by remicorner

Choke her in space (fiction)

He didn't fly. He walked toward her, each step sinking inches into the solid ice, the sheer density of his body seemingly increasing with his intent. His eyes didn't flash red—they became a deep, bottomless abyss of cold, sapphire blue, focused entirely on her.
Diana’s eyes burned with a mixture of defiance and a deep, visceral thrill. She choked out a single, ragged breath through her restricted throat. "Then... finish... it..."
"Not yet," Clark whispered, his voice dangerously dark. "You wanted every method."
He suddenly released his grip on her throat, but before she could even begin to recover, his arms wrapped around her waist from behind, pulling her flush against his chest as he launched them straight up. They didn't just fly; they broke the upper atmosphere of the Arctic in a fraction of a second, leaving the Fortress far below.
The air vanished. The temperature plummeted... The harsh, unfiltered light of the sun hit them in the vacuum of near-space.
Diana choked, her body instantly reacting to the lack of oxygen..
He held her tightly against him, his chest to her back, his chin resting against her bare shoulder. He was her only source of warmth, her only anchor in the dead void, yet he was also her captor.
She tried to strike backward with her elbow, but Clark simply absorbed the blow with a soft, dark laugh, his grip tightening around her ribs, squeezing the remaining, precious reserves of air from her lungs.
Just as the edges of her vision began to turn black, Clark shifted. In a blur of motion, he dragged her back down, cutting through the atmosphere like a meteor.
Diana collapsed onto the ice, coughing violently, her chest heaving as she dragged the cold Arctic air back into her starved lungs. She was trembling, her limbs weak, her skin flushed from the heat of the atmospheric re-entry. She had never felt so utterly conquered in her entire life.
Clark stood over her, perfectly pristine, not a single hair out of place. The dark, intense gaze in his eyes hadn't entirely faded, but as he looked down at her shivering form, a trace of his old warmth began to bleed back in.
He knelt down beside her on the shattered ice, his large hand gently sliding behind her head to support her as she coughed. He leaned down, his forehead resting gently against hers, his breath mingling with her ragged exhalations.
"Did I push you far enough, Diana?" he asked, his voice a soft, intimate caress that contrasted brutally with the violence of the last few minutes.
Diana pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. Her limbs were still trembling from the oxygen deprivation of near-space, but her warrior spirit refused to let her stay down. She forced her legs to straighten, standing unsteadily in the center of the ruined plaza. Her hair was completely undone, a wild cascade of dark silk framing a face flushed with exertion, sweat, and a dark, intoxicating thrill.
"You didn't break me, Kal," she breathed, her voice a raspy, defiant challenge. She raised her fists, slipping back into her defensive posture, though her guard was visibly slower now. "You relied on the environment. In a arena with ground beneath my feet... my skills will still find a way."

Base +4