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Lois’s feet ache. The Louboutins that made her feel like a million bucks this morning now compress her toes with the gravitational force of a small sun.
Still, she does not sit, too keyed up with an awful, nervous energy. She paces his apartment – and isn’t that crazy; who would believe Superman rents a cramped, crappy studio in Hell’s Gate?
Behind her, the evening news plays on mute. She found the bland voice of the news anchor grating. He wasn’t saying anything she wanted to hear, and every word out of his mouth made her palms itch to hurl Superman’s television remote at the screen.
All too soon, Lois reaches the end of his apartment. She braces her hands against the edge of his kitchenette sink, inhaling sharply through her nose. God, this is the fucking worst.
If only she didn’t blow up in his face –
If only she didn’t push him away –
If only she was there when he took that laser beam to the chest –
Okay, she probably couldn’t have done anything about that last one. Superman was surrounded by the entire Justice League, and if Wonder Woman couldn’t save him from that hit, all-too-human Lois Lane couldn’t have done shit.
But still.
If only he wasn’t on death’s door convinced she hated his guts.
She sighs and starts pacing again. Batman had told her to wait here for news – so here she would wait.
God, what was the last thing she said to Superman? That the coffee he brought her was too sweet? Could he tell in her eyes that she would have thrown it in his face if he could have felt the burn?
She lets out a shaky breath, her hands curling into fists. The blunt edges of her manicured nails dig into the meat of her palms, but the half-moon pinpricks hardly register as pain. This is nothing like what Superman must have felt, judging by the sound he made as the beam blasted through the shield on his chest.
She swallows and pivots into another 180.
Three weeks. Three weeks she wasted being angry, being mortified, being a fucking monster to the greatest superhero on Earth. And sure, there was no way in hell she wouldn’t have frozen him out for a little bit after she found out her colleague, her partner, and her best friend had been lying to her. But she didn’t have to carry a grudge for this long, for crying out loud.
Her best friend was a lie. But he was still a good person – alien. He was still good in a way that she can only encapsulate in over two thousand words with a flexible deadline and plenty of rewrites. Anyway, so what if he lied? So what if he made up everything about Clark Kent? So what if he fooled Lois Lane, a feat the most corrupt senators, billionaires, and tech giants could never pull off in a solid decade? After all, wasn’t it all for the greater good? Why can’t she be a big enough person to get over it?
Lois closes her eyes, lips pressed close together, as she violently squashes down her anger threatening to derail all her progress. God, she would strangle him if it wouldn’t break all of her fingers.
No – that’s exactly the type of thought she shouldn’t be having right now.
The scrape of a key in the lock nearly sends her careening into Superman’s bedframe as her left stiletto heel lands awkwardly between the worn herringbone floor. Heart pounding, muscles tensed for a fight, Lois stares at the face of a diminutive woman with snow white hair.
Wrinkles crease the corners of her mouth and eyes, and her forehead knits as she takes in Lois. “Hello,” she says as she steps fully inside the apartment, dragging a small suitcase behind her.
Self-consciously, Lois rights herself. “Hi,” she says warily.
The woman props her suitcase against the wall. “Miss Lane?” she tries.
Lois narrows her eyes. “Who’s asking?”
“Martha Kent,” the woman says, unfazed in the least by Lois’s hostile attitude. “Clark’s mother. Jonathan would have come too.” She shrugs out of her coat and turns to hang it up on the coat rack by the door. To reach the lowest peg, she has to get on her tip toes. “But with his blood pressure, his doctor advised him to stay home.”
Lois stares as she repeats, “Home?”
“Smallville, Kansas,” Martha explains with a frown. “Clark hasn’t mentioned his hometown?”
Lois adopts a matching frown – because Superman tended to speak about his “hometown” at length. And Lois made enough hayseed jokes during his first week that he sailed straight past being self-conscious and landed squarely in being self-righteous about his humble origins. It was pretty annoying, actually.
Lois looked up Smallville after his first month at The Planet, seething, three glasses of wine deep, baffled how she got scooped by a man who couldn’t distinguish a menswear tailor from a tractor trailer. She found Smallville High’s website (apparently coded circa 2005) and the landing page for an internet cafe called the Talon.
Lois had no idea those still existed.
And when Superman revealed that he was her partner in disguise, Lois figured, of course he claimed he came from Smallville, a tiny pinprick in a flyover state that the information age skipped over. It’s not like anyone could easily verify his story without visiting Kansas. A perfect cover.
So, logically, Lois knew Smallville existed.
But it’s something else entirely to see an actual resident in front of her, in the flesh.
“You’re his… mother?” Lois asks slowly as she scans Martha up and down with new eyes.
“The only one he has, as far as I know,” Martha says easily as she circles the couch to head to the kitchenette. “Sit. Just looking at those shoes of yours are making my feet hurt. Can I get you anything? Water? A snack?”
Lois sits, still staring. “But…”
Martha raises her eyebrows.
“He told me his mother died on Krypton,” Lois says bluntly. She still has the interview recording. Superman said so in the third conversation they ever had, the first one that didn’t take place in the midst of some Metropolis-ending disaster.
Martha makes a tsking noise behind her teeth. “That was his birth mother,” she sniffs. “I’m the only real mother Clark has really known since he crawled out of that ship and onto our field.”
Crawled?
But that meant - Lois goggles at her. Martha couldn’t be more than five feet tall; a strong wind looks like it could blow her into the next state. Dumbfounded, she enunciates carefully, “You raised Superman?”
Martha’s eyes crinkle at the corners as she fills two water glasses nearly to the brim. “If Clark ever acts like he was raised in a barn, that’s all Jonathan’s influence. I raised our boy right.”
Despite herself, Lois laughs.
“He’s going to be okay,” Martha says, apropos of nothing. Her voice is horribly gentle. “We’ve been here before quite a few times.” She gestures to the fight now replaying on the television. “I swear, that boy has been giving me heart attacks since he was eight.”
“Raising someone like him, that must’ve been hard,” Lois says, careful to keep her tone neutral. This is not an interrogation. This is not an interview. This is a conversation – albeit a conversation with someone Lois didn’t believe existed ten minutes ago.
Martha dips her head in a single acknowledgement. “Clark never meant to hurt anybody. He just didn’t know his strength.” She hands Lois a water and sits down next to her.
“He didn’t?” Lois repeats, bemused. But how? He’s Superman, for crying out loud. The strength, the flying, the red cape and boots – that’s what makes Superman, Superman.
Martha shakes her head. “He didn’t start showing powers until he was, oh, ten? Eleven? Surprise of a lifetime, I tell you.” She stares out, unseeing, at the television, which has moved on to a panel discussion. “X-ray vision first, and thank the lord he got that one before puberty. Can you imagine, a teenager with x-ray vision during gym class?” She throws Lois a sly smile. “Not that Clark would have done anything, of course.”
“Uh huh,” Lois hums as she quietly turns over these new revelations over and over, mentally reeling.
Martha continues, “Then there was the flight – and, oh, we had such a devil of a time getting him down that first day. Spent all night on the roof of the barn, trying to cajole him back to earth; this was back before Jonathan’s knee replacement. Clark felt so guilty. And then,” she pauses, a furrow deepening between her brows, “the worst. The hearing.”
Lois blinks in surprise. “That was the worst? I would’ve thought super strength or heat vision.”
Martha dismisses Lois’s suggestions with a click of her tongue. “Those just came with some property damage. But that’s to be expected when raising a teenage boy.”
Lois says dryly, “I’m sure most parents expect their kids to break a phone or two, not drywall and steel beams.”
Martha throws her a hopeless look. “With the price of all this techno-nonsense, I’d rather Clark bust the roof again.”
Lois smiles. “I guess that’s fair.” She pauses, trying to come up with a normal way to get back to Martha’s point without sounding like a hard nosed journalist. She gives up. Fuck it, Lois Lane is a journalist, and anyone who expects any different is delusional. She prompts, “You were saying how the super-hearing was the worst?”
“Oh, right!” Martha says. “It came on so suddenly; took us all by surprise. One day, out of the blue, Clark could hear every sound on Earth!”
Every sound? Theoretically, Lois knew his hearing was good - how else could he be in the bullpen one minute and in Monte Patria the next, before news of the earthquake even made rounds on Twitter? But she can’t picture any kid coping well with that kind of barrage of information.
“Jonathan and I were beside ourselves,” Martha says as she sips her water. “With the heat vision, Clark could close his eyes. But how do you shut off your ears?” she exhales a sigh. “Eventually, I told him to focus on one thing, one conversation in all the world. And do you know what he landed on?” As Lois shakes her head, Martha goes on, “‘Ma,’ he told me, ‘a kid just drowned at Manly Beach. His parents are yelling for the lifeguard.’ The drowned boy, he was fourteen, the same age as Clark.” She raises her gaze to meet Lois’s. “Neither of us had heard of Manly Beach, so the next day, we went to the library. Do you know where Manly Beach is, Miss Lane?”
“Australia,” Lois answers quietly.
“Clear on the other side of the globe,” Martha agrees. “And Clark heard everything. He heard that child’s last breath.”
Lois raises her hands to cover her shocked mouth. Oh, god. Poor Clark.
Martha sighs heavily. “He cried for days, poor thing. We never felt so helpless.”
How had Lois never thought about any of this?
Why on god’s green earth did she think Clark made up everything he told her?
Because of her temper. Because of her anger. Because of the fresh stab wound in her back.
Lois exhales a quiet, frustrated sigh. She was too furious at him to consider the story he told her came in shades of gray. Goddammit, Lois is too good of a reporter to forget that nothing is straightforwardly black or white, a complete truth or a complete lie.
No, clearly, sometimes Clark told her the truth. Other times – not so much.
“I think that’s the day he decided to do something about all the bad things in the world,” Martha continues. “Before, he just wanted to be normal.”
Lois’s heart clenches painfully. “Someone like Clark, he could never be normal,” she says quietly.
“No,” Martha agrees. “Clark is many things, but he is not normal. He’s a good boy, though. Always trying to make us proud. Always trying to live up to the vision his birth parents had for him,” she says, her mouth twisting in distaste. “Trying too hard, I think. Sometimes, the Lang’s cat can get down from that tree all by herself.”
Lois shakes her head ruefully. With a silent laugh, she says, “Of course he spends time rescuing cats from trees.”
“Cats, dogs, guinea pigs,” Martha rattles off with a smile. “Clark has always had a real soft spot for animals. When Rosie, our oldest cow, had to be put down, he was inconsolable for a week.”
Lois presses her lips together; either to keep herself from laughing or crying, she isn’t sure. God, Clark is such a sap. She has always said so. Ever since he wrote that terribly heartfelt story about the petting zoo in Bakerline that had to shut down after they made some bad investments with some shady Gotham corporation.
“I never had any pets,” Lois says. “I’m out of the country too often, and we moved around a lot when I was a kid.”
Martha perks up. “Clark mentioned your father was a general.”
Lois starts in surprise. He said that? To his parents? She figured Clark told them about her, or else Martha wouldn’t have clocked her the second she arrived at his apartment. But to talk about Lois’s dad, that meant a level of detail she hadn’t expected at all.
“What was that like?” Martha asks, sounding genuinely interested.
So Lois tells her.
After they’d been talking for an hour, Martha gets up to cook dinner. She tuts to herself at the state of Clark’s meager refrigerator and pantry items. “I wanted to make his favorite,” she tells Lois over her shoulder, “But Clark lives like he’s still in a college dormitory, dear lord.”
“What’s his favorite?” Lois asks.
Martha pulls a few boxes from the upper cabinets, reaching with the very tips of her fingers. “Meatloaf with mashed potatoes.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him have it before,” Lois says honestly, mentally flipping through all their late-night stakeouts, celebratory dinners for front-page stories, and the occasional birthday meals. Clark mostly rotated through hamburgers, beef lo mein, and fried chicken sandwiches. Very in-line with a college dormitory palate, to be fair.
Martha lowers her voice. “He’s a bit of a momma’s boy,” she says, like it’s some sort of deep, dark secret. “He claims he won’t eat it unless I make it.”
“Oh my god,” Lois says with a disbelieving chuckle. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Martha agrees with a firm nod. “Now, I’ve been cooking for a long time, and I’m not too bad. But I know here in Metropolis, you’ve got all kinds of five-star chefs and fancy restaurants. So, I think – and don’t you dare tell Clark I told you this,” her eyes flash in warning “– that he uses my meatloaf as an excuse to come home every week for dinner.”
Lois stifles her giggle behind her hand. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.”
Martha just rolls her eyes. “Like I can’t see right through him.” She pauses. “It is a good meatloaf, though. After Jonathan had it for the first time, he asked me to marry him.”
Lois eyes the counter, completely clueless. “What ingredients are you missing?”
Martha waves her concerns away. “It’s fine – I can substitute.”
But Lois is already halfway to the door. “No, I can do a grocery run.”
“Really, that’s not –”
“Look, I can’t do much for Clark right now,” Lois says loudly over Martha’s protests. “But I can buy salt and cream of mushroom soup or whatever.”
Martha snorts. “Clark really wasn’t kidding when he said you didn’t cook.”
Lois glares.
“Fine,” Martha says as she holds up her hands in surrender. “I need garlic, thyme, and a carton of eggs. He only has two left, and we need three.”
“Thank you,” Lois exhales.
“You’re very welcome, Miss Lane,” Martha says, easy as anything.
Lois pauses in the doorway – and who knew that Superman got his whole Miss Lane schtick from his mother, of all people? “Lois,” she corrects after a beat. “It’s just Lois.”
Martha beams. “Then, thank you, Lois.”
Lois hustles out of there, her head spinning.
* * *
When she comes back, it smells like steam and potato starch.
And Batman, in his full cowled glory, is standing in the middle of Clark’s studio apartment. The LED lights in the various lamps – because of course Clark’s home is as eco-conscious as he could make it on a budget – do not cast him in a flattering light. He looks like a particularly inept human statue. “Ms. Lane,” he greets in a complete deadpan.
Lois crosses the room to hand Martha the groceries, keeping him in her line of sight the entire time. She’s heard Vicki Vale and Vesper Fairchild complain about his random disappearing act more than once. “That’s me,” she says in an even voice.
“For heaven’s sake,” Martha says out of nowhere, her exasperation clear. “I forgot how tiring you can be.”
Lois whirls on her, unreasonably hurt by the unexpected criticism, until Batman rumbles from over her shoulder, “Martha –”
“Clark almost died today,” Martha interrupts Batman, “So I could do without some of the dramatics.”
And holy shit, if Lois had any doubts that this woman raised Superman, they’re completely gone now. Poof, gone in the night, just like a certain Caped Crusader clearly wishes he could be.
Dumbstruck, Lois watches as Batman raises both hands to push the cowl back, revealing a very familiar face. “Bruce Wayne,” she breathes. She was right? Her late-night, spite-fueled research-binge actually led her to a credible lead?
“You don’t look surprised,” Wayne says, lips pursing in distaste.
“I suspected after Clark got that dinner with you three weeks ago,” Lois says brusquely. Wayne doesn’t need to know the whole story. Namely, that Lois came to this conclusion after several vodka tonics, an inadvisable number of toaster waffles, and copious amounts of rage. How could Clark scoop her with a story about Bruce Wayne of all people? That wasn’t even his beat! Even Cat was pissed, more pissed than when her favorite Housewife of Metropolis got food poisoning and cancelled her interview.
It took Lois until four in the morning to put all the pieces together, and she had enough reservations to fill Hob’s Bay, but the theory had already taken root in her mind.
“Hn,” Wayne grunts. “That meeting was against my better judgment.”
“Clark had a grand time,” Martha says reproachfully. “Goodness knows, he needed a good pick-me-up.”
Lois bites her lip. It doesn’t take a genius to add up the timelines and see the dinner with Wayne coincided with Lois’s big blow up with Clark. Feeling distinctly wrong-footed, she shuffles out of the kitchenette to give Martha some space.
“I was telling Martha that he’s awake,” Wayne says.
Lois turns to stare at the pre-heating oven. “I guess I could try to finish up?” she says warily. She once escaped a Santa Prisca prison with nothing but a bobby pin and her give ’em hell attitude. She can bake – cook? – a meatloaf. Of course she can. She’s Lois fucking Lane, and a hunk of ground beef will not get the best of her.
But, Jesus, what if Clark came back just to find that Lois let his apartment burn down?
Martha laughs. “No need for that, dear.” She waves a hand in her direction, almost in a shooing motion. “Like I said, I’ve been in this spot a few times before. You go see him. I’ll be up when I can.”
“Up?” Lois repeats, instinctively glancing towards the ceiling.
“To the Watchtower,” Wayne clarifies as he pulls the cowl back up. “Our window for transport will open in three minutes and be open for approximately fifteen. Are you coming, Martha?”
“I think Clark could use a private chat with Lois,” Martha says as she turns back to the boiling potatoes. “Just knowing he’s awake and lucid enough for you to stop hovering –”
“Martha,” Wayne mutters, and if Lois didn’t know better she’d say he sounded embarrassed.
“– is good enough for me,” Martha finishes, smiling. “Go on.”
Doubtful, Lois turns to Wayne who shakes his head. “There’s no arguing with her when she’s like this, so we should go.”
Martha nods in agreement and tosses her an encouraging smile.
Lois’s hands flutter at her sides. “I – how are – is there anything I should bring?” she asks, and, god, what a fucking stupid question. She shuts her mouth with a snap as a sharp stab of mortification hits her right in the stomach. She’s got to get it together.
Wayne opens the front door. “Just your necessities. Out of respect for Clark, I won’t scan you for listening devices, but I highly encourage you to curb your questions about the Justice League during your visit.”
“Of course,” Lois says hurriedly as she hustles to keep up with his long strides. But they don’t go far, just to the emergency stairwell. He holds the door open for her in a strange, oddly gallant gesture, and they swiftly ascend to the roof. “We can get to the Watchtower from here?” she asks, eyebrows raising.
“No, but I can’t exactly walk to the nearest bus stop like this,” Wayne says wryly as he unlatches a grapple gun from his belt. “Can you hold on securely? It will be ten minutes.”
Lois steps closer. “How do I –?” she breaks off. “When,” she coughs, “Superman flies with me, he doesn’t need to keep a hand free.”
“And his mother calls me dramatic,” Wayne mutters. At a normal volume, he asks, “He always uses a bridal carry?”
Bristling, Lois retorts, “A fireman’s carry would show the entire world up my skirt, so yeah. That’s been our go-to for a while.”
Wayne snorts. “Arms up, like so,” he says as he loops her arms around his cowled neck. “Don’t let go.”
“I’ve been carried before,” Lois snaps.
Wayne reaches behind her to grasp firmly at the waist. Once they’re flush together, he fires the grapple, and they swing to the next building over.
Lois keeps her mouth shut as her stomach roils. Flying is not new. The constant up-down, up-down motion is. Still, she doesn’t dare open her mouth. She would rather be dropped fifteen stories than throw up on him. After an extremely long ten minutes, they land on the ledge of the Wayne Enterprises satellite office in downtown Metropolis.
“Seriously?” she asks, looking around. “Pretty obvious location.”
“I’ve taken the necessary precautions for secrecy,” Wayne says as they edge around the corner. He presses a hidden button, and a piece of the facade slides away to reveal a small room, about the size of Lois’s shoe closet. “Step inside.”
He reaches in to tap at a sleek touch screen that flares to life. “Ms. Lane,” he says as his fingers falter in the middle of entering a passcode.
Lois stares at him. Is he for real? They just swung across a fourth of Metropolis pressed flat together, leaving no room for Jesus. Plus, she saw his bare ass on TMZ the last time she was in the waiting room for her dentist. Formalities have clearly gone out the window. Coolly, she tells him, “I think ‘Lois’ works just fine.”
“Lois,” Wayne amends, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention how you got to the transport location to Clark yet.”
Lois’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “Why?”
To her surprise, Bruce pulls back the cowl again, baring his face to her. “Because he’d get unreasonably jealous, and I don’t want to jeopardize his recovery with any unnecessary emotional turmoil.”
Floored, Lois can only force out, “What?”
Bruce scowls. He doesn’t elaborate.
“Clark would get jealous? Of us?”
Bruce’s mouth flattens into a thin line.
Lois stares, unseeing, out at the Metropolis skyline. What the hell would Clark be jealous of? Clearly not of any friendship or work relationship – Lois just met the man, for Christ’s sake.
The simplest, most logical answer, of course, is that Clark is jealous of a potential attraction – but Lois has never just gone for a pretty face. Bruce Wayne might be People’s Hottest Man of the year three years in a row, but until ten minutes ago Lois thought his dollars outnumbered his brain cells by a factor of several million. Plus, it’s not like Superman is a slouch in the looks department.
Anyway, that would mean Clark was attracted to Lois, a problem she honestly has not considered since his first month at The Planet. He asked her out exactly once, and she turned him down. He never brought up anything remotely romantic between them again.
But Clark is also Superman, and Superman sure seems to favor Lois Lane more than any other journalist. And, sure, after a glass of wine (or two), she liked to imagine the extra attention and lingering looks meant he cared about her more. But, she would always remind herself, he was a public figure, and she had more influence on his PR than anyone except himself. Of course he would be nice to her.
“I - I just never pictured him as the jealous type,” she says slowly.
After a very long beat, Bruce says, “He tries his best to keep it contained around you.” He goes back to tapping the screen. “You’ll be transporting to the Watchtower in 3 - 2 - 1 –”
The entire world goes white.
* * *
Lois actually throws up this time.
“Yeech!” a young voice says. “Clean up on Aisle 3!”
Lois wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. With her stomach cramping, head aching, and fingers and toes tingling, she looks around. Dear god, she’s in actual space. The giant window in front of her shows a vast expanse of stars twinkling in front of her blurry vision.
“I forgot the first time’s always a doozy,” a masked man in all black with a blue V across his chest says cheerfully. Slowly, telegraphing his movements, he reaches for her elbow to guide her out of the clear glass tube she appeared in.
Without a second to spare, the tube flares white again, and Lois has to squeeze her eyes shut as her headache pounds. At least space doesn’t seem to have any strong smells. She gags again, but manages to hold it back.
“Hey, B,” the man says over her shoulder as the unmistakable thunk of Batman’s boots echo throughout the transport room. “Supes kicked me out of Medical, so I figured I could make up the welcoming committee instead.”
Lois opens her eyes again. The Watchtower walls and floors are all in neutral shades of metallic gray except for the far wall, which shows a panoramic view of the milky way. It’s strangely quiet for a hub of superhero activity, and when Lois focuses she can only hear a gentle hum of the Watchtower itself. She turns to the welcoming committee, blinking until he comes into focus.
“Hi,” the young man says as he sticks out the other hand not currently keeping her upright. “I’m Nightwing.”
“Lois Lane,” Lois says as she shakes his hand, her grip firm despite her shaky legs.
“You good to walk?” After she nods, he says, “Superman is this way.” He starts leading her out of the room and down a hallway.
“How is he?” Bruce asks before Lois can. His heavy footsteps and Lois’s heels click arrhythmically on the rug-less floor. Nightwing walks completely silently.
“Already asking about when he can leave,” Nightwing says with a smile. “I told him we have things covered, and Young Justice is watching over Metropolis for the time being, but somehow that didn’t reassure him much. Something about Superboy’s excessive property damage and Robin’s casual disregard for authority figures.”
“Hn,” Batman grunts.
Nightwing turns back to Lois. “I have to say, it’s an honor to formally meet you,” he says.
“Formally?” Lois repeats, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, we’ve met before,” Nightwing says with a little laugh.
“You’re kidding.”
“A few years back. I was a lot shorter and in a different costume,” Nightwing says. “Yellow cape, green boots…? Sometimes I’d go with Batman to Metropolis to help out World’s Finest.” He tosses a showman’s smile behind them, saying to Bruce, “World’s Finest would be nothing without the Dynamic Duo, eh, B?”
Lois stares. Those dimples are pretty distinctive, now she thinks about it. “You were Robin?”
Nightwing shakes his head in mock sorrow. “I tried to convince Superman he needed a sidekick more than this guy,” he jerks his thumb behind them in Bruce’s direction, “but no dice.”
“You never once lobbied to be anyone’s sidekick, let alone mine,” Bruce says, the amusement evident in his voice. “Partners or you walked. That’s the deal I remember.”
Lois’s eyes narrow. Hang on, those dimples are distinctive. And Lois never forgets a face, especially one that used to be all over the tabloids three years ago when he officially turned 18.
“You’re Dick Grayson,” she gasps.
Dick’s light footsteps don’t falter. “Supes wasn’t lying,” he says, impressed. “You really are the best, aren’t you?”
Lois isn’t really sure what to address first – that Clark said that about her at all or the not-untrue comment about her talents – but Dick isn’t done. He asks Bruce, “I take it, she ID’ed you first?”
“Martha insisted I not keep her in the dark,” Bruce sighs.
Dick snorts. “We are lucky Martha’s on our side, aren’t we? Only Mrs. Kent could bully you into sharing your super secret identity.” He glances at Lois. “Have you had her apple pie yet? Constantine said he would sell his soul for another slice after Clark dropped off extras, and I really don’t think he was exaggerating.”
Lois shakes her head.
“Well, you’re in for a treat,” Dick says before letting out a single bark of laughter. “Get it?”
“That’s barely a pun,” Bruce reprimands.
“Oh, lighten up.” Dick waves off the criticism. “It’s always too quiet around here after a near-world-ender. Where’s Flash when you need him?”
“Walking off a compound fracture in his leg, second degree burns, and a concussion,” Bruce says without missing a beat.
Dick makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “Of course you snooped in his medical records.”
“Flash isn’t special,” Bruce grunts. “I do that for every member of the League after a mass casualty incident.”
Dick shakes his head. “That’s worse. You do get how that’s worse, right?”
“No.”
Lois huffs a small, disbelieving laugh. If someone had told her this morning that, twelve hours later, she’d be in space, listening to Batman make jokes, as Superman recovers from near-death, she’d say they were crazier than Luthor’s sixth presidential election bid.
“There we go,” Dick says warmly as he lightly gooses her side with his elbow. “Smile. Martha is being bossy. Bruce is being invasive. Clark is working on his suntan. Everything is going back to normal in the world.”
“This is normal?” Lois asks as her eyebrows rise. She gestures out the window where their view of the moon looms about ten times larger than back on Earth.
Dick shrugs. “Normal for us and Clark,” he says. His expression turns sympathetic. “I’ve been doing this for eight years. Bruce and Clark have been at it for almost twice that.”
“Stop that. You’re making me feel old,” Bruce grumbles.
“Your knees crack more than Alfred’s when you stand up,” Dick teases. “So I really don’t think you need my help in that department.”
“Hn.”
“Alfred?” Lois echoes.
“The Wayne family butler,” Dick explains. “The glue that holds us all together, really.” Bruce opens his mouth like he’s about to argue, but Dick cuts him off, “Alright, Medical is through there,” he points. “Clark’s patient numero uno, so you can’t miss him. The eight gigantic sunlamps are the next clue, if you get turned around.”
“Thanks,” she says dryly. She eyes both of them. “Are you not coming in too?”
“I am,” Bruce says.
“I gotta check on the Flash,” Dick says regretfully. “Bruce wasn’t kidding about that compound fracture, and the only way to keep Flash down is to distract him with food. Good thing Alfred’s been stress cooking for the past sixteen hours.”
Lois peers through the frosted glass panes delineating the Medical area, her stomach sinking with faint inklings of dread. God, what the hell is she going to say to him?
Behind her, Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “At least let Alfred choose what to make next. I’m still hearing the lecture about jalapeno poppers and deep fried Oreos.”
Dick says, “I dunno what Alfred was complaining about. He always says he likes a challenge.”
The last time Lois saw Clark, she blew up in his face about coffee, for fuck’s sake. And then she spent hours wearing a hole in his carpet with her pacing when she could have been figuring out her next move. Goddammit, she’s usually so much smarter than this.
Bruce deadpans, “I’m pretty sure raising you was enough of a challenge.”
Dick gasps in mock offense. “Excuse you, I was your ward, and I was an angel compared to another black-haired orphan who kept getting into fights and got kicked out of, what was it, three private schools in four years?”
Lois turns to Bruce, her interest piqued. “Another kid of yours?” Bruce Wayne had, what, three adoptions under his belt? Maybe four? Most of Lois’s celebrity gossip comes from Cat when Lois can’t kick her out of her cubicle fast enough.
Bruce levels Dick a flat glare. “I’m afraid Dick is actually talking about my youthful indiscretions.”
Dick chuckles. “Alfred’s knees got the way they did by chasing after you.”
“Are you done?” Bruce gripes.
“Never,” Dick says with a jaunty two-fingered salute as he turns to go. “Lois, it was nice to see you again.”
“Same,” Lois says distractedly as a blurry figure moves behind the glass door.
“I’m sure we’ll run into each other soon enough,” Dick says before he takes off back down the hallway. “Gotham, Smallville, maybe Metropolis – we run in the same circles now.”
Bruce watches him leave, and despite the semi-constant ribbing since he arrived, his expression only shows fondness. He turns back to Lois as Dick disappears around the corner and gestures to the door. “Ready?”
Lois squares her shoulders. “Yes,” she lies.
* * *
“I have a few questions for the healthcare team,” Bruce says in a low voice as he jerks his head towards the nurses’ station. “Clark should be over there.”
Lois approaches the cluster of enormous sun lamps surrounding the bed closest to the window. If the Watchtower was facing the actual sun, this spot would be positively blinding.
She hesitantly moves to step between two lamps. What now? It’s not like I’m sorry will ever measure up to how she treated him. And she can’t possibly open with the most pressing question banging around her skull, “Do you like me?” because she is not a love struck middle schooler doodling Mrs. Lois Kent in her composition notebook. The only other thing she can possibly think about is asking him about work, which would be so inappro –
“Hello?” Clark croaks. “Who’s there?”
Fucking shit.
He squints through twin black eyes, saying, “Sorry, I heard your footsteps. It looks a lot worse than it feels, I promise.”
But, Jesus, he looks like hell. The entire left side of his forehead has a bump the size of an ostrich egg, and dozens of rows of stitches line his forearms, across his upper chest, and up his neck – the outer ring of the blast. The center of his chest is covered by bandages, heavily streaked with the ugly dull brown of dried blood.
Lois blurts, “I’d hate to see you when you feel like shit.”
Clark’s entire upper body jerks towards her voice, and he nearly falls off the bed. As he hisses in pain, Lois rushes forward, growling, “Oh my god, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Lois?”
Swallowing down her nerves, Lois steps out into the full yellow glow of the sunlamps. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands, so she shoves them awkwardly behind her, and she has no idea where to look, so she focuses on a tiny, unbruised spot on his forehead. “Hey, Clark.”
“Lois,” Clark breathes, sounding absolutely floored to see her.
“Yeah,” Lois says, “a wackadoo billionaire from New Jersey told me I could find you here, so…” she drifts off, feeling incredibly stupid, “Here I am.”
“Here you are,” Clark repeats faintly.
Lois scrambles for something to keep their conversation limping along.
Don’t talk about how fucked up his face is.
Don’t bring up their fight.
Don’t mention that he may or may or not have been holding a torch for her for the past decade.
After a too-long pause, Lois says, “Your mom’s making meatloaf.” Before the words finish leaving her mouth, her face floods with embarrassment. What the fuck is wrong with her? Starting with meatloaf of all things?
“My ma?” Clark echoes. “She’s here too?”
Lois shakes her head, heat that has nothing to do with the sunlamps crawling up her cheeks. Her face is probably beet red. “No, she’s back at your apartment.”
Clark slumps back in bed. “They flew in from Smallville?”
“Only your mom,” Lois corrects.
“Pa stayed home?”
Lois nods. “Martha said something about his blood pressure.”
“It was high at his last doctor’s check up,” Clack says with a painful-looking nod.
Lois just stands there, an uncomfortable prickling spreading across her skin. Jesus fucking Christ, nothing about this is right. She is sidestepping the important stuff in favor of fucking small talk. Lois Lane does not make small talk, especially with Clark Kent. Mostly because Clark loves small talk to an unholy degree, and Lois promised herself years ago to never, ever give him the satisfaction.
“I’m sorry,” Lois declares, apropos of nothing.
“Huh?”
Lois swallows down the shame inching up her throat. “I was way out of line, before.”
Clark inhales deeply, wincing before he can take a full breath. “No, you weren’t.”
“But –”
“I lied to you,” Clark says heavily, “for years. I get it.”
She grimaces. “That’s not –”
“You thought I was your friend, and I took advantage.”
Hold on. What the hell is he talking about? Advantage? She argues, “I don’t know about –”
But Clark ignores her. “It was completely reprehensible, and I completely deserve everything that has happened in the past three weeks. I should never have –”
Enough. Lois has never let Clark win an argument before, and she’s not going to start now. She says in a carrying voice, “I didn’t know you cried.”
That draws Clark up short. “What?” he says, bewildered. “I didn’t – how did you –?”
“Over Rosie,” Lois explains.
Clark’s jaw drops open. Eventually, he chokes out, “The cow?”
Lois nods.
“How do you – ? Ma,” Clark deduces, resigned. “She likes to meddle in things that really aren’t her business. Especially my –” he cuts himself off, a faint pink spreading over the less-purple parts of his face. He restarts, “But she’s Smallville born and bred, so boundaries aren’t really a thing back home. Whatever she told you, I’m sure she exaggerated.”
Lois leans in closer. “So you didn’t hear a kid drowning in Australia when you were fourteen?”
Clark blinks. “Yeah, I did, but –”
“So you didn’t rescue the Lang cat from a tree?”
Clark rolls his eyes. “Several times, but Miss Waffles has arthrit–”
She presses her lead, “So you didn’t spend the night freaking out when you first flew and couldn’t get down.”
“I mean,” Clark hedges, looking distinctly uncomfortable at all the questioning, “yes, but –”
Before he can derail her argument with more dumb protests, Lois says, “I thought you lied about growing up in Smallville.” She ignores Clark’s outraged “What?” and continues, “And that you, I don’t know, were Superman from the beginning.”
It takes a beat for him to respond. “As I recall, you made up that name,” Clark says, a clear sour note in his tone. “And I was mostly against it from the start –”
“As Clark,” Lois retorts. “Superman didn’t say whether or not –”
“I had just made my first public rescue,” he interrupts. “I couldn’t –”
“Then you missed your opportunity,” Lois says over him. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“Your article came out twenty minutes later.”
“I’m the fastest typist at The Planet,” she sniffs, “which you knew, since it’s not like I keep it a secret.”
“Second fastest,” Clark corrects in an undertone.
“Oh my god,” Lois steps closer, so he can see her face clearly. She’s practically looming over him now. “Are you serious?”
Clark lifts one shoulder up in a tiny shrug, straining the sturdy bandage holding him together. “When I tried to calculate it, I accidentally set my computer on fire.”
“Wow,” Lois drawls, her voice as dry as the arctic tundra. “That’s so cool.”
Clark wrinkles his nose. “Not really. I couldn’t really afford a replacement for three months.”
“Superman couldn’t afford a crappy PC laptop,” Lois says to the ceiling. “I don’t believe it.”
Clark’s expression closes off, and Lois goes cold all over. “I’m not Superman all the time,” he reminds her quietly.
Her eyes narrow. “Yes, you are.”
He looks away. “Why are you here, Lois?” he asks the sunlamp above her head. “I should be cleared to return to The Planet by tomorrow morning, but it’s not like we’re working together on any stories, since you made your distaste for my presence more than clear –”
“I came to see how you’re doing,” Lois interrupts before he can say anything more damning. She doesn’t like his tone one bit.
His jaw clenches. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I will be fine.”
Lois makes a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat. God, they almost had something going. For a second, it almost seemed like things were back to normal. “What did I say?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Lois points a finger in his busted face. “Not again.”
Clark sighs. “Look, I’m not Superman all the time. Sometimes, I’m just Clark Kent, and I don’t know if that’s more infuriating or disappointing to you, but that’s my life. And I’ve been trying to tell myself over the last three weeks that your opinion does not matter in the grand scheme of things,” he inhales a sharp breath, “but it’s been very difficult since I have valued your esteem since I read your first article on the mayor’s term-long effort to slash the number of rent stabilized apartments.”
Jesus, has he really?
Clark barrels on, really gaining steam now, “Ma told me to be patient, that you’d eventually come around. Bruce said to use this as an opportunity to focus on the mission and analyze the weak points in my psyche, so I don’t get as worked up over interpersonal conflicts again.” Clark frowns. “At least, I think that’s what he said. He’s not the most straightforward of talkers.”
“I’m not disappointed or mad,” Lois says. At his doubtful look, she tacks on, “Anymore.”
After a beat, Clark says, “Well, that’s good.” He looks fractionally mollified.
“But you are Superman,” she reminds him, genuinely confused. As his frown returns with a vengeance, she can’t help prodding further, “You have your powers, obviously, and you can’t turn them off, but Superman’s more than that. He stands for truth and justice, and,” she rolls her eyes, “I don’t know, human decency and kindness.”
His gaze darts back to her, surprise flickering over his face.
“Are you saying you don’t always try to do the right thing and,” Lois grimaces. God, he is so lame. “Be nice to everyone? Who knows why because they don’t all deserve it.”
Clark opens his mouth. Eventually, he concedes, “I suppose so.”
“There you go, Superman.”
“But I’m not Superman all the time,” Clark repeats.
“Okay,” Lois snaps as her exasperation takes over. “You’re going to have to spell this out for me because I still don’t get it. You’re Superman all the time but you’re also not. What the hell kind of Schrodinger’s cape situation is this?”
Clark sighs. “Superman – the guy who most people think of when they call for Superman – isn’t me. I’m just a guy from Kansas who’s trying to help out. But people wouldn’t listen to him, so I – I became Superman.”
Lois chews on that for all of a half of a second before she declares, “That’s the biggest pile of bullshit I have ever heard.” As Clark makes a pathetic little noise of offense, she asks, “For someone with literal superpowers, what’s with the super-sized inferiority complex?”
“I don’t have an inferiority complex,” Clark protests.
“Oh, yeah?” Lois demands, hands on her hips. “How else would you explain that ass-backwards logic? ‘Nobody would listen to him’? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I –”
“It means,” she says loudly, “that I have been working alongside an idiot for the past eight years because I’ve listened to you pretty much every day since I met you, and not only because Perry threatened to maroon me in Obits for a month. You’re pretty smart when you’re not being hopelessly optimistic.”
Clark’s mouth adopts a distinctly mulish set. “You don’t listen to me every day. How often have I told you to stay back, to wait for help, when you ran headfirst into danger instead?”
“I didn’t say I obey,” Lois argues. “I said listened. There’s a difference. I listened, and then I disregarded because, in addition to being an optimist, you are an idiot. Like I just said. It’s like you don’t even care about the byline, Smallville.”
Whatever Clark was going to argue back dies on his tongue. This time, Lois has no idea what his new expression means. “What’d I say now?” she asks cautiously.
Almost shyly, Clark says, “You called me Smallville.”
Lois blinks. Hardly a reason for that weird, dopey look on his face. She’s called him Smallville since he spent an hour and a half expounding on the life-changing experience that is Smallville’s annual Harvest Festival. She tells him, “Because it’s a ridiculous name for a town. It’s like you want everyone to think you’re from Hicksville central.”
“Smallville,” Clark corrects with his first real smile of the night. “Not Hicksville.”
Lois rolls her eyes as she perches at the edge of his cot, near his hip. God, she should have worn flats today. “An easy mistake to make.”
“I really don’t think it is.”
“Yeah, well,” Lois says, waving off his rebuttal, “you get bonked on the head on the regular, so I don’t think you’re in a position to point fingers at anyone else’s cognitive leaps.”
Clark chuckles.
God, she hasn’t heard that sound in so long. It’s really nice, all warm but deep at the same time, with weirdly reassuring quality. As her gaze flicks up and down his numerous injuries, she asks hesitantly, “You promise you’re feeling better?”
“I promise,” he says. “I can even wiggle my toes now, see?”
Lois turns, and sure enough, the far end of the blanket is slowly wiggling. Shaking her head, she says, her voice stupidly fond, “You’re such a dork.”
“Hey, you asked!”
She turns back around, a comeback ready, but she loses her train of thought as she catches sight of him smiling up at her. His eyes are so blue without his atrocious glasses in the way, and, even from this angle, beaten to hell, he is impossibly handsome. If he was anyone else, Lois would say that dumb look on his face meant he had feelings for her.
Bruce basically said so, in that weird way of his. And Batman is supposed to be the world’s greatest detective, right?
If Bruce is wrong – if Lois is wrong – can her friendship with Clark survive?
When Clark asked her out that one time, they hardly knew each other. They’d been reluctant partners for two months, or so Lois thought, until he asked her out to dinner. A proper date. Before that, she had no idea Clark could be that bold outside of the written word.
Then they became real friends, and Clark never mentioned anything remotely romantic between them ever again.
But maybe he’d been, what, pining for her for nearly a decade?
That’s ridiculous.
Then again, what part of Clark Kent isn’t ridiculous? From the secret identity, to his main disguise being a pair of glasses, to the fact that he’s a freaking extra terrestrial.
Fuck it. Lois has never been one to sit back and gather intel until the cows come home. Cows are strictly Clark’s domain, and Lois has always been a city girl at heart. She’s a lady of action, and an impatient one to boot. Time to directly find out how Clark feels about her.
She swiftly leans down and presses her mouth to his -
Clark cringes back.
“Oh my god,” she breathes, mortification flooding every single goddamn inch of her. She leaps to her feet and nearly knocks down the closest sunlamp. “I’m so sorry,” she says as she frantically straightens it. “I thought you – anyway, never mind. I’ll see you at work. Get better soon –”
Before she can sprint out of there as fast as her Louboutins will let her, Clark’s hand whips out to gently wrap around her wrist. “Wait,” he says seriously, “you surprised me.”
She subtly tries to shake him off, but he’s fucking Superman, so it does fuck-all. “Yeah, sorry about that,” she says without looking at him. “Forget that ever happened.”
He lifts his other hand to touch his lips, an odd smile spreading across his face. “I’m hurt.”
He’s hurt? Lois’s temper flares. Screw that. She is the one who made a total and complete fool of herself in front of her best friend and most powerful superhero on Earth. She’s the one who put it all out there only to get soundly rejected.
But before she can properly tell him off, Clark says, “Go slower next time.”
“Next time?” she repeats in a strangled sort of voice.
“I don’t know if you saw,” he says, his grin broadening, “but I did get socked in the jaw by a magical, glowing squid before getting almost blown up, so I’m a little tender at the moment.”
Wait, what? He wants to kiss her again? She gets a redo?
“‘Socked’?” Lois echoes as her brain frantically reboots with all this new information. “What, are you suddenly from the a 30s gangster comic strip?”
Clark raises his eyebrows. “Are you really making fun of me right now? Is that really what you want to be doing?”
“No – yes,” she stutters, “I don’t know! You make it too easy!”
Clark sighs. “Am I really going to have to beg, Lois?”
She opens her mouth, and a small, petty, and shameful part of her wants to say ‘do it’, but she violently beats it into submission with sledgehammers. It’s not his fault she jumped to the worst reaction and freaked out. “No,” she mutters, and Clark beams up at her, clearly expectant. He even tilts his chin up, the little shit.
She leans back down.
“Clark? Are you back there?”
Lois freezes, and Clark goes as red as his cape as he jerks his head around to stare in the direction of the entrance to Medical. “Oh my gosh,” he breathes. “That’s Ma.”
A surge of glee zips up Lois’s spine. She straightens up.
Clark’s gaze whips back to her face. “Lois,” he says in a low voice, a low thread of desperation running through her name that she never hears outside of near-death situations. He looks almost upset.
Good. She could get used to this.
“I have meatloaf!”
“She has meatloaf, Clark,” Lois points out with a blinding grin. She gets to her feet. “Don’t you want your favorite?”
Clark’s head turns towards the entrance, and, lightning fast, yanks her back down and presses his lips to hers. Against her mouth, he murmurs, “You’re my favorite.”
* * *
After being kissed within an inch of her life, Lois heads out, so Clark can get a private moment with his mom. She nearly runs into Bruce by the door, who gives her a knowing nod before pointing her in the direction of Clark’s private quarters. “There’s a laptop in there, if you’d like to get work done.”
Her eyes narrow. “How did you know?”
“Clark says you’re more of a workaholic than I am,” Bruce says simply. “He’s wrong, of course, but the point still stands.”
She eyes him up and down, and, presumably he does the same behind his whiteout lenses. “You’re alright – for a guy who dresses up like a bat and fights crime.”
“I could say the same about you,” he says mildly, “for a member of the free press.”
She cackles. “Give me your next interview – not Clark or Cat Grant – and I’ll owe you one.” Serves Cat right for unwillingly subjecting Lois to so much gossip about the Housewives of Metropolis when Lois is on a deadline.
Bruce puts out his hand. “I’ll take that deal.”
They shake on it, and Lois takes off down the hall.
She spends a few minutes snooping in Clark’s room and finds knicknacks from around the world, pictures of him, Bruce and Wonder Woman, and a framed copy of Superman’s third interview with Lois Lane. In the end, she does indeed get work done – that article on the invasion of giant squids with laser weapons from outer space doesn’t write itself, after all.
By the time she returns to Medical, she finds Clark, Bruce, and Martha talking quietly.
“Lois!” Martha glances up with a smile. “I saved you some meatloaf.” She points to a small tray by Clark’s bedside, where an enormous tupperware sits with a single slice of meatloaf at the bottom. She turns back to Clark. “She’s not a vegetarian, is she?”
“No, Ma,” he says wearily as Lois roughly elbows Bruce out of the way to get a good look at Clark. He’s propped up higher on the bed, almost sitting up, and the bruising has almost disappeared. He does have a healthier glow about him.
“Good,” Martha says as she eyes Lois up and down. “You’re too skinny. We’ve got to put some real meat on your bones.”
“Hey, no,” Clark says before Lois can respond, “Lois is perfect.”
Lois’s own defense dies on her tongue as she flushes a dull red. Dear god, is he always going to be like this? She isn’t sure she can take it.
“Shush, you.” Martha pats his arm. In a carrying undertone, she says, “It’s like you don’t want her to come to Sunday dinner.”
Clark raises his eyebrows. “So that’s your master plan?”
“What master plan?” Martha says innocently. “I have no plan!”
Off to the side, beneath the cowl, Bruce smirks.
“Ma,” Clark reproaches.
“What?” Martha asks.
“We’ve already kissed,” Clark says flatly as Lois’s face flames with heat. “You can stop now.”
“Oh!” Martha says, surprised. “Well then. It seems like my work here is done.”
“Good gosh,” Clark mutters as Lois swats him on the arm.
“Have you never heard of subtlety?” Lois hisses with a searing glare. “In front of your mother, really?”
He recoils. “Watch the stitches! I’m injured.”
“Ha!” Lois says triumphantly, “Serves you right.”
Martha clears her throat. “I really must be going. It’s getting late, and I’m sure you both have a lot to talk about. Bruce – Bruce?” She looks around, but Bruce has disappeared. “Next time, we’re putting a bell on that man,” she mutters, aggrieved.
“I tried to bell him before,” Clark says sadly. “It didn’t take.”
Lois snorts. “Seriously?”
Clark shrugs, his eyes dancing with mirth. “Dick dared me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” Clark says. “Bruce stuck both of us on monitor duty for two weeks, but it was hecking worth it.”
As Lois silently mouths ‘hecking’ to herself over and over with increasing incredulity, Martha grabs the nearly-empty tupperware container. She shoves it squarely at Lois’s midsection. “Eat,” she says. “I know you skipped dinner.”
“Ma!” Clark says in warning.
“What?” Martha turns to him. “It’s good meatloaf. Your father agreed to marry me after having this meatloaf.”
Clark raises his eyes to the heavens. “Stop mothering her.”
“Well, if I have any say about it, she’ll be –” at the look on Clark’s face, Martha switches tracks at the speed of light, “I’m going. I’m going!”
Clark just sighs as the door to Medical closes behind her. “Sorry about that.”
Lois pries open the tupperware. “Don’t be. I like her.”
“I even told Ma not to meddle,” Clark goes on. “But you’ve met her – if she wants something done, come hell or high water, it will get done.”
“She does seem the type,” Lois agrees absentmindedly as she picks at the meatloaf with her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Clark apologizes again. “I should have been the one to tell you about my feelings, not her.”
Lois looks up, a chunk of meatloaf halfway to her mouth, sauce trickling down her palm. “Your mother didn’t tell me.”
“She didn’t?” Clark repeats. His brow furrows in confusion. “You… put it together yourself?”
“Well, no,” Lois says. As Clark sighs in relief, she lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. “Batman told me.”
“Batman said I had a crush on you?” Clark screeches.
Lois cracks up.
“He had no right!” Clark exclaims. “I told him, after his manipulating made a total mess of his personal life, he certainly had no business meddling in mine. It’s no wonder Dick didn’t speak to him for months after he interfered in…”
As Clark goes on and on about Bruce’s more Machiavellian machinations, Lois finally bites into the meatloaf. It’s rich, flavored with bacon and tomato and a half dozen spices she can’t name, and she lets out an involuntary groan of pleasure. “Holy shit,” she murmurs as she immediately follows it with another bite. No wonder Clark asks for it on a weekly basis. No wonder Jonathan married Martha after having this. Lois chases the sauce dripping down her wrist with her tongue, and looks up to find Clark staring at her with dark eyes.
“Put the meatloaf away,” he says quietly.
Lois instantly goes on the defensive. “No way. Your mom saved this slice for me. You got the rest of it, you insatiable –”
“Put it away,” Clark repeats, “because I refuse to defile my ma’s meatloaf with what I’m about to do to you next.”
Lois freezes. “Is that right?” she asks slyly. “I thought you were too injured – oh!” The meatloaf falls to the floor, but Lois can’t really bring herself to care as Clark’s arms wrap around her, sunlamp warm and wonderfully whole, and his mouth covers hers again.