[ Disclaimer: Superman: Man of Steel belongs to the Warner Bros. and whoever came up with DC Comics. The song "Kiss It Better" is owned by the duo He Is We. I own nothing ]

Kiss It Better

...He sees a smoking gun,
And the coward, he ran.
And in his arms is the bleeding
Love of his life.

And she cried,
"Kiss it all better,
I'm not ready to go.
It's not your fault, love,
You didn't know.
You didn't know..."
*music insert*

The sound was deafening.

The small hole in her upper abdomen surprised him. It looked so foreign, leaking red across her cream-colored blouse—or, perhaps, it was due to the rain, which had begun to come down in pours and since neither had an umbrella then.

No one had been prepared.

And he blames himself for what happened.

Earlier in the week, the weather had been moody—there were random showers, then clear skies on some days, and light drizzle on others.

And that's the excuse Lois gave for her fluctuating attitude recently—come days she was quite sensitive and placid, others very temperamental, but in the past months she had begun to get to Clark. No—it had been in the passed weeks—heck, she was growing irritable in the last two days—and he was growing quite pissed. Clark was tired of going to work and having to see her slowly breaking down, becoming an emotional mess. It didn't do good for him, for her, or anyone else around.

But the truth was, she just hadn't been at her best. No, that's not right; Lois has been scared out of her mind. She was never one for believing in fortunes or anything that didn't have solid evidence to its truth. But for the first time in her life since being told that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy didn't exist, she found herself leaning back into that cushion of ignorance and kind of belief. She found herself believing that this overshadowing, premonition-like feeling actually meant something; that the reoccurring dream that made her too jittery to return to sleep and to run on coffee the rest of the day was actually true. And this followed her—at home, at work, just going out—and it was affecting her moods.

She had been so indulged in her thoughts of the dream—the nightmare, she believed—filled with hazy images of blood and pain and shadows, that she had been scolded by Perry White four times a day at least, and had missed several deadlines too because of it. She had barely acknowledged anyone around her, always with a trembling cup of coffee in her hands, and hadn't regarded herself, barely getting a decent night's rest. She'd been so worried that she would have forgotten to get eat if it wasn't for Clark.

Lois wasn't like herself—

She was scared out of her mind.

And it had been Clark who had made it his priority that by the following weekend, that he was going to make her happy again, at whatever costs. It was his idea to go out that night to that restaurant she wanted to go to, to do the attractions and planned activities afterwards. It was his idea to take the short back-way behind the small eatery next door as a shortcut.

This is the one thing he wants to take back and regrets; what he wishes he could erase with everything in him.

He believes her fate was his fault.

All Clark can recall that night was that there was a tussle. It had begun to drizzle again at a telltale sign of an oncoming downpour, and they had just rounded the corner from exiting the end of the alley, trying to hurry, when his ears picked up another set of footsteps. They had been followed but he didn't worry too much Nothing could hurt him; for whatever happened, he could take care of it—he was Superman for god's sake! He'd run off murderous aliens who wanted to enslave humankind and saved the entire planet. He's the Man of Steel! Lois would be safe with him, he thought. But what Clark didn't see, was that their stalker already had a gun pulled, or that he would pull the trigger when Clark turned around, out of fear.

The frequency of the BANG bounced off the narrow brick walls, and had been too loud for his ears.

After it, he hadn't felt anything, which was unusual, not even a little bounce of the bullet ricocheting off his chest. Lois had been standing tall by his side one moment, and in the next, she suddenly slumped to the ground.

'It was just shock, she's in shock...!' he had told himself.

He knew the truth regardless.

But as he knelt down beside her anyway, Lois was gasping in shock, and then twisting in pain. And in that split second the worst, gut-wrenching feeling he's ever experienced only once before returned—he's felt the same only when his adoptive father, Jonathan, was swept away in a tornado.

There was a lone hole toward the middle of Lois' chest, the red around it quickly spreading across her clean shirt. The pain was kicking in now.

And just like before, Clark watched as another life was taken from him. He watched helplessly.

Lois' eyes found him, her breath coming out in erratic puffs. Clark immediately pulled her to his chest, the act so instinctive that he barely registered doing so.

And the stalker stood in frozen horror. He had not expected Clark to turn around—he had only planned to mug them from behind, barrel of the gun to their backs, and then run off with jewelry or whatever valuables he received. The stalker didn't mean to kill her; at most, he meant to aim at Clark, not the lady. His hand just slipped.

The criminal watched Clark drop to his knees; the water splashing around the man and soaking his slacks. The criminal watched the man pull the lady against his broad chest gentle and mournful. The criminal's fingers shook until the gun slipped from his hands and to the wet pavement.

He ran.

And he didn't turn to see if Clark had acknowledged his retreat.

But Clark didn't care.

Lois' bloodloss was rapidly increasing and knew that he couldn't burn her wound close this time like back in the Arctic.

The sky was a dark, almost-black gray. Traffic vroomed by behind them. They had barely entered the alley before being attacked.

The rain soaked her blouse, washing the blood onto the black pavement. And the more the rain washed away, showering relentlessly, it was as if her blood rushed out faster. It now coated Clark's hands and his shirt where she leaned.

And in that moment, Lois suddenly looked so tired, like all those years of running around for Perry, and then the peril her stories almost brought her in, and her childhood stressing all seemed to catch up to her in that moment, and she had never looked so fragile. She casted Clark a gentle smile, straining, grimacing.

His bottom lip trembled.

(End Flashback)
*.§~§.*

It's been several months since the news of one of the Daily Planet's top journalists was murdered. And for what, the authorities and autopsy reports have ruled it a cold case.

Clark rode his bicycle as of every morning if it wasn't raining; through traffic and down onto 23rd during the usual morning commute, but he didn't see the cars—he didn't see anything. It was like there was a veil, a thick mercurial haze over his eyes where if he was hit, he wouldn't care. He'd just need to play dead for a few minutes and then get back up and pedal away.

Unfortunately, today was not that day.

It's been almost seven months since Lois Lane's death, and Clark Kent was adjusting, getting over it very slowly.

He didn't need to wait for the forensic and police reports—he already knew who'd killed her; he had looked them in the eyes, and—

He hasn't touched his Kryptonian suit since. It was, no doubly, collecting dust. He no longer wore it under his suits either.

Clark chained his "casual" choice of transportation where he did everyday, and walked to the elevator, choosing the journalists' floor. He slid his glasses up his nose—he doesn't take them off in public anymore, not after having a close encounter of his other identity almost being discovered.

When the elevator doors opened, the floor was abuzz with its usual flourish of approaching deadlines and edits needing to be made and destinations to reach before 3:30. But again, Clark barely acknowledged it, the routines becoming so standard and repetitive that he almost needn't to. As he exited the floor, everything seemed to be lit by candlelight in his vision, like walking down a long dark hallway and everything moved in slow motion, and then he'd come to his desk. Two desks away, a stack of papers fluttered to the floor, some curling into the air. The redhead who knocked them over, dove to the floor, his efforts almost to no avail in catching them in time.

The sun shone in through the wide windows covering the left side of the large floor. Clark's entire self seemed to have just shut off, became almost numb and unthinking.

He was dead inside.

And she knew it—well it wasn't that hard to see. It was known that there was perhaps a...thing going on between Clark and Lois. But she could tell that there was something else particularly wrong for a while now.

The woman peered over the cubicle-like walls three desks over to watch Clark rub his face and dig his knuckles in his eye sockets tiredly. And once again, she wanted to run over and put her arms around him, to hug him and kiss him and tell him that everything was going to be alright, even if she didn't know what the problem was today—somedays it had been that he forgot his lunch at home, other times it was that his drink ruined his suit, or that he had trouble sleeping again—but it wasn't the first time she's had feelings of sorts about Clark Kent. To want to talk, hug...or touch—some of these were not as innocent as others.

But he and Lois had always seemed to be close, or just together, and a part of her felt terrible and guilty for it, because it had been obvious that he had been taken—either they were a couple, or he liked her, or vise versa—but that's not when her feeling arose. But she was just a friendly person in general, at least that's what she's been repeated to so many times, and was only going to attempt making him feel better and not sulk for a day.

Clark had been reading the Post-It notes he'd written about some rec center being built for a neighborhood he was to write about—if by "reading" it was his eyes skimming the words but not comprehending them—when there was a tap on his desk, and he jumped, adjusted his glasses, and stammered a bumbling acknowledgement.

He looked up and saw wide, gray eyes. He cleared his throat, coughed.

The woman beside his desk held a mug of coffee in both hands. Her nails drummed, clinking against the ceramic.

He fidgeted, adjusting his already-straight tie.

If Clark took the time to notice, he'd smell the fresh ground coffee, see her fingers dancing nervously, fearfully, and maybe hear the increase in her pulse that threatened to jump up her throat. He fidgeted more, stopping momentarily once finally meeting her almost-surprised expression.

Despite Clark's cloudy mood, it didn't stop her from interacting whenever she could.

Clark coughed. "Oh. Hey, Eve." He turned back at his notes, sniffed, tried not to meet her worried look.

She extended the cup to him almost forcefully. He eyeballed it, and then her face blankly.

"Thought you might want this. Looks like you could use it," she tried.

Clark hesitated before taking the large mug from her and downing a long gulp without looking back. "Thanks."

She had wanted to stop him but it was too late. "Um...!"

The drink had still been piping hot!

Eve fidgeted the knot-bow at the front of her shirt. Her pulse was racing a mile a minute. "Are you sure you're okay...? That coffee was..."

Clark raised his brows, responding, dismissing.

She was met by silence, and she wanted to huff but knew it would be useless. She processed her rushing thoughts into words.

Eve stuttered a little, though. "Actually, I wanted to ask you about that weekend last...um..."

Again, silence.

"What about it." Clark's voice was flat. He sipped the coffee again, trying to emerge himself back in his notes and trying to form an opening.

"Well...I—-"

He held up a hand, stopping her. "Look Eve," he cut her off. The mug set on the desk and he perced his lips, but he looked as nice and generous as ever. "Don't think about it too much."

Just two weeks ago was an incident at a night bar that involved way too many drinks, Clark finally meeting his alcohol tolerance level, and a wayward kiss in the back of a taxi.

And he was right for several reasons to not ponder the incident: one, because he needed to convince her that it was all a clumsy mistake. Two, so she wouldn't question why he had been there all day downing drink after drink until he was finally tipsy and his mind swirled and his spoke things that he shouldn't have by morning—of why it took him so long to get drunk int he first place, which would probably lead to her discovery of his alter ego. And three, to make her think it was all just a kiss.

It was all just a kiss.

Clark hesitated, mouth opening and then closing, the words not coming.

It was all just a kiss...

Clark's eyes flickered to her again.

She was in a nice aqua-colored top tucked into her dark gray high-waisted slacks and she wore heels today. There was some type of fragrance drifting from her, something that resembled flowers, if Clark took the time to notice. Her golden jewelry she wore today complemented her caramel-brown complexion wonderfully. And not for the first time, Clark's head was filled with thoughts and suggestions and wants that were so unlike him, and—and it almost scared him, because she wasn't Lois, and never had he wanted to do anything wrong by her, and still—

And Eve was very pretty and she wasn't loud like Cat and she wasn't too pushy and condescending.

He's only experienced this feeling a few times, and while growing up. And Clark wanted to believe that it was wrong—Eve couldn't be Lois. And yet it was, and these, these—

He and Lois had never performed such acts before, or for whatever reason—whether interrupted by her, him, or their jobs. Maybe they would have, maybe they would have gotten married, maybe it would have all fallen apart. Regardless, these emotions have never been this strong...

It was almost...desires.

And that's what almost frightened him.

The look Eve held was a mixture of disappointment, rejection, and something else...

Clark sighed, rising to his feet.

Increasingly, he's noticed that he was becoming more and more comfortable around Eve, despite their rocky beginning. It wasn't as fast as with Lois, nor did it feel exactly the same.

'But it was something...' the thought passed through his mind.

As he stood, Eve felt her face instantly heat, and she craned her neck back, realizing that her heels did little progress with her short stature—even in heels, Eve just barely grazed his chin. And not to mention how close he was to her now. She knew he had a chiseled features hidden behind his thick rim glasses, and could tell that his shirts hid muscles too...

Clark placed a rough hand on the back of her hair, pushing her head forward. Eve had a head full of brown curls that tumbled past her shoulders and that Clark's fingers tangled into.

He pushed her closer and kissed her hairline.

"Don't worry so much," he mumbled.

The thoughts that seemed so out of character for him never left. His mouth suddenly became dry.

He had no idea how that kiss made her jump inside.

AN: Constructive criticism is welcome. I need reviews to tell me how I'm doing. Is this good? Is it bad? Let me know.

I'm going to try and upload every weekend because college starts soon. But please don't get upset if I skip a weekend or two.