Chapter Text
They're usually minor. The visions. A child falling off their bike for the first time, eyes wet and knees bloody. A woman in white sliding a gold band onto the finger of a man she doesn't love. A pine box being lowered into the ground on a rain-soaked morning.
Past, present, future. Back and forth, a tangled weave, with no real way to tell which moment belongs where in the timeline of someone else’s life.
Most of the time they only last a few seconds, flashes that come and go in the blink of an eye, brought on by a swipe of a shoulder in a crowded hallway, or a brush of fingers as the cashier hands you your change.
Until now.
Until Clark fucking Kent.
You'd been hyperfocused leaving the Talon, a steaming paper cup clutched in your hands and the bitter-sweet scent of the vanilla latte inside so strong you could almost taste it.
God Lana really did make the best coffee in town.
You're so occupied with the cup of ambrosia in your hands that you didn't notice the plaid covered mountain crossing your path. It had felt like crashing face first into a brick wall, solid, immovable, and then there'd been the burning sensation from the piping coffee cup crushed between the two of you.
"Shit." the curse fell out of your mouth before you could stop it. You looked upwards to see a pair of intense blue eyes situated in a face that was twisted in a mixture of shock and concern. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
You'd bet that he hadn't been either, but you kept your mouth shut about it. Everyone that went to Smallville High and had a pair of eyes knew how pathetically moony eyed Clark Kent got over a certain coffee shop owner, currently working the espresso machine in the converted movie theatre just thirty feet away. It was like he went into kicked puppy mode everytime he came within a ten foot radius of Lana Lang and her quarterback boyfriend.
"I'm fine." He reassured, but the dark blue flannel stretched across his surprisingly broad chest dripped with the steaming contents of the cup. He'd caught the majority of the splash, but you'd still ended up with enough of it soaked into your denim jacket that the heat was scorching, and as you quickly shrugged off the soaked garment you wondered how he was standing there so nonchalantly, seeming completely unaffected.
The coffee had been ended up all over your cami as well and despite the fact that you weren't alone you found yourself pulling the lace trimmed neckline away from your chest with one hand and trying to fan away the heat with the other.
"Here, let's go inside and see if Lana has a first aid kit." Kent says, gesturing back towards the Talon, a slightly pink tinge to his cheeks and his gaze glued to the puddle on the sidewalk.
The bell above the glass door jingles as he pushes inside. You follow, weaving past patrons and painted columns as he makes a beeline for the coffee counter. After a quick explanation from Clark and a look at the dishevelled state of you both, Lana sends you through to the back with instructions on where to find the first aid kit and an invitation to use the employees only bathroom to clean up.
Once inside you take off the wet cami to inspect the reddened skin underneath. The burns are minor and shouldn't need any actual medical intervention to heal, but you splash cool water out of the sink onto them to soothe the ache. You're just about to put the top back on, as dry as you could get it by blotting the liquid out with paper towels from the dispenser on the wall, when a knock comes at the door.
"You ok in there?" comes the familiar, slightly muffled voice.
"I'm fine." You reply quickly. "I'll be out in a second." You don't want him thinking somethings wrong and trying to come inside.
"Lana gave me a fresh t-shirt for you." You open the door a crack, just enough to reach your arm through, and Clark drops the cotton bundle into your open palm. You pull it back through before shutting the door again. The shirt is fire truck red and has the words 'Smallville High Cheerleading Squad' printed across the front in bright, mustard yellow. It's a little snug, but it's dry and clean, with the faint scent of fabric softener still clinging to it. You make a mental note to bring Lana some kind of thank you gift in the near future.
When you exit the bathroom, dry and mostly put together, you see that Clark has had a change of clothing too. Instead of his trade mark flannel he's now wearing a plain white tee that looks a size too small, the sleeves clinging tightly to his broad shoulders and thick biceps.
It must be from all that farm labour.
"How are the burns?" He asks, with an edge of concern.
"I'll live." you reassure him. "You?"
"I'll be ok." he nods. ""I've got pretty thick skin." There's a weird cadence to his tone as he says it, like it's some sort of inside joke you're not in on. His dark hair is just a little too long in the front and he has his arms crossed in front of him, like he's not sure what to do with them. You've never given Clark Kent all that much notice before, trapped in your own antisocial bubble, but looking at him now in the dimly lit back room of the Talon you come to a sudden realisation.
Clark Kent is cute. He's awkard and a bit strange, but underneath all of that he's kind of gorgeous and his own innocent farmboy way.
"Perfect." you reply. "Sorry again about the impromptu caffieine shower. Can I buy you a coffee to make up for it? Not soaked through your shirt this time." you clarify, giving him a small, knowing smile.
"Sure." the grin transforms his face, bowing his perfect lips and showing off his very slightly pointed teeth. Your heart stutters at the sight. He opens the door, letting the ambient noise of the coffee house spill through, and waves an arm, ushering you through the opening. Your eyes stay glued to him as you step through - a poor decision.
The square toe of one of your leather boots catches on the doorstep, sending your body hurtling forward.
A strong hand catches your arm, bare in the short sleeves of Lana's borrowed t-shirt.
For half a heartbeat nothing happens.
And then the world falls out from underneath you.
The sensation doesn’t arrive like your usual flashes, no chaotic shuffle of images, no jumbled scrapbook of somebody else’s life rifled through too fast. Instead, it begins as a low hum beneath your ribs, a vibration that spreads outward through your veins, until the air itself feels charged, thick and electric, as though the atmosphere has been replaced with something too heavy to breathe.
The sounds of the Talon stretch and warp. The hiss of the espresso machine elongates into something metallic and distant. The murmur of conversation deepens, slows, and then drops away entirely, leaving behind a silence so complete you could hear a pin drop.
The light changes next.
It doesn’t flicker. It doesn’t dim. It grows.
The walls dissolve into brilliance, not blinding, but vast, as though the room has been peeled open to reveal something infinite behind it. The floor disappears. The weight of your clothes, the sting of your burns, even the scent of coffee evaporates.
The only sensation that remains is the burning brand of fingers wrapped around your arm.
A new world comes into focus before you.
There is no ground beneath your feet. No warm, coffee scented air around you. No fluroescent lights buzzing overhead.
You're hovering, weightless, in the dark lifeless void between the stars.
They are not the stars you know. The nearest burns red, not warm gold, not gentle white, but a violent, consuming crimson that bathes the planet below you in its vermillion light.
The planet is dying.
Its surface is fractured, split by glowing faultlines, the land being torn apart from the inside out. Fire blooms across its atmosphere in a slow, terrible beauty, and the sound that rises from its destruction is not an explosion but something layered and aching, a chorus of this place and its people being reduced to dust.
The hand around your bicep tightens and the void around you collapses, plummeting your consciousness into a new memory.
A room materializes around you, walls smooth and white, unfamiliar in their design. At its center stands a crib, curved and strange but unmistakable in its purpose. The air here is softer, warmer.
A woman enters.
She is breathtaking. Golden hair coiled into an intricate up-do, an opulent gown whispering across the floor as she moves. She passes straight through you on her way to the crib, and the contact, if it can be called that, sends a cold ripple through your incorporeal form.
She gathers the child into her arms and the baby coos, its small fingers curling toward her face. The emotion shining out of her cerulean eyes is devastating.
Love. Fierce and infinite.
Her smile catches at something inside you, something painfully familiar, though you cannot name why. When she starts to sing something deep inside your heart crumbles at the sound. The melody is soft, lilting, in a language you do not understand. It drifts toward an open window where strange trees sway outside, their leaves not green but glistening red and blue, shimmering beneath a sky you’ve never seen.
Her voice carries on the strange wind, soft and aching, the unfamiliar syllables rising and falling in a melody that feels older than language itself, and for a fleeting second you think the vision might settle there, suspended in warmth and love and the fragile beginning of something extraordinary.
But the air changes.
It tightens.
The light inside the room bends unnaturally, warping at the edges like heat rising off asphalt, and the lullaby distorts into something hollow and distant. The walls around you begin to fracture, not cracking apart but unraveling into ribbons of brightness that whip away into darkness, taking the crib, the woman, the child, all of it with them until there is nothing left but a violent rush of wind and the sensation of falling without direction.
When the world reforms, it does so beneath a slate-gray sky swollen with rain.
The storm is already in motion, heavy drops striking the ground with a relentless rhythm that soaks through clothing and skin in seconds, and you find yourself standing among a crowd gathered in mournful stillness. The air smells of wet earth and crushed grass, of flowers wilting under the weight of the downpour, and everywhere you look there are bowed heads and tear-streaked faces turned toward a single point ahead.
At the center of it all stands a grave.
The soil is dark and newly turned, piled high in uneven mounds that haven't settled yet, and rising from it is a simple stone marker, unpolished and solemn in its restraint. Carved into its face is a shield-shaped crest unlike anything you have ever seen before, a bold, angular emblem that holds both strength and promise within its lines. Even without knowing what it means, you understand instinctively that it represents him.
Above the grave, fixed to a broken length of pole driven into the ground, hangs a torn strip of red fabric.
It is not whole, not the sweeping banner of something triumphant, but a remnant, frayed at the edges, darkened by rain, snapping sharply in the wind as though it refuses to fall completely still. The storm catches it again and again, lifting it outward so that for a heartbeat it almost looks like it might rise, only to let it collapse back against the pole in exhaustion.
Uniformed officers stand shoulder to shoulder with ordinary citizens. Children cling to their parents, clutching handmade signs smeared by the rain. Cameras hang useless at reporters’ sides. No one speaks above a whisper. The grief here is not chaotic or loud; it is vast and suffocating, pressing down as heavily as the clouds overhead.
You take a step forward without realizing you have chosen to move.
The mud gives beneath your boots, cold water seeping through the seams as you draw closer to the grave, closer to the symbol carved into stone, closer to the tattered red cloth that thrashes above it like the last breath of something indestructible.
Your chest feels hollow, as though something essential has been removed from the world and taken a piece of you with it.
A hand brushes your shoulder as someone shifts beside you, but there is no secondary vision layered over this moment, no flicker of another timeline. You are entirely present here, anchored in a reality that feels too heavy to escape.
Rain streams down your face, catching on your lashes, sliding past your lips, and when you lift your hand to wipe it away, the motion draws your attention to something unfamiliar.
A ring.
Gold and simple in its design, unadorned yet unmistakable, the band encircling your finger with quiet permanence. It gleams even beneath the overcast sky, catching what little light filters through the storm and reflecting it in a muted flash that feels both intimate and devastating.
Your breath stutters.
Because you are not standing at the edge of this gathering as a distant observer.
You are at the front.
Your knees sink into the soaked earth as though they have given out beneath the weight of your grief, and your hands, trembling and muddied, reach for the cold surface of the stone marker. A sound tears from your throat before you can contain it, raw and broken, a sob that feels as though it has been building for years.
The wind lifts the torn red fabric above you once more, sending it snapping sharply through the air, and for an instant it stretches outward in full view, a fractured echo of something once whole and magnificent.
Around you, humanity mourns a fallen hero.
But the anguish inside your chest is not that of a stranger.
It is the grief of someone who has lost everything.
The rain falls harder, blurring the world into gray streaks, and as your fingers curl against the carved crest in the stone, you understand with terrible clarity that the future you are seeing does not end with a dying planet or a child in a cradle.
It ends here.
With him in the ground, and you kneeling before it, bound to him by a ring that glints against the storm-dark sky.
Then the vision fractures, the grave dissolving into light as violently as the nursery had before it, and the roar of wind gives way to something much closer, the sound of your own breath, ragged and uneven, and the undeniable pressure of fingers still wrapped around your arm in the back room of the Talon.
You are still standing in the doorway, your boot caught against the threshold and your body pitched forward into Clark’s chest, surrounded by his clean yet subtly earthy scent. His hand is still wrapped around your bare arm, firm enough that you feel the press of each finger against your skin.
Your lungs seize and you drag in a breath that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you.
Clark is staring at you. Concern clouds his features but not enough to conceal the curiosity burning inside of him.
His grip tightens instead of loosening.
“What was that?” he asks.
You force your expression into something harmless. “What was what?”
His eyes narrow slightly, studying you in a way that makes your skin prickle. Up close like this, the blue isn’t soft. It’s sharp. Assessing.
“The air,” he says slowly. “It changed.”
You don’t answer, because he’s right and you haven't quite come to terms with what just happened yet. For a second you think he might let it go. That he’ll brush it off the way people brush off déjà vu or static shocks or things they can’t explain.
If only you were that lucky.
“You looked like you weren’t here,” he continues, quieter now. “Like you were seeing something.”
Your throat tightens. No one has ever called you out on it before. They blink. They shake it off. They move on. The power has always been private, invasive, and yours alone to carry.
Until him.
You step back, gently but deliberately, breaking the contact. This time he lets you go, but his hand lingers a fraction too long, like he’s testing whether something will happen again.
Nothing does.
The hallway settles into ordinary proportions, the outside world creeping back into your periphery. Painted columns. Scuffed tile. The low murmur of customers beyond the door.
“I almost fell,” you say evenly. “I think I just got dizzy.”
It’s plausible. Burns. Adrenaline. Embarrassment.
Clark doesn’t look convinced.
“You’re not dizzy,” His voice is quieter now, close enough that you can feel the warmth of it against your cheek.
You remember the red sun hanging over a dying world. The woman with golden hair cradling her beloved child. The torn strip of red fabric snapping above a grave while humanity bowed its head.
You remember kneeling in the mud. The ring on your finger.
You meet his gaze carefully. “You said you felt something too.”
His jaw shifts.
“Yeah,” he admits after a beat. “It was like… a change in the air pressure. Like the second before a storm hits. Everything went quiet. Too quiet.”
His eyes flick down to your arm, to the place where he’d been touching you, then back to your face.
“That doesn’t just happen,” he says.
No. It doesn’t. Not usually anyway, but you suppose there's always room for something new and strange to go down in Smallville.
You fold your arms loosely across your chest, protective without making it obvious. “Maybe it does,” you reply. “Maybe we just don’t notice.”
Silence stretches between you, taut and fragile.
He studies you again, and there is something different in his expression now — not fear, not accusation, but recognition. As if some instinct in him is brushing against the edge of a truth he’s not ready to name.
“You didn’t tell me what you saw,” he says.
Your breath catches.
“I didn’t see anything.”
It’s a clean lie. Smooth. Practiced.
Clark holds your gaze for a long second, searching for cracks. You have years of experience in not letting them show. Finally, he steps back, but you can tell from the curious expression on his face that he's not buying your bullshit.
“Okay,” he says quietly, though it’s clear he doesn’t believe you.
You nod once, ending the uncomfortable conversation. In your experience, visions are best kept to yourself. People don’t want the truth, and if Clark Kent is tied to what you just witnessed, to dying planets and alien lullabies and a grave marked by a symbol the world deosn't yet know, then telling him would only complicate something that was already insurmountably crazy.
You don’t know how he connects to all three visions or what magical thread binds them together, but you know this with sudden, bone-deep certainty:
Clark Kent is not a normal teenager.
And whatever secret he’s carrying? It’s as vast as the stars you just fell through.
“Rain-check on that coffee?” he asks after a moment, the words almost casual, but his eyes never leave yours.
"Yeah, another time maybe."
As you step back into the warm noise of the Talon, you can feel it, the subtle shift in gravity between you. He knows you’re hiding something, and he's not going to give up until he unearths the secret you've long kept buried.
So much for staying under the radar.