*10*
The sun isn’t even up when James slaps off his alarm and yawns his way out of bed. He lets himself take a moment to wish he could sleep for another couple hours before shrugging aside his exhaustion and heading straight for the shower. He has a full day planned and a late start will only make it harder, on him and on the Foundation’s different boards and committees waiting to meet with him. The shower is just what he needs, shocking him to awareness and setting his thoughts racing ahead to everything that’s yet to be done (CK keeps trying to get him to take things slow, but James hasn’t quite gotten the knack down yet).
He’s still not a huge fan of the suits expected of him, but he slips into one with the ease of long practice. Even tying the knot on his tie has become almost second nature, though he knows that before lunch comes around, he’ll probably have managed to lose at least the jacket and probably the tie too. It’s a necessary evil, he reminds himself. Hard enough to get all the officials he spends so much of his days with to take him seriously without showing up in just a sweater or a t-shirt, and if it’s a choice between wearing a tie every day and CK being on his own with the often-mercenary business side of the Foundation, James knows there’s no choice at all.
Still, as mature as he tries to pass himself off as, James refuses to carry around a briefcase. A suit comes with an abundance of pockets, and it’s easier to fold the papers he needs and stick them in one of those than to give in and carry around a suitcase full of nothing but papers. Give him a computer any day, he thinks with a smirk, and circles his left wrist with his right hand to make sure his watch is secure.
Regretfully, he sneaks a glance at his camera as he pats down his pockets with their crinkly cargo. It’s been too long since he’s been able to go out and get some good shots. Perry would probably go back to calling him a rookie if he came in with some of the photographs he’s taken lately. Not that it matters what Perry thinks anymore, James reminds himself, and he straightens his shoulders.
He checks himself in the mirror one last time. Clean-shaven cheeks. Alert gaze. Neat hair. Crisp suit. Clean lines. Straight back.
The picture of a businessman. The image of a man who knows what he’s doing and will not take no for an answer.
It’s an illusion only paper-thin, but it is all James has. He doesn’t remember what he thought he’d find those first days, fresh from stalking out of the Daily Planet after speaking his mind and tossing down his resignation. He thinks he imagined that he would find Clark in a farmhouse somewhere with his parents, his calm unshaken, his confidence unflappable. He thinks he imagined Clark spinning into Superman and going out to save the day and then coming back in with his smile still fixed in place.
He thinks he was probably dreaming.
What he found… Well, James is still trying to come to terms with what he found at the end of his long, desperate search. Superman isn’t invulnerable, Clark isn’t optimistic, and James is still doing everything he can to fix those two things (those flaws that keep the world from being perfect).
Satisfied that he is as ready as he’ll ever be, James heads for his bedroom door, his pace quick. The Superman Foundation is still based in Metropolis, and a significant portion of his busy days are spent on the private jets and rented helicopters used to ferry him from California to New Troy. He’s careful to use different flight companies, different aliases, different credit accounts (all set up and paid for by the Foundation), careful never to let a pattern develop or a routine set in. The entire point of having CK and his parents live in such an out-of-the-way place is to make sure no one can trace Superman there, and if there’s one thing James has sworn he will never be, it’s the weak link.
The living room is gray with pre-dawn streaks of almost-light. The kitchen light is on, like it always is, but there’s no sign of movement and the Kents’ bedroom door is still closed. James feels a twinge of disappointment but ignores it. He does need to make some time to spend with Jonathan and Martha, and soon. Having them around is one of the best things that’s ever happened to him, and he’s afraid that he’s been taking them too much for granted. Today’s out, of course (too important, the meeting he only alluded to with Clark hanging like a shadow over his mind, only he’s afraid to think on it too much because he doesn’t want to jinx it), but…soon. Soon he’ll take Martha and Jonathan out to the park or something. He can’t exactly photograph them (they’ve already had to leave two cities because of photos of the distinctive, famous couple getting out), but there’s always something to be done in a city. If not here, then in the neighboring Coast City.
He’s already put his code into the elevator pad and called for it before he realizes he’s not the only one awake.
Lois is curled up on one of the couches, pressed so tightly into herself that she looks like nothing more than a smudge in the darkness, a shadow in the scant illumination. James stares at her (at this dim wreck of a woman he once equally feared and admired) for a long moment, not sure what to do, what to say. He thinks she is asleep, thinks that maybe she never went to her room at all. Quickly, almost afraid of what he will see, he flicks a glance to Clark’s door, then breathes out a sigh of relief when he sees that the light’s off. That means CK’s been out for almost two days straight (and he tries to ignore the tightening feeling in the pit of his stomach at that realization), but he’s been out for longer before and it’s not like there’s anything James can say to bring him back. Besides, Lois isn’t asleep (she moves enough to let the light of the arriving elevator gleam in minute reflections off the dim pools of her eyes), and James has enough to worry about without adding more (without envisioning Clark’s broken heart when Lois inevitably leaves).
“Lois?” he asks, and after a slight hesitation, he abandons the waiting elevator and moves to where he can get a better view of her (ignores the time ticking away the minutes he has left to make it to the Foundation on its East Coast time and conduct all his business before the Board leaves for the evening).
She shifts again, and James feels his breath catch in his throat at both the sight of the tears on her cheeks and the sound of her rasping, painful voice. “You were right,” she says. Numbly. Dimly. As if it doesn’t matter at all (except the fragility of her admission makes it matter so much that James is frozen in place).
“Right about what?” he asks cautiously.
He knew even before he went to meet her that letting Lois come here was a mistake. He knew he should ignore the ads, the searches being done on him, the letters sent to his past addresses (the begging pleas from a proud woman). But…but she’s Lois Lane, and he’s never really been able to stand up to her or tell her no (never been able to stop admiring her, even if just with some hidden part of him, long enough to give up on her), so he went and he told CK she wanted to see him, and now here they are. And maybe it’s not only Clark he should have been worrying about--maybe he should be worrying about Lois, too.
“I ruined his life,” Lois says. She stares straight ahead, a gray shadow against the dark suite, a pale silhouette against the lightening sky ahead of her. “I killed him, and I made him think--” Her voice trembles, breaks, vanishes (James’s heart seizes up inside him in mute echo of that tragedy). “Do you know what he thinks?”
A grimace passes across his features, and James gives in to the inevitable and lowers himself to the couch (the Board will have to wait). “It’s not exactly something we chat about over lunch, but…yeah, I’ve picked up on a lot of it.”
She brings her hands up to cover her face (such a childlike gesture that James has to fight the sudden urge to hug her), and she seems to shrink even though he doesn’t know how because she’s already so small. “I made him think he was public property, Jimmy! I made him think he was nothing more than a hobby for a superhero!”
“Yes,” James agrees, ignoring her shocked, wounded look. “You did. You made him think it. Perry made him think it. Every one of us at the Daily Planet made him think it. The entire world lets him think that. And right now, there’s only a very few of us who are trying to let him know that the world is wrong. Clark’s probably the most selfless person I’ve ever met, so it’s not exactly easy trying to convince him to put Clark Kent ahead of the world. But you know what, Lois?”
And he leans forward, lets a little bit of the intensity caged inside him show, lets his cool façade slide a bit to reveal the fierce determination he’s felt ever since finding Clark in a run-down hotel, in hiding, terrified for his parents and running himself ragged trying to keep them both safe while constantly flying to Metropolis to check on Lois (ever since the day he found Superman frayed and desperate and lost). There’s a terrible purpose living inside James now, always, a voracious beast locked up within his ribcage, pacing and rumbling, waiting, always, for its perfect moment, to come out and protect CK and his parents, to make sure they are not harmed and to give them everything they deserve.
The Kents all share a lack of self-regard, a selflessness that borders on all but suicidal, and they will not protect themselves. They will not put their own lives ahead of anyone else’s, or go out of their way to find their own happiness if it means being even slightly selfish. And all that stands between the Kents and the cold, harsh world James has known since running on the streets and then ending up in prison is James himself.
One lone defender to stand between them and the worst life has to offer.
Only him. Only him and the businessman image he projects. Only him and the computer skills he uses, always, to cover their tracks, to make sure they cannot be traced, to reroute Foundation funds to pay for this apartment and their transportation and whatever else they need (and Clark can argue until he’s blue in the face about not wanting to take charity money, but James knows that the Kents deserve it just as much as or more than any other hopeless case). Only him and the optimism he forces himself to show around the Kents, to make Clark smile and stand straighter, to make Martha confident someone is fighting for her son, to make Jonathan rest a bit easier that they have a place to live and a home for his boy to come back to (to make his own personal fears stay confined to the dark shadows of his mind).
Only him in a world full of enemies, but he will not fail. He will not give up. He will not give anything but his best, even when that means facing a woman he once feared, means looking into her wrecked eyes and telling her that she did this to them. Even when it means looking at her and making the desperate, intuitive, half-insane leap that maybe she can be an ally (can stand with him to protect the Kents; can join forces with him so that there will be two defenders where there has been only one).
“You know what, Lois?” he asks softly. Intently. Urgently. “We know that Clark is important. We know the world is wrong. And we can convince CK of it. It’ll take time, and effort, everything we have, and maybe more besides. But I’m pretty sure it’s worth it. So I guess the question is…what will you do to bring Clark Kent back?”
“Anything,” Lois breathes, her eyes locked on him as if she has never seen him before (the way she’s looked at him, briefly, a few times this past week, but never like this, so openly, so fully). “I’ll do anything.”
Something loosens its suffocating hold on his lungs, and James can’t help but grin at her. Proud and relieved but still wary (because for Lois Lane, anything is a broad spectrum). “Then, Lois, welcome to the family.”
Of course, it won’t be as easy as that. He knows that (if there’s one thing he’s learned in the past six months, it’s that nothing ever comes easy), but it feels good to know he doesn’t have to worry so much about Lois’s presence. He’s beginning to think that she doesn’t realize her own reason for coming (has begun to accept that she has no idea why she cannot forget Clark Kent), and yet, it doesn’t really matter. He’s pretty sure she won’t betray their location to anyone, accidentally or otherwise, and so all that’s left is to worry what she’ll do to CK’s all-too-vulnerable heart before she heads back to Metropolis, and that isn’t entirely James’s business (he’ll still worry, but from afar).
He’s desperately late, but he takes the time to nudge Lois toward her bedroom, to extract a promise from her that she’ll sleep (to wonder what exactly happened last night, or how long CK was here, talking alone with her, when James and the Kents both have been doing their best to make sure Clark doesn’t have to face her alone). She goes too easily (the fight drained out of her), but James doesn’t have the time or the energy to worry about her, not right now. Later, when he’s waiting for his plane to reach Metropolis, he can think back on the bruises under her eyes, the boniness of her shoulder under his hand, the brokenness to her voice. But right now, he’s got to get to the airport before the day’s a total loss.
The sun’s risen by the time he makes it through traffic to the airport where his latest jet is chartered. Next time he’ll have to leave a day before his meetings are scheduled since he’ll have to go to a different city (probably a different state, too) to catch a flight. Or, he thinks with the beginnings of a grin as he spots a blur of red and blue descending toward him, he could just catch a ride with his friend.
“Hey, CK!” he calls out with a wave as Superman lands in front of him. He doesn’t bother to look around to make sure no one’s looking; Clark knows better than to land and talk to him where anyone can see them. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad,” Clark says, and James relaxes a bit when Clark smiles. A real smile. So, James thinks, no bad rescues and no over-the-top accusations. He’s glad. After the past couple weeks (after the days of his friend looking so tired and drawn and hurt; after weeks of watching Clark get more and more despondent, to the point where James had almost talked to a few doctor friends of his), it’s more than good to see Clark with a smile. He needs the rescues, James thinks yet again. Needs the assurance that he is helping.
But Superman needs Clark Kent, too (needs the assurance that he is human), and that’s only one of the reasons James needs to get to Metropolis.
“I actually came to see if you wanted a ride,” Clark adds, and he grins at James’s blatant sigh of relief. “I noticed your plane wasn’t gone yet, and I thought you’d wanted to be in Metropolis by two their time.”
“I’m sure you hear this all the time,” James says cheekily, “but you are a lifesaver. I’m running about half an hour late already, and I have a full day planned.”
“Glad to help,” Clark says, and he steps forward.
In the beginning, Clark would carry James like he did anyone else, scooped up in his arms like a bride being carried over the threshold (and even lately, during a few of their close calls when people with less-than-sterling qualities have come for James, Clark’s scooped him up that way to get him to safety), but James has finally managed to convince him that is just not a manly way to be carried. Now, James slings an arm over Clark’s shoulder, Clark slings his own arm around James’s back, and they fly side by side. It’s more comfortable for James, and if it isn’t for Clark, he’s never mentioned it.
“Anything special going on?” James asks, fighting to keep his voice casual as the ground disappears into a smudgy panorama beneath his feet.
Clark shrugs, making James tighten his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “Not particularly. We should probably talk about what the Foundation’s stance is on Superman’s recent disappearance.”
“Nothing.” James firms his chin, looks straight ahead, anything to avoid looking into Clark’s eyes and letting his friend see the pity swimming there. “We say nothing and let them realize that Superman has his own life and sometimes that has to take precedence.”
Clark’s silence is (as always; as proven so ably these past months) as eloquent as another man’s rant. He does not, James knows, think that his life should ever take precedence over anyone he can help. But that is why James is here. That is why James is heading toward a meeting Clark only thinks he knows the reason for.
“Don’t worry, CK.” James manages a clumsy pat to Clark’s shoulder. “Trust me, all right?”
He wishes Clark would joke back. Wishes he would roll his eyes and make a snarky comment. But that is what Clark would do, and Clark is hidden, half-submerged beneath the smothering, suffocating weight of his own preconceptions about what is left to him and what has been stolen from him. So all he does is nod and say, “You know I do. Do you think this meeting will produce results?”
“I hope so,” James says, and wishes he had a better answer, but he doesn’t (not if he doesn’t want to lie). “But I promise, CK, I’m doing everything I can.”
“I know. I just…I want them to be safe. No matter what.”
“They will be,” James promises (and it’s a stupid promise with absolutely nothing behind it, but he makes it anyway because he already made it to himself that first day after finding Clark on the run with his parents, and makes it anew every single day, when he puts on a suit and knots a tie around his neck). “I won’t let anything happen to Mr. and Mrs. K--if they weren’t around, I’d starve!”
The answering smile that transforms Superman’s face into something more closely resembling the Superman of old (the Superman worn around the softened contours and rounded edges of Clark Kent) is slow, but it’s real, and that’s good enough for James.
He thinks that will be it (conversation with Clark is brief and rare nowadays, snatched between rescues or fly-offs to the rejuvenating sun), but Clark surprises him by slowing down just as the cityscape of Metropolis comes into view. Not that James looks too closely; flying is great in theory, but just a bit too harrying in practice.
“James,” Clark says, almost warily. “I…I picked up a few more paper trails on the Boss, and they all very conclusively lead to Luthor. With the statements I have from Phillip Manning and Toni Taylor, I think I’m ready to take it to Henderson.”
James takes a breath, another, and then another, because this is important (this means a lot to the remnants of CK, a quest left over from before the end of everything) and he doesn’t want to blow this (doesn’t want to undermine this last bit of Clark Kent confidence displayed in Superman). “Okay,” he finally says. “You’re the investigator; if you say you have enough, I believe you. But if Superman swoops in to talk to a New Troy inspector, you can bet the media will be swarming. Let me take a couple days and get a meeting ironed out somewhere quiet. If Luthor’s as dangerous or as sneaky as you say, the extra precautions can’t hurt.”
“All right,” Clark agrees. “But I want this all taken care of before Lois goes back.”
James frowns. “I thought you said Luthor wasn’t bothering her anymore.”
“He’s not bothering her, but he is following her. He knows she flew to Coast City, though he doesn’t know exactly where she is now, or what she’s doing. He had a hard time keeping up with her on her cross-country foray.” Clark pauses and gives James a wry smile. “Really, James, just how long did you intend to make her chase you?”
“I had to see that she was serious, didn’t I?” James laughs, and pretends he doesn’t notice that he laughs alone. “So, I’ll make sure the meeting is soon, just to make sure Lois isn’t around. You really think Luthor would go after her?”
“I think that when he realizes he’s been had, he’ll go after whatever leverage he can get his hands on. Which is why I intend to stop him, before he can hurt anyone else.” Clark’s voice is hard, implacable. Stern and impenetrable, as unyielding as the world believes Superman to be. And yet, James has heard it turn this steel-like only when Clark Kent speaks of Lex Luthor. He doesn’t know what caused the enmity and hasn’t ever felt the need to ask, but he’d have to be blind and stupid to miss just how badly Clark burns to take down this millionaire.
A determination shared equally with Superman, as if here, finally, the two identities can mesh and merge and mingle.
Sometimes it’s seemed Luthor is the only thing driving Clark outside of the Suit, the only topic that can pause Superman long enough for the reporter to peek through the seams (and secretly, deep down, it has made James glad, to have this link back to the CK he admired so much he followed him out of one life and into another). But…but if this quest is about to come to an end (if Clark is about to see justice served for at least a few crimes committed against the reporter and man he used to be), then what will happen next? What will, in the coming weeks and months, supersede Superman and wake up CK and remind them all of the man they’ve sacrificed so much for?
A problem for later. For another day when he does not have a special meeting planned without the Board’s knowledge and a full afternoon with the Board itself.
“I’ll have a time for you by tomorrow,” James promises smoothly. Easily. Another quick promise. Another rash statement. But James can’t help it. Clark deserves everything, and receives so little, and so James finds himself trying to get him everything he possibly can, no matter how many suits and ties he has to wear. No matter how many jets he has to charter or how many early mornings he has to face or how many times he has to move in a year. None of that matters, not next to what he wants to do for Clark.
And all because of a single Godzilla doll.
Funny. Even after all this time, all that has happened between, it takes only the slightest memory of that absurd doll with its red trunks and sloppy red S painted across its chest to take James straight back to that moment. Laughing at the doll. Hiding his amused smile from the furious and…aromatic…Lois. And then realizing what that Godzilla doll meant. Looking up to see Clark smiling innocently and reaching out a daring hand to brush across Lois’s cheek (teaching her a lesson).
That’s all it had taken to make Jimmy (the boy he’d once been; the young man CK had befriended and encouraged and believed in; the idealistic could-have-been that had been killed just as surely as Clark had been, struck down before he could become as jaded and cynical as the rest of the Daily Planet employees) realize that bravery could sometimes come in small but explosive forms. That taking a stand and fighting for the right things were as noble and heroic as breaking through bank vaults and taking down prize fighters. That he could stand up to his own Lois Lane (and maybe Perry White wasn’t quite as volatile or as vindictive as Lois, but he was scary enough anyway) because Clark had showed him how.
And that Godzilla doll (a casual conversation between himself and Clark; throwaway words he’d never thought would come to fruition because no one ever listened to him…but Clark had) was all it had taken to make Jimmy hand in his resignation. Walk out of the only place he’d ever wanted to work, away from the people he’d made into a pseudo-family. Follow a cold, hard trail after a man he still admires and a hero he can’t stop trying to protect. Get up far too early in the morning and dress in business suits and meet with corporate executives and spend his life on the run.
Because Clark had listened, and Clark had cared (about Jimmy’s ideas, and Jimmy’s troubles with Perry, and Jimmy’s life; about Jimmy, before he became James), and James wants to do the same for Clark.
Not for Superman (or not only Superman).
But Clark Kent. CK. The reporter who wanted to make a difference. The man who wanted to help. The son who wanted to make his parents proud. The friend who wanted to be there.
The person who simply disappeared so few months ago.
He wants to listen to Clark and care and try to make his casual conversation matter. But it’s hard when Clark has gone so silent. All he has now is Superman (harrowing and draining and so destructive that sometimes James wonders if maybe the superhero doesn’t do more harm than good), and this quest against Luthor (and if that’s coming to an end, then that’s one less thing to keep Clark here, connected and involved).
One Godzilla doll, and sometimes James wonders what would be different now if Clark hadn’t sent Lois on that wild-Godzilla-chase. He wonders if he would have had the courage to tell Perry what he thought about that fateful article. Wonders if he would have the family he does now or if both he and the Kents would be alone, but separately. Wonders if there’d be a Superman at all, or a world for that matter, in the wake of Nightfall.
It makes him wonder, but things are what they are (and no amount of wishing or praying or bargaining can change them; he’s already tried), and all they can do is go forward. Even if he is alone. Even if he’s constantly afraid that his juggling act just isn’t enough.
Clark drops him off a few blocks from the Foundation, down an empty street, and looks at him so earnestly (so hopefully, this little bit of hope he still allows himself to have). And James gives him a solemn nod (a sober promise) and waves him off, and then he takes his time walking toward the high-rise that houses the largest charity organization in the world (he’s gone from being hopelessly late to being shamefully early; it’ll give him time to prepare a meeting between Superman and Henderson). The walk in through the back doors by way of an underground alley only a few people know about is one he’s taken countless times, the elevator so familiar he can see it in his sleep (and often does, unfortunately), but that gives him the time he needs to compose what he plans to say to his special committee.
Or rather, Clark’s special committee--with one important distinction.
“Find a way to keep my parents safe no matter what happens to me,” Clark had asked him, just before hurling himself up into space to stop a meteor so big James doesn’t think he can fully comprehend it (and he chooses not to spend too much time thinking about it; seeing Clark flying up into space alone and then finding him passed out in his bedroom, tattered and torn, is too much for him already).
A simple enough task in theory (though the Secret Service would be a better solution than any James can come up with), but James has chosen to interpret it slightly differently.
CK wants his parents safe no matter what, and obviously the best way to keep them safe is to bring Clark Kent back from his imprisonment behind the red cape.
To resurrect Clark Kent as a whole. As an individual. As a mask.
As a man.
“How’s it going?” James asks without preamble as soon as he’s through the door. He’s assembled only the most loyal, the brightest, the ones who call Superman Mr. Kent (the ones he’s vetted through a dozen different means and methods in the hopes none of them will betray him), but they’re absentminded and prone to distraction; he’s learned it’s best to approach them directly, startle them into straight answers, and then exit before they can regain their composure.
“Mr. Olsen!” Dr. Klein is the first to stand, always the most eager, the most frenetic. Dr. Hamilton is slower and more eccentric, while Dr. Irons is the voice of calm reason; and Dr. Faulkner, though hot-tempered, brings a touch of much-needed patience to the group. None are, on their own, what James would call his first choice, not when he’s looking for a miracle, but they are what he has and they are fiercely devoted to Superman and that is good enough (and all he can do besides).
“James, we weren’t expecting you for a while more.” Dr. Irons nonetheless pulls out a chair from around the table strewn with blueprints, scribbled outlines, random doodles, and a myriad of other things James doesn’t examine too closely.
He shrugs and sits down, loosening his tie so that it doesn’t feel nearly so constricting in the close, dark room. “Change of plans. Please tell me you’ve thought of something.”
Dr. Faulkner glances at the others before giving a soft shrug. “I don’t know, James. Maybe if we’d tried coming up with something just after the reveal… As it is, it’s very likely that too much time has passed for any solution to be viable. The fact that Superman is Clark Kent is too firmly entrenched in the public consciousness.”
“I know,” James says, trying not to show his frustration (his desperate, ferocious desire to fix this), “but there’s got to be something we can do or say to explain it away. I mean, Superman having the persona of an ordinary man who grew up in Kansas--a super-powered being contained by the morals of a really good man--would ordinarily be too fantastical for belief! The tabloids are always coming out with ‘proof’ that the whole thing is a hoax. Conspiracy theorists constantly emerge with new ways it could all be a sham. Surely there’s something in all their doubts that we can use!”
“That’s exactly our problem.” Dr. Hamilton taps his fingers over the surface of the cluttered table, his shock of hair glinting under the fluorescent lights. “No matter what we say or do, there will always be people who won’t buy it, who will insist that Clark Kent and Superman are the same.”
“I’m not worried about the fringe elements.” James takes a deep breath. It’s always so hard to put this into words, to dare to consign his fragile hope to the confines of harsh reality where it can be so easily flattened. “I just want to find a way for Clark Kent to come back. For him to be able to have a life, a job, a walk down a street without being mobbed. Now, surely you’ve come up with something?”
There’s a long silence (his hopes crumbling a tick of the clock at a time) before Dr. Klein finally scoots forward to perch on the edge of his stool, shoved up against a counter holding various scientific equipment familiar from James’s once-frequent visits to STAR Labs. “We may have a way,” the scientist says. “It’s risky, and definitely not foolproof, but it’s about the only thing we can come up with.”
“Something?” Every nerve in James’s body is set suddenly alight. “That’s far more than we’ve had up until now. What is it?”
The group of brains all exchange looks, and then they turn, agitatedly and intently, back to James.
It’s not hope he’s feeling. Not exactly. But it’s the closest thing to it he’s felt in almost four months, and suddenly his suit jacket doesn’t feel nearly so constricting.
*
