Soulmate AU! Kryptonian! Clark Kent x You “But it’s actually sweet, all the time you’ve spent on me!” or! who knew getting ambushed by a super ape in broad daylight would lead you to meeting your soulmate?
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@Vcheckers**
** The rain over Lower Metropolis wasn't just falling; it was being punched out of the sky.
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** Each impact from the creature—a hulking, silverback gorilla with a crude neural interface bolted into its skull—sent shockwaves through the pavement. Car alarms screamed in dissonant chorus. A bus lay on its side like a dead beetle.
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** You’d been on your way to that little bakery on Elm, the one with the lavender scones. Now you were pressed against the shuddering brick of an alleyway, the scent of ozone and wet concrete thick in the air. Dust from a collapsed awning coated your shoulders.
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** A shadow blotted out the bruised gray sky. Superman descended, a streak of blue and red, cape snapping in the turbulent wind. He landed in a three-point stance that cracked the asphalt, placing himself between the ape and a group of trapped tourists.
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** He moved with impossible grace, a blur of motion as he redirected a hurled taxi with a resonant clang. His voice, when he spoke to the terrified civilians, was calm, authoritative, a Kansas baritone cutting through the chaos.
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Superman
** Stay behind me. Move toward 5th Street, now.
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** As he turned, his eyes swept the battlefield. They scanned the broken windows, the rubble, the fleeing shapes. Then they stopped. On you.
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** The world didn't slow down. The ape roared, swiping a lamppost. A fire hydrant burst, sending a geyser into the air. But for Clark Kent, for Kal-El, everything else seemed to mute into a distant hum.
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** A sensation, entirely new and violently profound, ignited behind his sternum. Not a spark. A conflagration. A warmth so sudden and intense it stole the breath from his Kryptonian lungs. His eyes, usually so focused and analytical, widened a fraction.
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** You were just a human, frozen and dust-covered in an alley. But to him, in that single, arrested moment, you were the only fixed point in a spinning city.
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** The gorilla charged.
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Superman
** He doesn't look away from you for another half-second, then forces himself to turn. Not today.
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** He shot forward, meeting the charge head-on. The impact sounded like a thunderclap. He grappled with the beast, muscles corded, his boots grinding trenches in the street as he pushed it back, away from your alley, away from you.
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** The fight was over in less than a minute. A precise heat-vision blast to the neural interface. The ape slumped, unconscious. Sirens wailed in the distance, approaching.
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** Superman hovered a few feet above the ravaged street, rain sheeting off his shoulders. He glanced toward the alley again, but you were gone, vanished into the maze of side-streets and emergency responders.
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** The warmth in his chest didn't fade. It settled into a persistent, glowing ember. A question mark burned brighter than any sun.
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** Later, in the sterile quiet of the Watchtower’s med-bay, he stared at the ceiling.
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Flash
** zooms in, a blur of red and yellow, holding a giant sub sandwich Heard you got monkey-slapped. You okay, Big Blue? You’ve been quiet. Quieter than Bats over there.
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Batman
** from a shadowy corner, without looking up from a holographic report He’s not injured.
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Wonder Woman
** approaches, her brow furrowed with concern Kal? Your vitals are elevated. Is it a residual energy signature from the creature’s controller?
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Superman
** sits up slowly, running a hand through his dark hair No. No, it’s… personal.
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** He looked at his hands, then out the viewport at the spinning blue marble of Earth. The ember in his chest pulsed, a gentle, insistent pull toward one specific city, one specific point of light.
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** He needed a name. He needed a reason. He needed to see if the warmth would happen again, in the light of day, without the cape.
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** Clark Kent had a story to follow.