#Jason’s accidentally child acquisition arch

[ksaysthings]

I posted this on Pillowfort because I’ve got a prompts community over there I’m building up. But it’s still a small community so I’ve decided to migrate a few things over.

Title: Drop and Run Prompt: Week 17 – Accidental Baby Acquisition Fandom: Superman (Supergirl) Main Characters: Clark Kent, Lois Lane Pairing: pre-relationship (pre-het), Clark/Lois (has that got a ship name? Apparently it's Clois.... I'm not using that.) Rating: PG Summary: Clark leaves Lois with a gift. Warnings: fluff Word Count: 1,483 Additional notes: This is an amalgimation of the Supergirl TV show's Superman, my assumptions of the kind of Lois that would suit him, and a bit of Lois and Clark from the 90's because we work with what we know.

“What is that?” Lois demands as Clarke bustles in under her arm and into her apartment, “Hey- no- wait-!” but he’s surprisingly fast and by the time she’s made the grab to catch him he’s across the room dimpling at her.

“I know you’ve seen babies before, Lois.” He teases but also gets straight to the wiggling bundle of a point cradled in his ridiculously muscled arms. She squints at him, distrustful and folds her arms firmly across her chest because one, she knows she’s about to have to put up a fight, and two, she’s just remembered that she’s in her pyjamas and no-one sleeps in a bra.

“I know that,” She stalks towards him, “but what is it doing here?” she says each word clearly, because Clark has a way of fumbling around like he hasn’t understood a direct question if it’s not, well, direct.

He looks left, towards her kitchenette, holds the baby in only his right arm and scratches the back of his neck. He looks positively adorable and uncertain. Lois braces herself fiercely ready to say, ‘no’, and ‘no’, and ‘don’t you dare’, because there is nothing good that comes from Clark not making eye contact. She steps closer and holds her ground a foot from him, aware, so aware of that little danger to itself braced and secure in the nook of his arm. She’s marginally afraid for the kid’s safety, but there is no way the man before her would ever let a child fall. Her faith in that is absolute.

He looks at her, around the apartment, and before she can decide his end game he barrels out, “I need you to mind him.” And then there’s a baby being pushed into her arms, and her fear of dropping it is so primal that she grabs and holds like it’s life depends on it. She realises her error when she gets her baring’s and finds him backing towards the front door, a bundle of bags at her feet.

“No,” she breathes, utterly betrayed, and he keeps fleeing, “Clark Kent,” she warns, and the bundle in her arms gives a hiccup like it might cry which freezes her still. She hisses out her words at him as quietly as she can afraid to move a muscle, but the rage is pure, “where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m so sorry, Lois.” Clark’s expression is pained, apologetic, and somehow fond all at once, and Lois knows he’s going to actually leave her, with a baby.

She flounders, “Where did you even get a baby, Kent?” The thing in her arms makes another slightly louder noise at her tone and she looks down, panicked, and then back up again to find him standing in the open doorway. His expression is arrested, it’s an expression she’s see on him before, in glances and surprised moments. It’s fond and adoring, the curl of a smile on the edges of his mouth, and it makes her insides twist and squeeze because he doesn’t look at anyone else like that and she’s still not sure what to do with it.

“I’ll be back. As soon as I can.” He promises, and then he leaves her.

She makes a choked sound of surprise that is more squeak than is strictly dignified and then the baby begins to wail.

“I’m going to kill you,” She seethes when she looks up from her fort of blankets, pillows and baby products to find Clark standing over her. “How are you inside?” She follows with quickly, because she’s camped out on the lounge room floor still, the last refuge of the insane, because this was the only place, in the whole apartment, that the baby would stop crying at. There was no rhyme or reason, no purpose to the choice, the baby had simply chosen and after ten hours of crying and screaming and nappy changing (thank you YouTube) Lois no longer had the will to fight.

He crouches down and reaches out to check on the baby, but she slaps his hand away before it can touch.

“Don’t you dare,” She hisses and curls protectively around the sleeping bundle careful not to touch it, “this monster has been screaming my eardrums out for the last six hours, if you wake him up I’ll kill you myself. Now answer the question.”

Inexplicably Clark smiles at her, a bitten off smile that crinkles the edges of his eyes in a way that makes even her exhausted heart pitter patter. “You gave me a spare key three months ago after the Rival News debacle.” He speaks lower than normal, and it feels like an early morning rumble, even though it’s close to midday and her hair is a mess, and she feels tacky in a sticky way, not to mention how she knows she must smell.

Clark reaches out, pushes some of her tangled hair behind her ear and his expression relaxes, softens. “You okay?” He asks, and she’s torn between wanting to claw his eyes out, and curl up and go to sleep because he’s back and that means whatever he had to do, because she’s not dumb enough to think he’d do this on a whim, has been done.

“Are you?” She asks in that same quiet voice and peaks up at him, still afraid to move and upset the child, but he looks okay, maybe tired, but whole and hearty squatting down beside her nest like he belongs there.

“We found his parents,” He tells her and when he reaches out to touch the baby she lets him because it’s Clark. His hand dwarf the little thing, but he’s gentle as he carefully gathers the bundle up and pushes up to stand without jostling it. The baby doesn’t stir, safe. He holds his hand to her as well, and she wants to stay in her nest, recalibrate because that little thing has been her life for such a short time, but everything realigned for it and she’s not sure what she’ll be when she puts herself back together again. She reaches out despite her doubt, and he effortlessly pulls her up against his side. She smells, she’s a mess, and he smiles down at her like she hung the sun.

“They alive?” She needs to know, because she had time, while firing off angrier and angrier texts to him until she’d realised his phone was in the baby bags he’s left with her, to open some news pages and look for clues.

“Yeah.” He smiles, blinding and happy, because he takes pleasure in the safety of others and it is so incredibly hopeless that she feels the answering happiness build in her. “And they’ll be going straight into witness protection the moment I get baby Jason back to them.”

She arches an eyebrow at him, and steps away, because she’s been too close to him for too long. “I’m pretty sure his name is Hellspawn.” She says dryly.

“Lois!” he sounds outraged but his expression is brighter, his teeth flashing in a grin, and she grins back at him.

“Let me shower,” She dictates, “and I’ll come with you to give him back.” She hesitates, looks up at him again because he’s so ridiculously tall even when she forgets, “If that’s okay?”

He looks her over, and his expression becomes mock solemn, “If you think you need to.” She smacks his arm and forces the smile down before it can encourage him. Then she leaves the two of them, hesitant to turn her back, but bullying past it because she’s an award-winning journalist and she is not going to get clingy about a baby she barely knows.

By the time she’s stepped out of her shower and changed, the lounge room doesn’t look like it’s been hit by a tsunami any more. Everything is probably neater than it was before Clark had shown up at her door and he looks flushed and proud.

“How’d you do that without him crying?” She demands, furious that he could do anything of the sort.

“Practice.” He replies, fake solemn again, and she pokes him in the ribs and grabs her handbag.

“No really.” The floor looks like it’s damn, like it’s been mopped? “My shower wasn’t that long.” She frowns at the room as she makes her way to the door, leaving Clark to trail behind, baby and bags in tow. She stops at the door, standing in the exit and baring his escape, because honestly.

And his smile quirks up wicked and teasing and he says, “I was very, very fast.” Then laughs hard, the baby in his hold jostling and instead of the screaming she expects the little thing catches on and gurgles happily up at the man.

She sighs and lets him past, “Well that’s just not fair,” she grumbles and locks the door behind them.