CHAPTER FOUR
"I didn't need you to save me!"
"You were unconscious."
"So?"
"You'd been thrown out of an airplane at 30,000 feet."
"I know."
"You were on fire."
"Just a little."
"Ballistic missiles were converging on your location."
"Plenty of time for a launch code override."
"You were going to land in a pit of rusted spikes, broken glass, and flesh-eating bacteria."
"I could've missed the pit."
"And poisonous snakes."
Lois paused as her eyes widened and she took a step further away from the pit. "There are snakes?"
Superman rolled his eyes while Lois insisted she could get out of the ropes that were still tied around her waist. "Well then allow me to apologize for not thinking you had a hold of the situation."
"You're as bad as Clark. Always thinking I need to be saved." Lois grumbled quietly, struggling with a really tight double-knot. She glanced up and saw how hurt Superman looked. She quickly tried to correct herself. "I didn't mean that. I'm sorry, Superman. No one's as bad as Clark."
Superman gave up on waiting for Lois and used a blast of heat vision to vaporize the knot, allowing the ropes to fall to the ground. "Come on. I'll take you home."
Lois figured her cell phone and purse were a loss. She wrapped her arms around Superman's neck as he held her tightly and flew up into the air. She noticed he wasn't looking at her and was holding her a little less warmly than usual. She could sense his disappointment. "You know I'd never really compare you to Clark, right? I mean he's such a predictable mama's boy. And he's so annoying."
Superman started flying faster and Lois thought she was onto something. "He's probably the most naive slightly intelligent person you'll ever meet. And he's like a mother hen the way he treats me." She dropped her voice in a poor imitation of Clark, "That's dangerous, Lois. You could get hurt, Lois. Stop poking the angry crocodile in the eye, Lois." She shook her head in exasperation. "And those clothes! His suits are so baggy I'd swear he's wearing tights underneath them. No matter how hard I try, when he gets the opportunity to relax and dress casually, he still chooses to wear plaid."
Superman huffed unable to mask his irritation.
"Oh I'm sorry." Lois winced wondering why Superman was so touchy. "Do you… do you like plaid?"
"Plaid?" Superman repeated and considered telling her there was nothing wrong with plaid. His mind began to wander and with a devious grin, he explained, "No Lois, I'd say my favorite color is pink."
"What?" Lois gasped barely above a whisper.
"You know you should wear more pink," Superman continued much to Lois's consternation. He grinned and added, "You'd look like a pink princess."
Those exact words triggered a few memories in Lois's mind. She triumphantly had more material to complain about. "And that's another thing about Clark," Lois exclaimed imagining his wasted brooding youth. "He used to-"
Superman knew they were moments away from her apartment and interrupted her with a line from a movie he had watched just the other day with Lois. "Why don't you stop talking for a while."
"Oh," Lois shut up, clearly confused by this curt new attitude. She looked around and realized they were already back at her apartment terrace. Superman set her down and turned to fly away without another word.
"I'm sorry I ever said you were as bad as Clark," Lois called out in a last desperate apology. Superman didn't even look back. Lois harrumphed quietly to herself, hoping she hadn't just taken out her frustration over being captured by evil Little Old Ladies on the man who saved her life yet again. She thought back to their conversation and couldn't understand his problem. "Someone's on the super-rag."
"Super-hearing!"
"Crap."
"Please tell me this is a bad joke," Chloe pleaded with her cousin.
"I wish it were," Lois said with a wince. "I walked in and… I don't think I'm ever going to get those images out of my head."
"But I used to eat those cookies. I liked those cookies."
"I did too," Lois agreed reluctantly. "I never even wondered what the secret ingredient was."
"But… puppies! How could they use cute, adorable puppies?"
"Not just puppies," Lois argued. "It's also all the strays that the animal shelter was going have to gas anyway. Might've been breeding them to keep up with supply."
Chloe was remembering the promise of quality on the boxes. "They have those shortbread cookies that the Sweet Little Old Ladies claim are vegan-friendly."
Lois shrugged. "Vegans hate puppies too."
"I don't think they eat them, though," Chloe snapped.
"I'm sure that's exactly what the vegans want you to think," Lois retorted, "whether it's true or not."
"So did your taser fry a Little Old Lady's pacemaker before they overpowered you with change purses and early bird dinner coupons?"
Lois frowned and exhaled loudly. "That vicious granny clocked me in the back of the head with a rolling pin! Probably had puppy blood on it too."
Chloe whimpered though it was more for the puppy than her cousin.
"Next thing I know I'm waking up in Superman's arms," Lois explained.
Chloe sat back listening to her cousin recount her conversation with the Man of Steel and couldn't believe the things Lois had unwittingly said to Clark. Not to mention how callous Superman had been with her. Lois described her last desperate plea, and Chloe just shook her head. "You didn't."
"It wasn't intentional," Lois pleaded. "How was I supposed to know Superman had such a low opinion of Clark?"
Chloe knew Clark had grown past his whiny, woe-is-me lamentations, though he wasn't above a little petty revenge.
"He was really moody to begin with though," Lois pondered. "You think Kryptonian men have menstrual cycles?"
Chloe snorted, wanting to call Clark, but needing to get as much info out of her cousin as possible before she did. "So what are you going to do about it?"
Lois took a deep breath and saw Chloe watching her inquisitively.
"What?" Chloe asked impatiently.
"You can't laugh," Lois snapped and pointed at Chloe.
Chloe grinned liking the sound of that opening. "If you're asking me not to laugh, then I'm pretty sure I'm going to be laughing."
"Fine. I might as well get this over with," Lois said pulling up her shopping bag. "I've decided to give his suggestion a try."
"You're going to stop talking for a while?" Chloe said in surprise. "Nice work, Supes."
"No, not that one," Lois argued as she pulled her new sweater from the shopping bag she carried. "I'm going to try wearing more pink."
Just as Chloe expected, she began laughing. She did her best to cover her mouth as she nearly cackled in glee but she still was attracting a few funny looks.
"Oh stop it," Lois scolded. "I was going to just return that other sweater, but I saw they had the same one in pink and figure I owe it to Superman to give it a try."
"Wait… return?" Chloe asked in surprise. "That great sweater you just got last week?"
Lois nodded.
Chloe huffed. "Did you get it two sizes too small like I told you to?"
"Chloe, if I got it two sizes it would have suffocated me. Trust me, the one size too small got the point across," Lois paused and bit her lip. "At least I thought it would."
Chloe couldn't imagine Lois wearing anything remotely tight around her abdomen that would fail to get the point across. "Lois, people pay lots of money for sweater meat half as plump as yours."
"I know," Lois readily agreed sneaking a glance down her shirt. "I really thought I'd give Clark a conniption fit or something. Especially the way that sweater accentuated my… natural beauty."
"He didn't have a fit?" Chloe asked in disbelief.
Lois shook her head in confusion. "I switched into it last Thursday night when we were coming back into the office late to finish up our articles. You know our desks are facing each other. Well, I walk in and he's got his eyes focused right on his computer screen researching something online. I don't know what it was but he never even looked up. You know how he gets, staring off into space, oblivious to the world around him."
"Lois Lane failed to attract Clark Kent's attention?" Chloe repeated doubtfully. "What's next? Mad Dog Lane turning into a pink princess? Oh, wait a second-"
"Hey!" Lois yelped. She leaned forward and whispered dangerously "For both our sakes, I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that and reply to your first observation. Clark, fail to notice me? I was not going to stand for that. I started to drop pencils that would roll towards him. I kept leaning over, just waiting for him to lift his head and get hypnotized by my enchanting cleavage."
"Yeah? And?"
Lois sighed and admitted, "Never happened. He lent me a pencil, a pencil sharpener, a stapler, and thirty bucks without looking away from his computer screen."
Chloe snorted. "And I'm sure you courteously returned his money?"
"Why do you think I offered to buy lunch?" Lois smirked victoriously.
Chloe rolled her eyes. "So just because he didn't look, you decided you need to return the sweater?"
"Contrary to what you're implying, those are perfectly reasonable grounds for a return, but that wasn't why. And I never said he didn't look."
"Why then?"
"After five minutes where Clark hadn't even so much as glanced my direction, I looked to see if there was something wrong with the juicy fruit. Next thing I know, swear to god," Lois insisted with wide eyes and her arm up. "My tits were on fire."
Chloe bit the inside of her lip uncertain if she could safely burst out laughing. She opened her mouth to ask a fitting question but only ended up coughing into her napkin and laughing. She always got a kick hearing about hormonal Clark's penchant for ocular arson in place of the typical male response. She remembered Clark didn't talk to her for a week after she mocked up the fake front page headline Death by Accidental Discharge.
"I'm not making this up," Lois continued louder than polite company would have preferred. She was pointing emphatically towards her chest. "The sweater, right over each boob, burst into flame."
Chloe was still hiding her face in her napkin and asked in between snickers, "Are you okay?"
Lois rolled her eyes, "Yeah, because as soon as I opened my mouth to scream, this frigid wind just came outta nowhere and blew the fire out. Whole sequence was less than a second."
"No lasting damage?" Chloe clarified, getting more and more eager to talk to Clark. And definitely call Pete.
Lois shook her head. "Naw, it was just the top surface of the fabric got gently toasted. It was warm, but didn't burn me. No marks. Not that I wanted to risk wearing the combustible bustier any longer. I managed to hold back my scream and swallowed a gasp. I looked over and saw Clark was still staring at his computer screen completely oblivious. Though I remember he looked really red. Might have just been the reflection of what he was researching."
"I'm sure," Chloe said with a surreptitious grin.
Lois frowned at Chloe for a moment and continued, "Anyways, considering my luck, this was the moment Clark finally looked up."
"Yeah?" Chloe smirked. "And?"
"I was a bit flustered and hadn't really fully processed the scorched chest situation," Lois commented. She winced at the memory, "Did I mention it was a frigid wind?"
"Oh no," Chloe snickered. "Did you at least get Clark to blush?"
Lois huffed in indignation. "He finally notices, and do you know what that dolt said?"
Chloe just shook her head, amazed that Clark had the composure to say anything at all.
"He looks at me worriedly and exclaims, 'Lois! Those look like they hurt!'"
Chloe laughed as it seemed even the memory made Lois's cheeks rosy.
"I've never been so mortified in my life. It was supposed to make him uncomfortable not me," Lois sighed. "I ran to the bathroom to change, and even after putting on a loose t-shirt, the summits of Mount Lane still could've cut glass. I had to sit there in the bathroom for almost an hour waiting for them to relax. The whole time Clark stood outside the door asking if I was alright. He was so worried."
"I'm sure," Chloe snickered.
"I kept telling him to go away but he wouldn't listen, the stubborn, moronic sweetheart," Lois sighed. "He even offered to get me some ointment, band-aids, or ice. Yeah, ice! I swear that man couldn't buy a fifty cent clue with a hundred dollars."