– Little Things –

-- Chapter 1

"Have you ever felt like you're saying things that you've already said?"

"How do you mean? Like deja vu?"

Lois sat forward, scratching at the back of her neck. "No, not like that. Like you've had a conversation before... maybe not with the same words or even the same person, but you've had it and you're just saying something you've said once, twice or a dozen times before. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"No, but since I generally only understand about half of what you say anymore I don't think this should really count for anything."

Rolling her eyes, Lois spun her chair around until she was looking at Clark. Lifting her feet up, she rested them on her desk, letting her right leg rest on top of the left. "How in the world do you only understand about half of what I say?"

She watched him rub at an eye under his glasses for a second before he answered. "Well, it goes a little like this: you say something, Chloe says something, you two laugh, I have no idea why you're laughing and nobody bothers to explain it to me. Haven't you noticed how you say 'Explaining it ruins the joke, Smallville,' several times a day?"

Lois opened her mouth to retort but promptly shut it again when she realized she had nothing to say. Looking past her partner in crime, or at least that's what he was according to the people they brought to justice with their investigations, she focused her eyes on the bright skyline of Metropolis. Neither had had any plans for the night, so they'd ordered Chinese and decided to keep working on their current investigation of money laundering in the police force. There was always something, it seemed.

"Give me an example of something you didn't understand."

Clark tossed some papers on his desk and put his feet up, much like she had, with his hands behind his head. "It was a couple days ago. We were all sitting around before heading home for the night and you made reference to a band I'd never heard of. Chloe went on to make a joke about their guitar player, you two laughed, good times were had. I asked who the band was and was told that I should know these things by now, having been your partner for almost a year."

"If I said that, it's most likely true. Who was the guitarist?"

"Buckethead."

Lois couldn't help but grin as she remembered the joke Chloe had told when they'd made their way around to talking about him the other day. She saw Clark frown and shrugged. "What can I say? It's pretty funny if you know who Buckethead is."

"What I don't get is why somebody would be named Buckethead. I don't care if you're trying to get attention, or actually just like to wear an empty bucket on your head; that name is just dumb."

"Yeah, well, you would think so. What the hell is taking the food so long?"

"It's been ten minutes, Lois. About a third of the time they said it would take."

Lois sighed as her stomach rumbled, letting her feet fall to the floor. She'd barely eaten anything all day. She'd gotten caught up in the investigation, the rush of finding that piece of evidence that would put everything together and be the cherry on the sundae, which gave her the tendency to forget to eat. A couple frozen waffles as she walked out the door that morning and a bagel for lunch had not done much to keep her hunger satiated.

"You could have offered to have gone and gotten it, ya know."

"I could have. So could you."

"Yeah, but you're the guy. Go forth and bring back food for your woman."

Clark scoffed. "In what way are you my woman? In what world would you classify yourself as anybody's woman?"

"That is entirely not the point. What entirely is the point is that you, being the man, should offer to do such things so that I don't have to wait so long for food. It's courteous, Smallville, something that you should be intimately familiar with. You're the most courteous person I've ever met, and always have been."

"I appreciate the compliment, but no, I am not going to go get food for you."

"Well it's too late now, but this is for future happenings. I assume we'll be getting more food delivered in the future, but instead of that you could go get the food."

"You know this whole equality thing that women fought for decades ago? Marches, burned bras and all that? Congratulations, it has been achieved. As such, you are allowed to be the courteous one in this insane partnership of ours and go get the food."

Lois rolled her eyes once more, running a hand back through her hair and grabbing her empty mug as she stood up. "You know what I'm hearing in all your talk? 'I don't want to help my partner and good friend because I'm lazy but can claim equality makes my laziness all right.' It's just not right, Smallville. Where's the love?"

"It's being delivered with the food in about seventeen minutes."

Lois shook her head as she walked through the empty bullpen, going through mostly by habit instead of looking at anything. She got to the coffee maker and poured herself some, almost to the brim. After adding a little sugar she took a sip, sighing as it made its way down to her stomach. Grabbing a disposable cup from next to the maker, she poured some coffee into it before grabbing it and heading back to her desk. She handed the disposable cup to Clark before sitting back down.

"See, I think this is the problem with men today. Most of you guys think that equality means that you don't have to do things for us anymore. I'm not saying that I want every door held open and every chair pulled out for me, but it doesn't hurt for it to happen every once in a while."

"I do those for you all the timeཀ"

Lois waved a hand at him absently. "I know, but you don't count. You're Smallville; old fashioned to the core is an apt description. Plus, ya know, I don't go out on dates with you."

"I have noticed that, yes. Not for lack of trying on Chloe's part, though."

Lois nodded as she swallowed. She knew that they should be working, but everybody else was already home so they could talk a little. "I knowཀ What the hell is up with her? She keeps telling me that you have a crush on me and want to go out with me, but won't ask me out for some stupid reason."

She watched as Clark's eyes darted away from her to something on his desk before her eyes dropped to the floor. "Really? She told me... well, she hasn't told me anything about what you supposedly think, but just that asking you out would be in my best interest. I'm fairly certain you wouldn't say yes, what with your all consuming love of Superman."

Lois's head snapped up from looking at the floor, meeting Clark's eyes. "I don't have an all consuming love for Supermanཀ Who told you that and how big are they?"

"How big are they?"

"I want to know how easy it'll be for me to knock 'em senseless."

Clark rolled his eyes, taking a sip of his coffee. "Are you really going to contend the fact that you are totally and completely infatuated with Superman?"

"Well, no, but what straight woman isn't? Tall, chiseled, saves people on a daily basis... what's not to lo... be infatuated with?" God, she was transparent.

Clark sighed heavily, loosening his tie a bit before letting his head loll back. "Yeah, everybody loves Superman. The only downside to a man like him is that he makes it difficult for the rest of us to get noticed by women at times."

"Aww, poor Smallville. Are we jealous of Superman and his effect on women?"

"More like his effect on a woman."

"Really? There's somebody you like? I didn't think that could happenཀ"

He looked at her, confused. "What? Why not?"

"Well, I've seen you go on about four dates since you got back from traveling the world, and none in the last few months. I've actually talked to Chloe about taking you out with us sometime to get you laid, maybe loosen you up a bit like you used to be." She waved a hand at him. "Ever since you got back, you're like ultra-conservative guy. You don't even grow your hair out anymore, and it looked good on you."

"While I appreciate that you used to check me out, I just think that's something for the younger folk. This is more who I am now."

"First, I did not used to check you out except when you turned up naked and with amnesia because, well, I'm human. Second, this is who you are now? You're boring guy? No wonder you aren't getting noticed by this woman you're interested in."

Clark removed his legs from the top of his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "I am not boring. I'm just... reserved."

"Well yeah, you should be fine then. Nothing turns on a woman like a reserved guy that blends in with a crowd. Come on, Smallvilleཀ If you had a crew cut you'd look like you belong in a conservative Connecticut town in 1960."

"Well now you're just being silly. Plus, if I look like I'm from 1960, who cares? I look how I look, the end."

"Let's see, whose fashion sense do we trust: the hip, edgy, modern woman with the great clothes or the guy that used wear plaid on a daily basis? Call me crazy, but I think that I'm going to go with me on this one." And idea hit Lois, making her break out into a smile. "Ohཀ New clothes for Smallvilleཀ Chloe and I could give you a new look, make you all noticeable to women and whatnot."

"What? No. Wait... what?"

"We can get you some modern clothes, make you look presentable for the year 2015."

Clark shook his head. "No. Just, no."

--

"Do the words 'No. Just, no.' mean anything to you people?"

Lois would have grinned, but she was too busy holding up a jacket to Clark, her tongue between her teeth as she decided if it looked ok. Shrugging, she figured it could go back on the rack. Things like this, it either worked or it didn't. Well, for her at least. She'd never tried finding clothes for Clark before. She didn't think Chloe had either.

"Chloe, haven't you ever given Smallville any tips on this kind of thing?"

A blonde head popped up from behind some clothes, frowning a bit. "I've tried, but the man is opposed to listening. I haven't had any problems with Ryan in our time together, though, so it's just Clark being stubborn."

"Smallville being stubborn? What is the world coming to?" Lois held up another jacket to him, shaking her head as she put it back on the rack. "Ok, this is ridiculous. I've tried like eight jackets and nothing works."

"It's a sign. Leave me and my clothes alone."

"No such thing as signs, Smallville." Lois was about to hold up one last jacket but Clark jumped down from where he was standing.

"I, uh, I have to go. I think I may have left my oven on in my apartment."

"What? Again?"

"Yeah. You know my measurements, so just pick out whatever. See you laterཀ"

Clark jogged out of the store, Lois frowning as he left. "What the hell does he use his oven for so much? It's like he leaves it on ever fourth day just so he can run away randomly. I bet this time he's just using it to get out of this."

Chloe walked over to her, dropping some shirts on the back of a chair. "He likes to cook stuff, Lois. I know that's a foreign concept to you, what with your lack of cooking anything ever, but since he was raised on home cooking he likes to cook... at home."

"As opposed to elsewhere?"

"Shut up."

Lois smiled and sighed. "Well, whatever." She would have continued, but her phone started buzzing in her pocket. Pulling it out, she found that it was a news bulletin about Superman fighting a fire in a high rise. Tossing what she was holding on with Chloe's stuff, she grabbed her purse. "Superman's about five blocks away. You wanna go?"

"Of course. This is a lost cause anyway."

They walked briskly out of the store and onto the sidewalk, making their way through people to try and get into view of everything going on. It didn't take too long to see the smoke in the sky. This only spurred Lois into a jog, much easier since it was a Saturday and she was in jeans and tennis shoes. Chloe jogged beside her and soon they were pushing their way through the crowd, trying to get to the authorities blocking off the building. It didn't take long.

Neck craned, Lois watched smoke emanate through broken windows on the top floor of a building. People still poured from the building, some coughing and some looking like they barely knew what was going on. A blue blur flew out of the building and stopped suddenly, floating above the people and facing the building. Against the seriousness of the situation, Lois felt a smile come to her lips as a gust of wind blew from where Superman was and into the building. Seconds later, the smoke was gone.

Lois started clapping as Superman floated down to earth, all the people around her doing the same. He was quickly down on the ground, walking over to check on people that were with medical people. He always did that, making sure there wasn't anybody that needed to get there at what she called 'Super' speed.

With a nod to the medics, he took a few steps backwards and rose off the ground, giving a nod to the crowd before speeding off into the sky.

Every time she saw him, she felt like a little girl again, clapping for a magician that was doing something that shouldn't be able to happen. He was an extra terrestrial, sent by his parents to Earth so he could survive, and he used his abilities to help people. That wasn't the kind of thing you could just make up in stories. Well, it was, but not anymore.

Shaking off the feelings of awe, Lois looked over at Chloe. "Is it just me, or is that really awesome?"

Chloe looked over at her and nodded. "It's definitely awesome."

As the crowd around them began to disperse, Lois heard somebody calling her's and Chloe's names. Turning, she saw Clark making his way through the crowd, glancing up at the building as he got to them. "I was going back to the clothing store when I saw the smoke, but it was out before I could get here. What happened?"

Lois shrugged. "We don't know. All I know is that there was a fire, we came, watched Superman do his thing, then he left. Got out of here about twenty seconds before you got here, actually. One of these days you're going to have to see the man in action."

Clark smiled tightly. "Yeah, I miss out on all the fun. So, do you want to get some quotes and write this up?"

"Sounds good. Superman was gone before I could ask him for one. Too bad."

An hour later they were all back in the bullpen, Lois and Clark writing up the article while Chloe read off the quotes to them.

"'...and if not for Superman, it could have taken hours to get this fire put out.' I feel like I've heard that before."

Lois looked back at Chloe. "That's because we hear something similar every time he puts out a fire. We're lucky to have him, but sometimes he does make our job a little redundant. Not that I'm complaining in any way. You'll never hear me lament anything he does."

Lois glanced at her cousin and Clark, realizing what she sounded like. Chloe was grinning, as Lois had suspected she would, but Clark was frowning, his brow tight. Odd.

"Anyway, yeah, glad to have him." Lois finished off the article and sent it in before leaning back in her chair. "Well, that's that. Shall we get back to dressing you, Clark?"

"No."

"Sounds like fun, cuz. I'm in."

"No."

"Come on, Clarkie. Be our life-sized doll."

"No."

"You know you're going to do it. You haven't said no to me since high school."

"No.

"Poor Smallville. He never stood a chance against us, Chloe. He can't deny us anything."

"No."

"Poor guy. At least he'll look good after this."

"Why don't I have friends that are guys?"

"Because they wouldn't be nearly as interesting as we are. Now come on. If I have any say in things, you'll be irresistible to all women by the end of the day. Besides me and Chloe, of course."

"Great."

--

"You should tell her, Clark."

Sighing, Clark rested his face in his hands for a second before pulling them away. "Mom, we've been over this, what, three dozen times? Telling Lois that I'm Superman can't accomplish anything besides hurting her. I don't want to hurt her. Doing so would probably result in a severe decline in our time together, and I like the time I get with Lois. It's not something I want to see decrease."

"If you would tell her, or at least ask her out on a date, you might just get more."

Clark laughed mirthlessly, rolling his shoulders a bit as he stood up from his spot on the porch swing. Walking forward and resting his hands on the railing, he watched as the sun slowly set over the farm. "Asking her out on a date would accomplish nothing but making things awkward, mom. She's barely dated since Superman showed up. She's got a one track mind."

She walked up next to him, placing a hand on top of his as she looked out over the farm with him. "All the more reason to tell her. I think by now she's earned the right to know. She's one of your closest friends."

"I know, I know. But I feel at this point telling her would be perceived as me just trying to make myself look better in her eyes."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Clark Kent isn't anything to her but a partner to work with and is hopelessly in love with her. Lois is hopelessly in love with Superman. Both seem to be popular knowledge at work, and Lois is painfully oblivious to the first. If I tell her, what can I expect her to do? She'll always see Superman from then on, and not Clark Kent. If she still wants to be with Superman, she'll want it in spite of Clark Kent."

"I don't think you're giving Lois enough credit, Clark. She's a smart woman, and she'll see that Clark Kent is who you are while Superman is what you do. Take the risk, Clark. These things have a tendency to work out when it comes to love."

"And there we are again," Clark said. "She doesn't love Clark Kent, she loves what Clark Kent does."

--

"Bleh."

"Bleh?"

"Very much bleh. Why did you let me do this?"

Chloe raised an eyebrow at her. "When have I let you do anything? You do what you want to do when you want to do it. It's kind of a Lois Lane trademark in this crazy world we live in."

Shaking her head, Lois wiped the goo that was supposed to be cheese off her finger and grabbed some oven mitts, slipping them on and taking the pan of ruined nachos over to her trash can and dropping it in. Tossing the over mitts on the counter, she grabbed her phone and tossed it to Chloe. "Pizza?"

Chloe smiled and nodded. "A thousand times yes, and a thousand times thank you for ruining what you cooked before I had to have any of it and be sick all night."

"Oh, very funny."

"You think I'm joking?"

Lois frowned at her as there was a knock on the door. She pointed at Chloe. "Get to dialing. I'll get the door."

Walking over, Lois wiped her hands off one last time before opening the door, where she found Clark standing before her, looking antsy of all things. "Smallville. To what do we owe the pleasure?" She stepped out of the way, waving him inside. He took a few steps in and she closed the door. Turning, she found him standing there, staring at her. "Something you want? Something you need to say?"

"I'm Superman."

Lois frowned, scratching at her arm. "What?"

"Superman. I'm him. He's me. Well, he's what I do, anyway."

Staring at him a second, Lois let herself slouch a little as she scrutinized him. He didn't look like he'd been doing drugs. Granted, there was rarely strong visual evidence of that. He was still kind of antsy. Shaking her head, she shrugged. "Yeah, ok Smallville. That must make me Wonder Woman. Come on in, have a seat. Chloe's ordering pizza. I'll lasso up some drinks."

Grinning at her pun, Lois walked past Chloe and into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water for Clark and the bottle of wine for she and Chloe, along with a couple glasses. Walking back into the living room as Chloe hung up, she put everything down on the coffee table. "Thirty-nine bucks total. Thirteen each. Not bad."

"Not bad at all," Lois said. "So, get this. Smallville walks in, I turn around from closing the door, and he says that he's Superman." She looked over at Clark, who was looking at Chloe. "It's why he gets water instead of wine with his pizza. Methinks somebody here got an early start to the drinking."

Lois set herself to the task of uncorking the wine, quickly doing so and pouring herself a glass. She held out the bottle towards Chloe, expecting it to get taken. When she was still holding it a moment later, Lois looked over at her to find she was staring wide eyed at Clark, looking incredulous. Frowning, Lois looked at Clark, who was looking at Chloe with wide eyes, though he wasn't looking incredulous.

"I think I missed something here. Anybody want to verbalize the non-verbals so I can be part of the conversation?"

"Yeah, I want to verbalize something," Chloe said. "THAT'S how you tell her? You walk in and say 'I'm Superman.' and that's it?"

"Do you know of a good way to preface news like that? Plus, you know how much I've wrestled with this, how much I've tried to figure out what to do. You were no help in that, by the way."

"I wasn't trying to helpཀ I thought she should be in on things so you could quit making stupid excuses months ago, not to mention for other reasons."

"Hold itཀ" Lois watched Clark and Chloe cease their argument and look over at her. "Thank you. Now what the hell are you two going on about?"

"We're talking about what Clark told you earlier."

"You mean the joke."

"It was the truth."

"Yeah, it was the poorly planned and thusly blurted out truth. I mean, come on, Clark. There had to have been a better way to do it. You couldn't have taken out to the balcony, maybe had a drink with her first before doing it?"

"I prefer not to get thrown off balconies."

"You can flyཀ"

"Shut upཀ"

Lois looked up and found their attention squarely on her. She pointed at Clark. "You have her," she said as she pointed at Chloe, "convinced that you're Superman?"

"She knew about everything before Superman existed. That's why I was hoping she would understand that telling a person about my powers isn't easy. I don't do it. People seem to keep finding out on their own, except for you, Lois."

"That doesn't mean there isn't a good way to do it. This is something that has to be thought through, with everybody figuring out how to do it. I take it your mom didn't say 'Go in and blurt it out' when she was telling you that you should tell Lois."

"No, but she didn't exactly have a great way to do it either. She told me to do it when it felt right. Well, I didn't know when it was going to feel right, or even if I would know what right would feel like when I felt it, so I made right now." Clark frowned, shaking his head. "You know what I mean."

"QUIETཀ" Lois stood up, eyes wide. "Are you two seriously saying that Clark is Superman?"

"We wouldn't lie to you about this."

Lois leveled a look on her cousin, who smiled sheepishly and shrank back into the couch a bit. She turned to Clark. "You weren't joking earlier."

"No. Had I been, I probably would have laughed at your lasso joke."

Lois ran her hands back through her hair. "Prove it."

She heard Clark sigh, and watched as he stood up and took off his glasses. Suddenly he started spinning, stopping a second later. Gone was Clark Kent; in his place stood Superman, tights and all. She heard Chloe speak as she felt herself incapable of it and kept staring.

"You've never changed into your tights like that before."

"I got the idea from a television show."

Maybe this is what going insane felt like. Clark Kent was Superman. It didn't make any sense. How could the bumbling and stumbling farm boy be the greatest super hero the world has ever known?

"A TV show? Seriously?"

"It wasn't annoying or stupid looking, was it?"

"No, I'm just kinda surprised about where you got the idea from."

Then again, this really did explain a lot of things. First and foremost, Clark never being where Superman was made sense now. She'd always just chocked it up to awful timing. The conservative look he'd adopted since he'd returned from his travels and his blending into a crowd certainly was explainable.

"Well, it was either do the spinning thing or figure out some other way. I could always just disappear from sight for a second, or maybe step into a closet and step out a second later."

"I think that one would be kind of cool. Hard to find a closet on the street, though."

"Yeah, all I need for the spinning is somewhere out of the way. Any alley will do."

"The world's greatest super hero emerging from an alley to save the day. People are going to think you're homeless or something."

Glasses. She was fooled by glasses. His disguise was being a clumsy, quieter version of himself. How stupid was she? How stupid was everybody?

"People are not going to think I'm homeless. If anything I'll be coming from my apartment and the roof of the Planet more than alleys. I wonder if that kind of thing can be tracked."

"Too late to worry about that now."

"Heyཀ Why are you two carrying on like I'm not even here?"

Chloe answered first. "Your face kinda went blank while everything you knew about Superman and Clark Kent exploded and coagulated into one big ball of information."

Lois eyed Chloe for a second. "Interesting way of putting it. Not far from the truth."

"Yeah, I know."

Let her eyes slide over, she looked at Clark... Superman... whoever. "You... you... oh..." Lois felt her voice trail off into what sounded like a growl, which she made herself stop doing. "I've been drooling over him... you... for almost a year now. I've been about half a step short of throwing myself at him... you... dozens of times."

Very quickly Clark did the spinning thing again then stopped, standing there in jeans and a plain blue t-shirt, but his glasses nowhere in sight. "I'm sorry. I never wanted things to end up the way they did, but you looked at him so much differently than you did me, and I got addicted to it."

"But you ARE him."

"Superman is how I protect people and keep my anonymity, Lois. I've always been Clark Kent."

"Fine, then Superman is a persona you affected. He's still basically you, though, right? He's a more confident version of the Clark Kent everybody knows and loves."

"I guess? I've never really thought about it."

"Well then I think now's a good time to startཀ You know why? Lemme tell ya. I told Superman some things that I never wanted Clark Kent to know. I told Superman things that I never thought anybody but Superman and I would know. But you're Superman, so you know too, despite the fact that he's just something you do. Thus, this raises the question, where does Superman end and Clark Kent begin?"

"Lois..."

She raised a hand at her cousin. "No, I get to do this. I think I'm entitled to this."

"She's right, Chloe." Clark pulled his glasses out of his jeans pocket and slid them on his face, pushing them up on his nose in an all too familiar way. Those didn't work on her anymore. "I lied to her, after being friends with her for years. I'll listen to whatever she has to say."

"You're damn right you willཀ And don't act like you're standing there of your own free will, Clark. You're here because you know that I will hunt you down if you try and leave. Now, where was I... ah yes. Where does Superman end and Clark Kent begin? When are you just you and when are you not you?"

"I'm always me," he said, "and I'm Superman when I need to be."

"All right, so what is your real personality? Are you really meek? Are you really the guarded but confident man capable of anything? Or is it something in between?"

Clark swallowed, inhaling and exhaling through his nose noisily. "It depends on the situation."

"What about when it's just you? Or, say, just you and your mom? Maybe just you and Chloe?"

Clark stood silently for a moment before crossing his arms over his chest. "Something in between."

"How about when it's just you and me? How often are you yourself then?"

"When we're bantering, I'm never more myself."

Lois didn't stop to think about what he'd said. "So how often would you say you're really you? Ten percent of the time? Twenty?"

"I don't know."

"And therein lies the problem. When you don't know how often you're yourself, I don't know how often I want to be around you. I've only ever wanted to know you, not the you that you show everyone else. You didn't have to be quiet and clumsy around me. You didn't have to be stoic and confident around me. You could have just been yourself. But when you don't even know how often you're yourself... well, that makes it hard for me to want to know you."

Lois walked up to him, crossing her arms over her chest in much the same way he had and looked him in the eye. "So here's how this is going to work. Until I figure out how I feel about the amalgam of all these versions of you, we won't speak in a manner beyond professionally, be it as partners or you helping me out of a situation. Hell, I don't know if I'llwant to talk to you until YOU figure out who the hell you are."

There was a knock at the door, and Lois decided it was an opportunity to end the tense situation she found herself in. "That would be the pizza. When I come back from paying for it, it would be best for you to be elsewhere."

Turning on her heel, Lois walked away from him to the front door. After paying for the pizza she walked back in, finding Chloe standing where she'd been and Clark nowhere to be seen. Handing Chloe the top pizza, she sat down on the couch and turned on the television.

"Lois, do you want to talk about what just happened?"

"Am I talking?"

"No, but..."

"Then I'd say I don't want to talk about it. Have a seat and watch with me." Lois nodded at the spot next to her, and Chloe sat down. She felt her cousin's eyes on her but ignored them, losing herself in the television show so that she wouldn't have to think about just how confused and hurt she was.