By Jose Antonio Chamorro <danlx86@yahoo.es>
Rated: PG
Submitted: February 2002
Summary: Sometimes, even physics conspires against poor Clark…
***
"Come on Clark, we'll try to get to my apartment climbing up the fire escape," said Lois to her partner. She had forgotten her keys inside her apartment. She had left too quickly. Actually, she didn't remember to lock the door. The problem was that the weather was not too hot. The heat wave disappeared and winter came back to Metropolis, as was normal in December.
"Lois, why don't you force the lock?" Clark commented to her. "I'm sure that if it was MY door, you would have done it."
"Yeah," replied Lois, "but this is MY door, and I don't want to damage the lock."
They walked to the alley where the fire escape was. As they could see it was very high.
"Cute," Clark complained, "and now how are we…"
"Jump!" Lois ordered Clark. He looked at her a little bit astonished.
"You think I can reach?" Clark tried to avoid jumping. Of course he could reach the ladder. It was not so high that he had to fly, but he didn't want to risk Lois finding out his secret in such a stupid way.
"At least you can try," said Lois. "I'll give you a coffee when we get in," she said smiling, with pleading eyes.
Clark couldn't resist Lois's eyes and he walked under the ladder. He jumped and grabbed the last rung of the escape. This slid down as Clark allowed the Earth's gravity field to pull him down, like a normal person.
"Fantastic," Lois yelled to her partner. She knew that Clark was very athletic but she hadn't expected that he could reach the escape with such easiness. 'I had missed something', she thought. It seemed that he did it without any effort. Maybe the basketball matches he had told her he usually played conditioned him for it.
Clark studied the look in his partner's eyes. She was thinking something. That was sure. "Come on, I'll help you up," said Clark pointing to the ladder.
Lois went next to him and asked, "Are you saying that I have to go first?" She didn't like the idea. She looked down. She was wearing a skirt. She blushed and glanced at Clark.
Clark saw her blushing, and realized what she was thinking. "Sorry, but I think you know me well enough."
"Enough for what!" Lois didn't believe what he had said. "Enough to let you look at my underwear!"
Clark flushed violently, and replied shyly, "No, I wouldn't take advantage of you."
Lois realized that she had accused Clark without any reason. She knew him well enough, she was sure. "Sorry, Clark. Go on, help me." She then added, "I'm not heavy but are you strong enough?"
Clark answered Lois when he allowed her to reach the first rung with her feet. Before she had felt his hand on her butt. She hadn't expected it. She climbed up the escape. When she was on the first floor she saw Clark doing the same. He came next to her on the little landing. He was really flushed. She couldn't tell if it was because of the effort of climbing or because of touching her.
"I'm sorry Lois, for that," Clark said, a little bit guilty, "I touched your… well, you know."
"That's nothing, Clark. I'm sure it wasn't on purpose. Not like the other time," Lois pointed out.
***
Lois opened her window and went into the room. Clark followed her. When he went in he felt a rush of hot air. It was really hot inside. Although the temperature didn't affect him, his glasses reacted to the change in atmospheric conditions. Suddenly, his glasses misted up and he heard Lois say, "I think I left the heat on."
Lois stood back and saw Clark's glasses full of steam. She walked to Clark and not giving him time to react took them off. "Let me, I'll clean them," she said as she looked at the glasses. She didn't look at Clark. Lois turned back and slid to the kitchen to clean the glasses.
Clark didn't know what to do. When she came back she would find out. He took his coat off, he was sure that he would be here more time than he had expected.
Lois walked to the living room, as she was cleaning the glasses and commented, "I'm not sure but I don't think I have ever seen you without glasses." When she reached the living room she had finished cleaning his glasses. "Ok, they are ready. Let's see." Lois put the glasses on as she heard Clark saying, "No."
Lois felt something strange with Clark having the glasses on. They were totally clean, but she could see Clark perfectly. The glasses didn't have graduation. This time she looked carefully at Clark. His face denoted concern. Now she was sure she hadn't seen him without glasses, but the face seemed familiar to her.
"I'm sorry, Lois," began Clark, "I wanted to tell you but I'm not alone, there are my parents and…" He stopped. He was speechless.
Lois heard him; he wanted to tell her what? It was something important. She noticed for the first time the resemblance between Clark and… "Oh, my God, that's it," Lois blurted out. She looked at him. She had been working with Superman for six months and she didn't notice it. All the pieces linked together now. The excuses, things that she had told Superman or Clark and the other knew. At this moment she realized that she had hurt Clark plenty of times. She had compared him with Superman, and she had fawned for him all the time. She knew that Superman was, at least, a little bit attracted to her, but he had behaved correctly. If Superman was attracted to her, that meant that Clark was attracted to her too. Why hadn't he tried anything? A thought resounded in her brain, 'don't fall for me farmboy, I don't have the time for it'. She stopped him that day. The worst part was that he probably thought that she was a shallow person. Anybody in his place would think that. No. She remembered one thing he had told her, when Perry assigned him to help her with the Messenger explosion.
Lois spoke for the first time in a while; breaking the silence after Clark's words, "Now I understand something. I'm sure that you're not a typical male." Lois saw Clark's stunned face and commented, "Do you mind making coffee, or tea, if you prefer? This could take us a long time."
"No, I don't mind," answered Clark, "This is going to be long. We have a lot to talk about."
The End. Fin. Das Ende.
Some words from the author: The story appeared one day in my mind when I was studying the defects of the eyes in the last part of an optic lesson. The day was cold outside and the windows were misted up. I remembered a friend who wears glasses occasionally coming into a hot room from the cold outside. I'm sure that you know what happened.
Thanks to LabRat, who told me that it would be a WAFFy story if I wrote it down. And many thanks to Copea, who gladly beta-read it. Thanks too to the people on the MB, who read this story, for their support. Special thanks to Tricia who edited this for the archive.