’ll work,” you say, but you take the pen anyway. “You have to be real for magic to stick.”

He smiles at that, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Maybe you’re more real than anyone I’ve ever met.”

You turn away so he won’t see what that does to you. You write slowly, carefully, as if the ink itself might bleed truth into the paper.

When you finish, you don’t offer it to him. You hold the lantern close to your chest, like it might disappear the moment you let go.

“Don’t read it,” you say, too softly to sound firm. “It’s not for you.”

But Sunghoon is already leaning over, his curiosity reckless and too sincere. His eyes scan the small words, and when they do, he stills.

His lips part, but he says nothing.

You want to grab the lantern and run, but there’s nowhere for people like you to hide.

“I wish I knew what it was like to still be alive.” The words echo louder now that they’ve been said out loud.

He looks at you, and for a second, there’s fear there. But not the kind you expect—not the kind that pushes people away.

“Do you…” he asks, voice low and strange. “Do you mean that like… poetically?”

You want to laugh, but it’s the kind that would crack you in half. “I don’t think I’ve ever been poetic in my life.”

He lights the lantern in silence. His hands are steady, careful, like this is something sacred.

You both watch it rise, floating into the dark like a ghost with glowing skin. Your wish is swallowed by the sky, but the ache it left behind stays.

When he finally speaks again, it sounds like a promise wrapped in disbelief. “I don’t care what this is. I still want to know you.”

Your chest tightens in a way it hasn’t in years. You feel too much and not enough at the same time, like grief and grace are pressing in on you from both sides.

You want to say thank you. You want to scream. You want to ask why he’s not running away.

But then something shatters the moment.

A girl in a flower crown bumps into Sunghoon. She’s laughing, distracted, and clearly in a rush.

She looks right past you. She doesn’t say sorry. She doesn’t see you.

Your body turns to ice. You watch her walk through the space you occupy without blinking, without hesitation, like you don’t exist.

“Did you see that?” you whisper, but it comes out hollow.

Sunghoon’s eyes are already on you. He’s pale now. Pale like he knows something just shifted in a way you can’t take back.

“She didn’t even…” he begins, but can’t finish.

“She didn’t even notice me,” you finish for him. Your voice sounds like it belongs in a memory.

You both stand there in the middle of the crowd, lantern light swirling around you, and somehow everything feels too loud and too quiet all at once.

He reaches for your hand again. This time, it takes longer to feel anything.

But when the warmth finally reaches you, it settles in your chest instead of your skin. It doesn’t feel like fire. He doesn’t ask again. Not yet. But you can tell it’s eating him alive.

The silence between you has changed. It used to be soft; now it trembles with questions neither of you can name.

You walk through the fairgrounds like you’re rehearsing something final. The music is dimmer now. The lights are fading, or maybe that’s just how you feel inside.

Sunghoon keeps looking at you like he’s waiting for you to disappear. You wish you could promise you wouldn’t, but promises like that don’t belong to people like you.

“Come with me,” he says suddenly. His voice is hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken in hours.

You follow. Of course you follow. He could lead you anywhere and you’d still go.

He takes you to the lake, the one on the edge of town where the festival lights don’t reach. It’s quiet here. Too quiet.

There’s no one else around. Just the two of you and the water, still and dark like glass waiting to break.

“I need you to say it,” he says, barely breathing. “I think I already know. But I need you to say it.”

You close your eyes. It hurts. It physically hurts to keep pretending.

“I died,” you whisper. The words feel like ash in your mouth. “A year ago. I died.”

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t scream or cry or run.

Instead, he just breathes.

“How?” he asks, because of course he does. He wants to understand.

“There was a car,” you say. “It was late. I was walking home. I don’t remember the sound. Just the light.”

You kneel beside the lake, and the reflection that stares back isn’t quite right. It’s always been wrong. Dimmer. Slower.

“I never left,” you say, quieter now. “I stayed. I didn’t even know I had.”

He drops beside you, his knees hitting the dirt hard. He still doesn’t look away.

“You’re not cold,” he says, almost like a joke. “You’re not fading.”

“Maybe I never really lived the way I should have. Maybe that’s why I lingered.”

Sunghoon doesn’t argue. He doesn’t try to fix it. He just reaches for your hand again, and this time, it stays warm.

“I liked you before I knew,” he says. “That doesn’t disappear just because you did.”

Tears slip down your cheeks before you can stop them. You haven’t cried since the night it happened. You didn’t think you could.

But he’s here. He’s real. And he’s holding you like none of this changes anything.

“What do I do?” you ask, and your voice shakes. “Where do I go now?”

He swallows, his throat tight. “You don’t have to go anywhere. Not yet.”

The stars flicker above the lake, and for a moment, everything is still. You feel something lifting off your chest, something heavy that’s been there too long.

“I don’t want to forget you,” he says, and it sounds like a promise he’ll keep even when you’re gone.

“You won’t,” you whisper. “You’ll remember me every time something feels too quiet to be empty.”

He kisses you then. It’s soft and warm and real. It tastes like goodbye but it also tastes like grace.

[ickbite]

R U MINE?

pairing: bodyguard!jake x idol!reader

synopsis: Jake, the bodyguard who swears he’s just doing his job but secretly memorizes everything about you. He’s warm, loyal, and deadly when needed. When danger rises, he’d kill for you. When you smile at him? That’s what breaks him.

note: sooo rushed but its okay, 500 likes and ill drop a part 2 :3 — enha masterlist.

In the practice room, all you can think about is the sweat running down your face and how much your ankle hurts. Your new comeback was a month away and you still were making mistakes on a move that should be considered easy given your caliber. It was hard being a soloist in the idol world, especially now with your sock stuck to the floor where you’d slid wrong—again—and your sports bra pinched where it was soaked through. You throw in a half-hearted peace sign at your reflection. “You’re gonna eat this comeback alive.” Your ankle throbs in response.

You almost forgot his presence behind you. Your new bodyguard aimed to keep you protected after a fan broke into your apartment the week before. His name was Jake and he was big. His muscles shown through the tight compression shirt he wore, his face always in neutrality, and even worse his beautiful six pack that you happened to see once was tucked away for your eyes never to witness it again.

It was kind of impressive, actually.

You sit back on your heels and stretch out your legs, panting, your voice light, “you know, it’s rude to stare.”

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at you. Just shifts his weight and keeps scanning the room like you’re a fragile package waiting to be intercepted.

You throw your head back with a groan. “Seriously? Nothing? I almost died of overexertion, and you’re just back there breathing all quiet and mysterious — you are not Robert Pattinson’s Batman, just so you know.”

Still nothing.

You glance back over your shoulder, grinning despite yourself. “You do talk, right? Or do I need to learn Morse code?”

This time, you catch it.

The faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. It was barely there, gone in an instant. But it happened.

Your grin grows wider, playful and smug, “you’ll talk to me one day.” You turn back around to get ready to practice the routine, going in it from the start.

A fake smile replaces your real one as you stare into your reflection, moving your body the way the choreographer intended. The pain in your ankle was dominant, taking every occupied space in your brain.

“Okay, that kind of hurt,” you said to yourself while dropping down to look at how bad it was.

It was worse than you thought; swollen, purple, and throbbing like it was a real thing, like a slight “screw you” for practicing while it’s obviously sprained.

You stood to dance again, you should start small to get used to it. Before you could start the music, you heard a deep voice behind you.

“Stop.”

You freeze. The music remote still in your hand. Your spine straightens. That voice—Jake’s voice—had weight to it. Like stone. Like the door you just unlocked was one you wouldn’t close again.

You turn slowly to face him, your heartbeat skipping. “Excuse me?”

His eyes are darker than usual. Not angry. Not cold. But serious. Intent. “Sit down. You’re done for the night.”

You blink at him, caught between confusion and offense. “I’m not—Jake, I can’t just stop because—”

“You’re injured,” he cuts in, stepping closer now. His presence is massive up close, a shadow that towers but doesn’t smother. “That ankle’s sprained. Maybe worse.”

You scoff, instinctive defensiveness rising. “It’s fine. I’ve danced through worse.”

“I’ve seen worse turn into permanent damage.”

The room goes quiet. The air shifts. And you suddenly feel so, so small in front of him. Not because he’s bigger than you. Not because he’s a bodyguard. But because you realize—he’s not just here to keep the crazy fans out.

He’s here to protect you. From others. From danger. He kneels beside you, eyes flicking briefly to your ankle before returning to your face. “Let me wrap it. You keep pushing and you’ll be off your feet for longer than a few weeks.”

You hesitate.

He softens. Just barely. But it’s there.

“Please.”

And that is what gets you to sit down.

You mumble, “Fine,” as you lower yourself slowly, carefully, and watch Jake cross the room toward your bag, somehow knowing exactly where your first aid kit is tucked away.

Jake steps forward, the shift of his boots against the floor sharp in the otherwise quiet studio. His eyes flick down to your ankle, then back up to your face. “It’s sprained. If you keep pushing it, you’ll tear something.”

You raise an eyebrow, squinting at him as if he just told you he had a PhD in Dance Injuries. “Oh, so now you’re my doctor too? What’s next, chef? Therapist?”

“I’ll be whatever keeps you from making it worse,” he says flatly. No sarcasm, no smirk. Just that quiet, terrifying calm that somehow makes your pulse spike even higher than a stage performance.

You should be annoyed. You should roll your eyes and brush him off, tell him to get back to standing in the corner like some statue from a really hot security catalog.

But instead, your voice comes out softer than you expect. “I have a comeback. I can’t fall behind.”

Jake doesn’t flinch. He crosses his arms over his broad chest, the way his forearms flex when he does it completely unfair. “You’re not going to make the comeback if you can’t walk.”

You hate that he’s right.

You hate it more that he said it like he cares—not just in a professional ‘I’ll get fired if you break something on my watch’ way. In a real, genuine way. Like he’s watching over you not just because it’s his job, but because he’s already invested in you.

Still, you don’t want to give in that easily.

“You’re kind of bossy for someone who barely speaks,” you mumble, easing yourself back onto the ground, one hand bracing your knee.

Jake doesn’t respond with words, just kneels beside you, pulling a small black pouch from his belt that you hadn’t noticed before. Out comes a cold pack, one of those instant ones that crack and turn icy in seconds.

He doesn’t ask before reaching for your ankle. He just pauses, looking at you for permission, gaze steady.

You hesitate—but then you nod, and his hands are surprisingly gentle.

The cold hits fast, making you hiss through your teeth. Jake’s expression doesn’t change, but you swear there’s the tiniest flicker of amusement in his eyes.

“Better?”

“Only if you promise to carry me out of here when I collapse from shame.”

A pause. And then—finally—he smiles. Just barely, just a little tug at the corner of his lips. But it’s enough to make your heart skip.

“You’d be lighter than most of the weights I lift.”

You blink. “Did you just flirt with me?”

“No,” Jake deadpans, but you catch it again—that little twitch of his mouth, that very faint gleam in his eyes.

This time, you let the silence settle comfortably between you. The cold pack stays pressed to your ankle. His hand stays steady on top of yours. And for the first time all day, the room doesn’t feel so heavy.

The lights are too bright.

You’d already signed thirty posters, taken a hundred photos, and smiled so hard your cheeks hurt. But your fans are here—cheering, bouncing in line, clutching albums and wearing your merch—and if there’s one thing you refuse to be, it’s ungrateful.

You swipe your glossed lips into another practiced grin and rest your elbows gently on the table.

“Hi!” you beam, eyes lighting up as the next fan nervously steps forward. “Oh my god, I love your nails! Did you do them yourself?”

The fan turns bright red. “Y-Yes! I wanted them to match your stage outfit from ‘Venus Hour.’”

You gasp with genuine delight. “That’s so cute. Wait, let me take a pic for my story, okay?”

You lift your phone, fingers steady even though your whole body aches. Your shoulders are stiff from over-practicing. Your neck keeps cracking. And behind you, always just in your peripheral vision, is him.

Your bodyguard. Your shadow. Your personal grim reaper in designer black.

He hasn’t spoken a word all afternoon. Just stood behind you with his arms folded across his broad chest, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, and a subtle frown that never seems to budge.

If the fans notice him, they don’t say anything. They’re all too focused on you. But you notice.

You notice how he shifts slightly every time someone gets too close. How he watches hands. Watches body language. How his stance changes when it’s a teenage girl versus a man in his thirties. How his jaw tenses anytime someone lingers longer than they should.

You notice it all.

Even now, while you’re signing someone’s phone case and pretending your wrist isn’t cramping, you feel him back there. Solid. Still. Like a full stop at the end of every sentence.

A pause. A presence.

“Thank you so much for coming,” you say, voice softer now as the next fan steps up. She’s young, maybe ten, and barely peeks over the table. You smile at her gently and lean forward. “I love your hairbows.”

She giggles. “You’re so pretty in real life!”

“You’re prettier,” you whisper, and she hides behind her hands with a squeal. You hand her the signed photocard, and she runs off to her mom.

And then there’s a lull, a gap in the line.

You take a slow breath, shoulders dropping slightly as you lean back in your seat. Your fingers flex against the Sharpie. You look down and wipe a stray smear of gloss from your lower lip with the back of your hand.

“You okay?” comes a voice behind you.

Low. Quiet. Just for you.

You look up at him.

Your heart stutters just once.

He isn’t smiling, of course. He never smiles. But his gaze is… different. Not cold. Just watchful. His eyes flick to your water bottle, then to the empty chair next to you.

“I’m fine,” you lie, brushing your hair over your shoulder. “You look more exhausted than I do.”

“I’m not the one doing selfies with every person in Korea.”

You huff. “I’m not that famous.”

He doesn’t respond. But you hear it—that faintest exhale, like the start of a laugh. You almost whirl around in your chair.

“You almost laughed just now.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did. I heard it.”

Jake crosses his arms again, lips twitching into something that’s definitely not a smile, but definitely not not a smile either. “You imagined it.”

You turn back around, rolling your eyes but failing to hide the grin tugging at the corners of your mouth.

The next fan walks up. A guy, a little too bold, leaning in too much when he greets you.

Jake moves.

Barely, nut you see it.

One step forward. A shift in his weight. One hand at his hip.

The fan straightens instinctively.

You sign the album quickly, cheeks burning, then move on. You don’t say anything to Jake, but your fingers tap twice on the edge of the table. A quiet thank you.

Jake’s voice is quiet again.

“You didn’t imagine that one.”

And that’s the thing with him. He doesn’t flirt. He doesn’t tease. He just is. Heavy and quiet and maddening.

You look over your shoulder again.

He’s already looking away.

But you swear, just for a second, his eyes softened when you smiled.

The door clicks shut behind you with a heavy, final sound that seems to echo louder than it should. You slump into the plush leather seat, spine sagging with the weight of exhaustion you’ve been holding in all day.

Your body is sore in places you didn’t even know could hurt, muscles trembling from the high you forced yourself to ride through the meet and greet. Outside, the fans are still screaming your name, their chants fading as the SUV pulls away from the curb.

You glance out the tinted window, watching the city blur into streaks of neon and glass. The adrenaline is bleeding out of you fast, leaving behind only the ache in your legs and the quiet hum of the engine under your feet.

It’s quiet in the car. Too quiet.

Your manager is gone—rushed into another vehicle with the rest of the staff—and now it’s just you and him. Jake. The bodyguard who never speaks unless he absolutely has to.

You can feel his presence without even looking. He’s all weight and quiet breath, sitting beside you like a human wall made of flesh and tension.

Dragging a hand down your face, you sigh, your palm catching on the last sticky remnants of setting spray and sweat. “I think I smiled so hard my cheeks are gonna crack open,” you mumble, half to yourself, half to him.

No answer.

Of course.

You glance sideways.

Jake sits there with one foot flat, the other ankle crossed over his knee, spine straight like he’s in a military briefing and not babysitting a tired idol. His arms rest on his thighs, fingers splayed, and you can see the veins running down to his wrists—he’s not flexing, but they’re visible anyway, like his body doesn’t know how to relax.

“You ever unwind?” you ask, voice light but threaded with curiosity. “Or do you just recharge standing up in the corner like some brooding vampire?”

Still, he doesn’t speak. But you swear something flickers in the sharp cut of his jaw.

You turn your head fully now, giving him a side-eye and trying to catch his expression. “That was a joke,” you say, “in case your sarcasm chip didn’t get installed.”

There’s a beat of stillness.

Then—just for a second—his lips twitch. Barely. Almost imperceptibly. But it’s there.

Your heart kicks up a little. “Aha,” you breathe, grinning. “Caught you.”

Jake doesn’t respond, but his gaze shifts to the window. The corners of his mouth stay where they are—flattened into something neutral—but you know what you saw.

You stare ahead, letting the moment settle into the silence between you. Your head leans against the window as the city lights streak by in gold and red.

“I used to love this, you know,” you say after a while, voice softer now, more honest. “The fans, the chaos, the makeup artists touching up my lipstick every ten seconds like it mattered.”

Jake turns toward you slightly, not enough to be obvious. But you feel it anyway.

“It used to feel like flying,” you continue, eyes half-closed. “Like I could breathe fire and no one would flinch.”

Another breath leaves your lungs, long and slow. “Now it just feels like I’m patching myself together with duct tape. One photo op away from falling apart.”

There’s a pause.

And then—his voice.

“You still looked like you were flying.”

It’s so quiet that for a second, you think you imagined it. You blink, turning your head toward him with your heart jumping just a little too fast.

Jake is still staring forward, expression unreadable. His tone didn’t change. It wasn’t soft or sweet or dramatic.

But it was real.

Your chest tightens, just a bit, and your throat works as you swallow the emotion creeping up behind your ribs. “You ever say something nice again,” you mumble, blinking fast, “I might start thinking you actually like me.”

Jake turns his eyes to you this time. The look is brief but sharp.

“I don’t dislike you,” he says, even-toned.

Your mouth opens. Then closes.

You turn back to the window, but this time there’s a smile threatening your lips. It’s small. It’s real.

“…I’ll take it,” you whisper.

And somehow, the silence after that feels warmer than it did before.

You drop your bag just past the front door, the thud muffled against the rug. The keys clatter into the bowl by instinct, even though your hands are still trembling.

The apartment is too quiet. No music, no hum of the fridge, just the faint tick of the hallway light and your own uneven breath echoing back at you.

You should feel safe.

It’s your home—your sanctuary, your comfort zone—but ever since that fan got past the security code and stepped into your bedroom like he belonged there, something shifted. Now even your own walls feel like strangers.

You glance toward the front door, even though you know what’s on the other side.

Jake is still out there.

He’s taken up the job like a religion—stationed outside your unit like a statue carved from discipline and bulletproof instinct. He never asked for thanks, never even flinched when you asked if he’d mind staying an extra hour “just in case.”

Padding into the kitchen, you tug open the fridge door and stare at the contents like something’s going to jump out and solve your problems. Leftover rice, a single bottle of vitamin water, and a note from your manager taped to a tupperware container: “EAT or I’ll murder you — love, Rin.”

You smile despite yourself, the laugh catching in your throat before fully forming.

You grab the water, unscrewing the cap as you lean against the counter. The cold plastic burns your palm. The silence is louder here than it was in the car.

After a minute, you wander into the living room, leaving all the lights off. The city stretches beyond your floor-to-ceiling windows—Seoul’s endless heartbeat blinking red and gold across the skyline.

Your fingers twitch against the glass, and for the briefest moment, you wish someone were in here with you. Not to protect you. Not to talk.

Just… someone there.

You don’t mean to, but your eyes flick toward the door again. You picture him out there, leaned against the wall in that same all-black outfit, arms folded, head slightly tilted like he’s always listening for footsteps.

He makes you feel like the world can’t touch you when he’s around. It’s annoying.

It’s comforting.

Your thumb skims over the screen of your phone, hesitation curling in your gut. You shouldn’t. He’s working. You don’t even need anything.

Still, you type.

are you still outside?

The three dots appear almost instantly. It’s both infuriating and a little satisfying.

yeah

want me to leave?

You stare at the words. His messages are always blunt, never more than four or five syllables. Still, somehow they never feel cold.

no

just checking

You toss your phone onto the couch after hitting send, then curse softly when it bounces and nearly falls between the cushions. You sink down after it, curling up in your hoodie, cheek pressed against the armrest like it’s a friend.

There’s another message.

lights off

you okay?

You smile. It’s tiny and mostly hidden in the fabric of your sleeve, but it’s real.

yeah

just tired

you sure?

You bite your lip. The lump in your throat is sudden. Uninvited. It catches you off guard how seen you feel in two words typed by someone who barely speaks.

yeah jake

thank you

No reply.

But you know he’s there.

You don’t need to ask again. You don’t need him to say it out loud. And for the first time in weeks, you close your eyes and actually mean to fall asleep.The room is dark, but not empty. Shadows flicker across the walls like whispers, moving with the rhythm of your breath. You’re somewhere between asleep and awake, caught in the thin space where reality blurs. You see him.

Not in his usual black clothes, not the quiet, watchful bodyguard you know, but standing under a soft light that paints his face warm and gentle. His eyes meet yours, steady and unblinking, like he’s waiting for you to say something you’ve forgotten.

You want to speak, but your voice is trapped behind a wall of fog. Your throat tightens, words refusing to come.

He takes a step forward, slow and sure, the air humming with quiet energy. The room feels too small for both of you, yet the space between you pulses with something unspoken.

Your hand reaches out instinctively, but it passes through him like mist, leaving a cold ache where your fingers should have touched. You blink, frustrated and aching.

He smiles, a rare thing — small, almost shy, like a secret shared between ghosts. The corners of his mouth twitch up, lighting the darkness.

“Why won’t you wake up?” his voice is a soft murmur, barely louder than the breath between you. It’s not a question. It’s a promise.

You shake your head, heart pounding. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

You close your eyes, the shadows folding around you like a cocoon. “Of doing this.”

He steps closer again, and this time, you can feel warmth radiating from him, wrapping around your skin like a shield. “I can protect you.”

The words settle deep in your chest, easing the tightness that’s been there for too long. You want to believe him. You want to reach out again, to feel something solid and real.

But then the shadows shift, and the light flickers.

He’s gone.

You wake with a start, the room silent except for your ragged breath. Your heart races as your fingers curl around the sheets, holding onto the warmth of the dream as it slips away like smoke.

Morning light spills through the curtains, soft and warm, but you don’t feel it. Instead, you stare blankly at the ceiling, your mind tangled in the remnants of the dream — his voice, the warmth, the promise. It’s like a secret thread pulling at the edges of your thoughts, too fragile to hold but impossible to ignore.

You push yourself up slowly, muscles protesting the movement, and swing your legs over the side of the bed. The room feels unusually quiet, almost too quiet, as if the world is waiting for you to decide what comes next. You reach for your phone, thumb hovering over Jake’s name before you pull away, uncertainty knotting your stomach.

At practice, your movements feel off. The usual rhythm you rely on slips through your fingers like water. Your eyes catch your reflection in the mirror, and you barely recognize the tired girl staring back — her smile forced, her shoulders heavy. You try to shake it off, pushing harder, but the lingering warmth from the dream makes your heart ache in a way you don’t quite understand.

Jake is there, as always, standing silently near the door, but today something’s different. His gaze lingers on you longer than usual, dark eyes searching, almost gentle. When your foot falters mid-step, his brow twitches with concern, but he doesn’t move closer — instead, he simply watches, waiting for you to find your footing again.

During a break, you retreat to the corner of the room, wiping the sweat from your brow as your chest rises and falls with uneven breaths. Jake approaches quietly, the soft thud of his footsteps the only sound breaking the stillness. He stands beside you, his presence a steady anchor, but this time, he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he hands you a bottle of water with a glance that says, without words, “I’m here.”

You catch his eyes, and for a brief moment, the walls around you soften. You want to ask him about the dream, about the warmth, about the promise to catch you. But the words stick, tangled in your throat. So instead, you simply nod, taking the water, feeling the unspoken connection pulse between you.

As practice resumes, your steps grow surer. The dream’s echo remains, a quiet warmth in the back of your mind — a hope you’re still too scared to fully embrace. And Jake, ever silent, stays by your side, his watchful gaze a gentle reminder that maybe, just maybe, you won’t have to fall alone.

The music blares through the speakers, loud enough to shake the windows and flood the room with energy. You throw yourself into the choreography, pushing through the lingering ache in your muscles and the dull throb still pulsing in your ankle.

Every move counts, and you know it. But the fatigue is heavier than usual, weighing down your limbs like invisible chains. You miss a beat, your foot slipping on the slick floor just as you spin, and the world tilts alarmingly.

For a heartbeat, you lose your balance.

Your heart leaps with panic as you stumble forward, the familiar terror of falling rushing in. Time seems to slow, the cold sweat prickling down your back as your body fights to right itself.

Before you can hit the ground, a firm hand grips your waist—steady and unyielding.

His strong arms catch you effortlessly, pulling you back upright like a guardian angel in black. His voice, low and calm, whispers just inches from your ear, “Easy, breathe.”

Your breath hitches, and your cheeks flush hot with embarrassment and relief all at once. You try to steady yourself, leaning into his support more than you care to admit.

“I’m fine,” you murmur, voice tight, unwilling to admit how close you came to falling apart—literally.

Jake’s grip doesn’t falter. Instead, he lets out a soft chuckle, rare and almost warm. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

You glance up at him, surprised by the gentle edge in his tone. His dark eyes hold something unreadable—something softer than the usual stoic mask.

For a moment, the air between you hums with unspoken understanding.

“You’ve been pushing too hard,” he says quietly, releasing you but staying close enough that you feel the heat of his presence. “Don’t let your pride get the better of you.”

You bite your lip, the tension easing but the vulnerability still raw beneath the surface. “I just don’t want to show weakness,” you confess, voice barely above a whisper.

Jake steps closer, the space between you charged but respectful. “Sometimes strength is knowing when to lean on someone else,” he replies.

Your eyes meet his, and for the first time, you see the hint of something like care flickering in his gaze.

The music swells again, and you pull back just enough to take a shaky breath.

The music fades, the beat slowing as your breathing catches up with the pounding rhythm of your heart. You stand close to Jake, the air between you thick with unspoken words and electric tension.

His dark eyes search yours, hesitant but intense, as if he’s waiting for permission to cross the invisible line that’s held you apart.

You swallow hard, feeling the heat rise in your cheeks, the ache in your chest twisting with something more than exhaustion.

“Jake,” you whisper, voice trembling just enough to betray your calm, “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

His lips curl into a small, almost shy smile — a rare crack in his usually unreadable expression. “Neither am I,” he admits softly, “but maybe we don’t have to be.”

Before you can think twice, he steps closer, closing the last inches between you. His hand rises slowly, fingertips brushing a stray lock of hair from your face with surprising gentleness

Your breath hitches. Time slows.

His lips press against yours, soft and searching, a tentative promise wrapped in warmth. The kiss isn’t rushed — it lingers, careful and full of quiet longing.

You respond, letting yourself lean into the moment despite every warning bell ringing inside you. His hand cups your cheek, steady and sure, grounding you in a way nothing else has.

When you finally pull back, your foreheads rest together, breaths mingling in the small space between you.

“I’m scared,” you confess, voice barely more than a breath.

“So am I,” Jake replies, voice steady and low. “But maybe scared isn’t a bad place to start.”

Your fingers find his hand, intertwining naturally like they were always meant to.

[ickbite]

Lmk what i should publish next!!!

HEESEUNG — WHITE MUSTANG (oracle!reader x knight!hee)

Heeseung is perfect as the quiet, loyal knight who’s gentle and most importantly, always in your visions. He never questions fate that has been set until he meets you, and suddenly fate doesn’t matter anymore. Now, he’ll do anything to change your ending.

NIKI — THE LOVE OF MY DREAMS (idol!niki x waitress!reader)

Niki hiding his life as an idol who visits your cafe daily and orders the same smoothie. He pretends not to notice your awkwardness, but finds it adorable (in a weird nerdy sense) and starts inventing reasons to come back every morning.

SUNGHOON — YOURE SO CREEPY (student!Sunghoon x ghost!reader)

Sunghoon, the elite golden boy who shouldn’t notice you but does. He’s drawn to your quietness and once he realizes he’s the only one who remembers you every day, he becomes obsessed with figuring out who you are and how to stop you from disappearing.

JAKE — R U MINE? (Bodyguard!Jake x idol!reader)

Jake, the bodyguard who swears he’s just doing his job but secretly memorizes everything about you. He’s warm, loyal, and deadly when needed. When danger rises, he’d kill for you. When you smile at him? That’s what breaks him.

[ickbite]

HERE COMES THE SUN !! — part 1 -> part 2

pairing: SupermansSon!jake sim x BatmanDaughter!Reader

Synopsis: Ironically deciding that you’re too lonely, your dad — Batman — decides to pair you up with Metrapolis’ favorite rising hero, Solaris (aka Son of Superman)!

note: I LOVEEDDD THE NEW SUPERMAN MOVIEEEE also my feet are asleep rn. — enha masterlist

The Watchtower’s observation deck was silent, save for the low, ever-present hum of energy flowing through its systems. Beyond the thick glass, Earth hung like a jewel against the black, spinning slowly and uncaring beneath your boots. It was beautiful—cold, distant, and impossibly alive. Almost like space was mocking you with how small you were.

You didn’t turn when you heard the footsteps behind you. They were measured, deliberate, softened only slightly by the weight of decades spent moving silently through darker places than this. You didn’t have to see him to know it was your father. You could feel him—like gravity pulling tight.

“I’m not stalling,” you said, arms crossed over your chest, gaze fixed on the curve of the planet below. Your voice was steady, but your jaw was locked tight.

There was a pause, followed by the familiar low tone you’d been raised on. “I never said you were.”

His voice didn’t rise. It never did. That was the worst part—it didn’t have to. He didn’t need to raise it to command attention. Every word landed like a weighted throw.

“You’re trying to avoid the briefing,” he continued. “I understand why.”

You turned your head slightly, just enough to catch the sharp outline of the Bat in your periphery. The pointed cowl. The impenetrable armor. The eyes that had never blinked under pressure. He wasn’t your dad right now. He was Batman. He always was.

“If this is about the Gotham recon,” you started, “I already filed my report. I didn’t compromise anything.”

“It’s not about the mission,” he interrupted. “It’s about you.”

That made you face him fully.

Your arms fell to your sides, though your fingers twitched with the urge to cross them again. You hated when he did this—pulled the conversation deeper, cracked open the door to something you weren’t sure you wanted to feel.

“I’m fine,” you said plainly. “I’ve completed every assignment. I haven’t missed a single target in months. I haven’t made one misstep.”

“You’re technically perfect,” he agreed. “But only technically.”

You blinked, unsure whether to feel insulted or challenged. “What does that mean?”

“You’re still treating every mission like it’s Gotham. Like it’s just you, the shadows, and a countdown to detonation.”

“That’s how you trained me,” you shot back. “That’s how you raised me.”

He didn’t deny it. He only stepped closer, slow and sure, his cape whispering over the floor. “And it worked. You’re sharp. Focused. Fearless.”

“Then what’s the problem?” you asked, more sharply than you meant to. You hated the small twinge of defensiveness in your chest. It didn’t belong there.

Batman looked down at you, and for a rare moment, there was no edge to his voice. Just truth.

“You only know how to trust people who fight like you,” he said. “Me. Your brothers. The ones who’ve been trained under the same conditions, the same code.”

You swallowed hard, already knowing where this was going.

“I’ve worked with League members before,” you argued, even though it was mostly true in theory. “Field-level cooperation. Split-second tactics. You’ve seen the debriefs.”

“You don’t let them in,” he said simply. “Not really.”

You clenched your fists, leather creaking slightly. “Because I don’t need to.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

You didn’t reply. You hated that he was right. You hated it more that he could see it.

He turned away from the window and walked toward the center of the room. The lights of the Watchtower glinted off his gauntlets like steel in moonlight. His voice was lower now—less Batman, more father.

“I didn’t bring you up to be dependent,” he said. “But I also didn’t raise you to be alone.”

“I’m not alone,” you said quickly. “I have Jay. I have Niki.”

“You have your brothers,” he agreed. “But they’re not always going to be standing in the shadows next to you. And one day, someone else will be. Someone you didn’t grow up trusting. Someone who doesn’t think in perfect silence or know your tells by heart.”

You looked away, biting the inside of your cheek. The silence stretched for too long, and he let it.

“You think that because we move in the dark, we don’t need connection,” he said, softer now. “But even the dark needs anchors.”

You hated how much that line stuck.

He tapped the console beside him, and the holoscreen flared to life. A mission file opened. One name blinked at the top of the screen: Solaris.

You raised your eyes to his. “You’re serious.”

“He’s your assignment.”

“Why him?” The words came fast, sharp, defensive. “Out of everyone in the League—why him?”

“He’s not you,” he said. “And that’s exactly why this will matter.”

You scoffed, turning toward the screen. “He’s a public relations poster boy in a cape. The world adores him. You’ve seen the footage—he flies into danger with zero caution. He smiles at reporters mid-flight. He’s—he’s sunshine.”

“And you’re Gotham,” your father said evenly. “You don’t need someone who thinks like you. You need someone who challenges what you believe about the people you work with.”

You shook your head. “Jay never had to do this. Neither did Niki.”

“Jay had me,” he said. “And Niki had you.”

That made you freeze.

“I’m not punishing you,” he added. “I’m giving you a chance to grow. You’re ready for more than Gotham. More than the family. You’re ready to lead—but only if you can learn to lead someone who doesn’t already follow your rhythm.”

You stared at Solaris’s name on the screen. Your jaw tightened. “If he gets in my way, I won’t hesitate.”

Your father’s eyes met yours without flinching. “Then I hope you’ll learn not to see him as a threat.”

You stood in the central command room, fully suited. Your armor was matte-black and reinforced. Every strap was in place. Every motion was silent. You were ready to move. Ready for a mission—not for conversation.

The doors slid open behind you with a soft hydraulic hiss. The air shifted.

He entered like a warm current rolling into a frozen room.

Solaris.

His cape swayed behind him, a blend of gold and deep navy, bright against the sterile grays of the Watchtower. His hair was windswept like he’d flown through a jetstream and liked the way it looked. And of course, he was smiling—boyish and too damn bright.

“You must be Omen,” he said, voice casual, but full of awe. “Wow. You’re… way more intimidating in person. Which is honestly impressive because the files were already terrifying.”

You didn’t blink. “You’re late.”

“Was helping redirect a falling satellite,” he replied with a shrug, like it was just a small side task. “Didn’t want it crashing into Norway. Figured I’d get points for that.”

Batman stood beside you, silent, observing.

Solaris finally glanced at him, a bit more nervous now. “This is the part where you tell me I’m lucky to work with her, right?”

Your father’s voice was dry. “No. This is the part where I tell her not to throw you off the side of the Watchtower.”

You didn’t even look at Solaris when you said, “No promises.”

He laughed nervously. “Okay. Cool. Great start.”

You turned away, cape brushing past his shoulder. Your fingers tapped the holopad as the mission file loaded again.

Coast City was colder than expected. The skyline stretched before you like a gleaming fortress, glass towers reflecting distant streetlights and neon signs. It was the kind of place that never quite slept but also never hid its secrets—unlike Gotham’s suffocating shadows. Here, everything was exposed. You hated it.

Your boots hit the rooftop of LexCorps West Satellite Facility with practiced silence. The matte-black of your suit blended perfectly with the night, absorbing what little light there was. The armor was sleek but reinforced, layered with advanced kevlar composites and nano-fiber mesh that flexed with your every movement. The subtle embossing of your family crest—an abstracted bat symbol—rested over your heart, barely visible unless you were close enough to catch it in the dark.

Your cowl framed your face tightly, with lenses that shifted automatically to thermal or night vision, glowing faintly red when activated. The cape was a lightweight, adaptive fabric—more shadow than cloth—that flowed like liquid darkness behind you, designed to muffle sound and obscure your silhouette. Every detail was optimized for stealth, agility, and intimidation. You were a ghost in the night, a weapon forged in shadow.

Behind you, the sudden whump of landing echoed. Solaris appeared—a stark contrast to your quiet shadow. His suit gleamed even under the sparse rooftop lighting, the deep navy blue accented with bold gold lines tracing the musculature beneath. The fabric shimmered subtly, a cutting-edge Kryptonian weave designed to absorb solar energy. The iconic ‘S’ crest on his chest burned with radiant light, symbolizing hope but also power.

His cape billowed in a slight breeze, almost radiant, catching the light like liquid gold, fluttering with a majesty that was impossible to ignore. His boots and gauntlets were reinforced with advanced alloys, built for both speed and strength, and the suit’s collar rose slightly, framing his face with a subtle glow. His eyes flickered softly with heat energy, a constant reminder of the immense power coiled just beneath his skin.

“Do you always land like a comet?” you muttered, scanning the perimeter through your thermal lens.

Solaris laughed, the sound light. “That was subtle for me.”

“That’s a problem.”

He stepped closer, the warmth of his solar-charged suit brushing against your cold armor. “So, what’s the plan, Omen?”

You didn’t look at him, focused on the darkened windows of the lab below. “I enter through the east vent. You circle the upper level, scan for movement and heat signatures. No engagement unless absolutely necessary.”

He nodded, voice casual but with an edge of teasing. “Got it. Though, just so you know—I’m bulletproof.”

You finally turned to face him, expression unreadable beneath your mask. “Good for you. Try not to get anyone else killed.”

Solaris blinked, his smile faltering for the first time that night. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was heavy, like a pause in a storm, that split-second before lightning strikes. You didn’t apologize. You weren’t trying to wound him. You were just stating facts.

Without waiting for him to speak again, you launched your grappling hook across the rooftop. The cable hissed as it pulled you into the dark, boots slicing through wind as you moved in a wide arc above the alley. The shadows swallowed you whole before Solaris could say another word, leaving only the whisper of your cape behind.

He took a second longer to follow. His descent was quiet by his standards—no sonic boom, no heatwave—but it was still too loud for you. He didn’t crouch low when he landed. He didn’t flatten against the ledge or reduce his glow. He stood like someone who had never needed to hide.

You slipped into the ventilation shaft without a sound, muscles taut, suit adjusting instantly to the cold metal. The walls were narrow, lined with dust and static electricity, but you didn’t flinch. Your breath slowed to a crawl, your heart rate barely a whisper. The mask over your face locked into night mode as your lenses shifted—thermal on the left, motion sensor on the right.

The hum of LexCorp’s underground systems buzzed below your knees. You crawled inch by inch, hands pressed flat, limbs moving like clockwork. You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t allow space for fear. This was your element—tight spaces, low stakes, maximum focus.

In your ear, Solaris’s voice came through the comm with irritating warmth. “Three guards heading toward the main corridor. They’re armored. No open comms. One of them’s carrying something with a green pulse.”

You clicked your tongue once. “Kryptonite mod.”

“Lovely,” he said, quieter this time. “You see an entrance?”

“I’m ten feet from the upper lab. Wait for my mark.”

“Copy,” he answered. For once, he didn’t joke.

The grate below your gloves gave way with a soft metallic sigh. You slid down silently, landing in a crouch behind a tall rack of climate-controlled crates. The lab was white, polished, sterile in the way evil always pretended to be good. Screens glowed softly along the far wall, lines of code and chemical signatures scrolling fast.

You recognized the scent first—Kryptonite vapor, faint and sharp, like cut metal and static. The crates around you hummed with energy, tagged with L-Corp stamps and hazard symbols. You lifted one lid slightly and found what you feared: containment cases, shaped like rifles, glowing green at the seams.

Weapons. Designed for one target only.

You snapped a photo and sent it to the Watchtower’s encrypted server. Then you moved to the far console, fingers flying over keys as you downloaded all available files. A quiet whine filled the room as the drive spun to life, blinking orange as it copied.

Behind you, the door opened with a hiss.

Your body reacted before your mind did—spinning, batarang already drawn.

But it was Solaris.

He stepped through the threshold like a sunbeam in a storm, gold and navy flickering with the light from the glowing crates. His chest rose and fell, not from exertion, but from restraint.

“I told you not to engage,” you said sharply, voice low.

“I didn’t,” he replied, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “They spotted me. I just… didn’t get shot.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You’re a walking flare. They don’t miss you.”

He grinned faintly. “That’s kind of the point.”

Your comm pulsed. Motion. Five signatures now, converging on the room. You snapped the drive shut and slid it into your utility belt.

“We’re out of time,” you said. “I’ll take the lower vent. You fly back to the Watchtower and deliver this to the League.”

Solaris took a step forward, brow furrowed. “You’re faster. Let me—”

“No,” you cut in. “You’re the distraction. I’m the shadow. You’re glowing. I’m not. That’s not an insult. It’s a plan.”

There was a long beat of silence. Then Solaris nodded. It wasn’t with his usual swagger, either—it was careful. Serious. Respectful.

You handed him the datachip, eyes not leaving his. “Fly low. Don’t draw attention.”

“I can do that,” he said. Then, hesitating: “You gonna be okay on your own?”

You paused. Just for a moment. Just long enough for the flicker of something else—doubt, maybe—to sneak in before you buried it.

“I always am,” you said.

He gave you one last look—something unspoken in his eyes, something not ready to be named. Then he launched, cape sweeping wide, vanishing through the ceiling vent without a sound.

You turned back to the crates.

The hum was louder now. The guards were coming.

You didn’t wait.

The second Solaris vanished through the vent, his golden light fading into the duct like sunlight swallowed by smoke, you turned sharply on your heel and moved. There was no hesitation in your body. No breath held too long, no second thoughts coiled in your gut. This was what you were made for. Missions. Execution. Escape.

The lab was dim, lit only by the faint blue glow of energy panels and the soft pulsing green from the Kryptonite crates stacked around the room like tombstones. You moved like a current between them—low, silent, your silhouette melting into the sterile shadows. The air smelled clinical, but faintly wrong, as if beneath the bleach and coolant, something radioactive was humming just out of sight.

You heard it before you saw it—the hiss of pressurized doors unlocking, metal groaning as it slid into the wall. A team. You counted the sound of boots before you even saw their shadows stretch across the floor: four guards, heavy-footed, synchronized. Military-trained. LexCorp didn’t send amateurs into black labs.

You ducked behind the largest crate, crouching low, cloak drawn around you. The suit adapted, surface darkening a few degrees to match the metal behind you. Your breathing slowed on instinct, chest tightening, lungs moving with silent efficiency. You reached for your belt and slid two batarangs between your gloved fingers, pulse steady, heart low in your throat like a countdown.

“They said the Kryptonian left,” one of the guards muttered. His voice was gruff, distorted behind a helmet. “Sweep the area. Someone else was here.”

Your hand twitched slightly around the batarang, but your grip held. You knew this routine. Flashlights swept the room. The green glow of their rifles flickered against the polished floor. One guard passed two feet from your position, his boot scuffing slightly on a power cable. You waited. Counted his breaths. Noted the way his rifle tilted down for a single, careless second.

That was all you needed.

You struck without warning.

Both batarangs left your hands in perfect sync—one arcing high, the other low. The upper struck the rifle, right on the Kryptonite chamber. It sparked with a choked sizzle, shutting down the weapon in a blink. The lower embedded itself in his chest plate, releasing a compressed shock pulse that sent him crashing into a rack of containment tubes with a thud.

The others reacted instantly, but not fast enough.

You were already moving, vaulting over the crate, cape flaring behind you like a living shadow. Your knee collided with the second guard’s jaw mid-spin, knocking his head sideways with a crunch. He stumbled, and you used that half-second to duck low, sweeping his legs out from under him in one clean motion. He landed hard, groaning, and didn’t get up.

The third opened fire.

You rolled beneath the beam, green light scorching the air above your shoulder. Your cape rose behind you like a wall, blocking his line of sight for one crucial second. He fired again, but your boots struck his chest mid-leap, knocking him back into a table that cracked under the weight of his armor. He groaned, stunned.

You didn’t let him recover.

With two sharp steps, you grabbed the edge of the table and slammed it sideways into his chest. The crash echoed in the lab, glass shattering across the floor like rainfall. You stood above him, chest heaving, but silent.

The fourth turned and ran.

You chased him without pause.

Every step echoed louder now, your boots hammering against the sleek tile as you moved. He darted down a narrow hall, slamming his fist into a panel to open a blast door. It started to slide shut behind him. You didn’t slow.

You ran toward the wall, stepped off one side, then the other, using the corridor’s narrow width to gain height. You flipped over the half-closed door, landing hard on the other side just as he skidded to a stop, startled. He barely lifted his weapon before your hand shot out, grabbing the barrel and twisting it free.

He shouted. You kicked his knee in.

He dropped with a scream, and you grabbed the front of his armor, dragging him upright against the wall. Your voice dropped an octave behind the mask. “Where’s the rest of the Kryptonite?”

The man was shaking. “I—I don’t know! I only guard the shipments they let through. I don’t know where they go after. I swear—”

“Who’s your handler?”

“Vale. Director Vale. From the Metropolis research branch. He doesn’t tell us anything else. He just pays.”

You stared into the slits of his helmet, then struck him clean in the temple. He dropped like dead weight.

You stood slowly, exhaling through your teeth, sweat prickling at the back of your neck inside the cowl. The hallway was quiet now, the only sound the distant thrum of generators and the hum of Kryptonite charging plates somewhere deeper in the compound.

You checked your wrist display. Six minutes since Solaris left.

He should’ve made it to the Watchtower by now. If he’d gone straight up and kept his altitude low, he would’ve avoided satellite scans. He would’ve arrived with the data, the mission technically a success. You told yourself that.

Still, your hand hovered over the communicator embedded in your cowl. You could open the line. Ask if he made it. Confirm that the heat signatures around him had faded, that he wasn’t lying on a rooftop somewhere with Kryptonite burns scorching his ribs.

But you didn’t.

Instead, you turned and walked.

Each step was slow, methodical, your mind looping his last words on repeat—You gonna be okay on your own?

You were.

You had to be.

Because trusting him—even now—was dangerous. And worse than that, caring was weakness. And you’d already survived too many nights to start slipping now.

Still, in the back of your head, his voice lingered like light behind your eyelids.

And you hated how much of you wanted to hear it again.The Watchtower loomed above Earth like a sentinel—silent, cold, and pristine. Its lights pulsed in neat rhythms, elegant and surgical, like the beat of a heart that had never known pain. Solaris broke through the clouds at high speed, but his flight wasn’t as clean as usual.

He was off-center. Listing slightly.

His left arm hung lower than it should’ve. His suit—normally pristine, radiant—was scorched along the shoulder, blackened from concentrated Kryptonite exposure. The light in the crest across his chest had dimmed, flickering faintly like a dying star. It was still there, but its usual glow—the warmth that comforted civilians and intimidated villains—had fractured.

And he felt it.

God, he felt it.

Every heartbeat ached now, dragging like concrete in his chest. The Kryptonite hadn’t hit a vital artery, but it had been close—too close. His body was still burning it off, working overtime to flush it from his system. It was like his cells were screaming beneath his skin, clawing to stay alive.

The moment he crossed into the Watchtower’s atmosphere-sealed bay, he lost altitude.

Hard.

His boots slammed into the hangar deck with a painful clang, knees buckling beneath him as he stumbled forward. His hand caught the wall just before he collapsed. The impact echoed across the steel room, too loud in the silence. His vision pulsed in and out, red at the edges.

“System—" he muttered through clenched teeth, voice hoarse. “Engage medical scan.”

A light flickered on above him, and the Watchtower’s diagnostic program whirred softly to life.

Warning: Cellular destabilization detected. Kryptonite radiation present in bloodstream. Suggest immediate containment and treatment.

“No time,” Solaris breathed. “Get the drive to League Command. Priority Alpha.”

He reached into his utility brace—something Batman had insisted he wear during joint missions—and pulled the small, black datachip Omen had given him. It was slick with blood.

His blood.

He hadn’t even noticed he was bleeding.

The program took the chip, slotting it into the secure terminal beside the hangar bay doors. A blue light blinked: transmission complete. Files encrypted, routed straight to League HQ. The mission was a success.

So why didn’t it feel like it?

He pressed his forehead against the cool metal of the wall and let out a quiet breath.

Her voice echoed in his head—sharp, cold, unforgiving. “Try not to get anyone else killed.”

She didn’t mean it. Or maybe she did. It didn’t matter.

He hated how much it did matter to him.

She’d been right, in a way. He’d drawn attention. He’d made himself a target, made her job harder by simply existing the way he did: bright, loud, impossible to miss. He was the sun, and she was the shadow. There was no way around it.

And yet, even now—on his knees, suit torn, shoulder throbbing—he couldn’t shake the image of her eyes behind the mask. That glare. Controlled, calculating. Alive.

No one looked at him like that.

No one ever dared to.

He pushed himself up with a groan, staggered toward the hallway that would lead to the medbay. His hand smudged blood across the console as he passed it. He didn’t stop. Couldn’t. He just needed to make it to the sterile white walls, to the autopod that would pump him full of UV and flush the poison from his veins.

He just needed to lie down for a minute.

He didn’t notice the small red alert ping that blinked across the Watchtower’s interface—one registered to her frequency.

Because even though Omen hadn’t pressed the comm… she was still listening.

The briefing room was dim and cold, just the way he liked it. Gotham’s skyline glimmered in the monitor behind the main screen, a silent reminder of home, even this far above Earth. The Watchtower may have belonged to the League, but this room belonged to him.

Your father stood in the center of the darkened chamber, arms crossed over the matte black of his suit, cowl still in place. His cape pooled around his boots like liquid shadow, unmoving even in the climate-controlled stillness. He didn’t need to speak. The weight of his presence filled the room like a second gravity.

You entered without ceremony, gloves still off, helmet clipped to your belt. Your knuckles were scuffed—only slightly—but he noticed. Of course he did.

You moved to the console without being asked, fingers flying over the keys as the Coast City data uploaded to the mainframe. The files flickered across the holograms: LexCorp weapon inventories, encrypted comm transcripts, heat signature maps.

You didn’t look at him.

You didn’t have to.

“Report,” he said, voice low and even.

“The intel was accurate. Shipment arrived at the West Satellite Facility three hours before insertion. There were four guards inside—five outside. Kryptonite-based weapons. Solaris ran interference. I went in through the vent.”

He said nothing. Just nodded once. Not approval. Not yet.

“I extracted the data chip. He got it back here,” you added.

Still nothing.

You swallowed, subtly. “They’re moving faster than we expected. I’m guessing they’re prepping for someone bigger than just him.”

Batman’s eyes—hidden behind the cowl’s white lenses—narrowed. “Director Vale?”

You nodded. “Mentioned by name. One of the guards gave him up before I knocked him out.”

Batman turned slightly toward the screen, his silhouette cutting a sharp edge across the room’s glow. “He’s been off the League’s radar for three months. Last ping was in Bialya. If he’s back in Metropolis, this isn’t just arms dealing. It’s staging.”

You didn’t flinch.

You were raised in this.

There were no surprises anymore.

But even as you stood still, every part of your body locked into briefing mode, you knew he was watching you. You felt it like a pressure at the base of your spine.

When you didn’t speak further, he did. Quiet. Controlled.

“You didn’t tell me Solaris was injured.”

Your eyes flicked up at him then, just for a moment. “He handled it.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

The words sank deeper than you expected.

You straightened slightly, posture tightening, chin rising a fraction. “He didn’t report it until he got here. I didn’t know how bad it was until after.”

“And once you did?”

You hesitated. Just for half a second.

“He’s recovering.”

Silence.

Not judgment.

Just… silence.

Which was worse.

You stared straight ahead, jaw clenched. “It didn’t compromise the mission.”

“That’s not what I’m concerned about.”

You froze.

That was new.

Batman’s head tilted ever so slightly, as if studying a weakness you hadn’t meant to show. “You’ve always worked alone. Or with your brothers. Solaris changes the dynamic.”

“I don’t need him,” you said flatly.

“I didn’t say you did.”

Your pulse kicked hard against your ribs.

He stepped closer, only a foot or so, and spoke lower now—less commander, more father. “You don’t trust easily. That’s not a flaw. It’s how I raised you. But one day, if you’re going to lead the next generation of the League, you’re going to have to learn how to work with people who aren’t built like us.”

You didn’t answer.

Your hands were fists at your sides, nails digging into your palms.

He glanced at the screen, then back at you. “Solaris isn’t your enemy.”

“I know.”

“He’s not your brother.”

“I know that too.”

A long pause stretched between you.

Then—quietly—he added, “You didn’t leave him behind.”

Your jaw flexed. “I completed the mission.”

“You didn’t leave him behind,” he repeated.

And you hated how true it was.

Batman gave one final look at the monitor, then turned back toward the shadows. His cape trailed behind him as he moved, voice fading just slightly as he spoke:

“Get some rest. There’ll be another op within forty-eight hours. And Omen?”

You turned slightly.

He looked back at you.

“I’m proud of how you handled it. Just don’t let what scares you keep you from learning something.”

Then he was gone.

Leaving you in the blue glow of the monitors, alone with your heartbeat, and the uncomfortable weight of what he didn’t say out loud.

You hadn’t expected to see anyone in the auxiliary lounge, let alone him.

You just wanted hot chocolate.

You padded in barefoot, hair still damp from your post-shower rinse, hoodie two sizes too big, Gotham Academy pajama shorts peeking out from underneath. The Watchtower was dead quiet. Dim blue night-cycle lights hummed overhead, and you moved through the lounge on autopilot, eyes already on the drink machine near the corner—

And then you saw him.

Slouched sideways across the window ledge with one leg propped up and the other dangling lazily, wearing a threadbare grey t-shirt and black sweats, Jake looked completely out of place.

Not because he didn’t belong.

Because he wasn’t glowing.

There was no cape. No suit. No solar crest burned into his chest. No blinding aura of heat and power. Just a boy. Tired, probably still bruised, and watching the stars blink against Earth’s atmosphere like he wasn’t really seeing them at all.

You nearly turned around.

But then he looked over, and his mouth curved into a half-smile.

“Didn’t peg you as a midnight cocoa kind of person.”

You blinked. “Didn’t peg you as a person who sits still.” Of course you knew he was Solaris, your father was the Batman, he had tabs on everyone.

He shrugged. “Injury,” he said simply. “That whole ‘getting impaled with Kryptonite’ thing really kills the cardio vibe.”

You hesitated, then made your way to the machine anyway. “You should be in medbay.”

“They kicked me out. Said I was healing too fast and making the rest of the patients feel bad.”

You glanced at him from over your shoulder. He looked perfectly comfortable where he was—one arm behind his head, eyes half-lidded, like this place belonged to him.

It was infuriating.

And weirdly… kind of charming.

You poured your drink in silence, steam curling up in soft tendrils. “Did you follow me?”

He scoffed. “Nah. I’ve been here for like twenty minutes. This is my secret spot. You just have suspicious timing.”

“I don’t have suspicious timing.”

“You absolutely do. You probably know the staff schedule down to the minute.”

You turned toward him, cup in hand. “That’s not—okay, yeah. I do.”

He grinned, and it wasn’t cocky like Solaris usually was on the field. It was boyish. Warm. Like he knew this was the first real conversation the two of you had without gear or protocols or blood in the background.

“Sit,” he said, nudging the ledge with his knee.

You stared at him. “You want me to sit next to you.”

“I’m off-duty, and you’re not scowling for once. I’m trying to make history here.”

You rolled your eyes but moved closer anyway, settling cautiously beside him. The ledge was wide, the glass cool against your back. The stars beyond it felt huge and far away. And for once, it was kind of nice.

Neither of you said anything for a minute.

He took a sip from a bottle of something neon blue. You nursed your hot chocolate.

Then—quietly, without the usual teasing—he said, “You scared me a little. That night.”

You looked down. “Why?”

“I’ve never seen anyone move like that. Clean. Cold. Focused. You didn’t even breathe wrong.” His voice was more awe than accusation. “I’ve fought side by side with the best. But you—you’re something else.”

You didn’t know what to do with that. Praise made your skin itch.

“Thanks,” you muttered.

He bumped your knee gently with his. “You’re allowed to say something back, you know.”

You glanced at him. “You’re not what I expected either.”

Jake raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“I thought you’d be loud. Reckless. Golden boy stuff.”

He smirked. “And?”

“You’re actually kind of…” You trailed off, surprised by your own words. “…quiet. When you’re not trying to impress everyone.”

Jake looked down at his bottle, smiling into the rim. “Don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation.”

You let yourself laugh—a small sound, but real.

It was the first time he heard it.

And somehow, that tiny sound hung in the air like something you couldn’t take back.

Neither of you moved to fill the silence after that. Not because you didn’t know what to say—but because, for once, there was no need.

The rooftop beneath your boots was still warm from the sun, but the wind carried Metropolis’s night chill straight through the seams of your armor. You didn’t shiver—your training wouldn’t allow it—but you were wound tight in your stance, breath held steady, eyes locked on the warehouse three stories below.

You had been there for three minutes. Long enough to map the guard routes, memorize the timing between the drone scans, and feel him coming before he ever made a sound.

His landing was too quiet.

A soft whump of displaced air and heat touched the back of your neck like breath, not wind. You didn’t turn. You didn’t need to. That warmth—simmering, electric—was unmistakable.

Jake.

Solaris.

He stood just behind your right shoulder, close enough that the edge of his cape brushed against yours with the breeze. The soft friction made the hairs on your arm stand at full alert beneath your suit, even as you kept your voice flat.

“You’re late.”

He moved up beside you slowly, with no apology and no rush, like he wanted you to feel the space between you shrink. “Only by seven seconds,” he said, his tone smooth as silk and just as smug. “I figured you’d want the dramatic pause.”

Your eyes flicked toward him, careful and calculated—but the second you met his gaze, it was over. He wasn’t looking at the mission site. He was looking at you.

His eyes traced your jaw, your profile, the faint tension in your stance. He looked like he wanted to say something that had nothing to do with guard patrols or blueprints. He looked like he had said it already, last night, in silence.

You turned back to the edge. “You always this irritating, or just when I’m trying to concentrate?”

His shoulder brushed yours, barely—but enough that the contact felt deliberate. “Only when you’re around,” he said under his breath. “You bring it out of me.”

You felt the words low in your stomach. Heat curled there, unwelcome, annoying.

You ignored it. Or tried to.

The warehouse below was dimly lit, but far from empty. You’d already marked four heat signatures outside, and Jake—without prompting—confirmed your suspicion as he let his gaze slip down through the roof like it was nothing.

“Five inside. Six if you count the one sneaking a smoke near the generator room.”

His voice was calm, measured, but there was something behind it. Something like… interest. Not in the mission. In you.

You didn’t look at him again. Not yet. “I’ll take the scaffolding. You distract the north patrol and disable the alarm node.”

“That wasn’t in the plan,” he said, almost like he was challenging you.

“It is now.”

He smirked—a slow curve of his mouth that was far too confident. “Didn’t realize you wanted to see me show off again.”

You shot him a glare. “I don’t.”

“Sure.” He shifted his weight, cape brushing your arm again. “But you don’t not want to.”

Your jaw flexed. You wanted to shove him off the rooftop, or maybe shove him into a wall. The line between both options was too thin tonight, and the fact that you were even thinking it made your pulse spike.

You moved without warning, launching across the scaffolding like a whisper through steel and shadow. The wind caught your cape as you landed two levels down, knees bent, breath perfectly controlled. Your body knew the motions by instinct—precision, silence, grace.

From above, you heard him laugh quietly. Not mocking. Impressed.

You ignored the sound and dropped lower into the yard, weaving between shadows and shipping crates. Two guards. One step. A twist. A knee to the jaw. They went down before your boots even hit the ground.

He landed on the opposite side of the compound a second later—louder, but no less lethal. A pulse of solar energy disarmed the rifles with expert timing. You caught the edge of his heat vision in your periphery, melting a sensor plate just before it could ping.

When you regrouped at the back door, your breath came a little faster—not from exertion.

He was already there, leaning against the rusted frame with that same damned look in his eyes.

His suit shimmered with leftover heat energy, his collar slightly torn at the edge from the earlier blast. The skin there—just above his heart—was flushed red from the impact. You looked. Just for a second. It was a mistake.

“You’re injured,” you said, sharper than intended.

Jake’s eyes dropped to your mouth, then back to your eyes. “You noticed.”

“You’re glowing hotter than usual. It’s distracting.”

He stepped closer—barely—but it made all the difference. “Everything about you is distracting.”

Your breath caught.

He wasn’t teasing this time.

You hated the way your body responded—alert, alert, aware. Of his warmth. Of his voice. Of how close you were standing and how little you trusted yourself to move away.

You turned toward the steel door to hide it. “We finish the mission.”

“We always do,” he said quietly, right behind you now. “But this doesn’t feel like just a mission anymore, does it?”

You didn’t answer.

Because it didn’t.

Because he was right.

And because the second your gloves brushed the keypad, your hand was shaking just slightly.

You didn’t see the blast coming.

One second, you were inside the control room, decrypting the last of the shipment files. The next, Jake’s voice shouted your name—and then the floor cracked open beneath your boots.

Steel snapped. Concrete split. And then: darkness.

You landed hard, shoulder-first, in what felt like a sublevel maintenance shaft. Air rushed out of your lungs as the dust settled around you in a slow, suffocating cloud.

You blinked. Moved your fingers. Pain bloomed sharp across your ribs—bruised, not broken. You sat up fast, adrenaline overriding everything else.

“Jake?”

No answer.

“Jake!”

“I’m—ugh—here,” he groaned. His voice echoed from a few feet to your left. “Not dead. Just… incredibly uncomfortable.”

You turned toward the sound, cowl lenses adjusting to the dark. The glow from his chest symbol was muted but visible—just enough to guide you through the twisted wreckage of metal and rock.

He was half-buried beneath a collapsed panel, one arm pinned awkwardly, suit scraped and shoulder bleeding just under the golden trim.

You didn’t hesitate.

You dropped to your knees beside him, hands already reaching for leverage. “Hold still.”

“Didn’t plan on going anywhere.”

You braced your feet and pushed—hard—gritting your teeth as the panel gave way with a groan. Jake hissed as his arm came free, the muscle underneath twitching in protest.

You slid your arm behind his back and helped him sit up slowly. He leaned against the wall with a heavy exhale, the heat from his skin pulsing against yours through your armor.

“Okay,” he muttered. “That sucked.”

“You should’ve stayed out of the blast radius.”

“I was trying to keep it off you.”

You froze. “I had it handled.”

“I know,” he said. “I just… didn’t want to watch you get hurt.”

The words were soft. Barely spoken. But you heard them too clearly.

You turned away quickly, activating your comm link—but all you got was static. Jammed. You scanned the walls. Reinforced. No signal. No way up.

“We’re stuck,” you said tightly.

“Yeah.” Jake let his head rest back against the wall, then glanced at you. “I’ve been trapped in worse places.”

“With me?”

He smiled—slow, crooked, and entirely too pretty for someone bleeding out of his shoulder. “Not yet.”

You should’ve said something cutting. You should’ve rolled your eyes and told him to shut up.

But your throat was dry. Too dry.

You shifted to sit beside him, pressed shoulder to shoulder in the narrow space. The air was warm from his proximity, the heat bleeding off him like a second sun. Your skin burned where your arm touched his, even through layers of fabric and reinforced plating.

He glanced sideways, eyes catching yours.

For a long time, neither of you spoke.

Your chest rose and fell, steady but slow. His breathing was deeper—strained, a little uneven. He tilted his head slightly, face inches from yours in the dark.

“I like this,” he said suddenly.

Your eyes snapped to him. “What?”

“This version of you,” he said, voice low and rough. “Not glaring. Not disappearing into shadows. Just… here. With me.”

You swallowed. Your throat was tight.

“I don’t usually let people see me like this.”

“I know,” he murmured. “That’s why I’m trying not to blink.”

You were too aware of how close his mouth was. How soft his voice had gone. How the dim light from his crest outlined the slope of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the dark lashes casting faint shadows over his cheekbones.

You said nothing. You couldn’t.

So he did it for you.

“I think about you, you know,” he said. “When we’re not on missions. When I’m flying. When I’m in the medbay and you don’t show up.”

You turned to him slowly, pulse slamming in your ears. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because you’re not running.”

“I don’t run,” you whispered.

“Exactly.”

You should have said something smart. Something cold. You should’ve pushed away from him and told him to stop being reckless, stop being soft with you.

But instead, you didn’t move.

Instead, your eyes dropped to his mouth.

And his breath caught when he noticed.

You weren’t supposed to feel like this. Not toward someone like him. Not toward the boy with solar energy in his bones and hope in his veins. You were made for the dark. You were trained to be cold.

But he looked at you like you were something warm.

Like you were already burning, and he was the only one who could feel it.

He leaned in—just barely. Close enough to feel, not touch. His voice was a thread between you.

“I want to kiss you right now,” he said. “And I’m not going to unless you tell me to.”

The silence stretched.

Your chest rose slowly. Deliberately.

Then, without breaking eye contact, you said—

“…Don’t wait.”

The air in the vault was thick, heavy with dust and heat and something else — something electric, crackling in the space between you. Your lips barely brushed his, tentative at first, testing boundaries you hadn’t dared cross before. Then, slow and sure, the kiss deepened, a desperate promise in the dark.

His hand cupped your jaw, thumb tracing the tense line of your cheekbone. You felt the steady pulse of his heartbeat under your palm, wild and uneven, matching your own.

For a moment, time fractured — the world outside vanished. No suits, no missions, no expectations. Just two people tangled in shadows and heat.

Then the faintest tremor shook the vault, reminding you that reality wasn’t far behind. You pulled back, breath ragged, eyes searching his.

“We should—”

“Don’t,” he murmured, voice rough. “Not yet.”

You swallowed, the taste of him lingering. “Solaris—”

“Call me Jake.”

The vulnerability in his voice surprised you. The boy beneath Solaris, raw and unguarded.

You nodded, heart hammering. “Okay.”

For a few long seconds, you just sat close, shoulders touching, the silence speaking louder than words.

But eventually, the cold reality seeped back in — the mission, the danger, the walls closing in.

“We need to get out,” you said, steadying your voice. “Before someone comes looking.”

He nodded, strength returning to his posture. “Together.”

You glanced at him, a new warmth in your eyes. “Together.”

As you worked side by side to clear debris and find an exit, the kiss lingered between you — a spark promising this was only the beginning.

The narrow hatch hissed open, spilling cool, stale air into the claustrophobic vault. You and Jake crawled out, blinking against the harsh lights of the Watchtower’s lower deck. Your suits were scuffed, clothes dusted with grime, and your hearts still pounding—not just from the crawl through the wreckage but from what had passed between you.

Jake pulled off his damaged gauntlet, wincing as he flexed his fingers. “We make a hell of a team.”

You gave a tight smile, the ghost of your kiss still burning on your lips. “More than I expected.”

He caught your gaze, his own warm and searching. “You okay?”

You hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Just… processing.”

He stepped closer, voice dropping. “Me too.”

There was a silence pregnant with all the words neither of you dared say. Then, Jake broke it with a crooked grin. “So, about that kiss…”

You rolled your eyes but laughed, tension breaking like a wave. “You started it.”

“Maybe,” he teased. “But I’m not apologizing.”

“Good.”

His hand brushed yours—not quite touching, but close enough to send a spark racing up your arm. You swallowed hard, heart thrumming like a drum. “This changes things.”

Jake nodded slowly, eyes darkening with a mix of something fierce and tender. “Yeah. It does.”

You looked away first, then back again, ready to face whatever came next. “Then we figure it out. Together.”

He smiled, his hand finally closing around yours, fingers curling with a gentle certainty. “Together.”

[ickbite]

Im watching the new superman movie tonight i WILLL be writing a superman!enha x reader tonight.

[ickbite]

omg i need more of the age gap hee if you can IT WAS SOOSOSOSOOOO GOOD and i ADOREEE your writing style omg

MORE YOU SAAYYYY ????? Let me see what i can cook up heh…

[ickbite]

I’LL BE YOUR BABYDOLL !!

Pairing: SliceofLifeYoutuber!Jay x FamilyYoutuber reader

Synopsis: when a clip of your daughter asking you to marry Jay from youtube goes viral, you can’t help the new feelings that came with the publicity.

Note: i loveee mommy readers i cant lie i had a jake fic likee 4 years ago where he was the baby daddy and he found out years later lmk if i should bring that back or make a part 2… no angst just fluff and a lovely family dynamic— enha masterlist

You didn’t mean to film today. You really didn’t. The plan was to sleep in, maybe do pancakes if you could talk yourself into it, and let the rain do the heavy lifting when it came to entertainment.

But, of course, your daughter had other ideas.

“Can we make a video?” she asked, already dragging the tripod out from the corner like she owned the place. “Please, please, please! I wanna show everyone my doll and my sparkly rock and my dance moves!”

You blinked at her from the couch, still in the hoodie you’d slept in and cradling a half-full mug of lukewarm coffee. Her hair was sticking out in about five different directions, her pajama top was on inside-out, and she looked like she hadn’t blinked since the idea entered her brain.

“…You didn’t even brush your teeth.”

“I did it yesterday.”

You sighed and set the mug down. “Fine, but I’m not putting on makeup.”

“You look pretty already, mommy,” she said, already winning.

Fifteen minutes later, the camera was rolling.

“Hi friends,” you said, tugging your knees up to your chest as you sat cross-legged on the floor. The living room behind you looked semi-tolerable — toy baskets tucked into corners, pillows fluffed just enough to pass.

Next to you, your daughter waved a sparkly pink hairbrush like a wand.

“I’m back with the star of the channel—”

“It’s me,” she whispered to the camera, wide-eyed.

“Yes, yes it is. It’s a rainy day today, so we’re doing a cozy little video. No makeup, no fancy lights. Just us, some snacks, and probably five too many stuffed animals.”

“Six,” she corrected, already building a mountain of plushies behind her.

“Right. My bad.”

The vlog flowed like a stream of consciousness — soft, silly, and totally unplanned. She showed off her favorite items one by one: a plastic butterfly ring, a tiny glitter jar she insisted was “fairy dust,” and the rock. The rock she found two weeks ago on the sidewalk and now kept in a special box like it was a diamond.

“This is Rocco,” she said proudly, holding it up to the lens. “He’s magic but only on Tuesdays.”

You tried not to laugh as you nodded. “Naturally.”

Then came the dance break, the “Guess the Animal” game., and a very passionate performance of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star into the hairbrush mic, complete with dramatic bowing.

You leaned back against the couch, watching her with tired eyes and a full heart.

She was chaos, glitter, and warmth wrapped into one tiny body. And even though your head ached and your inbox was full and the laundry was judging you from the hallway, you wouldn’t trade this moment for anything.

Later, when the camera was off and she was curled up on your lap with her arms loosely around your waist, you ran your fingers through her hair and whispered, “You’re my favorite person, you know that?”

“I know,” she mumbled into your sweatshirt, already half-asleep.

“You’re gonna be so mad when I show this video to your future partner.”

She smiled against your chest. “Only if they’re weird.”

You laughed.

She didn’t even realize that she’d just captured something special — not for the algorithm, not for followers, but for you. A little snapshot of who she was at this exact age. Her silly stories. Her soft voice. Her wide eyes. Her everything.

You kissed the top of her head and pulled the blanket over both of you.

Tomorrow, maybe you’d edit the video or maybe you’d just keep this one for yourself.

You didn’t mean to post it.

Well, you did, but not in the way that mattered.

It was almost midnight, and you were curled up in bed with your laptop heating your thighs and a bowl of half-melted ice cream on the nightstand. Naelle had knocked out hours ago, her unicorn tucked under her arm and one sock halfway off. The rain was still tapping gently against the window, the apartment humming with that rare, end-of-day stillness.

You’d started editing just to wind down.

You were halfway through the video when it happened: you hit play on a random, barely lit clip and there it was—Naelle’s tiny voice clear as day:

“Can you marry him now?”

You paused. Rewound.

“Jay from YouTube. He cooks pancakes and he has a plant named Potato.”

You stared at the screen, eyebrows lifting so high they practically left your face.

“…What.”

You hadn’t even heard her say that while filming. You must’ve been too busy laughing at her chicken nugget meltdown or trying to stop her from gluing googly eyes to the cat toy bin. But there it was—spoken with full toddler conviction.

Your face in the background was priceless. Stunned. Speechless. Slightly offended that she’d made the decision without you.

You started laughing. Actual belly-laughing into your throw blanket. You dragged the clip into a separate timeline and trimmed it down to fifteen seconds. A little caption. A little music. Just for fun.

Just for you and the 43 people who consistently watched your Stories.

“My daughter has a type, apparently. Should I be concerned?? #momlife #chaoskid #toddlertalk”

You hit “post to TikTok,” shut your laptop, turned off the light, and fell asleep with a smile still tugging at your lips.

You woke up to your phone screaming.

Buzz after buzz after buzz, your screen lighting up like it was fighting for its life.

Messages. Notifications. Mentions. DMs. A missed call from Megan.

Megs 🍓: WHY IS YOUR FACE ON MY FYP AND WHY DOES YOUR KID WANT U TO MARRY JAY

HeeseungReacts: not the toddler having more confidence than me 😭

sunoo.glow: this is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen I’m sobbing

Your eyes widened as you tapped open the TikTok app.

And then you froze.

463.7k likes.

Over 2.1 million views.

“DUETED BY: JayDoesLife”

You blinked. Refreshed. Blinked again.

“WHAT.”

You scrambled upright in bed, covers flying, heart hammering in your chest like it was trying to burst out and sprint into the hallway. You opened the duetted video with shaking hands.

The split screen began.

Left side: Naelle, proudly declaring Jay as your future husband.

Right side: Jay himself — messy-haired, hoodie-wearing, sitting cross-legged in what looked like a sunlit kitchen, watching the video with a slow-building smile.

When Naelle finished her declaration, he tilted his head and smirked.

“She’s got taste. And apparently a plan.” He held up a juice box like a toast. “Tell her I’ll bring the snacks.”

The video ended with him laughing into his sleeve, eyes crinkling like he’d just witnessed the best thing all week.

You screamed into your pillow.

Not metaphorically at the happiness, but literally at the stress of this newfound fame.

You stumbled into the kitchen on autopilot, phone still in your hand, Naelle’s sock half-stuck to your pajama pants. You opened the fridge, stared at the oat milk like it held answers, then slowly turned back to your phone.

The comments were blowing up.

This child is my new favorite matchmaker 😭

Jay and Y/N better collab. For the sake of the child. And also my sanity.

You better wife him up for all of us.

WAIT HE KNOWS YOU??? WHAT’S GOING ON????

You groaned, flopping face-first onto the kitchen table.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to go viral. You were a mom. You made simple, unedited vlogs with soft music and bad lighting and the occasional existential monologue while folding baby socks. You weren’t someone who had celebrities responding to your daughter like they were taking her seriously.

Naelle wandered in half-asleep, hair fluffed and eyes squinting against the kitchen light.

“Mommy?”

You sat up fast. “Hey, baby. Want breakfast?”

She nodded, yawning dramatically. “Did you marry Jay yet?”

You dropped your forehead back onto the table.

You weren’t sure what kind of morning it was supposed to be, only that your stomach felt half-full of butterflies and half-full of dread. There was something about the way the air sat in the apartment — heavy with anticipation and faintly smelling like lemon cleaner — that made you feel like the walls themselves were waiting for something, too.

Naelle was sitting in the corner of the living room, cross-legged in her too-small ballerina tutu, gently humming a tune she was clearly making up on the spot. She cradled her plush unicorn in her lap like a sleeping baby, brushing its tangled pink mane with the tiny plastic fork from last night’s takeout box.

Her cereal sat untouched on the coffee table, milk slowly turning warm in the bowl while the marshmallow shapes dissolved into colorless clouds. You couldn’t blame her. Your own mug of coffee had been reheated three times and was still going cold beside your laptop.

Your phone, however, refused to be ignored.

Every ten minutes — sometimes less — it buzzed with another ping, another notification, another message from someone who’d seen the video. They were strangers, acquaintances, even people from high school you hadn’t spoken to in years, all asking the same question in varying degrees of shock:

“Was that really Jay from YouTube?”

The answer, maddeningly, was yes.

You hadn’t expected it. Not the duet. Not the numbers. And certainly not the spiral it triggered inside your chest every time you checked your notifications.

It had been cute at first — the way people reacted to Naelle’s voice, the way they replayed her words like she was a tiny oracle. But then came the edits, the tweets, the mutuals messaging you things like “YOU’RE LIVING MY DREAM,” and the comment threads analyzing your laugh and trying to match your kitchen backsplash to your exact address.

What started as funny quickly became overwhelming, and what was once overwhelming soon felt like being caught in a wave you weren’t ready to ride.

So, when your inbox pinged with a new message titled “jaydoeslife.collab@gmail.com,” your hands went cold before you even clicked.

✉️ From: imnayeon@jaydoeslife.net

Subject: Let’s talk — Jay x Y/N Collab?

Hi Y/N,

I’m Nayeon — Jay Park’s manager. Jay saw your video (as you probably already guessed), and to say he was charmed would be an understatement. He hasn’t stopped talking about your daughter or the phrase “pancakes and babysitting” since it went up. We were wondering if you’d be open to filming a casual, family-friendly collaboration. Something like “YouTuber Babysits for a Day” or “Toddler Teaches the YouTuber Life.” Very relaxed. Very wholesome. We’ll keep it simple and easy.

Of course, no pressure at all — if it doesn’t feel right, we completely understand. But Jay would love the chance to meet you both, and I’ll make sure everything runs smoothly.

xo,

Im Nayeon

You read the message three times, then a fourth just to make sure it hadn’t somehow changed while you were blinking.

The first time, your eyes skimmed it in disbelief, your brain unable to process the words in any meaningful order. The second time, you clutched your mug like it might anchor you to the earth while reading it aloud under your breath. The third time, you paced the kitchen like a CEO preparing for a scandal press release, whispering, “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine,” even though it was clearly not fine.

Naelle, who had been watching you from her booster seat with growing suspicion, finally asked the obvious.

“Is something happening?”

You paused mid-step, your voice pitched too high. “…Maybe.”

Her spoon hung frozen in the air, a soggy star-shaped marshmallow dripping from its edge. “Are we famous now?”

You stared at her, equal parts horrified and impressed. “What would you even do with fame?”

She shrugged with the exaggerated nonchalance only a four-year-old could pull off. “Make everyone wear matching pajamas forever.”

You pressed a hand to your chest and let out a quiet laugh, half-choked and entirely overwhelmed. Of course that would be her plan.

You typed out a reply with fingers that wouldn’t stop shaking. You read it seven times before sending it, then stared at your outbox like the message might crawl back out and bite you.

Nayeon responded within an hour, bubbly and to-the-point, as if this was the easiest thing in the world and you weren’t currently spiraling in a hoodie that had toothpaste on the sleeve. She confirmed that Jay was free this weekend and proposed a filming date — this Saturday, at your place.

The reasoning was sound: “Naelle seems most comfortable in her home environment,” Nayeon had written, followed by a winking emoji and the phrase “We want this to be fun, not a production.”

But when you read the part that said “Saturday”, your whole body tensed.

That was two days away. You may have actually gasped — a sharp, small sound that echoed against the fridge door.

What followed could only be described as panic-fueled preparation. You didn’t just clean the house. You purged it. You reorganized toy bins and folded couch blankets like your life depended on it. You vacuumed in corners that hadn’t seen daylight in months. You mopped under furniture you forgot you owned.

You even Febrezed the ceiling.

“Mommy,” Naelle asked gently from the couch, surrounded by a pile of stuffed animals she’d arranged like a medieval council. “Why are you cleaning the air?”

You paused mid-spray, caught with your arm extended toward the light fixture.

“I’m not.”

“You’re vacuuming the ceiling.”

You looked down at the hose in your hand. “…Okay, maybe a little.”

By Friday evening, the anxiety had softened into a strange, itchy hum beneath your skin — something between dread and excitement, like your body couldn’t quite decide which it preferred. Jay wasn’t a stranger anymore, not really, not after watching hours of his soft-spoken baking vlogs and plant updates and chaotic Q&As.

But it wasn’t just about Jay anymore.

The internet had been let in. The curtain had been pulled back. And you were starting to realize your quiet, safe, slow-moving world had been shifted ever so slightly out of orbit — all because your daughter had declared you were destined to marry a pancake-making YouTuber.

You stared at the outfit you’d picked out and hated it.

Then stared at the backup outfit and hated that too.

Your phone buzzed with a text from Megan right as you were mid-spiral.

you: what if he’s weird

megs🍒: babe he’s literally famous for talking to plants and baking banana bread. ur fine.

megs🍒: also pls wear the cream tank top it makes you look hot

You made a strangled sound, threw your phone onto the bed, and yanked the sweater off the hanger.

At 10:14 a.m. on the dot, your doorbell rang.

Naelle let out a squeal that could’ve shattered glass and launched herself off the couch before you could catch her. Her socks slid across the hardwood as she ran full-speed toward the door, shouting, “I GOT IT!!” like it was the most important moment of her life.

You panicked.

“No no no — wait, Naelle, don’t—!”

But she had already flung the door open with both hands, no hesitation, no filter.

And there he was.

Jay. Standing in your doorway. Holding two coffee cups in one hand and a juice box in the other. His hair was slightly tousled like he’d run his fingers through it one too many times, and his hoodie was just oversized enough to make him look unfairly approachable.

Slung over his shoulder was a tote bag that said “This Bag Contains Crumbs” in tiny font. His smile was soft and almost bashful.

“Hey,” he said, looking from your wide-eyed face to your daughter’s radiant one. “I brought caffeine… and juice for the little.”

He held out the juice box like a peace offering.

Naelle snatched it with a delighted gasp and ran off without another word.

You just stood there, blinking.

“…Hi,” you said, your voice barely louder than a whisper.

And then, as if the moment wasn’t already surreal enough, another figure stepped forward into the doorway.

Nayeon.

She looked like a magazine ad in human form — hair in soft waves, makeup delicate but perfect, outfit pressed without a single wrinkle. She carried a tablet in one hand and a matcha latte in the other, and somehow managed to make standing in your hallway feel like an entrance.

“You must be Y/N,” she said with a warm smile, her tone light but unmistakably polished. “Thank you so much for letting us invade your Saturday. Jay’s been very excited.”

You swallowed.

“Of course,” you said, stepping aside as they entered. “Come in.”

It dropped at exactly 7:32 p.m.

Jay didn’t even warn you.

You had just finished cleaning up from dinner — a lazy post-collab meal of boxed mac and cheese and frozen peas Naelle insisted on arranging into the shape of a flower — when your phone lit up with three notifications at once.

jaydoeslife just posted: “the best pancakes i’ve ever had (ft. the real boss)”

megs🍒: OH MY GOD YOU’RE IN IT

megs🍒: U LOOK SO HOT STOP IT

You blinked at the screen for a full ten seconds before unlocking it with trembling fingers. You didn’t even hesitate — you tapped Jay’s thumbnail, heart pounding, and the video bloomed across your phone.

There it was. Your living room. Your couch.

Your daughter — front and center, wearing her princess tiara and a syrup stain on her cheek, beaming at the camera like she was born to be adored by strangers.

And Jay, beside her, soft and charming and very clearly letting her lead.

“Today, I’m here with the one, the only—”

“NAELLE!! And he’s the assistant.”

You covered your face with one hand. “Oh my God,” you whispered.

The video was chaos in the most charming way.

Naelle narrating the entire recipe in a tone that alternated between fairy queen and exhausted teacher. Jay obediently following every instruction, even when she made him twirl before flipping the pancakes. You, visible in the background once or twice, mug in hand and surprisingly nonchalant despite falling apart internally.

Nayeon had edited it with surgical precision — cutting just enough to keep the pace, but leaving in every unfiltered, heart-tugging, wildly chaotic moment. The lighting was soft. The sound was crisp. The whole thing felt like a rom-com scene you didn’t realize you were starring in until the credits rolled.

And then came the part you’d secretly dreaded.

“I want you to marry Mommy.”

You closed your eyes. You could hear your own breath catch in the background. You could see Jay’s blush in high definition.

“I didn’t know this was a hostage situation,” he joked.

But something in his voice, in the way his eyes flicked toward where you stood just offscreen — it didn’t sound like he hated the idea.

Naelle watched the video twice on the iPad, laughing louder each time she heard her own voice. She asked to watch it again, and you only said no because the comments were already flooding in and your stomach was twisting into unfamiliar shapes.

i’d trust naelle with my life

this is giving SINGLE MOM LOVE STORY ENERGY???!!!

naelle: iconic. jay: soft. y/n: nonchalant dreadhead. me: crying.😭😭❤️

i didn’t come here to catch FEELINGS but here we are.

naelle’s right. marry her. pancakes are serious.

You refreshed the page again. The views were rising so fast it felt unreal. Thousands. Then tens of thousands. Then more. Your face — your home — was in front of the entire internet.

And somehow, instead of panic, there was something warm blooming in your chest. Like maybe this wasn’t a mistake after all.

At 8:04 p.m., your phone buzzed again.

jay

okay confession

i’ve rewatched the last minute like five times

naelle is the star

but i think you stole the scene

You stared at the message for so long the screen dimmed.

Then lit up again.

if this is too much too fast, tell me

but i’d really like to see you again

even if there’s no pancake making involved

You didn’t answer right away. Not because you didn’t know what to say, but because you wanted to hold onto the moment. That quiet flutter. The way your cheeks felt flushed for reasons that had nothing to do with the trending tab.

In the hallway, Naelle had fallen asleep on the beanbag chair, still wearing her tiara.

The apartment smelled like pancakes and shampoo and something new you didn’t quite have words for yet.

At 8:11 p.m., you finally texted back.

you:

maybe next time, i’ll make the pancakes

you just bring yourself

And just like that, it wasn’t just a collab anymore.

It was the beginning of something real.

The knock came just as you were finishing dinner — the kind of knock that was too deliberate to be a delivery or a neighbor dropping by. You peeked through the peephole, and there he was: Jay, standing on your doorstep, hands in the pockets of his jacket, looking like he’d rehearsed what to say a thousand times but still wasn’t sure.

You swallowed the rush of nerves and opened the door.

“Hey,” he said softly, offering a small smile that made your heart skip in the most inconvenient way. “I thought I’d drop by. No cameras. No plans. Just me.”

You blinked, caught off guard. “You came back.”

“Yeah,” he said, stepping inside like he belonged. “I wanted to see you… and Naelle. Maybe bring that pancake recipe back for round two.”

Naelle, who had been playing quietly with her dolls in the living room, suddenly appeared at your side, eyes wide and hopeful.

“Are we having pancakes again? Can I put the tiara on you?”

Jay crouched down, grinning. “Only if you promise to let me be the prince this time.”

You watched them, their easy laughter filling the room like a melody you didn’t want to end.

From the kitchen, Nayeon appeared, clipboard in hand, her expression softer than usual.

“Looks like the collaboration’s turned into something a little more,” she said quietly, almost to herself.

You nodded, feeling the warmth spread through you — the kind that comes from realizing you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.

You weren’t sure what you expected when Jay returned without a camera crew, without Nayeon, and without any kind of structured plan — but it wasn’t this.

It wasn’t him sitting barefoot on your floor, cross-legged on the rug, helping Naelle build a cardboard castle with a roll of tape and two empty paper towel tubes. It wasn’t him showing up with a tote bag that was his own merch and pulling out not just snacks, but a miniature potted plant he said he “couldn’t bear to leave alone.”

It wasn’t how easy it was. Or how quiet it felt, in the most dangerous way.

There was something about having him here — without the internet watching, without the performance — that made the walls of your apartment feel closer, warmer. Like your space had expanded to make room for someone new, and your heart had followed suit without your permission.

Naelle had declared it a “pajamas-only evening,” and you hadn’t fought her on it. You’d changed into an old crewneck and leggings. Jay had dutifully accepted the Hello Kitty pajama pants she offered him — they barely reached his ankles, but he wore them anyway.

“I look like a cursed sleepover,” he’d said, deadpan.

Naelle laughed so hard she fell backward onto a pillow.

The hours passed slowly, but comfortably.

At one point, Jay was reading a picture book aloud, doing ridiculous voices for each character while Naelle giggled into your shoulder. At another, he helped her draw a stick-figure comic strip titled “JAY GETS ATTACKED BY PANCAKES”, which she said was based on a true story.

And then, around 8:43 p.m., she yawned.

The kind of yawn that meant it was time.

She fought sleep with every ounce of her dramatic flair, claiming she had “emails to write” and “royal princess meetings” to attend. But you scooped her up anyway, carried her to her room while she mumbled about syrup kingdoms and declared that “Jay needs to come every Friday or else.”

You kissed her goodnight. She was out before the door clicked shut.

When you returned to the living room, the cardboard castle was still mid-construction, but Jay had cleaned up the stray crayons and gathered the glitter into a neat pile like he’d lived here for years.

He looked up when you entered — eyes soft, posture easy, that familiar warmth radiating from him like he didn’t know how not to give it.

And just like that, the silence felt different.

Not awkward. Not heavy.

But charged.

You sat beside him on the floor, your legs stretched out next to his, your knees almost — but not quite — brushing.

“She really likes you,” you said, your voice quiet and unguarded.

Jay glanced toward the hallway where her nightlight glowed faintly through the cracked door. “I really like her,” he said, then added, softer, “I really like you too.”

You didn’t answer right away.

You let the words hang there — heavy but not unwelcome, like rainclouds you weren’t afraid of.

“I wasn’t looking for this,” you finally said, truth resting in every syllable. “Not with a kid. Not online. Not with someone who has… a million people watching.”

Jay nodded. “Me neither. But then you posted that video. And she said that thing about pancakes. And suddenly everything else felt… smaller.”

He wasn’t looking at you when he said it. He was staring at the edge of the cardboard tower, fingers absentmindedly smoothing a wrinkle in the paper like he needed something to ground him.

You looked at him.

Really looked.

And saw not the curated YouTube version of Jay, not the viral softness or camera-ready charm, but the quiet steadiness beneath it all. The patience. The kindness. The part of him that didn’t just show up, but stayed.

So you reached over slowly, carefully, and placed your hand over his.

It was small. Barely a touch.

But it was real.

And when he turned to you, gaze full of something tentative and open and terrifyingly honest, you didn’t pull away.

“I’m not good at letting people in,” you said, barely above a whisper. “But she already let you in. And I think… maybe I want to, too.”

Jay swallowed, his eyes locked on yours. “Then let me in.”

You ended up on the couch, shoulder to shoulder under a fleece blanket, the credits of a movie neither of you had really watched rolling in the background. At some point, Jay had fallen asleep, his head tilted toward yours, breath soft and even.

You should’ve moved.

But you didn’t.

Because for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel alone. And more than that — you didn’t want to be.

It started small.

A tweet here, a blurry photo there, a comment under one of Jay’s older videos, timestamped and laced with a quiet kind of suspicion.

That couch looks familiar.

Wait… is that the same hoodie from the pancake video??

Not me matching the floor lamp to Y/N’s apartment tour two years ago???

It hadn’t even been 24 hours since Jay had left your place — hoodie rumpled, hair a mess, a faint outline of Naelle’s glitter sticker still stuck to his cheek. He hadn’t filmed anything. He hadn’t posted. But still, they knew.

The internet always knows.

You didn’t notice the full storm until you woke up to 17 texts from Megan.

megs🍒

babe you’re trending

again.

i repeat. AGAIN!!!!!

“mommy’s friend jay” is a THING now

like people are shipping it.

people are writing headcanons.

i think someone’s writing fanfiction. i hate this. i also love this?

AND HE POSTED A PICTURE

You blinked blearily at the screen, one eye open, thumb trembling as you tapped Jay’s account. His newest post was simple:

A blurry shot of a stack of child-sized pancakes on a plastic princess plate.

With the caption: “love looks like syrup and glitter these days.”

Your stomach dropped in the most ridiculous, fluttering kind of way. He hadn’t tagged you. He hadn’t said your name. But the internet didn’t need names to connect dots.

Naelle was humming in the bathroom, brushing her teeth with the door wide open and one sock on, completely unbothered by her sudden viral fame.

You, however, were pacing your kitchen barefoot, scrolling through tagged posts and trying not to panic.

There were clips of the collab spliced with dramatic music. Edits of you and Jay with fake wedding captions. Tweets that read:

I don’t believe in love but I believe in Jay falling for a single mom.

Y/N is the new mother of the internet. Respectfully.

If he doesn’t look at me like Jay looks at her mid-pancake flip, I don’t want it.

📞 nayeon im is calling…

You stared at the screen for two full rings before you answered, voice tight with nerves.

“Hi.”

“Hey, it’s me,” Nayeon said smoothly, her tone clipped but not cold. “Don’t worry — I’m not here to lecture you.”

That was somehow worse.

You sank into the kitchen chair, rubbing your forehead. “How bad is it?”

There was a pause on the other end, followed by the soft sound of her sipping something expensive.

“Let’s just say… Jay trending with the word mommy isn’t exactly what I had in this month’s content plan.”

You let out a strangled laugh.

“I knew this might happen,” you said, quieter now. “But I didn’t think it would happen this fast.”

“Well,” Nayeon replied, “you made the mistake of being emotionally available and extremely pretty on camera. That’s on you.”

You groaned into your hands. “What do we do?”

Another pause. Then her voice softened just a little.

“Jay’s an adult. You’re not under contract. This isn’t a scandal. It’s just… complicated. If it makes you feel any better, he hasn’t stopped talking about you since he got back.”

You froze.

“What?”

“I’m not repeating it,” Nayeon said quickly, but her smile was obvious in her voice. “Just… take a breath, Y/N. If this is something real, then it’ll hold. Whether the internet’s watching or not.”

You let the words settle around you like warm tea — comforting and slightly dangerous.

That night, after Naelle had fallen asleep under a mountain of stuffed animals and you were curled up on the couch with your laptop closed and your phone silenced, you received one last message.

jay

if this gets too loud, i’ll turn it down

i like you in the quiet too

And that was when you knew.

It wasn’t just a crush. It wasn’t just a viral moment. You were falling. Slowly, steadily. Quietly. But absolutely.

Saturday came faster than you thought it would. The morning began with a glitter explosion. Not metaphorically, literally. Naelle had somehow gotten into her craft bin before breakfast and decided that the only way to properly honor “the ceremony of true love and sparkles” was by tossing an entire packet of pink and silver glitter across the hallway carpet. You found her kneeling in the middle of it, like a priestess summoning something sacred.

“I’m making a magical aisle,” she said solemnly. “You’re not allowed to vacuum it until after the vows.”

You didn’t argue because somehow — this was happening.

Jay showed up just before noon, holding a bouquet of sunflowers wrapped in brown paper and a pack of apple juice boxes he called “offering gifts.” He wore a crown Naelle had made out of pipe cleaners and construction paper, perched crookedly on his head, and a button-down that was just wrinkled enough to prove he hadn’t tried too hard… but had definitely tried.

“You look,” you said, pausing in the doorway as he entered, “like someone who got roped into a royal toddler wedding and is pretending not to love it.”

Jay smiled at you, eyes warm. “I do love it.”

And somehow, he wasn’t talking about the glitter.

The living room had been transformed — pillow aisles, stuffed animals lined up like guests, and a tiara-clad Naelle officiating with a plastic microphone that didn’t work. There were vows, of course. Hers.

“Do you promise to make pancakes and not forget syrup ever again?”

“Do you promise to share all your blankies and hug when she looks sad?”

“Do you promise to like her even when she’s grumpy and says bad words quietly in the kitchen?”

You laughed. Jay nodded, solemn and sure.

“I do,” he said, looking only at you.

When it was your turn, you expected to stumble — to laugh it off or overthink every word.

But Jay leaned in, gently taking your hands in his, and whispered, “You don’t have to say anything rehearsed. Just say what’s real.”

So you did.

You looked at him — this sweet, slightly awkward, thoughtful man who’d stumbled into your world like a misdelivered letter — and said, voice quieter than it should’ve been,

“I didn’t think anyone would ever want all of this. The mess, the mornings, the tiny human, the glitter. But you showed up. Again and again. And you made it feel like… I’m not just surviving anymore. I’m allowed to want things. And I want this.”

Jay didn’t say anything.

He just looked at you — really looked — like he was memorizing every word. Every curve of your mouth. Every inch of the space between you that didn’t feel so wide anymore.

Naelle clapped.

“And now you KISS!”

You froze.

Jay blinked.

Naelle tilted her head. “You have to. Or it’s not official.”

You let out a soft laugh, but something in your chest tightened. You looked back at Jay, unsure whether to lean in or laugh it off — until you saw him swallow, saw his hand twitch once like he wanted to reach for your face.

So you nodded.

Just once.

And that was enough.

He leaned in slowly, almost carefully, like he was asking every second if you still wanted this. His hand brushed your cheek, fingers warm and steady, and when your eyes fluttered shut, he closed the space.

The kiss was gentle. Unrushed. Real.

It wasn’t fireworks — it was softer than that. It was a sigh into warm skin. It was the kind of kiss that didn’t ask for more, just promised that this moment, this connection, was safe.

Jay pulled back first, only by a breath, and looked at you like he couldn’t believe he’d just done that and also like he couldn’t believe he hadn’t done it sooner.

You couldn’t help smiling.

Neither could he.

Naelle threw confetti.

You ended up on the floor later — tangled in blankets, plastic rings on your fingers, Jay’s head resting against your shoulder while Naelle drew hearts all over his arm in washable marker.

Nayeon showed up an hour later with coffee and a camera, pausing in the doorway when she saw you like that. Like a family.

She didn’t say anything, only smiled and snapped a picture. Jay didn’t blink and you didn’t flinch because this wasn’t pretend anymore.

This was how it started.

[ickbite]

ill keep you my dirty little secret was so so sososo good, genuinely some of the best writing ive read in a long time. im not kidding my heart was fluttering and pounding like i genuinely stood up and applaud when i finished reading!!!!!/!!;

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

[ickbite]

I’LL KEEP YOU MY DIRTY LITTLE SECRET!!

Pairing: Spiderman!jake x waitress!reader

Synopsis. When spiderman comes to your window after saving you a few days prior, you couldnt help but let him in, especially if it means a chance to kiss him!

Note: sooo so so messy ive been working on this at nightfor the past month so not checked (lmk if u find errors)!! 15k words, jakes lovestruck, no smut but a lot of kissing —

enha masterlist

The clock above the register ticked louder after midnight, each second dragging like syrup down a cold plate. You wiped the counter again even though it was already clean, more out of habit than necessity.

The diner buzzed in low fluorescent hums, casting pale yellow halos over the Formica tables and cracked leather booths. Neon light from the sign outside flickered like a broken promise—JIN’S DINER—the “I” sputtering every few seconds like it couldn’t decide whether to exist.

There weren’t many customers left at this hour, just the usual scattered souls: a couple of old men nursing mugs of coffee that had long gone cold, a student passed out over a plate of untouched pancakes, and him—Jake Sim. He always sat in booth five, the one by the window, and never ordered more than a black coffee and a slice of apple pie.

You didn’t know much about him except that he always left a tip way too big for what he ordered and smiled like someone who’d grown used to hiding something behind it. You wouldn’t call him charming—at least not in the way he probably wanted—but he had this warm-eyed thing going for him, like someone who spent more time thinking than speaking.

He wasn’t here tonight.

You glanced at the door more than once, trying to play it off as routine, but your hand hesitated slightly over the stack of menus. “Guess he’s skipping pie tonight,” you murmured under your breath, unsure why you even noticed.

The wind outside howled against the big front window, and the smell of rain snuck in every time the door opened. You were halfway through re-counting the cash drawer when the crack of glass and a scream rang out from just outside.

“Shit.” The word left your mouth before you could stop it.

Instinct moved faster than fear. You rushed around the counter and through the doors, heart slamming hard in your throat.

The alley beside the diner was narrow, boxed in by dumpsters and metal fire escapes that moaned in the wind. A man had a knife—he looked twitchy, young, like he didn’t want to be doing whatever he was doing—and the woman pressed against the brick wall was crying, one heel snapped, her purse at his feet.

“Hey!” you called out, too loud and too brave for someone without a plan. “Leave her alone!”

He turned, wild-eyed and desperate, and you immediately regretted opening your mouth. The knife shifted in your direction.

You didn’t scream. You froze.

And then he dropped from the sky.

Or not the sky, exactly—but it felt like it. One moment it was just the attacker, the victim, and you holding your breath—and the next, something swung down between them, cloaked in red and black, a blur of motion and silk.

“Bad night to pick the wrong alley, man,” Spider-Man said casually, as if he were walking into a classroom late.

He moved fast, inhumanly so, a blur of limbs and precision. The man didn’t stand a chance—two webs, a thud, a grunt, and he was stuck to the brick wall like a forgotten poster.

“Let me go!” the attacker yelled, struggling against the webbing.

“You brought a knife to a web fight,” Spider-Man replied, his tone light but edged with something colder.

The woman scrambled away, crying thank-yous, and you stayed planted on the concrete, suddenly aware of how cold the rain had become. Spider-Man turned slowly, his chest rising with sharp breaths, and though his mask gave away nothing, you could feel him watching you.

“You okay?” he asked, voice soft now—deeper than you expected, a little out of breath but controlled.

You nodded automatically, then forced yourself to speak. “Yeah. I’m—fine. I think.”

His head tilted just a bit. “You’re shivering.”

You looked down. Your hands were shaking, your shirt soaked from the rain. “Didn’t realize I ran out here without a jacket,” you said, trying to play it off, though your voice betrayed the adrenaline still racing through you.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he said, quieter this time, more serious. “Running into danger like that.”

Your brows furrowed. “She was gonna get hurt.”

“I had it handled.”

“I didn’t know that,” you snapped, before softening. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

That made him pause. For a moment, the air felt charged, full of unsaid things. Then, quietly, he added, “I usually am.”

You blinked. “What?”

He looked up at the fire escape like he was about to leave. “Nothing. Just… be careful next time.”

Then he turned, climbing the wall like it was nothing, disappearing into the rain with one clean pull of his web. Just gone—like smoke slipping through fingers.

You stared after him for a long moment, heart still racing, the imprint of his words echoing through your head.

I usually am.

You didn’t know what he meant, but somehow, it felt personal. Like something about you had been on his mind before tonight.

The woman ran. The attacker sobbed, stuck six feet up and webbed like a fly.

You stayed there, the streetlight painting the puddles with soft golds and oranges, thinking not about the danger, not about the woman, not about your own shaking hands—but about him. About the way he lingered.

The next Tuesday felt heavier than usual, like the city had draped itself in thick fog and unspoken tension. Rain hadn’t returned, but the clouds hung low like they were waiting for a cue.

You arrived at the diner five minutes late, hair barely dry from a rushed shower, apron still wrinkled from where you’d crumpled it in your bag the night before. Jin—the owner—didn’t say anything, just grunted from behind the grill like always and slid you the list of specials nobody ever ordered.

The bell above the door jingled three minutes after your shift started. That familiar sound, sharp and casual, had always blended into the background—until now.

You didn’t look up at first, more focused on wiping yesterday’s fingerprints off the dessert case. But then you heard the voice.

“Black coffee. No sugar.”

Your spine went a little straight.

Jake Sim.

He stood on the other side of the counter like no time had passed, like he hadn’t vanished for a week after the most terrifying moment of your month happened twenty feet from where you were now. His hoodie was pulled tight around his shoulders, the drawstrings lopsided and frayed. There was a faint purplish bruise along his jawline, like someone had elbowed him by accident—or not by accident.

You looked at him for a second too long. “Rough week?” you asked, pouring the coffee into the thick white mug that had the tiniest chip on its rim.

He shrugged, then smiled. “You could say that.”

“You missed pie night,” you replied, sliding the mug toward him. “Thought the universe might’ve imploded or something.”

He chuckled, low and warm. “I had to break the streak eventually.”

“Mmm. Tragic.” You leaned your hip against the counter, tapping your pen against your order pad. “The usual booth?”

Jake hesitated. “Mind if I sit at the counter today?”

That was new.

You blinked. “Uh… sure. No law against that.”

He climbed onto the stool with slow movements, like something in his side ached. You noticed, because you always noticed small things—especially when people tried to hide them. Still, you didn’t ask.

“So,” he said, hands wrapped around the mug like it was doing more than just warming his palms. “Did you hear about the alleyway thing last week? By here?”

You raised a brow. “You mean the thing where some guy tried to rob a woman, and Spider-Man dropped from the sky like a horror movie jump scare?”

His smile faltered a little. “Yeah. That one.”

“Was there a follow-up? I haven’t seen anything in the news. Not that the news cares about stuff that happens in this part of town.”

“They caught the guy,” he said, eyes on the steam rising from his coffee. “Apparently Spider-Man webbed him up so tight it took three cops and a crowbar to get him down.”

“Sounds about right.” You didn’t mean to sound so casual, but the moment still lived behind your eyes like a photograph burned into your mind. “He didn’t say much. Spider-Man, I mean.”

Jake’s gaze flicked toward you. “What’d he say?”

You thought back. The way he looked at you. The way he told you to be careful. The way he lingered.

“He told me I shouldn’t run into danger,” you murmured, then forced a smirk. “Which is hilarious, considering he wears spandex and jumps off buildings for fun.”

Jake laughed at that, a soft huff that sounded more like relief than humor. “He’s probably trying to be helpful.”

“Yeah,” you replied, almost too quietly. “He was.”

There was a moment of silence after that—one of those heavy, stretching pauses that doesn’t feel awkward until you notice it. Jake sipped his coffee again, eyes distant like he was replaying something in his head.

Then, without looking at you, he asked, “Did he scare you?”

The question surprised you. Not just the words—but the way he asked it, like it mattered to him on some level you couldn’t see.

You shrugged. “No. He didn’t scare me. He just felt… I don’t know. Like he’d been watching already. Not in a creepy way, just—”

“Like he knew where to be,” Jake finished.

“Yeah,” you said, brows pulling together. “Exactly.”

He nodded, and that was the end of it.

You worked the rest of your shift like normal. The diner filled up briefly around nine—mostly tired truckers, delivery guys, and late-night wanderers. Jake stayed put at the counter, refilling his coffee twice and scribbling something in a small notebook he kept in his hoodie pocket.

You didn’t ask what he was writing. You weren’t sure you were supposed to.

When your break came around midnight, you stepped outside for some air. The alley where it happened was still roped off with caution tape that had lost its fight against the wind. You leaned against the brick wall and tilted your head back toward the sky.

There were no stars—just the faint glow of city haze and one flickering streetlamp near the end of the block. You thought about how quiet the alley had become. How fast everything had changed in one second flat.

The air moved behind you.

Not loud. Not enough to startle. Just enough to remind you that something was there.

You turned your head slightly.

A figure crouched on the edge of the rooftop—Spider-Man, perfectly still, the red of his suit a muted silhouette under the dim light. He didn’t speak, didn’t move. Just watched.

You didn’t know how long he’d been there. You didn’t know why he was watching you.

You also didn’t know why your chest tightened slightly when your eyes met, even from a distance. Not fear. Not discomfort. Something else. Something you couldn’t name.

You took a step back.

“I’m not gonna run into danger,” you said softly, half-smiling up at him. “You don’t have to babysit me.”

He didn’t say anything. But you could tell he heard you. His head dipped ever so slightly before he stood, turned, and vanished across the rooftop with one silent leap.

You didn’t realize you were smiling until you walked back inside, the sound of the bell above the door grounding you again in the real world.

Jake was gone.

His coffee cup sat empty on the counter, and there was a folded napkin under the edge of the plate.

You opened it and read the words scribbled in black ink.

You shouldn’t be alone out there. Even if you’re brave.

—J

Your fingers tightened slightly around the paper.

You didn’t think much of Jake Sim.

But that night, for the first time, you wondered about him.

The heat came early that week.

Not in temperature, but in the way the city moved—restless, sticky, unsettled. Even the diner felt warmer than usual, the ceiling fans spinning too slow, doing too little. Your apron clung to your waist, and you rolled your sleeves up higher than you usually did, trying to ignore how the sweat clung to the back of your neck.

It was Tuesday again, which meant Jake.

Booth five had already been claimed when you came in—he was seated there with a book he never seemed to read and a mug of coffee that hadn’t been touched. You slid behind the counter, tying your hair back with an old rubber band, and tried not to glance at him more than once.

He smiled when you passed by, that familiar half-tilted grin that felt like a habit instead of a greeting. “Thought you might call in,” he said quietly, voice soft beneath the sizzle of the fryer.

You looked over your shoulder. “Why would I?”

Jake shrugged, watching you with unreadable eyes. “Just a hunch.”

He looked like he hadn’t slept. The shadows under his eyes weren’t dramatic, but they were there. His hoodie sleeves were pulled down over his hands, but you noticed the slight stiffness in how he moved when he reached for his cup.

You frowned. “You’re limping.”

Jake didn’t flinch. “No, I’m not.”

“You are.”

He looked up at you—really looked. The air between you tightened like it had its own pulse.

“You’re observant,” he said finally.

“And you’re not good at lying.”

His gaze flicked to your lips for half a second before he dropped it back to his coffee.

“I’ll be fine,” he murmured.

You didn’t know why the words made your stomach twist.

Later, during your break, the sun had long dipped below the skyline. You slipped out the back entrance, ignoring the way the wind tangled your hair and caught on the corners of your sleeves. The alley looked the same. Maybe a little darker. A little quieter.

You weren’t afraid. Not really. Not anymore.

Your back was against the brick wall when you felt it—that familiar shift in the air. Barely perceptible. Like gravity had bent slightly.

“You’re starting to make a habit out of this,” you said to the shadows, your voice low and casual, almost teasing.

Spider-Man stepped from the rooftop edge, dropping into view with silent ease. His landing was controlled, slow, like he didn’t want to startle you.

He didn’t answer at first.

“I could say the same,” he said after a beat, and you didn’t miss the softness in his tone. “You come out here a lot.”

You crossed your arms, the wall cool against your spine. “Break time.”

His head tilted slightly. “Even when it’s not safe?”

You narrowed your eyes, not in challenge—but in curiosity. “Are you watching me?”

A pause.

“Sometimes,” he admitted.

The silence that followed was full—not awkward, not empty. Just full. Like the space between you two had become a container for all the things neither of you was saying.

He took a step closer.

You didn’t back away. You didn’t need to.

“I don’t mean it in a weird way,” he added quickly, his voice lower now, almost rough. “I just—keep an eye out. In case you ever…”

“In case I ever what?” you asked.

His breath caught. “Needed someone.”

You didn’t reply for a second. Your eyes met his—what little you could see of them through the mask. The fabric moved slightly with each breath he took.

The air between you felt warmer. The kind of warmth that had nothing to do with temperature. The kind of warmth that started behind your ribs and burned slowly through your veins.

His hand twitched slightly at his side, like he thought about reaching for you. But he didn’t.

“You don’t have to keep checking on me,” you said, your voice soft now. “I’m not—helpless.”

“I know,” he said immediately. “That’s not why I come.”

You didn’t ask why. You didn’t have to.

He stood there, not even a foot from you, tall and quiet and still soaked with city noise clinging to his suit like dust. You could see a scrape along the side of his jaw—just under the mask, raw and red like it had only barely stopped bleeding.

“You’re hurt,” you murmured.

“I’ve had worse.”

You didn’t think. You just reached up.

Your fingertips brushed the edge of his mask, right where the fabric met his skin. Just a touch. Just enough to feel the heat of him underneath.

He inhaled sharply—but didn’t move.

“You should be careful too,” you whispered. “I get the feeling you’re not invincible.”

“I’m not,” he said. His voice was barely above a breath now. “Not around you.”

That stopped everything.

The wind. The sound. Even your heart.

You looked at him—really looked—and for the first time, you wondered if maybe you did know who he was. Not by name. But by presence. By the way he stood. By the way he spoke like he meant every single word.

Your hand lowered slowly.

And still—neither of you moved away.

Not quite a kiss. Not quite a touch.

Just that crackling, skin-humming closeness. Enough to make you feel like if either of you leaned in even a centimeter more, everything would come undone.

Then, just as fast as he arrived, he stepped back.

“I’ll see you around,” he said, voice hoarse.

“Yeah,” you said. “I know.”

And then he was gone, swallowed by the night, like he’d never been there at all.

It started with a margarita the size of your face and a promise to “unwind” for once. Sophia had just broken up with her clingy on-again-off-again situationship, and Chaewon had decided that meant shots were mandatory. You didn’t argue. You never argued on Fridays.

You hadn’t even planned to go out. But your shift had ended early, and someone had said something about neon lights and karaoke and too much glitter on a bathroom mirror, and suddenly you were there—spinning in a booth, laughing at things that weren’t that funny, with a lime wedge in your mouth and someone’s coat draped around your shoulders like armor.

By the time you realized everyone else was leaving, your phone was already at 3%. Chaewon kissed your cheek, her eyeliner smudged and perfect, and told you not to talk to strangers. Sophia promised she’d order you a cab, but her app glitched, and your own screen had turned black by the time you staggered out of the bar and into the air that hit you like a soft slap.

You weren’t falling over. But you were floating a little. The sidewalk swam beneath your boots. You clutched your bag too tightly.

You turned down a side street to take the shortcut to the station.

And that’s when you heard them.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

Your head turned slowly. There were three of them. Not old, not exactly young—just that bored, lazy kind of dangerous that always smelled like cheap cologne and entitlement.

“Little late to be walking home alone, isn’t it?” one asked, stepping into your path.

You blinked. “I’m not alone,” you lied, your voice fuzzy around the edges. “I—someone’s meeting me.”

They laughed.

Your heart kicked against your ribs.

“Where’s your someone, huh?” one said, and the other moved closer. “He let you out like this? Tight little dress and nowhere to go?”

“Back off,” you said. You meant to sound sharp. It came out slurry.

A hand reached toward your arm—gentle, but wrong. Too casual. Too assuming.

You flinched. “Don’t touch me.”

“You’re not scared, are you?”

You opened your mouth to scream—

—but it never made it past your lips.

Because he dropped from above like lightning splitting the sky.

A blur of red and black. The thud of boots. A body between you and the worst-case scenario. And silence, so sharp it cracked.

Spider-Man.

One of the men swore under his breath.

“Go,” Spider-Man said, voice low and lethal. “Now.”

They didn’t argue. They didn’t even try. Two ran. The third hesitated—until Spider-Man took one step forward and he bolted, footsteps echoing into the alley’s dark spine.

Your knees trembled, and you realized your palms were sweating. You hadn’t realized how cold it was.

He turned to you, fast but careful.

“Are you hurt?”

You stared up at him, throat tight. “I—I think I’m okay.”

“You’re drunk.”

You nodded, then frowned. “I didn’t mean to get this drunk.”

His eyes—wherever they were under the mask—felt warm. “You shouldn’t be walking alone.”

“I didn’t mean to,” you said again, suddenly emotional. “My friends left. My phone’s dead. I—ugh, I feel like an idiot.”

“You’re not.”

“I am,” you insisted, swaying just slightly. “You shouldn’t have to keep showing up for me.”

There was a pause.

“I want to,” he said.

The words hit you harder than they should have.

Your voice cracked. “I don’t wanna go home alone.”

Spider-Man shifted. “Do you want me to take you home?”

You hesitated. Then nodded.

The city blurred beneath you.

His arm was around your waist, strong and steady, the wind biting at your cheeks. Your eyelids fluttered from the rush, the rooftops passing in flashes of shadow and neon. You’d never flown before—not really—but this came close.

He landed on your fire escape like he’d done it a thousand times.

You fumbled with your keys.

He watched, wordless, until you turned and looked up at him. “Do you—do you wanna come in? Just for a minute?”

His breath hitched. “Y/N…”

You blinked. “How do you know my name?”

Shit.

You stared at him.

He froze.

You stepped back slightly, lips parted. “Wait—how do you—?”

“It slipped,” he said, voice tight. “I’m sorry.”

You stared at him for a beat too long. The world tilted slightly again—not from the alcohol, but from something deeper. Something unraveling.

Still, you nodded. “I don’t care. Just… stay. Please.”

He stepped into your apartment like a shadow, quiet and careful, not touching anything. You flicked on the light and immediately regretted it—your little place looked smaller than usual, full of dishes you hadn’t washed and a half-made bed.

You kicked your shoes off and collapsed onto the mattress, watching him from over your shoulder.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you murmured, voice half-gone. “I just—don’t want to feel alone tonight.”

Spider-Man stood in the center of your room, uncertain. You could hear his breathing.

“I won’t touch you,” you added. “I just… want you here. For a little while.”

Slowly, carefully, he crossed the room and sat on the floor near your bed, legs folded, arms resting on his knees.

Neither of you spoke.

You closed your eyes.

You didn’t know how long you stayed like that—your head heavy, the air thick with things unsaid. But for the first time in a long time, you felt safe.

He didn’t leave.

You woke up alone.

At first, you weren’t sure if he’d even been there at all—there was no note, no trace, not even a dent in the pillow beside yours. But the window was still cracked open, the curtain fluttering in the quiet morning air, and your boots had been lined up neatly against the wall. You don’t remember doing that.

You stared at the ceiling for a long time. The headache was manageable, the memory clear. He hadn’t touched you. Hadn’t crossed a single line. He’d just stayed—silent, steady, watching over you like you mattered.

No one had ever done that before.

You didn’t think about him for the rest of the day. At least, you told yourself you didn’t.

The sky was bruised that night—gray fading to violet, clouds cracked along the seams. You were just about to close up the diner when the bell above the door rang.

You looked up instinctively, expecting Jake. But no one came in.

Then you heard it—a soft, muffled knock on the alley door.

You hesitated. The last time someone knocked back there, it didn’t end well.

But something in your chest pulled you toward it anyway.

You pushed the back door open.

And he was there.

Leaning hard against the brick wall, half-sitting, half-collapsing, one hand pressed tightly to his ribs. His suit was torn—black and red fabric slick with blood, one shoulder gashed open, his breathing shallow and sharp.

Your breath caught. “Oh my god.”

His head lifted weakly. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

You rushed forward. “You’re hurt.”

“I’ve been worse.”

“You always say that,” you snapped, crouching beside him. “Doesn’t make it less true.”

He let you help him inside. It wasn’t easy. He was heavier than he looked, and every movement made him wince. You dragged one of the chairs from the break room and lowered him into it, grabbing the dusty first aid kit from under the counter.

“Let me see,” you said, reaching for his side.

“I’m fine.”

You shot him a look. “Don’t lie to me right now.”

He didn’t argue again.

You peeled back the shredded suit carefully. His skin beneath was slick with sweat and blood, a deep gash running from the bottom of his ribs to just above his waist. You sucked in a breath.

“This needs stitches.”

He shook his head. “Just clean it. I’ll be okay.”

“Barely.”

You cleaned the wound as gently as you could, biting back every curse, every shake of your hand. His muscles twitched under your touch, and he hissed when the alcohol met open skin.

“Sorry,” you whispered.

“You’re good at this,” he muttered.

“I used to patch up my brother after every fight he picked. Got a lot of practice.”

There was a quiet beat.

“I’m not picking fights,” he said.

“I know,” you said, softer now. “You’re saving people.”

He didn’t reply. His jaw was clenched, knuckles pale where his hands gripped the chair. You glanced up at his face, and that’s when you saw it—a cut on his cheekbone, just under the edge of the mask. A streak of blood had already dried near his jaw.

“Hold still,” you murmured, and before he could protest, you reached up.

Your fingers found the edge of his mask. He tensed.

“I just want to clean it,” you promised, barely above a whisper.

After a moment, he gave the slightest nod.

You slid the mask up slowly, just over his lips and nose, revealing the sharp line of his cheek, the curve of his mouth, the vulnerable dip under his eye.

Your breath caught.

His eyes weren’t visible—but his lips were parted slightly, and the way he breathed—like he wasn’t sure what would happen next—made your pulse spike.

You dabbed the cut gently, your hand trembling. The alcohol made him flinch.

“I’m sorry,” you said again, not for the sting this time—but for the way your hand lingered.

He turned his head slightly toward your touch.

And suddenly, you couldn’t look away.

His lips were right there.

You didn’t think. You didn’t plan it. You just leaned forward—slowly, unsure—and pressed your mouth to his.

Soft. Barely a breath. Just enough to feel the heat of him.

He didn’t move for a second.

Then he kissed you back.

Not hard. Not greedy. Just aching.

Your hand curled near his shoulder, careful of the wounds, and his fingers brushed lightly—just barely—against the side of your hip, not holding, just present.

When you pulled back, you kept your eyes closed for a second longer than necessary.

You didn’t say anything.

Neither did he.

He adjusted the mask back into place with shaking hands.

You went back to cleaning his wounds, pretending your heart wasn’t about to give out. Pretending you hadn’t just kissed a stranger whose name you didn’t know, but whose breath now lived inside your lungs.

And somewhere deep in your chest, you felt the first crack of something you couldn’t take back.

You were brushing your teeth in an old sweatshirt and socks that barely matched when you heard it—three taps against your bedroom window. Not a knock. Not a bang. Just a careful, light rhythm like someone testing the edge of your attention.

You froze, toothbrush halfway to your mouth.

There it was again.

You padded toward the window, heart already halfway up your throat, and pulled the curtain aside.

Spider-Man stood on your fire escape, casual as anything, crouched low with his head tilted like a curious cat.

You stared. “Are you dying?”

He shook his head.

“Is someone else dying?”

He shook his head again.

You opened the window. “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

He stepped inside with practiced ease, barely making a sound. “Just… checking in.”

You blinked. “At midnight?”

“I keep weird hours.”

You raised a brow, still holding your toothbrush. “Do you always drop in uninvited?”

“Only when I think I might be welcome.”

The room felt warmer suddenly. Maybe it was the heat off his suit, or maybe it was just the way he stood there, taking up space in the quiet—like it was normal. Like this was something you did all the time.

You turned back toward the bathroom. “Well, I’m brushing my teeth. You can… sit. Or stand. Or crawl on the ceiling. Whatever.”

You expected him to leave. Or at least hesitate.

But when you peeked back into the room five minutes later, he was still there—standing at the edge of your bed, gloved fingers brushing over the spine of a book you left on your nightstand. The copy of Turtles All The Way Down that you never finished.

You leaned against the doorframe, towel slung over your shoulder. “You read?”

He looked over. “Not enough.”

You walked past him to sit on the bed, one knee tucked under your leg, watching him. “So what, you were swinging through town and thought, ‘You know who probably needs company? That girl who let me bleed all over her kitchen floor’?”

“Something like that,” he said, voice quiet.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was almost easy. The kind of silence that exists between people who don’t need to explain why they’re sitting still in the same space.

You glanced at him again.

His posture was relaxed now. Less superhero, more… person. The lines of his suit glinted faintly under the warm bedroom light, and you noticed again how close he was. Not hovering. Just there.

You tilted your head. “Why me?”

He looked at you for a long moment. “What do you mean?”

“You could be anywhere,” you said. “Saving anyone. But you keep coming back here.”

His breath caught, just barely. “Because you make me feel like I’m not just… a mask.”

That shut you up for a second.

You swallowed. “You’re not.”

He stepped closer. Just one pace.

“Then let me stay,” he said quietly. “Just for a little while.”

You didn’t answer right away.

Then, without breaking his gaze, you pulled back the blanket beside you and nodded once.

He sat. Not on the bed—on the floor, next to where your knee dangled off the mattress, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed more than that.

You curled into the blanket. “You know you don’t have to act like I’m made of glass, right?”

“I’m trying not to scare you,” he murmured.

“You don’t.”

His voice was almost a whisper. “I want to kiss you again.”

You exhaled, heartbeat climbing.

You looked down at him—his face mostly masked, but you could still see the shape of his mouth under the fabric. Familiar now.

“I want to see you,” you said before you could stop yourself. “Just once.”

A pause.

Then: “Not yet.”

You nodded, slow. “Okay.”

He leaned his head back against the bed frame. Close enough to touch. Far enough not to.

You turned off the light.

And for a while, neither of you spoke. You just listened to the quiet rhythm of each other’s breathing—two people, a mask, and a thousand unspoken words between them.

You had just gotten out of the shower when you heard it—the soft tap-tap-tap against your window. It wasn’t cautious this time. It was quick. Urgent. Familiar.

Your breath caught.

You didn’t hesitate.

Towel still clutched around your shoulders, hair dripping down your neck, you padded barefoot across the room and pulled the curtain back with damp fingers.

He was already sliding the window open.

“Spider-Man?” you whispered, more breath than sound.

He stepped inside like he couldn’t wait another second.

His chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths. He wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t limping. But something in his body screamed need. Not for rescue. For you.

You froze. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer.

He reached for you.

His hands were still gloved, still trembling slightly, but they cupped your jaw like they’d wanted to forever. Your breath hitched. You didn’t move. You couldn’t.

“I tried to stay away,” he whispered, voice rough. “I thought I could. I can’t.”

Then he kissed you.

This time there was no hesitation. No pause. Just mouth on mouth, fast and full and wrecked with all the things he hadn’t said.

You gasped against him, your fingers tangling in the suit near his shoulders, and he groaned—soft, low, like your touch unraveled something he hadn’t let himself feel until now.

You pulled him closer.

He tasted like city rain and late-night fire escapes, like silence and wanting, like everything that had built up between you since the first time you looked at him and felt that tight, impossible spark.

He kissed you harder.

His hands roamed your back, slow but insistent, slipping beneath the edge of your shirt, touching skin like it was something sacred.

You broke the kiss only to breathe, foreheads pressed together, your chest tight with wanting.

“You’re shaking,” you whispered.

“I haven’t stopped since I left you,” he said. His voice cracked. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

You kissed him again—slower this time. You let it burn, let it sink in deep.

The kind of kiss that felt like a promise and a problem at once.

He moved with you toward the bed, not rushing, just guiding, as if his body already knew the rhythm of yours. You sat first, and he followed, settling between your knees, hands braced on either side of your thighs.

You could feel the heat of him through the suit. Your hands found the edge of his mask and he tensed.

“I won’t take it off,” you said, fingers curling against the fabric. “I just want more of you.”

You lifted it halfway—just enough to expose his lips again. The curve of his cheek. The jaw you’d kissed once before.

He leaned in.

The next kiss was deeper.

Messier.

One of your legs slipped around his waist, your hands gripping his back through the suit like he was the only real thing in the world.

His tongue slid against yours, slow and desperate, and you moaned—quiet and real and completely undone.

When you pulled back, both of you were breathless.

Your fingers brushed his bare cheek.

He stared at you.

You could’ve said anything. You could’ve told him how you’re getting fond of whatever this was between you guys. But instead, you kissed him again, hoping that it gets the message across.

The diner buzzed with the familiar noise of a Friday night rush — the clatter of plates, low conversations spilling across booths, and the steady hum of the old jukebox playing soft tunes in the background. You moved behind the counter, wiping it down carefully, your hands working on autopilot while your mind drifted somewhere else, somewhere quieter.

Sophia slid into the stool beside you, pushing a loose curl from her face with a playful grin. “Okay, spill it,” she said, voice dropping just enough to feel like a secret. “You’ve been different lately. Happier. More… sparkly. What’s going on?”

Chaewon leaned in too, arms crossed and eyes gleaming with mischief. “Yeah, you’re practically glowing. We’re demanding answers.”

You laughed, the sound soft and easy, but a blush warmed your cheeks anyway. “It’s nothing serious. I’ve just been casually seeing a guy.”

Sophia’s eyes brightened. “Ooo, a guy? Spill! What’s he like?”

You shrugged, trying to keep your tone light and casual. “Nothing special, really. Just hanging out. No drama, no expectations.”

Chaewon gave a knowing nod. “Sounds like fun.”

You smiled, but didn’t offer more. The truth was, you enjoyed the simplicity — the way it wasn’t complicated or heavy. Just a guy. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Unnoticed by you, Jake stood quietly near the diner’s entrance, leaning against the wall with a coffee cup in hand. His dark eyes lingered on you longer than necessary, tracing the easy smile you wore, the way your eyes lit up with your friends. There was a crease in his brow, a quiet ache masked beneath his calm expression.

He said nothing. Didn’t move or interrupt. Just listened.

You caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of your eye, but by then he was already turning away, slipping out the back door like a shadow.

The air felt heavier suddenly, like you’d just let a secret out you hadn’t meant to share, even if the words themselves were harmless.

Later, when the crowd had thinned and the neon “Closed” sign flickered on, you leaned against the counter, the quiet settling around you like a soft blanket. The night air was cooler now, the streets bathed in amber streetlight.

You were just locking the door when Jake’s voice came softly from behind you.

“Hey.”

You turned, startled but not frightened.

He stepped closer, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, eyes flickering with something unreadable.

“You okay?”

You nodded, trying to sound casual. “Yeah, just tired.”

He smiled briefly, the kind of smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“You looked different tonight.”

“Different how?”

“Happier,” he said quietly. “Like someone’s got you walking on clouds.”

You laughed, brushing your hair back. “It’s just… casual. Nothing worth worrying about.”

Jake’s gaze softened, but the tension around his jaw didn’t ease.

“Just casual, huh?”

“Yeah.”

The silence stretched between you, thick with words neither of you wanted to say.

Jake swallowed. “I’m glad.”

You blinked, surprised by the simple honesty.

“Thanks,” you said softly.

He stepped back, hands lifting slightly like he was ready to disappear again.

But then, his voice dropped, hesitant. “If you ever want to talk… or if you need anything…”

You smiled, the warmth in his tone seeping into your chest.

“I’ll be around,” you said.

Jake nodded, then slipped away into the night, leaving you standing there with a new, quiet ache you couldn’t name.

It starts like always.

He climbs through your window with his suit half unzipped and his breath uneven, like he ran all the way across the city just to touch you. You don’t say anything at first. You just step aside and let him in, like you’ve been doing this for weeks.

He reaches for you without hesitation, fingers curling around your waist like a reflex. His mouth finds yours before you can even breathe his name, and it’s like flipping a switch—heat, pressure, want. All of it there in an instant.

He kisses you like he’s starving. Like he’s scared it’ll be the last time. You tilt your head and let it happen, let his hands pull you closer, let the weight of the day melt into something warmer.

“You looked so pretty at the diner,” he says between kisses, voice low and rough and close to your ear. “When you were sitting with Sophia and Chaewon.”

The words don’t register at first.

His mouth is on your neck now. His hands are at the hem of your shirt. He’s saying more—something about how you laughed when Chaewon told a story. Something about how you looked away when Sophia teased you. Something about your voice when you said you were seeing someone.

Your heart stops.

You pull away.

His breath hitches, hands still hovering near your waist. He looks at you with the mask still on, lenses wide, unreadable.

Your voice is cold. “What did you say?”

“I—” He straightens slightly. “I said you looked—”

“No. You said I was talking to Sophia and Chaewon.”

He goes still.

You stare at him. “No one else was around that night. Just us. It was slow. We were cleaning up. There were no customers. No one came to the counter.”

He doesn’t speak.

Your chest tightens. “Except Jake.”

His posture shifts. Not much. But just enough.

Just enough to confirm everything you didn’t want to believe.

Your throat burns. “You were sitting in the last booth. Hoodie. Headphones. Vanilla milkshake.”

The mask says nothing. But the silence behind it screams the truth.

You step back, blood rushing to your ears. “Say something.”

He doesn’t move.

So you whisper it, voice sharp with betrayal. “You’re Jake.”

Still nothing.

“Take it off.”

He flinches.

You take another step forward. “Take. It. Off.”

“I didn’t mean to lie,” he says softly.

“I don’t care what you meant.” Your voice is trembling now, but you don’t stop. “You touched me. You kissed me. You watched me talk about you without knowing. You owe me this.”

His hands slowly rise.

He presses his fingers to the edge of the mask and pulls it up—slowly, carefully—until it peels over his jaw, his cheeks, his eyes.

And there he is.

Jake.

Messy hair. Wide eyes. That same guilty half-smile he gave you every time you refilled his coffee at the diner. But now it’s cracked open, raw and real and exposed in a way that makes your stomach twist.

You stare at him.

It’s worse seeing it for real. Somehow, it always is.

“I wanted to tell you,” he says, voice barely holding together. “But every time I tried… you looked at me like I was just Jake. And I wanted to be more than that to you.”

“You already were,” you whisper. “You just didn’t trust me to know it.”

He swallows, eyes glassy. “I’m sorry.”

You nod slowly, even though nothing about this feels okay. “You should go.”

He doesn’t fight it.

He just lowers the mask again, step by step, until it hides the truth once more.

Then he climbs out the window, leaving behind the version of himself you’ll never see the same again.

And you don’t cry.

You just stand there in the quiet and wonder if any of it was real—or if it was all just another mask.

The bell above the door jingled at exactly 9:42 a.m.

You didn’t look up.

You were pouring coffee into a chipped white mug, the pot warm in your hand, the scent clinging to your clothes the way it always did after an hour behind the counter. Sophia was already in the back prepping waffles, and Chaewon had just started sorting silverware into trays like it mattered.

He slid into his usual booth.

You could feel it without even turning around—the shape of him, the weight of his presence. You didn’t need to see his face. You could trace the silence he carried like a line straight through your chest.

You didn’t say hi.

Didn’t ask if he wanted the vanilla milkshake this time.

Didn’t ask if he was tired from swinging across rooftops and kissing you like you meant something.

You just grabbed the coffee pot again and moved toward him slowly, like your body hadn’t registered what your heart already decided: you weren’t ready to forgive him.

He looked up when you approached.

His hair was still slightly damp like he’d showered in a rush. His hoodie was soft and wrinkled. His fingers were curled around the edge of the table, knuckles white.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

You said nothing.

You poured the coffee into the mug in front of him—half full, just how he liked it—and turned to leave without another word.

“Y/N…” he tried again.

You didn’t stop. Not until his next words caught you mid-step.

“I didn’t sleep. Not at all.”

You turned your head, slowly, your eyes barely landing on him. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have lied.”

His face cracked—just a flicker—but you caught it.

You were good at reading people. You just weren’t good at reading him.

He opened his mouth to respond, but you held up a hand.

“No, Jake. Not here.”

He blinked. “So… you’re just gonna act like you don’t know me?”

You gave a bitter little smile, one corner of your mouth twitching. “I know you better than I ever asked to.”

Chaewon poked her head out from the kitchen just then, eyes landing on you both with curiosity. She didn’t say anything, but her eyebrows raised a little like she was preparing for gossip.

You turned back to the counter, ignoring the heat crawling up your neck.

Jake didn’t move.

He sat in silence while his coffee went cold. He didn’t drink it. Didn’t even touch the spoon.

Eventually, Sophia came out front and started asking him if he needed cream or sugar. You didn’t listen to his answer. You just watched the light on the countertop catch the reflection of the glass door as it swung open again.

This time, when it closed, Jake was gone.

And still—you didn’t feel better.

Just more certain that pretending he didn’t exist was going to hurt both of you.

The city never really sleeps, but tonight it feels miles away from your small apartment. Streetlights spill pale orange through the curtains, casting long, lazy shadows across the floorboards. Outside, distant sirens echo faintly, reminders that life pulses somewhere else—somewhere you’re not sure you want to be.

You drop onto the couch, worn cushions sighing beneath you like an old friend. Your knees press into your chest, arms wrapping around them loosely, as if holding yourself together is all you can manage right now. The apartment smells faintly of cold coffee and something forgotten—a hint of vanilla from the last late-night batch you made.

Your fingers absentmindedly trace the frayed fabric of the cushion, each thread like a memory you can’t quite untangle. The words he said—no, the things he didn’t say—loop in your mind, turning over and over like a song stuck on repeat.

The way he kissed you, as both Jake and Spider-Man. The way he knew things no one should know. The quiet confession hiding behind the mask. The betrayal.

Your chest feels tight, the weight of it pressing down like a physical thing.

Your phone vibrates once, sharply, slicing through the silence. You glance at the screen. No name. No message. Just a notification that feels too heavy to open.

You don’t.

Instead, you push yourself up and walk to the coffee table where your old notebook lies. You haven’t touched it in months, not since life became a tangled mess of half-truths and broken silences.

The cover creaks as you flip it open, pages yellowed and edges curling with age. You pick up the pen beside it and press it to paper.

You don’t write about him. You don’t write about Jake or Spider-Man. You write about you.

The ink flows slowly, like breathing underwater—each word a step toward understanding the storm inside.

You write about the diner’s quiet hum on slow afternoons, the way the sunlight feels too sharp after nights like this, how you sometimes crave silence even when your thoughts are loud.

You write about trust—how fragile it feels when it’s cracked, how hard it is to rebuild something that’s broken.

You write about loneliness. Not the kind that comes from being alone, but the kind that comes from standing too close to someone who keeps parts of themselves hidden.

Hours pass as the ink stains your fingers and the city outside fades further into background noise.

Your breath steadies. The knot in your chest loosens, just enough to let a small, tired smile escape.

You close the notebook, tucking it back on the shelf with gentle care, like a secret you’re not ready to share.

Tonight is yours.

No masks. No lies.

Just the quiet truth, and the slow, steady beating of your own heart.

The morning light streams through the diner’s wide windows, soft and warm like a delicate invitation. It spills across the linoleum floor in golden patches, settling over the worn booths and gleaming countertops as if nothing had shifted in the world overnight.

But everything has shifted.

You stand behind the counter, hands moving out of habit as you wipe down tables and refill syrup bottles. Your fingers linger over the familiar glass jars, the sticky sweetness reminding you of simpler days—days before the mask slipped, before the lies took shape, before you realized how fragile trust could be.

Your mind drifts, weaving between the moments you replay over and over. The way he kissed you, both as Spider-Man and as Jake. The way he knew things you hadn’t told anyone, secrets shared in the quiet moments with your friends. The ache of betrayal still raw beneath your skin.

Sophia steps out from the kitchen, the clatter of plates quieting behind her. She pauses beside you, her gaze catching yours with a softness that makes you almost want to break down. Almost.

“You okay?” she asks quietly, voice a gentle thread in the morning hum of the diner.

You force a small smile, hoping it’s convincing enough. “Yeah. Just tired.”

She watches you for a moment longer, eyes sharp and steady. Then she reaches out, handing you a cup of freshly brewed coffee without a word.

Your fingers brush hers for a brief second, a simple contact that feels more comforting than any words could.

“Thanks,” you whisper, your voice barely carrying beyond the counter.

Sophia nods, her presence steady and reassuring. She doesn’t press you for answers, doesn’t demand you to share what you’re not ready to say. Instead, she stays near, a quiet anchor in the swirl of your thoughts.

You take a slow sip of the coffee, the warmth spreading through your chest and grounding you. For a moment, the chaos of last night recedes, replaced by the familiar rhythm of the diner and the soft murmur of customers beginning their day.

Chaewon joins you then, carrying a tray of freshly toasted bagels, her smile bright despite the early hour. The three of you share a quiet glance, an unspoken understanding passing between you—a small reminder that even in the midst of uncertainty, you’re not alone.

As the morning unfolds, you find yourself breathing a little easier, the tight knot in your chest loosening just enough to let a flicker of hope through.

Today is yours, even if the past still lingers in the corners.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough for now.

The diner’s lights flicked off one by one as you finished the last round of cleaning, the soft clatter of dishes and low hum of the city outside creating a familiar lull. It was later than usual, and the air in your small apartment felt thick with exhaustion and something you couldn’t quite name.

Outside, the world was quiet — deceptively so. The kind of quiet that fills the spaces just before chaos erupts.

You slid your phone into your pocket, the vibration from an unanswered message still buzzing faintly against your thigh. No name. No words. Just a silent echo.

Locking the door behind you, you stepped out into the night. The cold air bit at your cheeks, sharp and electric against your flushed skin.

Then you heard it — a harsh, sudden crash that ripped through the silence like a jagged blade. It was close. Too close.

Without thinking, your feet moved faster, adrenaline snapping tight through your veins. Your heart pounded so loud you were sure it would burst free from your ribs.

Turning into the narrow alley beside the diner, you froze.

There, crumpled against the cold brick wall, was the flash of red and blue — Spider-Man.

His body was twisted, broken in ways no human should be. A deep, angry gash ran across his cheek, blood staining the fabric of his mask and trickling onto the pavement.

Your breath hitched.

Panic slammed through you like a tidal wave. Kneeling beside him, your hands trembled as you reached out, brushing damp hair from his forehead.

“Jake,” you whispered, voice trembling, barely daring to speak the name you’d come to know so intimately yet so secretly.

His eyes flickered open, dark and clouded with pain and confusion. For the first time, you saw him not as an elusive hero or mysterious stranger, but as a fragile, human man — vulnerable and broken.

Your chest constricted, a sharp ache blossoming deep inside.

You pressed your palm against the bleeding wound, fingers trembling as you tried to steady both him and yourself.

Tears blurred your vision as the realization dawned—this was more than admiration, more than curiosity.

You had fallen for him. For Jake.

Not the mask. Not the myth. The man beneath it all.

The distant wail of sirens grew louder, but you didn’t want to let go.

“I’m here,” you promised softly, voice steady even as your heart shattered.

And in the cold night, holding him close, you finally understood the weight of love—its fragility, its power, and its fierce, unrelenting truth.

You didn’t take him to a hospital.

You couldn’t. He whispered it once — not there, don’t take me there — voice broken and laced with panic beneath the blood and bruises. It wasn’t pride. It was fear. Fear of being unmasked, exposed, vulnerable in front of people who wouldn’t see Jake, only Spider-Man.

So you took him home.

It was slow, agonizing. He leaned heavily on you, half-conscious, his breaths shallow and uneven. Each step felt like a mile, his weight shifting in your arms as you tried to keep him upright. You didn’t stop. Not once. Not even when your legs trembled beneath his.

By the time you reached your apartment, your arms were shaking from the strain and your lungs burned from holding in every sound that wanted to escape — the panic, the heartbreak, the truth.

He collapsed onto your couch the second you let go, one arm slung over the backrest, the other curled protectively around his ribs. His mask was still on, though it hung loosely, barely clinging to his cheekbones.

You knelt in front of him, hands already reaching for the emergency kit tucked beneath your bathroom sink.

Your voice was quiet. “I need to see.”

He didn’t answer. Just nodded — a barely-there motion. Trusting you. Giving in.

You peeled the mask away gently, trying not to wince when it tugged against dried blood. His eyes fluttered shut as the air touched his skin, and for a moment, he looked like a boy. Not a hero. Not a name whispered in awe across rooftops. Just Jake. Broken and breathing.

Your breath caught when you saw the full damage — the bruises already blooming across his ribs, the cuts along his collarbone, the torn skin at his temple. His lip was split. His left wrist swollen and scraped raw.

You whispered his name like a question. “Jake.”

“I’m okay,” he mumbled. “It looks worse than it is.”

“That’s a lie,” you said, your voice cracking.

Still, your hands moved with careful purpose.

Warm washcloth first — soft, wet, stained with the grime of soot and blood and the city. You wiped gently at the wounds on his face, watching his brow twitch with every press. His breath hitched when your fingertips brushed too close to the edge of a bruise, but he didn’t pull away.

Next came the antiseptic. The hiss of pain from his mouth made you flinch, but he didn’t curse. Just gritted his teeth and looked away, jaw tight.

You pressed a bandage to the cut on his cheek. “You’re lucky I didn’t listen to you and take you straight to the ER.”

He smiled faintly, eyes half-lidded. “You always this stubborn?”

“Only with people who lie to me,” you said.

His smile faded. The silence between you turned heavier, more intimate somehow. Fragile.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” he said softly. “Like I could break.”

You dipped your head, pulling gauze around his forearm with slow precision. “Too late.”

He exhaled through his nose, something between a laugh and a sigh. “You’re mad.”

You tied off the bandage, not looking at him. “You’re lucky that’s all I am.”

He was quiet for a moment, then: “You could’ve left me there.”

You looked up. His eyes were glassy, bloodshot. Honest.

“I couldn’t,” you said. “I couldn’t leave you like that. I couldn’t… lose you.”

The words escaped before you could stop them. And they hung in the air, trembling.

He looked at you like he heard everything you weren’t saying.

You pressed your hand against his chest, right over the bruise spreading beneath the suit. “You scared me.”

“I know.”

“You could’ve died.”

“I know,” he whispered again, voice thin. “I was thinking about you when I hit the wall.”

You blinked, breath catching. “What?”

He closed his eyes. “I thought about how I never told you properly. That I was Jake. That I was sorry. That I—”

“Don’t,” you said softly. “Not now.”

He opened his eyes again. “Why not?”

“Because I need you to stay awake. And alive.”

His lips curved gently, even through the pain. “Then sit with me.”

You didn’t hesitate.

You eased onto the couch beside him, lifting his arm carefully to rest against your shoulders. His head dropped slightly, forehead grazing your temple. He smelled like sweat and concrete and something warm beneath the bruises. Something safe.

You stayed there for hours.

And as he drifted to sleep, breath shallow against your skin, you pressed your hand to his chest again — to feel it.

His heartbeat.

Steady.

Alive.

Yours to keep safe tonight.

The apartment was quiet.

The kind of quiet that follows long nights and heavy truths — not heavy like sadness, but heavy like something honest finally laid down between two people.

The first light of morning slipped through your curtains, brushing against the edges of the living room like soft breath. You stirred on the couch before he did, one arm still looped around Jake’s shoulders, your other hand resting gently on his chest.

He hadn’t moved all night.

His breathing had stayed shallow and steady, his face peaceful despite the bruises, and you’d stayed exactly where you were. Awake for most of it. Watching him sleep. Listening to the sounds of the city slowly restart outside.

You weren’t afraid anymore. Not of him. Not of what it meant to know who he was.

You didn’t pull away when he finally stirred.

He shifted slightly, groaning under his breath, one arm tightening loosely around your waist.

“I didn’t die,” he muttered, voice low and cracked with sleep. “Cool.”

You huffed a quiet laugh, tilting your head toward him. “Shocking. Your dramatic fall against a brick wall wasn’t fatal.”

His lips twitched. “I’ll try harder next time.”

“Don’t you dare,” you said, and even though it came out dry, he heard the weight in it. He heard the fear that hadn’t left you yet.

Jake’s eyes opened slowly. They were dark and warm and still tired. “How long did you stay up?”

You looked away. “I didn’t count.”

“You didn’t sleep, did you?”

“Nope.”

A pause.

“I didn’t want to miss anything,” you added, quieter now. “Like your breathing stopping. Or your heart. Or you just disappearing.”

“I wouldn’t leave like that.”

“You almost did.”

Jake didn’t argue. He reached up with his unbandaged hand and gently brushed your hair behind your ear.

You didn’t stop him.

There was no kiss. No bold declarations. No need to name what this was.

But something had changed.

The closeness wasn’t strange anymore. The touches weren’t careful. You both moved around each other like something shared had finally settled — something real. A middle place between love and caution. Between healing and wanting.

You sat up slowly, stretching your arms as the sunlight caught on your skin. “I’ll make you something.”

Jake blinked up at you. “Like… food?”

“Yes, genius,” you said, standing. “You almost died. You need eggs.”

He smiled fully this time. Not the nervous, half-smile you’d seen at the diner. Not the flirtatious smirk he wore behind the mask. Just Jake. Tired. Bruised. Comfortable.

You made scrambled eggs and burnt toast because that’s all you had, and he sat on your couch, wrapped in a throw blanket like a very injured and slightly cocky ghost.

He didn’t ask to leave.

You didn’t ask him to stay.

But you both knew he would.

It started to feel normal.

Not everything. Not the bruises that still dotted Jake’s ribs or the way you sometimes caught yourself staring at the scars on his back when he changed in your bathroom. Not the fact that his phone would buzz and his entire body would tense like the city itself was pulling him back through a tether.

But the rest of it — the in-betweens — started to feel easy.

He came through the window now, not like a secret, not like a ghost, but like someone who knew the way. You didn’t flinch when you heard the soft thud of boots on the fire escape. You didn’t rush to hide whatever you were doing. You just opened the window wider and stepped back so he could crawl inside.

“You keep leaving it unlocked,” he said one night, ducking in with his suit unzipped halfway and his hair damp from either rain or a rooftop leak — you weren’t sure which.

You didn’t look up from your book. “Maybe I just like the breeze.”

He scoffed quietly, toeing off his boots and setting them beside the window like he lived here. “Right. It’s the breeze. Definitely not the charming superhero with a mild head injury.”

“You hit your head again?” you asked, glancing over the top of your pages.

“Only a little.”

You rolled your eyes but didn’t push it. He knew where the first aid kit was now. He knew how to use it. You weren’t going to hover — not anymore.

Instead, you scooted over on the couch.

He hesitated, just for a second, then sat beside you with a soft groan. The blanket was already pooled on the cushion. You didn’t offer it. He didn’t ask. He just pulled it over both your legs like he belonged there.

And maybe, in this moment, he did.

You read while he rested his head back, eyes closed, breathing steady. Not asleep, just… still. Like he was giving himself permission to stop moving for once.

After a while, he spoke. “I told Heeseung I was hanging out with someone.”

You turned a page. “You told him it was me?”

Jake smirked faintly, eyes still shut. “No. I told him I was ‘seeing someone who likes their eggs too dry and their coffee too sweet.’ He figured it out.”

You nudged his knee with yours. “Rude.”

He hummed. “You like your coffee sweet.”

“Not that sweet.”

He opened one eye and looked at you. “Okay. But the eggs part was accurate.”

You bit back a smile, lowering your book. “So… you’ve told people.”

“Just him. And Sunghoon maybe suspects something.”

“Are you going to tell him you spend every night at a diner girl’s apartment in flannel pajamas?”

“I don’t spend every night,” he said, grinning now.

You arched a brow.

“…Okay, most nights,” he admitted.

You let the silence fill the space again. Not heavy, not awkward. Just comfortable. Like music that didn’t need to be played out loud.

Neither of you had called this anything.

Not dating. Not not-dating.

But the space between you had changed. No more pretending. No more hiding behind masks and diner counters and clever banter. Just late nights, burnt eggs, bruised bodies healing slowly, and the occasional forehead touch when words felt too big.

And every time the window opened, so did something else.

The rain starts around midnight.

Not a storm, not quite — just a steady, silver hiss outside your window, soft against the glass, soft against the fire escape. The kind of rain that makes everything quieter. Slower. Softer.

You’re already in your pajamas — a threadbare tee and sleep shorts — when the knock comes. Not on your door, but rather on the glass.

You don’t flinch anymore.

You cross the room barefoot, your toes brushing against the cold hardwood, and pull the curtain aside.

He’s there.

Jake.

Not in the suit. Not this time. Just a hoodie and jeans, both slightly damp. His hair is wet too, clinging to his forehead, and his hands are shoved deep into his pockets like maybe this wasn’t planned. Like maybe he didn’t know he’d come here tonight but somehow ended up here anyway.

You open the window without a word.

He ducks inside, movements quiet, careful not to drip too much on your rug.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft, like the rain outside.

“Hey,” you say back.

No explanation. None needed.

You hand him a towel from the bathroom. He pulls it over his head and ruffles his hair while you move toward the kitchen.

“I was going to make grilled cheese,” you offer, like he’s just any friend stopping by and not the boy who bled on your couch last week.

He perks up. “With tomato soup?”

You glance over your shoulder, lips curving. “Do I look like I have tomato soup just lying around?”

“…Yes?”

You snort. “You’re in luck.”

He smiles, the warm, quiet kind he only gives you now. Like he’s finally stopped waiting for you to shove him away.

Ten minutes later, the soup is bubbling, and the smell of butter and cheese fills the apartment. He’s leaning against your counter, damp towel draped over his shoulder, watching you slice bread like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.

“You always make that face when you’re concentrating,” he murmurs.

“What face?”

“That one,” he says, pointing at your mouth. “The pouty one.”

You swat a dish towel at him. “Shut up and go set the table.”

It’s not even a real table — just the low coffee table in front of your couch — but he does it anyway. Two bowls. Two mismatched mugs of water. He even lights the small vanilla candle you forgot you left there.

You sit beside him, the grilled cheese warm in your hands, the soup steaming gently between you.

He dips his sandwich first. You watch the way his eyes flutter closed when he takes a bite.

“I’d die for this,” he says dramatically.

“You almost did.”

He opens one eye.

“…Fair.”

You both laugh — soft, sleepy laughter that settles between you like a blanket. The food disappears slowly. Not because you’re distracted, but because you’re both enjoying the silence. The nearness.

You take his plate when he’s done.

He follows you into the kitchen, trailing a little too close behind, fingertips grazing the small of your back. Not obvious. Not urgent. Just… there.

You wash. He dries.

At some point, you both end up in your room — not rushed, not planned. It just happens.

He lies down first, facing the window. You crawl in behind him.

Your knees press into the backs of his. Your hand slips into the space between his shoulder blades. Your forehead rests against his spine like it belongs there.

“Stay?” you whisper.

His answer is immediate. “Always.”

And in the quiet hush of rain and candlelight, you fall asleep like that.

You woke up to buzzing.

Not the lazy kind. Not the 7:00 a.m. alarm you always snoozed or the “we’re out of eggs again” group chat from Sophia and Chaewon.

No — this was frantic buzzing.

Back-to-back notifications hammering your phone like someone set the internet on fire.

You rubbed sleep from your eyes and grabbed the phone from under your pillow. The screen was lit up with texts. Mentions. Twitter screenshots. Names you didn’t recognize. And one group chat name you did.

[Chaewon 🪩]

GIRL.

GO.

LOOK.

RIGHT. NOW.

You’re viral.

Your heart skipped.

The first post you opened was blurry — pixelated and shot from below — but unmistakable.

A streetlamp. The shape of Spider-Man crouched on the edge of a fire escape. His mask pushed halfway up, just enough to show his jaw. His hand reaching down.

And you.

The photo wasn’t clear enough to catch your face fully, but it was you. You knew it. The diner uniform. The hair. The way you tilted your head when you were trying not to smile.

You knew the moment.

Last week. You’d been locking up the diner. He’d dropped down from the roof like always, dramatic and a little smug. You told him to stop scaring you like that, and he laughed.

He kissed you before vanishing again, slipping between buildings like smoke.

And now it was everywhere.

“SPIDER-MAN SPOTTED WITH MYSTERY GIRL — COULD IT BE LOVE?”

“Brooklyn’s Friendly Neighborhood Hero Might Be Taken 👀”

“Who Is Spider-Man’s Real Life MJ?”

You dropped the phone.

It hit the comforter with a dull thud, and your stomach followed.

The knock on your window came less than five minutes later.

You didn’t open it right away.

Jake knocked again, this time gentler. You could see him through the curtain — no mask, just a hoodie pulled low over his brow, eyes anxious even from this distance.

You opened the window.

He stepped inside, quiet. Careful.

“They got a photo,” you said before he could even speak.

He ran a hand through his hair. “I know.”

“I didn’t even see anyone. How—”

“I don’t know. Someone probably lives in that building. It was… stupid of me to do that there. I wasn’t thinking.”

You didn’t answer.

“I never wanted this to touch you,” he said, voice low. “I’ve kept my identity hidden for this long for a reason. Not for me. For people around me. For people like you.”

“But now it has,” you said, words falling heavy between you.

He looked up at you, eyes dark and threaded with guilt. “We can shut it down. Deny it. Say it wasn’t you.”

You almost laughed. “Jake, I was wearing my name tag.”

He flinched.

You stepped back, away from the window, arms folding tight over your chest.

He followed, just far enough to keep the space between you soft but careful.

“They don’t know your name. They won’t find your apartment. I’ll keep you safe,” he said.

And maybe he believed that. Maybe he could fight off half of Brooklyn’s crime ring and swing through fires and save kids from collapsing buildings.

But this?

This was different.

This was people watching.

Talking.

Wanting something from the both of you.

You looked at him — this boy you’d held while he bled, this boy you fed soup in silence, this boy who looked at you like he already knew how you tasted when you laughed.

“I don’t want to be your headline,” you whispered.

Jake swallowed, stepping closer, close enough to lower his voice.

“Then let me be yours.”

You blinked.

“I don’t care if the city knows. I don’t care if they guess. I care that you don’t run.”

You were quiet for a long moment.

“I won’t run,” you said finally. “But I don’t want to be someone’s theory or some TikTok guessing game.”

He nodded. “Then we don’t give them anything. We keep it how it’s been. Quiet. Ours.”

You looked at him.

And slowly, you nodded back.

Still not dating or defined, but something real and even now — especially now — worth protecting.

The diner was already buzzing when you walked in.

Not busy. Just buzzing. Like the air itself had caught wind of something and couldn’t stop humming about it.

Sophia looked up from where she was leaning over the counter, scrolling on her phone with a smirk already tugging at her lips.

“Well, well, if it isn’t New York’s most mysterious love interest,” she said.

Chaewon popped her head up from the pastry display. “Are we still pretending you don’t know Spider-Man?”

You froze halfway to the break room, then let your shoulders fall with a practiced sigh.

“Guys.”

“No, no, don’t ‘guys’ us,” Chaewon said, rounding the counter and pulling you by the elbow. “We gave you weeks. We gave you space. But now you’re literally a trending topic.”

Sophia held up her phone screen. Your face, blurry and tilted, next to Spider-Man’s unmistakable red-and-blue suit, was on every gossip account in New York. #SpiderBae was trending.

“You look cute,” Sophia added. “Also terrified.”

“I was terrified,” you muttered. “He dropped out of the sky like a vampire. It was dark.”

Chaewon narrowed her eyes. “That’s not a denial.”

You opened your mouth. Closed it again. Then opened it once more just to say, “We’re not dating.”

“But you know him,” Sophia said.

You hesitated. “I know… a version of him.”

Chaewon gave you a look. “So you are his Pepper to your Tony.”

“I am nobody’s Pepper,” you said, sliding into the break room before they could follow.

They didn’t push it. Not yet. But you knew this wasn’t going away.

By noon, five customers had commented on how much you “looked like that girl.” One even asked for a selfie “just in case.” You laughed it off. Smiled through it. But the back of your neck stayed warm the whole time.

And then the door chimed.

You were pouring coffee, distracted, half-listening to Sophia hum a Taylor Swift song behind you, when you turned — and froze.

Jake.

Not Spider-Man.

Not swinging in.

Not masked.

Just Jake. In a gray hoodie, jeans, windblown hair, and a look on his face like he already regretted this.

Your breath hitched.

He met your eyes. Briefly. Softly.

Then sat at the counter like he belonged there.

Sophia blinked. “…Is that?”

Chaewon squinted. “That’s the guy who always orders cherry pie on Wednesdays.”

You nearly dropped the coffee pot.

You wiped your hands on your apron and walked over slowly, heart hammering.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, low enough that no one else could hear.

He shrugged, like it was nothing. “You always talk about how good the soup is.”

Your eyes searched his. “Jake—”

“I used the front door,” he said. “I thought maybe it was time I stopped hiding.”

You stared at him. At the quiet bravery in that sentence.

“Okay,” you said. Then, gently: “Don’t look too heroic while you eat. Someone might take a picture.”

He grinned. “I’ll do my best.”

You walked away.

And when Sophia and Chaewon cornered you in the kitchen three minutes later, you didn’t lie.

You just smiled. Shrugged.

“Okay,” you admitted. “He likes my eggs. I like his face. That’s it.”

Chaewon screamed. Sophia threw a napkin in the air like confetti.

And through the diner window, Jake lifted his spoon like a toast — just for you.

[ickbite]

HELLO?????i think i need someone older was so fuckinggoooooooooooood HOLY SHITTTTTTTTTTT i loved how he was characterized here damnn what a masterpiece THANK UUUUU LOVED ittt !!!!

Waitt my first anon kinda nervous…. HAHA but thank you so much❤️❤️❤️ I’ve been starting things and not finishing so I’m surprised i had the willpower to finish that … LMAOO