A/N: This story was written for the Free For All Fic For All-or FFAFFA for short-over on the Ask the Squishykins tumblr, wherein Twinings and I offer ourselves up to fill as many fic prompts as humanly possible with stories ranging in length from 100 to 16,000 words. The current round runs until May 1st, 2014, so if you'd like a fic written to your custom specifications, please don't hesitate to drop by and ask for it! :)

Prompt: Lois Lane has had a rotten, no good day...but the sight of Smallvile's dorky blue eyes peering up at her through huge, black-rimmed glasses never fails to make her laugh...or at least smile.

Warnings: mentions of drug use, mentions of the dubcon-y effects of Poison Ivy's sex pollen

Notes: While it's pre-relationship Lois/Clark, this...got a lot more shippy than I meant for it to? Why does this keep happening to me? Anyway. I think this is animated continuity—or at least, Lois is. Clark might actually be more Christopher Reeve, because blended continuity is how I roll. Please enjoy.

It wasn't easy to see around the black eye. Lois had to keep tilting her head from one side to the other to get a good look at her notepad over the pronounced swelling. Between that and how she awkwardly clutched her pencil with two fingers of her dominant hand taped up in splints, she figured watching her try to take notes must have been damn comical.

Uptown Metropolis: where the only thing higher than the exclusive boutique prices are the exclusive boutique patrons, or so allege the investigators of the latest designer drug to sweep the area. The name authorities have given the substance is "Eden," an import tied to Gotham City's own botanical temptress Poison Ivy. Secretly passed around for months among the upper echelon of Metropolis's fashion scene, the drug made its widespread debut this afternoon at a Donna Day Ltd. Fashion Week event. A tainted batch, reportedly supplied by the designer herself, sent models and fashionistas clawing at each other all over the runway in a frenzy of torn silk and smeared lipstick.

Hmm. Too pulpy? Or did it fit the tone of the photos Jimmy had snapped of the show's attendants alternately trying to tear each others' eyes out and playing tonsil hockey? Lois tapped the pencil against her lips out of habit; a sharp stab of pain was her reward, reminding her of the two stitches that were keeping the bottom one from splitting apart. She grimaced as much as she dared without pulling at the sutures.

If she'd had any sense, she would have taken the ER nurse's advice and stayed for observation overnight, but she wasn't about to be scooped by the Daily Tattler. Especially not for a story about a riot she'd been right in the middle of and had the injuries to prove it. What were a few contusions and a split lip when the front page was on the line? And Donna Day tackling her longtime fashion rival and smooching the hell out of her was definitely front page news…well suited to a tabloid, sure, but still news.

"Lane!" Perry didn't even bother to pause as he stalked past her desk on his way to his office and grouched at her from around his cigar. "Your story has a date with my desk before the morning edition. Don't stand it up."

She started, her pencil snapping in half between the metal of the splints. The leaded half bounced off her forehead and landed on the floor. How those physics worked, she didn't even know. "Thanks, Perry. I'm on it."

Lois rolled her chair back and bent down to retrieve what was left of her pencil. On the way back up, one of her broken fingers snagged on her pantyhose and she watched as a run in the fabric sped right down her shin. With a sigh, she tossed the pencil in one of her desk drawers and rifled around for the clear nail polish she kept on hand for this sort of thing. She hadn't considered the logistics of twisting the cap off with just eight functional fingers…

"Need a hand?"

"Appreciate the sentiment, Smallville," she grunted and fought with the nail polish cap, "but I've already got two."

It was downright gentlemanly how he let her struggle with it in front of him until her stubbornness was spent. He didn't smirk or make any offhanded smarmy comment, either, when she handed it to him in defeat, just twisted off the cap and handed the bottle back to her.

Lois braced her foot against on the edge of her desktop, the heel hooked on the underside for stability, and placed a dab of polish on the run in her hose. It wasn't ladylike; she didn't care. When she was convinced the fabric wasn't going to tear anymore, she gave a self-congratulatory nod.

As though in response, the heel she'd braced against the desk snapped off. It clattered on the floor, where she fixed it with a glare.

Clark dropped to retrieve the heel before she could find a way to make a farce of that, too, and offered it to her. "Bad day?"

"You could say that." She took it from him and tossed it in the drawer with her broken pencil. "But who cares? I got the story."

"I heard." He got to his feet and leaned against her desk. "I also heard you got tossed through a buffet table and tried to throw a punch at Paige Monroe."

"I did not," she said. "That punch landed."

Failing to hide his amused smile, Clark took a seat at his desk and took his own notepad out of his pocket. He adjusted his glasses and got down to work in his usual efficient manner.

Lois couldn't help herself. She leaned over and tried to catch a glimpse of what he was working on. "What's the scoop?"

"Environmental protest down by the docks," he said, scribbling furiously on his pad.

"Violent?"

"Well, rocks were thrown…" Clark stopped long enough to think about it. "A few of the protesters even had decent aim."

"That's really annoying," Lois said, resting her cheek in her good hand.

Clark turned and blinked at her, his blue eyes empty of understanding. "What's that, Lois?"

"You with your working fingers and eyes that aren't black…" She waved her bandaged hand at him. "I bet you're not even a little bit concussed. What kind of investigative reporter are you, anyway?"

He pushed his glasses further up on his nose and gave her a noncommittal shrug. "The lucky kind, I guess."

"Ha. Luck." Lois reached for a fresh pencil from the cup on her desk. None of them were sharp…and, she discovered upon shoving one of them inside it, her electric pencil sharpener was on the fritz, because of course it was. She pushed her notepad aside and slipped a fresh sheet of paper into her typewriter. It was going to be a lot of chicken pecking, but at least she'd get the story written. Punching at the keys with the ring finger and pinkie of her injured hand wasn't that bad; it slowed her down, but not so much that she wouldn't make the deadline.

An hour crawled by, the sun getting low enough in the sky to throw an orange glow over everything in the office. The sunset was going to be gorgeous; a shame she wasn't going to be out of the building in time to see it.

"See you tomorrow, Miss Lane."

Lois didn't stop typing, but she raised her hand to acknowledge Jimmy's departure. She did the same when Cat Grant drifted past an hour after that. By the time Clark started gathering up his things, Perry was long gone and the janitor had started making the rounds. She pushed her wastebasket out from under her desk so he could empty it.

"Heading out—" Lois yawned in spite of her best efforts not to do just that. "—Smallville?"

"Almost. Thought I'd take a break, grab a cup of coffee from the machine and then come back to finish." He slipped his suit jacket on. "I could get two, if you'd like…?"

Lois stopped typing long enough to look at him and hoped she didn't appear as tired and desperate for caffeine as she felt. "I could be convinced."

"Cream and sugar?"

"Black and bitter as my heart." She went back to her article and resisted the urge to tiredly rub her eyes, mindful of her bruises. "Please."

Lois had greatly underestimated just how much time her injuries were going to add to her usual writing pace, but now she was so close to the final line she could taste it. She could finish off the article, slam back a hot cup of coffee, get home on the wings of a caffeine rush and fall into bed by the time it petered out.

Her mouth stretched into another yawn, her eyes watering, and tore the last page from her typewriter. After shuffling it into the neat stack that made up the rest of the article, Lois folded her arms and leaned on her elbows, content with a job well done. She didn't even realize she was falling asleep at her desk until it was far too late to do anything but give in to it.

She woke up an indeterminate time later, her sleeve a little damp from where she'd drooled on it in her sleep. Her article was gone and in its place sat a cup of coffee. Lois scrubbed at her face with one hand, regretted it when she jabbed herself in the eye with her broken fingers, and got to her feet. The coffee wasn't quite hot, but it was just as bitter as she'd wanted it. It felt good going down. She crushed the cup, tossed it in her wastebasket and headed for Perry's office, her strides uneven on her broken heel.

Lois peeked inside and saw that someone had dutifully put her article on his desk, front and center. Upon closer inspection, she saw her name was still on it. She smiled and gave a little shake of her head. Leave it to Clark Kent to be too decent to steal her work when she'd left it out where it was begging to be taken. She closed the office door softly.

"Going home?"

Lois jumped. "Geez, Clark. Don't do that."

He looked apologetic. It bordered on the pathetic. Adorable, but pathetic.

"Oh, don't give me the puppy dog eyes. I can't stand it." She hobbled to her desk, grabbed her purse and slipped her arm through his to compensate for her wobbly shoe. "Come on, Smallville. You bought me coffee, I'll buy you dinner."

"I…" He seemed flustered by her hand on his arm. "I can't let you do that."

Her shrug was careless. "Fine, I won't buy you dinner. I'll buy me dinner and you can watch me eat it."

"No, what I mean is…I'd prefer to buy you dinner."

"How old-fashioned of you." She poked him in the chest. "Fair warning, I never put out on a first date."

His cheeks turned a most fetching shade of pink. Clark Kent was no dashing Superman, but he definitely had his moments.

"Well," she amended, one corner of her mouth turning up in a slight mischievous smirk, "not usually."