Archive of Our Own

Lois had to do something, that much she was sure of.

Because she had been losing her mind for weeks now, and it wasn’t even over a story.

Her aborted plan to outright torture and unsteady her partner, initially set into motion to try and gain her own equilibrium back after it had been wrecked by Jimmy’s super revelation, had failed. Clark had been so earnestly kind and oblivious in the face of her messing with him that it had taken all the fun right out of her chosen remuneration.

So she’d caved in and called it quits.

She had struggled to find her next idea on how to find inner peace over her partner’s duplicity, and in the meantime, had tried to go on with life as it had been before she’d become the recipient of this unwanted knowledge. But after Clark’s lies had begun to feel like darts needling her suddenly thin skin, she had saddled him with Cat for the evening, and then been forced to watch the woman do her best impersonation of strangling ivy.

As a result, she had nearly kept Superman away from a group of hostages that he’d rescued a little too close to the exact nick of time, and simultaneously proven her own inability to exhibit any patience whatsoever while she waited for a good idea to come to her. After that, she’d pivoted her plan again.

She’d finally decided that it wasn’t her responsibility to correct this, and that she should just forget that she knew anything at all about Clark’s extra-curricular activities. He obviously didn’t trust her enough to be realfriends, close friends, the kind of friends she’d thought they were. So they were just partners at work, and nothing else. And so nothing else mattered but getting the work done.

That attempt had resulted in a spectacular blow-up in the newsroom, interrupted by someone calling for Superman yet again. After another heart-to-heart with Jimmy, which was happening way too frequently these days, she’d given in and decided that patience and ignorance, whether forced or real, weren’t her strong suits.

Thus, Lois decided on a new game plan.

Again.

The first step had been recognizing that Clark was going to lie to her, no matter what she did. If she knew, didn’t know, pretended not to know, didn’t listen, or pretended not to listen, he was going to lie to her.

The second step had been figuring out what would make that okay.

Nothing, her mind immediately supplied, even now. Nothing made that okay.

But she quieted her rebellious subconscious and concentrated.

All weekend she’d been craving the perfectly spicy pork noodle dish Clark had picked out for her in the midst of one of his last rescues, or ‘pizza runs,’ as she and Jimmy had taken to calling them, and it had given her a fresh idea. This whole thing had started with a pizza. So maybe she could use pizza to end it, too—or at least to convince herself she felt better about her best friend being a complete liar and fraud. Or maybe curry could end it. Or Italian espresso. Or freshly-baked French croissants. Therefore, in retribution for his crime of selling her a year’s worth of lies, she was going to force him to revisit every distant restaurant he’d ever brought her food from—and then some!

That way, she would receive direct compensation for the damage of his lies.

In snack form.

She was calling this ‘the pizza strategy.’

And she really hoped it was going to work.

Because punishing him, either by unsettling him or by shrugging him off on Cat, hadn’t made her feel any better.

And she couldn’t just let things go on like this.

So maybe compensation for her mental anguish in the form of global gourmet would finally take the edge off her anger?

It was worth a shot.

And if it didn’t work…

She blew an errant strand of hair out of her eyes, not wanting to think about what would come next.

Well, at least she’d eat well in her misery.

A new day in the office meant a fresh start, and her first opportunity was about to arrive.

The elevator doors had just opened to reveal her partner, on time for once, with his tie impeccably tied.

She assessed him as he greeted his co-workers on the way to his desk. It was clear that everyone liked Clark. And why shouldn’t they? Even though they didn’t know he was Superman, Clark was friendly and welcoming and quietly charismatic.

He dropped his bag off at his station, pressing the start-up buttons on his computer and monitor without sitting yet.

Would they like him so much if they knew he was lying to them? she wondered.

Coffee mug in hand, Clark walked toward the staff break room. He slowed as he passed by her desk, reaching for her own mug.

“Oh, that’s ok,” she said, putting her hand out to defend her cup.

Instead of capturing her goal, her hand slid across his, and a spark jumped at their touch, tingling all the way down her arm.

She pulled her hand back, startled.

He blinked, still looking at his hand, and then his eyes crashed into hers.

“Sorry,” she said automatically, wondering why she couldn’t control the nervous giggle that came with it. After all, she wasn’t trying to flirt with the man! She was mad at him!

But his eyes were telling a completely different story than the narrative she was trying to insist on, as his other hand came up to hold the one she’d touched.

“No coffee this morning?” he asked lightly, his eyes flickering back over to the site of her empty mug and their collision.

Clearing her throat, she sat back in her chair, locking in. She’d rehearsed this.

“I don’t think I can stand the regular sludge today,” she said, making sure that she sounded just pathetic enough to stir his heroic notions.

“No caffeine on a Monday morning? That’s awfully brave,” he replied with a teasing grin.

She poorly masked a fake yawn with her hand.

“Don’t get me wrong, I could use it,” she said firmly before turning on her most piteous tone. “But after a week of doubling down on newsroom coffee to burn the midnight oil, it’s started to actually taste like midnight oil. I can’t do it again.” She stared into the middle distance dreamily. “I just want one really good cup of coffee.”

When she saw him check his watch, she knew she had him.

Because he wasn’t checking the time to confirm that a local shop was open, she was sure.

He was converting time zones in his head to make sure that a shop somewhere else in the world was still open.

“I think I might be able to help with that,” he said conspiratorially, his mouth curving into a friendly grin.

She nearly grinned back at him before she caught herself. She and Clark were not co-conspirators.

And that was his choice.

Instead, she put on a hopeful face.

“Really?” she asked with a curious tone that was laboriously manufactured.

“Be right back,” he said with a wink.

And then he was heading back toward the elevator bank.

She watched him go as he called the elevator and then stepped into it, catching her eye again just before the doors closed, and smiling back at her in what seemed to be an earnest reaction. But then, again, she couldn’t really tell, could she? That was part of what she’d been in such a snit over during the last couple of weeks.

Staring after him, she felt a twinge, unsure whether it was his betrayal cutting into her core again from where it sat like a mercurial ball of lava, or her own guilt from punishing a nice guy for something she wasn’t sure she even blamed him for.

She was still glaring into the middle distance when Jimmy crossed into her field of vision.

He glanced pointedly at the elevator, where Clark had just left, before raising an eyebrow at her.

She let her glare intensify and Jimmy wisely kept moving past her.

Well, Clark seemed to be perfectly happy to run out and get coffee. And she felt very slightly mollified that he’d been so willing.

Maybe this plan was going to work after all.

“Ah, Lois?”

Pencil between her teeth as her fingertips clacked away at the keyboard, she spoke through gritted teeth and didn’t look up. “Yuh?”

“It’s getting kind of late—”


“‘m workin’ n it,” she said around the pencil.

“No, it’s not that…”

“Mm-hmm?” she asked, still focusing on the story instead of him.

“I just—have you had lunch yet?”

She looked at him then, most of her mind still on her computer.

“Huh?”

“It’s almost three, and I don’t think you had lunch. I could— I could run out and grab us something,” he offered.

Actually, she hadn’t eaten, she realized. After the piping hot, sharp-noted, satiating coffee that Clark had brought back this morning, she’d followed it up with a cup of newsroom coffee and half of a stale bagel off a tray in the staff room, but nothing since then.

She took the pencil out of her mouth. “You haven’t eaten yet, either?”

“Uh, no.”

Her eyes narrowed, suspicion forming. “Were you waiting for me?”

One of his hands went to adjust his glasses, and she clocked the movement as one of his tells. “I, uh, just haven’t gotten around to it, yet. I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s been kind of busy around here.”

She glanced around, seeing most people moving at the same hurried pace that she was. She’d been so busy with her own story that she hadn’t noticed how late it had gotten or even thought about lunch.

“I could just run out and grab us a pizza,” he suggested.

“No! I’ve had enough pizza for a while,” she said, too emphatically.

His posture shifted, though, reacting to the force of her voice. “Uh, okay,” he said cautiously. “I’ve got an idea. Italian still okay?”

“Sure,” she agreed temperately, not wanting to snap at him and see his eyes dull again.

He looked at his watch. “Okay, I’ll be right back.” He offered her a smile and then headed for the doors.

This morning, it had looked like it would be a slow news day, but things had changed fast as Metropolis had hit its stride. Oil had spilled on one of the airport’s runways, slowing down travel, cancelling flights and causing inconveniences, though no real emergency. One of the radio stations in town was down as the antenna’s regularly scheduled maintenance took longer than usual. And there was a traffic light out at a major intersection in the middle of the city, causing more inconvenience but no real danger. It was all little, innocuous stuff, but it built up quickly to become below the fold stories and endless sidebars.

In all of the follow-ups to see if any of the day’s stories were going to break with something really juicy, she’d entirely forgotten about her real plan for the day, which was to exact a snack for every one of Clark’s lies.

But Clark hadn’t.

Well, he hadn’t known about her plan, of course, so he hadn’t exactly known to get her something to eat, specifically.

But he had noticed that she hadn’t eaten. He had cared enough to want to make sure that she did. He probably knew that in another thirty minutes, she’d have realized she was starving, broken down and eaten a chocolate bar, and that would have temporarily staved off her hunger but sent her into a sugar daze until she could find something more substantial. And then, with such a late lunch, she wouldn’t have wanted dinner until very late or, more likely, not at all, and inevitably woken up starving the next day, setting off her annoyance all over again. But Clark had stepped in to correct that cycle, which, come to think of, hadn’t happened very often recently.

She bit her lip.

Had Clark been making sure that she actually ate during all the times she usually would have forgotten?

How long had that been happening?

Since her engagement had fallen apart? Since he’d told her he was in love with her? Since he figured out her work-above-sustenance eating pattern, probably just a few weeks after being partnered with her?

She sighed deeply, exhaling shakily.

Absentmindedly biting her pencil again, she put her focus back on her sidebar about runway incursions and told herself to focus on a story that actually made sense to her, instead of the melodrama running through her mind.

She had just finished when he materialized beside her, with two brown paper bags. He put them both on her desk, and said, “Here or the conference room?”

“Oh,” she said. She hadn’t realized that he was going to eat with her. He’d been busy, and she’d been busy, and it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to grab something for the other if they were out and then just return to work.

“You don’t mind eating together, do you?” he asked, catching her hesitation.

There wasn’t a really good reason to send him away. If she did, he would almost certainly question why.

“Of course not,” she said, waiving it off.

He hesitated, trying to read her, and she intentionally tried to breathe normally and just relax, knowing that he could look for signs that other people would miss.

“Are you sure?” he asked, head tilted as he looked at her curiously.

“Sure,” she replied, reaching past him to pull the chair at his side a little closer, then nodding toward it in invitation. She tried to redirect him away from thinking about what was going through her mind. “What did you bring?”

He sat at her gesture and started unpacking his bag. “Antipasto! Because in one little village in Italy, it’s called anti-pizza,” he said with a wink.

She laughed, in spite of herself. “It is not!”

“Absolutely,” he doubled down.


“Which village?” she challenged.

“What are you going to do? Go there and ask them?” he asked, setting a little paper carton on the desk.

“I might!”

“I thought you were saving up for Tahiti, not Italy,” he said, wrestling another carton from the bottom of the bag.

Her smile faded a little. “Tahiti?”

“Yeah! Last year at the auction. You said you were saving up for a trip to Tahiti.”

She had been. Until she’d realized that, among life’s other disappointments, she wasn’t really the type to take a bunch of time off for a vacation. But she’d barely mentioned it—just the one time, she remembered. And it had been a year ago. They hadn’t even been friends back then. They hadn’t even been partners, yet!

“You remember that?” she asked.

He finally pulled the carton from the bag and looked at her face. His softened in response. “Sure. You seemed like you really wanted it.”

Time slowed a little.

She wasn’t sure why it mattered to her that he’d remembered something that she’d told him a year ago, but it did.

And he was right.

She’d really wanted it.

Clark dove back into the crinkly paper bag for the last carton and the spell broke. “But then it sounded like you wanted a date with Superman more,” he said in a voice colored with notably less laughter.

God, how had she never caught on before?

“I said that I wanted a real adventure,” she corrected.

He looked up at her again. “Did you find it?”

Time started to slow again, but this time she resisted it. “Just look around. What is all of this if not an adventure?” She gestured around her grandly but knew her voice came out a little but self-deprecating. “Anyway, what is all this? Anything edible, or just containers?”

“It’s all edible, well—except the containers,” he said with a renewed grin. He started pulling off the lids one by one. “Artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers, fresh mozzarella, the best olives you’ll ever taste, melon wrapped in prosciutto, stuffed zucchini blossoms, eggplant caponata, and fresh baked Italian bread.”

“That looks amazing,” she said honestly, looking over the spread.

She’d made a joke about not wanting pizza, and he’d come up with all of this?

“Try the zucchini blossoms,” he said, pushing the little tray toward her with thinly veiled excitement. “They’re stuffed with ricotta. They’re my favorite.”

She’d learned that if it was his favorite, it was probably the best zucchini blossom in the world.

Taking one of the thick, closed blossoms, she bit into it. It was light, and definitely tasted green in a way that most vegetables did, but there was something sweet or savory or both at play, too. It had an almost buttery, velvety texture that absolutely melted in her mouth. And it must have literally melted because the bright, creamy ricotta was suddenly bursting over her tongue. She could tell that there was some kind of herb mix in the cheese, too, but she couldn’t tell what it was, and frankly, she didn’t care, as long as there was more of this.

Not realizing she’d closed her eyes, she opened them again, to see the grin on Clark’s face.

“Good, aren’t they?”

She got herself together and nodded. “So good.”

He smiled and took one himself, seeming satisfied that she’d liked it as much as she did.

She’d gotten the meal she’d wanted out of this, but something about it had unsettled her. Clark wasn’t supposed to be enjoying it, too. He was supposed to be canceling out his debt to her from all of his lies. Somehow it felt like he’d won this round, which was insane because she was talking about a game that he didn’t even know he was playing!

Pulling the little tray closer toward her, she took another of the zucchini blossoms, unwittingly closing her eyes again as she thought about the ricotta, and not the superhero sitting across from her.

The zucchini blossoms were his first payment, she told herself.

And later that day, when he hurriedly said he had to check outside to see if it was raining, it took the edge of his ridiculous lie.

Ugh, she was going to kill him!

“Clark!”

“Just a little bit further!”

She had not worn the right heels for the day that had been handed to her.

And her partner, who couldn’t even get blisters on his feet, was not helping!

“No! We’re nearly three blocks out of the way, and we’re going to have to waste time and backtrack to get back to the Planet, when we’re already in a hurry to—“

“We’re here,” he interrupted her.

He stopped suddenly, and she crashed right into him.

His arm was around her back immediately, his hand pressed firmly against her hip, holding her upright and against him, grounding them both, keeping her from falling.

Her arms automatically closed around him.

Whether it was his immediate response, or her muscle memory, for just a second, she saw through the glasses.

She was back in Superman’s arms.

Her hero had caught her again.

And her heart lurched forward.

“Are you alright?” he asked with concern.

She felt her mouth drop open, and tried to force out words, any words at all that would make sense.

One of her hands was clutching his upper arm, but the other was trapped between them, her palm flush against his chest.

“Lois?” His voice was questioning, a little softer than it had been a moment ago.

She pushed back out of his embrace, and he released her at once.

“You just surprised me,” she bit out. “Be careful!”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

She directed her attention to the grim little door in the dilapidated grey building in front of them. There were businesses on either side, but this door looked like it wasn’t meant for the public.

“What is this? A source?”

“The best cheeseburger in Metropolis,” he said proudly.

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“This place?” she asked skeptically. “It looks condemned!”

“Trust me,” he told her.

Her heart rose into her throat.

She didn’t know if she could.

If she could trust him.

That was the whole problem.

But rather than stand here daftly, having an emotional meltdown in front of the very man she was hoping to hide that particular vulnerability from, she could outrun the whole idea.

Instead of considering trusting him or giving in to the run-down looking restaurant, she turned around and started walking in the opposite direction.

“We don’t have time to be messing around today!” she said in a huff.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, catching up and passing her. He turned and stopped in front of her, eyebrows raised. “Are you planning to skip lunch today?”

“No,” she said defensively.

“Then let’s grab something before we head back. Otherwise it will be three o’clock again before either of us gets a break, and you’ll be starving, and then we’ll be on deadline and won’t want to stop to eat.”

She’d been right about Clark making sure she actually ate at a reasonable time on the busy days.

While she was distracted by that thought, he had threaded his arm through hers, turning them around to start walking back toward the restaurant. “Or we could just pick up food now, while we’re out, and then call the county clerk’s office as soon as we get back to see if they have an update for us.”

He stopped them in front of the restaurant again.

“We’re already here,” he said with a shrug.

She looked at the door, rust eating away at the bottom of it.

“How did you even find this place?”

“Not too long after I moved to town, a couple of guys tried to hold the place up. Superman stopped it, and I saw the end of it. So I checked in to make sure the owner was okay. The thugs had kind of made a mess, so I helped him clean up a little. The owner turned out to be a really nice guy, and he offered me dinner in return for the favor. I haven’t found a better burger in Metropolis since.”

She rolled her eyes.

Leave it to Clark to stop an armed robbery and then send in his alter-ego to help clean it up.

“Fine,” she acquiesced.

He smiled. “You’ll love it, I promise.” And then he released her arm to open the dirty, creaking door for her. Before she could even step forward a deep voice was calling out, “Hey! Is that Clark I see? Hey, Clark, howwarya?!”

“I’m good, Eddie,” Clark replied, his hand falling to her lower back as she took the single step up into the restaurant. “Staying out of trouble?”

Hearty laughter flowed from inside the restaurant. “What trouble? I’m always staying outta trouble.”

The charred smell of the grill hit her as soon as she was fully inside, and she could already tell that he was right: this was going to be the best cheeseburger of her life.

And by the sound of things, she was basically walking into the Clark Kent fan club.

Was everyone out there a fan but her?

An hour into writing up an early-morning fire at a local farmer’s market, Clark had said that all the talk about a cheese stand burning down was making him crave grilled cheese from the deli down the street, and she’d shot down the idea immediately.

“You picked burgers yesterday. I’m picking Chinese food today,” she stipulated.

He rolled his eyes. “You always want Chinese.”

“That’s because you won’t tell me where that garlic pork restaurant is, so I can never get it myself!” she complained, careful not to actually ask and put him on the spot with a question she knew he wouldn’t be able to answer.

He chuckled. “Okay, okay, Chinese it is!” he said, standing up from where he’d been hunched over her desk.

Impulsively, she asked a question that had been picking at her all week.

“How did you know I’d like that, anyway?”

He shrugged. “You like everything in it.”

“Yeah, but I like a lot of things. I loved that. How… How did you know I’d like it so much?”

“You’re not too hard to figure out, Lois,” he said with a warm smile.

She felt her pulse respond to the drop in his voice and pushed away the unexpected response. “Well, hurry up so I don’t have to finish writing this on my own,” she said bossily.

He chuckled again, a lower sound now, and this time she felt it tingle down each vertebrae in her back. “I’ll be right back.”

Before she knew it, he was back again, as promised, and she wondered if he could tell when she was distracted, and if he let himself cut time off the trip because he didn’t think she’d notice.

But at the smell of the food, her brain focused solely on what she wanted most. Happily digging into the perfectly spicy noodles she’d been daydreaming about, she eyed the other little bamboo containers he’d pulled out of his bag amidst the condiments packets, extra chopsticks and fortune cookies. “What did you get?”

“Shacha beef and chicken potstickers,” he said, cracking his chopsticks apart.

She felt her eyebrows rise in interest and he held out a carton to her.

“Want one?”

She was loath to pull herself away from the perfectly greasy, garlicky, pork and noodle masterpiece she was already inhaling, but the potstickers had been steamed, not fried, and they looked just as good as what she was already eating. Better even.

Unable to resist, she snapped one up between her chopsticks and took a bite. The dumpling itself was light and airy and satisfying, but the real star was the ginger that exploded alongside the chicken inside. The chicken was savory and juicy and balanced by a sharp green onion. But the ginger tied it all together.

She immediately reached for another one.

“You’re going to leave some of those for me, right?” Clark asked teasingly.

Considering it, she felt so torn. On one hand, he didn’t deserve them—he was a liar and these impossibly perfect little potstickers that were making her salivate for more were her compensation for putting up with all of that. But on the other hand, he was lying because he was helping people, and protecting them, and protecting her, and he’d gone all the way around the world for her favorite lunch at her request.

Her face must have reflected her total division, because the mirth in Clark’s face brightened and he laughed again, clearly seeing her covet his noodles, but not seeing what was behind her real inner struggle.

“Those are mine, after all,” he pointed out, pulling the little circular carton an antagonistic inch back toward him.

“You wouldn’t have brought them if you hadn’t planned to share,” she said, mischievously snagging another right out of the bamboo bowl still in his hand.

“Hey!” he protested, laughing at her audacity but pulling the carton even closer toward him.

And she laughed around a mouthful of perfect, savory chicken and bright ginger flavor.

Before she could respond, their boss was bearing down upon them and she felt her whole posture shift toward the next story Perry must be bringing them.

“Get down to the docks. The strike is heating up and it seems like it might finally take hold this time,” Perry instructed.

Clark popped the top onto his carton of beef and vegetables and she stood up, ready to do the same.

“Not you, Lois,” Perry said, shaking his head. “Just Kent on this one.”

“I don’t think so!” she protested loudly. “If the dock strike is actually happening, that could be a big story! I’m not going to sit back and be left out of—“

“Myerson’s down there already,” Perry jumped in. “I don’t need the both of you to go. You want to partner with Myerson on this one?” he threatened.

“No,” she answered immediately, disgusted by the idea. Myerson was alright for basic research and special contributions, but he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. Plus, if he was down there already he’d think that just being there made this his story, which would somehow demote her to junior partner, which was never going to happen. And just because Myerson’s fantasies about being in charge wouldn’t meet reality, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be insufferable to work with—as she’d told Perry many times.

“Then it’s Kent,” Perry ruled, pointing at Clark.

“But he’s my partner, not Myerson’s!” she said possessively.

She felt Clark’s eyes slide over to her, but she kept hers trained on Perry.

“Not on this one,” Perry said, not unsympathetically, before turning back to Clark. “Get going, son.”

Clark shrugged at her apologetically before picking up his carton of Chinese. He slid the other carton closer to her. “You can have the potstickers,” he said, a small peace offering.

“Gee, thanks,” she said forlornly, sitting down again as he headed toward the staff refrigerator with his uneaten lunch before making a beeline for the stairs.

Perry gestured to her computer. “Will you need any help on the—“

“No,” she said, knowing that she’d devolved into a full-on pout.

“I thought you were mad at him right now, anyway? Some time apart might do you two some good.”

She’d never said a thing to Perry about being mad at Clark, mostly because she couldn’t tell him why, and she knew that he would ask. And while she lied to Perry all the time about things that didn’t matter, she hadn’t wanted to take on Clark’s lie, or worse, lie poorly. Perry has a nose like a bloodhound for news. And he knew her well. She wasn’t sure he wouldn’t just see right through her if he meandered anywhere close to the truth on his own, something Perry was perfectly capable of.

“How did you know I was mad at him?” she asked carefully.

“Lois,” he drawled, giving her a look that suggested she should know better.

Her eyes dropped away, hoping she wouldn’t reveal anything.

“You want to talk about it?” His voice had shifted, quieter to shield them from the reporters surrounding them and lighter to shield her from offering too much empathy and losing the reins on her too vulnerable emotions.

He really did know her well.

“I don’t,” she said, just as quietly. Then she looked up at him again. “But thanks, Perry.”

He nodded. “Okay. But, ah, I’ll be around.” He rapped one knuckle against her desk. “And I’ll expect that draft in another hour.”

“You got it, Chief,” she promised.

Turning back to her keyboard, she picked up where she and Clark had left off. They hadn’t gotten to the end of their draft, yet, but she knew he’d want her to add in a softer note of a call to action or human interest angle to tie it up—something about how fire safety was everyone’s responsibility or about rallying around your neighbor when they’d lost all their cheese. She scanned the end of the article, looking for a place to naturally slide it in.

And she tried to ignore the flicker of disappointment that he wasn’t there with her.

Reaching absently for the fortune cookie on her desk, she unwrapped it and cracked it open, eating a piece. Eyes still on the screen as she tried to manipulate another little piece of the cookie out of its plastic casing, she realized her fingers had unearthed the fortune while they were questing for another piece of the cookie. Distracted now, she held it up to read.

It wasn’t in English.

And Clark wasn’t there to translate.

Feeling dissatisfied, she grumpily threw the cookie, wrapper and fortune into the trash in one move.

She resolutely went back to her article, editing it more stringently than usual and telling herself that she made her own fortune. She didn’t need a cookie to tell her her fate.

And she certainly didn’t need Clark Kent to interpret it.