Hi Evie!
Because she had been losing her mind for weeks now, and it wasn’t even over a story.
That’s adorably self-aware of her. Also, she *could* always turn it into a story.
LOIS: I already did the investigation and the public has no business knowing who I sleep with, so, no, not an option.
CLARK: sleep with?
LOIS:
Clark had been so earnestly kind and oblivious in the face of her messing with him that it had taken all the fun right out of her chosen remuneration.
Yes, if the subject isn’t aware of his punishment, what’s the point? Probably also the reason why withholding an intimate relationship or engaging in one are both equally not helpful.
before she’d become the recipient of this unwanted knowledge.
That’s not a sentence you’d expect to read in connection with Lois Lane.
But after Clark’s lies had begun to feel like darts needling her suddenly thin skin, she had saddled him with Cat for the evening, and then been forced to watch the woman do her best impersonation of strangling ivy.
Starts adorable and veers into most fun with Cat. I guess Lois is not jealous.
LOIS: /opens dictionary under ‘j’/
and that she should just forget that she knew anything at all about Clark’s extra-curricular activities.
Maybe if he kissed her?
she’d given in and decided that patience and ignorance, whether forced or real, weren’t her strong suits.
You have to really hit her over the head with it, but after some tries, she does learn.
he was going to lie to her.
The second step had been figuring out what would make that okay.
Cute. Delusional but cute. Or she gives in and tells him. She could even make it a game and plant two direction signs in her apartment. The one for Superman pointing to her bedroom, the one for Clark pointing to her dinner table, laden with food she mentions she cooked herself. Then she tells him to chose.
READER: Food? Cooked by Lois?
LOIS: What? No one said I can’t game the system.
The second step had been figuring out what would make that okay.
Nothing, her mind immediately supplied, even now. Nothing made that okay.
/Points up/
Therefore, in retribution for his crime of selling her a year’s worth of lies, she was going to force him to revisit every distant restaurant he’d ever brought her food from—and then some!
Good luck explaining that logic to a court of your peers.
That way, she would receive direct compensation for the damage of his lies.
Yes. She should really look into him paying his debt to her in kind.
That way, she would receive direct compensation for the damage of his lies.
In snack form.
She was calling this ‘the pizza strategy.’
I enjoy the staccato-form.
So maybe compensation for her mental anguish in the form of global gourmet would finally take the edge off her anger?
It was worth a shot.
And if it didn’t work…
/points at earlier remark/
Hmm…
/hands Lois relationship advice column from last week’s Daily Planet on how make-up sex can be very satisfactory and helpful in relieving tensions while bringing the quarreling couple closer together/
She blew an errant strand of hair out of her eyes, not wanting to think about what would come next.
/eyes previous remark warily/
Well, at least she’d eat well in her misery.
/hides bathroom scale/
Would they like him so much if they knew he was lying to them? she wondered.
He does favor Lois with his Superman-interviews, so my guess would be ‘no’.
“Sorry,” she said automatically, wondering why she couldn’t control the nervous giggle that came with it. After all, she wasn’t trying to flirt with the man! She was mad at him!
And the difference is…?
“No caffeine on a Monday morning? That’s awfully brave,” he replied with a teasing grin.
When the rest of the staff hears this:
Staring after him, she felt a twinge, unsure whether it was his betrayal cutting into her core again from where it sat like a mercurial ball of lava, or her own guilt from punishing a nice guy for something she wasn’t sure she even blamed him for.
See? If she had just dragged him off into the supply closet and had her wicked way with him, she wouldn’t have to feel guilty at all.
LOIS: You can’t solve everything with passionate lovemaking!
CAT: /hands Lois her beer/
Well, Clark seemed to be perfectly happy to run out and get coffee. And she felt very slightly mollified that he’d been so willing.
He likes servicing his mistress. Also, when did boutique sieve espresso machines become a thing? Sometime in the early 2010s?
she’d entirely forgotten about her real plan for the day, which was to exact a snack for every one of Clark’s lies.
But Clark hadn’t.
Well, he hadn’t known about her plan, of course, so he hadn’t exactly known to get her something to eat, specifically.
But he had noticed that she hadn’t eaten. He had cared enough to want to make sure that she did.
Most adorable!
and inevitably woken up starving the next day, setting off her annoyance all over again. But Clark had stepped in to correct that cycle, which, come to think of, hadn’t happened very often recently.
Wait, can the entire affair be traced back to a hangry Lois?
Had Clark been making sure that she actually ate during all the times she usually would have forgotten?
How long had that been happening?
About as long as the special chocolate bars she receives on her desk every four weeks for a period of three to five days.
Since he figured out her work-above-sustenance eating pattern, probably just a few weeks after being partnered with her?
The job position actually came with an instruction manual. Feed regularly between eight in the morning and eleven at night. No feeding after midnight. Don’t get wet.
told herself to focus on a story that actually made sense to her, instead of the melodrama running through her mind.
Cute. But should know by now from watching The Ivory Tower that you can’t miss an episode of your favorite daytime soap or you won’t know which of the twins is actually a clone, which is a double, and which one is married to the male protagonist’s impostor.
“What are you going to do? Go there and ask them?” he asked, setting a little paper carton on the desk.
“I might!”
Firstly, because they still don’t have telephones in their small villages. And secondly, wouldn’t that count as a ‘vacation’?
But she’d barely mentioned it—just the one time, she remembered. And it had been a year ago.
Yes, what creepy stalker work colleague non-boyfriends pay that much attention? Also, a weekend away in Tahiti just became more feasible.
“But then it sounded like you wanted a date with Superman more,” he said in a voice colored with notably less laughter.
God, how had she never caught on before?
“I said that I wanted a real adventure,” she corrected.
Oh, just like Cat.
LOIS:
Clark wasn’t supposed to be enjoying it, too. He was supposed to be canceling out his debt to her from all of his lies.
Yes, that would qualify as a miscalculation. She really should take a page out of Cat’s playbook. Clark had absolutely not enjoyed Cat’s attempt at establishing an intimate connection and he had explicitly told Lois that he’s not attracted to her. This must therefor mean he’d not enjoy it if Lois asked him to repay his dept to her in kind and thus this makes the perfect punishment.
Somehow it felt like he’d won this round, which was insane because she was talking about a game that he didn’t even know he was playing!
He’s such a natural at the ‘friend’-game, he doesn’t even need to know they’re playing or the rules to win.
Knowing Superman’s identity wasn’t anything like what she thought it would be.
That’s because she’s trying to get even instead of trying to tease him and play with him like Cat would play with a … mouse.
Ugh, she was going to kill him!
It’s a week later or so and the Pizza Strategy is showing its effect on her bathroom scale?
“Are you alright?” he asked with concern.
She felt her mouth drop open, and tried to force out words, any words at all that would make sense.
‘Yep’ or ‘just super’?
She’d been right about Clark making sure she actually ate at a reasonable time on the busy days.
Isn’t he sweet? Making sure she’s fed before they start messing around.
Was everyone out there a fan but her?
/points at the box of Clark Kent fan souvenirs under her bed/
“That’s because you won’t tell me where that garlic pork restaurant is, so I can never get it myself!” she complained,
It’s one sure way she will come back to him with requests for lunch and dinner dates.
“You’re not too hard to figure out, Lois,” he said with a warm smile.
Yes, she can be pretty transparent if he wants her to be.
He chuckled again, a lower sound now, and this time she felt it tingle down each vertebrae in her back. “I’ll be right back.”
Will part seven be named ‘Home Run’?
“You’re going to leave some of those for me, right?” Clark asked teasingly.
Now he wants to share with her? *Now*?
Considering it, she felt so torn. On one hand, he didn’t deserve them—he was a liar and these impossibly perfect little potstickers that were making her salivate for more were her compensation for putting up with all of that.
“But he’s my partner, not Myerson’s!” she said possessively.
She felt Clark’s eyes slide over to her, but she kept hers trained on Perry.
Possessive Lane
It wasn’t in English.
And Clark wasn’t there to translate.
Feeling dissatisfied, she grumpily threw the cookie, wrapper and fortune into the trash in one move.
That’s cutely sad. Sadly cute? Tragically cute?
telling herself that she made her own fortune. She didn’t need a cookie to tell her her fate.
And she certainly didn’t need Clark Kent to interpret it.
Hey, this time it’s not even *his* fault. And he didn’t lie to her, either!
We’ve got a mild curry,” he said in an excited rush, taking his seat next to her desk and holding up the first container before pointing to another, “a spicy salad—which is better than it sounds—and a spicier phat kaphrao, which is like a minced meat, and then a carton of jasmine rice.”
/points at the rice as the one dish not spiced so much that it will cause third-degree burns or worse in your mouth/
“Can I try it?” she asked, her chopsticks already moving toward his container.
But Clark pulled it back, just out of her reach. “Ah, it’s a little bit on the spicy side.”
Leaning forward a little, she said confidentially. “I can handle heat.”
It’s so adorable. Also, maybe he should get a carton of milk for her?
“I’m not afraid to try something just because it comes from somewhere far away,” she said firmly,
/looks at proffered cue/
/gently pushes at it with one toe/
/does not pick up cue while it’s still light outside/
and was caught off guard when Clark visibly reacted, swallowing and looking at her with an intense expression she couldn’t place.
It’s because Lois reminded him of the way Cat had looked at him.
“You might not like it,” Clark hedged again, somehow sounding lightly guarded and almost vulnerable at the same time.
Yes, she might not like tasting the exotic dish delivered to her from far away.
Trying to sound casual, she asked, “Why not let me try it? Give me the chance to decide for myself.”
But her voice had come out pitched too low,
/turns off light and heads over to dark side/
And then the heat that he’d warned her about kicked in.
It was hot, yes, but the salty flavor was fighting for balance as she chewed.
But then the heat overpowered the salt.
By a lot.
“Okay,” she conceded tearfully, around a mouthful of unwieldy fire, “S’hot.”
Most cute!
“Uh-my-got—“ she finally broke, coughing, and blindly reaching for her water.
“That’ll only make it worse!” Clark said, still chuckling as her hand closed around it.
/points at milk remark from before/
“That… is the hottest thing I’ve ever tried in my life,” she said emphatically.
She hasn’t tried Clark yet.
Instead of handing it back, though, she pointedly took another bite.
“Are you crazy!?” he laughed, shocked.
“I like the actual flavor before it tries to roast your taste buds,” she argued. “And I’ll get used to the bite it gives back.”
Just like with Superclark. Also, not sure she can get used to it that quickly. Oh well, she knows how deep the water is now at least.
For just a few minutes, without the albatross of Superman’s identity hanging around her neck, it was just the two of them again.
Lois & Clark.
Awwwwwwwww…
Another great entry in the saga. Come Kerth season, the ballot’s gonna be *fun*!
Michael
Cannot imagine Justin Whalin being that good of a sounding board. 
