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The question has been bouncing around in the back of her mind for almost a full week before she finally asks it. That’s a rather long time for a question to go unanswered by her standards. Still, even star reporter Lois Lane forgets stuff when she’s busy saving her boyfriend from a pocket dimension, taking down a billionaire and realising that she, in fact, doesn’t want to break up with her boyfriend, because she is madly in love with him—has been for longer than she wants to admit even to herself.
In the end, it’s Clark who reminds her. They’re in her kitchen again, she’s sitting on the counter, head leaning back against the cabinets, and a glass of wine beside her on the countertop. Clark is cooking dinner (actual dinner this time, not breakfast) and takes off his glasses when the steam from the pan makes them fog up. He normally doesn’t bother wearing them at all when it’s just the two of them, but he’s so used to them that he occasionally forgets to take them off after work, which works in Lois’s favour today because she finally remembers what has been bothering her ever since she visited the Hall of Justice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” he asks absentmindedly, too busy adding the right amount of spices to the pan to give her his full attention.
“About your hypnotic glasses,” she clarifies.
He abandons his quest to make the perfectly seasoned dinner and turns toward her with a look of absolute bafflement on his face. “My what?”
Lois sighs, slightly annoyed that they’re even having this conversation; she didn’t think there were any big secrets left between them at this point, but here they are again. “You told me you use the glasses as a disguise so people don’t figure out you’re Superman, but I thought they were just normal glasses, not hypnotic ones that mess with people’s heads.”
“Well, they are just normal glasses. I’ve never hypnotised anyone, and neither have my glasses,” he furrows his brow, confusion evident on his face. “Who told you this?”
“Green Lantern,” she answers. Then, because she’s starting to become increasingly unhappy with the situation, she adds, “You know, the guy with the abysmal haircut.”
Realisation flickers over Clark’s face, and he starts laughing, turning away from her in the process. Lois doesn't think it’s all that funny, and she’s a second away from voicing that thought, but Clark has already stopped laughing and started explaining.
“A while ago, I told the Justice Whatever who I really am and also showed them what I look like when I’m not wearing the suit,” he has turned back towards her, but is looking down at the countertop instead of at her, “Green Lantern asked me if I’m really relying on a pair of glasses to protect my identity. He was being all judgy about it, so I told him the glasses were actually equipped with a hypnotisation technology that changed my face in people’s minds when I was wearing them. It’s obviously not true. I don’t know why I even said it. I guess I was just fed up with him.”
Lois doesn’t know what to say. She probably should’ve expected something of the sort; he had no reason to lie to her, after all. In hindsight, it all sounds really fucking stupid. Why she even believed anything the Lantern told her in the first place is beyond Lois.
It seems like Clark has drawn the wrong conclusion from her momentary silence, because he’s looking up at her now, cheeks tinged pink and a hand rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I really am sorry, Lois.”
Lois can hear the concern in his voice, and it makes her heart do something she can’t put into words, so she deflects. “Green Lantern made fun of you for that? That man doesn’t even have a secret identity, the whole world knows he’s Guy Gardner!”
“Exactly! It’s so stupid,” Clark replies, matching her tone instantly.
“I get strength in numbers and all, but working with him seems insufferable.”
“He’s not that bad,” Clark says, because, of course, he would defend Guy fucking Gardner.
She raises one eyebrow. “When you were kidnapped and I asked your friends for help, he told me he couldn’t interfere, because it would be, and I quote, ‘against his vows’.”
Clark sighs. “Yeah, alright, that does sound like him.”
“You should get better superhero friends.”
Now it’s his turn to raise an eyebrow. “Did you tell Guy that?”
“Not exactly,” she replies carefully.
He tilts his head to the side in question.
“I believe it was more like telling him his haircut should be against his vows,” she answers. She’s sorry for being rude to a friend of Clark, but she’s decidedly not sorry for being rude to Guy Gardner. He had it coming, and she won’t apologise.
Clark laughs brightly at that, eyes sparkling. And there’s something about him when he looks at her like this that makes her want to kiss him, so she does, because he’s her boyfriend and she wants to. He kisses her back instantly, stepping closer to where she’s perched on the counter. She tilts her head to the side to deepen the kiss, and his hands find her waist, bunching up the fabric of her shirt. For a moment, she forgets all they’ve been talking about. He tends to have that effect on her. Normally, she’d wonder if this was another superpower courtesy of his biological parents, but she knows this is all Clark Kent.
When he pulls back from the kiss, it’s entirely too soon for her, and a disgruntled sound of protest slips from her mouth. Before she can lean back in, he brings one hand up to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear and cup her cheek.
“Lois, I promise that the glasses are just glasses. They don’t mess with your head,” he says earnestly. And, oh, she should've expected him to not just let their conversation go. Ever since they’ve started dating, she’s been insisting that she’s just not good at relationships, and to be perfectly honest, she had expected them to break up after a short while. It’s not that she’s especially pessimistic; she’s not, but she knows herself and knows how her relationships usually go. But with Clark, it’s like the more she keeps trying to convince them both she’s bad at relationships, the more he keeps trying to prove her wrong. He keeps reassuring her, doesn’t expect things she’s not yet ready to give, doesn’t expect her to be someone she’s not. He genuinely likes her as a person, and she loves him for it. She loves him—full stop. Ironically, that is the one thing star reporter Lois Lane struggles to put into words.
“Thank God, because I was already debating whether I was crazy or they simply didn’t work on me, because you look almost the same to me, glasses or not.” It’s half-joke, half-truth; she didn’t have the time to think about it all that much, but if she did, this is probably where she would’ve ended up.
Clark hums thoughtfully. He keeps on absentmindedly stroking her waist with his thumbs, but his gaze drifts away from her face to a point just above he shoulder. “After I first told you I’m Superman, I kind of stopped drawing the line between Clark and Superman when I was with you. It wasn’t a conscious decision, I didn’t really notice I was doing it, at first, I just did. Other people always see one or the other—Clark or Superman—, but I think you just see me.”
A warmth blooms in her chest that makes her insides feel like molten gold. It’s the feeling she gets when he makes her coffee in the mornings; when he kisses her outside of the bar they get after-work drinks at with their friends, when no one is looking; when he offers to type up her articles for her, when the words on the page keep blurring together and she keeps misspelling every second one; when he looks at her like she’s worthy of devotion. After all, to be loved is to be known.
It’s her turn to cup his cheek and gently turn his face towards her. “Just you,” she whispers, and it sounds like a confession and a promise at once. She leans in to press her lips to his once again. The kiss is slow, but intense, and she’s almost losing herself in it when Clark pulls back hurriedly. “Wait, wait,” he says, “We’ll burn the pasta.”
He leans to the left to turn off the stove and move the pan away from the stovetop, putting a lid on it to keep their meal warm. “By the way, I think you should get new tea towels.”
Lois frowns. “What’s wrong with my tea towels?”
“Nothing, really. I just think you should own more than one.”
Lois rolls her eyes affectionately. “You’re welcome to buy me some, if it makes you happy.”
“Yes, very,” he answers and finally pulls her back in.
This time, Lois decides she won’t let him interrupt their kiss again, and she intertwines her fingers at the back of his neck to keep him close. The way he pulls her closer until they’re chest to chest and she can feel the warmth radiating off of him, tells her she doesn’t have to worry about that. His left hand finds the small of her back to pull her even closer, as if there was still space between them, while he leans slightly forward and places his right hand on the countertop beside her to steady himself. There’s a clink and she belatedly realises that he almost knocked over her long-forgotten wineglass.
“How do you feel about moving to somewhere with fewer wineglasses and stovetops in the way?” he asks, his lips never straying far enough from hers to matter.
“What about the pasta?” she asks between kisses. Truthfully, she couldn’t care less about the pasta at the moment, but the banter has been part of their relationship almost since the day they met.
“We can reheat it later,” he decides.
“The microwave is still broken,” Lois reminds him, nodding towards the half-disassembled microwave Clark had started repairing before the whole Luthor thing even started. Another thing unconsciously abandoned in favour of their worldsaving.
Clark leans back, not enough to let go of her, just enough so she can look at him properly. His hair is tousled from her running her hands through it, the first few buttons of his shirt are undone—Lois wonders when that happened—and he’s grinning at her. “It’s fine, I have heat vision.”
Lois rolls her eyes, but has to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. “Alright,” she concedes, “But if you burn down my kitchen, I’m moving into your place.”
“Sure,” he says easily, like she didn’t just half-jokingly suggest they move in together after dating for less than half a year. God, who has Clark Kent turned her into? She decides that all the investigating and self-reflecting she’ll have to do to answer that question can wait, and lets herself be swept away by him. Figuratively and literally.