The Least Useful Superpowerby mrsMxyzptlk
Superman silently opened the window and flew into the room, much to Lois' relief and horror.
"What are you doing here!? You know they have kryptonite!" she hissed from the corner of the small, locked room, where she was tied to a chair next to a bomb.
"Even so, I can't just leave you here," he replied as he made quick work of her bonds.
"They'll be back any second, and they've been carrying the kryptonite on them. Let's get out of here!"
"We can't go yet; I have to disable the bomb," Superman said matter-of-factly. He set to work studying the bomb with his x-ray vision.
"Forget about the bomb! It's not on a timer, and it's not rigged to blow. Let's go!"
"But it
is rigged to trip a timer if they don't check in every half hour." He looked up at her briefly and said, "Give me some credit. I
did case the place before I flew in." He returned his attention to the bomb and started removing a panel on the side.
Lois was infuriated at his stubbornness and terrified when she heard voices in the corridor. "Come on!" she hissed, and she grabbed his arm, trying in vain to pull him towards the window. He shook her off.
"Don't worry. I've got the situation in hand," he muttered. Lois scoffed and threw up her hands in frustration.
The doorknob rattled and started to turn. Superman raised his head and gazed in the direction of the door with an intent look on his face. Lois noticed that, though his mouth was closed, his neck muscles were moving as though he were speaking. She wondered what he was thinking just sitting there instead of getting them out of danger while the enemy was so near. Loud shouts rang through the corridor outside, and the doorknob returned to its normal position. Whoever had been coming in seemed to have left. Superman gave the door a satisfied look, then returned to his task. Moments later, he was finished disarming the bomb. He turned to Lois, silently picked her up, and flew out the still-open window.
Once they were well away from the building, she scathingly asked, "Cutting it a bit close, don't you think?"
He frowned at her, a bit offended, and said, "What are you talking about? I had everything under control, and I got you out just fine."
"'Just fine'? Someone was about to open the door, who probably had kryptonite, and we were just lucky that they got distracted by something!"
"Luck. Sure. If that makes you feel better."
"Well, if it wasn't luck," Lois asked in exasperation, "what was it?"
"Super-ventriloquism," Superman muttered.
"Super-what?!"
"Super-ventriloquism," he repeated louder.
"What on Earth is
super-ventriloquism?"
Superman glanced at her in his arms, then faced forward again as he explained, "I can kind of throw my voice. I can make it sound like my voice is coming from somewhere else."
"So you yelled something out in the hall from inside the bomb room," she stated.
"Exactly."
Lois pulled her hands from behind Superman's neck, grabbed his cheeks, and turned his face so he was looking at her. "
That's not how ventriloquism works!" she yelled with a laugh.
He gently shook his face free of her hands, and she replaced them behind his neck. "Do you have a better name for it?" he asked with a smile.
"That's not the point!" she said defiantly. Superman laughed. "That sounds like the single most useless superpower ever."
They arrived at her apartment window, and as he flew them through into her apartment, he said, "You'd be surprised. It's more useful than you'd think."
As he lowered her to her feet, Lois scoffed, "I'd have to see that to believe it."
Superman suddenly turned toward the door as though he heard something, and as Lois looked at the door to see what he was looking at, she heard Clark call from the hallway, "Come on, Lois, please be home! I've already looked everywhere else, and if you're not here..." he trailed off.
Superman turned back to Lois and said, "It sounds like Clark is here." He gave a wry smile. "I'll leave you in good hands, then. I've got to be going."
Superman strode toward the window, and as he left, Lois heard Clark call her name again. She rolled her eyes and walked to the door as he gave an impatient knock. She threw the door open and asked, exasperated, "Geez, Clark, how long have you been knocking?"
Clark followed her into her apartment, closing the door behind him. Frantically, he exclaimed, "I'm glad I found you! Where have you been? I've been looking for you everywhere! Thank goodness you're home! When you left the office, I thought you had gone out looking for those gangsters. I found out they've been hoarding weapons and bomb components! If they had caught you, you'd have been a goner!"
"Let me get this straight. You found out what that gang has been up to, and instead of following up on it, you wasted your time chasing around looking for me?"
"I wanted to make sure you were safe," Clark said defensively.
"By knocking on my door for who knows how long when I obviously wasn't home?" Lois threw up her hands and stalked over to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
"I wasn't knocking
that long," Clark said with a roll of his eyes and followed her into the kitchen. "I got here just a minute before you opened the door." Lois snorted in disbelief and took a sip. "Really."
"Sure, Clark."
"And what do you mean you weren't here when I got here? How did you get home then, climb in through the window?" he asked sarcastically.
Lois put down her glass and poked him in the chest. "Yes!" she exclaimed. "While
some of us," she poked him again, "were running around for no reason trying to be unnecessarily overprotective,
I tracked down the gangsters in their hideout and got proof of their activities." She pulled a heretofore unnoticed sheaf of papers out of her shirt, brandished it at him, and slapped it onto the counter. "Now we can write the story and go to the police."
"In that order, I'm sure," Clark muttered.
Lois continued, "Sure, there was a minor altercation with a henchman or two, but I'm fine. Superman got me out."
Clark let out a breath in a whoosh. "Superman, huh? Thank goodness here was there. But what if he hadn't gotten to you in time? You could have been killed!"
"Clark, calm down. You're always second-guessing Superman. You've got to give him more credit. He knows what he's doing, and I'm fine. He dismantled the bomb and got me out with no problems."
Clark chuckled, "Of course."
Lois looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully and said, "He was acting a little odd, though. I think he was trying to be funny."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, he claimed that he had a new superpower that I didn't know about."
"A new superpower? That's pretty big news. Is that going to go in your article?"
Lois looked at him and cocked her head to the side, considering. "No, that would be pointless. The power is pretty useless in general, despite what happened today."
"Are you sure it's completely useless?" Clark asked, amused.
"I thought he was going to try to prove that it was useful, but then you showed up and he didn't bother."
"Maybe he just had somewhere else to be." Clark smiled at her.
Lois smiled back. "Yeah," she said, "I'll get him to prove it to me some other time."
Clark's smile turned into a full-on grin. "I'm sure you will."
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