Work Text:
It started with a late night work session in the newsroom. It normally started that way, with Clark finishing up his most recent piece about some electrical fire that devastated a local business or a human interest piece on what Superman meant to the city, or any other fluff piece Perry would stick on him. He would finish it quickly, having one of the assistant editors triple check his grammar and his readability, if it was passable he could turn in. That normally left him the ability to clock out around 6:00 pm, 5:30 if he was lucky. He didn’t mind doing the easy things, he still got to write about the important things as much as anyone else on the floor, maybe it was just for the little guy, he didn’t mind that, he was the little guy himself, sometimes.
Jimmy would send him a few photos he would’ve taken of the bank robbery crime scene or the bakery grand opening and Clark would pick one for his piece, A5, almost his designated page at that point. He had gotten the front page a few months back with the whole Hammer of Boravia thing, he wasn’t that proud of that one given his semblance of defeat he tried to hide behind carefully crafted soundbites and misplaced quips. He was most proud of making the A1 with his piece about Mali, it was a human interest story that became the most important story of the issue, the entire office congratulating him, Ron told him to “write like that more often, Kent,” and Cat even told him she had teared up half-way through her weekly bathtub skimming of various articles the Planet had put out.
But regardless, the front page was not his goal, it never was. It was a nice, added bonus to be reminded that while journalism was becoming more of his side job day by day, it was sometimes nice to take a step back from all of the alien monsters and multi-dimensional imps and just be. Enjoy more normal things such as actually liking his job, and being good at his job.
The day the issue had printed, Perry had clapped him on the back and grumbled, “you’re giving Lane a run for her money,” in a hushed tone so no one could hear. Clark had brushed him aside, slightly laughing to himself at such an absurd notion. While he was proud to be doing something so important for not only Mali and his family but for the people of Metropolis, he could never compare himself to Lois. She was the best reporter he knew, he had ever met to be honest. And in his travels before beginning at the Planet and his assignments for Perry White, he had met a lot of journalists. She was one of a kind.
So it was no surprise when he found her now, clacking away at her keyboard, chewing on her fourth pen of the day, legal pad to her left and sugar rush coffee to her right. He looked at the clock on the wall, 7:45. He had wrapped up a while ago, sending off his article for one last round of eyes to see, his usual hard deadline had come and gone. She needed this to be perfect. He understood, to an extent, she always wanted her best work published, she didn’t half-ass anything, especially her writing, not so much her spelling.
He watched her change tabs, scanning over a legal document he had seen her click through at least twenty times in the last four hours. Another thing that had happened in the last four hours, she hadn’t left her desk. Not to use the bathroom, to eat, to drink something, not even to the copyroom, her second favorite place on the floor. He rolled in her direction in his office chair, hooking one leg on hers and turning her to face him. Clark watched as her eyes moved toward the screen even as her body was pulled away from it.
“Hey,” Clark said quietly, “almost done?” He didn’t want to sound impatient, he was not impatient, never with her. But it was date night, or was supposed to be at least. He had planned a little bit, nothing too special, just that they would order takeout from the nice French bistro down the street from her apartment, pick it up on the way from work and have a nice candlelit dinner on the rooftop of her building.
Okay, so maybe he had planned something special; he did consider himself a romantic, after all. It was fine, it would be fine, they didn’t close until 9:00, they had plenty of time, and if he flew there, even more so.
Lois hummed a reply, not breaking eye contact with the computer screen. Her blue light glasses he had suggested she start wearing ever since her migraines had gotten worse, slid down the bridge of her nose, slowly falling off her ears. She pushed them up, swiveling back toward her desk so that she was facing away from Clark.
“Just fifteen more minutes, I promise,” she muttered, taking the pen out of her mouth and jotting something down on her notepad in her barely legible chicken scratch. She clicked something with her other hand before taking a sip of her coffee. “God, that fucking sucks, dude,” she almost spat it back into the mug. She pressed the pen against her temple, thinking.
“Clark,” he perked up like a puppy at the mention of his name, as if this was the moment she would shut off the computer and leave with him. “Will you get me more coffee, please?” She moved her head slightly to the left, batting her eyelashes up at him.
Clark was standing now, looking down at her. His suit jacket was draped over his shoulder, and one of his hands in his pocket. He pondered the question, fiddling with his tie.
“Nope,” he popped the p. Lois’ smile faltered, her lips forming into a thin line. She set the mug back down, puzzled.
“No?” Lois was a bit confused. It wasn’t that she was offended that he didn’t take her request, she could get it herself if she wanted to, maybe she would, but it was the way his eyebrows were knit together, an expression of worry sweeping across his features.
He took a step toward her, looming over her in a way she was used to but still found frustrating sometimes. Dating the most powerful being on the planet had many perks, him being so much larger than her had its pros and cons.
He picked up the mug, setting it over on his desk and turning back around to face her. “That’s your fifth cup in the last few hours,” he admonished, sweeping a loose curl away from his forehead. She rolled her eyes, so that’s what this was about.
“Clark, I can hold my caffeine, or whatever you were thinking, I’m fine,” she didn’t make eye contact, clicking through articles and purchase reports. He saw the tension in her shoulders, hunched back, curved spine. He reached his hand up, lightly cupping her chin and gently pulling it towards him.
“Lois,” his voice low and smooth, “you haven’t eaten today.” It was Friday night, so while 7:45 on a normal weekday wasn’t too uncommon of a clock-out time for some of the bullpen, more people were gone by 5:00 today, but not Lois.
Lois stared forward, flitting her eyes across the room, worried someone would see them. She felt her stomach lurch at his words, grumbling this way and feeling nauseous the other way. She wasn’t hungry, at least that’s what she thought. He tilted her head upwards, forcing eye contact. He gave her a pointed look through his glasses, a tinge of annoyance in his gaze. Lois didn’t see him like this very often, irritable, challenging, focused. Not words that would usually describe Clark Kent.
She moved her hand to meet his, moving it into her hair, lessening the strain on her neck. “I’ve eaten today,” she smiled meekly, a poor excuse. Clark rolled his eyes, fully, all the way around, 360 degrees.
“Nope,” there it was again, the annoyance. She was confused now, she didn’t think it was that big of a deal they were still here, it wasn’t even 8:00 yet. This article was coming together, she was so close to being done, if he would just let her work. She pulled away from his touch, sliding closer in the direction of the monitor, pulling up the legal document again. “Fine,” Clark grumbled under his breath, walking over to his desk, packing up his messenger bag. He took off his tie, meticulously folding it into a tight ball and jamming it in the side pocket. He began shutting down his laptop, placing it in the computer pocket and zipping it shut. He pulled one arm into his suit jacket, fiddling with the buttons on the cuffs, slinging his bag across his shoulder.
Lois glanced over at him, noticing him preparing to leave. Her heart broke a little, hoping he would still be waiting for her. What was his deal? she thought. She’d eat when she got home, she was fine, splitting headache today. She just had to finish this page.
She scanned over the document again, then back to her article, then to the blueprints of the building the developers were interested in. A big merger between companies that was a cover-up for corruption, her typical Friday night woes, as it were. She heard Clark click his tongue and then footsteps, falling away from her.
She frowned, chancing a glance over her shoulder, the frame of her boyfriend nowhere in view. She looked back at the screen, the blue light blinding in the dimly lit newsroom, eyes straining to concentrate. Another migraine, she could push through.
She tried to distract herself from the sinking feeling that he had actually gone home alone, without her. Looking over her work one last time, she attached the document and her supporting photos into an email and sent it off to layout, they could deal with it in the early hours of the morning. She checked her watch, struggling to read the tiny dots on the analog face, the hands blending together. She felt a familiar presence over her.
Clark had returned, looking flustered, hair tousled left and right, glasses askew. His jacket was fully on now, messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He had a small cup in his hand, she recognized it from the break room. He pushed it toward her lips, spinning her toward him with his other arm.
“Drink,” he said, more of a statement than a suggestion. She looked down at the cup, filled almost to the brim with the crisp, cool liquid from the water cooler. She parted her lips, but let him do the work of tilting the cup toward her mouth. They held steady eye contact, one could even mistake it as foreplay. Clark was not amused.
When she swallowed the last drop, he pulled it away, carefully crumpling up the paper and depositing it in the little trash can by her desk. She watched him, noticing the flexing of his fingers and the heaviness in his steps, annoyance. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a granola bar.
“Eat this,” he handed it to her. She eyed him, skeptically. “Please,” his voice barely audible. She took the offering, opening up the plastic and forcing a bite. It was a chewy, chocolate chip peanut butter something that tasted like oatmeal on her tongue. She tried not to show her disgust, swallowing each bite slowly, taking a sip of her rotten coffee in between.
Clark watched her, making sure she ate the entire bar before taking her trash and throwing it away.
“I finished it,” she rubbed her temple, “the Morgan Edge article, it’s done, off to layout, copy, whatever,” she trailed off, pulling down the blue light glasses and sticking them in her desk drawer.
Clark nodded, grabbing her laptop and shoving it haphazardly into her leather backpack. He picked it up and put it over his available shoulder. Lois clicked the mouse across the monitor screen, closing her tabs and shutting down the device. She cleared away her notepads and her sticky notes, shuffling them into a manilla folder and neatly, placing it on her desk organizer at the back of her little alcove. Clark picked up the light jacket that was hanging from the back of her chair, loosening out the arms so she could quickly put it on.
Lois triple checked her workspace before standing up. She must’ve done it too quickly as blood rushed away from her skull. She felt dizzy, the lack of nutrients not helping, she swayed to the left. Clark rushed forward catching her side before she collapsed, steadying her against his hip.
“Lois, oh gosh, you are in no place to be standing right now,” he held onto her waist, helping her sit back down. Okay, so maybe she hadn’t eaten anything today. “You are not walking home,” he sounded serious.
Lois blew a raspberry, “I’m fine, I’ll make it there in one piece,” she sometimes found his worrying a little frustrating, bordering on nonsensical. Clark’s expression didn’t falter. He put her coat over his shoulder and walked behind her. He began rubbing circles into her back, loosening knots and relieving cricks, gentle and practiced. Lois leaned into his touch, humming to herself and closing her eyes. He slowly moved his hands upwards to her neck, he pulled at the updo in her hair, carefully pulling at the hair tie until her hair fell in waves down her back, disrupting the tension where her skull met her spine.
He walked around the other side of her chair, looking down. “You cannot walk, it’s seven blocks,” he argued, taking off his glasses as if to signal his decision. She looked around the bullpen. Empty.
“No, we are not flying,” she shuffled her feet, taking her foot out of one of her shoes and messaging the arch. He crossed his arms.
“I won’t drop you or your stuff, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She scoffed at that, running her free hand through her now loose hair. She looked up at him, he looked like all of the weight he was carrying was making him sag, despite his strength.
“A cab then, or the subway,” she knew he wouldn’t buy that, there was no subway station closer to her apartment than there was to the Planet. He sighed, hiking the bags further up his arms as they were starting to fall. He shook his head, a smile growing on his face.
“You are very difficult to wrangle, Ms. Lane,” he began to smirk, Lois didn’t like where this was going. Before she knew it, they were standing on the roof of the Daily Planet. Well, he was standing. She was in his arms, he had changed into the Superman suit without her noticing, god knows how fast, and was carrying all of their stuff and her. Her coat was on her shoulders. “Now can we go, please?” he asked in that tone of his that she could never say no to. She nodded, but not before she felt the Earth disappear below them for a split second and he was setting her down gingerly on her balcony. She fiddled for her balcony keys out of her bag, him steadying her while she did that, her stomach howled at the movement. She finally found them, jamming them into the lock and turning it.
The door swung open, Clark guided her into the living room, helping her down onto the couch. She tried to sit up but her head was still feeling dizzy.
“I’ll be right back,” Clark said, setting down their work bags and bulleting off to who knows where, Lois blinked.
About five minutes later he came through the front door, dressed in civies with two brown paper bags with big red and yellow stickers on them. Lois’ mouth watered from across the room, man she was hungry.
Clark set the takeout on the coffee table, pulling out various wrapped up food and containers, handing her an extra large cup, filled with diet coke, light ice. He sat down next to her, a slight distance away.
“I had this whole thing planned out we were gonna go to Amélie’s around the corner and eat up on the roof, but your article was taking too long and I didn’t want to pressure you to finish, you know I’m not like that, but you hadn’t eaten anything all day and I just wanted to make sure you–” she cut him off with a kiss to his cheek.
“That was very kind of you Smallville and while I appreciate your concern, I don’t like being pampered.” She took a big swig of her soda, feeling the sugar run down her throat in liquid form, already heightening her mood. “But Amélie’s, how romantic, that was a good idea, maybe on Saturday?” Lois smiled with the straw between her teeth.
Clark scratched the back of his neck nervously, heart beating faster than he thought possible. Lois’ was slow, quickening with her rise in blood sugar, not anything to be too worried about.
“Yeah, Saturday sounds nice,” he felt heat rise to his cheeks, “I think we should really talk about what happened.” He didn’t really know how to broach the subject.
“You know, Big Belly Burger was really the right call, you know with this whole Morgan Edge thing, I needed a pick me up, even with Luthor at Belle Reave these billionaires never stop causing problems,” she said in a semi-garbled voice, munching on her fries. She bit down too hard and her head pounded. She pressed the back of her fist to her forehead, squinting her eyes shut. Clark rested a reassuring hand on the small of her back.
“Lois, this is serious,” he mumbled, his other hand tapping his fingers against his knee. She turned toward him, blue eyes focused on him, dead-on. He gulped, he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea or think he thought she couldn’t take care of herself. “You’ve been killing yourself all week. You’ve barely been eating, you’re dehydrated,” he began listing offenses, “you never peeled away from your research, not once, not even for the donuts I brought in on Tuesday.”
She averted her gaze, leaning back against the couch cushions. “Mmhmm,” she sighed.
“You need to come up for air every once in a while, Lo.” His voice was soft. His words weren’t harsh, they were gentle. That’s when she broke.
She turned to face away from him, burying her head in a throw pillow. It smelled like day-old dry shampoo and coffee grounds. She was running on very little sleep. She felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes.
Clark moved his hand to her shoulder, turning him back toward him. “Lois, it’s okay, we can talk about it,” he said. She looked up at him, a small sadness in her eyes and she collapsed. Her head went into his chest and his arms immediately went around her, like they belonged there. He gently padded through her hair, rubbing circles into her back. He let her sob against him, his dress shirt muffling her cries and drying her tears. Her body was shaking with every breath, her shoulders tense.
“I’ve just been on deadline after deadline, I thought I could handle it but it’s becoming so much,” she spoke so softly that it broke his heart. “Perry needs this, and Metro needs that, ever since that Luthor piece it’s like I can’t stop working, I won’t stop working, Journalism doesn’t rest and all that.” She chuckled with a hint of a sniffle. Clark pulled her head away, looking into her eyes.
“And Lois, I get that, I do,” he paused, taking a deep breath. “But that doesn’t mean neglecting your health and safety,” he picked up his cup of water and handed it to her. She took a big gulp before setting it back down, wiping her lips. “I should’ve helped you more, with everything,” he gestured to nothing in particular.
She shook her head, “Clark, it’s not your job to burden yourself with my problems, you already have enough on your plate as it is.”
“Lois, don’t,” he put his hand to her cheek, “you are not a burden, your work is not a problem. You are brilliant and the world deserves to know that, but sometimes that means slowing down, taking care of yourself.” He thumbed away a stray tear.
It was not like Lois Lane to slow down, take a second, breathe. “It’s been worse, this isn’t the worst of me, or my habits…” she mumbled, fiddling with her hangs. She was fully in his lap now, little space between them.
“Then I’ll help you, Lo,” he kissed her temple. “We’ll slow down together, I’ve been overworking myself too, in other facets of my life, you and I can figure this out.” She gave him a small smile, he kissed her forehead, and then her cheek, and then her jaw, and then her lips. They lingered there for a moment, just the two of them in their own world, the noises of the city being drowned out by their synced heart beats.
“I love you, and I want to help you,” he whispered, eyelids half shut. “But only if you let me.” Lois nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck. It would be okay, she just needed to come up for air, as he had said.
Inhale.
Exhale.