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That Old Gang Of Mine: Jimmy Olsen
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“You killed CK!” The words burst from his mouth without any conscious direction, as little an action of his own as the way he’s pushed back into the crowd. It’s a fact. A truth. The grim reality he woke up to. The glaring emptiness he’s faced all day where once there was a friend who smiled and laughed and helped. They’re as obvious and unnecessary as saying air is for breathing or Lois never gives up.

The next words, however, are all him, loud and strident, more for everyone else in the room instead of himself.

“This is the guy who killed Clark!”

And Jimmy’s never felt like this before. He knows what it is without question, despite its newness--it’s fury. It’s rage and wrath and a thirst for vengeance that might even rival Perry’s temper.

He’s angry. So angry he can hardly see straight. How dare this thug come into the newsroom where Clark coaxed smiles out of Lois and cajoled Perry to stillness. Where he’d walked at Jimmy’s side and listened to his problems as if he were more than just the office lackey. Where they’d been a family. How dare Clyde Barrows and his friends think they could just stroll in here and tear what was left of Jimmy’s world down around him?

He killed Clark. Jimmy had read the police report. Clark was just trying to protect Lois. He was just doing what was natural to him--the right thing. He was being as good as always, and Jimmy knew Clark (the past tense of it still tears him up inside, like a red-hot coal sitting in his stomach and slowly burning everything else away), there was no one gentler or more mild-mannered, no one who was less offensive.

And this outdated criminal just shot him. Not once, not twice, but three times. And Jimmy hasn’t been able to close his eyes since he got the call from Perry without seeing his friend, so young and so undeserving, lying in a pool of blood. He hasn’t been able to go two minutes without imagining Clark--CK, and it still doesn’t seem possible, because it’s just so wrong, so unfair--being thrown out of a car like trash. Like yesterday’s newspapers. Lying forgotten and abandoned and cold in some dirty, grungy alley (and Jimmy once tracked down Superman’s body, or at least his cape, so why can’t he seem to do the same for CK?).

And it’s all this man’s--this monster’s--fault.

So, yeah, Jimmy knows what he’s doing. There are a lot of these clones, and they have a lot of guns, and Jimmy’s just a stupid kid (except with CK; he never looked at Jimmy like that, always treated him like an equal), but he doesn’t care.

He wants them all to know. Everyone at this party who were just drinking toasts to a man they saw every day for the past year and a half. The man they all knew because he always had a smile and friendly greeting and listening ear for them all. He wants them all to know that it is this man, right here, all bluster and bullets and a heart of black, who is responsible for taking Clark away from them all. He wants them all to surge forward and make him pay for what he stole from them.

A gun has never seemed so inconsequential. Numbers have never mattered less. All that matters is that Clark was there every day without fail…until now. Until three bullets. Until Clyde Barrows.

Red hazes Jimmy’s vision, and he wonders: if Jimmy’s life can be made so much worse by this one man, then maybe Jimmy can make Clyde’s life worse, too. It’s only one second, a tiny window of opportunity afforded by Superman’s timely arrival (and Jimmy loves the superhero, really he does, but where was he when CK needed him?), and scary too.

Jimmy doesn’t care. He takes it. He strikes. He feels fierce, savage satisfaction flood him when Clyde hits the floor. (He still feels cold and dark and alone, because Clark is still gone.)

For Clark. For CK.

For his friend.

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