Title: Between Bug Spray and Toothpaste
Summary: Lois has the day off, and therefore is far from the dangers of her profession. But that doesn't stop other dangers from haunting her at home, and only a
deus ex machina can save her this time.
Author's notes:
1. First of all, I want to thank everyone who's been following and commenting on the story <3
2. This is part 3 of a small series. Check out parts 1 and 2 at this link:
TOC3. I was a bit confused about whether "bug spray" meant insect repellent or insect killer. I did some research and found out it could mean both, so I kept it, since in this story it's used as insecticide.
4. The name "Blur" was taken from the TV show Smallville, although I haven't actually watched it.
5. As always, I loved writing this, but the revision and editing (and rewriting) process was a real struggle, and it took a while. I got sick and had to finish a college essay, but everything's fine now. Besides, I realized I hadn't done enough research on apartments, household appliances, and American customs in 1993. So I rewrote and edited, but I'm afraid there might still be some mistakes left. Anyway, enjoy!
***
"Aaaaaaagh!"
That Saturday was easily turning out to be one of the hardest days of Lois Lane’s life — though it wasn't even eleven in the morning yet. And it was all Perry's fault, she thought bitterly. After all, if he hadn't forced her to take the day off, she would be at the Planet and none of this would be happening.
Lately, her boss had been insisting that she use her days off more often, which was highly suspicious. Lois suspected the reason for this was a dip in the quality of her own work, which was highly unlikely, but possible, and it consequently made her redouble her efforts. Cat Grant had called her an alien and claimed that Perry was just worried about her either finally snapping or getting sick. According to her, that was what happened when normal people worked for several days straight without a break.
Anyway, Lois had tried to argue her case using Clark, who had arrived at the Daily Planet a month ago and had been under her supervision and care ever since. The editor wouldn't hear of it, replying that Kent already knew how to get by without her, and Clark himself agreed, the traitor.
This had ripped her away from the sweet intellectual validation that the newsroom provided, leaving her at the mercy of the terrors of domestic life. And now she was screaming in her own apartment, with lunch on the stove, the washing machine broken, and the living room turned upside down.
"Lois?" Someone knocked at the door. "Lois, you in there?"
Clark! What was he doing here? Not that she was going to complain; she really needed a
deus ex machina right about now.
"Coming!" She hopped to the door, remembering at the very last second that she was in her pajamas with half her hair pinned on top of her head. There was nothing she could do about her pajamas covered with little cows, but at least she took her hair down and finger‑combed it. "Clark, am I glad to see you! Come in, it's urgent!"
As Lois pulled him inside, Clark quickly scanned both her and the apartment. Despite the shrill scream that had startled him so badly he'd left the newsroom and flown straight to her building, she seemed fine. The apartment, on the other hand…
The sofa and coffee table were out of place; cushions, a few books and a pair of sandals were strewn on the floor. The curtain hung askew, loose from one end of the track, and a strong chemical smell permeated the room.
"Here!" Lois shoved a broom into his right hand and a spray bottle into his left. "Go on, you've got this. I'll be right here in my corner. It was over there, by the curtain. At least the last time I saw it."
"It? What? Who?"
"The flying cockroach, Clark! Hello!"
Clark frowned and looked at the bottle in his hand. It was insecticide.
"Lois, you used this with the apartment locked up? Gosh, you could've gotten sick! Go on, wait in the hallway. Let me handle this."
Gladly, Lois obeyed, taking the moment to breathe the air outside the apartment and calm the pounding in her chest.
"All done!" Clark's voice echoed from inside.
She blinked. "Already?" She peered through a crack in the door, suspicious. "Clark, you did kill the cockroach, didn't you?"
"I did, Lois. Want to see?"
"
No! No. I trust you." She made a frantic shooing gesture. "Go on, throw it away. The dustpan's right there, see? It's just… that was fast, you know? I'd been trying to catch it for half an hour."
Nothing a discreet use of x‑ray vision, flight, and super‑speed couldn't solve, Clark thought, satisfied. He swept the poor poisoned cockroach onto the dustpan and carried it to the trash. This was exactly what he'd always hoped to do with his powers: kill cockroaches for Lois Lane. He let out a short, low chuckle.
"Even the smell is gone!"
Clark froze as the dead insect slid into the trash can.
Oh, right. There was that, too. "I, uh, opened the window. It's really windy out today, so it cleared the air…"
"Sure, sure. Got it." Lois sighed, flopping onto the couch.
"I... can I get a glass of cold water?" He didn't want to be rude, but he urgently needed something to wash away the bitter taste that had lingered in his mouth after sucking in the insecticide to blow it outside.
With a vague gesture, she motioned for him to go ahead. "It's in the fridge."
Trying to ignore the typical awkwardness of helping yourself in someone else's kitchen for the first time, Clark opened the refrigerator to get the water pitcher and spotted some mint candies there. He asked if he could have one, and got another careless nod.
At peace with his water and candy, he pushed away the mental image of Martha Kent scolding him for his boldness in someone else's home. It wasn't the first time Clark had been to Lois's apartment, but it was the first time he'd ventured beyond the living room. At most, he'd walked her to the door on those occasions when, for one reason or another, she'd left without her car. At first, she'd say it was unnecessary and call him paranoid. Clark, however, had learned that there were too many people in Metropolis after Lois Lane's head for him to ever let his guard down.
Suddenly, he burst out laughing.
"You think that's funny, huh?"
"Sorry." He tried to stifle his laugh. "It's just that it's kind of absurd that a woman who faces thieves, kidnappers, and all sorts of criminals any day of the week would be screaming like that over a bug."
Lois blushed with embarrassment. Of course, for him to have gotten there that fast, he must have already been in the hallway when she screamed.
"It was a
flying cockroach!" she defended herself. "And it came flying straight at me!" Before he could respond, she took back control of the conversation. "Anyway, what are you doing here?"
"Uh, killing a cockroach for you?"
Lois rolled her eyes. "Why did you
come here? Did Perry send you to get me so I could look after you?"
"Oh, I..." Clark drummed his fingers on the kitchen counter. "I was following a lead. Someone said the Blur was spotted around here. Since the tip turned out to be fake, I figured I'd check if you were losing it on your day off. Good thing I did, huh? Anyway, how about we straighten all this up?"
His feeble attempt to change the subject didn't go unnoticed by Lois. Surprisingly, she found she actually enjoyed working with Clark — except when it came to the city's newest topic: the Blur, who was supposedly some kind of lifesaver that moved so fast no one could see anything but... a blur. She understood his lack of interest in the rumor, since it was unfounded and utterly absurd, but his constant disappearances were really annoying. And soon enough, Perry might start getting really annoyed too.
"Don't bother, Clark. I don't want to hold you up getting back to the Planet. Traffic in this city has been impossible lately."
"Don't worry about that. I'll be quick. Let me tidy up the living room, and in the meantime you can… uh…"
She jumped to her feet. "Finish rinsing my laundry! I'd completely forgotten. The cockroach came out of nowhere and distracted me."
As Lois disappeared into the laundry room, Clark carried out the most important task of all: he flew home at supersonic speed to brush his teeth. The mint candy was good, but the residual chemical taste needed a lot of toothpaste and several scrubs to be eliminated. After all, he could not be near Lois with bug spray breath under any circumstances. Or any kind of bad breath, for that matter. But bug spray breath least of all, when the smell of the stuff had vanished so mysteriously from her apartment just a short while ago.
Clark was back in her place just a few seconds later, and as soon as he removed his jacket and loosened his tie, he noticed a smell of something nearly scorching. A very promising stew was bubbling on the stove, with meat and vegetables cut in an uneven manner — but from what he knew, Lois had never cared about those details. It was good that she was cooking instead of ordering takeout, for a change. He stirred the stew with the wooden spoon he found nearby, added a little water, covered it, and turned off the stove.
The living room, although visually terrifying, wasn't a difficult task. First, Clark floated up to put the curtain back in place. Then he put the shoes, which had been thrown around, in a corner by the wall, where Lois could see them and return them to her closet. The books were next, and he couldn't resist using his speed to organize them in alphabetical order on the shelf, wondering with a smile if Lois would notice later. The sofa and coffee table were lifted in his hands to avoid dragging them and scratching the floor.
It was when he bent down to pick up the cushions that he got an unexpected find.
"Lois!"
"What is it?" She appeared at the threshold between the laundry room and the kitchen, drying her hands on her dark pajama pants, her eyes uneasy. "Another flying cockroach?"
He held up the plush chicken he'd found among the cushions. "I found Juvenilia tossed on the floor. What does this mean? It's not right to mistreat your son's pet."
Lois blinked, initially incredulous, but then snorted and rolled her eyes. "Spare me your dramas, Kent. I wasn't even paying attention to what I was throwing around, I was just trying to hit that disgusting monster."
"Well, that actually makes sense," Clark conceded, turning the cute plush chicken to examine it, "considering chickens eat cockroaches and all."
"Oh, they do?" asked Lois, walking over to him. Suddenly, the idea of raising a chicken in her apartment didn't seem so absurd anymore.
He clicked his tongue. "You city folks really don't know anything, do you? Anyway, you're lucky I'm here. If Lane Lane had seen Juvenilia tossed in the middle of the living room, he wouldn't be happy at all."
"I think Juvenilia could make him quite happy if she magically appeared on a tray fresh out of the oven."
Clark put his hand on his chest, as if wounded. "Careful, Lois. You might offend a nearly-vegetarian farmer talking like that."
He gently tapped the soft beak of the chicken against her forehead. She rolled her eyes again, an involuntary smile on her face, and took the plush toy to put it back in the bedroom.
Juvenilia was perhaps one of the most random gifts Lois had ever received, but also the cutest, most unpretentious thing any man had ever given her. Clark had won it at one of those strength testers on their fourth date, when he took her to an amusement park. On his second try, he rang the bell, and out of all the normal stuffed animals he could have chosen, he picked the most unusual one possible. His eyes lit up when he spotted Juvenilia — that hadn't been named yet — and he couldn't resist the temptation to revive his old plan of giving a chicken to Lois's non-existent son. Thus, Lois was forced to carry a stuffed chicken the size of her forearm for the rest of the night. If it hadn't been so incredibly funny, she might have found it mortifying, but they hadn't stopped laughing since that moment of the date, and spent the rest of it trying to come up with the perfect name for the chicken. She suggested Chickenny, which he hated; he suggested Margaret; and finally, after a few attempts, they agreed on Juvenilia.
Sometimes, Lois hugged Juvenilia when she went to sleep, but she would never, under any circumstances, tell Clark that.
"You said you were doing laundry?" Clark asked when she returned from the bedroom. He was standing in the exact same spot, hands in his pockets.
Lois looked around the living room, trying not to seem impressed that she found it in perfect condition — actually, better than it had been before. Was it her imagination, or had even the dust on the table disappeared? "I am. My washing machine broke right in the middle of the cycle, and now I need to finish rinsing my bedding in the sink. I still think these appliances are programmed to break down every now and then."
"Want some help?"
By now, his thoughtfulness shouldn't have surprised her, but it still did. "Oh, no, Clark. You've already helped me so much. I don't want to bother you any further. Or get you in trouble with Perry."
"It's no bother. And don't worry — knowing Metropolis, I'll probably find a story on my way back to the Planet." He walked past her towards the laundry room. "Besides, you look pretty tired."
"Wow, thanks," she shot back sarcastically, following him. Deep down, she was glad for his insistence, because the muscles in her arms and back were
really tired from handling the wet towels, and she hadn't even started on the blankets yet. Still, it was an awkward situation.
"Sorry, that's not what I meant." Clark stopped to look her in the eyes, a soft smile on his lips.
He examined her from head to toe, and Lois felt a shiver run through her — which, she thought, made absolutely no sense biologically speaking, since she was hot from the physical work she'd been doing. Of course, there was another biologically plausible reason for her response, but Lois wasn't willing to go that far in that line of investigation. "You know," Clark went on, "you look adorable in those cow pajamas. Were you thinking of Smallville when you put them on?"
Lois slapped his shoulder as she walked past him. "As if, farmboy." So what if it was true? He didn't need to know
that either. "You're just jealous because I have more cows than you."
"Well,
my cows are three-dimensional. And they give fresh milk every morning."
"So," she continued, ignoring him, "like I said, the machine stopped working out of the blue, and I had to rinse these clothes by hand." Lois pointed to the drying rack (a housewarming gift from her mother) with some white clothes and towels on it. "Only the hardest part is left... the bedding."
"No problem." Clark rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing his forearms to Lois's suddenly attentive gaze. "Do you have any buckets? We'll need to take the bedding out and then the water. Um... Lois?"
"Oh, right! The buckets are over in that corner. Wait, there's an apron here, I'll get it for you." She congratulated herself on her presence of mind, keeping busy looking for the apron in the overhead cabinet next to the large open window instead of getting distracted by forearms. "Perry won't be pleased if he sees you coming back all soaked, unless you have a story good enough to justify— Ah, found it! Here it is."
Clark's gaze traveled from the outstretched apron to the inviting skin of Lois's collarbone, exposed by her spaghetti-strap pajama top. Unlike the long dark pants, the top was made of a light, thin fabric.
"I think you'd better wear it."
"Me? But you're the one who needs to get back to work. Why should I wear it?"
Because I don't know how I'll react if this thin little top of yours gets wet , he answered mentally. "I don't want the little cows to drown." He shrugged, looking away.
Laughing, Lois considered that explanation too silly to hide any ulterior motive, and agreed to keep the apron. They worked together to pull the soapy blankets and sheets out of the machine, which Lois couldn't help noticing seemed far too easy for Clark. Catching her suspicious look, he played it off.
"Wow, this gets heavy when it's wet, huh?" He feigned exaggerated difficulty — which he could only hope didn't look as ridiculous to Lois as it felt to him.
"Tell me about it! I don't know why people train their upper body at the gym when they could just do
this."
After they'd put all the soapy bedding into a basket (a completely covered one, with no holes), they improvised a draining system with the buckets, repeating the process of carrying the water from the washing machine to the sink. Lois, flustered and in a hurry, despite having been advised to take it slow and only fill the bucket halfway, would have indeed taken a shower if it weren't for the apron. Naturally, this left Clark torn between congratulating himself for foreseeing the disaster and hating himself for missing out on a beautiful and certainly unforgettable view. Since he was still a gentleman, despite everything, he pushed away the improper thoughts and insisted she let him finish removing the water alone, which in the end made the job quicker.
Despite not having the pleasure of seeing Clark's beige shirt clinging to his torso, Lois, leaning against the sink counter, could at least freely appreciate his back as he moved. Deep down, she felt a bit frustrated; after all, he was carrying both buckets at once, filled to the brim, and had barely gotten wet. Thus, she suddenly found herself with a lot to process, for example, the fact that she enjoyed looking at him and that she wanted to see
more of him.
There was also that intoxicating feeling that came from noticing the height difference between them, which she could observe in the moments he walked past her to pour the collected water down the drain. That was the first time she wasn't wearing any kind of heels around him, not her work shoes or the tall boots she wore on their dates. And seeing him like that — without his jacket, his tie loosened, his forearms exposed and from an angle she had never appreciated before — stirred unfamiliar sensations within her.
Lost in observations she wasn't yet ready to properly name, Lois didn't catch what he said after he set the buckets down and turned to her. "Hmm?"
"I asked if you have a Phillips screwdriver. So I can take a look at your washing machine."
"Oh! Yes. Of course I have a Phillips screwdriver." She crouched down next to Clark for a moment. "It should be here, under the sink... No, it's not. Maybe in the cabinet. But you're going to open the machine? I thought you were just helping me rinse my bedding. Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Well, I think—"
"You're right. What harm could it do? It's already broken anyway. Besides, I really wasn't looking forward to asking the neighbor if I could rinse and spin my bedding in her machine. So it would actually be really helpful if you fixed it." Lois pulled the toolbox from the back of the messy cabinet and handed it to him. "Can you believe I only paid a technician to clean it two months ago? He must have taken some part out on purpose or something..."
Clark crouched down and unscrewed the front panel of the machine to the sweet sound of Lois's chatter, listening as she talked about how she wanted to write a series of articles on appliances and planned obsolescence soon. Clark's x-ray vision revealed the problem was a clog in the drain hose, and all he had to do was detach it from the metal clamp and reveal the clump of lint inside.
"Eww!" Lois exclaimed. "That's disgusting! Is there hair in there too? You can bet that's Lucy's. At least eighty percent of it. She never removes the stray hairs that get stuck on her clothes. She should be here to see this!"
"Lint, hair, and..." Clark held up his find between two fingers. "A coin."
"Oh! How did that get in there?"
"Now that's the...” He looked at the coin. “...twenty-five‑cent question."
Clark finished the repair easily, only having to be careful not to apply too much force and risk breaking the part attached to the machine's motor when he rotated it. It moved freely again, so he screwed the panel back on, stood up, and dusted off his pants.
"Voilà, mademoiselle. Everything's working perfectly."
"Wow. Thank you. I had no idea you knew about this kind of stuff."
"Ah, you know, farm tractors and all that." He narrowed his eyes at her playfully. "But you're still going to have to pay."
Lois raised an eyebrow, untying the apron. "Oh, am I?"
"Don't worry, I'm not too ambitious. You can just take me out. A movie works — it's even cheaper." He waved a dismissive hand. "Here, you can use this coin to help with the expenses."
She laughed out loud. She doubted he was actually serious: they'd been out a total of six times, and he never let her pay for anything beyond her own transportation, when that was the case. "Next one's on you", he'd always reply when she protested, and on the next date he'd repeat it, and so on. Lois felt like she was in a tale from One Thousand and One Nights, being coldly and cruelly manipulated into going on the next date in the hope of finally being allowed to pay. And although their dates hadn't been expensive so far, she hoped he wasn't going into debt over her or anything, since his first paycheck from the Daily Planet hadn't come in yet.
"Careful, farmboy, or I might be tempted to take you up on that offer."
"Well, maybe that's my goal, city girl."
Effortlessly, he carried the basket with the soaked sheets and blankets back to the machine. Lois decided to ignore the ease with which Clark did that and simply selected the rinse cycle. The washer came to life, water rushing in as if nothing had happened.
Then she walked him to the door, and suddenly a slight tension settled between them. "Thank you for everything today, Clark. You've helped me so much."
"You're welcome. We just forgot to make you something for lunch."
"Actually, I—" Lois's eyes widened. "Oh no, my stew! I left it on the stove!"
Clark stopped her from dashing to the kitchen with gentle hands on her shoulders. "I already turned it off. I was just teasing you."
Blinking in disbelief, Lois stared at this man who, at ten‑thirty in the morning, had arrived at her apartment and solved nearly all her problems for the day. He'd killed the cockroach, tidied up the living room, fixed the washing machine, and even stopped her lunch from burning. How could she thank him properly?
Before she could talk herself out of it, she stepped closer, slowly. Clark's smile faded, replaced by a serious expression, and his gaze was so intense Lois almost forgot what she was doing. She rose on her tiptoes, closed her eyes, and leaned in.
Their first kiss. Light, calm, gentle. Tentative? Maybe. Well, definitely a little hesitant. But still, it was perfect.
"So, what movie should I take you to see tomorrow?" she whispered, still inches away. One of his hands remained respectfully in the same place, on her shoulder, while the other held her face. Lois's hands, meanwhile, had found their way to his chest. "I should get to choose, since I'm paying… but I've decided to be doubly generous today."
He blinked, pleased, and smiled like the Cheshire Cat. "There's a really cool movie about bobsled that's still in theaters. I bet Lane Lane would love it."
"Oh no, we're not taking him. It'll be just you and me."
If it were possible, Lois would say Clark's smile widened even further. She patted his shoulder. "Now you have to go."
"Okay. See you later, Lois."
She closed the door and leaned against it.
Wow. That had been… bold! She hadn't taken the initiative for a first kiss since she was a teenager. The men in her adult life had always made the first move — but not Clark, who insisted on ending their dates with chaste, electrifying kisses on the back of her hand. She wondered if he thought she'd rushed things.
Oh God, Lois, of course he thought you rushed things! You're in your pajamas! Who gives a first kiss in their pajamas? Cow pajamas, to top it off!Suddenly, Lois
had to see him walk down the hallway to read his body language (Jimmy had convinced her it wasn't pseudoscience and that it actually worked). Peeking through the crack in the door, she was surprised to find Clark taking a deep breath, stunned, standing in the same spot, as if trying to return to normal after an alien experience.
She flung the door open. He jumped, startled, reacting a second too late.
Damn it, Kent, couldn't you have waited until you were out of her sight to freak out?"A-ah! I'm going already, I was just… um…"
Lois pulled him towards her by his tie. This time the kiss was shorter, more intense.
She pulled back, clearing her throat. "Hello? Earth to Clark. You need to get back to the Planet, or Perry will make mincemeat out of you."
He nodded, dazed. "Right. Get back to the Planet. Right."
She couldn't resist giving him a quick goodbye peck, and then let him go. "Great. See you tomorrow. At the movies."
Clark nodded again. "Yes."
Lois bit her lip to hide a smile and firmly closed the door. Three kisses in a row! She supposed she should be satisfied with that number, but honestly, she hoped they could do it again on their date the next day. After all, the movies would provide some interesting privacy…
At bedtime, at 344 Clinton Street, Clark was getting ready for sleep — even though he knew it would be hard to actually drift off. He caught himself remembering that morning again, smiling like a lovesick fool at the mirror after finishing his nightly hygiene routine. Stepping out earlier to brush his teeth, he thought happilly, might have been the best decision he'd ever made.
***
6. This fic was unironically born because I don't have a washing machine. So while I'm dealing with a heavy, soaking wet blanket, I always think about how useful super‑strength would be right then — I also miss having a husband at times like this, because he could do it for me XD And super‑speed must be great for killing cockroaches.
7. The plush chicken's full name is Juvenilia Margaret Chickenny. I chose Juvenilia simply because I love the word and think it's absurd that it isn't a common female name :P
8. Feel free to comment! As always, your opinion is greatly appreciated.
Next part:
Part 4
Fortunately, he thought of going home and brushing his teeth. A first kiss tasting like bug spray would have been a disaster. 
Looking forward to their date. 
So much information. You placed the story. And you told us that Lois is opening up the Daily Planet to a lawsuit by her taking sexual advantage of a direct reportee. 
![[Linked Image]](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/men-in-black/images/a/a9/Ed.jpg)
I did not expect this. Thought she was wearing thick flannel pajamas with long sleeves.
In kind? 
Michael
