daniel webster (occupation: recluse) (ex_published349) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-04-04 00:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: dc comics, lois lane, superman |
Who: Lois & Clark.
What: Catching up. In a way.
Where: Metropolis
When: Way backdated to before the Masquerade.
Warnings: None.
Lois was pretty sure that whatever end was up wasn’t actually up at all. She was slowly wrapping her head around everything that had been going on, and the different versions of people she knew running around behind this door. She was coming to terms with the person she was sharing space with on the other side of the door, and she supposed this was her life now. As strange as it was, she supposed it could be worse. She was not going to dwell, she was going to figure this nonsense out and see where everything stood. And apparently that meant palling around with Catwoman.
She packed up a few things from her desk and put them in her bag, she was going to try and get back to her apartment for a bit before she had to let Brian have his day in the sun. They had reached at least something resembling a schedule and an agreement. She didn’t keep him all night talking and he didn’t drive her crazy with his incessant rambling while she was working.
She stood in the elevator staring at the numbers as they counted down to the lobby ignoring everyone else in the elevator with her, she was the type to usually pretend like her phone was the most interesting thing in the world, but everyone else in the elevator seemed to have that move as well, so it worked for her. When the doors opened she stepped out and started her trek through the lobby, her heels making plenty of noise on the marble floor, she was so focused on getting out of there that she almost walked right past Clark. Almost. Instead she stopped in her tracks and her eyes widened a bit before she gathered a bit of her composure back, “Hello,” she said clearing her throat and standing up a bit straighter. This was strange. So very, very strange. She recognized him, but didn’t all at the same time.
Clark had not been in the lobby thirty seconds before, which is why no one there noticed his presence as they had a while beforehand when he had passed out of the elevator and skulked through it like a chastened errand boy with the satin-jacketed Driver in his wake. He couldn’t wait for what the gossiping reporters of the Planet would say to that, and he was very intentionally not listening. Instead, he focused on the unique echo of Lois’ heels on the lobby floor, the sound of her heart in her chest, and the satin rub of her hair over the cloth on her shoulders. As she moved back from him, he focused on her face, on the small flecks of color in her eyes, examining her for signs that she might be a different woman than the one he knew and liked a few weeks ago. Finally he withdrew his gaze back beyond the thick glasses and looked on her as any other man would. The recognition in her face was clear. She knew. Clark’s own expression sobered a little more, like a puppy’s that had discovered the food bowl empty. “...Hello, Lois.” He tipped his head in a boyish way that was very Smallville, as if they were both standing at the edge of a dusty field and he’d stopped to greet her as she passed. He imagined she was looking for lines of age that weren’t there, perhaps some gravitas he did not yet possess. He didn’t know what to say, so he just stood there, trying to find something over and over and failing as many times again.
Well the hellos were out of the way at the very least, she looked at him, her eyes wide for a moment. “God you’re so young,” she blurted out before she could think of anything more appropriate or ice break-y to say. She inhaled then and shook her head. “Hello, Clark.” She said. Again. “I wasn’t sure when, or if, I’d see you.”
Clark stared at her. Young. She thought he was young. Great. The hurt flashed over his face, strong and clear, just like he was. But he lifted his chin and nodded it down against his chest, deliberate. “...Thanks.” Was she supposed to be old? He couldn’t say it even to tease her. “Why would I avoid you?”
She instantly felt bad when she realized she’d said the very wrong thing and she huffed a bit trying to find a way to stop blurting nonsense out. “Sorry,” she said with a sigh and a shake of her head, she wasn’t sure what to say to make this any better, or less strange. “I didn’t quite know what to expect, you said you’d only known me for a few weeks, that isn’t what I’m used to,” her mind flashed back to what Catwoman had said about him knowing her at all, She was glad of that at least, “I’m glad you know me at all,” she said a bit softer then because it was true, she did have that going for her. “I didn’t say avoid, I just think we must have been missing each other a bit when we’re running back and forth between doors and the like. I’m glad you aren’t avoiding me, that’s a good thing.”
Clark moved slowly around her, still managing to look young and inoffensive, an accomplishment for such a large man. It wasn’t just the glasses, it was the way he held himself, the pitch of his voice. Once he was next to her, he started moving toward the revolving doors, not wanting to have this conversation in front of everyone in the building. They would start to notice him any moment; they did that now, even without the cape. “Maybe we have. Stella has been generous with her time, though,” he added, feeling as if he must give the woman her due, even if sometimes he had to work to find charitable things to say about her. There was an awkward moment at the door, Clark unsure whether he should wait for Lois to go through alone or try to squish in with her.
Lois walked along with him toward the door, trying to think of something to say next, but then he brought up Stella and she had to smile a bit, “She sounds more agreeable than Brian, I’m sick of him most of the time and he of me I’m afraid,” she said clearly amused by the whole situation. She was convinced that she made Brian’s life that much more interesting and that for all of his whining he’d be lost without her. Obviously. The pause at the door gave her time to look around, she wasn’t entirely sure what they were waiting for, maybe he was being a gentleman and letting her go first, but she half gestured for him to go ahead. At the same time she stepped forward as well. She had never been awkward around Clark before, that was usually all him. She rolled her eyes at herself. This was ridiculous. “Come on,” she said and plowed onward.
Once outside she paused, not entirely sure where they were going after all. So much for plowing onward, “Are we walking or taking a cab somewhere?”
Clark narrowly avoided running into her when she plunged for the door, an awkward movement more attributed to his distraction than his actual coordination, because of course Clark had all the time in the world to learn coordination. No one but his parents quite understood how much control Clark needed to learn just to get through the day. Tiny adjustments were necessary to open a door instead of crushing it, scribble with a pencil instead of snapping it, or shake hands without injuring someone. After they ended up on the sidewalk, Clark shrugged a little deeper into his oversize suit. “...Anywhere you want. Somewhere private might be best.” He gave her an uncertain look.
Lois smiled warmly at him after taking a quick “think for a moment” break to try and gain her bearings. This was Clark, she was Lois, things were a bit strange but the fact remained that this was Clark and she was Lois and they weren’t going to sit around feeling awkward. She wouldn’t allow it. There was too much at stake (it certainly felt that way) to worry about whether or not she had Clark on her side and vice versa. She took hold of his arm and looked up at him with a sigh, “Let’s walk, my apartment isn’t far.” Because maybe this Clark didn’t know that and she was going to work with what she had. “You up for it?”
In Clark’s experience, Lois had never taken his arm as if she trusted him to go anywhere with competence, and he beamed at her like a prom date. He didn’t know which direction that she lived in, not immediately, and waited until she tugged him the right way to turn properly in that direction. “Of course, yes.” Once given it, he set off in that direction with a will, deliberately avoiding dragging her along with his enthusiasm. “You... don’t seem to be disturbed about all these revelations about...” Embarrassed cough. “Comics, and things.”
Lois couldn’t help but smile right back at him he looked so pleased she could hardly stand it. She wasn’t entirely sure, as she looked through her mind and the memories she had if he’d always looked at her that way, or it was just one of the differences they had between them now. She kept holding onto his arm keeping a steady and determined pace as she walked down the street, she shook her head and looked up at him, “Believe it or not it is not the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s certainly strange, and I’m not entirely convinced how I should be handling it, but I’ve been through weirder. I’ll admit that the,” her brows knit together thoughtfully for a moment, “The difference between people is the most jarring, outside of that it’s just extra knowledge and a new outlook on a few things, but that’s no different than some of the odder days of our lives,” well her life in any case. Clark had yet to go there. And apparently so did Batman. And Catwoman. And anyone else she’d find, she was sure of that much. “How are you doing with all of it? I think it’s gotta be much different for me than it must be for you.”
Clark thought this was the strangest situation he had ever been in, and he didn't feel like there were more outlooks and extra knowledge. Instead he felt confused, constantly confused, and though his usual feelings were uppermost, he felt that he had an inconvenient encyclopedia that sometimes popped up in the back of his mind with incomplete knowledge, more of a nuisance than a help. The additional information left him feeling lost, not wanting to act on what he felt to be secondhand knowledge, but not wanting to pretend he didn't know. When Lois said she had been through worse, Clark tried to keep the encyclopedia shut. Stella's unhelpful matchmaking hints did not help. "I... would prefer living my own life rather than all of these potential other lives," he admitted. "It makes me uncomfortable. It takes some choices away from me."
Lois thought about what he said, and she hadn’t exactly thought of it that way, if only because so much of her life centered around Clark and Superman and where the two met in the middle that it seemed completely natural to her to be having this conversation with him and walking him the few blocks to her apartment even if it didn’t seem natural to him. She wondered if the difference in time line had something to do with it but she couldn’t put her finger on it, the world she knew was wide and vast and she knew there were whole different worlds with the same (but slightly different) people on them and it just didn’t register to her that she might be stuck in a place now that was being dictated by some story. “I don’t think it takes choices away from either of us Clark,” she said simply enough. “I think the fact that you’re you and I’m me and we are where we are is proof enough that we all still have plenty of choices to make, maybe there’s a whole world out there that understands our lives one way, but who says we have to follow those rules here? I’m not being compelled to drag you home for any reason other than where I happen to be in my life, for all I know you could be itching to run the other direction but too polite to say so,” she said giving him a wry smile and speaking in what she hoped was a sincere enough tone. If she looked at this situation the way Clark seemed to be she’d go out of her mind. Completely out of her mind. Even more than she was going out of her mind with Brian in there verbally rolling his eyes at her.
Clark frowned and his eyes went distant. “I didn’t mean those kind of choices. I meant... this new situation, it gives people knowledge about me that I might not have liked them having. It also gives them knowledge of things they think I’ve done that I haven’t done, and it might... it might raise their expectations.” He gave her a worried look out of the corner of one of his brilliant blue eyes that left no doubt as to whom he meant by “they” in this context.
Lois was concerned about a whole list of things, it was impossible not to be. Unfortunately most had to be filed under “nothing to be done now” and she was forced to move onto the next. She stopped abruptly once he spoke and moved to stand in front of him, she didn’t care if people had to give way or not. This wouldn’t do. She tilted her head a bit her eyes narrowing, but not in a scrutinizing way, more thoughtful than anything. Her forehead wrinkled slightly while she looked him over. “I have no doubt, that if anyone has expectations of you, that you will exceed them beyond all imagination. And I’m not just saying that. But the fact that you’re worried about it says plenty.” She stopped in front of a high rise with a glass doors so clear you almost wanted to walk through them, she nodded, “This is me, are you coming up?”
Clark looked back into the understanding eyes that were turned up at him, and he wondered what this woman had been through with him. She seemed very kind, even courteous in this scenario, and she understood him in a way he did not expect. The Lois Lane he knew wouldn’t give him the time of day, because she would have already left the room. He smiled at her, a gentle but uncertain smile, and he gently took his arm back before resting his hands on hers and giving them an oh-so-careful squeeze. “No. Not right now. I need to think. But... but I’ll see you soon. I hope.” He wanted to kiss her, but he always wanted to kiss her. He didn’t think now he would be a good time. He smiled again and stepped back, dropping her hands. “Bye, Lois.” He was gone in a swift breeze that took the dust off the sidewalk.