The newsroom smelled like coffee, printer ink, and the faint hum of ambition. Reporters shouted across desks, phones rang, keyboards clattered in impatient rhythm. You sat at your cluttered workspace, lens cap between your teeth, cursing softly at your computer screen.

Your latest photos were gone again.

Not corrupted. Not misplaced. Just—deleted. Every shot from last night’s Superman rescue, every perfect frame of blue and red streaking across the skyline. It was becoming a pattern.

You narrowed your eyes at the tall figure standing across the room, adjusting his tie with the kind of awkwardness that should have looked harmless. Clark Kent. Your partner, your supposed editor, your constant source of mild irritation and inexplicable fondness.

“Clark,” you called, standing and crossing the room, “we need to talk.”

He turned, smiling in that soft, almost guilty way of his. “About the article?”

“No,” you said flatly, holding up your empty memory card. “About my photos. Again.”

He blinked, all polite confusion. “Oh. Did something happen?”

“Clark,” you said, folding your arms, “the Superman photos are gone. All of them. The same thing happened last week. And the week before.”

He pushed his glasses up his nose, eyes wide behind the lenses. “That is strange,” he said slowly. “Technology can be so unpredictable.”

You frowned. “Unpredictable? You accidentally reformatted my camera. Three times.”

He winced. “It does seem… statistically unlikely.”

You stared at him for a moment, trying to read him. There was something about Clark — the way he always showed up late to the biggest stories, the way he seemed to know when disasters would happen before they hit the newswire. You’d joked once that he had a hotline to Superman. He hadn’t laughed.

“Clark,” you said, your tone softening but your gaze still sharp, “are you deleting them on purpose?”

He looked offended, then sheepish, then oddly tender all at once. “Why would I do that?”