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The first time he comes over, Clarke doesn’t think much of it. He’s just another one of customers, even though his coffee order is blessedly uncomplicated (cappuccino), he tips well and smiles politely. When she asks who she should make it out to, he says Ryan and Clarke supposes that’s fine. He could be a Ryan.
His freckles and his general, overwhelming prettiness are a little too much, but she doesn’t dwell on it.
Then the next time he comes over, he’s wearing a pressed suit, a stack of flyers announcing a charity car wash, the kind of glasses that’d make someone think you really know your shit, orders his thing, but –
“It’s Will.”
It is totally plausible that she misplaced his name, but she still narrows her eyes at him and he squirms a little.
Whatever, she moves on.
But the third time, when he looks dead on his feet and speak what she supposes is Tagalog into his phone, oh, the third time, she knows she’s not senile. It’s the cute guy that’s the problem. This time she knows she wasn’t wrong because he ends the call as soon as he gets to the register, orders a cappuccino and says,
“John.”
What the fuck.
“So you obviously want to find out what’s his real name, right?” Raven asks when Clarke finally tells her about the guy.
“Of course I do! Don’t you?”
Raven shrugs, fixing her ponytail. “Maybe his name is embarrassing, ok? Maybe his parents were fans of Star Wars and named him C3PO.”
Clarke snorts at that, greeting a customer and taking down their order. Still, she’s intrigued. Yeah, it could be a weird name, but something tells her that’s not the case.
Not with all the flyers he’s constantly carrying around, announcing a charity bake sale, adopt-a-puppy day in the local shelter. As far as she knows, he might be saving kittens from trees in his spare time.
So the only logical conclusion is – he’s a superhero.
She tells him as much when he comes over the next evening, dark circles under his eyes and a rainbow-colored scarf under his chin. He’s got glasses on, now, and he all but passes out on the counter as he mumbles out his usual order – soy milk cappuccino.
“Save any lives today?”
He bats his eyelids open, cocks an eyebrow above his thick-rimmed glasses. Yeah, he’s cute. That might be like at least 70% of why she cares.
“What.”
“Okay, well, fake name every time,” she ticks away on her fingers. “Constantly tired. Glasses. You know who also wears glasses? Yeah, Superman!”
His laugh surprises her, the depth of it, and when he finally looks at her, he’s got tears in his eyes. There’s a brown leather bag slung over his shoulder now and of course there are flyers peeking out of it.
“Just address it to Batman today, huh?”
So Clarke does, but not without rolling her eyes excessively as the guy smiles at her from his corner table like they’re sharing a joke. There’s something about him she can’t quite place but she still shouts out, “One soy milk cappuccino for a superhero playboy billionaire!”
Thankfully, there’s no one else in the shop, otherwise it’d be weird, but the guy comes over to fetch it and the change he pours into the tip jar fills it up right to the top.
“Have a nice day,” he squints at her nametag, “Clarke.” Then he grins, a full blown kind of grin that puts dimples into his cheeks and makes him look even kinder than before. “Wow, kettle calling the pot black. Isn’t that Superman’s name?”
Clarke crosses her arms at her chest, huffs away a stray curl as the guy smirks. “Don’t you know that they work together now?”
He hums in confirmation, takes a sip of his cappuccino like he’s been dying to do it all day, and then – “Yeah, thanks. But I prefer working alone.”
“And driving your Batmobile, too, I bet!” she shouts after him and he gives her a mock-salute.
*
“So, I’m worried about you.”
It’s ten PM, she should be closing up, but the superhero guy walked in five minutes ago and she just couldn’t turn him down, not with how exhausted he looked. So she fixed him up a cappuccino and told him to sit tight.
Now he frowns at her when she drops a sandwich on his usual table, looming over him like a well-meaning mother hen. Which she usually isn’t. Fuck no. Clarke can’t take of herself, much less anyone else. But he seems nice and tired enough to die by the time he’s thirty.
“Why are you worried about me?”
“Your coffee dependency is nuts and I’m afraid that you’re just not gonna walk through the door one day because you’ll have collapsed and died. And I’ll never know your name,” she adds, just so she doesn’t come off as creepy.
“My name is – “
“No!” she stops him, pressing a hand on his mouth. “No, this’d be like cheating.”
His voice is muffled as he speaks into her palm but there’s glee in his eyes and she just – having a crush on a patron is probably the worst idea but she can’t help herself. Just the other day he saw her feminist enamel pin stuck to the front of her apron and fist-bumped her while saying ‘fuck the patriarchy, am I right?’ Then there’s the fact that he’s a mystery to her. It’s a factor.
“So you don’t wanna know?”
Clarke shakes her head, drops her hand and takes a seat across from him. “Nope. I’ll find out. Superman has X-Ray vision, remember?”
“Good thing I wore my good boxers today, then,” he shoots back, laughing when she blushes.
Yeah, there is something about him. He tells her that he’s a history teacher by day and she doesn’t pass up the opportunity to add, “Superhero by night.”
“You can call it that. Or you can call it a brother whose young sister is a veterinarian and makes him hug puppies for charity.”
“That’s not a bad gig at all,” Clarke protests. “I feel offended that I’m not invited.”
He stops with his mouth halfway to finishing the sandwich and studies her expression. “Do you want to be?”
“I mean, sure,” she stammers out. “Puppies, you know? Who doesn’t like puppies?”
She almost regrets not letting him tell her his name when he smiles so incredulously, like he didn’t think she’d want to do this, and leans forward. “Okay, but you can’t tell anyone. It’s secrets superhero stuff.”
“Of course, it’s the puppies,” she whispers co-conspiratively, unable to fight off a smile.
By the end of the night, she’s got his number in her phone but when he wants to tell her his name, she doesn’t let him, instead settling for naming him ‘The superhero’.
“But you can tell me why you pick a different name every time.”
He sighs theatrically, “Oh, I can tell you that? Wow, that’s a relief!”
“Don’t be a shitweasel.”
“It’s not a common name. Most people just butcher it or ask me to repeat it ten times, so. This is easier.”
And just like that, with him walking her to his car, hands in his pockets, nonchalant attitude, Clarke realizes that she really, really wants to know and stops him, tugs at his sleeve.
“Tell me.”
“Really?”
“Mm.”
“Bellamy.”
She smiles because this is the one that fits, with his jaw cut out from marble and his freckles like constellations and his expressions that make her want to paint and come to work with smudges behind her ear.
“God, that’s so pretty.”
“Yeah, just like you,” he retorts, ducking his head to hide a nervous smile and Clarke punches his shoulder playfully.
“That was supposed to be my line, Bellamy.”
She doesn’t kiss him, even though boys with names and lips like his are always kissable. But she repeats his name at least twenty times by the time they get to her car, repeats it so much that Bellamy laughs and laughs, even as he leaves.
Their first date, they actually hug puppies. All sorts of puppies. Mutts and Labradors and bulldogs and –
“All the puppies!” she shouts, flinging herself into the bunch as Bellamy laughs again. Most of the time, they’re laughing, and it’s good with him, now that she knows his name.
Yeah, she still scribbles ‘BeLlama’ and ‘Beachball’ on his coffee cups, grinning when he scoffs, but she actually likes him.
It’s different than Finn or Lexa, who were both effervescent in their own ways, kind of destined to burn bright and then just fizzle out. With Bellamy, it’s like the sunshine is ever-present, even when he shows up for their date after a long day and they just skip to watching Netflix on her couch.
He tells her that the Batman shtick started because he thought it was funny; he’s an orphan, too. Never knew his dad, his mom died when he was eighteen and he took care of his sister all on his own. And Clarke’s heart breaks a little but she still tells him that she thinks he’s doing well.
She tells him about her dad and her mom and how flirting always seemed okay but love, huh, that’s serious stuff. And Bellamy doesn’t dismiss it, not like Finn used to, saying that she should stop feeling that way. He doesn’t say he agrees, like Lexa did.
No. Bellamy just pecks her cheek and gets the ice cream he’s been saving up for special occasions from his fridge.
But somehow, the kiss isn’t happening. The timing is bad, or – the timing is right all the time. She wants to kiss him when he teases his sister, wants to kiss him when he orders cappuccino, wants to kiss him when he laces their fingers together, but kisses seem cursed when it comes to her somehow.
And besides, they’ve never done anything right, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it happens while watching Batman v. Superman and he leans over to whisper in her ear, “We could be a power couple, you and me.”
“I thought you preferred to work alone.”
Bellamy smiles at her, unlaces their fingers so he can slide a hand into her hair, bring a finger under her chin. “A certain superhero changed my mind.”
“Is that so?”
“Mm.”
“A power couple?” Bellamy nods, his forehead pressed to hers as the credits are rolling. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
“I’m glad you said that because -” he moves away, making Clarke frown, unsure of what’s going on, and then he gets a bag out of nowhere and exclaims – “I got us T-shirts!”
And fuck, he’s a dork she can’t help but to kiss, press her lips against his and laugh into the kiss because he’s the worst and the best and –
He’s hers.