Perfect Little Accidents: Trouble Double
Title: Perfect Little Accidents: Trouble Double
Word Count: 3484
Summary: Lois' new twins make her doubt her abilities as a parent. Clark's not going to let that stand.
Author's Notes: Third in my (anachronistic) Perfect Little Accidents series which takes place during Clark's two years as a stay-at-home Dad in Revelations. This fic takes place a few weeks after Lucy and Ella are born. My first attempt at setting out to write Mommy!Lois from the start rather than just letting it happen. Hope I did okay.
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"Clark what have you been feeding these children?" Lois asked trying very hard not to breathe in as she carefully slid a very full nappy out from under her infant daughter.
She hurriedly dropped it in the diaper bin to seal off the smell but from what her older three children had taught her, she had a lot more of this to get used to. And this time everything was two-fold.
Twins, she couldn't believe Clark had gone and knocked her up with twins.
She looked over towards her husband, changing the other infant in the house with that huge silly I'm-a-Daddy! grin he wore, like even changing his child's diaper was the greatest thing he'd ever had the honour of doing.
But Lois knew, as much as she loved her children she would never really understand how it was for her husband. She had always known if she wanted to- which she hadn't, right up until Jason had proved her very wrong when was placed in her arms for the first time- it was very likely she could have children barring an unforseen problems.
Clark's life had been almost the complete opposite. His failed mission to find his birth-planet had been born entirely from a desire to find someone else like him, because as far as he knew he was the last and from a very young age he had believed it was impossible for him to have children of his own with a human.
Until Jason had, as the boy was prone to do, proved him wrong.
How could you ever think the universe wouldn't let you be a father? She wondered, unable to stop her own smile as she watch Clark gently slip his twin into a purple onsie. All the while making ridiculous coochie-woochie baby noises at his babbling, giggling daughter.
If Metropolis could see their hero now, she thought. Jimmy could make a fortune and retire on his own private island if he had ever had the urge to sell any of the thousand of photos he had of his best friend and family. Fortunately for everyone involved the idea hadn't even entered the photographer's head.
It took a bit longer for Lois to wrestle her baby into her pink outfit as the little girl wouldn't stop wriggling on the table and babbling at her mother who, despite her frustration, couldn't help grinning back.
"Finally," she announced, doing up the last button. "I've gotta be getting back soon," she told her husband, looking at the clock. She'd taken a long lunch to visit Clark and the kids, the last few weeks had had her away from home 'till well after the kids were asleep, she still hadn't seen her two eldest, Sophie or Jason, in a week but she was leaving early tonight whether Perry liked it or not.
She'd also gotten a few quotes for her latest article as well. It hadn't taken long for the world to notice Superman wasn't around as much as usual and Perry wanted the story from the source. Where's he gone? What's he doing? He's still here so he hasn't gone off again but why is he scaling it back? Why only the big stuff now? What's changed in his life?
Lois had had to do some fancy typing to complete the story to both her editor's and her husband's satisfaction. Perry wanted the full story but Clark wasn't keen on outright lying but writing an article titled Superman: Stay-at-home Dad probably wasn't a good idea either.
"Alright," she sighed, pushing the article out of her mind, as the little girl in her arms started to fall asleep, "you take Ella then, I wanted to go say hi to Dean before I have to leave."
"Lucy," Clark corrected her almost absentmindedly, grinning like the love-struck father he was, as he took his daughter from his wife.
"Pardon?" Lois blinked as she looked between her infant children.
"You had Lucy, this is Ella," Clark said, placing her next to her sister. "I always put Lucy in the pink and Ella in the purple."
"Oh." She blinked again and looked carefully at her daughters.
"Lois, are you okay?" Clark asked, a note of worry creeping into his voice as he looked at his wife. Lois realised she had been staring rather intently at the crib.
"The whole time I was changing her I thought she was Ella," She said slowly, looking at the now sleeping twins, curled up together in their colour-coded onesies with freshly changed diapers.
She carefully studied their little faces, so similar yet there were differences even now. Differences she, their mother, should know by now.
"Lois, it's not a big deal-"
"They're not even identical!" She interrupted him, remembering the many times she'd been asked since they'd been born. Oh, twins! How adorable! Both girls? Identical? No, really? Oh, but twins!
"Well," Clark frowned, his eyes worried for her, "just because there were two placentas doesn't mean they're a hundred percent fraternal- if the eggs splits early enough-"
"Have you ever mixed them up?" Lois asked bluntly, even as she said it unsure herself why she was so affected.
"Well…" Clark looked decidedly uncomfortable now. "They're only a month old Lois, they're babies, of course they look very similar."
"You've never had trouble have you?"
"No," Clark admitted, "but that's why I have them colour-coded. So I don't mix them up."
"What about when you give them a bath?" Lois asked.
"Lois, they're infants, it's not a big deal getting them confused for a moment. And I spend more time with them than you do so it's-" he stopped suddenly at her look, clearly knowing he'd said the wrong thing right away. "Lois, I didn't mean it like that."
"I know," she assured him, knowing for certain there wasn't a mean or resentful bone in her husband's body, "but you're right, I don't spend enough time with them. No wonder I can barely recognise my own children."
"Now that's not true," Clark told her bluntly.
Lois frowned and looked back at her daughters, Lucy was in the pink, Ella in the purple, but she'd never needed that to tell them apart before so why-
"Mom!"
She didn't have time to dwell then as a small brown-haired child catapulted towards her. Lois and Clark were both taken by surprise, though thankfully Clark had quicker reactions than his wife and was able to stop the overly-enthusiastic three-year-old slamming straight into his unprepared mother.
"What have I said about running in the house, young man?" Clark asked sternly, kneeling to look his son in the eyes.
"No running in the house," Dean muttered, looking down. At three the boy couldn't move that fast but with their eldest child recently coming into his Kryptonian inheritance, Lois and Clark had decided to instil good habits in the children from the start.
Or, house-saving habits at least, Lois thought, remembering the repair bill and explanations that had followed Jason's first attempt to angrily slam a door after his strength had fully developed.
"Don't worry, sweetie," Lois told him, playing good cop and picking her son up, "I'm excited to see you too." She gave him a proper hug, feeling her heart fill with a familiar love and happiness as he happily returned it. Clark smiled a the pair of them and Lois tried to glare at him over Dean's shoulder. It was bad enough he'd gone and knocked her up with five children, he didn't have to know she was happy about it too.
"Can I show you what I drew?" Dean asked excitedly.
"Of course," Lois replied, allowing Dean to grasp her hand in his tiny one and pull her into the playroom just off the living room.
"Look," Dean said proudly, pulling a crayon drawing out from under another pile of crayon drawings. Not all of them by him, Lois noted with some amusement, recognising Clark's slightly more refined scribblings among them.
Lois allowed herself one more glace towards her daughters before giving her full attention to her son. Him at least she could tell apart from her other children.
"I'll try and make it home early tonight," Lois promised Clark and Dean as they walked to the door to see her off, "have a good day, love you both."
Clark kissed her and Dean waved and then she stopped being Lois Kent, Mom and was back to Lois Lane, Daily Planet. Not that they were all that different, except Lois Kent doubted herself so much more than Lois Lane ever had.
Of course, she was being stupid though, Clark was right, she'd never gotten Lucy and Ella mixed up before. But… Clark always told her which one she had, or which was which when they weren't in their onsies. You hold Lucy or, Ella's been fussing, here, I think you should feed her now. She often went to check on them before she went to bed but the separate cribs they slept in were both graced with hand-carved nameplates, bearing Lucy and Eleanor in very easily read writing.
Then she was almost run over but a taxi and decided to concentrate on where she was walking rather than dwell on her failures as a mother.
She had a Senator to bring down today anyway, her first big story since coming back from maternity leave, she was intent on proving to everyone that not even giving birth to twins would be slowing Mad Dog Lane down.
And the good thing about trying not to get oneself killed while simultaneously infiltrating a brothel to secretly film one of the most respected men in the country taking bribes and cheating on his wife and children was that it left very little room in her head to dwell on the two babies waiting at home for a mother who didn't even know them from each other.
Yet when Clark found her early the next morning at the kitchen table, having arrived home long after she'd promised Dean, she still couldn't stop thinking about it.
"Lois…" Clark frowned, "what are you doing?"
"Dwelling," Lois told him, frowning down at the five photos she had lined out in front of her.
On the drive home she had thought again how she had never had to tell her children apart as infants before because none had been infants together before Lucy and Ella. So she had pulled out the photo album and taken the earliest pictures she could find of her children and lay them in front of her.
It was a pointless action, with Lucy and Ella she had only the girls themselves to tell apart but with the pictures there were so many other distinctive features in them she had no idea if she really could tell them apart of if she just knew because she knew the photo, not the child.
Jason's stood out first. Even if it wasn't of him in the NICU that was still recognisable Richard's hand in the picture, she could make out the faint scar under his knuckle that was a defensive wound from a knife attack in Amman. And Jason himself was so small and fragile, nothing like the loud, tall eleven year old he'd grown into.
Sophie's first picture was also distinctive, Martha had knitted her first granddaughter several items and insisted her handmade yellow hat replace the standard hospital-issue one.
Dean's was in their living room, where he'd been born. The corner of the same coffee table that sat there now was clearly visible.
Even the first baby pictures of Lucy and Ella gave themselves away, having been taken in their hospital cots, the labels, Kent, L. and Kent, E. clearly visible at the bottom.
"Lois…" Clark repeated, picking up the photos then sitting down next to her and looking at his wife with concern. "I've never seen you let something bother you so much. Especially something as small as this."
Lois couldn't look at him, she didn't know how to explain how hard her mistake had hit. She had always doubted her ability to be a mother. Always. Lois Lane had faced down politicians, criminals, even Superman without flinching but the single most terrifying moment of her life had been the moment she'd found out she was pregnant with Jason.
She had thought she had held people's lives in her hands before. More than once and investigation had ended with her pointing a gun at someone, waiting for Superman or the police to arrive. Though she was eternally glad she had never had to, she had at those times held the power to end that person's life.
And therein lay the difference. She had not had not held that person' life in her hands, only their death. Ending a life was easy, but being responsible for bringing a new one in to the world? Knowing that she was going to be responsible for everything this child needed to survive in the world? Nothing had ever scared her more.
Over the years she had learned to push those doubts to the side, where Clark couldn't see them but they were still there, simmering away. And her mistake that morning had dragged them all back up into the harsh light of day, every last one.
"What if you hadn't been here?" Lois asked finally, what if I'd just gone and put them in the wrong colours and the wrong cots? Then what if we all thought Lucy was Ella and Ella was Lucy?"
Clark sighed and took her hands. "Lois, you only confused them for a moment- you would have realised soon. They look the same but already I bet you could tell me how different they are in their personalities."
Lois didn't meet his eyes. Clark continued, "and what if we did call them by different names, do you think I became a different person when my parents decided to name me Clark? And it really was only chance we called the first one Lucy and the second Eleanor. And, if it really is worrying you so much… I can tell them apart properly," Clark admitted finally, "but only because I can see and hear so much more than you. If you ever got them mixed up for real- which you never will-" he assured her, "I could just use my abilities and find out who was who- it's almost impossible to see but Ella's hair is lighter than Lucy's and her heartbeat sounds different…" he trailed off, clearly uncertain as to whether telling her he at least would never mix up their children like her was the right thing to do or whether it would make her feel worse.
Lois opened her mouth to reply but, as if they knew they we being talked about, one of the twins choose that moment to start crying from their room. It sounded like Ella but Lois was no longer sure.
Clark gave her an apologetic look, as if it was his fault they were interrupted and headed into the room. Whichever baby was crying had now woken her sister and Lois knew they would soon wake the other children if they didn't get the attention they wanted.
She followed her husband to the changing table where he'd already taken the girls out of their onsies and started getting the nappies ready. "They need to be changed," he said, a tad unnecessarily as Lois could already smell it for herself.
"Both of them?" They may not have been identical but they were certainly synchronised.
They each took one as usual and changed them in silence, Lois started to hope Clark had left their conversation out in the hall but she should have known he wouldn't drop it that easy.
"It was really no big deal," he spoke finally, "if you'd read all the baby books I had you'd know that mixing up multiples when they're younger is actually common. Most parents have them colour-coded for the first few months. Even fraternal ones."
"I know," Lois lied, taking the purple onesie Clark handed her and slipping her, thankfully quiet, daughter into it. So she had Ella then, had she known that before? She couldn't remember.
Clark started to say something but his head twitched to the left and he frowned.
"Go," Lois told him.
"I'll only be a moment," he told her, kissing her lightly before spinning into his suit and leaping out of the window.
True to his word he was back less than a minute later as Lois was just finishing fastening up her daughter's onesie.
"Just a mugging," Clark explained, "but she had a gun so I thought I should intervene, dropped her off at the station, they'll take care of it."
Lois smiled, the police had been getting used to her husband's quick drop-offs and fly-by rescues now. More often than not they would arrive at robberies or car accidents to find the clean-up left to them. Bullets stopped and injured delivered to hospital but the processing of would-be thieves and clearing of roads would be in this hands.
To their credit none had a bad word to say about Superman's recent scaling back of his efforts. Even when confronted by the media who had pounced on the story they refused to tarnish his name in any way. Even though none of them really knew the true reason, they had asked of course, but Superman kept his secrets and they had no choice but to let him.
"But we know why don't we?" Lois asked the girl in her arms as Clark delivered her twin back to her room. "We know why Daddy can't be at your charity event today, it's because of you."
The baby in her arms giggled and Lois frowned suddenly, something odd tugging at her. She bounced the baby up and down gently and she giggled again and there it was, something not quite right, not quite her Ella- but very much one of her daughters.
"Clark…" She frowned, following him in the twins' room and looking closely at the baby in her arms. Purple was always for Ella but… "This is Lucy," she realised suddenly, the tiny girl in her arms looking up at her mother, blissfully unaware of her confusion.
Clark smiled, coming up behind her to kiss her lightly on the neck, careful not to disturb the sleeping, pick-clad baby he still held. "Told you it was just a bad day," he whispered, "isn't Mommy silly, Lucy-lou?" he asked the purple dressed girl Lois held, "yes she is." The girl in Lois' arms giggled again and now Lois knew for sure.
"This is Lucy," She repeated, looking again between her two daughters.
Clark, still smiling, gently took both girls and deftly swapped them back into the right colours. "I told you looks weren't everything," he said, once he'd lain the girls down to sleep and joined his still mildly confused wife in the hallway.
"How did you know I would be able to tell?" Lois asked, shaking her head.
"You're Lois Lane, nothing gets past you."
"And what if I hadn't?"
Clark shrugged. "I knew, and if you really hadn't we would have just waited until they had grown some more. You don't get Dean and Jason mixed up," he reminded her, "Lucy and Ella share as much DNA as our other kids, once they grow up you'll never have a problem."
"I know," Lois lied again, "but…" she sighed, "I just… this whole thing… it just always makes that little voice at the back of my mind louder, reminding me that Lois Lane will never be a good mother-"
"I'll have you know Miss Lane," he interrupted her smoothly, his voice deepening into its Superman tone, sending shivers down her spine, "that the woman I married is a very good mother, and though she professes they were all unplanned she loves her children very much and they love her." He raised a his eyebrows a fraction of an inch as he would when they were still strangers on a rooftop. "Do I make myself clear?"
He said the words with such conviction in his voice that Lois almost believed him. She leaned against him, enjoying the solidness he provided, not just with his body but with his whole being. "Promise me something," she said after a moment.
"Anything," he replied without hesitation.
"Don't stop telling me that until I believe it too."
"Deal," Clark said firmly, leaning down and sealing it with a kiss.
"You have to promise me one thing as well," Clark said as they finally separated.
"And what might that be?"
"You can never call my wife a bad mother again."
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