Chapter Text
Most of the car ride back to Metropolis is actually pretty quiet. Lois has a million things to say, a million questions to ask, but she doesn't know how to word any of them, and half of them she doesn't want to say out loud anyway. Clark, for his part, seems to be able to tell that something is up with her, but he doesn't push, just puts on music and sits quietly while Lois drives.
It's only once they drive past the city limits that Lois's self control finally cracks. "I don't want this weekend to end."
"What?" Clark asks, looking over at her in surprise.
"We're almost home," Lois says, "and this weekend was really great, and I just- I don't want it to end."
"You could ask for time off from the paper and spend it with your mom," Clark suggests, which is sweet but also absolutely missing the point.
"That's not the thing about this weekend that I'm going to miss once it's over."
Clark looks over at her, his eyes unreadable behind the glasses she now knows he doesn't really need. "Then what are you going to miss?"
"You," Lois says helplessly. "I want to keep you."
"I'm not going anywhere," Clark says, brow slightly furrowed.
"That's not-" Lois takes a deep breath, then pulls the car over to the side of the road. This isn't a conversation she should have while driving. She turns to Clark and gestures helplessly. "I know you'll still be here, but it won't be like this. It won't- Are you really going to make me spell it out for you?"
"Mind reading isn't one of my powers," Clark says. "I think I might know what you're talking about, but… It would be nice if you could spell it out, so I can be sure."
"Fine," Lois says. "Fine. I really liked dating you this weekend."
Clark's cheeks go faintly pink. "Oh."
"And my mom- Wait, did you hear what my mom said to me this morning? With your super-hearing?"
"No," Clark says, shaking his head. "I didn't listen in. I normally try not to listen in on private conversations like that." He looks at her, curiosity and something else in his eyes. "What did she say?"
"She thinks I'm in love with you," Lois says. "And she thinks you're in love with me."
Clark swallows. "And what do you think?"
"I think she's right about the first part," Lois replies, feeling like she's teetering at the edge of a cliff. "I was wondering what you thought about the second."
A smile spreads across Clark's face. "I think your mom is a really smart lady," he says. "She's right about the second part too."
Lois doesn't have to worry about teetering at cliffs' edges. She's got Superman right here to save her.
"So, what now?" Clark asks. "Are we dating for real now? Was this our first date? Or was Wednesday our first date? I-"
"You're thinking too much," Lois tells Clark, and she leans across the gearshift to kiss him.
Clark kisses her gently, achingly so. Lois pushes, kissing harder, but Clark just takes it and stays as gentle as ever. Eventually, Lois follows his lead and softens her kiss, and then finally, when she needs to breathe, she pulls away.
"I think you're right," Clark says quietly, breathlessly. "I was thinking too much. That was a lot better."
"Are you saying I'm a good kisser?" Lois teases.
Clark smiles. "Yeah, I am."
"You're not bad yourself, Smallville," Lois says with a wink.
"I wasn't too strong?" Clark asks. "I was trying to be careful."
"Honestly, you could be a bit stronger and I wouldn't complain," Lois says. "I bet it would be hot."
"Not if I broke your nose."
"Okay, yeah, let's try to avoid that."
Clark laughs quietly. "Sounds like a plan."
For a moment, they just sit there, car parked on the side of the road, leaning in towards each other over the gearshift. Something about the moment feels intimate to Lois, like it's something she could never share with anyone else. At the very least, it's not something she wants to ever share with anyone else, not now that she's had it with Clark.
"We should probably figure out where we stand now," Clark says, his voice quiet and a bit apologetic. "Are we dating? Have we been dating?"
"We're dating now," Lois says. "If you want to be, I mean."
Clark smiles. "I definitely do."
"So we're dating," Lois says. "And everything else… It'll fall into place, won't it?"
"You're right," Clark agrees. "We don't need to overthink it."
Lois smiles a little. "If you want to start overthinking things again, I can snap you out of it again."
Clark smiles back. "Oh no, I think I'm thinking too much."
Lois leans over and kisses him again, curling one hand behind his neck and pulling him in. She knows Clark is strong, has seen the evidence of Superman's power time and time again, but when she kisses him, he melts against her. Lois could do anything, she thinks, and Clark wouldn't raise a finger to stop her.
It's heady. It's intoxicating. Lois kisses Clark even harder.
"Are we going to go home at any point, or are we just going to make out in your car all day?" Clark asks when they finally pull apart.
"I don't need to return the car until this evening," Lois says. She's not ready for this moment to end, not yet.
"One of our apartments would probably be a lot more comfortable, though," Clark counters. "And we're not far. We'd get there soon."
Clark is annoyingly correct. "One more kiss, before we go?"
"For the road," Clark agrees, and he leans in to kiss her again.
Lois thinks she could get used to this. She hopes she will. She can't wait to see it happen.
"So," Jimmy says, sitting in a chair he's pulled up next to Lois's desk, "how was your weekend?"
"Don't you have work to do? Ever?"
"I have to leave to take some photos in about half an hour, but I have nothing until then. How was your weekend?"
"My weekend was nice," Lois replies. "How come you always play awful music in the car with me, but you play Taylor Swift in the car with Clark?"
Jimmy shrugs. "Different people get different playlists."
"Can you change my playlist to one with music that doesn't make me want to rip my own ears off?"
"If you stop trying to avoid the topic," Jimmy replies. "How was your weekend? You had Clark as your fake date to your mom's birthday dinner, but I know you have real feelings for him. How did it go?"
"I never admitted to having feelings for him."
"Yeah, but I'm not an idiot."
"If I remember correctly, the only one of us who admitted to having feelings for Clark was you, actually. Shouldn't you be… I don't know, fighting me for him or something?"
"You're better suited to him than I am," Jimmy says. "The two of you would make a great couple. And you're both my friends, so I want to see it happen."
"You're also nosy," Lois says.
"Yeah, that too."
"You do realize that just because you're not working right now doesn't mean I'm not working, right?" Lois asks. "I do have an article to write."
"You were taking a break anyway, I could tell," Jimmy dismisses. "Come on, Lois, just tell me one thing about the weekend! Just one."
"Just one?"
"One little tiny thing."
"We slept over at my mom's house together on Saturday night."
Jimmy gapes at her, eyes going wide. "You- What? What? Okay, tell me-"
Lois shakes her head. "You said you just wanted me to tell you one thing."
"You are evil and you know it."
"Go get some work done, Jimmy. Or if you don't have anything to do, at least leave so I can do something."
Jimmy sighs and leaves, heading over towards his desk. He probably does actually have work to do, even if he doesn't want to do it right now. And Lois wasn't lying when she said she had an article to write, even if it doesn't really need to get done right this second. It's best for her to be proactive.
Then Clark comes over with two cups of coffee, and any thoughts of proactivity fly right out of Lois's head.
"Here," he says, offering one of the cups to Lois. "I think it's how you like it."
"Looks right to me," Lois replies, looking into the mug. The coffee is just slightly lighter than black, the color it usually turns with the tiny splash of milk Lois prefers. She takes a sip and nods. "Perfect."
"Good," Clark says. "Uh, Jimmy is staring at us."
"Jimmy was being very nosy," Lois replies. "He wanted to know all about our weekend. All I told him is that we spent the night at my mom's. He wanted to know more, but I told him to get to work."
"I guess this might be a good time to talk about whether or not we'll be telling people at work about us," Clark says.
"People at work don't need to know," Lois dismisses. "But Jimmy is a friend, even if he's annoying, so we should probably tell him."
"He's not that annoying," Clark protests mildly.
"Maybe to you. He's annoying to me. And he's going to be insufferable about this."
"We don't have to tell him."
"No, he'll find out himself sooner or later. Nosy, remember?"
"I have noticed that he can be a little nosy," Clark admits. "But I think all reporters are a little nosy, aren't we?"
"You're not," Lois counters. "You're all polite and charming."
"I just hide my nosiness better," Clark replies with a shrug.
"Well, nosy or not, I don't think anyone else here needs to know about us," Lois says. "But we can tell Jimmy."
"If we're not telling anyone, I guess I shouldn't kiss you in the office," Clark says, a bit ruefully.
Lois raises an eyebrow at him. "I wouldn't think you'd be one for PDA, especially at work."
"I'm not," Clark says, "but I also want to kiss you."
Lois hums in thought. "We could go out for lunch together. That's a platonic enough thing that no one will think anything of it, but we could kiss at the restaurant."
Clark smiles at her. "Until lunch, then."
"Until lunch. Now shoo, I have an article to write."
Clark laughs. "Okay, okay, I'm leaving."
"Thanks for the coffee!" she calls at his retreating back.
"Any time," Clark replies over his shoulder.
Lois smiles slightly, sipping her coffee and refocusing on her computer. She can feel Jimmy's eyes on her, but she'll let him wonder a little longer. He doesn't need to know anything yet. Besides, she wouldn't want to tell him without Clark there.
Still, when she looks up and makes eye contact with him, she winks. Let him make of that what he will. After all, Jimmy is far too fun to mess with.
When the work day wraps up, Clark comes over to Lois's desk. "Do you have any plans tonight?"
"Nothing important," Lois replies. "I was just going to do some laundry, but if you have something more interesting to do, I'll ditch the laundry in a heartbeat. Why? Do you have something more interesting to do?"
"I wanted to show you something," Clark says. "But we've got to wait until after sunset."
"Okay," Lois replies, a little confused. "Why?"
"You'll see."
"Do you have any plans of things to do until sunset?" Lois asks. "Because the laundry won't take that long, and there's a new movie on Netflix that I thought looked fun."
"That sounds good to me," Clark replies. "Your place, then?"
"Are we moving too fast?" Lois asks, suddenly second-guessing herself. "Or doing too much? I mean, we were together all weekend, and now you're coming over to my place, and we technically only started dating yesterday."
"We're going at the speed we want to go at," Clark replies. "I don't want to go any slower. Do you?"
"No, not really." Lois wouldn't admit this, not yet, but it feels like she's got a few weeks' worth of affection for Clark - at least a few weeks, maybe more - that she just wants to get out as fast as possible. She's making up for lost time now, finally doing the things she should have done a long time ago. She doesn't want to waste a second of it.
"Then we'll keep going," Clark says. "Right now, let's go to your apartment."
"Okay," Lois agrees, slipping her hand into Clark's. "Let's go."
They chat about their days while they walk, holding hands the whole way, and when they reach Lois's apartment, they only split for the amount of time that it takes Lois to throw in a quick load of laundry and change into more comfortable clothes. Clark has also changed when she comes back out, and Lois raises a skeptical eyebrow.
"I figured I could wear something a bit more casual," Clark admits, a bit sheepishly. "So I went back to my place, changed, and came back here. Uh, pretty fast."
"I can see that," Lois says dryly. She doesn't admit that she's still not quite used to the fact that Clark can just do that, the fact that he's Superman. Something about his expression makes Lois think he knows anyway, so she quickly jokes, "I guess you'll never have to worry about a walk of shame, then."
"Ah, no, probably not," Clark agrees. "I'm not really the type of person that happens to anyway."
Lois makes a mental note to change that.
"What was the movie you wanted to watch?" Clark asks.
"A romcom that looks incredibly stupid," Lois says, heading into the kitchen.
Clark looks a little confused as he follows her. "I thought you said it looked good."
"No, I said it looked fun. Those are entirely different things."
"Oh, my mistake."
"If your surprise won't be ready until sunset, then I can make dinner and we can watch a movie," Lois says. "It doesn't have to be the stupid romcom if you don't want to watch that."
"I enjoy a fun stupid romcom from time to time," Clark replies. "Do you need any help with dinner?"
"The plan is to cook spaghetti and open up a jar of sauce, so I think I can do it on my own," Lois replies. "But if you want to keep me company, I won't complain."
"I'll keep you company whenever you want," Clark says, absurdly earnest. He's going to be like this all the time, Lois knows. It's ridiculous. She can't wait.
"I do have a couple of questions that we didn't get to yesterday," she says as she starts to boil water. "About you being Superman."
"Ask away," Clark replies. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
"Whatever I want to know?"
"Anything."
"In that case, I have a lot of questions," Lois replies. "First and most important one is, why do you wear your underwear outside your pants when you're in costume?"
Clark's cheeks flush. "It's not my underwear! It's just the style of the suit."
"It looks like underwear."
"It's the style!"
"Whose style?"
"It doesn't-" Clark pauses, then deflates a little. "Okay, maybe it looks a little bit like underwear, but it's not!"
"Maybe try putting it back on the inside of your pants where it belongs," Lois suggests teasingly.
"Are you offering to design me a new suit? Because that's what it sounds like."
"It's one simple design change. Everything else is fine. Although, I am curious, what does the S stand for? It can't be Superman, you weren't the one to coin the name."
"It looks like an S, but it's not really an S," Clark explains. "It's the crest of the House of El. My Kryptonian family."
"You told me before that you don't remember Krypton at all," Lois says, treading carefully. She's sure this is a sensitive subject, after all. "Do you know anything about it?"
"I have a recording of my parents, and there's some information in the Fortress," Clark replies. "It gave me a pretty good idea of what Krypton was probably like. And I've sort of learned Kryptonian."
"Will you tell me about Krypton?"
Clark looks a little surprised for a moment, then he smiles. "Yeah, sure. What do you want to know?"
They talk about Krypton while Lois cooks the spaghetti, and when it's done, they both take their bowls and migrate to the couch. "Movie time?" Lois asks through a mouthful of spaghetti.
"Don't choke," Clark cautions. "But sure, movie time."
The movie is stupid and predictable and entirely fun. Clark, to Lois's delight, gets way more into it than she does, and he's thoroughly invested in the plot, such as it is, by the end. It's charming to watch, honestly. Lois decides they'll have to do this again sometime soon.
When the credits roll, Clark looks out Lois's window. "It's dark enough," he reports. "Are you ready for my surprise?"
"Do I need to change?" Lois asks, looking down at her clothes. "I don't normally go out in sweatpants like this."
"We're not going to see anyone else," Clark replies. "You can wear whatever you want."
"Well, if we're not seeing anyone, I'll stay in what's comfortable," Lois replies. "Where are we going?"
"Well, first, we're going to the roof."
They head up to the roof together, and Lois looks up at the sky. "It's just like Thursday," she muses. "When you found me on the roof."
"It is just like Thursday," Clark agrees. He blurs for a moment, and when he comes back into focus, he's wearing his Superman suit. His underwear is still over his pants, but Lois supposes even he can't fix it that quickly.
"Are we flying somewhere, then?" Lois asks. "I thought we might be."
"We are," Clark replies. He holds out a hand, a bit playfully. "Shall we, Miss Lane?"
"Will you carry me like you did last time?"
Clark smiles. "Of course."
He gathers up Lois in his arms, and then they're flying. Lois buries her face in Clark's chest, just like she did last time, but this time, she takes a bit more time to admire the chest she's burying her face in. It's her boyfriend's chest, after all, so she has the right.
It's a very nice chest. Lois thinks she should probably spend more time admiring it later.
When they land, Lois pulls away from Clark and looks around. "I recognize this place," she says as Clark sets her down on her feet. "This is where you took me stargazing. This really is just like Thursday, isn't it?"
"We're in Smallville," Clark replies. "This field is actually outside my parents' house. I'm not saying we should go meet them right now or anything, but… I wanted to bring you back here, now that you know who I am."
"So this is your home," Lois says, looking around. "It's a lot quieter than mine."
"This field is actually the one where my pod landed," Clark admits. "This is where I arrived when I first got to Earth."
Lois takes his hand and squeezes it. "I'm glad you're here."
"So am I," Clark admits. "I'm glad I met you. I… I love you, Lois. Maybe this is too fast, but-"
"Wanna know a secret?" Lois asks, unable to keep from smiling.
"What?" Clark asks. He's a little wary, but Lois can see hope in his eyes.
Lois beckons for him to lean down, and he does. She goes up on tiptoe and whispers in his ear.
"I love you too."
Stargazing with Superman was wonderful, but kissing him under the stars? That's even better.