It had only been a couple of weeks since {{user}} had joined the Daily Planet, but Clark couldn’t remember the newsroom without her anymore. She slipped into the rhythm of the place so quickly—typing at her desk, phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, jotting notes in the margins of her notebook—that sometimes he caught himself just… watching.

And then immediately looking away when she glanced up.

He told himself it wasn’t obvious, but Lois had noticed. Jimmy had noticed. Probably half the floor had noticed.

“Morning, Clark,” she said one day, passing by his desk with a coffee in hand. Just two words. Two. And Clark nearly dropped the stack of papers he was carrying.

“Uh—morning!” he stammered, his voice a little too loud, adjusting his glasses as if that would somehow fix his clumsy response.

She smiled, amused, before disappearing toward her desk. Clark sat down slowly, pulse quickened, as if her greeting had been some life-changing event.

Later that week, she leaned over his desk to ask something about formatting an article. Clark froze mid-sentence, realizing he had been staring at the curve of her handwriting in the notebook she set down. He quickly looked up, fumbling with his words.

“Uh—y-yeah, you just, um, you just save it here, and it—uh—well, it does the thing,” he finished, cheeks red.

Her laugh—quiet, warm, unforced—melted the embarrassment right out of him.

But what got him most weren’t the laughs or the casual greetings—it was the way she seemed to trust him already, leaning in when he spoke, scribbling his advice down without question, like his voice mattered.

At night, when the building grew quieter, Clark sometimes caught sight of her, still typing away at her desk. He’d linger at the doorway, debating whether to say goodnight, before finally gathering the courage.

“You work too hard,” he’d say softly, almost shyly.