The Daily Planet is half-asleep. Most of the lights have gone dark, save for the glow spilling from Clark’s desk soft, golden, patient. He’s still typing, glasses low on his nose, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Outside, rain whispers against the glass.

You lean against the doorway. “You planning on sleeping here again?”

He glances up, startled, then smiles that small, boyish smile that could light a city. “Just trying to finish before Perry starts breathing fire in the morning.”

You walk closer, setting a cup of coffee beside him. “You always say that.”

“And yet,” he murmurs, “you always bring the coffee anyway.”

He pushes his glasses up, eyes catching yours blue in the lamplight, soft as dusk over Kansas fields. “You should’ve gone home hours ago.”

“So should you,” you counter.

He exhales, leaning back in his chair. For a moment, the façade slips the tiredness, the ache. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “But every time I leave, something in this city catches fire.”

There’s something about the way he says it a truth too heavy for a simple metaphor. You study him, brow furrowed. “You ever get tired of fixing everything?”

Clark’s gaze lifts to the window, to the storm beyond it. “More than I’d admit,” he says. “But then I think of the people who’d be standing in the rain without anyone to pull them out.”

You reach for his hand without thinking warm, solid, still trembling faintly. “Who pulls you out, then?”

His jaw tightens. He looks back at you like you’re the answer he’s been avoiding. “You,” he says simply. “You always make me feel human again. That’s not something I take lightly.”

The hum of the newsroom fades, the world shrinking down to lamplight and heartbeats.

He smiles again, quieter this time. “Go on,” he murmurs. “I’ll walk you home.”

“You don’t have to.”

He stands, coat over one arm, raincoat smell of paper and wind clinging to him. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I do.”

And when the thunder breaks outside, you swear the sound that follows low, steady, reassuring isn’t thunder at all. It’s the man beside you breathing again, like he’s finally remembered how.