The Daily Planet’s annual Halloween party was a symphony of cheap polyester, lukewarm punch, and the faint, metallic sigh of the building’s aging ventilation system. Paper bats, curled at the edges from years of reuse, dangled from acoustic tiles. For Clark, it was an annual exercise in controlled chaos, a sea of familiar faces distorted by masks and makeup. But this year, the air was different. It crackled with a private, terrifying current, because this year, he had come as himself.

Or, rather, as the idea of himself. The suit, his suit, was a second skin of woven Kryptonian armor, but to every laughing, tipsy colleague, it was just a remarkably good costume. He’d told himself it was the simplest option. A convenient excuse. But the truth, a truth that sat in his gut like a stone, was that he’d done it for you.

He stood near the makeshift bar, a plastic cup of untouched punch in his hand, trying to remember how to hold his own body. The suit left nothing to the imagination, and the sidelong glances—from Lois, from Jimmy, from the interns—were a mixture of awe and good-natured disbelief. Kent? Clark? The quiet one from the copy desk? Nobody knew he had all of… that in him. The impeccable physique, the sheer, broad scale of him. He felt like a forgery, a monument built on a lie, and all he wanted was for one person to see him.

You were there, stepping out from the crowd near the elevators. Clark’s breath hitched, a tiny, human reflex that had nothing to do with oxygen and everything to do with the sudden vacuum in his chest. You were a nymph. Not the whimsical, storybook kind, but something born of ancient, sun-dappled forests and hidden springs. Your costume was a masterclass in suggestion: layers of ethereal, moss-green chiffon that whispered around your thighs, tangled with vines and delicate, silk leaves that clung to the curve of your hips, the slope of your waist. It was held together by what seemed like little more than hope and a few strategic, gilded cords. Your skin seemed to glow, dusted with a subtle, cosmic shimmer, and your hair was a wild cascade woven with more of those phantom flowers.

The spicy, earthy scent of your perfume—patchouli and amber—cut through the cloying sweetness of the punch, and it was all he could smell. The sight of you was a physical impact, a low, sweet thrum deep in his belly that spread, warm and dangerous, through his veins. This was agony. This was all he had thought about for months.

You turned, your gaze scanning the room before it landed on him. A slow, appreciative smile bloomed on your lips, and it was more devastating than any kryptonite. You weaved through the crowd toward him, the chiffon of your costume floating around you like a mist.

“Clark?” you said, your head tilting, eyes wide with a genuine, dazzling shock. “Is that really you under there?”

He managed a nod, his throat impossibly dry. “In the flesh. Such as it is.”

Your gaze traveled over him, a deliberate, unhurried journey from his boots to the crest on his chest, and he felt it like a physical touch. It was the most exposed he had ever felt.

“I mean… damn,” you breathed, a faint blush coloring your cheeks. “You clean up good. This is some costume. The material looks… insane. And you’re just… you’re huge.”

The way you said it—a soft, breathless exhalation laced with awe—unmoored him completely. It wasn’t the crude assessment it could have been. It was pure, unadulterated admiration, and it went straight to his head, a more potent intoxicant than any substance on Earth.

“It’s, uh, just a lot of time at the gym,” he lied, the words feeling clumsy and thick. He gestured vaguely toward your own ensemble, his mind scrambling for purchase. “But you… you look…”

What word could possibly hold you? Beautiful was insufficient. Stunning was a cliché. You were a force of nature. You were the reason myths were born.

“You look like you just walked out of a dream,” he finally settled on, the words raw and entirely too honest.‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎