Gift for purple_moon123, part one
Title: Masquerade, part one
Request: After Season 1, Gabe and Chloe move and she reunites with Clark on his first day at The Daily Planet
Type: Fic
For: purple_moon123
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 12, 665
Summary: Chloe hasn’t seen Clark in ten years, but some feelings never change.
Author’s Note: Per the prompt, nothing past Vortex (2.01) applies to what happened with Chloe and Clark. Also this Cat Grant is very much the Lois and Clark version and even Perry here has a bit of Elvis-inspired love.
Chapter One
She should have known it was going to be a terrible day, the kind of day that would change everything she’d carefully constructed for herself. It started small. It was always the little things that signaled she’d have a terrible day. There was construction on her block, which had managed to knock out her power, which, of course, made her alarm clock stop at 11:35 pm. It also meant that her phone which had basically been dead when she put it on the charger didn’t get any juice. So she woke up at ten a.m., only realizing it because she’d rolled over and looked at her wrist watch when the sun seemed too high, and then booked it to the DP.
By the time she got there, Cat was gleefully standing by the coffee maker and offering cutting remarks about her sloppy appearance. So Chloe had slapped on any make up and skirt/shirt combo she could find. She hadn’t realized until she got onto the elevator that it was a navy skirt and a black blazer or that she’d left on earring back on her night stand. In short she was a wreck, but at least she wasn’t in slut wear unlike Cat and her skirt that was basically painted on.
“Lois, that’s quite a fashion don’t,” she said.
Chloe smiled icily back at the redhead. “You’d know about those. God, is Perry mad?”
“The Pit Bull? He’s furious. He’s orienting the new hire and you were supposed to be his tour guide. I think they’re still signing the paper work, but, yeah he’s pissed. I was hoping you wouldn’t show at all. The new guy? He’s one tall drink of water that I want to slurp on down.”
Chloe rolled her eyes and guzzled her coffee. That was low-hanging fruit, and she wasn’t going to fall for it. After a few minutes, life-saving caffeine was swimming through her system and she felt somewhat better. Her big job of the day besides the stupid ambassador bullshit she’d warned Perry she wasn’t into was to cover a press conference at LexCorp in a few hours. She had time to regroup and show the new guy the copier and the way to the cafeteria and get over to LexCorp Towers in time.
No sweat.
Then Perry’s door opened and the old Elvis fanatic stepped out with someone oddly familiar stepping out behind him. Chloe’s mouth grew dry. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. The last time she’d seen Clark Kent was at The Talon for her going away party. Her dad had gotten reassigned to LuthorCorp proper and she was already going to stay with Lois to keep up her internship. Just the week before they’d broken up after barely dating at all (and the less said about the dance, the better). Then she’d kept up with Pete, but even that had slowed down. She still kept in touch via email with him because it never hurt to have a mole in the D.A.’s office but, frankly, after junior year, he’d moved to Topeka when his mom got a better job and he’d never said a word about Clark since.
She’d like to say she’d forgotten Clark Kent existed, but she hadn’t. Not really. You didn’t forget your first kiss and crush, and you certainly never quite got over your first heartache. And, yes, while she’d had a few frankly varied romances, she’d always wondered what it would have been like if the damn dance had gone differently.
But that was ten years ago. She was almost twenty-six and not some high school freshman. No, this had to be a mistake. She was overworked or stressed or something and she was just imagining Clark Kent was here. That was all.
Perry spied her by the coffee maker and frowned. “Lane, are you kidding me?”
The man behind him turned to see her and his eyes went wide. It wasn’t Clark, though, couldn’t be. She was not that rabidly unlucky. Nope, he was just confused about why she had a navy-and-black clashing problem. Besides, Clark had had perfect vision back at Smallville High, and he certainly didn’t favor or even need huge Drew Carey style glasses.
She sighed and set the cup down and marched over to Perry. She’d met him first when, frankly, she’d gotten in over her head poking around about old land deals in Metropolis. It had been borne of too many hours in the Planet’s archives in her third internship and, after that, she’d had to go to Perry, freshly back in the land of sobriety, and begged him to help her collaborate. The clues had always been there, but she needed someone with deeper records and more resources to help her bring the expose to light. Since, he’d been lauded for his work and gotten back in the Planet on their partnership, she had a bit more leverage on him than most reporters there.
Still, best not to irritate the Pit Bull more than she already hhad.
“Hey Chief.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Anyway,” she said, “I’m sorry. My power went out and it’s been a mess since. I’ve been working in some capacity for the planet since I was fifteen. Give a girl one day to be a mess in a decade. That’s fair.”
Perry shook his head. “We don’t do mistakes and we don’t do late. Lane, this is Clark Kent. He’s fresh off the Bangkok Daily News.”
Chloe squeaked. Nope, definitely squeaked. It wasn’t just her overactive imagination. This was really happening. The boy she’d never gotten over had grown into an impossibly gorgeous man, one who filled out that suit (cheap as the cut was) well, and with eyes and green and piercing as she remembered. “Uh, hi. So I get to show you around.”
“Uh, yeah,” he stammered. She knew this well. Clark had always been a spaz, especially around certain Pink Princesses. Apparently, he’d never grown out of the stuttering and anxiety. Shame. “Clark, nice to meet you.”
“Actually,” Perry said, eyeing her. “If you’d been here at eight like you were supposed to be, I could have explained. I tried yesterday but you were stuck on that Intergang story and didn’t leave your office till after Alice wanted me home. Anyway, Lane, you’re great.”
“Understatement. My series on Manheim’s racket was nominated for a Pulitzer.”
“Like I said, you do great work, very hard-hitting.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes at him. She did not like where this was going, not at all. “Perry, what the Hell is going on?”
“But you are lacking the human interest edge that helps sell papers.’
“We’re the news. That sells it.”
“And the investigative pieces are phenomenal but they’re drier than the investors would like. The Inquisitor---“
“Is a rag,” she supplied.
“But they’re on trajectory to outsell us by the end of the year, and the board’s not happy. I found you one of the best editorial writers I know. I love your work, you know I do, but it needs a human edge to it. So, meet your new partner.”
**
Clark winced when Lois Lane slammed the door to Perry’s office and started into a tirade on her boss. He wouldn’t have needed superhearing to detect it. Most of the office was staring at the closed door, slack-jawed, as she ripped Perry a new one. Clark tried not to be offended. He was new, but he wasn’t a rookie reporter. After high school, he’d finally trained with Jor-El. It had taken four years but he’d learned a variety of things about not just his powers but the history and culture of his birth people. It had been his version of college, and then he’d had the A.I. forge a record from him from an actual one, something good enough to help him get jobs at different papers around the world. For the last four years, he’d worked for six different papers from Madrid to Seoul, and he’d finally come home to Lowell County.
He’d wanted to be good enough to write for The Planet legitimately. He could have come directly after training. Perry would have spotted him the favor just for saving his life from that gorge, but he’d wanted to be worthy of it and, besides, he hadn’t been sure how to help humanity, even with his biological father’s training. He knew going public as himself wasn’t it. He was also no longer sixteen and terrified; Clark knew that he wasn’t literally supposed to rule anything with strength. So, over the last six month, he and his mom and dad had come up with an idea. Something he was both anxious and terrified to start with tonight. Clark was coming back to Kansas in a big way, starting two jobs at once, but he never thought that just getting settled at the DP might be harder than his night work.
There was something familiar about the brunette, though, something in her eyes. For a minute, he’d been sure she was Chloe, but that was dashed fast when Perry kept calling her “Lois Lane.” Besides, she’d been a kid when he’d last seen her. She could be a lot taller by now or heavier or gone punk and dyed her hair neon green for all he knew. She could be a star reporter for The Gotham Gazettte or, possibly, gotten a completely different career entirely. After training, he’d had the Fortress search for her records but they hadn’t come up with much. He knew she’d gone to Met U so she’d been in the city at least for a while even after high school but…this woman wasn’t Chloe.
Chloe wouldn’t be upset to see him.
Would she?
Sighing, he tried to concentrate on the linoleum before him and not at the redhead in the clothes that his mom would have been very angry at making bedroom eyes at him. Still, he wished Ms. Lane wasn’t screaming so loudly. Even if he wasn’t Kryptonian, well, everyone could hear her.
Perry, I’m not taking my valuable time to babysit some guy who thinks writing for the nowhere gazette in damn Asia is the same as being the record for kings and prime ministers. You get me a meeting with damn Tess and Oliver Queen. We’ve been doing more and more puff piece bullshit since Queen Industries bought us. This is the last damn straw!
I owe you, that doesn’t mean it’s a free tab. It’s over my head and Kent’s got a lot of talent. You will work with him and you will try, Lois, so get the Hell out there and that’s final!
Everyone in the room was smart enough to suddenly seem exceptionally busy at their desks. Clark looked up and offered Lois a small smile. “Look, Ms. Lane, I’ve been in the business for four years and I was on the ground for The Nairobi Weekly when there was that huge warlord problem in Kenya and…”
“I’ve been here a decade and I’m the most decorated reporter under thirty here. You keep up or so help you,” she said, stomping out the door.
Oh man, maybe it was a good thing he was invulnerable.
Request: After Season 1, Gabe and Chloe move and she reunites with Clark on his first day at The Daily Planet
Type: Fic
For: purple_moon123
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 12, 665
Summary: Chloe hasn’t seen Clark in ten years, but some feelings never change.
Author’s Note: Per the prompt, nothing past Vortex (2.01) applies to what happened with Chloe and Clark. Also this Cat Grant is very much the Lois and Clark version and even Perry here has a bit of Elvis-inspired love.
Chapter One
She should have known it was going to be a terrible day, the kind of day that would change everything she’d carefully constructed for herself. It started small. It was always the little things that signaled she’d have a terrible day. There was construction on her block, which had managed to knock out her power, which, of course, made her alarm clock stop at 11:35 pm. It also meant that her phone which had basically been dead when she put it on the charger didn’t get any juice. So she woke up at ten a.m., only realizing it because she’d rolled over and looked at her wrist watch when the sun seemed too high, and then booked it to the DP.
By the time she got there, Cat was gleefully standing by the coffee maker and offering cutting remarks about her sloppy appearance. So Chloe had slapped on any make up and skirt/shirt combo she could find. She hadn’t realized until she got onto the elevator that it was a navy skirt and a black blazer or that she’d left on earring back on her night stand. In short she was a wreck, but at least she wasn’t in slut wear unlike Cat and her skirt that was basically painted on.
“Lois, that’s quite a fashion don’t,” she said.
Chloe smiled icily back at the redhead. “You’d know about those. God, is Perry mad?”
“The Pit Bull? He’s furious. He’s orienting the new hire and you were supposed to be his tour guide. I think they’re still signing the paper work, but, yeah he’s pissed. I was hoping you wouldn’t show at all. The new guy? He’s one tall drink of water that I want to slurp on down.”
Chloe rolled her eyes and guzzled her coffee. That was low-hanging fruit, and she wasn’t going to fall for it. After a few minutes, life-saving caffeine was swimming through her system and she felt somewhat better. Her big job of the day besides the stupid ambassador bullshit she’d warned Perry she wasn’t into was to cover a press conference at LexCorp in a few hours. She had time to regroup and show the new guy the copier and the way to the cafeteria and get over to LexCorp Towers in time.
No sweat.
Then Perry’s door opened and the old Elvis fanatic stepped out with someone oddly familiar stepping out behind him. Chloe’s mouth grew dry. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. The last time she’d seen Clark Kent was at The Talon for her going away party. Her dad had gotten reassigned to LuthorCorp proper and she was already going to stay with Lois to keep up her internship. Just the week before they’d broken up after barely dating at all (and the less said about the dance, the better). Then she’d kept up with Pete, but even that had slowed down. She still kept in touch via email with him because it never hurt to have a mole in the D.A.’s office but, frankly, after junior year, he’d moved to Topeka when his mom got a better job and he’d never said a word about Clark since.
She’d like to say she’d forgotten Clark Kent existed, but she hadn’t. Not really. You didn’t forget your first kiss and crush, and you certainly never quite got over your first heartache. And, yes, while she’d had a few frankly varied romances, she’d always wondered what it would have been like if the damn dance had gone differently.
But that was ten years ago. She was almost twenty-six and not some high school freshman. No, this had to be a mistake. She was overworked or stressed or something and she was just imagining Clark Kent was here. That was all.
Perry spied her by the coffee maker and frowned. “Lane, are you kidding me?”
The man behind him turned to see her and his eyes went wide. It wasn’t Clark, though, couldn’t be. She was not that rabidly unlucky. Nope, he was just confused about why she had a navy-and-black clashing problem. Besides, Clark had had perfect vision back at Smallville High, and he certainly didn’t favor or even need huge Drew Carey style glasses.
She sighed and set the cup down and marched over to Perry. She’d met him first when, frankly, she’d gotten in over her head poking around about old land deals in Metropolis. It had been borne of too many hours in the Planet’s archives in her third internship and, after that, she’d had to go to Perry, freshly back in the land of sobriety, and begged him to help her collaborate. The clues had always been there, but she needed someone with deeper records and more resources to help her bring the expose to light. Since, he’d been lauded for his work and gotten back in the Planet on their partnership, she had a bit more leverage on him than most reporters there.
Still, best not to irritate the Pit Bull more than she already hhad.
“Hey Chief.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Anyway,” she said, “I’m sorry. My power went out and it’s been a mess since. I’ve been working in some capacity for the planet since I was fifteen. Give a girl one day to be a mess in a decade. That’s fair.”
Perry shook his head. “We don’t do mistakes and we don’t do late. Lane, this is Clark Kent. He’s fresh off the Bangkok Daily News.”
Chloe squeaked. Nope, definitely squeaked. It wasn’t just her overactive imagination. This was really happening. The boy she’d never gotten over had grown into an impossibly gorgeous man, one who filled out that suit (cheap as the cut was) well, and with eyes and green and piercing as she remembered. “Uh, hi. So I get to show you around.”
“Uh, yeah,” he stammered. She knew this well. Clark had always been a spaz, especially around certain Pink Princesses. Apparently, he’d never grown out of the stuttering and anxiety. Shame. “Clark, nice to meet you.”
“Actually,” Perry said, eyeing her. “If you’d been here at eight like you were supposed to be, I could have explained. I tried yesterday but you were stuck on that Intergang story and didn’t leave your office till after Alice wanted me home. Anyway, Lane, you’re great.”
“Understatement. My series on Manheim’s racket was nominated for a Pulitzer.”
“Like I said, you do great work, very hard-hitting.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes at him. She did not like where this was going, not at all. “Perry, what the Hell is going on?”
“But you are lacking the human interest edge that helps sell papers.’
“We’re the news. That sells it.”
“And the investigative pieces are phenomenal but they’re drier than the investors would like. The Inquisitor---“
“Is a rag,” she supplied.
“But they’re on trajectory to outsell us by the end of the year, and the board’s not happy. I found you one of the best editorial writers I know. I love your work, you know I do, but it needs a human edge to it. So, meet your new partner.”
**
Clark winced when Lois Lane slammed the door to Perry’s office and started into a tirade on her boss. He wouldn’t have needed superhearing to detect it. Most of the office was staring at the closed door, slack-jawed, as she ripped Perry a new one. Clark tried not to be offended. He was new, but he wasn’t a rookie reporter. After high school, he’d finally trained with Jor-El. It had taken four years but he’d learned a variety of things about not just his powers but the history and culture of his birth people. It had been his version of college, and then he’d had the A.I. forge a record from him from an actual one, something good enough to help him get jobs at different papers around the world. For the last four years, he’d worked for six different papers from Madrid to Seoul, and he’d finally come home to Lowell County.
He’d wanted to be good enough to write for The Planet legitimately. He could have come directly after training. Perry would have spotted him the favor just for saving his life from that gorge, but he’d wanted to be worthy of it and, besides, he hadn’t been sure how to help humanity, even with his biological father’s training. He knew going public as himself wasn’t it. He was also no longer sixteen and terrified; Clark knew that he wasn’t literally supposed to rule anything with strength. So, over the last six month, he and his mom and dad had come up with an idea. Something he was both anxious and terrified to start with tonight. Clark was coming back to Kansas in a big way, starting two jobs at once, but he never thought that just getting settled at the DP might be harder than his night work.
There was something familiar about the brunette, though, something in her eyes. For a minute, he’d been sure she was Chloe, but that was dashed fast when Perry kept calling her “Lois Lane.” Besides, she’d been a kid when he’d last seen her. She could be a lot taller by now or heavier or gone punk and dyed her hair neon green for all he knew. She could be a star reporter for The Gotham Gazettte or, possibly, gotten a completely different career entirely. After training, he’d had the Fortress search for her records but they hadn’t come up with much. He knew she’d gone to Met U so she’d been in the city at least for a while even after high school but…this woman wasn’t Chloe.
Chloe wouldn’t be upset to see him.
Would she?
Sighing, he tried to concentrate on the linoleum before him and not at the redhead in the clothes that his mom would have been very angry at making bedroom eyes at him. Still, he wished Ms. Lane wasn’t screaming so loudly. Even if he wasn’t Kryptonian, well, everyone could hear her.
Perry, I’m not taking my valuable time to babysit some guy who thinks writing for the nowhere gazette in damn Asia is the same as being the record for kings and prime ministers. You get me a meeting with damn Tess and Oliver Queen. We’ve been doing more and more puff piece bullshit since Queen Industries bought us. This is the last damn straw!
I owe you, that doesn’t mean it’s a free tab. It’s over my head and Kent’s got a lot of talent. You will work with him and you will try, Lois, so get the Hell out there and that’s final!
Everyone in the room was smart enough to suddenly seem exceptionally busy at their desks. Clark looked up and offered Lois a small smile. “Look, Ms. Lane, I’ve been in the business for four years and I was on the ground for The Nairobi Weekly when there was that huge warlord problem in Kenya and…”
“I’ve been here a decade and I’m the most decorated reporter under thirty here. You keep up or so help you,” she said, stomping out the door.
Oh man, maybe it was a good thing he was invulnerable.