Chapter Text
PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE, LOIS!”
The words exploded out of him, cracking the heavy air between them.
Clark Kent almost never shouted. His voice was usually gentle — wrapped in that rich, rolling southern twang, full of polite manners and quiet sweetness. But now, that voice was gone. What came out instead was raw and unfiltered — the cry of a desperate man trying, with everything he had, to make someone understand.
He stood rigid, his back half-turned toward the window, his hands balled into fists at his sides. At some point — without realizing it — he’d put distance between them. Not because he feared himself, but because he couldn’t bear to be near her just then. Even if he were only a man, he would never have laid a hand on her. But still, the distance between them felt like a chasm.
“What?” he demanded, his voice quieter now but no less cutting. “Am I only supposed to save the people of America? Is that it? Do you expect me to just stand there and watch while the rest of the world burns?”
His eyes, normally bright and kind, were dark now, burning with grief.
“I wasn’t stopping a war, Lois,” he added bitterly. “Not even a war. What I stopped was a… a dang genocide. That’s what it was. And I’d do it again.”
The silence that followed was heavier than any shouting could have been. Lois blinked at him, startled but unwilling to give ground, her arms crossing tightly over her chest. Then, indignation flared in her eyes, and she sprang to her feet.
“You can’t know that, Superman!” she shot back, her voice sharp — as though she truly believed it.
He tilted his head at her, incredulous. God — how could anyone still think like that?
“I do know, Lois,” he said, his voice dropping low, though no less forceful. “Painfully. Heartbreakingly. You think I don’t? Super-hearing, remember? When I let it wander — even just a little — I hear everything there is to hear. The screams. The sobbing. The gunfire. The silence after. Usually it’s just noise, a storm I have to tune out or I’d never sleep. But when it’s thousands of voices crying out at once… how the heck am I supposed to ignore that?”
His voice cracked, softer now, almost pleading. His hands unclenched, and he took a single step toward her, blue eyes bright with sincerity — silently begging her to understand.
“How could I not listen?” he asked. “How could I not do something?”
Lois’s gaze faltered for just a second — but then her eyes hardened again, and she looked away.
Without a word, she walked past him toward the kitchen counter, twisted the faucet, and splashed cold water on her face.
Her next words were barely a whisper, but Clark heard them as clearly as if she’d spoken them right into his ear.
“I knew this would never work,” she murmured.
His stomach sank.
“What do you mean, ‘this’?” he asked quietly, almost afraid of the answer.
“Just… leave it, Clark,” she said flatly. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “We’re not doing this again. Every time we talk about anything that matters, you shut down. You shut me out. And as your—your boyfriend... your partner or whatever I am to you — it’s just so frustrating.”
Lois spun back around, her eyes blazing.
“Do you know what’s frustrating, Clark?” she shot back. “It’s that we don’t work. You’re like this perfect person who sees the good in everyone and everything. The whole world is all rainbows and smiles to you. But me? I’m a mess. You’re a bright yellow butterfly like a ray of sunshine, and me — I’m just a moth with holes in its wings. Your endless hope, your optimism is to good to be real… it’s to much for me. We’re not good together.”
Her voice broke slightly at the end, but she lifted her chin, determined to stand by her words.
Clark stared at her, jaw tight, something deep and hurt twisting in his chest. Slowly, he stepped closer, his boots heavy on the floor.
“No, Lois,” he said quietly, but the steel in his voice was unmistakable. “You don’t get to do this to me. It’s not my fault you’re so… jaded. And you sure as hell don’t get to break up with me like this. You know what makes a relationship work? Communication. And if you can’t even give me that — then yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe it won’t work.”
“And speaking of communication—” his voice deepened, almost a growl spitting the word out like poison— “this interrogation has been more than enough communication for me. I can’t spend my time with someone who complacently accepts genocide.”
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the faint drip of water from the kitchen sink.
He glanced back at her, almost as if searching her very soul. She met his gaze with regret in her eyes — but she didn’t deny a single thing he’d said. And that, somehow, hurt more than anything else.
He exhaled, voice low now.
“Y’know, Lois… I really do love you. I was convinced you were the one. I told Ma and Pa all about you — heck, even my favorite cow back at home knows about you.” A sad little smile ghosted his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “But if you’re not willing to work on this with me, then… then I guess it’s not gonna work.”
Lois didn’t speak — she just watched him, silent and still.
“It’s really not that complicated, Clark,” she said finally, her voice soft but firm. “To come to a conclusion, all the facts need to be there. I need concrete, hard evidence. And right now, all I have is your word. I know how valuable and unbreakable that is. I know you’d never lie about something like this. But it goes against everything I am to just believe… on faith. No matter how much I want to.”
He held her gaze for a beat longer, then nodded once, slowly.
“I understand your opinion, Lois,” he said. “Everyone’s entitled to one. But I don’t have to respect it. So I’ll leave now — before I do something we’ll both regret.”
And with that, Clark stepped to the window — the very same window he’d floated through months ago to meet the love of his life — and, with a heavy heart, he was gone.