1. Smallville, 2003

Clark wipes the side of her mouth with one hand, taste of Lana’s strawberry chapstick still lingering, and then wipes her hands on her pants. She’s kneeling down in the dirt by the bleachers trying to catch her breath and Lana – Lana is running back to the field with Whitney. Clark shouldn’t watch, but she does anyway, rubbing her hands over and over on her thick blue jeans while Lana cheerleading shirt bouncing as she runs, ponytail flipping back and forth. 

When she reaches Whitney, he puts his hands over her waist and picks her up and spins her around, Lana’s bright smile lighting up the entire world around them while Clark sits in the shadows, out of sight. Lana’s hands come to Whitney’s head and she presses her forehead down into his. He breathes and her smile drifts from something wild to something slow, contented, hands tracing their way down Whitney’s pecs as he lowers her down. The slow, inexorable slide of Lana against his body. 

Her toes touch the earth; her arms go around his neck; and Whitney dips Lana down into a deep kiss. She’s not expecting it, and almost slips, and then laughs, deeply, until Whitney kisses her again, and again, and again. 

Clark shivers. 

“Alright, lovebirds,” Sully claps his hands down on Lana and Whitney. “Have you seen Clark? I need her article for The Torch by the end of the day.” Sully, despite making Clark promise over and over and over again that she wouldn’t let him get frosted tips again, has clearly gotten frosted tips again. 

“Sorry, Sully,” Lana says. “I haven’t seen her.” Clark kind of feels like she wants to throw up. She rubs her hands more quickly on her pants. 

“Maybe try the girl’s locker room,” Whitney snickers and Lana hits him – playfully. 

“Stop it,” she says. “Clark’s said she’s not a lesbian.” 

Whitney rolls his eyes. “Come on, Lana. No one wears that much flannel if they’re not a dyke.” 

“You’re just mad she could probably out lift you,” Sully says, which – Clark has been trying not to advertise that, thank you very much, thanks a lot Sully. “And dyke is actually a derogatory slur,” Sully adds, which is even worse. 

Charley Sullivan, or Sully, is Editor in Chief of the Torch (also known as the No One Else Wanted It Position) and the only gay person Clark knows at Smallville high. He moved to Smallville from Metropolis in middle school and was determined not to let anyone forget it. He’s also probably the only gay person total, known or unknown, Clark thinks, but Sully’s got a whole Wall of Queer dedicated to Smallville’s strange happenings and even stranger bedroom happenings. 

And every week he published one of them, one of his potentially closeted Smallville High homos that Sully thinks should come out of the closet and be free to be. It’s called the They’re (Not) Here, They’re (Not) Queer (Yet) bulletin. 

Whitney’s been featured seventeen times. Clark asked if Sully really thought he was gay, and Sully told Clark that obviously he did but Whitney only ever ended up making it on the list after Sully caught him calling Clark a dyke in PE. After which Sully wrote his very first plea for Whitney to “stop sublimating homoerotic desire into physical violence on the field and cruelty off of it and release the chains that bind him to Planet Heterosexual.” 

Clark’s never been featured on Sully’s They’re (Not) Here, They’re (Not) Queer (Yet) bulletin, even though most of the school probably thought she should’ve been. Sully asked, once, in middle school, and Clark shook her head and that’s when Sully came out to Clark and ever since then Sully’d been – nice. For Sully. 

Like keeping her out of the They’re Here, They’re (Not) Queer (Yet) bulletin and writing up articles on the girls who called her a dyke and not even giving Clark a hard time about the stupid flannels which Clark knows, okay, Clark knows! She knows how they look! But she’s strong and tall and she has larger muscles than half the guys in the school without even trying just from her stupid alien biology (or “farm chores” to Sully) and it’s hard to hide all that freakiness under a short skirt and crop top. 

And she likes the flannels, anyway. 

Unconsciously, she pulls the flannel she’s wearing today tighter around herself and wonders why she doesn’t just get up. She could be up at The Torch in seconds. 

Instead, she twirls her finger in the dirt and uses her a-lot-better-than-average vision to watch Whitney grab Lana’s waist, hand just smaller than Clark’s covering half of Lana’s ribcage, resting under her breast, pulling Lana back on her tip toes just to keep kissing him. 

“I love you,” Lana says, breathlessly, when Whitney lets her pull away and Clark stands up abruptly. She should – 

She should go. She stumbles backwards and without really looking starts to run and it just takes a burst of superspeed to get her around the corner into The Torch room where she smacks straight into someone else. 

“Oh my god, I’m so – Lois?” Clark stops. 

Sully’s older cousin Lois, sitting on the floor and covered in some dark wet substance, is glaring up at Clark. “You’re lucky that coffee was cold,” she says, “or I’d be suing you so hard right now.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Clark says automatically and offers Lois a hand up. 

“Just as much an oaf as ever, huh, Smallville?” Clark frowns. 

“You know, Sully lives here too.” 

“Sully is from Metropolis,” Lois says, like that means something different. “And where is that asshole anyway?” 

“Lois!” Sully pops up from the backroom. “Oh, and you found Clark, great.” 

“Yeah, and she spilled your coffee all down my shirt.” 

“Now hang on,” Clark starts. “You spilled the coffee.” 

“Because you ran straight into me! What, don’t know your own strength, Farmgirl? Not that it’s a bad thing,” Lois says and then Lois starts to look over Clark speculatively which makes Clark want to yelp and cover up. 

“Lois, stop being mean to her. Clark isn’t gay.” 

Lois smirks. 

Clark's hands feel damp. “Yeah,” she says, resisting  the impulse to rub them against her jeans. “And, um,” she pulls off her flannel. “Here.” She tosses it to Lois. 

Lois catches it and holds it away from her body like it's mildly flammable. “What am I supposed to do with this?” 

Clark smirks. “It’s a shirt. Coming from the big wide world and everything, I’d assume you know what to do with it.” 

“Oh, come on, now,” Lois says, when it clicks. 

“You need a shirt, I’ve got an extra,” Clark points out. 

“Besides, it’s an improvement on that thing,” Sully says, in an entirely unnecessary interruption. Sully doesn’t like when Lois wears swoop tops. 

“It’s flannel,” Lois complains. “I’m going to look like a hick.” 

“I like flannel,” Clark objects. She does. “Besides, it’s dry. And I really am sorry,” she admits. “I didn’t mean to knock you over.” 

Lois sighs. “I suppose I don’t really have any other choice,” she says, pulling it on over her stained tee. “But this is it. The first, last and only time I’ll ever ask you to borrow a shirt, Smallville.”

2. Smallville, 2006

When Clark gets to the farm – 5:15 in the morning, which is not bad considering she woke up at 5:10 in her Metropolis dorm room – to start the weekend’s chores, she’s surprised to find Lois already there. 

It’s actually easier, not that Clark likes to think about it or to admit it, to get the farm work done now that dad is gone. Dad – Clark thinks he had some trouble letting a girl, even one as strong as Clark, do all the heavy lifting around the farm. It’d taken a couple of visits to the ER for Mom to start putting her foot down. 

It’s one of those things Clark started learning young, then kept right on learning for the rest of her life. How to use her powers without making other people feel small. 

Lois is currently trying to climb in through the kitchen window, but she’s having trouble opening it wide enough to fit her legs and her head at the same time. Clark watches her struggle for a minute before she speaks. 

“Morning, Lois. Nice to see you.” 

It’s satisfying to see how she loses balance in the middle of trying to climb in the kitchen window and falls into their shrubbery. “Smallville!” Lois hisses, scrambling out of the bushes but staying oddly hunched over. “What are you doing here? I didn’t hear your car drive up!” 

“I spent the night,” Clark improvises, and then sort of takes in Lois’ whole situation. She’s got a high pair of heels, some tights with a few tears in them, a miniskirt, and a bright red bra on. Which is why she’s hunched over. Covering her breasts. Okay. Clark’s head goes a little fuzzy. 

Lois’ hands go up in surrender, then immediately back down. To her breasts. Clark’s eyes follow Lois' hands like some sort of heat seeking missile. “Okay,” Lois says, “You got me. I wasn’t home last night.” 

Clark’s probably supposed to say something next. She stares really hard at the window next to Lois instead. 

“Well?” Lois snaps her fingers in Clark’s face. “What’re you waiting for, Smallville? Strip.” 

“Um,” certain she misheard, “What?” 

“I need your shirt, Farmgirl.” 

Right. Okay. Clark could – Clark could do that. She lifts her arms, then she turns around, then she – 

“Okay, okay, stop,” Lois says. “This is painful to watch. How about this? I’ll turn around, you shuck off a layer or five, pass me one, and then we can both turn back around, dignity intact?” 

Clark nods so hard she’s surprised it doesn’t break something. And then she proceeds to do just that. Half naked by the barn, she pauses. “Which layer?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Lois says, sounding impatient. So Clark throws her the tank, which she immediately regrets when they’re dressed and Lois is standing right in front of her, Clark’s oversized dark red undershirt falling down nearly to her nipples. “Good?” she asks. 

“Um,” Clark says and bites down on her tongue hard. “Why don’t you also take my jacket?” 

Lois shivers in the cold morning. “If you’re insisting,” she says, ungraciously, and then pulls it off Clark’s shoulders herself. 

“You are so annoying,” Clark tells her, even though Lois has to already know. 

“Ah, I missed you too,” Lois says. 

Clark gives her a mocking smile. “Ha, ha, Lois,” she says. Clark’s tank top hangs really, really, really low on Lois. Clark forces herself to blink, something that humans do and is normal. Lois is her – friend is maybe too strong, but Sully’s cousin with great breasts (that she’s never noticed!) – and she cares about what happens to her. “Are you okay? What happened?” 

“Okay, calm down Chivalry Brigade. I’m fine. This is just …” Lois bites her lip. “I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want some coffee?” 

“Depends,” Clark says. “Are you going to take the front door this time?” 

“Funny,” Lois says. 

They take the front door this time. 

Lois makes the coffee. It’s just about the only thing Lois can make. Clark’s a little surprised when she hands her one, but it’s nice. She takes it, the warmth seeping through, and follows Lois back outside. Lois takes a seat on the stairs and leans her head against the wood banister. 

Clark drops down next to her. Carefully, so it doesn’t creak and break under her weight. Clark doesn’t really get cold, biophysically, but she can still feel when she lets herself. Which she does now. Breathing in the crisp morning, the early rays of the sun just peaking through. Wood, damp from the rain last night, settling into Clark’s jeans. Animals waking up. Farms can be louder at dawn than at the height of the sun’s power. 

“So?” Clark asks, and takes a sip. She tries not to let herself feel the creeping warmth of Lois’ thigh against her own, or the puffs of air from Lois’ mouth. 

Lois sighs. “I was with Ollie,” she admits. 

“Seriously, Lois?” 

“Look,” Lois says, “I know you guys don’t get along, but I like her. She’s confident. She knows who she is, and she isn’t afraid of it. She’s not afraid to say it.” 

Clark drops her gaze. The back of her neck burns. Whatever, she thinks. And maybe her response is a little snappish. “If Ollie’s so wonderful, what’re you doing here?”  

To her surprise, Lois falters. Clark’s eyes slip sideways. Is Lois really blushing? Clark almost starts sympathetically blushing too, just out of shock. “Okay, so maybe Ollie’s not always honest.” She clarifies: “One of the other women she’s seeing, let's say, interrupted us. They weren’t dating! But the woman thought they were and as soon as she started screeching, I thought it was time to skedadle on out of there but wouldn’t you know, I couldn’t find my shirt.” 

“You couldn’t find your shirt.” 

“I couldn’t find my shirt!” Lois throws her hands up in the air. 

“And you didn’t want to spend, I don’t know, an extra twenty or thirty seconds looking for it before leaving?” 

“Well,” Lois says, “she started crying.” 

Clark snorts. “Crying defeated the great Lois Lane?” 

“I really don’t know what to do when people cry,” Lois tells them. “Everytime I think, dear God, this can’t be up to me. They can’t be looking to me for help. They get so emotional. And it’s so wet. You know, tears, snot. All that.” Lois shakes her head. “No thank you.”  

“So you ran out of Ollie’s bedroom half naked because you can’t deal with negative emotions and now you’re here.” 

Lois blinks at him. “Hang on,” she says. Clark looks innocently back at her from over the coffee cup. “I don’t run away from negative emotions.” 

“Okay,” Clark says. 

“I beat a healthy retreat,” Lois says, “and then I regroup. So I can charge them.” 

“Okay,” Clark agrees. 

“I’m not running away from anything,” she says. 

“Lois,” Clark says, “I know this may come as a foreign concept to you, but I’m actually agreeing with you.” 

“Do you really think I’m running away from my feelings?” Lois asks. 

Clark rolls her eyes. “I don’t know, Lo, I was teasing.” 

“Because The General didn’t teach me to run away from my feelings. He just buried them in work and constantly moved around to escape … them,” Lois says. “Oh my God. This is the worst thing you’ve ever told me, Smallville.” 

“That you’re human?” Clark asks. “And not the demon spawn from hell you like to pretend to be? 

“That I’m anything like my father,” Lois says and gives a cartoonishly large shudder. 

Clark lets out a full laugh then, smiling down into her coffee. It’s starting to cool, but Clark heats it back up easily. Then she turns, the sudden, sharp thought that maybe Lois has seen and pointing in horror, running to grab the pitchforks and summon the town mob. 

But Lois is just looking at her own cup of coffee. “Okay,” she says, “I hear you. Ollie’s not the most stable choice. And maybe that says something about me. But hey. At least the sex is really good,” and Clark chokes on her coffee. “Jesus,” Lois says, pounding her back as Clark coughs loudly. “It’s still like this, huh?” 

Clark doesn’t really want to know what Lois means. “Wrong pipe,” she says and Lois lets her. 

Lois is being pretty nice to her today. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me,” Lois says, and Clark knows she’s going to keep seeing Ollie. She’s not good enough for you, Clark wants to scream. She’s not good enough for you and she sucks and you shouldn’t date her and she doesn’t deserve even a second of your time! 

Unbidden, Clark thinks: I’d treat you so much better. If I were dating you. 

Not that Clark would. Date Lois. Just that – she wouldn’t do it like this. If she was. 

She opens her mouth. 

Lois beats her to the punch. “Not just this. But everything. Your family. They really took me in when they didn’t have to. You don’t know what it means to have somewhere like here to return to. Somewhere that just stays exactly the same, exactly where it is. And I can always come back. Or, at least, I hope I can.” 

Clark tries to look her in the eye, but Lois avoids her gaze. “Of course you can, Lois.” 

“It’s easy to say that now Clark,” Lois tells her cup of coffee. “But I’m pretty practiced in messing up a good thing. I’ve been kicked out of more schools than you can count. I’ve probably had more addresses than you have shirts.” Clark snorts, but doesn’t disagree. “I really, really don’t want to mess this up,” Lois tells Clark. 

Clark clenches her hand into a tight ball on the wood step behind them. “You won’t, Lois.” 

Lois sniffs, a little suspiciously, and turns out to face the farm. 

“Okay,” she says. Declares. Then she leans back against the solid wall of muscle that Clark calls an arm and repeats it again, softer. “Okay.” 

They finish drinking their coffees in a comfortable silence as the sun finishes rising over the farm.

2½.  Metropolis, 2008

Clark’s gone out in the costume a few times. It’s starting to feel maybe a bit less ridiculous, though not entirely. 

Mostly, she just can’t believe the whole disguise is working so well. She keeps colored contacts in her suit and she pulls her normally loose, curly hair into two tight dutch braids that end at her shoulders. She’d played around with some other ideas – wigs, makeup – but it had to be something she had on her at all times and something she could do quickly, dozens of times a day. 

And braids were easy. 

Also, convenient. For bringing people out of fires or even fighting with some of the more murderous types of meteor mutants. 

And it kinda got Mom off her back about her hair when she wasn’t in uniform. Growing up, Mom had always been trying to help her tame or straighten or style her hair out but even she had to recognize that if Superwoman had straight, tight, flattened hair, Clark Kent shouldn’t. So Clark got to keep the curls and mostly let it get as defined or frizzy as it did naturally and Mom got cute photos of Superwoman posing in front of children’s hospitals looking neat. 

Win-win. 

She shoots up higher into the clouds, and casts her hearing out over the city. It’s overcast today, and it’s casting an unusually grim pallor over Metropolis. A couple fighting, a scared kid but being soothed, some dogs fighting in a park, and there it was:  

“Get off me,” a woman’s voice. 

“No way, lady, you're coming with us.” 

A thud, a smack. “Fuck, stop struggling. Boss said no killing but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it hurt. He’s not going to care if she comes back a little roughed up.” 

“No,” Clark says, dropping in, hands on her hips, “but I am.” 

“Fuck,” the first goon says, and then they scatter. 

It takes Clark less than a second to scoop them all up and into a pile, bending a piece of scrap metal around them. She looks at it again. Would that hold? Was that – should she try something better? 

“I had it handled,” Lois says. Lois! 

Clark whirls around. “What?” 

“I mean, thanks for the save and all, but no thanks,” Lois tells Superwoman. Clark gapes at her. 

“But – I saved you,” she says. 

“I was working a lead,” Lois says, “and I had it handled.” 

“What lead?” Clark asks, automatically. 

Lois smirks at her. “Why? Trying to scoop me? Don’t tell me Superwoman’s got a day job at the Planet.” 

“Um,” Clark says. 

Then Lois frowns. She takes a step forward. “Actually, that’s a good question. What do you do when you’re not saving people from disasters and hurricanes and their own overconfidence about their drug dealing human experimentation article investigations?” 

“I thought you said you had it handled.” Clark takes a step back. 

Lois keeps advancing. “Where’d you come from? Why now?” 

“I think I hear something, actually,” Clark says, pointing behind her. 

“Come on,” Lois says. “I’ve just thought of the perfect way you can make it up to me.” She leans in close. “Ruining my article, that is.” 

Clark feels pinned in place. “How?” she asks, almost against her will. 

“One interview,” she says. Clark tilts her head to the side. Lois explains: “Look, people have real questions. They’re grateful, yeah, but they’re a little freaked out. I think it would help if you had someone to tell everyone why you’re here and what you want.” 

“And you’ll probably get a front page byline?” Clark asks. 

“Aw,” Lois says. “It’s like you know me already.” 

Clark thinks about it. It’s a really, really, really, bad idea. “Okay,” she says. 

In response, Clark watches the biggest smile she’s ever seen light up Lois’ entire face. Even if this is the biggest mistake she’s ever made, she’s already pretty sure it’s worth it.

“I really did hear something, though,” Clark says (fire: twelve blocks down). “Where can I meet you?” 

Lois thinks. “Okay,” she says. “Daily Planet Building. It’s the big one, middle of Metropolis, big globe-y thing on top. You know it?” Clark hides her amusement and nods. Superwoman speaks formally, stands up straight, and is very serious and calm. “Meet me there. Five o’clock.” 

“I will be there,” Clark promises. “Miss … ?” 

“Lane.” Lois sticks her hand out. “Lois Lane.” 

In the end, Clark is only fifteen minutes late for her meeting with Lois. It’s already started to rain, which has the side effect of plastering Clark’s hair to her skull worse than hairspray. And some of the curls are threatening to escape. She’s not even sure if Lois will be there, weather like this. 

She lands gently. “Miss Lane?” she calls. 

“Here!” Waving crazily, head under a newspaper, Lois pops up. 

“You’re wet,” Clark says. 

“We’ll make a journalist out of you yet,” Lois says. 

“What?” Clark says. 

Lois sighs. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m wet. I’m being bitchy.” 

“The planet is hollow,” Clark says and Lois, for obvious reasons, just stares at her. “I mean, the big one,” Clark says, pointing at the globe on top of the building behind them. “If you want, I could bring us inside there. For the interview?” Quietly, she cursed herself. Superwoman made suggestions, she didn’t ask questions. She was firm, but not commanding. And she definitely didn’t get nervous. 

“Seriously? Wow, that would be awesome. But how are we going to – oh, oh I see! You can just pick me up that easily, huh,” Lois says faintly, then clutches tighter. Clark’s gut twists. As soon as they’re through the hole at the bottom of the sculpture of the globe, Clark places Lois down as gently as she can. She watches their feet dangle over the city. 

Lois shivers. 

Without thinking, Clark unclips her own cape. “Here,” she says, and offers it to Lois. “It’s Kryptonian material. Good protection from the elements.” 

“Kryptonian?” Lois asks and Clark nods. 

“It’s where I’m from,” she says. “A planet far, far, away from here. But it’s gone now. It’s been destroyed. And I’m the only survivor.” She’s been thinking about this. If Clark Kent can never be honest about who she is, maybe parts of Superwoman can. Maybe she can serve as an example. People love Superwoman, right now. Maybe if they love Superwoman, and Superwoman is completely different from them, an alien refugee from a different galaxy, they can love other human people, a little closer to home. Fleeing disasters a little less total, a little less complete than total planetary annihilation. Maybe Superwoman can be a role model for how to treat people different from us with kindness. Help people be more understanding of each other.  

And if this makes people hate her, then it still doesn’t matter. Clark will keep doing what she’s doing. Helping however she can. 

That’s what she says, when Lois asks her why she’s doing this. That she has the power to help, so she does. Anyone would make the same choice. 

Lois, who has stopped writing things down and is looking up at her with an undefinable look in her eyes. “You know, I actually believe you believe that,” Lois says. “And I know I shouldn’t, but you make me want to believe it too.” This simple statement makes something hot burn in Clark’s chest. It feels like she’s unable to be there, with Lois looking at her like that, for even another second. 

“I think the rain’s stopped,” she says, standing up. 

“I still have plenty of questions,” Lois tells her, indignantly. “Like, okay, when exactly did you come to earth? And where do you live? What do you eat? Do you eat –” 

“Save them for the next interview,” Clark says, and wraps her arms around Lois. She expects her to cling to Clark – most people do, when she flies them. If they can think about it. Instead, Lois barely reacts. As if she trusts Clark completely to carry her back down to the planet. 

Clark sets them both down. “Duty calls, Miss Lane,” she says and goes to leap into the sky. 

“Wait!” Lois calls. Then she pulls the cape off her back. “Don’t forget this.” 

Superwoman doesn’t blush, so Clark wills herself not to. She’s not entirely sure if it works. “Thank you,” she tells Lois, and clips the cape on. “My mom helped me make it.” Then she thinks about it and narrows her eyes. “That’s off the record,” she adds, belatedly. 

“You’re supposed to say that before you answer, not after,” Lois says, triumphantly. But then she softens, and adds, “but I won’t. Not if you don’t want me to. I meant what I said. I believe in you, Superwoman.”

And Clark takes off. 

3. Metropolis, 2009

“He’s just such a jerk,” Lois is saying as she walks in the door and Clark looks up from her computer and sort of reflexively pulls her jacket tighter around herself. 

“I’m sorry,” she tells Lois, who drops the keys with a loud clank into their WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY KEYS dish by the door. Lois had gotten it for Clark, who didn’t drive in Metropolis and definitely didn’t swear, as a joke about Clark’s chronic tardiness. But it wasn’t like Clark could exactly say “I’ve decided to start wearing spandex and flying around saving people under the alter-ego you’ve christened Superwoman”. So she put up with the teasing and kept the bowl and now basically only Lois used it and Clark still showed up everywhere five minutes too late.

“Ugh!” Lois puts her hand on her hair. “Seriously! Why do men suck so much? I mean, I know, blah, blah, difficulties of being an inferior species but –” 

“Lois,” Clark stops her, laughing. “It can’t have been that bad.” 

“Oh Smallville,” Lois fixes her with a stare. “It was.” She throws her pea green coat over the chair in the living room next, and then she moves, leaving a trail of clothes behind her (shoes in the hallway, purse on the kitchen counter, earrings on the dresser inside her room, bra on the floor, shirt on the bed) all the way to her room. She keeps talking to Clark as she goes and Clark never, ever looks over at Lois, no matter how well she can imagine it in her mind. 

Besides, if Lois is going on about men as a different species, then whatever she was upset about can’t have been that serious. Lois on a bad date with a guy was a million times better than Lois in one of her ‘on’ phases with Ollie. 

Clark closes her eyes and sees Lois’ long thin back, arms stretching up and around to expertly unclip her bra. The careless way she tosses herself and her things into the oncoming path of life. Clark feels her ears burn. “The next one’ll be better,” she tells Lois, even though it probably won’t. 

“Hey,” Lois calls out from her room. Clark resolutely fixes her gaze forward. “We still have wine, right?” 

“Um,” Clark looks around. No. They don’t. But they go through this every few nights; surely Lois must have realized they don’t have an unlimited supply of wine. 

“Seriously?” There’s something hard undercutting Lois’ tone. “I just took off my underwear, Clark. I don’t want to put it back on.” 

Clark’s mouth feels dry. “I can go,” she stammers. 

Lois’ tone turns on a dime, instantly lighter. “Great!” she says. “I’m going to take a shower,” and Clark swallows thickly. 

This is good. This is good. 

Showering means Clark has time to get to the wine, which means Clark doesn’t really need to do the whole Superwoman thing, but a patrol is a patrol and if she’s going to be taking care of Lois tonight then it’s nice – it would be nice to know that everything was okay. In Metropolis. 

And also, Lois liked to – sometimes after a bad date, if Lois didn’t go home with the guy – she’d – in the shower. Sometimes. And Clark liked to respect her privacy because it wasn’t Lois’ fault she was shacked up, or not that really, but some other word, living, living with an alien freak like Clark who rendered concepts like “privacy” and “normalcy” nothing more than a passing delusion. Especially because Lois could get kind of loud. Even for a human. When she was taking care of herself in the shower. 

So Clark should go. Not superfast, but normal, and then she should patrol only for violent crime. 

And not listen to the apartment. 

So she does. 

Clark’s in control of herself. She forces her hearing back out into the city and lets her vision expand as she zips through the darkening city sky. On a whim, she does a loop de loop at City Hall before dropping down to the liquor store. She’d helped the owners with a fire that trapped their dog and youngest kid a few years back and they kinda helped her pick out wines for Lois ever since. Clark usually insisted on paying, and they’d insist she didn’t and they’d go back and forth with it until finally letting Clark pay what she assumed had to be a much, much lower price than the wine was worth. 

Normally, Clark would feel bad about it, but. Lois. And Clark thought Lois deserved to have nice wine. 

This time, she leaves with a Hundred Acre Cabernet Sauvignon Morgan's Way Vineyard that she gets them to accept $23 for. On her way back, she saves one cat, puts out a small housefire, swoops in to snatch a mugger's gun, prevents thirteen car crashes and saves an elderly woman in cardiac distress alone in her apartment. 

Clark speeds through a quick change on the roof and then drops to the ground to walk up to the seventh floor with the wine. 

“Hey, Lois. I’m back,” she calls softly. The water turns off. Steam billows out of the bathroom as Lois exits. 

“Thanks,” Lois says, and smiles at her. Usually, Lois passes through the air around her, like she has something to do and somewhere to be, everything just decoration around her on her path to forge the future, and she can’t be bothered to look at this useless debris. But every once in a while, she’ll stop and really look around. Like she does now. Clark doesn’t think anyone in the world, even her parents, have ever seen her like Lois does. When she’s like this. 

It’s everything Clark can do to keep a hold of the bottle. Then Lois turns around and heads for her room and Clark gets to become first hand familiar with how low the Kents housewarming gift towel goes on Lois’ ass. 

Clark’s usually better at that, more – more respectful and she hasn’t noticed before, which is good, but she’s noticing now which – 

Doesn’t mean anything, Clark tells herself firmly, and goes to the kitchen. Clark’s straight, Lois is a good friend, it’s just confusing sometimes living together. End of. Corkscrew, she thinks. Where did we put the corkscrew? 

Over the din of the city, it’s like Clark’s senses track Lois. She can hear the flutter of the towel dropping roughly off Lois’ dripping body, the slide of her closet door, the rattle of boxes and laundry as Lois tries to find something comfortable to change into. 

Screw the corkscrew. Clark melts the seal off the top of the bottle then bangs the bottom up and down against her hand, hard, until the pressure pops the cork out enough for Clark to grab, pull and remove. She pours a glass for Lois, and, after a second of hesitation, grabs a coke for herself. 

She moves everything to the couch, just in time for Lois to come out, wet hair up in a turban, in a pair of slate shorts and a white tank. Clark starts, badly. Wine splashes over her fists. 

“That’s not what you normally wear,” she says, stupidly. “Not that it matters! You should wear what you want. But what happened to your pajamas?” 

“Laundry day,” Lois says and her eyes light up when she catches the glass in Clark’s hand. “Ah, come to mama,” she says, pulling it to her chest. She settles into the couch, glass in one hand and bottle in the other and pats the cushion next to her. 

As if she ever had any other choice, Clark sits down. Lois leans up against her and Clark carefully doesn’t move or breathe. She wiggles, getting comfortable, and takes a long sip. 

“You hate red wine,” she accuses. 

Clark’s honestly just counting her blessings that Lois showered this time. She doesn’t always. Clark can always tell when she’s coming home after a night out with Ollie, and not just because of how Lois smirks at Clark and frowns at her phone. “I’m not drinking,” Clark says, which is pretty similar to what she usually says. Lois looks at her coke critically. 

“I don’t think I’m being a corrupting enough influence, Smallville,” she tells her. “I’m pretty sure you're supposed to go to the big city with your older gay friends and come back a wild child, not more square than before you left.” 

Clark rolls her eyes. “It’s just a coke, Lois.” 

“Hm,” Lois says, and gives her another critical look before settling in against Clark’s arm. 

Clark carefully forces herself to relax her arm. “So what happened?” she asks. 

“One of those alpha dog things,” Lois says. She tucks her head in deeper. Clark can feel a few strands of wet hair through her t-shirt, shifting with her head. “Tried to pay, tried to insist he was going to pay, tried to move my chair out from under me, laughed when I mentioned my martial arts background.” 

Clark didn’t understand why Lois goes out with these guys, or why she went out with – anyone she went out with. But there’s nothing she can say. Lois doesn’t want to hear it from her. “Jeez,” she says instead and imagines reaching a big hand out to cover Lois’, and rub. Soothing her. 

In real life, Clark just tightens her grip on her jeans. They’re going to tear soon. If she keeps doing this. 

She’ll have to ask mom to patch them. 

“Look,” Lois is saying, “I can appreciate a guy with confidence. I have a lot of confidence. But there’s a point where it’s just this overcompensating bullshit. I should go back to dating women,” Lois says, which makes Clark's heart leap and then plummet. Lois’ taste in women has not historically been an improvement on her taste in men.  

“You’ll find the right person,” Clark says, but she can tell it comes out flat. Lois knows she’s thinking about Ollie. 

“Maybe I’ll find a nice girl this time,” Lois says and Clark snorts. “You know, someone who, like, rescues kittens from trees and helps grandmas cross the street. But she’s still gotta be able to kick my ass.” Then she sits up a bit, wet hair pulling up, up, and off Clark’s GO CROWS sweater. “But enough about me. What about you?”  

Clark freezes. She swallows. Convulsively, she clenches and unclenches her hand on her jeans. “What about me?” she asks. 

Lois gestures around the apartment. “Whats going on in your life, dumbass?” Lois asks. “I never see you with anybody. I know it’s been hard since your dad died, but it’s been three years. You gotta get back on the horse, man.” 

“Um,” Clark says, and she’s not sure why Lois has never asked before or why Clark never thought she would, but she doesn’t know what to say. “I don’t know,” she says. “I haven’t met the right guy.” 

“What’s your type?” Lois asks. “Didn’t you date that psycho, Alex, in high school?” 

“Alex wasn’t a psycho,” Clark says, quietly. 

“Sorry,” Lois says, and hiccups. “Sorry,” she repeats, more seriously. “I forgot he died.” 

“It’s okay,” Clark tells her and really does mean it. It’s actually one of the things she loves most about Lois. The way she can take her blunt edges and shove them against the world. Perry says Lois doesn’t know when to stop pushing and Clark doesn’t know when to start, and that’s why they’re a perfect team, and Clark kind of agrees. Except that she wishes she could learn a bit from Lois, how to seek out the truth in herself and others and name it. 

“So,” Lois says. “Come on. At least tell me it isn’t Lombard,” she says.

“No! Jesus, Lois, what’s wrong with you?” 

“Alright, alright,” Lois laughs. “So, who?” 

Clark’s eyes feel hot, tight. She blinks a few times. “Someone who doesn’t think I’m a total freak,” she says, and Lois’ eyes soften. It’s hard to find a way to say what she really wants which is: someone who makes her feel normal. Someone who isn’t scared of her. And because Clark can be so scared for someone with so many stupid powers, maybe someone who isn’t such a fucking coward. That can be brave for Clark. 

“Clark,” Lois starts, and Clark knows this speech by, like, heart now. Any guy would be lucky to and blah blah blah. 

“Jimmy,” Clark blurts out, quickly. To stop the lecture if anything else. 

Lois makes a face. “Jimmy?” 

“What’s wrong with Jimmy?” Clark asks and Jesus, now she sounds defensive. And she doesn’t even really like the guy! 

“Nothing,” Lois says. “I mean – nothing. Just not the type I thought you’d go for.” 

But that just makes Clark feel more on edge. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing!” Lois insists. “He’s just kind of a pushover,” she says. “And he’s so …” she stops. 

“What?” Clark asks. 

“Boring,” Lois says, finally. 

“I’m pretty boring,” Clark says. 

Lois lifts her head off Clark’s bicep to answer. “No,” she says, looking her in the eyes. “You’re not.” 

Clark’s breath catches in her throat. She swallows and then swallows again. She doesn’t know what to say. But sometimes, with Lois, no response can be the best response. If you fail to respond to something for long enough, she might just get distracted by a different, more pretty topic. 

This time, though, Lois doesn’t say anything. 

She stares back at Clark for what feels like an eternity. Her hand squeezes Clark’s thigh and she leans in, blinks, and puts her head back on Clark’s bicep. 

She tilts her head back and takes another long drink of wine. 

Clark swallows one more time, and then starts breathing again. Perry’s wrong, Clark thinks distantly. She knows he’s wrong because Lois always stops for Clark. She always stops and Clark wishes she wouldn’t. She wishes Lois would just push and shove and force her way deep into Clark’s self and bring out whatever monstrous things she found inside into the light. She needed Lois to pull them out because Clark didn’t think she ever could and she was going to die with them stuck in there, inside her. 

Once, Clark had wanted Lex to do the same thing. But Lex – Clark could never be sure what she’d do with the pieces of Clark she got out. And then Lex started on the government contracts to fight extraterrestrial threats and Clark felt like she was choking on the loss. Clark wondered, still wondered, if she should tell Lex her secrets anyway, and let Lex stand in judgement of her. 

Maybe it would be what she deserved. 

Lois pours herself another glass of wine. As she does, she goes back to the date. Listening to Lois talk, it’s like someone a few rooms away has cracked a door, and the faint light and sounds and smells of a party is drifting into Clark’s darkened cell. 

Clark takes another breath. Intentional this time. Slow. 

It’s become a ritual for them, in the year since graduation.  Clark listens, Lois drinks, and at the end of the day, they go back to their rooms and Lois sleeps and Clark does crazy loop-di-loops around Metropolis and tries to avoid interfering in anything she might have to touch people because she can’t trust what her strength will come out as if she tries to use it. And then the next weekend Lois goes out again with the exact same type of shitty guy or girl. 

It feels different tonight. Clark thinks maybe she’ll stay in. She looks at Lois, starting to grow tired and thinks – maybe she could stroke her hair. Bring her hand down by her back and stroke her hair and make her feel better. 

Lois shivers. 

Clark, before she can think about it, is lifting her arms up and pulling off her sweater. “Here,” she hands it to Lois. “I’m getting hot.” 

Clark can control her physiological urges, so she doesn’t shiver when Lois leans into her to grab the sweater. She pulls it over herself and looks, immediately, ridiculous. She’s dwarfed in Clark’s massive hoodie. But she doesn’t really seem to mind. She just sighs, and pulls herself closer to Clark, curling around her and what remains of the bottle of red and Clark has to focus really hard on the ground and the earth and staying still and staying put and not floating off of it instead of how she can smell the shower Lois just had in the air and see the clothes she’s wrapped around in and she thinks she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand why Lois does this and she doesn’t understand why she talks to Clark about it, of all people. 

Clark doesn’t know what possessed her to give Lois the hoodie, but without it on, she has no additional layer between her skin and Lois’ face. 

She can feel it: Lois’ warm breath against her bare skin. 

It’s a little wet, Lois’ mouth. 

Clark lets Lois breath against her and feels sick to her stomach. She casts her hearing out just far enough to hear a cry for help two towns over. Clark scoops Lois up. “It’s bad for your back to sleep on the couch,” she says. 

“You’d know,” Lois mutters, sleepily. And then, slightly more alert: “And – wait, are you picking me up?” 

“Despite what you want to think,” Clark tells Lois, reluctantly amused, “you’re not as heavy as a barrel of hey.” 

“This is kind of hot,” Lois says. “You should do this to the guys.” 

“Guys don’t like being picked up,” Clark says. 

“Not the kind you like, that’s for sure,” Lois says. 

Clark sighs. “Goodnight, Lois,” she says, and drops her onto her bed. 

Clark drops Lois on her bed. “What, " Lois says, “no good night kiss?” 

Clark’s jeans finally tear this time, when she wipes her hand across the seam half a second too quickly. 

“Goodnight Lois,” she repeats, more pointedly, and then hits the lights as quickly as she can.

Like always, Clark cleans up the living room the slow way – the normal way – and tries to remember to breathe evenly and regularly. Lois isn’t very messy and Clark isn’t an anal retentive, but on Saturday nights like these, everything about their apartment seems filthy, and Clark wants to get on her hands and knees and scrub the dirt off. 

She doesn’t do that. 

She folds the blanket on the couch and straightens Lois’ shoes by the door and puts the wine, bottle and glass away in its proper place. And then she takes a shower. 

Clark is very quick in the shower. 

And then, Clark goes to her room and lies on top of her bed. In the drawer right next to her bed is Clark’s vibrator that she hasn’t used one single time since Lois forced it in her hands at a college STD fair, and isn’t even sure it works. 

Alone in her bed, Clark shivers. 

It’s good Superwoman doesn’t need much sleep. 

4. Smallville, 2010 

“Clark,” Lex says, stepping up to the coffee shop. She’s wearing sunglasses and a deep black ensemble with some weird velvet thing on the lapels, head unadorned. Clark remembers when she first met Lex. Lex back then had spent most of her time selecting, styling and wearing long wigs – especially when her father was visiting and especially when she first moved to Smallville. She wore them less and less as time went on, and now wore them almost never which – Clark actually liked. A lot. Clark remembers asking Lex why she stopped wearing wigs, somewhere in her junior year of high school, and Lex just saying, they itched. 

At the time, and even now, Clark’s jealous of that freedom. Changing something so completely and so instantaneously to make yourself more comfortable. Lex’s choice, action, life.

“Hey,” Clark says, and she doesn’t wave. 

It’s been a long time since the days that the sight of Lex were enough to make Clark feel free. 

Instead, she feels exhausted. Looking at Lex and who she is and thinking about her friend, and who she was. Lex, so determined to prove herself more than anyone wagered on. The moral cost of Lex clawing her way to the top of the LuthorCorps’ corporate hierarchy. 

Maybe Lex is right, and it needed to be done. Maybe it’s better this way. Clark doesn’t know. Lex doesn’t really talk to Clark much anymore. 

It’s Clark’s fault, she knows. Girls are supposed to share secrets at sleepovers, and braid hair. They weren’t supposed to watch Lex under thick eyelashes, or listen to Lex tell long, dirty stories of her exploits (“girl talk”) at boarding school, or sit legs over legs while watching movies alone on Lex’s home theater. 

They probably didn’t usually involve sharing a bed. Lex would say something about how they shouldn’t, with all the space in the mansion, and Clark would say it’s fine and she likes it better with Lex anyway. And then Lex would be on her side next to Clark, looking at her, and Clark would close her eyes and feel Lex’s gaze on her all night long.

Not that Clark got invited to many sleepovers. But she was pretty sure her nights at Lex’s mansion didn’t count. 

And she was pretty sure, from the pinched look on her mom’s face, that she was right about that. But all Mom ever said to Clark was to be careful what the neighbors said. 

“What’d you want to ask me about?” Clark asks. 

Lex raises an eyebrow delicately. “Nothing you’d want to answer,” she says. “But I did want to introduce you to my friend. Say hello Simone.” 

A blond woman with a short bob and a green necklace turned around. “Hey, cutie,” Simone says, low and flirtatious, and Clark goes a little red around the ears. “Can I take you out some time?” 

“Ah, no,” Clark says, unable to stop her eyes from darting over nervously to Lex. “I’m not – I’m not,” she looks over at Lex again. “I’m sorry. I’m not like that.” 

Simone touches her necklace. “Please?” she asks and it's like everything that twists Clark up inside is gone. Clark would love to take her out! 

Clark beams. “Yes,” she says. “Of course.” 

Lex touches Simone’s arm. “Easy,” she tells Simone, but her voice, Clark can recognize, is tense. Why’s that? 

Simone pushes Lex’s hand off. 

“Clark, you’re my girlfriend now,” Simon says, touching the pendant. “Isn’t that nice?” 

Clark thinks it is nice. She says so. 

“This is not what we talked about,” Lex says in an undertone no normal human girl would be able to hear. 

“And as my girlfriend,” Simone says over Lex, “you’d want to get rid of any ex-girlfriends I have lying around, right?” 

Clark feels worried. “I wouldn’t have to hurt them would I?” she asks. 

“Okay, very nice,” Lex is saying, keeping her voice calm and annoyed – her bad bitch CEO voice, Clark knows. But Lex is backing up. Discretely, but steadily moving away from Clark and Lex and reaching for her phone. “You’ve made your point.” 

Simone turned to grin at Lex. “You love me, Clark. You’d kill for me.” 

Clark’s concerns evaporated. She doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore. She loves Simone. She’d kill for her. “Right,” Clark agrees. And then she smiles as sweetly as she can at Simone, to try and show her how much Clark loves her and how nice this is, to trust her so completely. How Clark feels so safe and warm in Simone’s commands. 

“Kill Lex,” Simone says. 

“Okey-dokey,” Clark says, though at this point, Lex has turned and is moving – quickly – towards her car. She gets about half way down the alley before Clark catches up with her. 

“Look,” Lex says. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“I don’t think that’s something you have to worry about,” Clark says and draws back a hand to punch Lex. 

“Clark, Clark, you’re being hypnotized.” Clark pauses, thinking about it. Is she? “You don’t really want to do this.” Then, directed at Simone: “At least not in front of all these people.” 

Clark starts to put Lex down. Lex’s her friend, even if it’s been complicated lately and Clark doesn’t – Clark can’t – 

“Control freak to the last, Lex,” Simone says. “But okay. Clark, come.” Clark bounds over to her. “We can kill her later.” 

Clark frowns. “But …” 

Simone kisses her. Her hands come up under Clark’s jaw as she pulls her head tight to Simone’s lips. It makes Clark’s stomach hurt, and between her legs kind of burns, but it’s nothing like with Lana, when Clark dreamed of holding her hand and kissing her fingers and maybe lying with her in a field and they’d have food probably and maybe Lana would talk to her in her soft voice and they could lean into each other and Clark didn’t think much beyond that, or she didn’t try to, but it’d be nice maybe to be able to swing Lana up like Whitney did or hold her like he did and Clark would feel her hands start to itch until she stopped and sat on them, waiting, listening, being good. 

Kissing Simone wasn’t like that. 

It’s easy. Simone shoves her up against the wall and says, “you like that?” and Clark does, she really does. And Simone tells Clark not to worry and so Clark doesn’t worry and just feels the rough graining of the wall pushing into her skin, the hot, wet coffee stained breath from Simone mouth pressing sharply through Clark. 

She gasps when Simone’s hand finds its way to Clark’s breast and throws her head back when Simone pushes between Clark’s legs, which have slid open, inviting, and turns her head – 

“Clark?” 

Clark chokes and pushes Simone off her. “It’s okay,” Simone tells her and it is. Clark stops trying to separate them and lets Simone wrap her arm around Clark’s shoulder, proprietary. Clark grins at Lois. 

“Lois,” she says. “Fancy seeing you here.” 

“Clark, what are you …” Lois trails off. She looks around at the alley, at Simone. “Clark, what’s going on?” 

“Lois, this is my girlfriend Simone. Simone, Lois.” 

Simone kisses Clark on the cheek. “She’s telling you the truth. Isn’t that right babe? So run along now,” she says, switching rapidly between speaking to Lois and Clark. Clark feels a little disoriented.  

Lois, on the other hand, ignores Simone completely. “Can we talk?” She speaks only to Clark. 

Clark’s nodding and stepping towards Lois before Simone can say anything. “Of course,” she tells Lois and even though she feels so light and free and almost giddy, she makes a serious expression for Lois. Lois wouldn’t come to Clark if it wasn’t serious. “How can I help?” 

“What’s happening here?” Lois asks. “What’s she got on you?” 

“Nothing,” Clark says, genuinely shocked. “She’s my girlfriend.” 

“Since when do you date women?” 

Clark, for some reason, looks back at Simone. Something is starting to echo in Clark's mind. Why is she dating Simone? “Tell her the truth, babe,” Simone says. “It’s okay.” 

“Lois,” Clark says, “I’m gay.” And it’s true. It feels easy now that it’s been said to see that it’s the truth. 

But for some reason, it makes Lois look worried. “I’m really glad you can say that Clark,” she starts, then bites back, looking frustrated. “No. No, fuck that, I’m not. There’s something wrong Clark, you don’t just go from swearing you’re ‘pure raw hetero’ to Ollie last week and this – this corporate pride acceptance float the next!”

“Is that true?” Simone asks Clark. “Is that what you said?” 

“Yes,” Clark says before she stops herself. 

“Stay the fuck out of this,” Lois says, her attention fully on Clark. “Seriously. What  does she have on you Clark? Why are you doing this?” 

Clark doesn’t answer. She tilts her head like she’s thinking. Simone wants her to be honest. “I was lying,” she says. “I’ve always been lying. It’s all I do. I lie, and then I lie again, and then again. You know, I used to hook up with Lana in high school. Practicing, she’d say. I was so in love with her, Lois,” Clark says. “Wow. That feels good to say! Does it always feel this good?” 

“At least until the hangover,” Lois says, weakly. 

“Okay,” Simone says, “I’m bored.” 

“Tough,” Lois says, “we’re still talking. How’d you two even meet?” 

“Twenty minutes ago,” Clark says. “Lex introduced us.” 

“Oh, well now I know something is –” 

“Knock her out baby,” Simone says, and Clark does. Which – it’s nice to be able to follow orders without having to think, Clark knows, but it still feels a little wrong. Cutting Lois’ voice off like that. 

Simone takes Clark to a nearby apartment. “We’ll have to hurry,” she tells Clark, “that bad bitch will have called the cops.” 

“Lex is a great woman,” Clark objects, and Simone rolls her eyes. 

“Just be quiet and get inside.” Clark does, and then she stands quietly at the door, waiting for instructions. Simone is dragging out a suitcase and digging through a seemingly endless pile of clothes, supplies and guns. “Here,” she says and tosses Clark something. 

When Clark unfolds it, it’s a shirt. 

“Jesus,” Simone says, “the bigger they are the dumber they are, huh?” 

Clark doesn’t know how to respond to that. 

“Put it on,” Simone says, overemphasizing the last word. 

But – but no sound comes out of Clark’s mouth. Simone told her to be quiet, and Clark was going to be quiet. But she doesn’t want to take off her flannel. She does anyway, folding it up carefully and gently, and putting it on a chair by the door. Then she pulls the tight, lowcut black top on and looks back at Simone. 

She can’t speak, so she gives Simone a thumbs up, to show that she’s okay. Simone isn’t looking. She’s still piling stuff into the suitcase. And the gun is still out, which is making Clark nervous. 

“Okay,” Simone says, eventually. “We’re almost ready to go.” 

Clark smiles. 

“There’s just one thing we have to do first, remember?” 

Clark isn’t sure she can – “Oh for the love of – you can talk.” 

“Thanks,” Clark tells Simone. “I love you,” she adds, in case Simone doesn’t know. 

“Aw,” Simone says, hand resting easily near her neck. “I love you too.” She takes a second to drag her gaze down Clark’s body and licks her lips. “Unfortunately, I think we’ll have to wait until a little later for you to show me just how much. Work first, business second.” Simone paused. “Still,” she says. “It’s a pity. You’re so much more obedient than my last one.” 

Really? Clark thinks and tries to stand up straighter. She hasn’t – with a woman. Not since – high school. But all the practicing must have paid off, if Simone wants to do it again. And Clark wants Simone to do it again so bad. She’s going to be the most obedient girlfriend Simone’d ever had, she decides. 

“No,” Simone shakes her head. “First we blow this popsicle stand. Then we see what we can do about removing that cherry.” 

A small tremor goes through Clark. “Whatever you want,” she says. 

“That’s right,” Simone says. “Whatever I want.” She thinks about it. “Okay,” she says, “maybe just a few minutes.”

She’s in between Simone’s legs, hands trying to pull her jeans down, when she hears a loud crash and Simone’s hand pulls out of her hair. “Fuck,” she says, shoving at Clark. “Get off, get off, what the fuck are you two doing here? How’d you even find me?” 

She’s talking to Lex and Sully, Clark realizes dimly, when she turns towards the door. Lex is paler than usual and Sully is visibly out of breath. 

“You think I didn’t do my research before hiring you?” Lex asks. Something rolls under Clark’s skin at that. Lex isn’t even looking at Clark either. She’s just staring at Simone, eyes wide and a little desperate, clearly out of breath from running up the stares. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Simone says, “Clark. Kill them.” 

Right. Kill them. Clark can do that. Lex first. Simone doesn’t like Lex. She grabs Lex hard, lifting her up and then throwing her across the room. Simone’s eyes fly open but she doesn’t say anything. 

Lex goes down. 

“Now, hang on,” Sully says, fumbling around in his pants. “Clark, you don’t want to do this.” 

Clark does want to do this. 

Lex drags herself back up to sitting, hand wrapped around her ribs. “Clark,” she says. “Remember what I said at the coffee shop. The hypnosis.” Clark turns away from Sully to face Lex. Lex is still talking. “You can fight it. I mean, look. How else would you be able to throw me across the room? You don’t know what you’re doing,” but Clark keeps advancing. When she grabs Lex’s throat and squeezes, the other woman falls silent, mouth helplessly still trying to make words, get through to Clark. It feels good, to stop Lex’s words, her lies, her promises. Make Lex listen to Clark for once. To squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and make Lex stop –  

“That’s right,” Simone says. “Good job, Clark,” and Clark smiles and loosens her hand on instinct, turning to face Simone. 

Wheezing softening, Lex slides down into a collapsed puddle on the ground and that’s when – oh god, Clark feels sick. She can’t stand. What’s wrong with her, what’s – 

As Clark starts falling down, curling around herself in pain, she feels something hit her back. It’s Sully, tackling her with some of the worst form Clark’s ever seen, but Clark’s so weak. She crashes down and Sully shoves the green kryptonite rock in her pants pocket, apologizing over and over again. Clark thinks she's going to vomit. This is her fault, she thinks, for failing to kill Lex. She released her, and now Lex was going to take Simone away, and Clark would never be happy again. 

“Jesus.” From the bed, Simone pulls out the gun. “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” And she aims it at Sully. On an instinct buried deeper than any command, Clark tries to drag her body in front of Sully’s, right as the gun fires. 

It hits Clark’s shoulder, and the blood pools and then pours into the dark black top. “Oh my god,” Sully says, and starts digging around in Clark’s pocket for the Kryptonite. “Oh my god, Clark, I’m sorry. It was the only thing I could think of. I’m sorry, Clark.” 

“It hurts,” Clark says, and it’s actually surprising. It hurts every time. Even when she’s invulnerable, sometimes it can still hurt. But seeing the blood is rare. She squeezes her fist and it gushes out of her faster. Sully gags. Clark does it again. 

On the bed, Simone is reloading the gun. Before she can take a second shot, the comforter on the bed is yanked sideways, taking Simone with it. Both fall onto Lex. The two grapple on the floor, kicking their way out of the comforter, until Lex is able to wrap her legs around Simone and turn sideways to roll on top, one of her hands against the gun. 

“Okay,” Sully is saying in a low voice, “I’m going to take the bullet out now.” He gags again, reaching for Clark’s shoulder. Clark flinches away. Maybe if she helps kill Lex, Simone will forgive her. She grits her teeth against the pain and forces herself to her knees. 

Then Sully presses his fingers to Clark’s shoulder and she screams, and falls back. 

Across the room she can Simone has brought her second hand to the gun, to pull it away from Lex. Lex punches her across the face with her free hand, causing Simone’s to release the gun, hands flying up to protect her face instead. Lex pulls the gun up but Simone bucks her hips, sending Lex shooting forward. 

But instead of going for the gun, Simone knocks Lex’s glasses off. 

“Let’s see how hard you fight without your stupid little protection,” Simone starts, desperately clawing at the medallion around her neck. 

Sully’s finger, deep in Clark’s shoulder, finds the bullet. 

Lex’s hand, still on the ground, finds the gun again. 

Then two things happen at once. Sully drags the bullet out of Clark’s arm and Lex shoots Simone at point blank range. 

For a second, before all connection to Simone is shattered, it feels as though the bullet has been pulled out of Clark and into Simone. That Clark was the one to pull the trigger, and killed her girlfriend. 

And then Simone dies and Sully slams the lead cased lid back on the kryptonite and Clark’s shoulder seals itself. 

Abruptly, all the pain is gone. Any feeling for Simone vanishes instantly, as if it had never been there inside of Clark. The surround-sound romantic escape playing in Clark’s mind is replaced by a loud ringing. She staggers up to her feet. “You –” she says, pointing at Lex. 

Lex slowly turns away from Simone’s body. “I didn’t intend for this to happen,” she tells Clark, gun still dangling from her hand. 

“But you wanted something like this to happen,” Clark says. “You hired her – to get to me. To fuck me?” Her words start breaking at the end. Clark can barely understand, or recognize, her friend in front of her. 

“No! No,” Lex is rushing to explain. “Clark, you have to believe me. I never wanted that. I specifically –” she breaks off, looking into the distance. The breath she takes looks like it requires a lot of effort. “I didn’t want this. I just wanted to help you.” 

“Help me.” Clark’s laugh is dry and turns, quickly, into a cough. 

Lex stands up, lowering her body as if in a conciliatory gesture. In supplication. “Clark, you don’t know how hard it is to see you – suffer. You’re one of my only friends. I – care about that friendship. It means the world to me.” 

“So talk to me!” Clark yells. 

“I tried! You think I didn’t try? But you pulled away –” 

“You pulled away first,” Clark snaps. “You’re the one who started taking business meetings half way across the world and moving your headquarters out of Metropolis and –” 

“Only because you wouldn’t open up. You wouldn’t open up and I couldn’t just sit there and watch you lie to me, over and over again. Lie to yourself.” 

“So you do this? You spy on me? You hire women to, what, ferret out my secrets when I won’t tell them to you?” Clark knows she’s right when Lex’s expression falters. 

“You’re angry,” Lex says, pushing through anyway. Standing up. Stepping towards  Clark. “This was misguided of me. But I only wanted you to see that it’s okay. You don’t have to be so alone.” Lex has reached Clark now. She puts the gun down gently on the bed, puts her pale arm on Clark’s jaw. Clark holds herself tense, waiting. “It’s okay to be a little different, Clark. There’s nothing wrong with being gay or being whatever you are. Gay, straight, something in between.” What about alien? Clark thinks. “Look at me,” with a tightening of her hand, and Clark does, “I’m a freak. But that’s never bothered me. You're still my friend. Clark, you were one of the only people to look past the Luthor name, look past the wigs, the gender, and really see me. And I wanted that for you. I wanted to see you.” 

“Was,” Clark says quietly. 

“What?” Lex asks. 

“I was your friend,” Clark says, squaring her chin up. “Friends don’t do this. They don’t,” and that’s when Clark realizes she’s shaking, small, invisible tremors racking her body, “pay people to –” but she can’t say it.  

“She wasn’t supposed to do that,” Lex says again. 

Clark ignores her. “Though you’re right about one thing, Lex. You are a freak. And you are alone. I am nothing like you.” 

“Clark –” Lex takes a step back, her eyes wide with genuinely shock, then hurt, and Clark wants to feel bad but she keeps seeing how easily she followed Simone, how easily she opened up every thought inside herself for whoever happened to be near, how easily – and everyone saw it! Everyone saw her – 

“God, would it kill these people to put in an elevator?” Panting, hands on her hips, Lois finally catches the door, still ranting. “I can’t believe you tried to lock me in the car, Sully. You wouldn’t have even known something was up with Clark if it wasn’t for me!” Then, as if noticing the complete lack of response, Lois lifts her head up. “Jeez,” she asks the silent room, “who died?” 

Everyone stares at Lois. 

Lex’s hand drops off Clark’s chin, leaving behind a wet smear of blood and Sully finally manages to stop gagging and start retching. And finally, Lois notices the dead body. 

“A little on the nose, don’t you think?” Lois says. 

The room, after that, explodes into movement. Sully, trying to pull Lois out of the room to explain the situation. Lex, wrapping her hand around Clark’s wrist. She’s saying more things, or trying to, but the pain in her throat must be getting the better of her. It must be, because Alexandria Luthor is never lost for words. It doesn’t matter. Clark doesn’t listen. Clark won’t listen. 

Clark moves towards the door. 

“Woah, woah, woah, Smallville,” Lois is saying. “No going yet. I’ve got questions. And is that – blood?” 

And Clark looks down and suddenly she’s ripping the shirt off. 

“Be careful with the bullet,” Lex is saying. 

“Clark, calm down,” Sully adds, stepping in between Clark and Lex, but Clark doesn’t care. She doesn’t care. The idea of wearing the shirt – Simone’s shirt – for one second more is an impossible one. The whole world can know her secret, just get it – 

Lois steps in front of Clark. “Clark,” she says. “Where’s your shirt? From earlier?” 

Clark doesn’t remember. 

“Here,” Lex says, grabbing the flannel from the chair. Unable to get through Sully to Clark, she passes it to Lois. 

“Okay,” Lois says, pressing Clark’s flannel into her hands. “Clark, give me the shirt you're wearing.” Clark hesitates. She doesn’t – it would be so easy, to let Lois take over. To do whatever Lois wanted. 

It would be just like Simone all over again. 

“No,” Clark says, and shoves the flannel back into Lois’ hands. “I’ve got plenty. Just keep it. This is fine. I’ve got to – I’m going to go.” 

“At least go with Sully to the hospital,” Lex croaks. “We can talk about this later.” 

“We have nothing to talk about,” Clark says and wishes she had something to pull around herself other than the deeply torn and blood covered black top. It’s ruining her jeans, too. Dripping into them. 

Sully puts his hand on Clark’s back. “A hospital is a good idea,” Sully says. “Why don’t you two dumb and dumber take care of getting this place clean and cleaner?” 

And then he starts walking, and Clark has to walk with him and she focuses on one foot in front of the other one door in front of the other one stair in front of the other until they’re out. 

“So what the fuck happened here?” Lois is asking upstairs and Clark doesn’t really want to stick around for any more explanations. 

“So do you need –” 

Clark speeds home.

5. Metropolis, 2011 

Lois doesn’t tell Clark about her dates anymore. There hasn’t been a reason for Clark to sneak a bottle of wine in while coming back from patrol in months. 

Lois keeps going out, though. Only with Clark. 

She stands in front of a cheap college dorm room floor length mirror she’s been telling Clark she’s going to hang up any day now and asks Clark to help zip up her dress. Sometimes, before they go, she’ll sit on her bed and Clark will stand next to her and Lois will tilt her head down so Clark can start braiding her hair. Thick, heavy fingers rifling their way through Lois’ long, easily tangled hair. Feeling the heat from her body rising as Clark moves section over section, hands getting lower and lower down Lois. Phantom memories of a different hand in Clark’s hair, tightening, invade Clark’s mind. She forces herself to move slow, gentle. Not to pull. 

Clark has never done a worse job braiding anyone’s hair. 

She doesn’t know what this means. She doesn’t … 

Clark ties off the braid loosely. 

“What do you think?” Lois asks, turning her head to look in the mirror. Some of her hair is already threatening to escape. Her reflection meets Clark’s eyes. 

It’s twenty-three years of practice that keep Clark’s fingers from curling up in on themselves and squeezing. Clark’s breath is shaky. “You look good,” she says. 

“Great,” Lois says. She leans in close and winks. “Ollie might be meeting us there.” 

Usually, they go to The Mount, a lesbian bar that serves, quote, “queer beer for queer women”. Clark doesn’t feel any more comfortable at The Mount than she had during their first visit. Clark likes to sit in the dark corner by the bar, as far as she can get from the bathrooms. 

Tonight, Lois sits next to her. Lois grabs the stool and drags it so her knees are touching Clark’s. “Let me guess,” Lois says, “water again?” 

Clark clears her throat, thinks better of it, then nods. 

Lois shakes her head. “Not tonight, Smallville,” she says, catching the bartender's eye and raising two fingers, pointing at her and Clark. “Tonight, we’re doing shots.” 

That, Clark thinks, almost definitely means Ollie is coming later. It’s depressing how much that makes Clark want to slide off the stool and into a puddle on the floor. Which she doesn’t do. Because she’s an adult and also mature. 

“Lois,” she starts. 

“Come on,” Lois says. “Look, I know you don’t want to talk about Lex,” and Clark goes completely stiff at her name, which Lois hadn’t mentioned since – since Simone – and Lois must sense that, because she hurries to add, “and you don’t have to! But I think it would be good for you to have some fun.” 

“Is that why you keep dragging me out?” Clark asks. 

“Clark,” Lois says, not letting Clark tug her back into their usual banter. “You guys were best friends. I don’t know the full extent of what happened up there, but I can see you're having a hard time.” 

“I’m fine,” Clark says, automatically. 

Lois rolls her eyes. “Then try to have fun for my sake, okay? I need to have a good time out too.” 

The bartender sets the shots down in front of them. For one second, the image of the raw desperation on Lex’s face after the connection with Simone had been broken flashes across Clark’s mind. It’s followed immediately by a jagged flood of hurt and humiliation. Ruthlessly, Clark slams the door on both thoughts. That is not her. That is not who she is. 

She takes the shot. 

At The Mount, Lois likes to ride the bull. Her hands are wide and steady on the saddle and her legs wrap tightly around it. And she smiles. The entire time, her entire face lit up with a wild joy as she hangs on as long as she can and then goes flying. And Clark’s always tense, waiting for the crash, but Lois comes back to her feet with the same giddy elation, the same infectious smile. “Come on, Smallville, you gotta try it,” she says, but always backs off easily when Clark demures. 

Lois rushes into danger like she’s the one with superpowers and it should make Clark nervous or worried or overprotective but instead it just makes her proud. Lois is the bravest person Clark knows. 

They have more shots! 

It’s hard to know if alcohol actually works on Clark, considering she doesn’t drink it generally and also considering her relative size to begin with, but she’s starting to acknowledge she’s not completely without the ability to get inebriated. 

There’s no other way she’d let Lois talk her into line dancing, if she wasn’t at least a little bit drunk. 

The Mount is a great bar! 

The bartenders always have a drink for you when you need it and everyone’s so nice to Clark and it reminds her enough like the rural small town and enough like the metropolitan big city that it feels almost like Clark’s bringing both pieces of herself together here. She’s Clark Kent and she’s Superwoman and she loves her friend and she’s in a lesbian bar on a Friday night and she doesn’t even mind. 

“Clark,” Lois says and Clark grabs her shoulder to steady herself. “They’ve got darts.” 

Lois wins darts! 

And then she demands a rematch. 

“Seriously, Clark, it’s easy. Here,” Lois moves behind Clark, putting her hands over Clark’s, setting a leg between Clark’s. Clark’s eyes stretch wide. 

“Lois?” she asks. 

“Trust me,” Lois says into her ear. “You got this.” 

Clark’s mind is blank. Lois is burning where she’s pressed up against Clark and everywhere else is cold and Lois taking Clark hands and moving it back and forth and back and forth and – 

“Ready?” Lois asks, and lets go. 

Clark doesn’t release the dart. 

“Clark,” Lois’ voice is equal parts fond and exasperated. “You have to actually do some work here, you know.” 

Clark turns her head to the side, which is a total mistake, because now she can see Lois’ face and the laugh lines around her mouth and where her skin is pulled tight in a high ponytail, sweat gathered around her neck, eyeliner starting to smudge. 

Lois turns her face to the dartboard. “All right,” she says, “You’re going to do it this time.” 

Clark, keeping her eyes on Lois, throws the dart. 

It misses. 

Lois snorts. “Maybe try looking at the board next time, Smallville?” 

Clark swallows. “Right,” she says. 

“I mean, I don’t mind,” Lois tells her. “I am, after all, incredibly beautiful and charming and wonderful,” and Clark smiles. 

“How’d you get to be so good at this?” It’s a relief to not be looking at Lois anymore. To have the dartboard to look at. 

“There’s not a lot you find that’s the same when you’re growing up on military bases, but a shitty bar with a shitty darts board might just be one of them,” Lois says. Then she nudges her shoulder. “Come on. Try again.” 

“That was my last dart,” Clark says. 

Lois presses a lukewarm piece of metal into Clark’s hand and closes her finger around it. “Here,” she says. “Use mine.” 

“Okay,” Clark says. Then she lets her smile unfold. “But you have to walk me through it.” 

Lois grins back. “Okay, but no hand holding this time. Alright, you want to take three fingers to hold it like – no, no, move that – yeah. You’ve got it. Perfect. Okay, so it’s critical you don’t hold on too lightly or too hard. That’s been your biggest problem. You're not holding on tightly enough. They wobble too much. You can’t get them to stick in the target.” 

Clark tightens her fingers. It feels wrong. It goes against everything her dad spent years of his life teaching her, everything she’s learned personally about her own strength, her own danger. 

“Perfect,” Lois says. “Now square up.” 

Clark pulls herself, somewhat, into a standing position. 

“Okay, now start to bring your arm back. Slowly! And it’s really a flick of the wrist motion, okay, wait, now let me see. Don’t throw, but show me how you’re going to do it.” 

Clark models throwing a dart. Lois steps in and moves one of her fingers slightly and then stands in front of Clark, gaze sweeping her up and down critically. Clark tries to hold still. She ignores the sounds of other people around them, the smell of beer. The sounds of the city outside the bar, of the world. Clark focuses in on Lois, on her breath, on the dart. 

Lois steps to the side. “Okay,” she says, “I think you’re good.” 

Clark draws back, lines up with the targets, gets herself ready, and – 

“Ollie!” 

– throws. 

When Lois gets back, she’s dragging Olivia Queen with her. 

Clark swallows her sigh. “Olivia,” she says. 

Ollie smirks like she can hear the sigh anyway. Clark supposes this means she’ll be going on patrol alone tonight. If Ollie’s going home with Lois. Which, given the arm Ollie’s got possessively thrown over her, seems more than likely. 

“Clark. Surprised to see a country mouse like you out and about. Let alone somewhere so bold.”  

“This is the third time you’ve met me here,” Clark says blandly. 

Ollie shrugs. “And it’s a surprise every time.” She turns to Lois. “You ready to go, babe?” Clark’s heartrate speeds up. 

Lois looks back at Clark. “Actually, Clark and I were in the middle of a darts game. You want to join?” 

“No, no,” Clark interrupts. “I should get going. I’ve been working on this group article and I have a feeling one of our team members is about to drop out.” 

Ollie’s grin widens. “Yeah, I bet they’re feeling real sick,” she drawls, pulling Lois in. “Probably be up all night. Coughing.” 

Clark’s lips tighten. 

“Are you sure?” Lois asks Clark. “Because I can tell Ollie to fuck off. I don’t mind.” 

Clark shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. Come on, Lo. You know me. This isn’t really my scene.” 

“I don’t know,” Lois says, “you were managing pretty well earlier.” 

Clark smiles. 

“I’m getting a drink,” Ollie tells them both. “Tell me when you two idiots are done bleeding feelings all over each other.” 

As soon as she’s gone, Clark makes a face at Lois. “Seriously?” she asks. 

“I know,” Lois says. “I know. But Ollie’s not really that bad. You kinda bring out the worst in her. And the sex is good. Like, really good.”  

Great. Awesome. So good to know. “Lois!” Clark complains. 

“It’s been awhile!” Lois adds, defensively. 

“Okay, so on that note –” 

“Wait, wait,” Lois cuts Clark off, amused. “I didn’t mean to scare you off. Thanks for coming with me. I really appreciate it. And have a safe one home, okay?” 

Clark knows Lois doesn’t understand how funny she’s being, but she can’t help but laugh out loud anyway. “I will.” 

As she’s on the way back to the apartment, hearing still attuned to the bar, she can hear Ollie ordering a drink while Lois walks over the dart board and pulls something loose. 

“Atta girl, Clark,” Lois says. “I knew you could do it.”  

Clark hangs out for an hour or so at their apartment – she doesn’t want to go out patrolling if she’s still drunk. She makes some eggs while she waits, proofreads her assignment to Perry and catches the last fifteen minutes of American Ninja Warrior. 

As she’s debating staying in and letting the next episode autoplay, she hears it. 

“Superwoman! Help!” 

Immediately, Clark focused in on the direction and location of the cry and was out of the window faster than a speeding bullet. “No, no,” a second voice was saying. “Louder. She won’t be able to hear you.” Wait – Clark knows that voice. 

“She’s got superhearing, moron,” Lois snaps. “And I thought this was your idea, anyway.” 

“Yeah, but really, I’m doing it for you,” and of course it’s Ollie speaking and this is really where Clark should leave. She knows Ollie and she knows Lois and they’re clearly not in any kind of real trouble, even if they did call out for her.

Clark should really leave. 

“You know, I swear, Clark is right about you,” Lois says. “You’re such an asshole.” 

“It’s your superhero fetish,” Ollie points out. 

“Again,” Lois says, pointedly, “not my idea!” 

“I can try to be Green Arrow, if you want,” Ollie says and Clark fights an urge to strangle her. “But I think we both know Supes is your girl.” 

Lois sighs. “It’s not like that. Honestly. Okay, I mean, yeah, she’s a smokeshow, that’s a given. But I like the – idea of her.” It shouldn’t be possible for that to hurt Clark because she already knew that. That was the point of Superwoman. She was an idea, not a person and certainly not – not anything like Clark Kent. “Not in that way,” Lois continues. “Not like a fantasy. Like the idea that someone out there has these gifts and would choose, every day, to risk herself helping people. Trying to do the right thing. It’s a nice thought. I don’t know if I believe in that world, but I want to. I want to live in a world with Superwoman in it. She kind of makes it better just by being here.” 

Clark hovers outside the window and thinks about Lois showing up to Clark’s surprise birthday after her dad died, or Lois taking Clark out to her favorite bar just because she’s been looking sad, or Lois tossing every fifth good lead to her at the Daily Planet, and wants to tell her she does that better than Clark ever could. 

“So I can take the stupid cape off?” Ollie asks and Clark turns as red as her own cape. The actual cape! That Clark is wearing, not whatever cheap cast off Ollie is using in her failed attempt to – 

“No,” Lois says. “I can work with this.” 

Clark can hear the sound of clothes sliding across silk bedsheets. She should go. This isn’t a dangerous situation. She should –

“Oh, Superwoman,” Lois says. “What are you doing here?” 

“Saving kittens and kissing babies,” Ollie says, in that stupid fake Superwoman voice she does all the time when Clark lectures her on drinking and patrolling and not murdering Lex ever under any circumstance no matter what for realsies and yes, Clark is sure and no, she’s not going to change her mind!  

“Is that right?” Lois asks and Ollie doesn’t respond because – 

Right. 

They’re – 

Right. 

Clark tries to make herself fly away from the window. Lois was – Lois is – her best friend, probably. Lois is so nice to Clark and asks so little from Clark and Clark is – 

Clark is using her powers to violate Lois’ privacy, which is basically anyone’s worst nightmare and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do things like this and had all of her life to practice so why wasn’t she flying away? 

It was like Lana and Whitney all over again. Like something fixing her to the spot, holding her in place worse than any Kryptonite, pinned out in front of the building, buffeted on all sides by the wind but completely unmovable, like an insect on display at a museum.  

“You do so much for the city, Superwoman. Let me show you my appreciation,” Lois says. Moans. Moans, Lois is moaning, because she’s having sex with Ollie and Clark is hovering outside like some sort of lecherous man in a dark alley trenchcoat masturbating in front of girls on the bus and Jesus Christ, where did that come from? 

And then there’s the sound of a train derailing in the distance and Clark’s – 

She does fly away this time and it’s a relief. It’s an icy cold splash of relief that she still has some sense of self control, some sense of shame. That she is able to put her weakness aside and do the job she’s here to do for a minute. 

And it’s – 

And she does. 

She catches the train. Sets it down. Starts getting people out, listening for cries for help, other sounds. And she keeps hearing echoes. Keeps hearing Ollie say, “louder,” and Lois say, “Superwoman,” and “fuck me” and “you’re so fucking good at that” and she remembers the importance of stabilizing the injury so she takes a second to splint Marie’s knee before flying her out to the actual first responders outside the crash site. 

Clark’s – Clark can’t trust herself anymore, not after Simone and now this – 

“Harder, Superwoman,” Lois says. 

Clark stays at the crash site. Flying around awkwardly, trying to help. Pushing when things need to be pushed (“come for Superwoman, Lois, you can do it”). The first responders and later city officials seem to understand how useful she can be. They speak in calm, emotionless tones and tell her where and how to move the train (“Again!”) and what supplies to collect and list out hospitals to send her to. 

And then when dawn starts to rise, and most of it is fixed up, and Superwoman is still standing at the crash site, one of the MMTA (Metropolis Monorail Transit Authority) Officials walks up to her. 

“Hey. Superwoman. You good?” 

Clark blinks. “Yeah. Yes. Yes, I’m good.” 

The MMTA Officer snorts. “Yeah,” she says. “I bet.” She sticks out a hand. “I’m Leslie. Leslie Willis.” 

Clark takes her hand. “Superwoman.” 

“Yeah, I think everyone got that.” 

Right. Clark tries not to wipe her hands on her uniform. Showing nerves is fine for Clark Kent but bad for Superwoman. 

“So, you planning on sticking around this time?” 

“Um,” Clark says, and looks over the crash site. “If there’s more I can do to help?” It’s a question. Clark’s asking it like it’s a question. Which is Clark Kent and not at all Superwoman. 

Leslie looks at her for a long moment. “Okay, yeah,” she says. “I can recognize a fight with the missus when I see one. Alright, I’ll help you out. We’re gonna rebuild this shit. Okay?” 

Clark puts on her best Superwoman face. She doesn’t bother denying the implications. Being Superwoman in Metropolis is not unlike being Clark Kent in Smallville. A lot of people think you’re gay. “What do you need me to do?” 

“Easy there, boy scout,” Leslie says. “Give me five minutes to put this together, then I’m going to tell you exactly what to do. You speed off to get the right parts from the factory and bring those flaming hot eyes of yours and I’ll guide you through removing and repairing the railing. Sound good?” 

Yeah. It did, actually. 

It sounded really good. 

She and Leslie finish repairing the monorail by eight in the morning, which means despite being up all night, Clark’s already late for the Planet’s early morning pitch meeting. She blurs out of the suit and into her work clothes and is half way there when Lois calls. 

“Hey, you’re running late right?” 

“You don’t know that,” Clark says. 

“Right. Listen, can you grab me a shirt?” 

“What?” 

“This is seriously stupid,” she tells him, “but Ollie ripped mine last night. Some ‘proving her strength’ thing,” oh god this was about Superwoman, Clark’s going to fly straight into a building, “but I don’t have anything else to wear.” 

It’s easy enough to turn around and grab the shirt,  but Clark doesn’t want to. 

“I’ll wash it before I return it and everything, Clark, promise. Do you hear that? I’ll do real actual laundry.” 

Clark turns around. 

“Sure,” she tells Lois. “Which one?” 

“Just grab me one of yours. I haven’t done laundry in like, a month, and I don’t want you riffling through my dirty underwear.” 

“What? Lois, I wouldn’t do that! I promise! I respect your privacy and anyone who doesn’t – anyone who doesn’t deserves what they get, okay, and they don’t deserve you.” Clark stops, embarrassed. She means it, but jeez, talk about overcompensating. 

“Clark …” Lois says after a moment. 

“What color?” Clark asks loudly. 

Lois drops it. “Just get me one of your oversized graphic tees. I’ll wear it under my blazer. It’ll look cool.” 

Clark isn’t sure about that. “Okay,” she says, dubiously. 

“I’m not taking fashion advice from someone who dresses like the color wheel,” Lois tells her and then she hangs up before Clark can say anything in response. 

Which. Clark’s long past wishing made her less fond. 

By the time she gets to work, it’s almost nine and nearly all that time was spent staring at her closet trying to pick out the right shirt. When she gets there, she passes it off to Lois casually, in a cool and normal way that betrays none of this. 

So, in other words, her heart pounds in her throat while she balls up some fabric in her fist, screws her eyes shut, and shoves it blindly at Lois. 

“What?” Lois asks, then realizes what it is. “Oh!” She says. “Thanks!” 

The shirt’s black with a white skull on it and it took Clark a stupidly long time to pick out but she thought maybe Lois would like it best out of all the (bad) options and also there were three backups in her backpack if Lois hated it. 

“You don’t have to wash it,” Clark forces out, while Lois starts pulling off her blazer and changing in the middle of the newsroom. Just to say something. Mouth dry, skin prickling, something burning in her stomach, Clark pushes through. “Seriously, I don’t mind,” she says and Lois’ ripped top comes off. “I don’t mind. You can just throw it away. It’s not an important shirt, I mean you can just do whatever you want with it.” Clark’s shirt slides on over Lois’ bra. “Actually, I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back, I’ll be right back.” 

Lois pulls on the blazer. 

Clark stumbles out of their cubical area. 

“Thanks,” Lois calls over her shoulder and Clark feels like her entire face is about to explode and also maybe she’s having trouble breathing a bit but she’s Superwoman and she doesn’t get sick and she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her but she’s in the bathroom faster than any human could be and she sits on the toilet seat and feels feverish and it’s not fair, it’s not fair that Clark has tried so hard to be normal and she still wants this nebulous thing that she can’t have and isn’t for her and she tries to breath but it’s getting hard now so she just forces her mouth closed and presses her fingers into her eyes and think that she’s trying. She’s trying so hard. This shouldn’t be happening to someone who’s trying this hard. 

She breathes in again, sharply, then out. But she doesn’t even need to breathe. It’s for show. A performance. 

So Clark stops. 

She wonders how long she can go without breathing. Maybe if she sits still and quiet and doesn’t breathe she can stay in here forever and never have to leave. Or maybe she’ll walk out of here and she’ll be exactly right, like her parents taught her to be and Jor El and Lara programmed her to be and her days won’t be any more complicated than simple orders given in a strong voice telling her exactly where to put the pieces to fix something that was broken. 

Clark lets herself remember this morning. 

It wasn’t hard work – lifting metal was easy, and using her superspeed was fun – but it was repetitive and rhythmic and Leslie didn’t need to talk loud at all for Clark to hear her perfectly, to focus in on her voice and only her voice. 

And when she was done, Clark floated away from the rail and it looked perfect. It was fixed. It looked just like how it was supposed to look. 

Clark could make herself look like that too. 

She decided to try breathing again. 

This time, her breath came out a lot more even. And it went in more smoothly too. 

So Clark sits on the toilet and breathes, reconstructing the Metropolis Monorail line in her head, thinking about how she could check the whole line out today. 

Leslie told her it usually took them several months to fix a line’s signal tracking but Clark had done it in a matter of hours. 

Maybe Leslie would want to use her again some time. 

Lois doesn’t go over to Ollie’s that night. She tells Clark she wants to stay in and looks kind of hopefully up at her and Clark wants to say yes so badly that she makes up a lie about chores on the farm and leaves for Smallville as soon as Perry lets her clock out. Clark knows she has to stop this. She can’t trust herself anymore, and Lois shouldn’t either. 

But it doesn’t get any easier. 

On Tuesday, Lois asks Clark if she wants to get dinner. “Or order in, if you don’t feel like leaving the apartment.” Clark starts to agree, and then she thinks about it. Sitting next to Lois on the Clark and hearing knees climbing over a bedframe, hands ripping and pulling at fabric, Lois crying out, and feels sick. She can’t believe Lois wants to be alone with her. She doesn’t even want to be alone with herself. 

There’s no need for Lois to try to make plans with Clark on Wednesday because they have a standing date at the Metropolis library’s Suicide Slums branch helping out in the kid’s corner. Well, Clark does and Lois comes along when she doesn’t have too much work and it’s pretty funny because she’s pretty terrible with the kids but they all kind of like her anyway, even if they usually show it by insulting her. It’s kind of the highlight of Clark’s whole week. 

Which is why, when Lois comes to meet her for the trip across town, Clark tells her that she’s gotta stay and work late and Lois will just have to go on without her. “Are you fucking kidding me, Clark?” Lois says and her mouth’s flat. It always makes Clark feel worse when people know she’s lying but what else can she do? 

This is the right choice. She knows it's the right choice. It’s better for Lois. It will be better for Lois. 

Thursday, Lois comes up to Clark with her arms crossed and asks her if she wants to watch Xena tonight. Lois doesn’t even wait for Clark to finish getting through her lie about having a headache before she leaves, shaking her head. 

They usually go to The Mount on Fridays, so Clark kind of hides in her room while Lois sits in the living room with the TV off and Clark thinks it's pretty good she doesn’t need to eat because she’d rather face down Zod again than Lois right now. At midnight, Lois lies down on the couch and pulls the blanket over her and it’s such a useless gesture that Clark stays in. She doesn’t leave her room and she doesn’t patrol and she thinks there’s so little she can give Lois but she’ll give her the win here. 

Lois isn’t in the apartment Saturday. And if Clark listens closely – 

“Seriously? You’ve got nothing better to do?” 

Clark looks at Leslie. “The city’s quiet,” she confirms. 

Leslie finishes her cigarette while she thinks about it. “You know, there’s gotta be better therapists out there. This can’t be your best option. I can’t be your best option.” 

Clark doesn’t respond. She waits. 

“Alright,” she says, dropping her cigarette and crushing it under her heel, Clark’s gaze following. “Jesus Christ. Come on, Superwoman.”

Clark floats after her. 

Leslie tells her at the end of the night that they’re probably saving the city 3.7 million on transport repairs over the next five years. She says if Superwoman keeps coming to her, she’s going to start using her as a bargaining chip at work for a raise. 

Clark nods seriously and tells Leslie she’s happy to write her a recommendation. 

On Sunday, Lois returns the shirt. 

She hadn’t, Clark realizes, washed it. It smells – it smells like Ollie and Lois and sex. Like Lois had sex with Ollie in Clark’s shirt. Or maybe she gave it to Ollie. Maybe she gave it Ollie and closed her eyes and pretended it was Clark – 

But no, no, that wasn’t right. Superwoman. Lois liked Supewoman, not Clark. No one liked Clark. Not compared to Superwoman. Unwittingly, Clark brings the shirt back up to her nose and maybe she wouldn’t notice? If she wasn’t, well, her? 

But she’d know, because she’s been home all week, and Lois hasn’t done any laundry, which has to mean something. It has to mean Lois wanted her to know. 

Or worse, she hadn’t even thought about Clark at all. Hadn’t even figured it would make a difference to Clark. 

Clark brings the shirt up to her face again, then shoves it away, neck hot. She’ll just wash it herself. She’ll take it and she’ll wash it herself. She doesn’t move. She stares at the shirt in her hands. Lois wore this. Lois wore this with Ollie. Why did Lois wear this with Ollie? Why didn’t – why did Lois do that? 

It smells so good. 

Clark closes her eyes. She wants – 

She forces herself to release her death grip on the shirt. She brings it down to her side. Her clothes always hang so big on Lois. Whenever Lois borrows Clark’s clothes it’s obvious. It’s obvious they belong to someone else. 

Clark rubs her hand against the shirt. Slowly. Carefully. It’s just a shirt. 

She takes a breath. It’s just a shirt. 

One foot after another, she walks into her bedroom and opens the drawer by her bed. There’s a second where she’s standing with her shirt in one hand, looking down at the vibrator and she knows this is her last chance to pull out. 

To stop herself. 

And then she shrugs on her shirt, grabs the stupid sex toy and lies down on the bed and tries not to think about Lois, or Ollie, or anything she’s not supposed to think about. Celebrities, she thinks, she should think about celebrities. Like – like Bruce Wayne. He did a cover recently and then Clark pulls the shirt closer to her face and it’s fine, it’s fine. It’s one time and it doesn’t mean anything and she moves the vibrator down – there and it makes her legs jerk and her teeth clench and she bites down on the collar of the t-shirt Olivia let Lois fuck her in and thinks about it. 

Lois, on top of some nightmare combination of Superwoman and Olivia Queen, only it’s not a nightmare to Clark. It’s her costume but it’s not her face under there and Superwoman is so strong but not when Lois Lane is on top of her like that, not when Lois Lane has her fingers inside her, not when Lois Lane is whispering in her ear. “Prove it,” she saying, over and over again, “prove you’re the strongest person in the world,” and Superowman can’t, she can’t prove it, she can’t break Lois’ hold. She can’t even focus long enough to summon up her powers; it's just total, all encompassing sex but she can’t even touch Lois either, even though she’s desperate for it, even though she’s begging. Lois tells her to keep still and Clark is trying – Superwoman – Olivia – Olivia Superwoman – is trying but she can’t help herself and she reaches a hand up to weave in Lois’ hair and Lois slaps it back down and – 

– and then she comes. Clark Kent does, eyes slowly ticking open, blood draining away from her head to be replaced by the much louder roar of humiliation and shame and she turns off the vibrator. Shoving it away, letting out big heaving breaths that seem to be getting louder and wetter and heavier and it’s like something is caught in Clark’s throat, forcing it open, scraping her breath raw. But her breath keeps forcing its way out and dragging air back in and Clark is choking and crying and then she’s turning onto her side, curling around her pillow as great, thick sobs wrench themselves out of her. Clark can’t – Clark can’t think of the last time she cried and maybe that’s for the best because she can feel the bed shaking her her, the pillow sheet starting to rip in her hand. 

And she can’t stop. It’s like with her orgasm she’s pulled everything else deep inside herself out into the light and it’s ugly and monstrous and it’s sitting in the bed crushing her. She’s – Clark never loses control, not anymore, but she doesn’t have control now, she can’t. And it pours out of her, the parts Clark has tried so hard to keep inside, and she cries. 

Clark lies on her side, body rigid and tight, bed shuddering violently with the strength of her tears, letting whatever she’s let out work its way through her. 

Eventually, her breath starts to slow. Her shakes lessen. The vibrator is still in her hand, no longer wet but – Clark relaxes her hand. She lets the grip on the pillow loosen and to her own, sniffling surprise, she falls asleep. 

When the alarm wakes her up in the morning, when it’s done, Clark feels cold. 

Lois is still asleep. 

Clark puts the vibrator back in her bedside drawer without looking at it, gets dressed in the darkness, and then throws the shirt in the garbage on her way out the door. 

Clark’s at The Planet in time for the pitch meeting, which Perry remarks on at great length before dismissing them all to their desks. 

“Hey,” Lois tries to grab her arm, but Clark evades easily. “Clark, are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Clark tells her, continuing to their cubicles. 

Lois follows. “You were gone before I even woke up this morning.” 

“Seriously,” Clark tells her, stopping at her desk. “I’m fine. I’m really good actually.” 

Lois smiles. “Yeah?” 

Clark nods. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a freak lately.” 

“What?” Lois frowns. “Clark, you haven’t been.” 

Clark feels distant from the whole conversation. Like, she should be anxious or grateful or even confused, but she isn’t. She’s fine. Grateful, even. It feels like control. “No, it’s okay. I know I have. And you’ve been really nice to me about it. But you don’t have to worry anymore, okay?” 

Now Lois looks really concerned. “Clark, if this is about the shirt –” 

Clark’s mind whites out. “It’s not about the shirt,” she says. She can’t think about this.

“-- because I know I should have washed it,” Lois says, now biting her lip. “Seriously, Clark, that wasn’t cool of me. I told you I would, and I didn’t.” 

“It’s fine,” Clark tells her, automatically. 

Lois sighs, irritated. “It’s obviously not fine, Clark, and I’d rather you just tell me that instead of pretending!” 

“You were busy,” Clark says. “And you hate laundry.” 

“That’s not an excuse!” Lois snaps. 

It’s the most bizarre argument Clark’s been involved with. She’s not sure what to say next to defend Lois from herself. Maybe Clark can open with the good news? “Seriously, Lois, it’s fine. It’s good, actually,” Clark tells her. “I needed the push to get back out there. You’re right. It’s been a while since I’ve dated.” 

Lois sits down in her chair. “Wait, Clark, what are you saying?” 

“I don’t know,” Clark says, suddenly unable to look at Lois. “Maybe I’ll finally take Jimmy up on his standing offer.” 

“Jimmy?” Lois sounds anguished. 

Clark shrugs. “You know I like him.” 

Lois’ voice, when she speaks, is much softer. “Clark,” she says, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. You don’t have to do this.” 

It’s easy to draw back her eyebrows in a confused frown. “This is good news, Lois,” she says. “It’s the right choice.” She smiles as wide as she can. 

Lois closes her eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ, Clark,” she says. Clark tries to look even more confused. “I can’t do this right now,” Lois says. “Actually, I don’t think I can do any of this anymore,” and Clark’s heart drops down to her feet. 

“Lois?” 

“I have to go,” Lois says. 

“Wait,” Clark runs to get in front of her. “Lois. Wait. I don’t understand.”  

“Clark, I’m serious, if you don’t get out of my way right now …” But Lois stops. Clark watches her swallow. Clark can’t make herself say anything at first either. 

“I’ll do better,” she tells Lois quietly. Earnestly. 

“Don’t,” Lois sounds exhausted. “Just don’t. I’m not going to watch you do this.” There’s a moment where Lois looks at Clark and Clark looks back and she thinks that she or Lois might say something, but it passes and Lois shoulders her way past Clark and out the office door. 

+ 1 Metropolis, 2011

Lois doesn’t really have a plan when she leaves the office. She could text Ollie, but she can’t stop thinking about how that would make Clark feel, if Lois went to stay with Ollie right now. But maybe she wouldn’t care anymore. After that shit. Or maybe it would push her to – 

No. Lois isn’t doing that anymore. 

She goes home and it’s easy to find a few clean shirts and a pair of jeans she mostly likes to toss in a bag. It’s only stuff for a few days, she’s realizing. Which makes sense. She’ll have to come back. She just needs time. 

And space. 

And that’s when it hits her. 

Sully. 

Sully’s known Clark longer than Lois. Had to deal with that awkward high school era. Sully will know what to do. Or at least he’ll be able to commiserate. Probably even supply her with the vodka. 

She takes a moment to email Perry – she’ll be “out of office following up on a lead for the rest of the week” – before throwing her bag in the car and hitting the road. 

Maybe she’ll stop for a burger at O’Shaugnessy’s once she’s closer to the Gotham city limits. Sully loves their fries. 

“Right,” Sully says on the phone, sounding distracted. “Okay, so I won’t be home for a few.” 

“Oh, come on. I need you.” 

“Like, world ending threat need me?” 

Lois stares up at the sky. “Like I’ve fucked everything up again need you,” Lois says. 

There’s a pause. “Okay,” Sully says, voice sharp and focused. “Give me fifteen minutes to reschedule my meetings, and I should be able to get the rest of my work done remotely.” 

Lois’ throat closes and then opens. “Thanks,” she says. 

“Anytime,” Sully says. 

Sully pulls up to the curb outside his apartment in a small, bright green car covered in bumper stickers. He hops out. “Okay. I’m here. Hold the applause.” He’s dyed his hair again, this time the same lime green as his eyesore car. It probably fits in better in Gotham than Metropolis. 

Instead of saying anything in response, Lois just grabs him and pulls her cousin in for a hug. 

“Jesus Christ, Lois, what’s going on?” Sully’s voice is muffled against her collar bone. 

Lois gives it a few more squeezes before she pulls back and says, “I’ll need a drink first.” 

Inside Sully’s apartment, Lois is pacing. She isn’t sure where to start. With Ollie? With the shirt? With the fucking date Clark’s apparently going on with Jimmy? 

“Lois, just tell me what happened,” Sully says. 

“When you were in high school,” Lois asked instead, “you thought Clark was gay, right? I mean you had to have. You ran that dumbass blog.” 

Sully blinks. “Holy non-sequiter, Batman,” he says, which must be one of his and Clark’s nerd references she doesn’t understand. 

“Well?” she asks. 

Sully crosses his arms. “Why are you asking about high school?” he says. “Or is this about Clark?” 

Lois takes a deep breath. And then very seriously decides to tell Sully the truth: “I think I broke Clark,” she says, and Sully has the gall to laugh. 

“Clark’s pretty indestructible,” Sully replies. “But you’re going to have to help me out here. I’m a few pages behind in this book. What happened? What’s my They’re (Not) Here, They’re (Not) Queer (Yet) bulletin have to do with anything?” 

“I can’t believe you actually called it that.” 

“You’re avoiding the question,” Sully says. 

“Actually, you’re avoiding mine,” Lois says, preparing herself to invoke one of the most sacred laws of cousin in-fighting, “And I asked you first.” 

That makes Sully laugh again. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah, you did. I guess we’re talking about this.” 

“So?” Lois prompts. “Did you?” 

“I thought a lot of people were gay in high school,” Sully says. 

“A lot of people were gay in high school,” Lois says. 

“Look, that blog was kind of an outlet for a lot of things for me, you know? Not exactly some kind of pristine historical doctrine. I mean, for God’s sake, I put Whitney on there eighteen times. Man’s straighter than a skeleton’s heartrate.” 

“Did you put Clark on there?” Lois asks. 

“Lo. You know I didn’t.”  

“Why not?” 

Sully sighs. “Okay, yes. Fine. I didn’t put Clark on there because she was my friend, and because I thought she was actually gay and it felt mean. What’s your point?” 

“Yeah,” she says, ignoring the question. “That’s what I thought, too. And then – you know, she came out to me? A year or so back. When she was seeing that woman, Simone. Who went evil and tried to kill Lex. Wow. It’s amazing how normal my life has been since moving to Kansas.”  

Sully winces. “That wasn’t great for Clark. She wasn’t really … herself.” 

“Right. But I thought – great! Okay, this is great. Sure, Simone was evil, but Clark’s figuring it out. So Clark’s gay! It actually made a lot of sense. And I thought maybe she didn’t want to say anything. Maybe she was just living her authentic life and waiting for the rest of us to catch up.” 

“Clark?” Sully asks. “Living her authentic life? I’m sorry, have you met her?” 

Lois doesn’t respond to that. “I didn’t want to hurt her,” she says. “I was just teasing. I just wanted to tease her. And it felt like maybe she liked it. Or maybe that was just me. Maybe I liked it and Clark was just too polite, and too embarrassed to tell me to stop. Oh my God.” Lois falls into one of Sully’s more garish living room chairs. It’s deeply uncomfortable. “I always do this,” she says. “I always fucking do this.” 

Sully reaches out to rest a hand on Lois’ knee. “To be honest, Lois, I still have no clue what you’re talking about.”  

“I always do this thing where I think I know what’s going on. I’m so sure. Every single time, I’m so sure. I think I understand. I think it’s all going to work out. And then I get to the end and it’s like I’ve no idea where I am. Except it’s the same place I always end up.” 

“Lois,” Sully starts but she stops him. 

“No,” she says. She puts up a hand. “This isn’t just self pity, okay? I really messed up. Clark’s talking about going on a date with Jimmy. Sully, you should’ve seen her face at the bar.” 

“What bar?” 

“The Mount.” She clarifies, at Sully’s look of confusion: “It’s this lesbian bar I go to with Clark. I thought, you know, it might be nice. Help her loosen up a bit. And help me get laid. But then, you know, I left with Ollie.” 

Sully snorts. “Okay, dyke,” he says. 

Lois hits him. He crumples like a tissue. Weak little bones. “I don’t even know why I did it. I mean, Ollie’s fun, sure, and we’re pretty much friends now. But I wanted to stay with Clark. You know, I invited her out for a reason. I’m just always expecting her to pull away. Ollie’s kind of this backup plan. She’s never going to be in love with me, but she knows me. She understands me. And we have fun, even when she’s kind of an asshole.” 

“And you like her motorcycle.” 

“And I like her motorcycle,” Lois agrees. 

“So, what’s the problem?” 

“The problem is I’m trying to all but shove Clark out the closet door. Acting like she should take this big, scary leap of faith, meanwhile I’m playing it safe with Ollie. I’m a hypocrite!" 

Sully bites his lip. He’s got one of those lip piercing things now. It’s not the first or the last time that Lois thinks the move to Gotham has proven diabolical for him. “Lois, Clark’s got a lot of her own issues.” 

“I know.” 

“No,” Sully says. “I don’t think you do. Clark really wants to be normal. It’s like this whole – complex. For her. And, you know, she’s kind of bad with the confrontation stuff. You know, she shoves stuff down, and tries to ignore it, and then yowza! World ending crisis on our hands here! I mean, not literally. Obviously. Emotionally. Only emotionally. Clark’s emotions just affect her and have no effect on the rest of the –” 

“I get it Sully,” Lois interjects. “And it’s not just that. I mean, okay, the thing with Ollie and the shirt – trust me, you do not want me to explain that one – wasn’t my finest moment. Okay.” 

“I kind of want you to explain the shirt situation,” Sully says. Lois raises a hand to hit him again and Sully throws his hands up in mock surrender. “Kidding, kidding!” 

“But I’m also pissed! At her! Sure, okay, it wasn’t cool of me to leave with Ollie, but – she just takes it. Every time. And I can’t just sit there and watch her snuff out every single part of herself that deviates from her parent’s idea of normal. She’s so miserable, Sully. And I don’t think she even knows that.” 

Sully’s actually looking kind of serious, which means he probably does know. “Hey,” he tells Lois. “What do you think I’m doing all the way out here?” 

“Turning yourself into a scene kid glowstick?” Lois asks. 

Sully ignores her. "I needed some space from the whole Clark Kent melodrama. The stifling repression of it all. Kinda took over my life in high school. And I love Clark. I do. So much. She’ll always be one of my best friends. But I can't live in that kind of closet, you know?” Sully pauses. “And also for the Penguin’s underground gay sewer raves. Of course.” 

Lois chews the inside of her lip. “Yeah,” she says. “But the thing is, Clark’s always been – she let me stay at the farm with her. And she talks to me. She took me seriously. She … told me I might enjoy journalism. I don’t know. She’s so sincere. I think meeting her when I did, it forced me to be a little more sincere. About who I wanted to be and the world I wanted to live in. You know, Clark’s great with silence. She can sit all day in her own thoughts and own little world. Spend a night alone looking up in a telescope. Not me, though. I always have a smart comment to toss off, or some new task I can throw myself into. All these ways of keeping myself from being present. Ignoring important shit. Turning it into a joke. Pushing through to the next project, the next person, the next place. Clark’s not like that. She’s present – really present – with everyone. With me. And she kind of helped me find that with myself. That quiet space. And it really meant a lot to me. It – changed my life. And I wanted to do that for her. I wanted to help her like she helped me.”

Sully reaches out and squeezes Lois’ hand. 

Lois continues. “But I haven’t. I’ve just made it worse. I made it worse for her.” 

“So what do you want to do?” 

Lois takes in a deep breath. “Right now? Right now I want to catch up with my cousin I haven’t seen in three months. And I don’t want to think about Clark Kent, or bylines or what the hell the Penguin is lacing those shots with in his sewer rave for the next few days. And then I want to go home. And clean up my mess. See of any of this is fixable.” 

“Done,” Sully says and Lois smiles at him gratefully. “And Lois? It is. Fixable, I mean.” 

She admires his optimism. But personally, Lois isn’t too sure. 

True to his word, Sully doesn’t make Lois talk about Clark for the next three days she’s there and does his level best to distract her. Flowery language is more Clark’s bag, but Lois indulges, on the drive back. Like a sunflower opening its petals in the summer, time with Sully has made her feel reinvigorated. 

She thinks of another fifteen or so metaphors she can use before she hits the interstate. 

As soon as she nears Metropolis, a cop pulls her over for a speeding ticket.  She incurs a second fine for “disturbing the peace” after letting them know how she felt about the asinine nature of a highway designed to drop twenty miles per hour without even a Metropolis city limits sign. 

Idiots. 

And then, just like that, as if no time has passed at all, Lois is back home. 

“You have to be patient with Clark,” Sully had said, on the last day before Lois left, hugging her tightly. “She’s stubborn, but she’ll get there. If anyone can make the woman of – normal human bones and stuff – move, it’ll be you,” which Lois thought was a weird way to put it. 

“You got it boss,” Lois had said and Sully had punched her. 

And it wasn’t a bad idea. Lois could do that. Be patient. Wait for Clark to come to her. That was easy. Except – 

Okay. Lois can’t do that. It’s not her style! At least not without a real apology. Some clearing of the air. A little direct communication! Then she can be there. For whatever Clark wants. But first. 

She knows exactly what she’s going to do to fix this. 

Lois spares a few seconds to print a document off her computer and then she’s taking the stairs two at a time to the roof of the planet. 

Oh, god. Oh, god it’s been too many years since The General’s training regime. She cannot run up seventeen flights of steps like she used to. Lois doubles over, trying to catch her breath. As soon as she does, she stands, lifts her head, cups her hands around her mouth and yells, as loud as she can, “Superwoman!” 

She drops her hand. She waits. 

Jesus, it’s windy up here. Lois can’t even tuck her hair behind her ears without it getting immediately ripped out. No wonder Superwoman keeps hers up in those tight braids all the time. 

This has to work. The last time Superwoman’d rescued Lois from a LexCorps robot attack in downtown Metropolis, she’d told Lois all she had to do was say her name and she’d be there. But maybe the timing was bad. Maybe there was an earthquake in Nepal. Maybe Lois wasn’t as special to Superwoman as she liked to think. Maybe she was just the first reporter Superwoman saw after she decided to reveal herself. 

Disappointed, Lois takes one last glance around the edge of The Planet and turns to go down the stairs. 

“Miss Lane,” Superwoman says, urgently. “Are you okay?” Her hair is poorly tied up and loose, as if she’d been in a rush. 

“Oh my god,” Lois says. “You came!” 

Even Superwoman’s cape is whipping around in the wind. It pulls a few more strands of Superwoman’s hair out of its normally tight braids. “Miss Lane? The problem?” 

“What? Oh, yes, everything’s fine. No world ending threats. In fact, this is pretty low priority, if this is a bad time.” 

Superwoman touches down on the ground. “Miss Lane, please just tell me what’s going on.” 

“Okay, but I’ll warn you, this one’s a little personal. Like, me, personally. I know, I know, hard to believe an ace reporter like me could ever have personal problems but you know, for us humans down here, we have problems.” 

Superwoman coughs like she’s trying to cover up a laugh. “I don’t know if I’m the best person to offer advice.” 

“No, no,” Lois says, running out in front of her, as if she could stop the woman from taking off. As if Superwoman is even trying. “No. I don’t need advice. I got that already. I need a favor. And hey, really easy favor for you, probably like, 5 minutes tops and I’ll leave you alone. For a whole month. No chasing after you in crime scenes –” 

“No sneaking into LexCorps labs after hours?” Superwoman asks in a tone Lois would describe as ‘dry’ if she was capable of conceiving of Superwoman as someone who could speak dryly. 

“Well,” she says, and shrugs. And grins impishly. “No promises.” 

She’s pretty sure that Superwoman’s amused by that. Not that her face shows it. “So what do you need me for?” 

Lois rubs the back of her head. Then stops. Show no fear. “I’ve got this friend and she’s been really great to me. Like, really great. But I kind of messed up. Well, it wasn’t totally my fault, I mean this friend, she can kind of be a dick too. But I – I crossed a line. And I want to fix it. Show her I’m sorry.” 

Superwoman tilts her head in a way that's vaguely familiar. “So you want me to talk to her?” 

“No.” Lois laughs, then laughs again. “No, definitely not. She’s a little shy. I think she’d have a heart attack if Superwoman showed up.” 

“Maybe she’s braver than you think,” Superwoman suggests. 

“No way,” Lois says. “I’ve lived with her since college,” and there’s a creaking, cracking sound on the roof, like Superwoman’s just put her whole weight down on the Daily Planet, even though that’s obviously not the case. “Clark Kent is a pussy cat. Anyway, that’s not what I want.”

Lois waits. Superwoman, coughs. “Um,” and then she visibly straightens up. “What is it you want?” she asks in a deeper voice than before. 

“Okay, well, my friend. See, she’s kind of this huge loser and she’s got this like, sad pervert telescope in her open concept loft barn that she used to use to watch the stars every night. Alone.”  

“She sounds like a super awesome person,” Superwoman mutters. “Astronomy is really cool.” 

“Sure,” Lois allows, after a pause. It definitely isn’t. But, she thinks generously, Superwoman is an alien from outer space. Maybe it makes her less homesick. But what’s Clark’s excuse? “But Metropolis has a lot of light pollution and you can’t really see the stars from here, you know? And I thought, well, here,” and Lois pulls out the piece of paper. “I found this list of dark sky zones. Best star visibility you can get on earth. And I was thinking maybe you could take us there, and maybe we could even bring her sad, pervert telescope. And then maybe we could talk.” 

“I –” Superwoman’s eyes widen and her brow furrows. Huh, Lois thinks. She’s got pretty thick brows. “I don’t know if I can,” Superwoman says, concerned. It’s a vaguely family look on her. Superwoman isn’t usually so conflicted. That’s really more –

– and then the wind whips through Superwoman’s unusually loose braids so that for a second, Lois can kind of see the outline of what her hair would look like down and Superwoman says, in a way that is much, much more than vaguely familiar, “Or, maybe I could take you both separately?” and Lois takes a step back. And then another. And then another, as the bigger picture finally starts to coalesce around her and she – 

“Clark?”

– steps off the roof. 

When Superwoman – when Clark – grabs her, it takes Lois a second to realize, but it’s different than how she normally does it. Her hard, impossible arms have Lois under the shoulders and over the stomach and it’s like Lois is being held away from Superwoman’s body, currents of air gusting between them as Superwoman carefully brings them both back up to the roof of the planet. 

As soon as she can, Superwoman sets Lois down and flies back about a foot. “I’m sorry,” she says, though what the hell she could possibly be apologizing for Lois couldn’t guess. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says. “You saved me.” Then hestitatingly, “Clark. It is you, right?” Lois asks, even though now that she’s said it, it’s obvious. That’s Clark’s face. Clark’s – those aren’t Clark’s eyes. “Are you wearing contacts?” 

“Yes,” Clark says. “And, obviously, the braids. I don’t normally wear – braids.” 

Lois starts to take another step back. 

“Woah, there,” Clark says. “Hey, let’s not do that again, okay?” 

“It’s not just the contacts and the hair,” Lois says, “you act different too.” 

Clark looks down again. “Look, Lois, I know I’m not exactly who you thought I’d be,” and it’s the most uncertain, the most Clark-like Superwoman has ever sounded. 

Oh my god, Lois thinks faintly. Superwoman is Clark. “Oh my God,” she tells Clark out loud, weakly, and then she remembers everything she’s ever said about Superwoman in her life all at once. “Oh my God, I asked you to yourself to a black sky zone.” 

“That was actually really nice,” Clark says, and tries to smile at her. 

For some reason, the next thing Lois says is, “I’ve pitched asking you to have sex with me for an article thirty-one times.” 

“I … didn’t know it was that many,” Clark says. Then she changes tactics. “Look, Lois, it’s okay. I don’t mind. I know you wouldn’t have said all that– if, if you knew it was me.” 

Well. Lois thinks. This actually, physically cannot get any worse. So she might as well just say it at this point. “Are you kidding me?” Lois asks. “The only reason I wanted to fuck Superwoman so badly is because I figured you were too repressed to go for it.” 

Clark stares at her. “Um,” she says. 

“Clark, no matter what I’ve thought of you, there’s no universe that exists where the reveal that you’re Superwoman could possibly be a disappointment to me.” 

Clark’s mouth opens a bit, like she can’t stop herself. Her voice sounds thick. “Lois,” she says. “You don’t mean that.” 

“I do,” Lois says and Clark drops her eyes down. 

“I’m sorry about last week,” she says. “Really. You don’t know how sorry I am Lois. This is – it’s my fault.” 

“It’s okay,” Lois says. 

“No,” Clark says. “No you don’t understand. I’m not – you were right when you said I wasn’t brave. I’m – I don’t want to give people another reason to look at me like I’m a freak. And it’s hard. For me to not shove down the parts of myself that aren’t like everyone else. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, you know?” her voice breaks. “But I’m not. Like everyone else. I’m an alien and I’m – I like, you. I like you.” 

“Way to steal my thunder, Smallville,” Lois says. 

Clark tries to smile back. Lois can see, though, that something’s still wrong. 

“Clark,” Lois tries carefully. “This is a good thing.” 

Clark’s shaking her head. “No,” she says. “I’ve been – I heard you and Olivia.” 

Lois thinks about that. “Okay,” she says, “well, that’s mortifying. But, hey!” Lois adds, desperately. “Kind of our fault. We knew Superwoman had superhearing and still,” the only way out was through, Lois reminds herself, “did weird superhero roleplay sex.” 

Clark winces, visibly. “It’s not just that,” she says. “I get – scared. I shut down. There’s a lot of things about myself I don’t want to look at.” 

“Clark,” Lois says, “Look at me.” She waits until Clark does. “You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had. That’s never going to change. No matter what. I shouldn’t have been pushing you so hard. I’ve just never had anything I wanted as badly as you before. But I’m going to try and do better. Because I love you. I’m in love with you. I’m going all in Clark, because no matter what you decide, I think you deserve to know. And I’m willing to wait as long as you –” 

Clark kisses her. 

Superwoman flies forward, lifts her off the ground, and kisses her. 

She’s – enthusiastic. But she’s Clark, and she’s panting and Lois even thinks moaning a bit so Lois does the right thing. Reluctantly. “Clark,” she says, pulling away. And then leans forward and kisses Clark again, because she’s there and she’s beautiful and Lois wants to. 

This time it’s Clark who pulls back. She sets them gently back down on the roof. “I still have some things to tell you,” Clark says. 

Lois rolls her eyes. “Clark, I know you're an alien from the planet Krypton,” she says, “I did your first interview, remember?” 

“You probably shouldn’t call me that. In the suit.” 

“Because of your secret identity?” Lois asks, stretching a hand out around Clark’s ass. 

Clark closes her eyes and pushes minutely forward into Lois. “Because of the secret identity,” she agrees, but she’s shaking a bit against Lois. 

“Don’t tell me you're cold,” Lois says, and then just to be mean she brings her hands down Clark’s body, stopping at the base of her waist. She pushes hard against Clark’s skin, as Clark shivers instead of responding. 

“Hm,” Lois pretends to think, drawing back her hands. She slips off the blazer and drapes it over Clark’s shoulders. “Maybe you should try wearing my clothes for a change.” 

“Lois, I’ll break it,” Clark says, doubtfully, refusing to take it. 

She shrugs. “Then I’ll fix it. Or get another.” 

But it’s like Clark’s eyes have dimmed. She’s shifting her feet too. “It’s not safe,” she says, and Lois reaches forward and drags the blazers arm through Clark’s arm. She’s definitely going to break it. 

“It’s hot,” Lois tells her. “It’s really hot if you rip my clothes because you're so strong and jacked.” 

A sort of pause runs through Clark, who is flexing her hand open and closed on her own thigh, and Lois presses her advantage. “Clark,” she says, “finish putting on the blazer.” 

Clark licks her lips, and does it. 

It looks terrible on her. Over the Superwoman suit. And Lois is right. When Clark tries to cross her arms and the back splits, it’s insanely hot. Lois grins at Clark. God. It’s amazing Lois has looked at Superwoman so many times and never known. Clark smiles back at Lois, and it’s a little nervous, a little bashful, but still there. Still stealing across her face. 

And Lois wants Clark even more than she ever has before. Which is fucking amazing, because now Lois gets to have her. 

“God,” Lois says. “It’s really been you this whole time?” And then before Clark can answer, she steps in close to her and says, “Well? What are you waiting for Smallville? Fly us home.”