A/N: Hey everyone, it's finally time for the next installment in my 7 Deadly Sins series. This time it's Wrath. A very special thanks goes out to superlc529, who convinced me that this fic did not, in fact, suck. It's not my best fic ever, but I hope you still like it. In case you're just tuning in, the other two, Pride and Gluttony can be found at my profile. The next fic should be along shortly, and for those of you who like my writing, a multi-chaptered fic should soon be in production ;)
Anyway, on to the story. Last time I gave a lot of sweetness, now it's time for a little spice. ;) This fic takes place a few years in the future. Again, I'll add my note that Jimmy is Jimmy, and never died in Doomsday. Yes, people: I am still pissed off.
Summery: A heated confrontation between Lois and Clark leads to a sweet revelation. Future fic. Clois.
"I am never, never agreeing to help you again," Jimmy Olsen groaned as he slapped an ice pack over the lump forming on his cheek.
Across the desk, Lois Lane rolled her eyes and examined her various cuts and bruises in her small compact mirror. "It wasn't that bad."
"That bad? Lois, those mobsters almost killed us. A few more minutes and we could've been wearing cement booties." He reached into his bag and tossed what was left of his shattered camera onto Clark's desk, where he was currently residing. "And my best camera is ruined."
"Casualties of investigative journalism, Jimbo," Lois shrugged, "You do—"
"—do whatever it takes to get a story," Jimmy nodded, quoting Lois' well versed rule. "I know. I just wish that 'doing whatever it takes' didn't involve getting beaten by psychotic mobsters. At least Superman showed up when he did."
"Superman," Lois sucked in a small breath as she tried to arrange her bangs in a way that hid the large purple bruise forming over her eye. "Yeah…"
Lois' face took on a far away expression.
Jimmy caught her expression and rolled his eyes with a slight smirk. "Drooling over Superman again, Lois?"
"I've got better things to do than that, Jimmy."
"Sure," Jimmy said. "You know, CK is going to be mad that we did this without him knowing. He wasn't too happy the last time we tried to infiltrate Intergang."
"Since when did we need Clark Kent's permission to do anything? Besides, last time? You didn't make a very convincing wannabe crime boss, Olsen."
"Maybe that's because last time we dealt with mobsters, I was beaten senseless. Maybe you should have dressed up as Stiletto again and we wouldn't have gotten into that mess. Or this one."
"Hey! I thought we had an agreement: both you and Clark promised never to mention Stiletto again as long as I burned the article and the pictures."
Before Jimmy could say anything in return, his eyes widened at something over Lois' shoulder. "CK is back."
"And?"
"And he looks mad. You know, I should probably go develop some of today's pictures."
He bolted from the chair so fast that Lois was almost inclined to believe that he had somehow developed super speed.
"Jimmy?!" Was he seriously abandoning her in the eleventh hour? "Jimmy! You get your bow tie wearing ass back he—hey, Clark."
She felt Jimmy's eyes on them from across the room, and threw a quick glance at Clark, who was watching her intently with a strange expression on his face. This was going to be a long day.
Lois ducked further below her computer monitor, gritting her teeth together as she attempted to type her article. A very, very good article; front page material. It almost made the bruises worth it. She should have been happy. Instead she was just annoyed.
Across the desk, she heard Clark exhale sharply through his nose, obviously letting her know he was in no way in a good mood. Still.
She refrained from rolling her eyes. He'd been huffing and puffing so much over the past hour that she half expected some of the clutter on her desk to go shooting to the floor. And his staring…every time she took a quick peek over at the desk opposite to hers, she found his piercing blue eyes staring pointedly back at her. She slid a little further down in her chair. It didn't work. His gaze was practically boring a hole in her computer monitor.
Focusing back on the task at hand, she ran a hand over her aching forehead, wincing when she passed over the large purpled bruise that now resided there. "Ouch."
In her peripheral vision, she saw Clark's head poke around the computers to glare at her suspiciously. She squirmed at the uncomfortable silence.
"Fingers are cramping up," she lied. When he gave her a skeptical look, she jumped to her feet. "You know what I need? Pens. I've lost all my pens. Do you need some pens? I'm going to go get some pens."
She made a quick exit towards one of the storage rooms and shut the door behind her. She exhaled in relief once she was alone and out of sight.
Smooth, Lane. Maybe you should have said the word 'pens' a few more times. That would have made everything more believable.
Oh shut up.
She was scanning the shelves for some pens—it didn't matter that she already had about twenty in her desk drawer, with her lie she was going to have to grab a few more—when she heard the door open and shut behind her.
"Lois."
Lois turned on her heel and opened her mouth to speak when Clark's mouth suddenly descended on hers, muffling the words she'd been about to say. Although, after a few seconds, she couldn't even remember what she had been about to say in the first place.
If he keeps doing this to me at work, she thought, forming words for speech and my articles is going to become way too hard to do. Then I'm was going to get fired for losing my touch and not being able to do my job, and I'm going to have to live on the streets...
But as Clark's hands found the skin of her lower back underneath her shirt and started rubbing small circles there, she found it really hard to care.
It had been almost four weeks since she had stalked up to his apartment door in the middle of the night and informed a very surprised and annoyingly sexy—Seriously, who looks that good in the middle of the night?—looking Clark Kent that she was madly in love with him, only to have him tell her something that she had been hoping for a very long time.
He felt the same way.
It had been three weeks since she had found out he was Superman. Clark hadn't wanted to enter a relationship with her and keep her in the dark, so only about five days after their admissions in his apartment, he had sat her down to have that talk. Memories of the embarrassment and mild anger on her end, Clark's chagrin, and the entire conversation that had followed—"Tights? Really?"—still made her grin. After the initial shock and anger, the news hadn't made her think any less of him, though. If anything, it had only made her love him more.
Not to mention it explained a hell of a lot of things.
She'd always known that someone that obsessed with plaid couldn't be human.
And it had been just two weeks since they had started secretly having heated make out sessions and grope fests in the various closets and elevators in the Planet. The 'secret' part was mainly because they hadn't actually told anyone that unresolved sexual tension between them was quickly on its way to being resolved. No one knew that they were together; not even Martha Kent.
It wasn't that they didn't want anyone to know, of course. Clark was ridiculously happy with the way things were between them, and she felt the same way: after being in love with Clark for so long, being able to act on those feelings, being able to just be with him, made her happier than she could ever remember being. She remembered the whispered promises to take things slow that night in his home. And if that meant keeping things hidden from everyone else for a while so they could see how things developed on their own, then they were okay with that.
Plus, if they kept it quiet for another two weeks, Perry would win the pot everyone had going about how long it took them to get together, and a happy Perry meant a happy everyone.
"People are going to start to wonder why the storage closet's door won't open at certain times of the day," Clark said, moving away from her lips for a minute to focus on her neck. "Or why we're missing during those times. I heard Perry say maintenance is getting tired of all the calls and requests they're getting."
"Well," she said in between heated kisses. "I don't think Jimmy or anyone else will be suspicious today. You did a good job of acting pissed about the Intergang thing out there."
Clark's lips stilled and he pulled back, causing her to groan internally. "I wasn't acting Lois. I am mad about that."
Lois pulled away with a sigh. Here she was, willing to make out with him in one of the Daily Planet's storage rooms, and he wanted to argue. "Let's hear it then, Clark, because you might as well say it now rather than brooding around about it in silence for the next few weeks."
"I don't brood." At Lois' raised eyebrow, he elaborated with a sullen, "Anymore."
"Could have fooled me, with the way you were pouting at me over the stapler. I thought you were just trying to convince Jimmy and anyone watching that you were coming in here to reprimand me. Now come on, Smallville," she challenged. "Tell me what's got your tights in a twist."
If he hadn't been so upset, he would have laughed. Leave it to Lois Lane to be able to goad one of the most patient and level headed beings on the planet into a fight. Then again, who was he kidding? When Lois was around him, things like patience and level headedness went right out the window, replaced by more fiery and interesting emotions, like anger and passion.
Of course, he was finding that that wasn't always a bad thing.
"Lois what were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed," Clark said sharply, crossing his arms over his chest.
Recent memories came unbidden to his mind, of Jimmy lying unconscious on the floor of a dirty warehouse, and of Lois, struggling to keep her head up as one of Manheim's thugs barked questions at her with a gun pressed tightly against her temple. It would be a long time before he forgot the feeling of absolute panic he had felt upon arriving to see that scene. If he had shown up just thirty seconds later…he shuddered to think about it. Really, he had expected that Lois would do something like this ever since they had gotten a lead the week before about Intergang's latest 'business ventures'. He just hadn't expected her to go after the story with only Jimmy as back up while he was busy as Superman on the other side of the country.
"I was handling it," she defended with a wave of her hand.
"Handling it? Lois, you were tied to a chair, barely conscious, with a gun to your forehead!"
The door swung open suddenly, and in the doorway stood Jimmy, clutching a handful of empty film canisters. His wide eyes flicked between the two of them standing a few feet apart, their faces flushed with anger, and took a few steps back before turning on his heel and walking right back out.
"Some back-up he is," Lois mumbled under her breath.
Clark reached over and locked the door, looking back at her like there had been no interruptions. He gave Lois an expectant look, who launched back into the argument.
"I've gotten out of worse situations!" she snapped. The pretend annoyance he had had about the earlier afternoon's situation had somehow morphed into real aggravation, and now his angry demeanor was putting her on the defensive, firing her up for a fight.
Clark's eyes flashed, but he refrained from pointing out that many of those situations she was referring to were ones where he had intervened.
Lois caught on to the words unspoken and narrowed her eyes. "Look, I can take care of myself!"
"Really? Because it certainly looked that way when you were about to black out," Clark countered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Lois, you should have waited until I came back. We should have done this together, rather than you taking Jimmy and running into an Intergang hideout! Or you could have let me handle it!"
"Why?" she fired back, jabbing her finger against his chest with would-be bruising force. "Because I'm not a superhero like you, so I can't possibly do my job as well? Because I'm your girlfriend now and you think you have some sort of cavemen claim over what I do?"
"No," he yelled back in frustration, "because I love you and I can't lose you!"
She dropped her finger from his chest and gaped at him. "What?"
"I—what?" Clark asked, his eyebrows pinching in confusion as to why she had suddenly deflated in the middle of one of her famous Lane tirades.
"You…you said you loved me," she pointed out, slight surprise etched across her face.
"Well—yeah, but Lois, you know that," he said, running a hand through his hair, still confused.
She shook her head. "You've said you were in love with me before and everything, but you've never actually gotten around to saying the words 'I love you'," she corrected, watching him curiously.
"Oh." Clark paused. Hadn't he…? No, she was right, he realized. Once again, he almost forgot his anger right there and laughed. It figured: the first time he ever had the nerve to say the three words he had been dying to tell her for years, they were in the middle of an argument over…over…he struggled to remember as a peaceful expression crept across her face.
"I love you too, Smallville," she said with a smile, her anger dissipated as quickly as it had come.
Clark gaped at her. Wasn't he supposed to be mad at her for almost getting herself killed? She wasn't supposed to just throw him off like that…how did she make him…?
With a frustrated groan, Clark suddenly reached forward to cup her face, pulling her forward and crushing his lips to hers. She responded immediately, her hands clenching around the collar of his shirt and yanking him closer. Clark's hands slid down to grip her shoulders as he took a step forward, pushing her back so that she slammed up against the wall behind them.
Lois smiled against his mouth.
She let out a little moan as he continued to nip at her lips, paying particular attention the bottom one. She recalled asking him once why he liked the bottom one so much, only to have him answer that he was making up for all the times he had seen her bite her lip over the years and had had to refrain from leaning over and doing it himself. Now she made it a special point to bite her lip in front of him at least once a day. Now he called her a tease.
Unwilling to let him have all the control, she tilted her head and deepened the kisses, letting her tongue slide over his and eliciting a groan from him as she yanked his shirt free of his belt and slid her hands up his chest.
"Lois…" he whispered huskily as her hands started their journey back down. She ignored his warning and continued moving them further south until she was grasping his belt, and then—
The door rattled suddenly, and the two broke a part, staring into each other's glazed eyes as they listened to the person on the other side of the door.
"Damn door is broken again," the man mumbled. "This place is going down hill with its maintenance crews…"
The voice faded as they moved away, and Clark watched through the walls for good measure. "He's gone."
He turned back to Lois and paused when he saw her flushed face and messy hair. He smiled softly and wondered if he had ever seen anything as beautiful as she looked right then, out of breath and in his arms. Having her there and knowing she was his was the best feeling he had ever experienced. Better than anything. Better than flying. Sometimes he still felt like kicking himself over how long he had taken to realize just how amazing Lois was.
"See Smallville," she breathed, attempting to regain a normal breathing pattern. "You need to let out that pent-up frustration more often. Holding all that in isn't good for you. And, well," she grinned widely, "letting it out is pretty damn fun."
He chuckled and leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. "I'm beginning to see your point."
They fell into silence for a moment, the only sounds being their mingled breathing and pounding hearts. Lois was the first to speak, leaning back to look him in the eye. She smirked up at him. "So am I forgiven?"
Clark smiled and ducked down to press another kiss against her lips. "You're forgiven."
"And what about Jimmy?"
"He's forgiven too."
"You aren't going to forgive him the same way you forgave me are you?" She raised an eyebrow teasingly. "I mean, I don't think that this is the exact punishment he would be expecting, but…effective just the same."
He rolled his eyes. "Lois…"
"Just checking, Smallville."
Clark smoothed her messy hair back and gave her another kiss, a quick, gentle one this time, before mumbling, "You're going to give me an anxiety complex."
Lois snorted. "Like you don't have one already."
The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. She had him there. He shrugged and tilted her chin up so he could look her in the eyes. She really had scared him today. It hadn't been the first time, and it definitely wouldn't be the last. Lois was Lois: she was a journalist. She was always going to be landing herself in these sorts of situations whether he liked it or not. The only thing he could really do was what he had always done with Lois: be there for her when she needed him, and try to compromise.
"Next time we go together?" he suggested, running his thumb along her jaw line.
Lois turned her head and kissed the pad of his thumb. "Think you can keep up?"
He grinned. "I think I can manage."
She nodded with a smile. "Okay then. Next time we'll go together."
"Really?"
"Yeah. No need to add to that anxiety complex of yours, Smallville." She patted his arm, earning her a teasing eye roll.
"So how about you stop by my apartment tonight for dinner?" she suggested as she pulled away. "Take out, of course."
"Dinner?" he asked, a bright smile lighting his face.
"Yeah," she nodded. She paused at the door to throw a wicked smile over her shoulder. "And maybe you can help me work out some of my own pent-up frustrations. If you think you're up to it."
Lois giggle-shrieked as Clark suddenly sped across the room up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and nuzzling his nose in the crook of her neck. She felt him smile against her skin. "You're on, Lane."
With another brilliant smile, she twisted in his arms and captured his lips again. "I love you, Clark."
All too willingly, Clark pulled her close, happy to spend a few more minutes of everyday bliss with the woman he loved.
"I love you too, Lois Lane."
Truer words had never been spoken.
Jimmy's fingers drummed against the desk his feet were propped upon as he threw nervous glances down the hall at the storage closet. He hadn't expected Clark to be so upset over the article.
Then again, he supposed, CK always had been very territorial over Lois Lane, much to her annoyance. This wasn't the first battle the two had had about Lois' dangerous endeavors. Everyone in the bullpen had a running bet to see whether they jumped each other or killed each other first. He himself had always been more inclined to the jumping.
Jimmy had to admit though, over the years he had come to care for Lois much like a big sister, and it was nice to know that Clark was always there to look out for her.
"Olsen?"
Jimmy jumped, and hastily took his feet of the desk as he noticed Perry White standing behind him. He spun around and leapt to his feet, smoothing his shirt. "Chief! I didn't see you there."
"Where are Lane and Kent?" Perry asked, gesturing towards the duo's vacant desks.
Stealing a quick glance back at the closed storage closet, he answered, "Fighting over an article, I guess."
The older man appraised him for a moment before turning his gaze towards the closet. He suddenly smirked in understanding. "I see."
Perry made to move away but paused, throwing another glance at the closet and adding, "You know, if everyone in the world 'fought' like they did, I'm sure war wouldn't be the hell everyone says it is."
Then he turned and made his way to his office, leaving a very confused Jimmy Olsen behind.
The End
So what did you think? Worth the read? :) Reviews are loved.
