For Toomi, whose requests were:
*Lois gets a flat tire
*Lois yells at Superman
*Fluff/Snow
*Lois doesn't (initially) know who Superman is
*No bad guys
*No cooking disasters
Merry Christmas, and I hope you enjoy!
***********
Lois turned on the hazard lights and managed to pull off to the shoulder. Great, just great. She climbed out of the jeep and, sure enough, her already-fantastic day was continuing its streak of magical wonderfulness: the tire was flat. Such joy. She opened the trunk, letting loose every curse word she knew and inventing a few on the fly as she searched for a jack. The traffic zoomed along past her without pause.
"Lois?"
A new hybridization of swears mashed together in her mouth as she banged her head on the lid of the trunk.
"Sorry," the familiar voice apologized. "Are you…okay?"
Lois took a deep breath and forced herself to turn and look the superhero in the eyes, as though this wasn't their first conversation since…that night. "I'm fine," she lied.
He looked as awkward as she felt. His gaze shifted to the car. "Flat tire?"
Lois nodded. The traffic beside her magically slowed down, all previous urgency disappearing as drivers noted the caped hero assisting her and sought to get a good look. "Yeah," she managed to say.
"Need some help?"
"I'm fine," she bit out. "I can perfectly handle changing a tire, thank you very much! All I need is the jack…"
Without a word, he slid a hand under the front end of the car and lifted it up.
"What are you doing?!" Lois snapped.
Superman had the gall to look confused. "Um, helping?"
"Why?!" she demanded.
He stared at her for a moment, then set the car down again. "Lois….I do care about you. In spite of everything, it would be nice if we could still be friends."
She snorted. "Friends! Sure, why not! Just what I need! More friends!"
"Lois…" he began softly.
Lois cut him off with a wave. "Don't! Just…don't! I don't need your pity, okay?!" She glared. "So you don't feel that way about me. Fine! I'm Lois Lane: I don't need you, or Clark, or Claude, or *anyone* to love me back! Do you think I just sit around moping about it all day?! NO! I've got other things to do, believe it or not! A whole life, in fact! So BUTT OUT!"
Superman looked down at the finger pointing under his nose, then met her eyes. "I only…" he began, then paused. A confused frown knitted his forehead. "Did you say Clark?"
…Did she? Lois took a step back, trying not to look as flustered as she suddenly felt. She resumed rooting through the trunk, as though a jack might have materialized during her brief tirade. Maybe there was one, and she'd simply missed it…
"Lois?"
She may have muttered something about nosey Kryptonians and her own big mouth, but if she did, he gave no indication of having heard it. Instead, he just…watched her. Waiting.
She sighed. "He lied about it," Lois grumbled. "Clark just sees me as a friend; he doesn't really want me either. He just wanted to keep me away from Luthor."
Superman's expression was one of pure shock.
"What, you're surprised that I keep batting zeroes?" Lois gave a mirthless laugh. "Please. It's not like I have a line of admirers waiting outside my door."
She sighed and resumed her fruitless search for the jack. "The only man who ever wanted a relationship with me turned out to be the worst criminal since Al Capone. What's that say about me?"
The car suddenly lifted up again. Lois couldn't even muster any anger about it this time; she just huffed and pulled out the spare tire. It was only a dummy, but at least it would get her back on the road. "Should I even bother with the wrench?" she wondered.
Superman responded by removing the hubcap with his free hand and reaching with his fingers for the first lugnut.
"You know, it's a shame things couldn't work out," Lois noted as the lugnut landed in the hubcap with a clang. "You're pretty handy to have around."
Superman paused for a moment before silently working on the next nut.
"Just forget I said anything," she sighed.
"I'm sorry about the robe comment."
Lois blinked while the second nut landed in the hubcap. "What?"
"The lead-lined robe," he explained, moving his fingers to the third one. "I would never do that to you. I'm sorry for implying I would."
She set the spare down on the ground and folded her arms. "Why did you say it?"
Clang. He shifted his attention to the final lugnut. "...I wanted to make you hate me."
"You…what?!"
The superhero looked uncomfortable as he dropped the final lugnut and carefully removed the half-deflated tire from the axle. "I knew why you wanted to talk to me," he finally said, "and I was…angry."
Lois fought down the lump that appeared in her throat. "You really hate the idea of being with me *that much*?!"
"NO!" he said quickly, nearly losing his grip on the car as he turned to face her. "It's nothing like that, Lois! It's…it's complicated."
"Complicated?" she echoed, now more confused than ever. "So complicated that you couldn't just let me down gently? You had to rip my heart out of my chest and step on it?!"
"WELL THAT'S WHAT YOU DID TO—" He froze, seeming to suddenly remember where he was, and his mouth snapped shut. "...to Clark," he muttered.
For a while, Lois just stared at him. "Clark doesn't feel that way about me," she repeated.
Superman actually snorted. "And I have a bridge to sell you in the Sahara." He stared down at the empty axle he still held up. "You're right about one thing, Lois: he lied."
She turned away as the weight of the events of that night began to fully sink in for the first time. Clark really was in love with her, and Superman had known it. "You must think I'm awful," she whispered. "No wonder you were so angry."
"You're not awful," he replied, his voice so low that she could barely hear it over the passing traffic.
Lois swallowed down the increasingly stubborn lump and picked up the dummy tire. "Right, because a not-awful person would turn down a great guy and then ask him to send the man she's been drooling over in front of him for the past year." She slid the dummy onto the axle.
"We all make mistakes," he said, holding out his hand for one of the lugnuts.
She fished one out of the hubcap for him. "Sure. Mine just wind up costing people their jobs and millions in property damage, and then get splattered on the front page."
His eyes snapped to hers. "You're not responsible for Luthor's actions."
"No, I guess not." She picked up another lugnut. "But can you honestly say that things wouldn't have gone differently if I hadn't had my head so far up my—oh!" The nut slipped from her hand and rolled into a patch of high grass. It took her a few seconds to find it again. "Anyway," she continued, placing it safely in his hand, "Clark tried to warn me, and I didn't listen."
The second nut went in, then the third. "I could have warned you," Superman murmured, "but I didn't. I'm just as responsible."
The confession startled a gasp out of her. "You…knew?!"
He nodded, his expression grim. "We had some conversations where he all but admitted to things that were happening. It was nothing I could have taken to the police, but…" He sighed. "I still could have told you."
She handed him the final lugnut. "So, why didn't you?!"
"I was hoping you would listen to Clark," he admitted, slotting the last nut into place and giving each one a few tightening twists. "A big part of friendship is trusting someone, or at least giving them the benefit of the doubt when they think something is wrong. It's even more important in love…" He held out his hand one more time.
"Trust isn't my strong point," she admitted, giving him the hubcap.
"I know." Superman fixed the hubcap into place, then gently lowered her car back to the ground. "There. Just remember the fifty/fifty rule…"
Lois nodded. "I know. Luckily, we're less than fifty miles from my apartment, and…well, I guess I can slow down for a while."
A smile flicked across his face. "Be careful, okay?"
She nodded again. "Thank you." After a moment's hesitation, she flung herself at him, wrapping him in a hug. "I…I mean it. Thank you."
He briefly hugged her back before stepping away. "Any time, Lois."
He waited until she was back in her car before lifting off into the sky. The traffic picked up speed almost immediately, but Lois still managed to wedge herself into it with minimal honking. Then she began the slow ride home.
The dummy tire wasn't a perfect fix. As things were, she couldn't go very far. But as long as she took her time, she could at least get to where she needed to be.
