Poisons that open your eyes
By cosmic
Rated: PG-13
Part 3
—
She’s awoken by the phone ringing. It cuts through her uneasy dreams and has her sitting up straight in bed.
Clark’s bed.
In Clark’s shirt.
She scrambles out of bed but by the time she reaches the living room, Jonathan has already answered.
“No,” Jonathan says. “Clark’s not here. But Lois Lane is—maybe Superman would be all right with you telling her what’s going on?” He waits, nods. “Yes, she’s here.” He holds out the phone. “The hospital.”
“Hello?”
“Miss Lane.” Dr. Klein’s voice comes through, and she wonders if he always sounds so nervous. “I tried your home number, but no one answered, and I thought—”
“Well, I’m here.” She doesn’t want to get into her staying at Clark’s apartment. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, right. They’re going to extubate him. He’s waking up, and it’s looking very promising, really.”
“I’ll be right there.” Lois hangs up, because she doesn’t need his report on anything else—she just wants to see Clark.
She runs to Clark’s bedroom and throws on yesterday’s clothes. When she gets back out, Martha and Jonathan are watching at her with fear in their eyes, and she stops, realizing that they didn’t hear what Dr. Klein said. Her sudden rush to get to the hospital could mean anything.
“He’s waking up,” she blurts, mentally berating herself for being so inconsiderate. “They’re going to extubate him.”
Pure relief floods their features. Martha raises a shaking hand to her mouth.
“Thank goodness,” Jonathan mumbles.
“Come with me. He’ll want to see you.”
Martha closes her eyes briefly. “We can’t, honey.”
Lois looks at them. “But we can say that Clark’s parents are in town, and—”
Jonathan shakes his head. “We can’t have any contact with him when he’s Superman.”
Martha looks at her husband. “That kind of connection between Superman and Clark—it wouldn’t be any good.” Her voice is heavy. Lois knows that she would give anything to be at Clark’s bedside.
Jonathan nods. “Keep us updated. We’ll be here.”
Lois swallows hard, but nods. Are these the two strongest people she’s ever met? They may be even stronger than their son.
She hurries out and hails a cab, and it’s early enough in the morning that the traffic is still light. She glances at her watch, realizing its only four fifteen in the morning. Dim light floods the city, the sun not yet up. Still, she’s not tired, even though she must have only gotten a few hours of sleep.
She rushes through the front doors of the hospital, almost before they have time to open, and takes the elevator up to the ICU, tapping her foot impatiently all the way. The corridor is empty. They’ve cleaned up all signs of yesterday’s chaos. Visitors hour haven’t begun, but with Superman, there’s an exception to every rule and Lois doesn’t ask.
His room is quiet but for the beeping noise of the heart monitor, going much more slowly today than yesterday. Two nurses and one doctor besides Dr. Klein are present, all standing silent around Superman’s bed.
“Ah, Miss Lane, there you are.” He nods towards Clark. “We extubated him, and he seems to breathe just fine on his own.”
There’s still a mask covering his face, but they’ve removed that horrible tube that Clark had stuck down his throat yesterday. His skin is not as pale anymore either, though it’s far from rosy and healthy.
She walks over, grasping Clark’s hand. She needs to touch him, feel the warmth of his skin.
“His blood tests are showing a marked improvement,” Dr. Klein says. “He’s getting better quicker than we could have hoped. Perhaps he’s regaining some of that super healing of his.”
“Thank you.” She’s not entirely sure if she’s thanking Dr. Klein or Clark, or both.
“We’ll leave you alone for a while. Press the button if you need us.”
Lois nods and sinks down in the chair next to the bed. It’s as uncomfortable today as it was yesterday, but she doesn’t care. Clark is getting better. He’s breathing on his own. His blood tests are better, whatever that means.
He’ll make it. She pushes away any fears about blood clots and Kryptonite still in his body that tries to make it to the forefront of her brain.
She doesn’t know how long she sits there, but the sun rises outside the window, and it floods the room with light.
And he moves.
—
At first, all Clark is aware of is pain. Kryptonite. He needs to get away from it. But his body won’t work with him, and every little move makes the pain burn white. A cry of agony escapes him and he doesn’t know if he’s ever made a sound like that before.
There’s a cool hand on his cheek and calming words spoken near his ear.
Lois.
He’d know her voice anywhere.
“Shh, it’s all right. Don’t move. You’re in the hospital and you safe, you’re going to be okay.”
His mouth is dry, and when he tries to lick his lips, he finds them cracked and painful. He tries to speak, tries to tell her about the pain, but all he gets out is a hissed, “’urts…”
“I know it hurts, I know, but it’s going to get better.”
He’s safe. Squinting up at her, she looks like an angel. Sunlight streams in from somewhere behind her, illuminating her hair so it looks like a halo. He relaxes, closes his eyes but still sees her image behind his eyelids. It’s comforting.
They stay like that, one of her hands stroking his cheek, the other squeezing his fingers ever so gently. The warmth of her hand and the sunlight is like a healing balm against his skin. He’s not sure which is more effective in dampening the pain.
As the pain recedes, his thoughts become more coherent, and somewhere in it all, he remembers that she knows now. She knows he’s Superman. That he’s Clark. That he’s both.
And she’s still here.
Intense gratefulness washes over him. He’s not naïve enough to believe that just because she’s here everything is going to be sunshine and roses—but they might not be so bad, either. She doesn’t seem angry.
He no longer has to hide.
It’s like a weight lifted off his shoulders, and no matter how strong he is, all the lies have been a heavy burden.
People come into the room, nurses and doctors, and some of them talk to him and tell him what’s going on. He doesn’t have the energy to listen. He trusts that they know what they’re doing—they are responsible for him still being alive.
By the time he has enough energy for the mask covering his face to start irritating him, it must be mid-afternoon, judging by how the light in the room has changed. Lifting his hand to remove it, it doesn’t hurt like it did before, though there is still an ache.
Free of the mask, he tries to speak again. “Hey.”
It comes out almost as it should.
Lois, who’s been resting her head on the bed, sits up. “Cl—” She stops herself. “Superman? Are you feeling better?”
“Startin’ too,” Clark says, mouth still dry. She gives him an ice chip from a glass next to the bed. It melts quickly in his mouth. “Thank you.”
It’s not only for the ice chip.
“You had me so scared.”
Clark gives her a pained half-smile. “I had me scared, too. I’m sorry.”
She squeezes his hand. “Never do that to me again, or I’ll…” But she trails off, unable to find something more to say. She looks tired, shadows beneath her eyes and her makeup smudged.
Still, she’s beautiful.
She swallows, is silent for a while and looks at the wall. He’s seen her thinking face many times before, the way her eyebrows knit together as she works out how to attack a certain problem.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me. Or, well, I do. But… don’t you trust me? When you got sick—how could you not tell me?”
Clark looks at the door. They can’t have this conversation here. “I wanted to. You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you? A year and a half of lies.” He hates the hurt in her voice. He’s always figured she’d be angry when she found out, but hurt—that’s way worse.
“I was scared.” The truth must be the best way to go, after all the lies. Right? “I was afraid I’d lose you. That you’d be so angry that you’d… or that you’d just see Superman.”
“But you are Superman.”
“Superman is what I can do. It’s not who I am.”
He glances at the door again. Even without super hearing, he picks up on the sound of people bustling about outside. Lois follows his gaze and realizes what kind of conversation they’re having in a room where anyone could walk in, or be standing with their ears pressed against the door, listening in.
“We’ll talk later.”
He nods, relieved. “When can I go home?”
Her eyes narrow. “You weren’t breathing on your own this morning. I’m pretty sure you’re not going home for a while.”
“Lois—”
“You’d be dead if it weren’t for the Doctor Klein and his thingamabobs,” Lois snaps. “You’re staying here until the doctors say otherwise.”
“Thingamabobs?”
“Anti-somethings. Anti-Kryptonite-somethings. I don’t know. But it seems to have worked, because you’re awake.” She mutters something about ‘awake and annoying,’ but he’s not sure.
“But I’m better now.” He really wants to go home. He’s sure that what he needs now is sunlight, lots of it, not this hospital room.
Lois closes her eyes and takes what can only be called a calming breath, opening her mouth to speak when the door opens.
“Oh, Superman, you’re looking much better,” Dr. Klein says.
“I’m feeling much better.” He tries to sound as much as Superman as possible. It’s difficult, lying in a hospital bed, wearing a flimsy hospital gown, while hooked up to a bunch of machines. “Can I go home?”
“You have a home?”
“Yes.” Clark clamps his mouth shut after that, because he doesn’t need follow-up questions he can’t answer.
“Well, it’s really against my advice—you’ve been quite sick, really. Miss Lane and I weren’t sure you’d survive. Really, none of us thought you would.” Dr. Klein is looking at the charts, studying them as if they’re the most interesting thing in the world. Clark knows he owes Dr. Klein everything, but he still doesn’t want to be here. The smell of antiseptic, the starch white walls, the noises of the surrounding machines—he’d much rather be at home.
There must be something in his expression, because when Dr. Klein looks up, he falters. “Well, we could compromise. You stay until tomorrow morning, and then, if things continue to improve, maybe you can go home.”
“That’s a lot of ifs and maybes, doctor.”
Dr. Klein gives him his sternest face. It’s not all that stern, really. “That’s my offer.”
“He’ll follow doctor’s orders.” Lois’ stern face is a lot more threatening than Dr. Klein’s. Clark has been on the receiving end of it before, as Clark, but never as Superman. Her days of mooning over Superman are over. Though he’s always hated it, right now, he’s not sure whether it’s a good thing or bad.
“Good, good.” Dr. Klein looks relieved to not have to face off with Superman. “Of course, even if you go home, you must come back for check-ups. This is the very definition of experimental treatment.”
“Lois said something about thingamabobs,” Clark says, and that launches Dr. Klein into a long-winded explanation of antibodies and things Clark understands nothing about, and eventually, he finds his eyelids closing no matter how he tries to keep them open.
The warmth of Lois’ fingers are safe around his own as he slips into sleep.
—
It’s like an eternity has passed since Lois walked up the stairs to Clark’s apartment and found him sick inside, even though it’s only been two days.
Now she helps him back into the apartment, and he’s leaning on her heavily enough that she wonders if it was really such a great idea to allow him to leave the hospital. He usually throws rocks into outer space, but now the stairs make his chest heave.
“Almost there,” Lois says, pointlessly, because he can see where they’re at.
“All right,” he concedes between labored breaths, “I might have some recuperating left.”
Lois purses her lips and bites back a scathing retort. “Well, there are two people who are very willing to help you recover.”
The door opens and Martha and Jonathan step outside, their arms outstretched to relieve Lois. She lets them, even though a part of her that is reluctant to let him go. She watches them, and it’s almost like an intrusion when Clark buries his face in his mom’s neck and hugs them both fiercely.
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
Lois watches them for a minute, unable to look away. She wonders what it’s like to have a family like that.
“Maybe we should go inside.”
They look up, as though they’d forgotten she was there. Should she leave? She’s not part of this family, this tight-knit trio.
But Lois doesn’t have time to make her excuses before Martha says, “Of course!” and ushers them all inside. Jonathan closes the door behind them while Martha leads Clark down the few stairs—he looks like he’s about to fall over from exhaustion—to the couch, where Clark drops unceremoniously and sinks back into the cushions. He looks smaller than usual. Her partner is clumsy and can’t open a can of anything on his own—and what a lie that is—but she’s always seen his frame as large and—
And safe.
She realizes that she’s felt the same safety lately when she’s been close to Clark, as she’s always felt in Superman’s arms. Perhaps she would have figured it out, eventually, even if Diana Stride hadn’t poisoned him?
Or not. Glasses and different hair. How could she have been so blind?
“Do you want something to drink, honey?” Martha asks her son, already grabbing a teapot. “Or to eat? Or—”
“Mom, it’s fine,” Clark says, though he’s obviously far from it. “I just need to rest a little. Rest and your company.” He holds out his hand and Martha comes to him, sits down and hugs him as she must have done when he was a child.
“My boy,” Lois hears her whisper, and the two words contain so much emotion that Lois must look away.
Lois is still standing right below the stairs and when she looks down at the floor, she sees where the floor dented beneath Clark’s weight. Lois blinks and in her mind’s eye, she sees him fall again and again.
She needs to do something.
She needs to work, to write everything she knows about Diana Stride. That woman needs to pay.
“Lois?” Clark’s worried voice filters through her thoughts, as though her brain is hard-wired to listen for it no matter what else is going on. “Are you all right?”
“I need to go.” Lois hopes her voice is as steady as she intends it to be. “Diana Stride—the article won’t write itself, and it’s not like you’re going to be much help right now.” She wishes immediately that she could take the words back, because being mean to Clark is not what she wants to do right now. Not ever, not anymore, but least of all now.
“And you will write a great article.” Clark looks at her with calm, trusting eyes, as though he didn’t hear what she just said. Is he used to her being unkind? What does that say about her? Mad Dog Lane. “But if you stay, perhaps you can even get a quote or two from Superman.”
There’s a twinkle in his eyes and she’s missed it in these last few days, missed it like it was a lost limb. Her resolve crumbles. She doesn’t want to leave. He’s not safe yet, and they still don’t know about the long-term effects of the thingamabobs Dr. Klein injected him with.
She wants to stay.
She wants to say words, though she’s not sure which words would come out of her mouth.
Clark’s father places a hand on her shoulder and leads her to sit down next to Clark on the couch. She sits stiffly, though to her horror she finds herself wanting to melt into his embrace. Clark easily lets his arm fall down to around her and she relaxes a fraction into his touch.
“Surrounded by wonderful women,” Clark mumbles, and looks from Lois to his mother.
Martha reaches out a hand and places it on top of Lois’. Her smile is warm and kind. “Welcome to the family.”
—
Despite having been on the brink of death, Clark recovers pretty quickly to a state where he’s at least functioning like a normal human being. Three days after coming home, the stairs up to the apartment are no longer as tough as throwing a rock into outer space, and he isn’t vomiting after every other meal. His powers, however, take longer to return, and the newspapers including the Daily Planet are wondering where Metropolis’ resident superhero has disappeared to.
“We need to write something,” Lois says. “You can’t disappear—we’ve seen what’s happened before when you’ve been gone. Crime rates spike pretty quickly.”
Clark looks at her from his place on the couch. Though he’s much better, it’s still where he spends most of his time. “We can’t publish the truth.”
“Of course not. Do you really think I would do that?”
He shakes his head quickly. “No, no. But do you have anything in mind?”
“Well, I’m sure I can come up with something better than Cheese of the Month.” She gives him a pointed look.
He blushes.
“Lying has never been your strong suit, has it?” It’s not a question.
Martha, who’s making dinner a few feet away, lets out a laugh. “Oh, you should have heard him the one time he skipped class, and I found him in his room reading comics instead. It was so hard, trying not to laugh. The more I asked, the stranger his explanations, until he broke down and told the truth.”
“Mom.” Clark leans his head back and closing his eyes. “Lois doesn’t need to know about that.” She doesn’t need reminders of his lies.
“Oh yes, I do. I’m looking forward to hearing all the stories about your childhood.” Lois smiles.
“Weren’t we talking about what lie to tell the public?” Clark tries to get the conversation back on track. His mom telling Lois every embarrassing childhood story is not something he needs to be present for, no matter how much he loves them both.
Lois narrows her eyes at him, sees right through him, but obviously decides to take pity on him. “Fine. So what do you want to say?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. I’m just glad Diana Stride seems to have stopped coming after me.”
“Coming after you?” Lois asks. “More than giving you a Kryptonite kiss?”
“Kiss?” his mother echoes from the kitchen.
“She had some sort of tracking device, and I think she had a tracker on me somehow.” Clark ignores his mom, unwilling to get into how he let the woman kiss him. “She wanted to expose my secrets. I guess she wanted to figure out my secret identity.”
“That beeping machine she had every time she came by the office. She was tracking you.”
Clark gives a helpless shrug. “But not anymore, it seems. Or she thinks I’m dead.”
Lois shakes her head. “They cut your suit off, and they cleaned you thoroughly at the hospital. Whatever tracker she had on you, they must have gotten it off, right?”
“They washed me?” He has no memory of it. He wonders what else Lois had to witness in the hospital.
“You were pretty out of it. Be glad you don’t remember all of it.”
Clark nods, taking her word for it. He mostly remembers pain and nausea, then nothing.
And Lois, he remembers Lois.
“But the police are looking for Diana after my article on her, so we can concentrate on you. You being in another country wouldn’t work, you’re in other countries all the time. And ‘personal issues’ or something like that invites too many questions and is a little close to home.” She pauses. “What about saying you’re on business to another planet, and you sent a message somehow, saying you’re not exactly sure how long you’ll be gone but that you will be back?”
Clark smiles, relief filling him. This is what it’s going to be like now—she’ll help him, and she’s much better than he ever was at thinking on her feet. He’ll to have to keep lying, but not to her. Perhaps he should feel bad that he forces her to lie, but relief is still more prominent.
“As long as you write it, everyone will believe it.”
“And you’ll give me a quote or two.”
“Anything you need, Lois.”
—
The article comes out, a Daily Planet exclusive that has Perry happy for about three seconds before he wonders what Lois and Clark have lined up next. Clark has shown up to the office for the first time since they admitted him to the hospital and mostly hangs back and lets Lois do the talking.
“You sure you’re okay, Kent?” Perry cocks his head slightly to the side.
Clark tries to not fidget under his scrutiny. “Sure, chief.”
“Mm-hm.”
A few hours later, they are both in Dr. Klein’s office at StarLabs. His assistants have done a series of tests on him, taking full advantage of being able to draw blood from him. Clark doesn’t like it, but it’s better than a year or so ago, when they exposed him to Kryptonite just to get blood samples from him.
They’re following his improving bloodwork closely. Clark hasn’t bothered to even attempt to understand all the medicine, but he’s definitely getting better.
And Dr. Klein is pretty sure that Superman’s powers will return at some point.
“They always have before, haven’t they?” Dr. Klein says, and Clark wishes he would sound more certain of himself.
Lois, who insisted on coming with him to the appointment, isn’t so quietly accepting. “That doesn’t sound very convincing. Are they going to come back or not?”
Dr. Klein takes off his glasses and polishes them. “Well, Miss Lane, this exposure—Superman has never had this kind of prolonged exposure to Kryptonite before, and he’s never been so ill from it. And it was in his body, not on the outside. So, we have very few data points—none, really—to compare this to…”
“Lois, if they come back, they come back.” Clark tries to sound calm, though he’s not. “If they don’t, we’ll figure it out.”
We.
It’s a relief that she’s there with him. What would he do if she wasn’t? Would he still be alive, or was it her presence that kept him going? He can’t say. Even amid the darkness, he felt her with him.
And she’s not angry. A few small barbs here and there, but no more than that.
So far, anyway.
“What?” Lois turns to glare at him. “So if they don’t come back, you’ll hang up that cape and take a job like a regular Joe?” She raises a challenging eyebrow at him.
“I didn’t mean that I’d—” Clark doesn’t get any further.
“Well, I’m sure someone will be really excited to work right next to you. Working with Superman. That must be a real dream, don’t you think? Except you won’t be Superman anymore.”
“I’m just going to go out and check on this… thing,” Dr. Klein mumbles, and hurriedly exits the room, casting nervous glances at Lois. Clark wishes he could do the same.
The door closes behind the doctor as Lois continues. Her hands are on her hips now and Clark can tell she’s getting angrier with every word, as though he opened the floodgates with his simple attempt at reassurance.
“So really, it’ll be like working with anybody. With nobody. Like working with Clark Kent.”
There it is, the fury he’s been expecting.
Even though he’s been waiting for it, it still hurts.
“Lois, I—”
“Don’t you ‘Lois’ me. You don’t get to do that. Not after everything. Not after—how could you not tell me? ‘Hey, Lois, by the way, when I’m not Clark Kent, I wear tights and fly around the world in five seconds.’”
She looks at him and he doesn’t know what to say.
She has no trouble finding words. “But no, let’s keep stupid, blind Lois Lane in the dark. I’m sure you were laughing at me. Leading me on as Clark and watching me moon over Superman—”
“Now wait a second,” Clark says, and he stands up because he can’t sit there and listen to her warp the truth. “Do you think it was fun, having you fawn all over my powers, and yet ignoring the real me? Do you really think I enjoyed that?”
“I did not fawn over your powers!” Lois protests. “I found your ideals, your morals, your work appealing—”
Clark stares at her. “Those are my ideals and my morals. Mine. Clark’s. Not Superman’s.”
“I didn’t know that, because you wouldn’t tell me—”
“I showed you every day what kind of man I am. I’ve been there for you when you were sad, when you were angry—”
“You’ve left every single time I tried to have a conversation with you!”
“Because someone needed my powers. Someone needed my help.”
“And what about me? What about what I need? What about telling me the truth?”
She’s beautiful when she’s angry.
“I wanted to tell you. Every single day, I wanted to tell you.” He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “I just didn’t want—”
“What didn’t you want? Don’t you trust me?”
“I didn’t want you looking at me like you’re looking at me right now.”
She stops for a second, as though he’s surprised her.
He fills the silence. “I trust you with everything, Lois. I couldn’t stand the thought of you hating me.”
She stares at him. There are red stains of fury on her cheeks, and she looks so alive, so perfect. If only she could look at him with a different expression. The seconds drag out, long and painful, until she whispers, “I don’t hate you.”
“You don’t?” The words escape him before he has the time to edit himself.
“I’m angry with you. I have a right to be angry, all things considered.”
He ducks his head. “Of course you do.”
“I just have trouble understanding it. You say you trust me. You say you wanted to tell me. You say you don’t want me looking at you ‘like this’—but the longer you waited… You must have known it’d be—”
“Worse? Harder? Like flying into space to crash into an asteroid? Yeah.” He gives her a small smile. “Though to be honest, any time after the first time we met, would have made you angry.”
She snorts, features softening. “Maybe.”
They stare at each other, standing in the middle of the small examination room at StarLabs. Clark hopes fleetingly that the surrounding walls are soundproof, otherwise they might have even bigger problems than Diana Stride trying to expose him.
“You still should have told me.”
“Yes.” He should have. He knows. He’s known it all along.
There are a lot of things he should tell her. Well, one, more specifically.
He almost died a couple of days ago. What if he hadn’t survived? What if he had died without telling her what she means to him? How much he loves her, how much he’s loved her since the first time he met her?
She’s looking at him, intelligent brown eyes scrutinizing him. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it. God, you must think I’m so stupid.”
Clark’s heart constricts in his chest, because if there’s one thing he has never, ever thought of her, it’s that she’s stupid. Reckless, crazy, tough as nails, exasperating—but never stupid.
“Never.” He dares to reach out to cup her cheek.
She shakes her head. “Then you’re a little dumb, too.”
“Not dumb, just in love.”
And though he’s sure his heart skips a beat, he refuses to even try to take it back.
She stares at him, opening her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.
“I don’t know if you’re ready to hear it. And I’ll—I’m not trying to force anything. All I know is that I almost died from Kryptonite poisoning, and if I’d died without telling you—I just—” He takes a breath. “I love you. I’ve loved you since the first time we met. And it’s okay if you don’t, but—I want you to know.”
And he waits. Eternities pass, seconds or hours or years. It’s out there now, all those things he’s kept inside for the better part of two years, words he once said and took back. He’s not taking them back this time. She knows everything now, and the world makes more sense that way. No more secrets.
“I—” she starts, barely audible. “I don’t know what to say.”
Something falls within him, even though he never expected her to simply reciprocate. Lois Lane doesn’t do simple.
“It’s all right, I—”
“You’re not a very good listener sometimes.” She raises an eyebrow at him, then her expression softens. “Clark, I—when you were sick, that was—I don’t know which was worse, when I thought Clyde killed you or watching you go through the agony of being poisoned, but—this isn’t friendship. Both times it was like—like someone ripped out a part of me, as though I could never be whole again.” She stares at his chest, at the glaring ‘S’. She seems to disappear into her memories until she pulls herself back and looks up at him. “I tried to tell you, after Bonnie and Clyde.”
“You did?” He searches his memory, but can’t remember anything of the sort.
“You fell asleep.” She smiles ruefully. “I poured my heart out and your response was a snore.”
His cheeks heat. She had been irritated with him, waking him up when they reached his apartment, and he hadn’t understood why.
“I’m sorry.” He wonders what would have happened if he hadn’t fallen asleep.
She shrugs, looks away. “Maybe it’s for the better. We can start like semi-normal people now. You could ask me on a date. And we’ll take it from there.”
And the same way his heart plummeted before, it now soars.
“How about tonight?” He wonders if it’s too much for her.
She smiles at him, though he sees a hint of fear behind her smile. “You’re not a very patient man, are you?”
“I’d wait a lifetime for you, but I’d rather not.”
It’s easier to be honest, he realizes. Not having to edit himself every time he opens his mouth, it’s much easier. He’s closer to her, more connected, as though a distance between them has been erased. He hopes she feels the same, that she’s not afraid of them or him.
“Okay.” Nervousness colors her voice.
“Okay?”
“Tonight. A date.”
“Really?”
“Yes. An actual date. And you won’t be running off, because you don’t have your powers, so I won’t have to get angry. And we’ll go to dinner in a nice place somewhere. And you’ll be wearing something elegant, but not too dark. Like a charcoal suit. And I’ll be wearing something—”
She’s babbling, and he again cups her cheek calmly. She doesn’t protest, instead falls silent.
“Lois, you could wear a potato sack and I still wouldn’t be looking at anybody else.”
She stares at him. “Well, if I wear a potato sack, everyone will look at me.”
“They’d be jealous that someone can make a potato sack look great.” Clark lets his hand drop. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”
“Eight.” She swallows visibly and nods. “For a date where you won’t leave even if I start talking about the tough subjects.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, right now, I’m as vulnerable as the next guy, and I don’t want to know what you’d do if I left.”
She flashes him a relieved grin at his attempt at lightening the mood. She looks around the room, this little doctor’s office where they’ve had one of their most intense conversations ever. It’s strange, discussing such big things in such a small, random place. But then, Lois found out his other secret when he was puking his guts out on the floor, so they’re not exactly doing this in the traditional way.
“Well then, shall we go, Mr. Nobody?” Lois asks. She smiles, and the words don’t hurt at all.
He nods and holds the door open for her. He walks down the corridor, his cape flying around his boots, and he realizes that they had this entire conversation with him in his Superman outfit. She called him Clark, and though he needs to remind her to not do that when he’s in his uniform, it still warms his heart. Somehow, she’s merged Clark and Superman into one and the same in the short time since she found out, and it’s reassuring—she’s not going after Superman now. And her admission that she’d confessed to having deeper feelings back after the Bonnie and Clyde debacle makes the warm sensation spread inside until he’s sporting a very un-Superman smile.
“You look happy,” Lois says.
“I am happy.” And isn’t that the understatement of the decade?
—
Comments are greatly appreciated.To be concluded.
