Lois had spent all day cleaning up, making dinner, and removing or silencing any devices in the apartment that could distract her superhero husband (sure, he wouldn't like it that she'd hidden his comlink, but he'd forgive it after tonight). She didn't play the housewife-y, seduce-the-husband role very often, but she'd recently blown a political scandal wide open for the Planet's front page, and felt like celebrating. Hell, she'd even broken into her treats fund and bought a couple of fine steaks and a pricey bottle of wine.
So now she was standing by the table, in a fancy wedding-present nightgown that was far too sheer and short to sleep in, and waiting for Clark to come home. According to Diana, he was on a mission somewhere in Chicago, undercover. She had promised he would be home by eight.
The door opened and Lois perked up, only to see a very muddy, sooty Clark carry in an equally dirty (and way more unconscious) Bruce and lay him on the couch. "Lois. Hi. Sorry I'm late—Bruce and I were in Chicago, and we just about caught the guy, but then there was this explosion—and Bruce is hurt and I didn't just want to leave him alone—Alfred's not home—so he's spending the night, okay?"
"Clark." Because Lois was a woman of infinite patience, she did not immediately find a piece of kryptonite to murder her husband with. But she couldn't keep a murderous tone out of her voice. "Clark, maybe you could have called me beforehand?"
Clark looked up, saw her in her negligee with candles on the table, and said, "Oh."
"Oh?!" Lois snapped.
"Sorry." Clark looked reasonably abashed. "I didn't realize you wanted to do something special tonight. We could still have dinner."
Lois went into the closet and grabbed her bathrobe, because she didn't want to be nearly-naked in front of Bruce, even if he was currently passed out. "I can't exactly seduce you on the table with fucking Bruce sleeping on the couch, Clark."
Clark turned sixteen shades of red, and mumbled "sorry" again. Lois noted that he also looked pretty regretful now, and decided that that was good enough.
"All right," she said, tightening the belt of her robe. She looked Bruce over; he hadn't stirred. "What did he do to himself?"
"Cracked ribs," Clark said. "Four of them. Concussion, obviously. And a fractured cheekbone—he'll have a nasty black eye in the morning."
Lois sighed again and admitted to herself that Bruce really did look quite pathetic right now. She reached down and gently tugged off his jacket, which was currently the dirtiest thing he was wearing. "I'll be damned if I'm going to let the two of you mess up my apartment. Go take a shower, Clark, and I'll throw this in the wash."
Then, she hefted the jacket and realized it weighed as much as a small child. "Jesus! What is Bruce keeping in here? Lead weights?"
Clark squinted the way he did when he was using his x-ray vision. "The pockets are lead-lined, at least. I have no idea what's in there."
Lois, for just a second, wished she could have a normal life like a normal person. "Okay. I'll deal with it. Seriously though—shower, now."
Clark nodded and jumped to the bathroom at superspeed to avoid getting dirt on anything else, and Lois heard the water running by the time she'd gotten to the washer.
She laid Bruce's jacket open on the washer and beheld the sight of what must have been a dozen different pockets meticulously sewn into the lining. Poor Alfred must be working himself to the bone, she thought, that or Bruce has a child labor sweatshop in the Batcave. Well, given the number of Robins he had on hand, that second one wasn't so unlikely. She could feel armor plates sewn beneath it, but that couldn't be what all the weight was from.
