𝚆𝚛𝚎𝚗

Perry really should not have installed a PA system that allows anyone on the Wi-Fi to add a song to the elevator’s queue. Working in journalism, you expect a better soundtrack to start the day than a Mighty Crabjoys song.

“It’s an instrumental cover,” Clark had argued when Lois voiced her displeasure.

Yet, as you straighten the strap of your bag over your shoulder, you find yourself humming along with the song. It’s a decent start to the day. Until a hand shoots out to stop the doors from closing. You straighten your shoulders, keeping your chin up and your eyes on the bright green L on the elevator’s interior screen.

“Jimmy,” you greet flatly after the doors close.

He scoffs, then matches your tone to reply, “Lover.”

You turn toward him with a sharp inhale. “Don’t you dare,” you warn lowly.

Jimmy Olsen only smiles, stepping toward your outstretched finger. “If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen,” he murmurs.

“It’s an elevator, Jimmy, not a kitchen.”

“Really? That’s the response you’re going with?”

Groaning, you move to face the door again. “You’re insufferable.”

“Ah,” Jimmy sighs, smiling at your profile. “You seem to suffer me alright most days.”

The elevator doors become your saving grace when they slide open, allowing you to rush into the bullpen, leaving Jimmy behind you. Perry is waiting by the elevator, but he doesn’t look up from his cigar when you breeze by, nor does he pay Jimmy any mind when he follows after you.

“Rough morning?” Lois asks, offering you a cup of coffee.

You take a long drink, ignoring how hot it feels sliding down your throat. As much as the sludge Perry tries to pass of as consumable caffeine can slide, at least.

“Men don’t listen,” you complain.

Lois smiles and juts her thumb over her shoulder. “Clark does.”

You wave the half-empty cup toward him and shake your head. “That’s different. Clark’s great.”

Clark doesn’t look away from his computer but sends an appreciative thumbs-up over his head.

“Although, I’d like Clark even more if he’d teach Jimmy a few things,” you grumble.

“Like what?” Jimmy asks, leaning against your desk. “You know, I think he’d agree with me on this one. Since he’s one of the few people here who has actually met Superman.”

“Jimmy,” you enunciate, looking up at him from your chair. “For the last time. The suit is blue and red.”

He clicks his tongue like you just said something crazy. “It’s red and blue. Cape color always come first.”

You bark a sarcastic laugh and lean toward him. “Are you even listening to the nonsense that is coming out of your mouth right now?”

Behind you, Lois grasps the arm of Clark’s chair and pulls herself to his side. They share a look, shaking their heads at your bickering. It’s not the first time you’ve come into the bullpen mid-argument. Even if you’ve yet to argue about anything important.

“Listen up!” Perry exclaims.

The bullpen goes quiet, your face unprofessionally close to Jimmy’s when you freeze.

“Metropolis University is sending over a few potential interns to tour the Planet today,” Perry explains from his seat. “I want everyone on their best behavior. Pardon the interruptions, keep it light and friendly, and don’t have anything up on your computers we wouldn’t show random citizens.”

“That last part was for you,” you whisper to Jimmy. He smiles, then stifles a laugh when you blow him a dramatic kiss.

“Thanks, people,” Perry concludes. “Now get back to work.”

You hum, situating yourself at your desk to get started for the day. First, you check your email. Sitting in the inbox is an unread email from Bruce Wayne’s work email. Inside, a thirty-page document. You send it to the printer, then archive the email and stand.

“Where are you going?” Jimmy asks, his computer still locked despite the amount of time he’s been sitting there.

“Looks like she’s working,” Clark muses. “Maybe you could try it instead of staring at her.”

“And you get so much done when Lois is around,” Jimmy challenges.

“Easy,” you interject, spreading your hands between them. “Maybe you should both get back to work. Unless you need to find a Superman fan site to confirm that I’m right.”

“Look at any picture and you will see that I am right!” Jimy argues.

Rolling your eyes, you turn on your heel to walk to the printing room. It was originally a dark room, but somewhere along the way, a window was installed and now there are five printers carefully arranged in the room. There’s no expectation of privacy in here, especially with three of the printers currently whirring and pushing out warm pages. Still, you aren’t expecting Jimmy to come inside after you and block the printer you’re using.

“What?” you ask, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Are you serious?” he inquires. “Let me ask you this, what color is Batman’s suit?”

“Black,” you answer hesitantly, tipping your chin up.

“Green Lantern’s?”

“Green.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s obvious, Jimmy. Batman wears a ton of black; GL’s suit is mostly green.”

“Mostly!” he repeats, tossing his arms up.

“Uh, excuse me?” someone interrupts.

You turn, your arm pressing to Jimmy’s side before you smile at the boy standing in the doorway.

“Sorry,” he continues. “I’m Ki; I’m touring today and just wanted to see this room.”

“No worries,” you reply softly. “Feel free to take a look around.” You reach around Jimmy’s back and pull your papers out of the tray. “We’ll get out of your way.”

Jimmy grabs your arm when you step outside, careful but firm in his handling of you. He pushes you into the break room, completely ignoring the work you’re clutching to your chest in favor of arguing with you.

“You go off of what color is on most of their costume,” he repeats. “Superman has way more red than blue.”

“The entire suit is blue!” you counter.

“And the cape is red!”

“We don’t say Shazam has a white suit,” you seethe. “Cape colors don’t even count, Jimmy.”

Jimmy clenches his hands at his sides and widens his eyes. “Superman is the American hero; red, white, and blue. His suit is red.”

“By that logic, Nightwing’s suit is also blue,” you say. “And that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Nightwing’s suit isn’t blue. Just like Robin’s isn’t red.”

“Are you stupid?” you demand.

Jimmy’s jaw drops, but then he glances over your shoulder and straightens. “Sorry,” he offers.

You turn, unsurprised to see two college-aged girls lingering in the doorway. This time, you wrap your fingers around Jimmy’s forearm and drag him into the editing room. It’s a long, rectangular room filled with six large oak desks. Right now, only two editors are occupying the room. One of them looks up and waves, but the oversized headphones they’re wearing block out anything you could say.

“What color is Robin’s suit?” you inquire.

“Green,” Jimmy answers simply.

You slam your stack of papers on the closest desk. Tugging the front of your outfit away from your chest, you ask, “What color is this?”

Jimmy doesn’t respond as quickly as before, his head tipping when his eyes catch the skin you accidentally exposed with your movement. He inhales sharply, looking up to your neck when he finally says what color it is.

“Okay, so you’re not color blind,” you decide, releasing the fabric. “Are you lying just to rile me up or do you actually think you’re right?”

He clears his throat, forcing his eyes to meet yours. “I am right.”

“This is where our editors work,” Perry says as he pushes the door open. He looks at you and Jimmy for a moment, then returns his attention to the intern asking a question about how long editing takes.

You offer an awkward wave when Ki smiles at you. Retrieving your papers, you squeeze past the interns and return to your desk. You told Mr. Wayne you’d get back to him as soon as you could about the Gotham Gazette information he found in his company’s servers. Jimmy has wasted enough of your time and emptied your patience.

“You’re mad because you know I’m right,” he continues, sitting at the edge of his desk and looking over the partition that is supposed to separate you. You had to talk him out of carving a hole in it the last time he was feeling particularly clingy.

“Jimmy, if I agree with you, will you drop it?” you ask.

He purses his lips briefly. “Depends. Did I actually convince you?”

“No! Because Superman’s suit is blue and red and you’re blind, stupid, or both!”

Jimmy scoffs before he offers his hand. You move away from his fingers, but when he murmurs, “It’ll only be a second,” you relent and let him lead you away from your desk and your work.

Just after you leave, Perry slaps the top of your desk. “These are some of our most intrepid and well-versed reporters here at the Planet. Clark Kent and Lois Lane, meet the newest Met U interns.”

“Nice to meet you; I’m Ki,” Ki offers, shaking Clark’s hand with a gentle bow. "This is Grace."

“Mind answering a few questions?” Perry asks Lois and Clark. “I’ll be right back.”

“How do you like it so far?” Clark inquires.

“It seems great,” Grace, the other intern, answers. “My friend Mattheo is at Metropolis Tech and is working part-time at Wayne Enterprises in Gotham. I’m excited to have found such a nice place in town.”

“Could I ask a personal question?” Ki requests. “Only if it’s okay.”

“Sure,” Lois agrees. “Anything.”

He gestures past Lois and asks, “What’s with them?”

Lois and Clark turn together, sighing when they see you and Jimmy standing beside the coffee cart. You have your hands on either side of Jimmy’s face, and his arms are around your waist, keeping you from actually touching the wall he’s pressing you against.

“Let me…” Lois mumbles, reaching for a tissue to erase the small whiteboard by her desk. When it’s clear, she writes a large zero in the center.

Ki and Grace look even more confused than before Ki pointed you out. Clark thinks it’s interesting considering just how scandalized they appeared to be by two people making out mere feet from their respective desks.

“They’ve been arguing since we got here,” Grace points out.

“Oh,” Clark sighs, nodding in understanding. “No, this is normal. And I promise, we’re still a much better workplace than the Gotham Gazette.”

“Are… Why do they argue like that?” Ki wonders.

Lois lifts a small stress ball from her desk and throws it at Jimmy. It hits his back but does nothing to take his attention from you. “They’ve been dating for years,” Lois explains, turning in her seat. “We think it’s their own way of finding something new to talk about.”

You flinch when the stress ball plonks against Jimmy’s back. He pulls back, separating just enough to take a deep breath without taking his hands off you. Lois’s comment is audible even over your panting.

“Years,” you repeat quietly, gently pressing your fingers into Jimmy’s cheeks. “I really should be a fiancée by now.”

Jimmy hums, tightening his grip so you’re pressed against him. “Actually, I would be the fiancé.”

You exhale, pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth. “Do you really have to make everything an argument?”

“I’m just saying, everyone would be way more excited for me than you.”

You press your lips to Jimmy’s, using the force and the surprise to quiet him. When he tries to speak again, you tip your head to one side and breathe, “Shut… up,” into his mouth. His right arm releases you, then he tugs your hand down to interlace his fingers with yours. You don’t miss how he taps your ring finger.

“Better,” you compliment against him.

“She’s right, though,” Ki murmurs to Grace as they walk toward Perry’s office. “Superman’s suit is blue and red.”

“I always thought it was red and blue,” she replies.

“What?!”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Clark sighs, dropping his head into his hands.

“Right?” Lois hums, rubbing his back. “Who cares what color Superman’s suit is? With a face like that? Come on.”

You return to your desk in time to see Clark nearly headbutt Lois when he snaps his head up after she whispers to him.

“Think they’ll get engaged any time soon?” you ask Jimmy.

“Eh,” he mumbles, looking at you. “Hard to think about anyone else, you know?”

“You bicker just so I’ll kiss you, don’t you?” you accuse.

Jimmy smiles, turning toward his computer for the first time today. “You’ll never know.”

Jimmy Olsen Taglist🏷️ @kmc1989 @ilocuras24 @alohastitch0626

The first day of clinical rotations was always the worst. For the past five clinical days, you had started your period, had your car break down in the middle of the road, gotten drenched in rain, and fallen down a flight of stairs. The most recent landing had you in a brace and placed in radiology by the grace of your clinical instructor. You were originally scheduled for your surgery rotation in peds (what you wanted to match next year), but no, the bulky brace on your leg prevented you from standing for more than a colonoscopy.

If the brace wasn't bad enough, you knew that this day would have some bullshit waiting for you sooner than later. The first happened when one of your box braids fell onto the bathroom floor while getting ready. The fresh braids that you got done the week prior in preparation for the next month of hectic clinical hours—yeah, those braids are on the floor. You covered it as best you could with the other braids and tied your hair into a tight bun. No more would fall out on your watch, definitely not on the first day in a new hospital. You shiver at the thought of your hair falling out in front of your attending.

The second was your old beater car that barely sputtered to life. That whine of the engine paired with a new tick in the front seat reminded you had a mountain of auto repair bills piling on your kitchen table. The car had harbored a sweltering, humid heat from the Texas sun beating down on it. The leather seats burned your skin through your scrubs, and you had to roll down each individual window with the rusty crank on your door. You huffed, shoved an India Arie CD into the center console, and unclenched your steering wheel.

What had possessed you to do medical school in Texas?

The third happened at the hospital. After enduring Houston traffic, which pushed your commute back an hour, you were lost traversing the VA hospital. It was a requirement for your med school to have three clinical rotations in a different hospital facility: Trauma One, Rural, and Veterans Affairs. Obviously, you were graced with the latter.

The hospital was an air-conditioned maze, and your preceptor was nowhere to be found in the front lobby. Squeaky linoleum floors, the ache in your braced leg, and the weight of your backpack and clinical bag wore at your senses. The chilly iced coffee grounded you with its familiar caffeinated buzz.

You eventually found your way to the radiology department in the basement. Attendings were doing their morning rounds on various floors of the hospital, going over imaging results. Which left you sitting in a dark, empty MRI room, reviewing flashcards for step two exams, silently dreading your on-call status for the next four weeks.

8 hours of boring cases, inactivity, and mediocre hospital food had driven you half crazy. Compared to your last general surgery rotation, it was excruciatingly boring sorting through patient CT files like a damn medical assistant. Menial work, your diagnoses being written off and then taken by male, white doctor like it was gospel, and mild microgressions from every patient asking you for their lunch tray even with "student doctor" plastered on your chest; you were drained. Finally, peace was on the horizon when you realized that your on-call shift started. You've got to see the room you'd be staying in for the next 40 days and 40 nights.

You flicked on the bright overhead light of the on-call room with a weary sigh. The door locked behind you with a quiet click. When you turned around, you nearly dropped your bags.  

You found the room occupied by a man with burly shoulders and a wrinkled Patagonia jacket already sleeping on the stiff mattress. He had a camouflage print sleep mask over his eyes.

"Excuse me? Who are you?" your voice raised to shake him out of his slumber. Your fingers clenched the strap of your backpack.

He perked up from his sleep, quickly removing the sleep mask from his eyes. He squinted over at you with sleepy, annoyed hazel eyes."I'm sure the door read 'occupied' before you entered."

"This is my on-call room," you drop your bags on the desk and defiantly cross your arms.

"Go find another one?" He groaned as he sat up on the bed. He rubbed his eyes and smoothed his auburn curls from their unruly state.

"You think I haven't looked, smartass?"

You were seething with annoyance, tired after a 12-hour shift of being overlooked and overwhelmed, burdened with pre-clinical problems. Now, this snappy resident wants to bitch about a room. You open your mouth to argue—

"Fine," he tossed his bags on the floor with a loud thud, military duffel bags with a stethoscope hanging from a handle. He reluctantly got out of the bed, stepping up to you, "Have the bed. I'll sleep in the chair. Happy?"

"Not in the slighest" you gritted out.

"Not even a thank you?"

He lingered in your space, clearly checking out your shorter frame for a moment too long. You caught a whiff of his cheap after-shave and the smell of surgical scrubs fresh from the machine. His hair looked soft and curly, permanently mashed down from a surgical cap. You noticed the dimples that formed on the sides of his mouth when he smirked at you. The chair scraped against the floor, creaking with each movement as he tried to get comfortable. You both begin to talk with ease, as if you both weren’t stuck in a cramped call room and didn’t know each other.

"Today has been a day," you groan and grab a few blankets from the blanket warmers.

"So you just barge in here and start complaining? Stuck on call?"

"Why else would be putting up with you in this room?"

The clock ticked on the wall, loud and annoying. The auburn-haired boy scoffed and shook his head, positioning the sleep mask over his eyes again, "thought maybe you were here to keep me company."

"Did you flirt your way into the hospital?" You didn't even have to look his direction to see the smirk plastered on his face.

"I do what works,” He shrugged.

"Let's see how that pays off in the end," you purse your lips and shift on the bed, "stay over there."

"God, I'm beat," he groaned and lifted one side of the eye mask, "I'll tell you what. We both get a few hours of sleep, and you'll never see me again. Get all this shit worked out."

"Sure. Right"

He yawned, "C'est la vie, baby."

You just rolled your eyes as you tried to cozy yourself on the uncomfortable mattress you fought so hard for. After closing your eyes and enduring his snores for a few hours, both of your pagers went off in unison, the screeching beeps pulling both of you out of your sleep with a small heart attack.

You patted around the bed to find the bright green screen that read, "CT, stroke, north 5" . You groaned and tossed your covers away. You slipped on your sneakers and fastened the laces with a groggy attentiveness to attempt to wake yourself up.

The male student followed suit, throwing his stethoscope around his neck. He held the door open. What a gentleman. You walk side by side in the hallway for a moment before you got to the elevators.

"Where to?" You questioned as you jammed your knuckle into the button until the elevator opened.

He rocked back casually on his heels, "Basement."

You blink up at him. Does this mean—no. Fuck.

"Did you also get paged for—"

"CT stroke alert? Yep!" he popped the 'p', "Makes radiology more interesting than a broken hip every now and then."

"Radiology rotation too, huh?" you say more to yourself than to him, trying to wrap your head around sharing an on call room with him for the next four weeks, and enduring every long case with his infuriating dimpled smirk on the other side of the room.

He nods, playing with his stethoscope absentmindedly, zoning off on the fluorescent light at the top of the elevator. He turned his attention back to you with a small nudge to your shoulder. "I'm Dr. Abbot, by the way. Jack."

"Good to know," you reluctantly gave your own.

He frowned at your lack of camaraderie but took your name gratefully, testing the syllables on his tongue. He tried his hand at more small talk before the elevator made it to the next floor and more unfortunate souls entered the elevator.

"Going into radiology?"

"No, dermatology"

"Enjoy draining cysts all day?" he chuckled, and it warranted a glare from a dermatology fellow who stood in front of him in the elevator.

"And what do you plan to match into?"

"Hopefully, emergency med. Maybe work out the field."

"...figures," you deadpanned as you got pushed to the back of the elevator, your shoulder pressing against his bicep.

His brows furrowed, "Oh, and what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you probably don't like to play by the rules."

The elevator doors opened with a ding, and people filed out.

"Emergency medicine is real medicine, you know," he countered as he pushed out of the elevator after you.

"I know"

Your foot steps shuffle against the linoleum floors with a repetitive squeaking. The hushed chatter of nurses and the rhythmic beeping of machinery created a medical symphony of noise. Something to drown out sleeply thoughts of regretting medical school.

You rush into the CT Room, donning gloves on the way in. Breathless, you looked around to find no one there.

"What the fuck?"

Your pagers dinged again. Too late. The CT ruled out hemorrhage, and now they had moved up to the cath lab for a thrombectomy. Abbot sighed and left the room. Time to chase the attendings back up to the cath lab.

You stood at the scrub sink between two surgical techs and Dr. Abbot. The orange sponge and 100% anti microbial soap were abrasive against your dry skin. You waited as the techs fastened the back ties of your gown and slipped on the two pairs of sterile gloves.

The attending, Dr. Carter, already operating in the room, was an elderly, steely-haired man with steady hands. He probably served in a war himself. The corners of his eyes creased with years of stress and unpredictable on-call hours. He didn't look up from his sutures when he addressed us, "A little late to the party, don’t you think?”

He chuckled crassly, his hands not flinching a bit. You stood behind him to peer at his work. He threaded the catheter through the femoral artery all the way up the carotid artery. The angiography on the left wall of the OR displayed the 4 blockages that had caused the patient’s emergency trip to the OR.

“What device do we unsheathe once we reach the middle cerebral artery?”

“The stent retrieving device,” you and Jack blurt out at the same time, his figure looming behind yours.

“One at a time. This patient came in with a severe ischemic stroke. What do we prescribe to treat the clot in this case?” Dr. Carter questioned while inserting the micro-catheter within the blocked vein.

“Alteplase 0.9 mg per kilogram over the course of 90 minutes”

“Only within the 4.5-hour window in which the stroke occurred,” the male corrected behind you, “if no change occurs, push more or pivot to interventional methods.”

“Which we obviously went with,” you gesture a lazy hand at the room you both were in, “cerebral angiography with possibility of stents.”

You huff out a breath of air you’d been holding when the doctor removed the catheter from the patient’s arm. Dr. Carter turned to both of you before choosing to hand the catheter to you, so much to the dismay of Dr. Abbot, who had been begging to get his hands dirty all shift.

“We will have to place stents in the anterior cerebral artery and the middle cerebral artery. These were most affected. Please start by threading the catheter through the available port,” he instructed in a surprisingly gentle tone, “Go slow for your first time.”

Your head whips over your shoulder, “This is not my first time.”

“Well, I’m sure you need more practice,” he retorted, condescending and snappy, “let me demonstrate.”

“I am more than able,” your eyes squint into a tight-lipped smile over your surgical mask.

Dr. Abbot shrugged on the other side of the table, “Let’s see what you got.”

“Don’t overstep your superiors.”

“Do you want this man to stroke out again, or do you want me to place the damn stents?” You snapped, causing the room to fall into silence.

The nearby surgical tech handed you the needed sterile equipment, and the nurse could be heard scribbling notes for the intra-op chart in the corner of the room. The clock over the suite doors blared a bright red 4:52 AM. You inhale deeply before returning to the 55-year-old on the sterlie metal table in front of you. Jack stood beside you, occasionally glancing from the live X-ray to your insertion of the stents.

“Good work, Doctor,” his voice low and gravelly in your ear when he leaned down. He whispered with a teasing hint in his words, “might even be better than Mr. Senior attending, hm?”

“Don’t make me lose focus.”

“Am I that distracting?” Jack’s head cocked in your direction.

Dr. Carter stood impatiently at the head of the patient’s bed, observing the stent placements like a hawk. He interrupted your pace, “I’ll finish up from here.”

“It’s fine, I can—“ you begin to protest before a nurse interrupts, sensing the growing tension. She glanced at her beeping pager, “Help is needed down in radiology, I’m sure you guys could assist. Really interesting pathology found on the MRI.”

You sighed before you relinquished the stents. You yanked off the thin paper material of your gown before tossing it in the bin, your surgical mask followed, allowing you to suck in the astringent hospital air. You leaned against the cool wall outside the cath lab suite entrance.

“Come on, MRI STAT”

“Are you going to follow me around all rotation?”

“If you want.”

You could feel a headache coming on when you pushed yourself off the wall and onto your aching feet, the brace on your leg serving as a constant reminder of the fuckery of clinical rotations. You brushed your edges off your forehead in an attempt to soothe your sleep-deprived nerves. Just 40 more days and 40 more nights of this. Maybe there’s a silver lining.

The Next Two Weeks

August 10th at 10am EST.

Smitten, Clark Kent*

Clark checks in on you after you missed dinner. (counselor!Clark + counselor!reader)

August 14th at 10am EST

Wild Ride, Lukas Reichel

With the off season coming to an end, Lukas takes you to an amusement park as a farewell.

August 17th at 10am EST

Festival, Mel King*

You take Mel to a festival and have loads of fun.

August 21st at 10am EST

Ride The Wave, Cole Rodrigo(OC)