The newsroom at the Daily Planet was solidly in the middle of its chaotic twenty-minutes-to-deadline cycle. Before around 4pm the large open office space with its hundreds of messy cubicles was a congenial, if fast-paced, environment. People chatted at the watercooler about the accomplishments of their children, about the upcoming weekend, about last night's episode of i Lost /i . Telephones rang and were politely (and promptly) answered by the beat reporters. The sports guys hung out near the media enclave with the flatscreen 40" TV monitors, scanning for game highlights and scores. International Affairs had a friendly rivalry going with Sports; they exchanged banter and placed bets on obscure team sports like water polo and ultimate Frisbee because none of the Planet sports writers knew anything about them. It evened things out on the endless office betting pool.
The background chatter and hum of telephones, fax machines and the endless clack-clack-clack of world-class keyboardists increased as the day went on. If he had been forced to duck out for a moment or two during the course of the day, Clark simply had listen to the decibel level at the Planet to determine how much time he had before the five o'clock deadline. After lunch things really picked up: the banter was replaced by questions about story details, research and the exact layout of the evening edition. Fact-checkers and copyeditors wove through the maze of cubicles as they were needed, sometimes colliding with fresh-faced interns bearing heavy cardboard trays of steaming black coffee. As the minutes ticked by the noise increased. Telephones rang more frequently, the whine of fax machines dialing and receiving became a steady background hum, and the sound of Perry's voice booming from his glass-lined office seemed to make everyone work just a little faster to make the deadline.
Such was life at the Daily Planet, the highest-circulating metropolitan newspaper in the country. Clark loved the controlled chaos of the office. It was dependable, in its own way, revving up from the relaxed rhythms of the morning to the fever-pitch whine of the late afternoon. He loved listening to the way his fellow reporters lobbed rapid-fire questions at one across the crowded newsroom. They always sounded like seasoned pitchers offering up the throw that would win them the pennant. The goal wasn't always to trip the other guy up, but any answers had to be shouted above the cacophony of office noise and they had to be given quickly. Reputations were placed on the line with those questions and answers. In his three years of working at the Planet, Clark had never heard anyone ask a pointless question or give a disinterested reply. Reporters. He loved them.
And he loved the questions of one reporter in particular. Two years ago he had finagled a desk near hers just to be the one to answer the bulk of her queries. In terms of the strict hierarchy that ruled the Planet office Clark didn't really deserve to be near Lois Lane. Desk space at the Daily Planet was awarded based on its proximity to Perry White's office: you knew you were on your way up if you were within shouting distance of the newspaper's editor-in-chief. As a city reporter praised more for his fast typing and ability to meet any deadline than for his writing ability Clark belonged in a smaller cubicle near the Siberia of the lunchroom. With a desk just outside Perry's door Lois was Planet royalty: she had interviewed nearly every world leader who controlled anything bigger than Uzbekistan. Celebrities, movie stars, sports heroes, politicians and economic trend-setters had all sat down with the intrepid Ms. Lane, and she had scored the biggest reportage coup of the century: she seemed to be the only journalist in the world with no-holds-barred access to Superman.
No one, not even Perry White himself, could explain how she had done it. Lois had made her reputation through old-fashioned hard work as investigative reporter before she had ever sat down with her first UN delegate. Some of the more jealous reporters on the Planet staff speculated that she had discovered Superman's real identity and had used the information to blackmail the hero into giving her countless interviews. The idea seemed to fascinate her envious colleges. The scenario had been batted around the bullpen by both seasoned and cub reporters: Lois, through her almost supernatural investigative ability, had tracked Superman down to wherever it was he called home. They imagined the petite, pretty Lois Lane, in her wrinkled suits and messy hair, pressing a fine-boned index finger into the iconic "S" shield on his Superman's chest and demanding an exclusive. Even Superman, blackmail or no, would have to yield to her dogged requests – Lois was not quite a harridan, but she was exactly like a pit-bull when she smelled a good story. Once her jaws closed around the details of a juicy article, she would have to be pried away from them with a crowbar.
Clark, who knew exactly how Lois had obtained her unprecedented access to Superman, was fully aware of what was said about Lois Lane in the Planet offices. The rumors of blackmail were the least of it. Men who had worked on the paper for years and had never risen any higher than a shared desk by the elevators hated her. They said that she was too young to be a world-class reporter. Too pretty. Too abrasive for a woman, but not enough of a cutthroat for the rough-and-tumble world of editorial news. Some had even gone so far as to suggest that rather than blackmail Superman into a story Lois had simply enticed him with sexual favours. Clark frowned at the thought of the vicious rumors. Lois was a consummate professional.
"Hey, Clark – how many 'e's in "liaison?"
Clark smiled a little ruefully, pushing his glasses more firmly into place on his nose. Lois had not even glanced up from her computer screen. She was chewing on a pencil distractedly, tapping at the keys slowly with her index finger. Much to Perry's frustration, his star reporter had never learned to type properly. She wasn't much for the niggling grammatical or orthographical details of the English language, either.
"None, Lois. It's l-i-a-s-o-n."
"Is that the British spelling?"
"No," he assured her. "That's the French spelling."
This time, Lois did glance up. She was a bit disheveled. Like the increasing noise volume in the room, Clark could usually gauge how close the afternoon deadline was by the amount of hair that had managed to escape from the uneven bun at the base of Lois' neck. Wavy brown tendrils now framed her face, which meant it was nearly 4:40pm. She would occasionally pause in her pecking at the keyboard to brush some of the errant strands behind her ear, or unconsciously twist a curl around her index finger as she debated word choice or sentence structure. Her suit was wrinkled, the jacket long ago discarded and thrown carelessly over the back of her chair. The white silk blouse that hugged Lois' gentle curves required a good steaming and Clark could only guess at the rumpled state of her skirt. She had already chewed off her lipstick and her mascara had smudged at the corners of her eyes, giving her the appearance of a rather distracted raccoon. He suppressed a smile as he met Lois' expectant brown gaze.
"Are you making fun of me, Mr. Kent?" Lois grinned. He chuckled and shook his head, awkwardly avoiding her gaze in his best display of farm-boy shyness.
"N-no, Lois. I'd never-"
"Good." She resumed her painfully slow typing. For the thousandth time that day Clark had to check himself before offering to type up her story for her. Even with all his abilities, he was completely unable to decipher Lois' messy longhand scrawl. She had always insisted it was deliberate: no one could steal her notes if they couldn't read them. Clark privately suspected that, like the typing and her messy, wrinkled appearance, it was a way to convince people she wasn't as dangerous as she really was. All truly great reporters cloaked their skills in eccentricity – Lois had simply taken it one step further than most ambitious appearance-conscious female reporters were willing to go. And it annoyed Perry, which probably added an extra layer of appeal.
"Kent!" Perry boomed. He didn't need to yell: Clark's desk was a scant three feet from the editor's door. Perry White simply liked to keep everyone's nerves on edge, and Clark would willingly indulge his editor. He jumped up and knocked over a mug containing several pens and pencils. They scattered across the well-ordered surface of his desk and onto the chaotic no-man's-land of Lois'. He mumbled an apology; Lois barely spared him a glance, waving him off with a delicate flick of her wrist.
"Better get in there. That's his 'I've-got-a-lousy-assignment-for-you' bark."
"Wish me luck," Clark muttered, reflexively keeping his shoulders a little stooped. Ill-fitting suits and bad posture helped him conceal his unusual height and large, muscular frame, but even after three years at the Planet Clark couldn't quite shake the fear that someone, somehow, would see through his disguise. He stumbled into Perry's office and knocked on the open glass door.
"You wanted to see me, Chief?"
Perry White didn't look up from what he was doing – Clark couldn't tell if his editor was going over a feature story with his fearsome red pen or simply doing the Planet's supersized crossword.
"Kent, you know much about astronomy?"
"Uh, sure. I mean, a little. I took a course on it at Kansas State, and-"
"Fine fine," Perry said dismissively, scratching something out with his red pen and scribbling a necessary change. Feature story, then, and not a crossword: Perry never had to erase any answers when he did the crossword. "Some scientists at the Huntington Observatory are putting on a press conference tonight. Seems they discovered a new planet or some damn thing. I want you and Lane to cover it."
"M-me and Lois?"
Perry glanced up, his curmudgeonly expression softening a little. "Yeah, Kent. Lois interviewed the lead egghead on the project a few years ago for a story we did on the Mars shuttle mission. She knows the guy, knows his work. But she doesn't know a damn thing about astronomy. You two can share the byline, if Lois will let you."
"When do we have to-"
"Six p.m. And wear a tux – the announcement is part of a fund-raising gala for the observatory. Discovering a new planet is a great way to generate cash. Take that angle, Clark, if you want."
"Thanks Chief," Clark replied, backing out of the office. Perry stopped him before he had made his escape.
"And Clark? Make sure Lois cleans herself up – I might want a picture of her with this scientist guy. Kid's got a good mug."
"I'm sure she'll be happy to hear that you think so," Clark said, turning as Perry let out a snort.
"Sure she would," he grunted, returning to his work with the red pen.
--
The observatory was crowded with a who's-who of Metropolis elite. Investment bankers, venture capitalists, scientists, politicians and social matriarchs mingled over champagne and hors-d'oeurves while a six-piece string orchestra provided soft, unobtrusive background music. Lois fidgeted in her long, low-cut indigo gown. She had bought it for a friend's wedding and the bridesmaid's dress was far more revealing than she would have liked. The neckline of the silk dress plunged well below her bustline; Lois' married friend had loved styles that required double-stick tape and hours in the gym to pull off. Lois couldn't understand the appeal: she had been waiting at the Observatory entranceway for nearly ten minutes, and not a single one of the countless men passing by had even so much as glanced at her face. She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her high-heeled toe impatiently. As always, Clark was late.
She sighed, turning to watch the throng of guests. Lois had interviewed most of them at one time or another, either for a feature story or a public-interest report on the balance of power in Metropolis. Most of them were either CEOs or hedge fund managers who had bank accounts several sizes larger than the gross national product of some countries. All of them looked either bored or drunk. Trophy wives, B-list actresses and not-so-super supermodels dangled off their arms like sparkly costume jewelry, and the men circulated the room like the well-fed predators they were. All of these powerful men looked alike, she realized. The younger ones were blandly handsome, their expensive tuxedos perfectly tailored to bodies sculpted by the best personal trainers, private chefs and most exclusive gym memberships Metropolis had to offer. The older ones were the embodiment of genteel decay, their graying hair carefully coiffed to conceal bald spots, their tuxedoes cut a little looser around the middle to accommodate the inevitable middle-aged spread. All of their wives and girlfriends seemed to hover somewhere around the median age of twenty-two.
Lois noted that the astronomers stood out like sore thumbs in this crowd. They wore cheaper tuxes and consumed less of the champagne. A few of the women, older and dressed much more conservatively than the wives of the businessmen, were probably the female contingent of the Huntington's astronomy staff. They circulated awkwardly, chatting about funding shortfalls and the need for better equipment with guests who only listened with half an ear. Such men were used to being asked for money. Lois shook her head, doubting that this crowd would support the Observatory unless they were offering stock options in the newly-discovered celestial phenomenon.
With a sigh, she blew a strand of hair out of her eyes, feeling with one hand the way the complicated style she shouldn't have tried had already begun to unravel despite copious amounts of hairspray and pomade. She had never really been good at the girl stuff. It was only at moments like these that it bothered Lois Lane. Shouldn't her heart be all aflutter at the close proximity of so many handsome, wealthy, well-educated men? She surveyed the crowd over her shoulder one more time, finally deciding to step into the cool night air and wait for Clark on the steps leading up to the Observatory. Maybe it was the company she'd been keeping recently. Spend enough time with Superman, and any red-blooded woman would find mortal men a little... lacking.
She rubbed her bare arms against the chilly spring air, watching the lights of Metropolis troop down the winding hills and valleys away from the Observatory and out to the sea. The view wasn't as good as it was when... she deliberately shifted her thoughts away from that line of consideration. She was on assignment. No distractions.
Lois' best-laid plans went to hell the moment she felt that unnatural wind brush against the long skirt of the indigo silk. She refused to turn around. He had to know she was working.
"Speak of the devil."
There was only his soft chuckle in the darkness behind her, and then a warm hand on her shoulder, heating her skin through the gown's thin strap. He was always so warm.
"Lois," he said, his voice soft and deep as the night. She turned, her heart beginning to beat in that staccato rhythm it seemed to fall into each time she saw him. Not that she blamed her poor heart – he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Finely-chiseled features, those sincere and watchful blue eyes, that slightly sardonic tilt of his lips that suggested he could laugh at himself. And a body that seemed to belong in a museum exhibit along with all the other old classical statues of Grecian gods and Roman emperors. Mortal man wasn't supposed to be so...perfect. Superman seemed to make everyone else fade to gray.
"You look lovely," he told her, and fearless reporter Lois Lane blushed. She glanced down at her body, casting a critical eye at the dress but not quite hating the plunging neckline as much as she had while standing in the Observatory's entranceway.
"Thanks," she smiled, worried she was grinning at him like a gap-toothed moron. She tried to harden herself against his appeal and cleared her throat. "So, is this just one of those fleeting moonlit encounters where you compliment me and then have to dash away?"
Superman shook his head, his smile lighting his face and making his teeth gleam white in the moonlight. Of course he had perfect teeth. And Lois doubted it was from years of adolescent orthodontics.
"I thought you'd like to go flying."
The pulse at the base of Lois' neck skipped a beat, and she knew he could hear it. Her mouth dropped open a little and she raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"I'm working, Superman."
"We'll be fast," he promised.
"Ten minutes, and no more. Okay?" He nodded solemnly in confirmation. Lois didn't doubt for an instant that he would keep his word. She gave him one final long, searching look. "Okay," she relented, playing up her defeated resignation even as her heart sang and the blood surged in her veins. Nothing could ever compare to this. She slipped off her high heels and moved closer to him.
Superman worked hard to keep the smile off his face. Lois stepped onto the cold stone pavement in her stocking feet and he took her hand in his, feeling as nervous as a teenaged kid on prom night. He had waited all day to touch her, waited for her to meet his eyes and see only him. He guided her forward until she brushed up against the length of his body. They had done this perhaps a half-dozen times, but each time it felt like something new and fragile. She stepped up onto his boots, and he could almost feel her pulse through the stocking-bare soles of her feet. She smelled like clean, fresh soap and a faint hint of vanilla; whatever she had used in her hair was artificially citrus-y. His hands came to rest on her waist, warm and soft beneath the indigo silk. She looked up into his face and his breath caught at the expression of trust that lingered there. Superman had spent the entire day observing Lois at work where her emotions were firmly shuttered behind a mask of professionalism. Only now, like this, with him, did she allow something of her true self to shine through.
They were already levitating, floating gently just a few feet off the ground. He never rushed this first part. It was partly because he wasn't entirely sure what would happen to her system if he ascended too rapidly, and partly because he enjoyed the feel of her against him before gravity and centrifugal forces did their work. He knew she liked this first part too, because of the way she went quiet and thoughtful, content to rest her body against his, her arms looped loosely around his neck.
"Where were you before?" she asked, ever the reporter. He began to take them up more rapidly now: already the Observatory was just a fading light in the darkness of the hills around Metropolis.
"There was a cave-in in a mine in North Carolina," he said, hand cupping the small of her back. He worried she was cold.
"Anything worth writing about?"
"Everyone made it out okay," he assured her. She closed her eyes in relief and this time he did not try to hide his smile. "How was your day?"
She grinned. "No disasters prevented, but I did snag an extra bag of potato chips at the vending machine. Big day."
Lois looked down at the lights of the Eastern Seaboard spread below them like a more luminous reverse of the night sky above. "I was hoping to see you tonight, y'know."
Her softly-worded confession made him smile. He had known it; sometimes she dropped innocent hints to Clark, or a particular expression would steal over her face at work and he knew she was thinking of him, some joke they'd shared, some detail she'd forced out of him for one of her stories. He lived for those small moments; it made all the rest of it, all of the secrets and half-truths and embarrassments of being Clark Kent, worth it.
"I'm sorry we had to cancel that meeting on Tuesday," he said. "I know you wanted to ask some questions about Luthor-"
"Let's not talk about him," she shivered, cutting him off. "Let's just enjoy the flight. I can always get the story later."
If there had been any doubt in his mind about her feelings before it was impossible to deny the truth now. She was head-over-heels. It was the only thing that would ever make her let go of a solid lead.
He pulled her closer and they burst through the cloud cover, into that startlingly-clear region between heaven and earth. The stars were brighter here than any city light; it was, privately, his favorite place to come to think. The moon was slung low in the sky, framed by twinkling stars.
"Are you warm enough?" he asked, and she nestled closer against him.
"Yes. Are you?"
He grinned and, catching her pert little chin with his thumb, tilted her head back. He brushed his mouth across hers, listening to the way her breath hitched and the blood pounded in her veins. He felt an electric spark pass between them at that soft, brief touch. Her eyes drifted close and he met her mouth again, this time more firmly. Her arms tightened around his neck and he felt her lips part. For an instant the universe faded and opened to him: she tasted like exotic honey and some deep-seated secret of life. Lois sighed against his mouth and he broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers.
"You have a press conference, Ms. Lane," he breathed, his body warm and trembling for her.
Lois brushed her hand across his forehead, combing aside the ever-present spit curl. She cupped his cheek. "Is there..." she hesitated, closing her eyes. "We've been doing this for months. Is there any way we could-"
He met her eyes, heavy and dark with the desires he'd stirred in her. Something dangerous passed between them. He had never expected to cross this line, had never anticipated that-
But it was natural and, somehow, inevitable. She had always been on the verge of making this request, and he had always been ready and willing to accept it. He'd been in love with her, in one form or another, for the better part of three years. And he knew Lois cared for him, or at least the part of him she could acknowledge. They could-
"When?" he asked, his voice sounded a little ragged. She didn't seem surprised, only thoughtful as she mentally composed her reply.
"Tonight. I...I want this."
"Me too," he acknowledged, pressing his hand against hers as it rested upon his cheek. He kissed her palm softly, her other hand splayed across the 'S' on his chest. "I don't know if I can...if you and I will be able to..."
"We'll figure that out," she assured him, glancing at the moon that hovered low in the sky. "Ten minutes are almost up."
His only answer was to lean closer and brush his lips against hers. Lois closed her eyes and leaned closer to deepen the kiss.