The certain intonation and tone with which Lois speaks his last name is like a jolt of electricity, or a time machine propelling him backwards to somewhere warm and familiar and weightless. He feels like he might lose his head, standing there in front of her with nothing to tether him down. She looks just the same, Henry thinks to himself all at once. Maybe a little less banged up. Almost reflexively, he checks her knees for the telltale scrapes and bruises of their latest misadventure. Her hair is a little less messy, but her grin is just the same. Even here tonight, it feels like there's something mischievous behind it.
"You're a journalist?" he echoes, and spares himself a minute to stare at her press badge like it might confirm everything for him. In a way it does. Her name is there, in bold black print, declaring definitively that this isn't some kind of joke being played on him by someone from his distant past. This is Lois Lane, in the full flesh. Henry can feel his heart jackrabbiting in his throat. It's been years -- decades, even -- but she still manages to fill him up with the same kind of nervous energy he remembers from the last time they were together. It's like time never passed.
And then her question breaks through his disbelief, and he laughs out loud. "Me? Hell no. I teach. Occupational Therapy, at the Steinhardt school. I'm their little Tiny Tim, trying to get all these Ebenezer Scrooges to open their checkbooks."
For a moment, it's like the rest of the room fades away. Like they've transported themselves back in time, Lois all lanky and knobby-kneed, frizzy hair and big eyes and bushy eyebrows. Henry... God, she can't believe it took her so long to recognize him. That smile of his hasn't changed. He's filled out, sure, and his voice is a lot deeper than she remembers, but it's him.
And for some damn reason, it's not comfort or happiness or relief that hits her first. It's an anxious, unstable kind of anticipation, like she's not sure how solid the foundation is under or or just when it might crumble.
"Yeah," she manages, shrugging a shoulder. "You're a... You're a teacher. Here. That's..." She shakes her head, words eluding her for the waves of memories, emotion threatening to overtake her. "That's great. Wouldn't have pegged you for the scholarly type."
"It just kind of happened." Henry's always been one to diminish his accomplishments. It isn't as though he's had all too many of them in his life, but he certainly didn't fall backwards into his Doctorate degree. Still, as if he could erase the years of hard work, he shrugs his own shoulders. Lois might know better than anyone else in his life that he's never had much of a direction. The only path he ever saw for himself was taken away early, and since then he's mostly been drifting. Maybe none of them end up where they thought they would as kids. Maybe this is objectively better. Still, it's as though seeing her for the first time puts him right back to where he was the last time they were running around and getting under each other's skin.
She looks like maybe he's crawled up there already. The way she shifts and struggles to finish her sentences makes him wonder if maybe she's not so glad to see him after all. Could he blame her? Henry's memories push past the image of the two of them as troublesome kids, towards adolescence. He remembers their petty spats getting more dramatic and the length of time they'd go between speaking extending outwards each time. He'd never actually believed that the last time they talked would be the last, but he couldn't have anticipated finding each other like this, so many years later. He chews at the inside of his lower lip and frowns.
"So, what else? Catch me up. Married? Kids? Do you live in the city?"
"Oh, yeah. You just happened to study for years and earn a PhD by accident." Same old Garvey. Never giving himself enough credit for what he was worth. The guy always was smart as all hell, and the amount of times she'd heard his teachers tell him to apply himself...
Huh. Guess he'd managed to actually do it, hadn't he?
She should be happy. Seeing him again, being reunited with one of the only people who'd stayed consistent in her life for so long. But there's something... guilt, maybe. Digging a hole between them, distance she can't quite make the leap over.
She blurts a laugh, grinning and shaking her head. "No and no. I'm in Metropolis, working at The Planet. What about you? Wife? 2.5 kids? A dog, maybe?"
"Well you know, a PhD isn't a rank. There's no insignia, but at least the light bird told me he was proud." Henry shrugs his shoulders. The elder Garvey, like most men he's known throughout his life, has never been good at giving praise, much less affection. But he hasn't forgotten the crushing hug his father gave him after he walked across the stage to accept his Doctorate, nor the tears in the older man's eyes.
Most days it doesn't even feel like a consolation prize. Like settling for second best, or an alternate dream after his first one turned up empty on him. But Henry can't quite believe that Lois didn't marry into a military family herself. He'd been so certain she'd finally stumble on a good one. Some man who would prove himself worthy of her free spirit and her independence, and not try to pin her down with a false sense of authority. He spreads his hands and drops them to his sides, as if to indicate there's not much more to his own story than what she's already seeing.
"Got a one-bedroom here in the city. Just me, and the neighbor's cat that sometimes hangs out in the breezeway."
"I think that ranks even higher than an insignia, actually." She knows how hard he'd worked for even a sliver of his father's respect, back then. It was the same thing she'd done with The General - causing trouble just to get something - anything - out of a man who held stoicism above all else.
She'd seen the brightness in Henry's eyes when he'd watch the ensigns train. Seen that brightness get snuffed out when he'd fallen ill. He'd been lost at sea after that, and she's just... glad he'd found something to anchor him again. Even if she hadn't been there to see him find it.
"Do you, um... Do you want to grab a drink?" She nods over to the bar, fully aware she's still holding half a glass of champagne in her hand. A conversation like this, all those memories, all the ups and downs they'd been through... Damn if she could use a glass of something stronger to smooth it all over.
"I don't know," Henry waves off Lois's compliment like it's the easiest thing in the world. There's no false sense of humility in the man. It seems like he's no better now at acknowledging his own accomplishments than he ever was before. Too many years spent being the problem to deal with, or considering his options as second best has taken its toll. Only Henry doesn't seem put out by any of it. If anything, the man has an air of disinterest about it all that ought to defy the job he's been sent here to do tonight.
"It's stable," he acknowledges, which isn't something he'd been looking for, but feels like a strange blessing after their chaotic upbringing. "But... you're a journalist. I bet you travel even more now than when we were kids, don't you? That must be cool."
At the suggestion of a drink, Henry looks at her glass. He can't help the grin that edges back on his lips and splits at the corners of his mouth. "Well I was hoping you were going to offer me one of those chocolate banana shakes and a way out of here, but I'll take the drink for now I guess."
She can't take her eyes off him. This man, this flesh and bone human being that she'd known so well so long ago, who'd been her best friend, her confidant, and was now a total stranger to her. He's still the same in so many ways, and yet, in all those years apart... she's missed out on so damn much.
And God, that grin. It's disarming in a way she couldn't have expected. That same shameless mischief, all grown up and promising the kind of trouble she'd go gaga for if he was just some guy she'd met at a fancy party.
"I travel a little," she shrugs. "They tend to leave the international pieces for the big reporters, you know? But I'll get there."
That smile of his always was contagious, and she breaks out into a smile before she can stop herself. "Big Belly Burger doesn't serve liquor. I say we fuel up and then make our getaway."
"Oh, the big reporters, huh?" Henry doesn't try to stifle his laugh. In fact, he gets halfway through a gesture that looks a lot like he's going to shove her in the shoulder before stopping himself just shy. It's so easy to think she's still the same little girl he tore through the barracks hand-in-hand with, and spent afternoons hiding out in the backs of old decommissioned tactical trucks, trading stolen utility knives and pieces of candy over games of cards. But she isn't just the General's daughter any more, and he's not just the angry, bitter outsider.
Henry softens his grin and shakes his head. "I've got no doubt you're the best reporter they've ever seen." He can't think of a time Lois hasn't immediately excelled at everything she's tried. Henry's known from the very start that she's always been destined for great things. It's why it always made him so mad to watch her settle for the string of enlisted guys with their big muscles and regulation haircuts who didn't know what to do with her.
He nods down the bar at a couple of seats that don't hit the steady flow of foot traffic from others grappling for conversations and refills. "As long as you promise me a plate of fries after this, I guess I can stand it a little while longer."
They strike an odd balance of distant acquaintance and falling right back into their old ways. Trading grins and teases, barely knowing anything about the other's current life.
"I'll get the front page soon. Just wait," she promises, her smile softening at his words. Surely they'd stayed up late at night, talking about dreams and the future and becoming the very best at this or that one day. Had they lived up to it yet? Become someone those little troublemaking kids would be excited for?
"Pinky promise," she returns, though it seems odd to actually go through the gesture now. Instead, she takes the lead, heading towards the two empty barstools tucked into the corner of the bar. Flagging down the bartender, she orders herself a whiskey sour and perches herself on a stool, glancing him over again as he orders.
"So. Big shot professor, no wife, no kids, a cat that drops in on you. What else? Girlfriend? Girlfriends?"
He doesn't offer a crooked pinkie to her either, but Henry does return the gesture with a knowing wink before Lois turns to lead them both through the crowd. As they make their way to the two empty seats, Henry catches the gaze of one of his colleagues from across the room. The tenured professor, Dr. Whitney, is older by about a decade, but that doesn't stop him from giving Henry a tight-lipped grin and a less than covert thumbs-up.
Just seeing Lois again makes Henry feel too close to the young man he tries most days to pretend that he's not. As much as he's grown up and tried to grow away from the defining points in his upbringing he'd rather not claim, she makes him feel all of them all at once. Awkward, out of place, searching desperately for an identity of his own. He doesn't feel like who he's grown into: strong, confident, and independent. Henry's glad she takes the lead when he feels like his unmatched gait is always a little more pronounced towards the end of the night, even if he does feel sturdy in ways his adolescent frame could've only imagined.
He slides into the opposite bar seat and orders a Vodka Collins before turning his attention back to her. "See, now I can tell you're a journalist," he accuses with a point. "Digging for a story? I hate to disappoint, but I'm as boring as ever. I teach, and in my spare time... I teach some more."
Jesus, he’s charming, isn’t he? Back then, they’d both been so… awkward. Both outsiders to the regimented, stoic soldiers they grew up surrounded by day in and day out. Henry had seemed so crushed when that dream of joining up has been taken away, but deep down Lois knew that kind of life wouldn’t have settled well with him. Too many rules, too much structure for a kid who liked to color outside the lines.
Or maybe it was just her, dragging him outside the lines. Refusing to let him conform just so she’d have someone to keep her company.
Still, at least on the outside, he’s grown up a far cry from that anchorless, scared kid she remembered in that hospital bed so many years ago. He’s come a long way, and she can’t help feeling guilty she hasn’t been around for all of it.
“You were never boring, Garvey,” she chuckles, leaning an elbow against the bar and turning herself to face him properly. “I would never have allowed that.”
"Maybe I just wasn't half as brave when I didn't have you to shove me out of the shadows." It comes out before he can stop himself, that bit of honesty laced in a compliment for what he's always seen as Lois's particular brand of audacity. She never had to nudge him too hard, to be fair. But Henry did look to her to set his sights when doing things for himself seemed too impossible. He doesn't know what she'd think of the fact that he still uses their friendship as an example. Still teaches his students to find the motivating force in their patients' lives and use it to urge them.
When the bartender returns with their drinks, he takes his without hesitation and helps himself to a mouthful. Henry's glad they seem to have been instructed to make them strong. It's probably a tactic to help open a few stubborn wallets, but he savors the warm burn down the back of his throat. "I've had plenty of first dates," he admits. "A few seconds, and a whole lot less third. I don't know. I don't think many women appreciate that I could take or leave them." Henry shrugs.
It's a mixed blessing of growing up the way they did and watching people come and go from your life so frequently. It's hard to feel like you really need anyone, or like it's worth it to work so hard at keeping them around. Henry gets why most women wouldn't appreciate that, but it's never motivated him to try harder to hold on tighter. "What about you? Any prospects I ought to know about?"
It’s meant to be a compliment, but coupled with the guilt that already gnaws at her - for letting so stupid come between them, for letting all those years go by silent - it stings. She recovers quickly enough, attempting a small smile, calling back the memories of goading him here or there, daring him to do something stupid or eat something iffy.
“Brave or stupid?” Honestly, all the shit they’d done back then? It had to have been both. How many times had she landed herself in the infirmary after showing off for him? How many times had they been grounded, punished, kept apart for some horrible idea she’d talked him into?
She drains her champagne glass, taking the new drink in hand and smirking.
“I know what you mean. Men really hate not being needed, you know?” She toys her fingertips against the rim of her glass thoughtfully. “Nobody serious. You know me, always chasing the wrong one around in circles.”
"Oh no, I've always been stupid. With or without you." He doesn't mean for it to hurt, but it stings Henry too. Sitting next to Lois Lane after all these years, it's impossible not to remember how he thought they'd defy the odds. Everyone leaves, but she was never supposed to. In the midst of everything, she was the one constant in his life. Even when circumstances tried to keep them apart, she'd be right there, peeking in his window at the hospital on base and making silly faces to distract him when visiting hours were over and the pain was too much to let him go to sleep. As angry as he'd been when life finally ripped them apart, he'd never realized the last time they spoke would be the last time. It took months for the realization of how he'd left it to truly set in.
Now he can't stop staring at her, like if he takes his eyes off of her for even a minute she might disappear back past all the pipe and drape and leave him without a way to find her again. Silently to himself, Henry repeats what he already knows: Metropolis. The Planet.
"I mean, what are we good for if you're not utterly dependent on us for everything, right?" he smirks around another drink. Hearing her assessment of her habits hasn't changed much makes Henry frown, though. "Hey, it'd be weird if everything had changed, right? I grow back a leg, and you find a man who actually deserves you?"
"I won't argue with that," she chuckles, tipping back a mouthful of her drink. It's sharp, full of citrus, warm on its way down, and for whatever it's worth it does manage to help her smooth a few of the wrinkles that come with wherever this conversation's going. A conversation she never could've prepared herself for, unraveling dusty old memories and decades long baggage.
Henry and Lois against the world. They'd felt so indestructible then, even despite the illness, despite all the bumps and bruises and aches that came along the way. The nature of being an army brat, it meant everything and everyone was fluid. They all came and went, but always, always she had Henry. From halfway around the globe or a few doors down the barracks, they could take on anything together. Until... until they couldn't.
It's a complete blur and sharp as hell in her memory all at once. She can't remember the words they'd said to each other, but they still dug in deep somehow. It's the sensations she remembers most. The sound of his voice knotted up tight with anger, the way she'd shoved him straight in the chest, two hands balling up the knit of his sweater.
She manages a tight smile at his questions, hiding a grimace behind another sip of whiskey. "Maybe some of them did deserve me. I just kept finding ways to fuck it all up."
"If they were that easy to lose, maybe they weren't supposed to stay." It feels like a cliche on his tongue. It's placating and thick with faux-sweetness, the kind of thing Hallmark might write in a greeting card to help reassure a heartbroken former lover. Henry isn't sure how he can want a woman he barely knows now, but the Lois-sized crater in his chest cleaves open and he feels the crumble of the mortar as it splinters into ash. It's not her fault, he thinks. He pushed and he pushed and he pushed. Jealousy was so ugly, and he never felt worthy of her attentions. Always knew there was someone better suited to her. He was so convinced that he would never be enough that he made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Henry gives Lois a thin smile in return and hides his expression down his glass. He knows he ought to apologize, but after all this time he hardly knows what he'd say. The distance is like a cellophane film over their past, distorting the truth. It feels murky and out of focus, and when he tries to shine a light on it, it refracts in a hundred different directions and leaves him wondering what's truth and what he only just imagined.
"How's the General?" he tries to redirect before he finds himself sucked up by the thoughts.
She knows it's supposed to feel better, be some sort of comfort on why she's still walking this world alone. But it only reminds her of the fact that she'd lost him, too. He was supposed to stay, and it'd all fallen apart as easily as the rest of them.
"Lot of people are easy to lose," she says quietly, glancing back up at him a moment. There's hurt there, for all the years they've lost to some stupid argument that'd toppled something she hadn't realized was so fragile. Was that what it was? Had they built something so easily unraveled in all that time?
Surely they'd had something stronger back then. All they'd gone through together, all that time spent growing up side by side. He'd been like an extension of her then. Her other half when she was too young and stupid to realize how rare that was.
Does he remember it the same way? Does he see that argument in the same blur and focus that she does, or is there clarity there she'd been too blinded by anger to see? She furrows a brow at her glass, lost in the ripples of liquid as if somehow, the answers could be found in their reflection if she could just get them to stand still.
"The General," she chuckles, pulling her thoughts back to the present and offering him a small smile. "He's... pretty much the same. Not really a man of drastic change, you know?" She spins her glass in a circle, glancing him over him thoughtfully, trying to match him up in her mind to the kid she'd known so long ago. "And the Lieutenant Colonel? Still as warm as ever?"
Lots of people are easy to lose. Don't they know it better than most? Their whole lives have been a constant refrain of starting over. At best, you just lose touch. People drift in and out and you can see their presence as a moment in time. Consider friendships and associations like passing phases. But at worst, the loss is something far more profound. Far more final. Henry's learned to take that kind on the chin as well. He's known from too young an age that life is terribly impermanent.
He considers what he remembers of Lois's father with a chuckle. Because despite all the change and all the lost and all the diverging tides, there's something comforting about knowing that some people never change. You can always count on them to be exactly as you remembered them. He thinks of the General like a rock that scarcely a single force on earth could be compelled to change.
"Yeah, fuzzy as a teddy bear," Henry reports of his own father, trying to remember the last time the two of them were in the same room together. His mother was always the glue that held them together. Without her, they never seem to find the time to get together. A passing phone call here and there. Maybe a card at one of the major holidays. It's about the extent of the acknowledgment he's grown used to. "Bet he'd flip if I told him I ran into you tonight. We ought to take a selfie so I can prove to him I'm not lying."
It was how she remembered most people from her life. Sectioned off and compartmentalized into what base they were living on at the time, what year of school she'd been in before the General picked them up and dropped them halfway across the planet to start over once more. They were all strangers now. A random Facebook request every now and then, a fleeting exchange of 'how've you been?' messages via email or DM.
Is that what this is fated for, too? After all these years, would they be left with a polite goodbye after late night milkshakes? Let the words go unsaid in trade for a polite interaction hovering over only good memories and well wishes?
Something twists in her gut at the thought of it. If it be better or worse, to dig up all that shit into the open air. She pitches back another gulp of her drink, a wry smile twisting on her lips at the memory of Lieutenant Colonel Garvey, at the exasperated look that always overcame him when he found out the latest round of trouble they'd stirred up.
"I will pay you ten dollars if his response is anything other than 'oh God, not her again.'" She smiles, checking herself in the reflection of the walled mirror before leaning over so he can get them both in one shot.
"What are you talking about? You were his favorite of all my friends." As if the list wasn't always a short one. Not a lot of competition for the top slot in that one, especially with the way young Henry pushed everyone from him. But Lois was different. And while she might not be entirely wrong about how his father viewed their friendship, Henry isn't sure she's giving herself enough credit either. His father more than just tolerated her. Especially when she was the only one capable of lifting a smile from Henry during some of the worst of it.
He's surprised she agrees so readily, but he takes out his cell phone and leans in close enough to center the both of them in the frame. For the first time, he sees the reflection of the two of them side-by-side, and it twists something in his gut. How many grainy photos just like this one are there floating around out there of the two of them much younger, but with just as much mischief in their eyes? Henry pushes the shutter to snap the photo and withdraws just a touch too quickly. His hand is nearly trembling.
"You finished with that drink yet? I am so ready to get out of here. This necktie's like a noose."
"Yeah, well he showed it just about as well as The General did," she chuckled. They'd both grown up with stoic, emotionally detached soldiers for fathers, and being a 'favorite' friend pretty much just amounted to a terse nod at the best of times and a long, heated lecture at the worst.
They'd gotten each other into a hell of a lot of trouble back then, but even then she'd known how much it meant to be a part of the Garvey's lives. To have them be a part of hers. It wasn't just Henry's illness that'd tied them together - his mother had taken Lois under her wing after her mother had passed, and she's sure if The General had anyone he called a friend, Michael Garvey had to be one of them.
He still smells the same. Something familiar in his aftershave, the scent of his clothes taking her back to high school, to testing out cologne at the mall. The smile she gives the camera is polite, distant as she pushes away the memory and straightens a bit.
"Yeah," she murmurs, grabbing the glass to drain the rest of it before pushing herself to her feet. "Let's get out of here, I'm starving."
"Good, because this rabbit food isn't cutting it." Also, the room feels stifling. Henry's sure that his cheeks are blooming in splotches of red, and if any of his colleagues were to see him right now they'd probably ask him what the hell's wrong with him. The ghosts between them need a little bit of air, and he's not sure he's ever been in such a rush to take a deep lungful of the city's pollution. The legs of the barstool scrape the floor when he pushes it backwards with the sort of finality that's glad to leave this place behind.
And then he can't help but think, god what if he'd stood his ground about tonight? Refused to be paraded in front of all these potential investors like some hopeful charity case? He might've missed Lois altogether and never known. The thought chills him as he makes his way conspiratorially to the door with her.
"How'd you get here? You have a rental, or you want to hitch with me?"
Being with him again feels like too many emotions wrapped into one. Too many words left unsaid, too many years of what-ifs pent up inside her, and it makes her antsy - unsettled, like she's not sure if she should be clutching onto him for dear life or running in the other direction.
Of course it's not the latter. She's not sure she could let him out of her sight now if she tried. Not after this long, not after all that time apart. But she's also not sure how the hell to be around him anymore, all those memories pulling her in different directions, the distance between them too daunting to cross.
It feels like they're both gunning it for the door, all too happy to leave this place behind for something at least more casual and with less prying eyes around. The big gulp of air she takes when they reach the sidewalk is warm, heavy with the summer evening, and she glances back at him when he speaks again.
"I, uh... I took a cab. There's a drive through down on third if you want to ride together?"
It seems like the more distance they put between themselves and the event, the more relaxed Henry manages to be. Out on the sidewalk he loosens his tie immediately, and by the time they're halfway to the nearest parking lot he's already slipped it over his head and stuffed the whole thing in his pocket.
"I told you knowing me would pay off eventually." It's the joke he always made as the two of them approached their teenage years and the freedom granted by the promise of their drivers' licenses became a little more real and tangible. The self-deprecating humor always made his mother cringe, but he grins now as he leads them both to a car parked in one of the near spaces. Henry unlocks the doors and strips his sport jacket into the back seat before climbing into the driver's side.
"I still can't believe it's actually you," he muses in disbelief.
There's something about the open air that eases the tension in her veins. God, she could go for a cigarette right now, but she's not about to kick up that old argument with him at a time like this.
"About time, Garvey," she says almost on instinct. He always did like to knock himself down a peg, and far be it from Lois to take on the cheerleader role. She liked to be there for him in ways she thought he needed - not with coddling or back pats, but by getting deep down in the dirt with him.
She catches a glimpse of that grin and as always, it catches. Tugs at her own lips until she's chuckling to herself, ducking into the passenger's seat and toeing off her stilettos.
"I know," she shakes her head. "It doesn't feel real, you know? All this time, I kept wondering..." Her brow furrows, and she toys with the purse in her lap before glancing back at him. "Never thought it'd be over me choking on hors d'oeuvres, anyway."
"What can I say? I like to play a long game. Keep you on the hook." It's so damn easy to fall back into those old habits. Especially when Lois takes the bait just as easily as always. Henry's always appreciated that about her. He knows the way his parents would cringe. How doctors and nurses would give the wild-haired young girl a sideways glance and chuckle nervously. They all assumed she'd set him off with the way she talked about him, but Lois was the only one who could get him to smile. She's always been the one who can say anything to him. Not just match him, but best him. Pull him out of his own hole of self-pity.
Henry rolls down the windows and dials the radio up a couple of notches on the classic rock station he'd been listening to on the way to the event. The chorus of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb pipes through the speakers as he pulls out of the space and into the night's steady stream of traffic.
"Kept wondering what?" he needles. "If you'd thrown away the best thing that ever happened to you?" There's an edge of sarcasm in his voice. It's easier to make that joke when he's staring out the windshield rather than looking at her straight on, but Henry can feel the rush of his heartbeat in his own ears. How does she remember it? Maybe she thinks he's the one that fucked it all up. Maybe she doesn't think there was anything between them to fuck up in the first place.
"You were never near that patient." She smirks, relaxing into her seat a bit. It's dangerously easy to fall into. The back and forth. Like coming home, warm and inviting, even if it has no right to be. They're so damn far away from it, the cloud of that last argument a looming reminder of the decades they've spent without a word.
She always did have a big mouth. Kept being told by every grown up - her father, his parents, their teachers - that she needed to find that filter eventually, that a mouth like that would only get her in trouble.
Maybe it finally had. Maybe that's what had cost them all that time. Words that'd spilled out without a thought, words she knew would hurt him only because he'd known just how to hurt her in return. She'd always felt safe with him, like she could tell him anything and he could do the same. But they'd reached their limit hard and fast, and before she'd known it, it'd all managed to come crumbling down.
Even the music he listens to hasn't changed. She smiles at that, at their late night struggle to align the antennas just right so the radio would stutter Led Zeppelin or Journey or - her favorite - White Snake.
"Please," she blurts out a laugh. "I'm the best thing that ever happened to you, easy." He's not the only one good at deflecting. Good at sarcasm because it's easier than the truth. Still, it doesn't sit right. She knows how much of it she'd fucked up. "I just... I guess I kept wondering if you were okay," she admits, chewing at her lip.
"What's the point in being patient?" Henry wonders earnestly. "By the time anyone got around to saying what they wanted or doing something about it, it was always too late." He's speaking in generalities, but the sentiment doesn't need to be referring to anything in particular. Not with the way their lives were always in such a state of flux. How people came and went, expectations changed, and the same promise that was made the day before could be broken just as easily come morning. They'd gotten good at adapting, but Henry had never been much for waiting. Take it now, or you might not get another chance.
Except for the things he'd been too scared to go for. Except when reaching risked losing something entirely, like Lois herself. Maybe if he hadn't waited quite so long to admit to his feelings, it wouldn't have all gone sideways. He could've been more earnest and less angry. More hopeful and less accusatory. He wouldn't have slung so many harmful words about the guys she kept chasing or what he thought she deserved.
She's not wrong, he thinks to himself. Even now, so many damn years later, she's not wrong. There'll never be another Lois Lane. And he'll never stop judging every woman he meets against her. You can't replace that kind of a history. It's nobody's fault, really, but they can't be to him what she was. Not now, not after everything the two of them have been through together.
"What'd you tell yourself?" he hears himself asking before he realizes that he's about to ask the question. Henry can't help his own curiosity at the stories she might've made up when they thought they'd probably never see each other again. "Did you think I'd probably died?"
"Maybe that's just what we both learned, being army brats. Carpe Diem, and all that crap." She smirks. If Henry's impatient, they'd have to come up with an entirely new word for whatever Lois was. She could never sit still, never let something come to her. Always chasing, always moving. And still, somehow... always alone.
It was the nature of how they'd grown up, but even when they were apart, they had each other. Leaving secret notes stashed away for each other on bases they knew they'd return to eventually. Writing postcards or letters from halfway across the world.
She missed that. Maybe it's why it's so easy for her now to let go. To move from mediocre date to mediocre date, looking for something she's not really sure she can pin down. A connection she'd lost, a hole that he'd left vacant when they'd torn away from each other.
She huffs out a laugh, shaking her head at his question. "No, you're way too stubborn for that," she reasons, glancing over at him. "I thought maybe... a family? Some wife to keep you out of trouble. Make sure you were eating something other than sour punch straws for dinner."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-04-25 01:32 am (UTC)"You're a journalist?" he echoes, and spares himself a minute to stare at her press badge like it might confirm everything for him. In a way it does. Her name is there, in bold black print, declaring definitively that this isn't some kind of joke being played on him by someone from his distant past. This is Lois Lane, in the full flesh. Henry can feel his heart jackrabbiting in his throat. It's been years -- decades, even -- but she still manages to fill him up with the same kind of nervous energy he remembers from the last time they were together. It's like time never passed.
And then her question breaks through his disbelief, and he laughs out loud. "Me? Hell no. I teach. Occupational Therapy, at the Steinhardt school. I'm their little Tiny Tim, trying to get all these Ebenezer Scrooges to open their checkbooks."
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Date: 2022-04-25 01:45 am (UTC)And for some damn reason, it's not comfort or happiness or relief that hits her first. It's an anxious, unstable kind of anticipation, like she's not sure how solid the foundation is under or or just when it might crumble.
"Yeah," she manages, shrugging a shoulder. "You're a... You're a teacher. Here. That's..." She shakes her head, words eluding her for the waves of memories, emotion threatening to overtake her. "That's great. Wouldn't have pegged you for the scholarly type."
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Date: 2022-04-25 02:09 am (UTC)She looks like maybe he's crawled up there already. The way she shifts and struggles to finish her sentences makes him wonder if maybe she's not so glad to see him after all. Could he blame her? Henry's memories push past the image of the two of them as troublesome kids, towards adolescence. He remembers their petty spats getting more dramatic and the length of time they'd go between speaking extending outwards each time. He'd never actually believed that the last time they talked would be the last, but he couldn't have anticipated finding each other like this, so many years later. He chews at the inside of his lower lip and frowns.
"So, what else? Catch me up. Married? Kids? Do you live in the city?"
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Date: 2022-04-25 02:16 am (UTC)Huh. Guess he'd managed to actually do it, hadn't he?
She should be happy. Seeing him again, being reunited with one of the only people who'd stayed consistent in her life for so long. But there's something... guilt, maybe. Digging a hole between them, distance she can't quite make the leap over.
She blurts a laugh, grinning and shaking her head. "No and no. I'm in Metropolis, working at The Planet. What about you? Wife? 2.5 kids? A dog, maybe?"
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Date: 2022-04-25 02:35 am (UTC)Most days it doesn't even feel like a consolation prize. Like settling for second best, or an alternate dream after his first one turned up empty on him. But Henry can't quite believe that Lois didn't marry into a military family herself. He'd been so certain she'd finally stumble on a good one. Some man who would prove himself worthy of her free spirit and her independence, and not try to pin her down with a false sense of authority. He spreads his hands and drops them to his sides, as if to indicate there's not much more to his own story than what she's already seeing.
"Got a one-bedroom here in the city. Just me, and the neighbor's cat that sometimes hangs out in the breezeway."
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Date: 2022-04-25 02:43 am (UTC)She'd seen the brightness in Henry's eyes when he'd watch the ensigns train. Seen that brightness get snuffed out when he'd fallen ill. He'd been lost at sea after that, and she's just... glad he'd found something to anchor him again. Even if she hadn't been there to see him find it.
"Do you, um... Do you want to grab a drink?" She nods over to the bar, fully aware she's still holding half a glass of champagne in her hand. A conversation like this, all those memories, all the ups and downs they'd been through... Damn if she could use a glass of something stronger to smooth it all over.
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Date: 2022-04-25 03:10 am (UTC)"It's stable," he acknowledges, which isn't something he'd been looking for, but feels like a strange blessing after their chaotic upbringing. "But... you're a journalist. I bet you travel even more now than when we were kids, don't you? That must be cool."
At the suggestion of a drink, Henry looks at her glass. He can't help the grin that edges back on his lips and splits at the corners of his mouth. "Well I was hoping you were going to offer me one of those chocolate banana shakes and a way out of here, but I'll take the drink for now I guess."
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Date: 2022-04-25 03:19 am (UTC)And God, that grin. It's disarming in a way she couldn't have expected. That same shameless mischief, all grown up and promising the kind of trouble she'd go gaga for if he was just some guy she'd met at a fancy party.
"I travel a little," she shrugs. "They tend to leave the international pieces for the big reporters, you know? But I'll get there."
That smile of his always was contagious, and she breaks out into a smile before she can stop herself. "Big Belly Burger doesn't serve liquor. I say we fuel up and then make our getaway."
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Date: 2022-04-25 02:05 pm (UTC)Henry softens his grin and shakes his head. "I've got no doubt you're the best reporter they've ever seen." He can't think of a time Lois hasn't immediately excelled at everything she's tried. Henry's known from the very start that she's always been destined for great things. It's why it always made him so mad to watch her settle for the string of enlisted guys with their big muscles and regulation haircuts who didn't know what to do with her.
He nods down the bar at a couple of seats that don't hit the steady flow of foot traffic from others grappling for conversations and refills. "As long as you promise me a plate of fries after this, I guess I can stand it a little while longer."
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Date: 2022-04-25 03:42 pm (UTC)"I'll get the front page soon. Just wait," she promises, her smile softening at his words. Surely they'd stayed up late at night, talking about dreams and the future and becoming the very best at this or that one day. Had they lived up to it yet? Become someone those little troublemaking kids would be excited for?
"Pinky promise," she returns, though it seems odd to actually go through the gesture now. Instead, she takes the lead, heading towards the two empty barstools tucked into the corner of the bar. Flagging down the bartender, she orders herself a whiskey sour and perches herself on a stool, glancing him over again as he orders.
"So. Big shot professor, no wife, no kids, a cat that drops in on you. What else? Girlfriend? Girlfriends?"
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Date: 2022-04-25 04:10 pm (UTC)Just seeing Lois again makes Henry feel too close to the young man he tries most days to pretend that he's not. As much as he's grown up and tried to grow away from the defining points in his upbringing he'd rather not claim, she makes him feel all of them all at once. Awkward, out of place, searching desperately for an identity of his own. He doesn't feel like who he's grown into: strong, confident, and independent. Henry's glad she takes the lead when he feels like his unmatched gait is always a little more pronounced towards the end of the night, even if he does feel sturdy in ways his adolescent frame could've only imagined.
He slides into the opposite bar seat and orders a Vodka Collins before turning his attention back to her. "See, now I can tell you're a journalist," he accuses with a point. "Digging for a story? I hate to disappoint, but I'm as boring as ever. I teach, and in my spare time... I teach some more."
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Date: 2022-04-25 05:46 pm (UTC)Or maybe it was just her, dragging him outside the lines. Refusing to let him conform just so she’d have someone to keep her company.
Still, at least on the outside, he’s grown up a far cry from that anchorless, scared kid she remembered in that hospital bed so many years ago. He’s come a long way, and she can’t help feeling guilty she hasn’t been around for all of it.
“You were never boring, Garvey,” she chuckles, leaning an elbow against the bar and turning herself to face him properly. “I would never have allowed that.”
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Date: 2022-04-25 05:59 pm (UTC)When the bartender returns with their drinks, he takes his without hesitation and helps himself to a mouthful. Henry's glad they seem to have been instructed to make them strong. It's probably a tactic to help open a few stubborn wallets, but he savors the warm burn down the back of his throat. "I've had plenty of first dates," he admits. "A few seconds, and a whole lot less third. I don't know. I don't think many women appreciate that I could take or leave them." Henry shrugs.
It's a mixed blessing of growing up the way they did and watching people come and go from your life so frequently. It's hard to feel like you really need anyone, or like it's worth it to work so hard at keeping them around. Henry gets why most women wouldn't appreciate that, but it's never motivated him to try harder to hold on tighter. "What about you? Any prospects I ought to know about?"
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Date: 2022-04-25 09:45 pm (UTC)“Brave or stupid?” Honestly, all the shit they’d done back then? It had to have been both. How many times had she landed herself in the infirmary after showing off for him? How many times had they been grounded, punished, kept apart for some horrible idea she’d talked him into?
She drains her champagne glass, taking the new drink in hand and smirking.
“I know what you mean. Men really hate not being needed, you know?” She toys her fingertips against the rim of her glass thoughtfully. “Nobody serious. You know me, always chasing the wrong one around in circles.”
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Date: 2022-04-25 09:59 pm (UTC)Now he can't stop staring at her, like if he takes his eyes off of her for even a minute she might disappear back past all the pipe and drape and leave him without a way to find her again. Silently to himself, Henry repeats what he already knows: Metropolis. The Planet.
"I mean, what are we good for if you're not utterly dependent on us for everything, right?" he smirks around another drink. Hearing her assessment of her habits hasn't changed much makes Henry frown, though. "Hey, it'd be weird if everything had changed, right? I grow back a leg, and you find a man who actually deserves you?"
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Date: 2022-04-26 04:47 am (UTC)Henry and Lois against the world. They'd felt so indestructible then, even despite the illness, despite all the bumps and bruises and aches that came along the way. The nature of being an army brat, it meant everything and everyone was fluid. They all came and went, but always, always she had Henry. From halfway around the globe or a few doors down the barracks, they could take on anything together. Until... until they couldn't.
It's a complete blur and sharp as hell in her memory all at once. She can't remember the words they'd said to each other, but they still dug in deep somehow. It's the sensations she remembers most. The sound of his voice knotted up tight with anger, the way she'd shoved him straight in the chest, two hands balling up the knit of his sweater.
She manages a tight smile at his questions, hiding a grimace behind another sip of whiskey. "Maybe some of them did deserve me. I just kept finding ways to fuck it all up."
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Date: 2022-05-10 12:39 am (UTC)Henry gives Lois a thin smile in return and hides his expression down his glass. He knows he ought to apologize, but after all this time he hardly knows what he'd say. The distance is like a cellophane film over their past, distorting the truth. It feels murky and out of focus, and when he tries to shine a light on it, it refracts in a hundred different directions and leaves him wondering what's truth and what he only just imagined.
"How's the General?" he tries to redirect before he finds himself sucked up by the thoughts.
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Date: 2022-05-10 02:56 am (UTC)"Lot of people are easy to lose," she says quietly, glancing back up at him a moment. There's hurt there, for all the years they've lost to some stupid argument that'd toppled something she hadn't realized was so fragile. Was that what it was? Had they built something so easily unraveled in all that time?
Surely they'd had something stronger back then. All they'd gone through together, all that time spent growing up side by side. He'd been like an extension of her then. Her other half when she was too young and stupid to realize how rare that was.
Does he remember it the same way? Does he see that argument in the same blur and focus that she does, or is there clarity there she'd been too blinded by anger to see? She furrows a brow at her glass, lost in the ripples of liquid as if somehow, the answers could be found in their reflection if she could just get them to stand still.
"The General," she chuckles, pulling her thoughts back to the present and offering him a small smile. "He's... pretty much the same. Not really a man of drastic change, you know?" She spins her glass in a circle, glancing him over him thoughtfully, trying to match him up in her mind to the kid she'd known so long ago. "And the Lieutenant Colonel? Still as warm as ever?"
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Date: 2022-06-14 01:05 am (UTC)He considers what he remembers of Lois's father with a chuckle. Because despite all the change and all the lost and all the diverging tides, there's something comforting about knowing that some people never change. You can always count on them to be exactly as you remembered them. He thinks of the General like a rock that scarcely a single force on earth could be compelled to change.
"Yeah, fuzzy as a teddy bear," Henry reports of his own father, trying to remember the last time the two of them were in the same room together. His mother was always the glue that held them together. Without her, they never seem to find the time to get together. A passing phone call here and there. Maybe a card at one of the major holidays. It's about the extent of the acknowledgment he's grown used to. "Bet he'd flip if I told him I ran into you tonight. We ought to take a selfie so I can prove to him I'm not lying."
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Date: 2022-06-14 03:02 am (UTC)Is that what this is fated for, too? After all these years, would they be left with a polite goodbye after late night milkshakes? Let the words go unsaid in trade for a polite interaction hovering over only good memories and well wishes?
Something twists in her gut at the thought of it. If it be better or worse, to dig up all that shit into the open air. She pitches back another gulp of her drink, a wry smile twisting on her lips at the memory of Lieutenant Colonel Garvey, at the exasperated look that always overcame him when he found out the latest round of trouble they'd stirred up.
"I will pay you ten dollars if his response is anything other than 'oh God, not her again.'" She smiles, checking herself in the reflection of the walled mirror before leaning over so he can get them both in one shot.
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Date: 2022-06-21 01:28 am (UTC)He's surprised she agrees so readily, but he takes out his cell phone and leans in close enough to center the both of them in the frame. For the first time, he sees the reflection of the two of them side-by-side, and it twists something in his gut. How many grainy photos just like this one are there floating around out there of the two of them much younger, but with just as much mischief in their eyes? Henry pushes the shutter to snap the photo and withdraws just a touch too quickly. His hand is nearly trembling.
"You finished with that drink yet? I am so ready to get out of here. This necktie's like a noose."
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Date: 2022-06-21 02:07 am (UTC)They'd gotten each other into a hell of a lot of trouble back then, but even then she'd known how much it meant to be a part of the Garvey's lives. To have them be a part of hers. It wasn't just Henry's illness that'd tied them together - his mother had taken Lois under her wing after her mother had passed, and she's sure if The General had anyone he called a friend, Michael Garvey had to be one of them.
He still smells the same. Something familiar in his aftershave, the scent of his clothes taking her back to high school, to testing out cologne at the mall. The smile she gives the camera is polite, distant as she pushes away the memory and straightens a bit.
"Yeah," she murmurs, grabbing the glass to drain the rest of it before pushing herself to her feet. "Let's get out of here, I'm starving."
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Date: 2022-06-21 02:13 am (UTC)And then he can't help but think, god what if he'd stood his ground about tonight? Refused to be paraded in front of all these potential investors like some hopeful charity case? He might've missed Lois altogether and never known. The thought chills him as he makes his way conspiratorially to the door with her.
"How'd you get here? You have a rental, or you want to hitch with me?"
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Date: 2022-06-21 02:31 am (UTC)Of course it's not the latter. She's not sure she could let him out of her sight now if she tried. Not after this long, not after all that time apart. But she's also not sure how the hell to be around him anymore, all those memories pulling her in different directions, the distance between them too daunting to cross.
It feels like they're both gunning it for the door, all too happy to leave this place behind for something at least more casual and with less prying eyes around. The big gulp of air she takes when they reach the sidewalk is warm, heavy with the summer evening, and she glances back at him when he speaks again.
"I, uh... I took a cab. There's a drive through down on third if you want to ride together?"
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Date: 2022-06-21 02:43 am (UTC)"I told you knowing me would pay off eventually." It's the joke he always made as the two of them approached their teenage years and the freedom granted by the promise of their drivers' licenses became a little more real and tangible. The self-deprecating humor always made his mother cringe, but he grins now as he leads them both to a car parked in one of the near spaces. Henry unlocks the doors and strips his sport jacket into the back seat before climbing into the driver's side.
"I still can't believe it's actually you," he muses in disbelief.
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Date: 2022-06-21 02:57 am (UTC)"About time, Garvey," she says almost on instinct. He always did like to knock himself down a peg, and far be it from Lois to take on the cheerleader role. She liked to be there for him in ways she thought he needed - not with coddling or back pats, but by getting deep down in the dirt with him.
She catches a glimpse of that grin and as always, it catches. Tugs at her own lips until she's chuckling to herself, ducking into the passenger's seat and toeing off her stilettos.
"I know," she shakes her head. "It doesn't feel real, you know? All this time, I kept wondering..." Her brow furrows, and she toys with the purse in her lap before glancing back at him. "Never thought it'd be over me choking on hors d'oeuvres, anyway."
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Date: 2022-06-21 03:11 am (UTC)Henry rolls down the windows and dials the radio up a couple of notches on the classic rock station he'd been listening to on the way to the event. The chorus of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb pipes through the speakers as he pulls out of the space and into the night's steady stream of traffic.
"Kept wondering what?" he needles. "If you'd thrown away the best thing that ever happened to you?" There's an edge of sarcasm in his voice. It's easier to make that joke when he's staring out the windshield rather than looking at her straight on, but Henry can feel the rush of his heartbeat in his own ears. How does she remember it? Maybe she thinks he's the one that fucked it all up. Maybe she doesn't think there was anything between them to fuck up in the first place.
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Date: 2022-06-21 03:25 am (UTC)She always did have a big mouth. Kept being told by every grown up - her father, his parents, their teachers - that she needed to find that filter eventually, that a mouth like that would only get her in trouble.
Maybe it finally had. Maybe that's what had cost them all that time. Words that'd spilled out without a thought, words she knew would hurt him only because he'd known just how to hurt her in return. She'd always felt safe with him, like she could tell him anything and he could do the same. But they'd reached their limit hard and fast, and before she'd known it, it'd all managed to come crumbling down.
Even the music he listens to hasn't changed. She smiles at that, at their late night struggle to align the antennas just right so the radio would stutter Led Zeppelin or Journey or - her favorite - White Snake.
"Please," she blurts out a laugh. "I'm the best thing that ever happened to you, easy." He's not the only one good at deflecting. Good at sarcasm because it's easier than the truth. Still, it doesn't sit right. She knows how much of it she'd fucked up. "I just... I guess I kept wondering if you were okay," she admits, chewing at her lip.
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Date: 2022-06-21 03:58 am (UTC)Except for the things he'd been too scared to go for. Except when reaching risked losing something entirely, like Lois herself. Maybe if he hadn't waited quite so long to admit to his feelings, it wouldn't have all gone sideways. He could've been more earnest and less angry. More hopeful and less accusatory. He wouldn't have slung so many harmful words about the guys she kept chasing or what he thought she deserved.
She's not wrong, he thinks to himself. Even now, so many damn years later, she's not wrong. There'll never be another Lois Lane. And he'll never stop judging every woman he meets against her. You can't replace that kind of a history. It's nobody's fault, really, but they can't be to him what she was. Not now, not after everything the two of them have been through together.
"What'd you tell yourself?" he hears himself asking before he realizes that he's about to ask the question. Henry can't help his own curiosity at the stories she might've made up when they thought they'd probably never see each other again. "Did you think I'd probably died?"
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Date: 2022-06-21 04:13 am (UTC)It was the nature of how they'd grown up, but even when they were apart, they had each other. Leaving secret notes stashed away for each other on bases they knew they'd return to eventually. Writing postcards or letters from halfway across the world.
She missed that. Maybe it's why it's so easy for her now to let go. To move from mediocre date to mediocre date, looking for something she's not really sure she can pin down. A connection she'd lost, a hole that he'd left vacant when they'd torn away from each other.
She huffs out a laugh, shaking her head at his question. "No, you're way too stubborn for that," she reasons, glancing over at him. "I thought maybe... a family? Some wife to keep you out of trouble. Make sure you were eating something other than sour punch straws for dinner."