Previous Fic in Series: Dumped
Series ToC -----
22:30
174 Finger St W Bludhaven
Possible K
*****
“What does it mean?” Clark had asked her, shifting their youngest to one arm and awkwardly adjusting his glasses. Sometimes, he claimed that wearing them felt right and natural, as if he could subconsciously remember always having them on. Other times, he seemed to regard them as some kind of prank she and his parents were playing on him, and they would have to explain the whole Clark/Superman thing again.
Lois said nothing as she stared at the cheap burner phone he had found vibrating in their nightstand. He had assumed it was hers. He might not remember it yet, but she would certainly never forget it, or what his having it had led to.
22:30.
174 Finger St W Bludhaven.
Possible K.
That they would have the gall…! Lois inhaled deeply through her nose. Her blood felt hot in her veins. If it weren’t for the baby in Clark’s arms and the two five-year-olds curiously looking up at her from their play-mat on the floor, she might have cut loose with a profanity-laden tirade against the people who had given him both this phone and, by the look of it, another invitation to suicide since the last one clearly hadn’t worked.
“Lois?” Clark sounded worried.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, and her voice sounded unnaturally calm even to her own ears. She put the phone in her pocket, resisting the urge to smash it.
*****
Bludhaven was two hours away by car. Of course, if Clark could remember how to fly, he could have made it here in seconds. No doubt the sender of the message believed they weren’t inconveniencing him in the slightest every time they had called him away… Lois parked behind a boarded up shop and made her way down the darkened streets on foot.
The address belonged to a scrapyard. Lois eyed the barbed wire atop the rusty, chain-link fence, then wriggled through the large gap where the fencing hung loosely from the post. Soft voices echoed through the maze of stacked cars and heaps of junk. She moved towards them slowly, crouching behind the towers of twisted metal and shattered glass, only half-interested in anything they were saying.
A sharp clang stilled the conversation, and Lois ducked behind the shell of an old minivan as the thunderous report of gunfire drowned out the sudden shouting. Eventually, the chaos died down enough for her to make out the meaty thump of a body being slammed against something hard, and one of the distant stacks of automobiles seemed to wobble slightly.
Stillness reigned.
Lois crept forward.
“Are you looking for something?” a voice rumbled from behind her.
Lois gave an involuntary start, then whirled around. No one was there. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as a nearby shadow moved.
“If you have business with Giovanni--" the voice began.
“I have business with YOU!” Lois snapped, rage once again surging to the fore.
A dark figure stepped in front of her, its pointed ears and glowing eyes looking almost demonic until her eyes adjusted enough to see the human chin below the mask. “With me?” he echoed, his tone at once skeptical and condescending.
Lois reached into her bag and pulled out the phone, turning it so that he could read the infuriating message on its screen. If there were any surprise in his expression, the mask hid it well. “He’s not coming,” she hissed.
The Batman tilted his head, looking her over. “I…see.”
“Do you really?!” she snapped, waving the phone in his stupid, vigilante face. “Because it must take an amazing amount of obliviousness to send someone out to near-certain death, lose all contact and not hear from him in weeks, and then text him to see if he wants to come play with Kryptonite!” Her voice rang out through the quiet of the junkyard. “Do you people not have any sense, or do you just not care?!”
For a moment, he was silent. “It was a test,” he replied. “If he were really…gone…he wouldn’t answer.”
Lois snorted. “Well, he’s not answering! He’s in no condition to answer, and you can just tell the rest of your little club that he might never answer again!” She threw the phone down hard. It hit the concrete with a satisfying crack, scattering pieces of plastic every which way. The tears she'd held in check for the past few weeks threatened to come to the fore, but she pushed them down: not one person had seen her cry since the day she’d found her husband wandering through a city dump, confused and traumatized and unable to remember his own name. This masked clod would not get the privilege.
“I'm sorry,” he said, softly. It wasn’t fair, really, just how soft his voice was and how sincere he sounded. “How is he?”
She glared at him. “If you’re hoping for Superman--"
“I’m not,” he said quietly. “I just…” He shifted, looking somewhat uncomfortable. “Please. How is he?”
Her breath hitched traitorously. It would serve him right to be left in the dark. She had said her piece, so now she could just go back to her car and return to the mess of helpless confusion that her life had become. Instead, her shoulders slumped. “H-he…he remembers some things…fragments….” She swallowed. “He knows that we’re together, but…so much is gone.”
A hot tear leaked out. Lois cursed to herself and brushed it away, but more took its place. “W-we’ve been through this before,” she admitted, “But this isn’t like last time. The pieces he remembers seem to come and go; I never know what’s sticking. This might…this might be permanent.”
A gloved hand came to rest on her shoulder. “I know it’s a cold comfort, but he saved billions of lives.”
She nodded mutely, staring down at the shattered pieces of the phone. She idly kicked them: nothing but scraps.
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