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Waking up wasn’t usually this hard.
Lois bit back a groan. Her head was throbbing in a way she knew too well, and could only mean that she had been violently knocked out. And in a case like this, it was always better to stay calm and quiet until she had more information.
Her wrists were tied up behind her back. The knot itself was connected to the chair she was sitting on, probably to keep her grounded in one place. But overall, it was a pretty easy situation to get herself out of — it wouldn’t be the first time, and it would definitely not be the last one either.
Now — Lois needed to remember what she was doing before they — whoever they were — oh-so-nicely invited her over.
She was Lois Lane, reporter at the Daily Planet. She lived in Metropolis. She had three — no, four children.
Clark — the man she still loved — was dead.
Lois carefully breathed out. It still hurt, to think about it — Doomsday, and Superman’s body in her arms, and the blood all around them. It’ll probably never stop hurting.
But she needed to stay strong. She wasn’t the only one hurting about it, and she had her children to think of. They already lost their father. They couldn’t lose their mother now.
Lois thought further — yesterday, they’d eaten pizza. Chris convinced Superboy to try one with pineapple on it. Jon fell asleep on her. They watched a Disney movie — Tangled, maybe? Mia had coffee with her, when her siblings were in bed. She wasn’t sleeping well recently, and Lois had been trying to help her.
Mia… Mia was gone. She was with the Teen Titans — Raven had called her early in the morning for a case they needed her for. Lois didn’t have the details, but she trusted her daughter to come back safe. She was strong — she would.
And—
Jimmy had come over. He brought a paella with him, and they’d eaten lunch together. It was several hours ago. And — and then, they went to the park. The Metropolis Park was a vast place of verdure, with trees and flowers and grass to long in. There was a playground for children, and bands were always playing around, and people were playing and running and laughing. Lois liked it — her and Clark went there so many times, on dates, or with their children, and they never stopped. Lois didn’t want to stop, now, even if Clark was dead.
Superboy wasn’t used to being outside as a civilian, to all the noises and yells and smells, and he had been overwhelmed after a good hour. Jon and Chris were still on the playground, and Lois had asked Jimmy to look after them while she was taking her oldest son somewhere calmer. Jimmy, always the nice soul, had immediately accepted, assuring her that everything would be okay, and then—
They went somewhere calmer, an alley near the park, but far enough that it was quieter. She could remember the sigh of relief Superboy had, before his eyes widened comically behind the huge glasses she asked him to wear.
That’s when she had been knocked out.
Her heart skipped a beat and Lois opened her eyes, looking around. It was dark, only a ray of light coming through the space between the door and the ground in front of her — she was probably held in a small room. But it wasn’t what was worrying her right now, not what she was looking for—
“Baby?” she asked, a simple whisper in the dark, hope squeezing her heart—
“Lois?” came the quiet, subdued voice, and Lois’ heart shattered.
She bit back the immediate shit rising in her throat. Being taken didn’t annoy her as much as it should — she was used to hitting too close to home with her various interviews, articles, and reportage, and to receive some kinds of repercussions for it. But having one of her children being taken with her — she didn’t like it.
“Are you okay?” First thing first, being sure he wasn’t harmed. Second, destroy whoever was being all of this. Sounded like a plan.
“Yeah. They — they didn’t really hurt me, but I wasn’t sure what to do, so I pretended I was out?” He sounded unsure of himself, and Lois couldn’t help the rise of love in her chest. For all of his cockiness and bravado, Superboy was still a child, a young teenager, and he had so little life experiences. And yet, he wanted so badly to do the right thing, the good thing—
“You did well, Baby,” she murmured, soothing his worries away.
She started working on the knots keeping her bound. Good thing she learned how to get out of it long ago.
“Someone’s coming,” suddenly said Superboy, cutting the eerie silence between them.
Lois straightened on the chair just as the door opened on a man. He was alone, an aura of smugness and haughtiness around him. Lois immediately disliked him.
“Well, look what we ha—”
“What do you want?” attacked Lois, not in the mood to listen to yet another monologue about how better and smarter they were and how no one would save her from their revenge or whatever. She was sick of it.
Besides, it always annoyed them to no end, and it was always funny to see them deflate at her unbothered face.
This one wasn’t different — he still had his mouth hanging open, an unbelieving look in his eyes, before he blinked and settled on a scowl. “I have the upper hand here. You are going to listen to me, it only works this way!”
Oh, great. This one had an ego problem, and probably wasn’t used to being told no either. Her favorite kind.
Lois raised an eyebrow and kept quiet.
“You’ll regret what you did to us,” he threatened.
Apparently, being in the same room as her was too much, since he draped himself in his pride and left, not even two minutes after entering.
“Well. That was something,” commented Lois.
“You’re okay?” worriedly asked Superboy, and the burst of affection in her chest came back.
“Yeah, it’s all fine. Don’t worry. I got it.”
Lois breathed out before starting her task of getting herself out of her bounds again. Two minutes of silent work later, she was free, the cords falling into the ground behind her with a quiet sound. She rubbed her wrists, raising on her feet in the next movement. A quick glance to the door confirmed that no one was coming back again.
“Baby? I need you to tell me where you are, please.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see,” she answered with a mumble, directing herself toward where her son’s voice was coming from. A few fumbles later, she finally found him.
Superboy breathed sharply, apparently surprised by her sudden presence. “You’re free?” The sheer wonder in his voice was a reminder of how he didn’t actually grow up with them — how he was in their life for so little time.
She hummed in answer, expertly untying him. Lois wasn’t seeing much, thanks to the darkness around them, but she was willing to believe him when he said he wasn’t hurt. He hasn’t yet been tainted by his older sister’s bad habits.
“Good,” she whispered, feeling him sit near her, his hand clasped into hers. “Now, we need to—”
She didn’t get the time to finish — the door was flung open by what seemed to be a henchmen. He stopped in his tracks, the light coming from the hallway illuminating her empty chair and how she was hunched over her son.
A pair of seconds expired in stunned silence. Then, the goon went for his gun, just when Lois suddenly raised on her feet, a hand on the pen she used to keep her hair together in a bun.
It was a trick she learned years ago — people, especially bad guys, didn’t care for seemingly inoffensive objects. They went for the obvious gun, the pepper spray, the teaser or Swiss knife even — but a simple pen in her hair, a random piece of jewelry, the heels of her shoes? They never looked for it.
Lois took the habit to hide her real self-defense objects where people wouldn’t look for them, and more often than not, it worked.
Her hair fell out around her face as she activated the mechanism with her right hand, her left one closed on a fist she sent in the face of the goon. Despite the gun he tried to point at them, he didn’t react in time to stop her, and the time for him to recover from the punch, Lois was already teasing him with her secret weapon.
The man didn’t have the time to scream — in less than ten seconds, he was knocked out on the ground.
Lois caught her breath, the spike of adrenaline still strong in her veins. She picked up the discarded gun, the weight a familiar one in her palm. Then, she finally turned toward her son, her gaze immediately sliding on him.
“Are you alright?”
Superboy’s eyes were wide, locked on her. He had a knee on the ground, his other foot on the ground, as if he had been ready for battle. One of his hands was forming a fist. His mouth was hanging open in awe, an expression of total amazement on his face.
Lois tilted her head, confused. “Baby?”
Superboy seemed to shake himself out of his trance, a huge smile on his face. “I’m good!”
He jumped on his feet, and Lois reached her hand out for him to take it. He did so, and they immediately started to make their way through the hallway. Lois was careful of shielding her son with her body, just in case, her borrowed gun raised in front of them, ready to strike at any hostile face. Superboy stayed quiet behind her, warning her every time he heard someone approaching.
“There’s someone in the other corridor,” he whispered at her, ten minutes into their walk through the building. They were probably closer to the exit, now, and they only had one path before them.
Lois nodded, raising the gun in front of them, getting ready to shoot on sight.
They passed the corner.
Lois nearly dropped the gun in surprise.
“Chris? ” she yelled-whispered.
Her eleven-year-old son was there, floating in the air, holding a passed out goon like an unruly puppy. He was wearing a faded Superman t-shirt that Lois recognized as one of Mia’s old ones and that he definitely didn’t have on him when they left him at the park.
Chris let go of the thug, a relieved smile slowly spreading on his face. “Mom! Big bro!”
Superboy waved. “Hey, kid.”
Lois opened her arms, and something in her chest relaxed when her son came to curl against her. A glance to the rest of the hallway showed a floor littered with unconscious bodies.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, keeping the worry out of her voice and her tone even.
“I was coming to save you,” mumbled Chris against her shirt. “I guess I didn’t really need to since you’re here.”
Lois pursed her lips, suppressing the urge to smile. Sometimes, her kids were too much like her — always willing to go in front of danger for the sake of truth, justice, or their loved ones. At least they were nearly invulnerable. Unlike her.
(But like Clark — and like him they had this desire to make the world a better place, to write a better future for everyone who will come after them, to be there for everyone being here already.
They were their children, after all.)
She laughed quietly against her son’s hair. Superboy was glued to her side, looking at her and then at Chris, like waiting for whatever would happen next, and she smiled at him.
“Alright. We’ll talk about this later — now, let’s go back with your uncle and your little brother, alright?”
Both boys nodded. Chris stepped away from her, just far enough to grab Superboy’s hand without a word and to lead the way toward the exit. Like she thought, they weren’t too far — every goon they could have encountered was lying on the ground, knocked out, and the fact that they didn’t have to fight their way out relaxed Lois even more.
They weren’t too far away from the park. The sun was almost blinding, but it only took a dozen seconds to get used to it again. Neither of her sons were harmed, and they were still holding each other’s hands, whispering something she was probably not meant to hear.
Well. Things could have gone worse.
“Come on, let’s hurry up. We don’t want Jimmy to worry, now.”
“Sure,” nodded Superboy, almost bouncing on his steps, and Chris hid a smile behind his hand.
Lois shook her head. Children. She loved them so much.
Soon enough, Lois was sitting on a bench beside Jimmy, Jon curled up on her lap and narrating to her how he had been a pirate for the last twenty minutes. Chris had decided to show the swings to his older brother, probably to avoid being grounded for running head first into the situation — not like Lois would give him a serious punishment, anyway — and Superboy had followed with curiosity. Mia just sent her a message to tell her that everything was fine and that she would be back soon, just the time for her to share a pizza with her friends.
Jimmy was looking at her, and when she returned his gaze, he smiled, a little curious, a little worried, and something tender all the way to his eyes. “Everything’s alright?” he asked, and there was so much packed into it.
Lois lost the man she loved, and had to raise their three children together, and now she had decided to take in a boy created from her lover’s DNA and—
And it was so much.
And yet—
Today was a good day. A nice day, if anything, and despite the kidnapping in the middle of it. And Lois couldn’t regret her children being here with her — would never dream of it. They were her pride and her strength.
And she wasn’t alone either. Jimmy was there, as well as Ma and Pa Kent; members of the Justice League she had known for ages dropped by and checked in regularly, as well as the Teen Titans she saw growing up; even her colleagues at the Daily Planet were comprehensive with her.
Lois couldn’t tell that everything was okay; but—
She dropped a kiss into Jon’s hair and smiled at Jimmy. “It’s fine,” she said, with the certainty of a truth being spoken.