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Chocking on a mouth full of sugar

The Pulse of a Paperweight

Metropolis was a city that never stopped screaming, but today, the noise was particularly sharp. A mechanical monstrosity—some rogue LexCorp experiment with too many limbs and a penchant for structural damage—was currently attempting to remodel the Financial District.

Superman hovered in the air, his cape snapping like a whip in the gale-force winds of the high-rise canyons. He was the picture of stoic, alien grace. His jaw was set, his eyes burned with the steady heat of a dying star, and his voice, when he spoke to the ground crews, was a baritone anchor of calm. He was the Man of Steel. He was untouchable.

Then, he saw them.

Cariño Anderson was huddled behind a reinforced concrete pillar, clutching a leather-bound sketchbook to their chest as if it were a shield. They were supposed to be at the office, but Perry had sent the assistants out to deliver hard copies of the afternoon edition when the digital servers went down. Now, they were caught in the crossfire.

Superman descended in a blur of primary colors. He landed with a heavy *thud* that cracked the pavement, shielding Cariño from a shower of glass as the robot slammed into a nearby storefront.

"Stay down," Superman commanded, his voice resonant and commanding. "I’ll have you out of here in a moment."

Cariño looked up. Their eyes, usually so soft and expressive when they were doodling at their desk, were narrowed and flat. They didn't tremble. They didn't gasp. They looked at the most powerful being on Earth with a blunt, almost clinical detachment.

"I’m fine," Cariño said, their voice clipped. "Just do your job. The structural integrity of that building to your left is compromised. If you don't stabilize the pylon, it's going to come down on the paramedics."

Superman blinked. He was used to people fainting, cheering, or screaming in his face. He wasn't used to a quiet office assistant giving him tactical advice with the warmth of an ice cube.

"Right. Thank you," he said, feeling a strange, hollow pang in his chest. He took off, tearing the arm from the robot and using it to brace the failing pylon just as Cariño had suggested.

From the outside, it looked like a hero and a brave civilian. Inside, Clark Kent was dying. He was absolutely, catastrophically dying.

*They hate me,* Clark thought, his heart hammering against his ribs with a force that felt like it might actually bruise his sternum. *As Superman, I’m just a nuisance to them. I’m a loud, bright distraction from their work. Oh god, I’m being too much. I’m hovering too close. Am I blocking their view? I’m definitely blocking their view.*

He finished the fight in record time, driven by a frantic, desperate need to be out of Cariño's sight before he did something even more embarrassing, like tripping over his own cape. He didn't even stay for the press photos. He just flew straight to the roof of the Daily Planet, changed into his rumpled suit in three seconds flat, and plummeted down the stairs to the newsroom.

By the time he reached his desk, he was a sweating, bumbling mess. He collapsed into his chair, his glasses sliding to the very tip of his nose.

"Rough commute, Kent?" Lois asked, not looking up from her keyboard.

"I... stairs. Many stairs," Clark wheezed, which was a blatant lie, but his brain was currently a bowl of lukewarm soup.

Five minutes later, the elevator dinged. Cariño walked out. They looked slightly dusty, their hair a bit windblown, but otherwise perfectly composed. They walked straight to their cubicle, sat down, and immediately began organizing a stack of invoices.

Clark watched them through the gaps in the office partitions. His super-hearing picked up the steady, rhythmic beat of their heart. It was slow. Calm. They weren't even rattled by the giant robot.

*They are so strong,* Clark thought, a ridiculous, sappy smile spreading across his face. *So quiet and steady. They just face the world like it’s a puzzle they’ve already solved. And here I am, unable to even hold a pencil without snapping it because my hands are shaking.*

He felt like a spoon full of sugar had been forced into his mouth—it was sweet, so sweet it hurt, a cloying, wonderful warmth that started in his chest and radiated out until his fingers tingled. He wanted to go over there. He wanted to ask if they were okay. He wanted to tell them that their "mediocre" sketches were the only thing that kept him sane during the long nights of patrol.

Instead, he stood up, tripped over his own trash can, and stumbled toward their desk like a newborn giraffe on ice.

"C-Cariño!" he barked, much louder than intended.

Cariño jumped, their pen skidding across a spreadsheet. They looked up, and instantly, the calm, blunt mask they wore for Superman shattered. Their face turned a vibrant, scorching red. Their hands began to fumble with the paper, trying to hide a drawing they had been working on.

"Clark! Hi. Hello. You’re... you’re back," Cariño stammered, their voice jumping an entire octave. "I mean, obviously you’re back. You work here. I’m an idiot."

"No! No, you’re not an idiot," Clark said, leaning against their desk. He tried to look casual, but he accidentally leaned on a stapler, which let out a loud *ka-chunk*. "I heard there was... uh, a robot? Downtown? Are you okay? I was worried. Not that I should be worried! You’re very capable. But, you know. Robots. They’re... metallic."

Cariño bit their lip, their eyes darting everywhere but Clark’s face. "I’m fine. Superman showed up. He was... fine. Very loud. He moves too fast, it’s hard to get the proportions right when he’s just a blur of red and blue."

Clark’s heart did a triple backflip. "You... you were trying to draw him?"

Cariño looked like they wanted to crawl under the industrial gray carpet and stay there for a decade. "No. Maybe. It’s just... the way the light hits his cape is interesting. From an artistic perspective! Not a... weird fan perspective. I don't care about him. I mean, I do, he saves people, but he’s so... unreachable. He’s like a statue that talks. It’s boring."

They looked up at Clark then, their gaze softening, their posture losing its defensive edge. "You’re much more interesting to draw, Clark. You have... edges. And you’re always moving. Even when you’re standing still, you look like you’re about to go somewhere important."

Clark felt his brain melt. He was pretty sure his glasses were fogging up from the sheer heat radiating off his cheeks. "I’m just... I’m just Clark. I’m not... I don't have a cape."

"Good," Cariño whispered, their fingers twisting a paperclip into a pretzel. "Capes are a tripping hazard. You’re already clumsy enough. I’d hate to have to untangle you from a flagpole."

They shared a small, breathless laugh. For a moment, the bustling newsroom vanished. Clark forgot about the robot, forgot about the secret identity, forgot about the fact that he could hear a bird chirping three miles away. All he could hear was the frantic, matching rhythm of Cariño’s heart.

They were just as nervous as he was.

"I, uh... I brought you something," Clark said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a small, slightly squashed granola bar. "I figured you didn't get lunch because of the... the metallic situation."

Cariño took the bar as if it were a bar of solid gold. Their fingers brushed his, and Clark felt a jolt of electricity that would have powered a small city.

"Thank you, Clark," they said softly. "That’s... that’s really kind of you. You’re always so... you."

"I try," Clark said, his voice cracking. "I really, really try."

He stayed there for a moment longer than was socially acceptable, just basking in the quiet beauty of them. He loved the way they tucked their hair back. He loved the way they hated paperwork but did it anyway with a focused, silent dignity. They were the support beam of the entire office, the quiet strength that let everyone else shine, and they didn't even know it.

"Kent! If you’re done flirting with the staff, I have a lead on the LexCorp leak!" Perry’s voice boomed from his office.

Cariño let out a tiny, panicked squeak and immediately buried their face in a folder. "Go! You should go. Don't get in trouble because of me."

"I’m not flirting," Clark muttered, mostly to himself, as he turned to walk away. "I’m just... failing at existing."

He made it three steps before he walked straight into a water cooler. The plastic jug gurgled loudly, mocking him. Clark apologized to the cooler, adjusted his tie, and scrambled toward Perry’s office, his heart still trying to beat its way out of his chest.

Behind him, hidden by a stack of manila folders, Cariño Anderson let out a long, shaky breath. They opened their sketchbook to a fresh page. They didn't draw Superman. They didn't draw the robot or the destruction.

Instead, they drew a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, slightly crooked, sitting on a desk next to a squashed granola bar. Underneath it, they wrote in tiny, cramped letters: *He noticed I didn't eat. How am I supposed to breathe when he looks at me like that?*

Cariño looked at the drawing and felt a wave of familiar, agonizing adoration. They hated being around Superman; he was too perfect, too distant, too much like a god to be touched. Superman made them feel small and blunt.

But Clark? Clark made them feel like they were the only person in a room full of noise. He was a dork, a bumbling, oversized, golden-hearted dork, and Cariño was so deeply in love with him it felt like a physical weight in their lungs.

"God, I’m such a fool," Cariño whispered to the invoices.

Across the room, Clark sat in Perry’s office, nodding along to whatever the Chief was saying, but his X-ray vision was fixed on that sketchbook. He saw the drawing. He saw the note.

He had to grip the edge of the mahogany desk to keep from floating off the floor.

*They love me,* he thought, the sugar-sweet warmth finally overflowing. *Not the cape. Not the powers. Just... the man who trips over water coolers.*

It was the most dangerous thing he had ever discovered. It was more terrifying than kryptonite and more powerful than a red sun.

"Kent? Are you listening?" Perry barked, slamming a hand on the desk. "You look like you’ve been hit with a literal ton of bricks."

"I’m fine, Chief," Clark said, a goofy, unstoppable grin breaking across his face. "I’ve just... I’ve got a really good feeling about this story."

He walked out of the office, his step lighter than air. He passed Cariño’s desk, and this time, he didn't trip. He just paused, leaned down, and whispered, "The light is better by the window, you know. If you want to draw there tomorrow."

Cariño looked up, their eyes wide and shimmering. "I... I’d like that, Clark."

"Me too," he said.

He walked away, his heart finally finding a steady, happy pace. He was a fumbling idiot, and they were a jittery mess, but in the middle of a city that never stopped screaming, they had found a quiet space just for themselves. And for Clark Kent, that was more than enough to save the world.