"You're late." Diana looked upset. Her eyebrows scrunched in the bright Metropolis sun.

"I know—I'm so sorry." Clark looked tired and bruised and beaten. Nervous at seeing Diana angry he tried to not say something dumb and kept a safe distance away.

They were meeting in a quiet park. It was rather undiscovered and always quiet and empty, the perfect place for two superheroes to meet and talk.

Her face turned into a smile, "Lucky for you I was late as well. I got here approximately two minutes ago. I was just messing with you. Let's go get ice cream!"

Both of them walked up to the ice cream truck excitedly. It was a hot day, and Diana thought it was perfect for ice cream. Diana got some complicated triple chocolate swirl and Clark ordered a simple strawberry.

They chose to eat their ice cream at a bench under a tree a safe distance away from the ice cream cart vendor. Its long and spindly branches stretched shadows on both of their faces. Right across from the bench was a small TV mounted on the side of the ice cream truck. The TV played the local news station. Clark and Diana were never too far from a news station.

Clark sat on the side against the tree, Diana slipped her shoes off and sat cross legged on the side opposite of him. The TV was to her back.

The news anchor popped on the screen from a commercial break "We have just got footage of Superman fighting a robot of unknown origin. Reports claim the robot was seen attacking people of Metropolis and Superman was there in moments to neutralize the threat. However, the battle took a somewhat comical turn lending it to become viral. We will be back with more."

Clark practically spit ice cream all over the bench.

Turning to watch the TV Diana gushed, "It seems your battle has become popular amongst people of the internet."

Clark sighed, "Yeah, but you know, I'm really hot here, can we just finish this at your apartment?"

"Right, because your biggest weakness is 80 degree weather," Diana smiled as she bit into her ice cream, "I think you don't want me to see the video."

Clark sighed, "Yeah, I don't so let's go!"

"Well now I really want to see it." She planted her feet firmly into the ground under the park bench.

"I saw that coming." Clark gave up quickly and just went back to eating his ice cream. "I hear the video everywhere, it's driving me crazy. As if Superman needs more bad press."

"What did Superman do?" Diana asked, her eyes trained on the TV's advertisement for "frozen yogurt" (she made a mental note to ask Clark about that later).

There was silence and then, "When you're making fun of me just remember I'm the one who cooks the amazing dinners." Clark said.

"I will take it in consideration." Diana laughed, but was genuinely concerned at what happened to Clark that made this video so popular.

The news channel came back from the break, and the news reporter spoke.

"A little background for our viewers. Our channel had a news camera set on the floor of the scene to catch the fight. And what you see is the robot on the floor knocked out after the fight with Superman. And Superman seems to be—get this— checking the time on the clock tower and fixing his watch—we can't make this stuff up—suddenly this robot gets back up and slams Superman to the floor where our cameras were. And here is the reason the video went viral."

The news show clipped to Superman disabling the robot with a strong punch to its head. But right afterwards he pulled a broken watch off his wrist and murmured, "Shit man—just got this watch."

The curse word was censored by the station, and Diana tried her best to keep a neutral expression.

"Are you okay? You know that large, noisy robot's "sneak attack" looked like it hurt."

"Fine. Thanks." He rolled his eyes at her jab at him. "I I was so distracted because I didn't want to be late to this by the way."

After that jab Diana quietly ate her ice cream with a small smirk, which made Clark very suspicious.

"What? That's it? Not going to make fun of my cussing on international television, breaking the watch Bruce gave me, getting beat up by a weak robot, not seeing the camera?"

"Well I'm trying to save some content for later on." Diana seemed proud of her response.

Really, that was not the reason; she could tell by the Clark spoke that this really did upset him. There was a line she never crossed with him, and the line was making fun of something genuinely upsetting.

As a masterful diplomat she changed the topic, "I promise you it's not that big of a deal Clark. But, I have a more pressing question, why do you always eat plain flavors in ice cream?"

"The simple ones are the best made."

"I don't think so. This one I'm having is really good."

"I promise you the strawberry is better." He offered her a spoon of it and she defiantly took a bite of it.

"It's okay. I guess. " She scrunched her nose up as if it tasted bad. But she quickly finished her ice cream and then stared at Clark's hungrily.

"Admit you liked it more and the rest is yours." He smiled knowing that Diana hated being wrong.

She mumbled, "I liked it better," and quickly snatched the remaining ice cream from Clark.

Clark leaned back on the bench taking in the beautiful park and the way the nice breeze made all the trees shuffle. He wished he could feel the breeze across his skin; maybe even feel heat on a typical hot day.

Diana sat across from him, her hair flowing in the wind. He watched her struggle to eat ice cream as the wind blew her hair into the ice cream comically. She was his world. He would never tell her that, but he couldn't and didn't want to imagine his life without her. And he had her undivided attention tonight.

It was finally the day of his award ceremony. It started at 8pm, so they planned to meet for ice cream and he'd come back to pick her up at 5pm so there was no way they missed the awards. Right now it was noon; the sun right in the center of the sky bearing down on them.

Diana said, "You are lucky you have short hair." She laughed as her hair blew across her face for the twentieth time today.

"Both of us have the rest of the day off right?" Clark said, his mind focused on the award ceremony later.

"Yes, I do. I've practiced the story of 'Diana Prince' and I have all my papers. I was thinking of colored contacts."

"I think that could help, but that means you are going to have keep up with the contacts."

"I mean hanging out like this is no big deal, but they will have cameras there and I just don't want anyone to draw the connection." Diana stated simply, "So I think I will."

"You'd be amazed at how people don't think twice about it. It's just they don't see as real people. You can tell by the fact that a video of me saying a bad word has 50 million views in like 20 minutes." Clark was obviously upset.

"You are allowed to make mistakes Clark, and you being upset over a broken watch is ridiculous." She didn't like seeing him upset, especially knowing this was supposed to be one of the most exciting days of his life.

"You can't hear them talking."

"Focus on something else."

"Like what?"

"My eternal and never ending beauty." She laughed and took her last spoonful of ice cream.

" Always." He laughed as if it was a joke. "Just don't be late for the award tonight, we kept like a three hour failsafe but knowing us we will mess it up somehow."

"Hey, I told you my night is clear. Oh! Also, Bruce said he's coming. He just realized he was actually one of the sponsors and not going could ruin some of his deals. Obviously he will not talk to us much because the cameras follow him and we don't really need that attention."

"That's great! When do you think I should face him about the watch?"

"I'm sure he doesn't care much Clark. A few hundred is nothing to him."

"It's not a matter of the money Di, he gave it to me as a gift and I should have been more careful with it. I value every inch of respect and appreciation I get."

"I know you do, just don't let that damper your day today."

He gave her a sad smile as the footage of him cursing played again. "We should probably get going to get ready for tonight."

"Yeah." Diana agreed and after a moment of neither of them wanting to be the first to leave she spoke suddenly, "Thank you Clark."

"For what?"

"Just everything. All the dinners, the times you pulled me out of battle, the advice, for accepting me as me—just everything." Her genuine words stirred butterflies in Clark's stomach.

"Oh shush, I couldn't fit all the things you have done for me over the years in a 1,000 paged novel." He reached across and squeezed her hand.

"By the way, sorry about falling asleep at your place that day. It was unprofessional to say the least." She blurted the words out as an afterthought.

"Please, we passed a simply professional relationship years ago." The wording was awkward and Clark fumbled to fix it, "Umm, I just mean we've been really close… you know… like friends—just friends for a long time. You know you deserve it after all the times I was fast asleep during monitor duty and you did all the work." He flushed as the words fell out of his mouth in a jumbled and ugly mess.

Caught off guard Diana replied, "Just—umm thanks Clark. I really appreciate all of it. I look forward to our meeting tonight. I better head out."

"Yeah see you tonight." Still red in the face, Clark got up getting ready to leave.

Diana got up and threw her ice cream cups away, waved bye to Clark and headed off to an alley were she could change and fly home.

As she walked away she left with her heart feeling all warm and tingly. There was a little bounce in her step and she couldn't quite put her finger on why she always felt this way after talking to him.

That man was her best friend, a large, central part of her world. She would never tell him, but she couldn't imagine and didn't want to imagine life without him.

She turned back one last time to see him smiling and laughing to himself as he stood up against the tree. She, with her superior hearing, heard him say, "Oh Clark, what have you got yourself into with her?"