Work Text:
At the age of two, Lois vowed she’d never marry.
She’d been playing in a garden when she’d overheard her parents talking. Their voices got louder and louder, and Lois’d stumbled her way to them with a flower in her hands. They quieted. Ella picked up her daughter and covered her ears, carrying her back into the gardens. “Don’t you ever get married,” she told Lois. It was the beginning of the end.
Most promises Lois made at the age of two were quickly forgotten, but some were revisited long enough, frequently enough, that they stuck with her through the years. Don’t touch the top of Lucy’s head, was one. Don’t eat sand where the teacher can see, was another.
Never marry, was the loudest of them all.
At the age of sixteen, her mother long passed, her father took her by the PMQ where John Corben lived. You will marry that boy one day, her father said, and Lois was too old to fall for his joking facade. It was a command, an order, a promise, a vow he meant for her to take.
But Lois had already made one long before.
“Lane, get in here.”
Perry slammed the door before Lois was out of her seat, and she yanked it back open a moment later. “Yes, chief?”
The sight she caught was one she’d rarely seen: Perry pacing in circles across the floor. When she raised her finger in question, he raised one back to quiet her down. She counted the silence. Two seconds meant it was bad news about the staff, five meant it was bad about Clark in particular. Twenty, god forbid, meant bad news for the Daily Planet itself.
Perry stopped pacing at fifteen.
“What is it?” Lois rocked onto her toes—once, twice—before he answered.
He cut straight to the point. “When are you getting married?”
She didn’t blink. “What?”
“I was talking to the accountants downstairs. You’re the only unmarried woman on our payroll who’s above the age of 30—don’t look at me like that, it’s true—and you are by far our most expensive employee.”
(A fact Lois took great pride in—much to the chagrin of Jimmy, whose misadventures just barely surpassed hers in damage costs but whose photos earned way less per story).
“So,” Perry continued, a near-guilty look on his face. “They asked me how long they need to budget you in for.”
Right. Because—because she couldn’t continue at the Planet if she married. Her college reunion had been her and thirty-five stay-at-home mothers; there was a reason she’d stayed longer than any other girl on staff. And if they were tight on money, if they needed to cut costs…
“Well…” Lois swallowed and crossed her arms. “I could marry Clark next month if you’re so desperate to get rid of me.”
Perry sighed. “First of all, don’t marry the poor man just so you can steal his stories at home, you know how he feels about you.”
She kept her eyes pointed to the wall and ignored the way they started to sting, tears welling up at the corners.
“Second, I’m not trying to get rid of you. Neither is accounting. We can hold this line for as long as we need.”
“But if it’s me or the Planet—”
“It isn’t. And if it was, I’d fire accounting and rework the numbers myself. Maybe that Olsen boy can go instead, eh?”
Lois chuckled weakly. Any cut to Jimmy’s employment hadn’t materialized in the past ten years of threats.
Perry looked like he wanted to step forward, but thought better of it and stayed where he was. “Look, Lois, I’m asking so we can plan the next few years, not to force you out. The Planet wouldn’t be the Planet without you. For all I care, it’s better if you stay here until I retire—I told you not to look at me like that—and you take over as Editor. If you do marry, I’m sure you’d find a way to stay involve, even if the checks only go to Kent’s account.”
Her chest felt weird—good-weird. Lois bounced on the balls of her feet, shook the energy out of her hands. If she didn’t have to marry Superman to keep the adventures around…
Perry moved in the corner of her sight and sat down at his desk. “So I ask you again: do you plan to marry? Or can we keep you forever.”
She gave him her wonkiest smile. “You’re never getting rid of me, chief.”
Lois clutched Clark’s cheeks and kissed his forehead. “I bestow upon you the highest blessing I could ever give: Man I Almost Fell In Love With, Go Get Married.”
He chuckled and pulled back. “You’ve got to find a less weird thing to call me.”
She shrugged. “You’re Jimmy’s best friend too, and I don’t think he had a sexuality crisis over it. I'll call you whatever I want.”
Lois loved Clark with her entire heart. She loved him so much it confused and it hurt and it bent the boundaries of everything she’d known. She almost fell in love with him. Instead, she had fallen into something greater.
(Jimmy squawked something near the door. Maybe he had crisised too).
She straightened Clark's robe and followed him out. Batman filed in suite. As they walked to where the crowd gathered, Lois fiddled with her mother’s ring on her right middle finger
Jimmy elbowed her and pointed. The ceremony hall was filled with heroes from across the sector. She nearly laughed. The marriage part of this day would be foreign and off-putting, but the oddities of metas? Her nerves settled. Those she could confidently handle.
She leaned over Perry’s desk.
“So you want me to be editor when you retire, right?” She already knew what she’d assign Clark.
Perry shoved her away. “Don’t send me to an early grave, kid. We’ll start training when you’re forty.”
“Or now.”
“Nope. Why rush it?” He lit his cigar. "We've got time.”