You guys seem like you need some help.
He sipped at his coffee in spite of the steam still rising from his mug. “No news is good news, Lois.”
She scoffed. “Maybe for Superman it is. For us? We’re gonna be out of a job.”
His answering sigh of exasperation had her hackles up again. He muttered something under his breath, and that did it. She rolled her chair out from under her desk sharply and stood up, planting her hands firmly on her desk. “What?”
“I said,” he met her gaze head on, “maybe everyone’s just burned out. The city might need a break after, you know…”
“After what? After Lex? You can say it.”
She felt a couple of other stares landing on her at the mention of the name, and she crossed her arms and jutted out her chin proudly. He was her fiance. Heck, he was nearly her husband, had Clark and Perry not stepped in when they did. Even then it’d taken her longer than she was proud of to admit the truth to herself, so if anyone had the right to bring the man up, it was Lois.
Clark’s gaze traveled around the room quickly and came back to meet hers. “Why don’t we go take a break? Maybe get some air?”
Lois wanted to be stubborn and refuse, but some air would probably do her some good. Begrudgingly, she nodded and turned to grab her purse. He followed her over to the elevators, behind a couple of steps, lost in his own thoughts even as they stepped into the elevator car together.
The doors closed them off from the rest of the world, and quickly the silence filled the space between them uncomfortably. He smelled nice. Lois tried to shake the thought away, but his cologne in this tight space was inescapable, and she let out a small sigh of contentment. Clark turned to look at her oddly, but she didn’t even acknowledge the motion, keeping her eyes trained on the numbers as they slowly approached the ground floor and striving valiantly to keep any embarrassment from staining her cheeks.
The doors opened, and together they slowly ambled out of the building and towards their usual spot in Centennial Park. A twinge pulled in her stomach. It was their spot, until she’d ruined it. They hadn’t been back since that day.
In fact, they hadn’t done much together since that day, about three months ago. The Planet had reopened about a month and a half ago, but during that gap time she’d hardly seen Clark. And even since it’d been open, they’d hardly even had a chance to work together on anything. He was always keeping a polite distance, leaving her at an arm’s length. Perry didn’t put them together on as many stories, and suddenly she was wondering if Clark had said something to him, or if he could just see the tension in the air between them. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was a little of both.
