This is just a little something I came up with but don't really have any desire to write up an actual story. If anyone wants to take it as a prologue and go somewhere with it....?
PROLOGUE
Lois Lane smiled up at her partner, Clark Kent, as he set a cup of coffee on her desk. She knew even before she took a sip that it would be just the way she liked it. He's figured that out early on and she could count on it being right every time.
"Nice story, Lois, but you really should be more careful. You could have really gotten hurt or killed this time."
She rolled her eyes at him. "You're my occasional partner, Kent, not my mother. I'm as good as I am because I sometime take chances."
Clark was about to say something, but he was interrupted by Perry White poking his head out of his office door.
"Ah, Lois, could I see you in my office?"
She jumped up. "Sure, Chief." She flashed Clark a look of confusion, and shrugged.
She knocked, and poked her head through the open door of the office when she got there. "What's up?"
Perry pointed to the chair in front of his desk. "Sit down, Lois."
Lois sat down. She noticed that Perry didn't look too happy. He sighed and stared at her for several moments. She began to get fidgety.
"Can you kindly tell me just what you were thinking when you broke into that warehouse yesterday?"
Lois frowned. "What do you mean? I cracked the case. I exposed the bad guys and got the story. It's what I do."
"You entered that warehouse without permission; that's breaking and entering."
"Actually, since I wasn't planning the commission of a crime, it's usually only illegal trespass."
"It's still illegal."
"Oh, and using someone's empty warehouse to stage and store smuggled munitions is fine?"
Perry glared at her. "This isn't about them. They're in jail. This is about you and your disregard for rules of law."
Lois was bewildered by Perry's attitude. So she bent a few minor rules now and then. Who cared as long as she got the story? "What's the big deal? So I twist a few rules and commit a few misdemeanors, it's how I work. You can't get the big stories by playing by the rules."
"You do realize that The Planet has had to pay six fines in the last four months for those 'bent' rules of yours. And that doesn't count how many times you've played it fast and loose and got away with it."
Lois wanted to say something in her defense but she felt that it would probably be smarter to just shut up and let Perry have his say.
"Did you know that the owner of the warehouse is suing the Daily Planet for the destruction of his warehouse?"
"What!" Lois jumped up out of her seat. "How in the heck can they blame me for that? I wasn't the one who riddled the propane fuel tanks with bullets, causing the explosion."
Perry sighed again. "I know that, but you were the one they were shooting at. The owner contends if you hadn't been there, illegally, in the first place the firefight would never have happened and his property would not have been burned to the ground."
Lois sat back down with a snort of derision. "It will never stand up in court."
Perry leaned back in his chair. "Maybe not, but the paper will still have to defend it, and you can't be too sure about suits these days. The courts like to reward the aggrieved parties and who's got the deeper pockets? The crooks... or the Daily Planet?"
Lois chewed on her lip for a bit, then sighed. "Okay, I get it. I'll try to toe the line more in the future."
Perry shook his head sadly. "No, honey, you don't get it. They've had enough. The word came down from the suits this morning. There's nothing I can do."
"About what?"
"I'm sorry, Lois. As of right now you are no longer employed by the Daily Planet. You're fired."
