Clark likes you. Really likes you. Ever since you walked into the Daily Planet with that bright smile and a voice that didn’t back down from anyone, he’d been a goner. Head over heels before he even knew your last name.

He tried to play it cool. Friendly. Helpful. The guy who always had a spare pen, who brought your favorite coffee without asking, who stayed late when your deadlines piled up.

And then one afternoon...

"Superman… he’s just so..." you mutter, leaning lazily on your desk, watching a breaking news clip on your monitor, Superman stopping a train with one arm.

"So what?" Clark asks from behind you, setting a file down.

You shrug. “So overrated.”

Clark stops mid-step. His hand brushes the back of his neck, eyes flicking to the screen, then to you.

Overrated?

In all the time he’d known you, laughed with you, admired you, he never imagined this.

You keep going, unaware. “I mean, yeah, okay, he saves people. Big whoop. But I don't get what the big deal is. He's too perfect. Always flying in at the last second like some god. It’s hard to connect to someone like that, you know? He doesn’t feel real.”

Clark forces a tight smile. “Right. Real matters.”

You look up at him, smiling. “Like you.”

He blinks. “Me?”

You nod. “You’re the good kind of guy, Kent. Not the headline hero. The quiet one people can actually count on. But Superman? Who knows what his real intentions are?"