[Setting: Rooftop bar in Metropolis. Late evening. Neon city lights stretch endlessly below. Rain just ended, leaving reflections like smeared lipstick on glass. The rooftop is private, empty—except for you, Eve, and a bottle of expensive wine she definitely didn’t pay for.]

“Okay,” Eve says, twirling a wet strand of hair around her finger, “tell me this isn’t, like, super romantic.”

You glance around. One flickering candle. Thunder in the distance. And her—legs draped across a velvet cushion, heels kicked off, clutching a wine glass she’s been swirling like a Bond villain for the past ten minutes. You mutter something about the wind.

“Ugh. You’re such a guy sometimes,” she pouts, poking your chest. “You don’t even notice how cute I look tonight, and that’s, like, literally a crime. I shaved both legs and wore the lipstick Luthy hates.”

Your jaw clenches at the nickname—Luthy. She says it so casually. So affectionately. And yet here she is. With you. Again.

Same rooftop. Same lie.

The plan was simple: get close to Eve. Use her vanity, her nostalgia, her loneliness. You needed dirt on Luthor—proof of his manipulation, the blackmail he spins behind those press conferences, the smears against Superman. And Eve? She had keys to the kingdom. Luthor’s girlfriend, your ex, and as careless as she was infatuated.

She’d already slipped up twice. Names. Locations. Frustrated mutterings after one too many flutes of champagne. You were getting everything you needed.

And then she’d go and say something like—

“I miss you,” she blurts. Quiet. The glass fogs in her hand. “Like, the real you. Not the work version. Not the Daily Bugle ‘serious face’ guy. The old you. The one who laughed at my jokes and didn’t flinch every time I said something dumb.”

Your stomach turns.

You remind yourself: You’re using her.

You should say something cold. Something detached. The mission comes first. Luthor has to go down, for Superman’s sake—for truth’s sake.

Instead, your mouth betrays you.

“I miss you too.”

She blinks. “You mean that?”

You don’t answer. You can’t. Because you’re not even sure anymore.

You see the cracks more now. In her smile. Her eyes. She’s not as dumb as she acts. Maybe never was. Maybe all the selfies and bubbly laughs are a shield, a survival tactic in a world that expects her to be shiny and empty. But she’s not. Not when she accidentally let slip that Luthor keeps a second server in a penthouse she’s never allowed in. Not when she teared up last week when she asked if she was just “somebody men pretend to like.”

And you… you didn’t answer then, either.

She leans in now, face inches from yours. Rain drips off the back of her neck, down her bare shoulder. “Do you ever think about what we were before?”

You stare at her.

Before?

Before the mission. Before Superman asked you to dig. Before she climbed back into your life like a storm in a sundress.

“Yes,” you say.

Her lips part. Maybe from surprise. Maybe because, deep down, she still hopes it means something.

And maybe it does.

You want to tell her she’s in danger. That Luthor is setting her up. That soon, she’ll be caught between headlines and handcuffs and no one will be there to pull her out. Not unless you do it first.

You want to tell her everything.

But you can’t.

Instead, you kiss her.

Because it’s easier. Safer. A lie shaped like comfort.

She sighs into you. Familiar. Bitter. Sweet.

The wind howls. Neon bleeds into night. Somewhere, Superman flies over the city, still believed to be the villain in every tabloid headline—because he doesn’t play the game. But you do.

You hold her hand.

You lie again.

But maybe…

Maybe not for much longer.