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Clark stared down at the carton of eggs. “Didn’t we have four eggs yesterday?” he asked, wondering if he were going mad. Certainly he could count.
Lois looked up from her WaynePadd. “I used one yesterday.”
“You don’t cook,” he said skeptically.
She took a sip of her coffee. “I made a mug brownie.”
“What the heck is a mug brownie?” He stared at the heating frying pan, wondering what he was going to do.
“You mix some flour and cocoa and sugar and an egg in a mug and nuke it for a minute or two, and poof! Brownie. Even I can’t mess it up.”
He walked over to the sink and picked up the discarded Metropolis U mug from the inside of the sink and looked inside. “That stuff is going to be caked on the inside forever,” he pointed out.
“Soak it. It’ll be fine,” she dismissed.
Clark turned back to his egg dilemma. “So what am I going to do about breakfast?”
Lois shrugged. “Give me one egg, and you eat two. I don’t need two eggs anyway.”
“That’s hardly fair. I can run out and get a dozen and be back before the pan’s done heating. But then we’ll still have an odd number of eggs.”
Skimming the newspaper on her tablet, Lois made a noncommittal sound. “Or I could just make another mug brownie tonight and even the number of eggs.”
“I’ll still be short two eggs on the next dozen then.”
“I’ll make three mug cakes. There. Problem solved.”
He touched the pan to judge how hot it was. That was probably good enough. “I can make oatmeal too,” he offered.
She rolled her eyes. “Just make the eggs. Don’t burn the sausage this time.”
Gently, he cracked the first egg on the counter then opened it into the pan. “Fine. But if you make more mug cakes, clean the cup out when you’re done. That stuff turned to cement in the cup overnight.”
“I promise nothing.”
“Lois--”
“Clark. You leave have the time with the stove still on. Me not washing out a mug is kid stuff compared to nearly burning the apartment down.”
“I only do that when you’re still here to watch it.”
“Last time you didn’t actually tell me you were dashing out to deal with a volcano in Prague.”
“It was not Prague.”
“It started with a P.”
He wiped a hand over his face. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
She grinned. “Yup. But you like it.”
He cracked the second egg into the pan. “I like it.” When the third egg was in the pan, he checked the first one. “What’re your plans for today?”
Lois got up to refill her coffee mug, tablet still in hand. She liked it black. Like her soul. “City hall. I need to dig up some property records going back a few decades. I can do that after lunch if you need something, though?” She poured herself half a cup then sat back down.
“I was thinking if you were with me when I pitch the Smithfield warehouse fires investigation, Perry might be more likely to let me run with it.”
She smiled at him knowingly. “You want him to think I’m going to keep you on task.”
“You will keep me on task, I believe in you.” Turning from the stove momentarily, he inched over to her seat at the table and kissed her mussed hair.
“You want me to cover for you,” she scoffed.
“It could end up being a Superman thing, and I want to have my bases covered.” He turned back to the frying pan and slid the spatula under the first egg and removed it from the pan. “I don’t care what the fire marshall said, there’s no way those fires were accidental.”
Lois swirled the coffee around in her cup. “I’m not writing it for you, that’s for sure. I don’t care if you have to write it from the surface of the sun, you’re doing it yourself this time.”
He grinned. “I knew I could count on you.”
Dumping the pre-cooked sausages into the pan, he popped the toast into the toaster.
They had nearly the same thing for breakfast every single day. Lois had almost taken him up on the oatmeal, just for the sake of variety. “So what’s your deal with the eggs?” She’d asked him once or twice before, but he’d deflected it.
“I like eggs. Good source of protein.” He saw she wasn’t satisfied. “And if you watch your egg consumption, you get three days worth of eggs out of each dozen and it works out perfectly so you don’t have multiple containers of eggs in the fridge at the same time.”
“No, that’s your OCD,” she pointed out. “Why do you need to eat eggs every morning?”
“I don’t need to,” he said defensively. “I just like to. We had grits on Tuesday,” he said in defense of his habits.
“You WANTED to make eggs, though. I could see it in your eyes.”
He sighed. “It’s… exercise.”
“First, you don’t need exercise.” Those bulging muscles came naturally, the bastard. “Second, how are eggs exercise?”
He turned the sausages so they’d brown on the other side. “In control.”
“Explain.”
“When I was a kid, and my powers came in, I broke everything in sight. Door knobs, doors, my bed--twice. The tractor, the barn.”
She almost choked on her coffee. “The barn?”
“Took a whole side out,” he confessed. Trashed the fence around the chicken coop too, and about 50 of the chickens got out before we hunted them all down. So anyways, Ma wanted me to learn control. And work off the two hours of chasing chickens she and Pa had to do. So when you own 140 chickens, you end up with a lot of eggs.”
“SO she made you crack eggs until you learned control?”
“For HOURS. We made four cakes, four quiches, ice cream, and a boatload of custard. Ma picked the egg shells out of them, and the ones that ended up all over the counter she cleared away. Never raised a fuss or got mad, either. She just cleaned up and picked out shells and cooked her heart out.”
“I knew your mom was a saint, but bless her.”
Clark nodded. “But at the end of about four hours, I could crack an egg with enough force to break it, but not to pulverize it. I learned how to beat an egg without going too fast so that it turned into a frothy mess. I also learned how to put a quiche tin filled with eggs into the oven without spilling.”
He stopped speaking, and let the silence grow between them while he took the sausages off the stove, turned off the burner and pulled the toast out of the toaster.
“What’d you do with all the stuff you made?” She should have been asking him how he felt about it, or something like that. But she had burning questions.
Putting both of their plates on the table, he sat down. “I ate most of it. We took a few of the cakes and custard to neighbors. But you think I can eat now? I was a trash compactor when I was a kid. Anything that wasn’t tied down or labeled “do not eat Clark” was fair game. It meant we didn’t have eggs to sell for a few days, though. Pa had to tell people in town the chickens had gone on strike.”
Lois smiled softly. “So you practice every morning with the eggs still?”
He nodded. “Everything I do takes just the right amount of force. Not too much, not too little. Eggs are a good exercise for getting on task. Especially before I use the toothpaste.”
She squinted. “Is that why there’s sometimes toothpaste on the mirror?”
“I clean it up!” He said defensively.
“I still see it when I walk into the bathroom and you’re in there. Try wiping it up BEFORE you brush your teeth next time.”
“I didn’t know I married Batman.”
“If you’d have asked him, he’d have said yes,” she snarked.
He looked up at the ceiling. “Not you, too.”
“You’d have made a cute couple.”
He took a bite of toast. “Shut up and eat your egg.”
Lois grinned, stabbing the yolk with her fork. “Love you, Smallville.”
THE END