The Bet

By Lois_Lane_Fan <y2kallman@yahoo.com>

Rated G

Submitted June 2014

Summary: During a boring weekend, Lois and Clark make a bet with embarrassing stakes for the loser.

Disclaimer: Lois and Clark and related characters belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers Studio.

***

It all started because Lois was bored. It was the weekend, and since she wasn’t working on anything particularly earth-shattering, Lois hadn’t bothered taking her work home with her. Free from any work related projects, Lois turned on the TV in an attempt to make the time go by a little bit faster.

She flipped through a few different channels. Infomercials, cartoons, and reruns were all that was on. She flipped through a few more channels and saw more of the same, so she finally turned the TV off. She let out a sigh. This was going to be a very boring weekend.

She then decided that the best way to make the time pass quickly was to spend it with somebody else. She picked up the phone, dialed Clark’s number, and asked him if he wanted to grab lunch with her and chat a little. Obviously as bored as she was, he quickly agreed.

They met at a new buffet style restaurant a couple of blocks away from the Daily Planet. Clark had commented earlier in the week when they’d passed by it that he’d like to try the place out, so it seemed like a logical place to eat.

Lunch was good, and it was fun to spend a little bit of time with Clark. Still, though, Lois couldn’t help but feeling a little bored by the end of their meal. Hoping to shake off the boredom, she asked Clark if he wanted to stop in at the arcade next door to the buffet for a while.

“Sure,” he said. “Sounds like it could be fun.”

Once inside, Lois noticed an air hockey table and remarked, “Would you look at that! I haven’t played in years, but I used to be the queen of air hockey.”

“I used to be pretty good myself,” Clark replied.

“You couldn’t beat me, though,” Lois said with a smirk. “I’ve never lost a game yet.”

“Well, if you’re that confident, then you’re on,” Clark said as he pulled a few quarters out of his pocket.

They played two games against each other, and Clark found out that Lois hadn’t been lying about her skills. Without using his super powers, since that would have been cheating, he’d lost to Lois both times. She’d beaten him 5-2 each time.

“Told you I was unbeatable,” Lois bragged.

“How about one more game?” Clark asked.

“Fine, but let’s make it interesting this time,” Lois answered. “How about a little wager?”

“Loser pays for lunch next weekend?” Clark asked.

“You’re not getting off that easy,” Lois laughed. “How about if you lose one more time, you have to clean my apartment while wearing a dress?”

“What!?” Clark shouted. “Lois, are you crazy!”

“No, but I have a feeling my partner is a little bit of a chicken,” she replied, egging him on.

“Fine, but if you lose, you have to come to work dressed as a cheerleader and do a cheer for me on Monday morning,” he replied.

“Deal.” The two of them shook hands and began a third game.

The third game was a much closer match. While Clark still didn’t use his powers to cheat, he stepped up his game quite a bit. Before the winning point was scored, they were tied 6-6. Finally, after the puck had been bounced back and forth for what seemed like forever, Clark made the final goal and won.

“You cheated!” Lois blurted out in an attempt to rationalize her defeat.

“I did not. I won fair and square, my little cheerleader,” he teased her.

“You did too cheat!” Lois protested. “You fooled me into thinking I could beat you and then lured me into a bet I couldn’t win. You probably lost those first two games on purpose just to set me up.”

“I wasn’t the one who suggested we make a bet in the first place,” Clark argued. “In fact, you demanded we make a bet when you thought you’d get me into an embarrassing outfit. Now that it’s you that lost, you’re trying to weasel out of it. Well, if it’s that important to you, Lois, then I release you from the bet, even though I know you would have made me go through with it had you won.”

Lois felt a little ashamed. “You’re right. A bet’s a bet, and I don’t want to earn a reputation of not following through on my bets. You won, so I’ll be your cheerleader Monday morning like I promised.”

After they each went home that night, neither of them had spoken about the bet until Monday morning. Clark arrived early that morning, still not quite sure what to expect from Lois, while Lois, wearing a trench coat, showed up a couple of minutes late.

Once inside the newsroom, Lois eyed a crowd of her coworkers that were gathered around drinking coffee, Clark, Cat, and Jimmy among them. She took a deep breath and tried to work up the nerve to get started with her cheer. Finally, just as Clark began to approach her, she jumped on top of his desk and threw off her trench coat, revealing a Metropolis Tigers cheerleader uniform.

“Listen up, everybody!” she shouted. “I, Lois Lane, lost to the air hockey king Clark Kent this weekend, and per the terms of our bet, this is what he won from me!”

Lois heard a few giggles from her coworkers, but she continued on anyways, kicking her legs into the air and shouting out, “Who’s the king of air hockey? C-L-A-R-K! K-E-N-T! Who dethroned Queen Lois last weekend? C-L-A-R-K! K-E-N-T!”

As her coworkers continued to gawk at her and giggle at her expense, Lois jumped down from Clark’s desk and put the trench coat back over herself. She started to head towards the women’s washroom to change into a more work appropriate outfit when Clark grabbed her by the arm to stop her.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’m really impressed,” Clark told her. “It took a lot of guts to get up there in front of everyone and do that.”

Lois smiled. “Well, you did beat me fair and square. And besides, everyone will forget about it by next Monday because you’ll be the one doing a cheer for me after I get my crown back in the rematch.”

Clark laughed and answered, “You’re on!”

THE END