She’d decided it was high time for a good, old-fashioned stake-out.
Now she just had to wait a week.
Lois had never been very good at waiting, and just the thought was making her twitchy. But she did have a few other research projects to tackle in the meantime. Plus, a slow week seemed like the perfect time to try and talk Clark into a dinner out – in a foreign country, perhaps, to lend them anonymity, and and in a dimly lit restaurant, perhaps, to lend them atmosphere. Maybe then they could finally pick up on that conversation they’d started all those weeks ago about their page 8 story.
She grinned, her mind skipping back to a recent memory of sailing smoothly through the skies, cool night air on her face, strong arms holding her close.
No, she decided, a slow week could definitely have its perks!*****
Chapter 3
The next Tuesday morning found Lois drafting a piece on Metropolis’ languishing children’s hospital, now one year bereft of Luthor Corp’s supportive funding. After finishing that gloomy story, she was eager to leave the office and get some air. She’d popped into Perry’s office to let her editor know that she was headed off to cover yet another chapter in her ongoing Luthor Corp saga, and bounced out again while pretending not to notice his inquiring look.
Perry had been a lot easier on her since, well… since Al Capone and his friends had wreaked havoc on her life. At one point, she’d thought Perry might be aiming to cut her off on the Luthor Corp follow-ups, but all of a sudden, he’d backed off. She was sure that her happiness at having Clark back was written all over her, and maybe it was evident enough that her surly, surrogate work dad worried less.
Or maybe her stories just sold enough papers that the old newshound had decided she could deal with her heartbreak how she saw fit.
Either way, he’d been giving her assessing looks these days whenever she headed out on any Luthor-connected story, and she’d started escaping his probing gaze as quickly as she could to ensure he wouldn’t follow up his measuring look with a question or warning. Perry was one of the few people on earth she had qualms about lying to, but protecting Clark came first, and she was pretty sure that meant a lie to her boss if pressed. So she made it a point to stay a step ahead of the questions behind his eyes.
Putting the emotional minefield of the Planet behind her, she headed out to prep for her stake-out.
On the way home, she picked up a copy of the Star and a bottle of bottom-shelf liquor. Stopping off at her apartment, she pulled her oversized, shabby coat out of her closet. She scrubbed her lipstick off using the sleeve, marred her mascara with the torn lapel, and then liberally splashed the cheap vodka over the front panels of the coat. Tipping the bottle into her mouth, she swished it around and spit it into her kitchen sink with a sour expression. She wiped her mouth with the coat sleeve and dabbed a little more behind her ears before unrepentantly emptying the rest down her kitchen drain.
Lacing her feet into her oldest boots, she pulled a knit cap low on her eyebrows, donned her torn, soiled coat and stuffed the Star under her arm. She checked herself in the mirror.
Her reflection looked like someone she’d cross the street to avoid.
Perfect.
Suppressing a grin, she left the apartment.
About thirty minutes later, she was weaving her way down a mostly empty street across town. Making her way around the back of the building, she let herself stumble into a pair of metal trash cans just past it.
Surreptitiously, she dropped a few pages of the Star to the ground between them, then sat down heavily on top of them. She tried to move loosely, her head falling back to the brick wall behind her. She let her mouth fall open and began her watch of the vacant Luxe Soap building across from her with lidded eyes.
She looked, and smelled, like a drunk that had passed out in the trash.
Master of disguise Lois Lane, she thought ruefully. Hopefully, though, the ruse would be enough to keep people from looking too closely at her.
An hour passed.
The neighborhood was quiet.
She resisted the urge to scratch her nose. After all, in her supposed alcoholic stupor, it would look odd if she didn’t seem to be sleeping the sleep of the dead.
So she sat motionless, her whole body rebelling against the enforced stillness.
It was moments like these when she particularly missed her partner. He’d made the Harrington stake-out at the Lexor a fun one, she remembered, occupying their down time with games and teasing her into a consistent good mood. He’d been a comforting, convivial guide in Smallville, making her feel at home in a strange town as they chased down Trask. Even long overnights of sorting through endless research at the Planet became more tolerable with her partner at her side.
She and Clark made a good team.
Well, she amended, now she and
Superman made a good team.
She frowned. That wasn’t quite right, either, though. Superman was still working as a partner in some aspects of her investigations, but…
It wasn’t the same.
He was helpful in a pinch, and he certainly sped up the boring bits. But she missed the man that could openly walk through the world with her, who would sit in a hotel room with the windows open and stop into restaurants to pick up take-out during an all-nighter.
She nearly sighed out loud. Now he had her thinking of his multiple identities as separate people!
They were still a team, whether or not he could – or
would – disguise himself as a mere mortal these days. And they could make an even better team if he wouldn’t be so infuriatingly stubborn about taking on the mantle of a mild-mannered man.
Shoving those thoughts aside until her target was back in range, she let her mind soar off on a daydream about flying and tried to ignore the itch on her nose, which was inching down to her cheek.
Hours passed.
A school nearby must have eventually let out, because uniformed kids with brightly colored backpacks began to trickle down the alley in small groups. Near the end of the noisy and ebullient stream, two pre-teen boys saw her and stopped to confer.
She assessed them through still-lidded eyes and decided that they looked altogether too interested in the drunk passed out in the trash. When she’d pieced this outfit together, she hadn’t counted on the curiosity and daring of middle-school boys.
A moment later, they were hesitatingly winding their way over to her, all stops and starts, giggling as they pushed each other forward.
It would be easy enough to scare them off, but she didn’t want to attract that much attention. And she really didn’t want disgruntled parents sending a squad car down the alley to investigate the drunk that was harassing school children.
That would tank her stake-out for sure!
She sat up with a start and twisted to duck her face behind the trash bin next to her, making loud gagging noises. She heard the boys react and tried to wretch convincingly, arching her back and breathing heavily.
After a moment the boys “Eeeeewwwww!” had faded.
She leaned back against the brick to see that the kids had gone.
Success!She tipped her head up and rolled her shoulders to try and stretch while she had the chance, before she had to play out cold again.
Her eye caught a flicker of red hovering in the sky high beyond the building.
Conscious of the possibility of being watched from someone on the ground, she put her sleeve across her mouth and said out loud, “I’m fine.”
The red remained in place.
“Really,” she assured, arm still draped across her face. "There were a couple of school kids. I was faking it to try to help them lose interest in me. Ok?”
She watched as the small red flutter moved up and then down. It looked like a nod.
“Just checking up on me?”
She thought that the red dot in the sky was actually behaving himself today. In fact, he was so far off she was surprised she’d spotted him. He was clearly giving her a wide berth for her stake-out.
The red began to get smaller, if possible.
“You don’t have to rush off,” she said quickly. The red stabilized. “Can you tell if anyone is in the building?”
He came just a little closer and flew back and forth along the horizon for a beat.
She took that as a ‘no.’
“Maybe it’s good news that there’s no one home, yet. It means I haven’t missed them.”
He didn’t seem to have a response for that. She knew he’d rather be on this stake-out in her place. Too bad that bright red spandex was so noticeable.
With a brief look at the trash can that was hiding her, she said, “I don’t have much peripheral vision. Anyone lurking around this alley or the main street up there?” She nodded toward the front of the building.
She watched as the red moved back and forth parallel to the horizon line again.
“Good!” she replied. “If nobody’s watching me, they won’t realize I’m watching them. At this rate, though, we won’t have time for dinner tonight. Rain check?”
She frowned behind her coat sleeve. Too many of their dinner plans had met this fate lately, between rescues and investigations, and Lois was starting to feel a certain discord about living under the ever-urgent deadlines of their jobs. Things had been a whole lot easier when Clark had been a reporter at the Planet with her, and not a superhero full-time.
But the red dot executed a loop-the-loop in the sky. Apparently he was looking forward to dinner with her, regardless of when it happened.
“If nobody shows up tonight, I wonder if we should give this building another deep look anyway. Maybe we’re missing something.”
The red dot lurched closer.
“I didn’t mean it was dangerous,” she forestalled him. “But maybe it’s just a transfer point. Or maybe it’s automated or got a secret door or something.”
The red dot came closer still.
“Hold it, Fly-boy. I said ‘later.’ Let’s not spook them if they’ve got eyes on the place that we can’t see. Meet me back here around 11?”
Her answer was another enthusiastic loop.
Maybe he was always looking forward to seeing her. It was an endearing thought.
“Good,” she said with a slow smile, “It’s a date.”
She grinned at the complicated barrel roll that answered her before he winked out of sight. It left her with a feeling of warm anticipation. She just wished that the warm feeling could hang around a little longer. She’d noticed that she’d started to feel strangely bereft when he wasn’t nearby. They needed to have a more serious talk about how much time they were spending together.
...and how much time they weren't, she thought longingly, missing him already.
Letting her arm drop away from her face, she pushed her thoughts aside and arranged some of the trashed pages of the Star over her legs. Spring might have come to Metropolis, but it was still chilly enough against her torn pants and thin coat. Focusing back on the Luxe Soap building, she shifted into a more comfortable position and let her simple daydream about flying elevate itself into another Clark-focused fantasy.
Day bled into dusk.
A pick-up truck drove by her directly, and she quickly committed the license plate to memory, but it ambled on down the alley and didn’t return. Otherwise, her little alley was quiet.
Night descended quietly, blanketing Lois and the warehouse she watched.
