Prologue: The Cherry on Top
Title: L'esprit de l'escalier
Note: The rest of the series can be found here.
Author: taro_twist (aka Tairona)
Timeline/Fandom: post-Superman Returns
Pairing: Lois/Clark
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: DC and the WB own everything! I'm just temporarily messing with their creations ...
Spoilers: Superman Returns, Superman II, and I guess Superman: The Movie, to be on the safe side
Word Count: 1,233
Prologue: The Cherry on Top
As Lois Lane read the notice taped to the doors of the central Daily Planet elevator, she felt her temper rising like the mushroom cloud of an atom bomb.
Due to the Metropolis Power Authority electricity shortage, the elevators are temporarily out of service. Thank you for your cooperation.
“Great-thanks for nothing!” Lois exploded, yelling at the sign and scattering people in all directions, including Richard, who had to take a large step backwards to avoid being whacked by an angry sweep of her arm. “That’s just fantastic.”
As if this day hadn’t been bad enough already. She’d only been awake for three hours, and yet she’d already spilled coffee on her blouse, broken Jason’s favorite toy car by accidentally stepping on it with one of her dangerously sharp heels, narrowly escaped a fender bender while dropping Jason off at day camp, and oh yeah!-she’d gotten into an argument with Richard about Superman. And now there was this elevator outage-the cherry on top of an already delicious cake.
Lois crossed her arms in front of her chest and began tapping one high heeled foot. What she wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now. A whole damn pack of them.
“I’m going to call Perry,” she announced, whipping her cell phone out of her purse. “Tell him we’ll work from a library or from home... we can give him updates by phone, email-anything! But we are not trudging up to the office today.”
Richard opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a friendly chirp coming from behind them.
“Good morning,” Clark beamed as they turned to look at him, and gave both of them one of his goofy, trademark waves. He pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned forward to peer at the sign on the elevator doors. “Golly, looks like it’s the stairs today then.”
Lois gave him a look of utter disbelief.
“You are not seriously thinking of walking up those stairs,” she said, pausing midway through dialing Perry’s number.
“Lois,” Richard broke in. “It’s only-“
“Seventy-four flights!” Lois finished for him, then mentally hit herself on the head. That was the first time he’d spoken to her since their blow out this morning, and she just had to cut him off, didn’t she? She gave him an apologetic look, but he was staring around the lobby now, his eyes wandering everywhere that she wasn’t. Chewing on the inside of her lip, she finished dialing Perry’s number, and raised the phone to her ear.
“Lane! Where are you? And where’s that nephew of mine? We’ve got a meeting in five minutes,” Perry barked, his voice so loud that Lois had to move the phone away from her ear.
“Perry, the elevators are out, there’s no way-“
“What kind of lame excuse is that?” Perry demanded. Lois jerked the phone away from her ear again, and held it in front of her as though she had the man on speaker phone. “If I made it up here, then so can you. Five minutes, or it’s your head on a silver platter with a parsley garnish and a side of potatoes.”
“But Chief, that’s impossible,” Lois wailed. “Not even Superman could make it up those stairs in five minutes,” and with that, Lois mentally smacked herself again for mentioning the Man of Steel in Richard’s presence, “And besides, half the people that need to be in that meeting are stranded down here in the lobby right now.”
Although as Lois said this, to her dismay, she noted that those people were dragging their way towards the stairwell door one by one, heads bowed with resignation, accepting their fate of having to trudge up seventy-four flights of stairs without even putting up a fight.
“Then it’s their heads, too,” Perry grunted. “Let that be a lesson to you all in the importance of coming to work early. Now-five minutes!”
“Can’t we just do a-a conference call …” but Lois trailed off as she realized that Perry had already hung up. She glared at her phone. Well, so much for not going up to the office today.
“I, uh, well … shall we?” Clark gestured towards the stairwell door with his briefcase. “It-it’ll be some … some nice, morning exercise.”
He smiled, always the optimist, the let’s-look-on-the-bright-side-hey-is-that-a-silver-lining-I-spy? kind of guy, but Lois just narrowed her eyes at him.
“Smallville, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” she reminded him. “I know it’s hard to understand our sophisticated customs, but us city folk don’t start our days with some ‘nice morning exercise’ of driving fence posts into the ground and bailing hay. We drink coffee. We smoke cigarettes. We grumble.”
“Some people jog,” Clark pointed out, a hint of amusement tugging at his lips. “Actually, lots of people jog. If you go to the park in the morning-“
“All right, you’ve made your point,” Lois snapped, then pointed a finger at herself. “This person does not jog, though.”
“Why don’t we just start heading up?” Richard suggested, putting an end to this particular Lane-Kent quibble, not so much with his words, but with the exhaustion that seemed to weigh his voice down to the ground. “We’re already going to be late. Let’s not make it any worse.”
For a moment, the three of them just stood there, exchanging a series of uncomfortable looks. Clark flicked his eyes between the two fiancés in a what’s-going-on? kind of way, while Lois gazed at Richard with beseeching, please-can’t-you-see-that-we-can-work-this-out? eyes, and Richard gave her this level, I’m-not-in-the-mood-for-this-now stare. Clark then dropped his gaze to the floor as he suddenly seemed to realize that he had unwittingly stumbled into the midst of a lovers’ quarrel. He studied his shoes, scuffing them against the polished floor of the lobby. With a jolt of recognition, Lois realized that that was exactly what Jason had done this morning, when he had come downstairs for breakfast and had found his parents fighting in hushed voices.
Upon connecting Clark’s behavior with her son’s, Lois felt an unexpected twinge of affection towards the mild-mannered reporter. She had never been a fan of the way her partner acted like a whipped puppy dog. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t think he was a good friend; Lois Lane would be first in line (well, maybe second in line, behind Jimmy) to attest to how kind and thoughtful Clark Kent was. But would it really kill him to show that he had some balls hidden somewhere beneath that three-piece suit? Did he have to be so … so meek all of the time?
Well, that was Lois’s usual line of thinking, at least. But now … oh, screw it, this was not the time to be rationalizing random spasms of affection towards Kent, nor would it ever be the time to feel random spasms of anything (except for say, annoyance) towards him. She had enough drama in her life as it was without throwing in new and inappropriate emotions to spice up the pot.
“Right! I believe we have some climbing to do, boys!” Lois suddenly blurted, her tone so cheerful in her attempt to compensate for the thoughts that no one knew she had been thinking in the first place that she sounded like a Clark Kent clone. “I’ll race you to the top.”
Note: The rest of the series can be found here.
Author: taro_twist (aka Tairona)
Timeline/Fandom: post-Superman Returns
Pairing: Lois/Clark
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: DC and the WB own everything! I'm just temporarily messing with their creations ...
Spoilers: Superman Returns, Superman II, and I guess Superman: The Movie, to be on the safe side
Word Count: 1,233
Prologue: The Cherry on Top
As Lois Lane read the notice taped to the doors of the central Daily Planet elevator, she felt her temper rising like the mushroom cloud of an atom bomb.
Due to the Metropolis Power Authority electricity shortage, the elevators are temporarily out of service. Thank you for your cooperation.
“Great-thanks for nothing!” Lois exploded, yelling at the sign and scattering people in all directions, including Richard, who had to take a large step backwards to avoid being whacked by an angry sweep of her arm. “That’s just fantastic.”
As if this day hadn’t been bad enough already. She’d only been awake for three hours, and yet she’d already spilled coffee on her blouse, broken Jason’s favorite toy car by accidentally stepping on it with one of her dangerously sharp heels, narrowly escaped a fender bender while dropping Jason off at day camp, and oh yeah!-she’d gotten into an argument with Richard about Superman. And now there was this elevator outage-the cherry on top of an already delicious cake.
Lois crossed her arms in front of her chest and began tapping one high heeled foot. What she wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now. A whole damn pack of them.
“I’m going to call Perry,” she announced, whipping her cell phone out of her purse. “Tell him we’ll work from a library or from home... we can give him updates by phone, email-anything! But we are not trudging up to the office today.”
Richard opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a friendly chirp coming from behind them.
“Good morning,” Clark beamed as they turned to look at him, and gave both of them one of his goofy, trademark waves. He pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned forward to peer at the sign on the elevator doors. “Golly, looks like it’s the stairs today then.”
Lois gave him a look of utter disbelief.
“You are not seriously thinking of walking up those stairs,” she said, pausing midway through dialing Perry’s number.
“Lois,” Richard broke in. “It’s only-“
“Seventy-four flights!” Lois finished for him, then mentally hit herself on the head. That was the first time he’d spoken to her since their blow out this morning, and she just had to cut him off, didn’t she? She gave him an apologetic look, but he was staring around the lobby now, his eyes wandering everywhere that she wasn’t. Chewing on the inside of her lip, she finished dialing Perry’s number, and raised the phone to her ear.
“Lane! Where are you? And where’s that nephew of mine? We’ve got a meeting in five minutes,” Perry barked, his voice so loud that Lois had to move the phone away from her ear.
“Perry, the elevators are out, there’s no way-“
“What kind of lame excuse is that?” Perry demanded. Lois jerked the phone away from her ear again, and held it in front of her as though she had the man on speaker phone. “If I made it up here, then so can you. Five minutes, or it’s your head on a silver platter with a parsley garnish and a side of potatoes.”
“But Chief, that’s impossible,” Lois wailed. “Not even Superman could make it up those stairs in five minutes,” and with that, Lois mentally smacked herself again for mentioning the Man of Steel in Richard’s presence, “And besides, half the people that need to be in that meeting are stranded down here in the lobby right now.”
Although as Lois said this, to her dismay, she noted that those people were dragging their way towards the stairwell door one by one, heads bowed with resignation, accepting their fate of having to trudge up seventy-four flights of stairs without even putting up a fight.
“Then it’s their heads, too,” Perry grunted. “Let that be a lesson to you all in the importance of coming to work early. Now-five minutes!”
“Can’t we just do a-a conference call …” but Lois trailed off as she realized that Perry had already hung up. She glared at her phone. Well, so much for not going up to the office today.
“I, uh, well … shall we?” Clark gestured towards the stairwell door with his briefcase. “It-it’ll be some … some nice, morning exercise.”
He smiled, always the optimist, the let’s-look-on-the-bright-side-hey-is-that-a-silver-lining-I-spy? kind of guy, but Lois just narrowed her eyes at him.
“Smallville, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” she reminded him. “I know it’s hard to understand our sophisticated customs, but us city folk don’t start our days with some ‘nice morning exercise’ of driving fence posts into the ground and bailing hay. We drink coffee. We smoke cigarettes. We grumble.”
“Some people jog,” Clark pointed out, a hint of amusement tugging at his lips. “Actually, lots of people jog. If you go to the park in the morning-“
“All right, you’ve made your point,” Lois snapped, then pointed a finger at herself. “This person does not jog, though.”
“Why don’t we just start heading up?” Richard suggested, putting an end to this particular Lane-Kent quibble, not so much with his words, but with the exhaustion that seemed to weigh his voice down to the ground. “We’re already going to be late. Let’s not make it any worse.”
For a moment, the three of them just stood there, exchanging a series of uncomfortable looks. Clark flicked his eyes between the two fiancés in a what’s-going-on? kind of way, while Lois gazed at Richard with beseeching, please-can’t-you-see-that-we-can-work-this-out? eyes, and Richard gave her this level, I’m-not-in-the-mood-for-this-now stare. Clark then dropped his gaze to the floor as he suddenly seemed to realize that he had unwittingly stumbled into the midst of a lovers’ quarrel. He studied his shoes, scuffing them against the polished floor of the lobby. With a jolt of recognition, Lois realized that that was exactly what Jason had done this morning, when he had come downstairs for breakfast and had found his parents fighting in hushed voices.
Upon connecting Clark’s behavior with her son’s, Lois felt an unexpected twinge of affection towards the mild-mannered reporter. She had never been a fan of the way her partner acted like a whipped puppy dog. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t think he was a good friend; Lois Lane would be first in line (well, maybe second in line, behind Jimmy) to attest to how kind and thoughtful Clark Kent was. But would it really kill him to show that he had some balls hidden somewhere beneath that three-piece suit? Did he have to be so … so meek all of the time?
Well, that was Lois’s usual line of thinking, at least. But now … oh, screw it, this was not the time to be rationalizing random spasms of affection towards Kent, nor would it ever be the time to feel random spasms of anything (except for say, annoyance) towards him. She had enough drama in her life as it was without throwing in new and inappropriate emotions to spice up the pot.
“Right! I believe we have some climbing to do, boys!” Lois suddenly blurted, her tone so cheerful in her attempt to compensate for the thoughts that no one knew she had been thinking in the first place that she sounded like a Clark Kent clone. “I’ll race you to the top.”