There was a chapter heading the last part, too…
Also, I’ve read your Muse is relaxing with a 10-parter?
“Bobby Bigmouth says that the gangsters will be at the Georgie Hair-do’s speakeasy tonight;
/hears gun going off in the room with the fireplace/
PAVEL: It wasn’t me! They don’t hand guns to men wearing *gold* uniforms. We never got to go on away missions…
“Lois,” Clark groaned. “What makes you think that tonight is going to be different from any of the other times you made me wear it during the last month?”
Umm…
“Then where’s yours?” he responded, crossing his arms.
She glanced down at her black sequined dress with spaghetti straps.
Or the *red* dress…
“Anyway, you’re the only bulletproof vest I need,”
“You’ll step between me and any bullets, won’t you, Clarkie?”
And he wouldn’t be anywhere else.
CLARK:
I’d hate for all that work to go to waste.
“I have never been so ready to be shot in my life,” he grumbled.
MARTHA: Clark Jerome Kent!
Lois pressed her lips together into a line and then stepped forward to straighten his tie. Her fingers slipped down to the middle of his chest where she unbuttoned his shirt.
Oooooh!
“I’m just checking,” she said. “I don’t want another Captain Elliot episode on my hands.”
“I told you, Lois. I didn’t put the vest back on after I flew up to shift the satellite away from Earth.”
Clark refused to admit she was right, and she knew she was because he didn’t deny it either.
He’s a naughty boy!
CLARK: Bullet proof vests are kind of useless while I’m in space.
Lois picked up her mobile phone from the side table next to her front door and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He gave her a sour expression, which read, ‘I’m not your pack mule.’
He’s adorable. And what if she had slipped a prophylactic into his pocket?
LOIS: So he can conveniently lose it? No, my bag’s big enough for those.
“What?” she replied, innocently holding up her evening bag for his inspection again. “It won’t fit.”
One does have to remember that back in the day, those things where almost as big as today’s mobile phones.
“Mind if I don’t believe you?” she said wryly, patting his cheek and walking down the hall to the stairwell. That obstinate man! She still hadn’t been able to convince Clark to try to steal third base.
CLARK: I’m not a thief. I’d never steal anything.
LOIS:
I try to give it away for free, and he won’t accept it. I try to hold on to it so he can steal it, and again, nothing. Maybe if I wore the invisible suit…
“I wore this tie special to match.”
Hmm…’special to match’? Dunno, sounds wrong to me…
How many months would they have to date before he moved past that invisible line he recently drew across her navel?
Well…the traditional waiting period is six months of dating, then six months of engagement, then there’s the traditional time travel episode and then the delayed wedding night. Also, maybe she could draw a demarcation line across her belly with lipstick and move it downwards a bit each day? That way, Clark wouldn’t realize what’s happening until he’s well and truly cooked. Works with frogs, so…
It was the kind of dress that would make even Clark forget oaths of chastity.
CLARK: That’s why I have gotten them tattooed on a special place, too.
However, as she walked past the rack of dresses on the way to the register from the fitting room, an icy chill from nowhere had made her stop and replace the dress with a black version.
She could have bought both and worn the red later to dinner?
It wasn’t her fault if some testosterone-laden clone took potshots at her or Clark. It just wasn’t!
And yet, she’s making Clark wear a bullet proof vest.
LOIS: Rule #66!
The problem was she had no idea whatsoever how to change the behavior of criminals who had just been reanimated from the dead via cloning.
How about removing the testosterone producing parts via crude procedures?
LOIS:
Oh, sure, she could quit the Daily Planet, move to another city, and get another job at another paper while Clark put together another secret identity.
Maybe die her hair blonde while Clark makes a fortune digging up lost treasures before he settles in to his new life as a renowned billionaire? He could even get a nice car to take out for a spin during the nights while wearing a cowl.
Clark would have to find another non-reporting career that allowed him the freedom to bolt for the nearest door as this one did, because they couldn’t chance him bumping into any of their old colleagues.
Or Clark could start wearing blonde wig and a glue-on beard and start again as a reporter at the Daily Planet. They could go through quite a number of facial hair combos that cover his face. People wouldn’t recognize him. Only problem would be that Lois would get a reputation for dating the new hire while he rides her coattails before getting killed in defending her.
While she loved Clark more than her city and her job, she didn’t want to upend her life, his life, just because he was a stubborn, obstinate git who thought he wasn’t only invulnerable but also invincible.
Well, he had met his match. She would save his life, if she had to die in the process!
Oh…boy.
“Did you want to get something off your chest?” she asked, before raising her finger to stop him from interjecting. “Something that isn’t a piece of clothing?”
Cute!
“How about next time, you pay the cabbie, minha?” he asked as they started walking towards the club.
She frowned again. “Fine!” Clearly, as Martha had told him, she wasn’t ‘fine’.
Maybe he should stock up on chocolates?
“So, you want to be equal with your male co-workers in every way, except when it comes to picking up the tab?” he asked.
Duh?
“Well, you get paid more than I do!” she snapped.
“I do not! I have fewer years at the Planet and, therefore, less seniority than you.”
Yes…but he’s a man and this is still way back when and there’s still gangsters running around with Tommy guns.
“Fine!” she grumbled. “But when you factor in my higher day-to-day expenses, I earn less.”
So, she should be paid more because she needs to buy more accessories as a woman?
LOIS: Exactly.
“You don’t have to eat every day; I do.”
So, now instead of Clark being sexist, she’s being specicist?
He scoffed. “I like to eat, same as you… if not more. If you cooked, instead of ordering out all the time, it would save you money and be healthier.”
I don’t think so, the being healthier bit, I mean.
“I don’t have time to cook.” She pointed at him. “I have to pay for health insurance, medicines, and a gym membership!”
Like most men do?
Members of the Metropolis Men's Club: We have wives to cook for us.
“Perry might get suspicious if your partner didn’t need health insurance any longer,” he reminded her.
He’d be put on 24h hour suicide watch?
and my exercise program involves lifting buses falling from bridges instead of machines at the gym.”
Yes, but it is his fault that Lois has to consume excessive amounts of chocolates *and* doesn’t have a superpowered exercise regiment back in her bedroom.
“Did you want me to…” he cleared his throat. “— pick you up before work instead of walk with you, now that it’s colder?”
The corner of her lip tilted upward. “That sounds nice.”
He brushed her lips with his. “All you had to do was ask, Lois. Is that all?”
That was all?
How was that his fault? “One, it’s a smaller apartment. Two, it’s in a worse neighborhood, and three, learn to negotiate better.”
Thirdly, men don’t like to negotiate with women; it makes them feel less of a man, so they refuse to haggle and the woman gets metaphorically screwed.”
CAT: I never had that problem. Metaphorically speaking.
PHIL: /pokes fingers in his ears/ lalalalalalalala!
Clark opened his mouth and drew in a breath, only to stop himself. Asking Lois to move in with him to win an argument was the cherry on top of a stupendously bad idea, especially since he was only saying it in jest.
Oooooooooh!
Clark wanted more than anything to live with Lois, to wake up every morning and go to sleep every night with her in his arms. He had moved to this dimension with that very goal in mind.
That was impossible…
Not impossible. He just has be to be very careful to prevent consummation.
A really, horrible, disastrous idea… for a completely different reason.
Clark didn’t want that type of relationship with Lois.
I live in that neighborhood, because I needed
Maybe little more cleaning up in this corner? There’s still some dust bunnies around…
Anyway, if they moved in together before she was ready to be married, wouldn’t that just delay her ever being ready?
If she already had access to the milk, why would she ever buy the cow?
Because it didn’t say anywhere that he’d be giving her the milk.
How did she always accomplish the feat of making him love her more than the previous moment?
By breathing?
“Hello,” he asked to Bonnie,
‘asked to’?
“Hello,” he asked to Bonnie,
/waites for Clark to crash and burn/
Most people didn’t go around wearing bulletproof vests.
Politicians. Certain mob bosses.
“After sixty years, you’d think men would be more forward about such things,” Bonnie grumbled to herself.
LOIS: You and me, both…
“But I already have a man like you.”
Clyde’s being a prude?
“Knock it off, Clyde. We’re just having a conversation,” Bonnie retorted. She waved her fingers at her partner. “Anyway, I don’t see no ring on this finger.”
Funny thing, that. She never got a divorce.
“Can we discuss this later?” Clyde whispered. “Anyway, you’re supposed to be watching the door.”
“I am watching the door,” Bonnie returned, flipping her hand towards the entrance. “I am here and the door is there.”
Aren’t they cute? Just like Lois and Clark. If they where wont to knock over liquor shops.
“If I play my cards right, you’ll lose your underwear.”
She should have just bought the red dress. Why hadn’t she realized that crummy men didn’t change their attitude no matter what a woman wore?
Because she only dated one sleezebag, one pig, one sociopathic sleazebag of a pig, and a boyschout?
Clyde leveled his pistol at Clark and fired two shots directly into his chest. “That should stop you from trying to steal our dames!”
Clark sputtered and grabbed his chest, falling to the ground next to Lois.
Force of habit? But he’s not usually getting shot and killed…?
He gasped for breath, playing the dying man to the hilt.
Or is he putting on a show to get them out of there?
“Clyde, you moron!” Capone snapped. “What did you do that for? Those were our only green bullets.
Lois’s eyes widened as she hugged his head to her chest. “Oh no!”
Clark squeezed her hand and whispered, “I’ll never argue with you again.”
Regarding the k-bullets. There was at least one story where they got green bullets. And I have no idea if Tank might not have done this before, too. But that’s just because, well…I have no idea if Tank hasn’t covered any and all possible variations of ToGoM by now
Either way, twisty! Naughty twisty!
Michael