Aftershocks

By Mouserocks <mouserocksnerd@gmail.com>

Rated PG

Submitted April 2013

Summary: For April Comedy Challenge/April Fools Challenge. Lois is determined to prank Clark somehow, but he keeps managing to evade her clutches…

Story Size: 1,209 words (7Kb as text)

***

It was a relatively slow day in the Daily Planet bullpen. News was slow, everyone was fairly mellow, and Lois was wondering why the hell nobody was doing anything. It was April first! Didn’t they know what that meant?

She snuck a glance over at her partner’s desk and found it empty, per usual. She huffed a sigh. Of course he would be out hunting down some stupid puff piece Perry gave him on a fine spring day like today, not planning pranks against people. Clark Kent was far too responsible for that.

Lois, on the other hand, was full to the brim with ideas for how to get her partner. He was too easy, she’d have to be a fool not try something. The trouble was narrowing down the playing field…

Well, while he was out, she might as well put good use to her time. Lois snuck over to his desk and sat in his chair. She frowned and lowered the seat so her feet could touch the floor. A smile lit up her face. She didn’t know how long he’d be out for, so she just decided to do something quick, and started moving the things on his desk an inch or so to the left. Clark, the neat freak, would obviously notice something was up.

Snickering, she hurriedly made her way back to her own desk. Just in time, too, for the elevators dinged and Clark walked back in less than three minutes later. At first when he sat down, a frown of puzzlement crossed his face. Lois watched excitedly out of the corner of her eye for his reaction.

Suddenly a look of recognition flashed across his features and he started moving things back to where they were previously on his desk, almost exactly.

Lois felt disappointment strike at her heart, and her mouth open in annoyed surprise. She hadn’t expected him to figure it out so quickly. With an arched eyebrow, Clark’s gaze suddenly shot up to meet hers. Flustered, Lois turned quickly back to her own computer screen. She could sense his amusement, and it irked her beyond belief. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. Oh, no. Clark had no idea what he had just gotten himself into. Now she was hell bent on pranking Clark Kent.

The war had begun.

***

Lois couldn’t believe it. It had been a week since April Fools, and every prank she’d tried on Clark Kent in the last week had backfired in some way or another. And she had been fairly evil, too. She super glued a pen cap closed and asked him to get it off for her, which he did without a problem. Then she decided to test out the super glue again, on his desk drawers, thinking perhaps the glue itself was the problem. He got those drawers open just fine, too, only looking curiously at the dried glue on the edges. With a huff, Lois switched tracks. She put plastic wrap on the toilets in the men’s room, since he always seemed to rush off there, and only ended up getting an earful from Perry. She froze a can of shaving cream, slit a hole in the side and stuffed it in his desk drawer — somehow he noticed it right as it started to expand and stopped it. She removed screws and hinges, unplugged machines, rigged water systems — the works. Nothing was working on Clark Kent. The man was one step ahead of her every move. It was like he could sense her plotting against him and was reading her mind or something.

This time she was extremely cautious, though. She got the highest grade super glue available, courtesy of one Dr. Bernard Klein (she really did owe him one), and planned everything to a tee. Nothing had been left out.

So when she invited Clark over to her place for dinner and a movie that evening, there was no chance of anything going wrong. None whatsoever. She smiled, invited him in, had him take a seat at her kitchen table, and waited for the magic to happen. She forced him to stay seated while she prepared dinner (and yes, she caught all of his apprehensive glances as he watched her pour things into pots haphazardly). Then, right when he went to stand and take their dishes to the sink after dinner, it happened.

Rrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiippp!

Clark froze and Lois busted up laughing at the sound. She hadn’t meant for it to rip his pants, but the look of sheer horror on his face was just the icing on the cake. Clark flushed bright red.

“Lois! Look what you did! You couldn’t just give up, could you? It’s not even April Fools anymore!”

“Um… It’s an aftershock. It would have happened on April Fools if you hadn’t been so stupid and smart. Now it’s an April Fools Aftershock.”

Clark groaned. “Just… I can’t believe you! Just — Look!”

Lois couldn’t find it in her to be ashamed and instead openly leered at the gaping hole in his backside… which was covered in…

Her laughter died down as she tried to rationalize it in her head. Clark, in red briefs, with an edge of bright blue showing through on the sides. And that firm backside… She could be wrong, since it was usually covered by a cape, and it would mean a whole lot of other things with regards to Clark’s lying to her, but the only explanation she could come up with was “Superman?”

Clark’s posture stiffened involuntarily. Crap. He had forgotten to take off the suit before coming over; he had just been so excited that Lois had invited him over for something non-work related he had run over as fast as he could. Now it was coming back to bite him in the briefs.

Slowly he turned around to face her. Her expression was one of shock and confusion. He sighed. “Look, Lois, I can —”

“You mean to tell me that you really wear the tights? Underneath all that?”

Clark was surprised that she seemed to be taking this so well. “Well, um, sometimes.” He cleared his throat nervously. “You’re not mad?”

“We’ll get to that. I mean, I am, but I kind of see why you didn’t tell me.”

“I really have wanted to tell you for a long time, but there never seemed to be the right moment, and we’ve been getting closer but nothing’s been official and I didn’t want to mess that up with something like this, and then what if you didn’t accept me for who I am, and —”

“Clark.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re babbling. Let me do the talking.”

He swallowed audibly. “Okay. Ask me anything you want to know.”

Lois appeared to think for a moment before finally settling on the right question. “Okay. I’ve mainly got one important question.”

“Shoot.”

She grinned impishly. “Can you wear the briefs separately?”

Clark groaned.

THE END

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Aftershocks