Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
Here Part 3 Part 4*****************
The Interview Date*****************
Clark headed back to the office. He had eaten his dinner. He had tried to bide his time, knowing that Lois was out with that slimeball Luthor.
They had a story to write. He should be at the Planet writing it at that very moment, and so should Lois. Even though
he knew they were destined to be together, he also knew that they would never be together if he kept on antagonizing her. Doing so just pushed her towards men like Luthor. It was frustrating… waiting... chancing that she would fall for him, like he had for her. Until then, he had to let her live her life and watch as she dated other men.
Dammit!
They were supposed to be together. Why couldn’t she see that as clearly as he could?
That was what was extremely frustrating.
There had been a minute that afternoon when he had sensed her attraction to him: a slight flushness to her face, her elevated heartbeat, the way she smiled when she agreed to dinner. Then she remembered her “interview” with Luthor and she seemed almost relieved that she had to break their dinner plans.
Why? Clark couldn’t understand it.
A Bentley pulled up across the street in front of a brownstone apartment building and Clark
knew that was Luthor’s car. He hadn’t even realized he was walking down Lois’ street. How had he known that Lois was in
that particular car? He wondered as he watched her step out, her hand in Luthor’s.
Clark slipped into the shadows of the alley, so she wouldn’t see him and think he was stalking her. He wanted to remember how beautiful she looked with her hair curled and wearing that lacy dress. He closed his eyes a moment instead of watching her walk up her front stoop with that man. With his eyes closed, it struck Clark what had made him know Lois had been in that car: her heartbeat.
It was all he could hear. Oh, God! He had only ever memorized three other… okay, four if he counted Lana’s, which he technically should. Although, he had in those last few months only listened for her heartbeat to avoid her, he reluctantly admitted to himself. That thought was unfair to Lana, and he knew it. He
had loved her at one point, or what he had thought was love, until he had met Lois and discovered what real love was. The other heartbeats he knew by memory were his mom’s, his dad’s, and Rachel Harris’, his best friend in high school.
He had never realized he had sought out Lois’ heartbeat – at least not in this dimension. He had never been able to focus so strongly on one heartbeat before where it caused all the other sounds to fade away. He was in trouble, big trouble. He already loved this Lois more than that other Lois, the one who had made him Superman. How was he going to stay in control of himself with his emotions bumping around inside his body like super-charged electrons?
His eyes flashed open. They were inside. Clark had missed Lois and Luthor going inside, so enraptured he had been with the sound of her heart. He floated up, seeking out which apartment might be hers.
He heard a door slam and Lois’ grunt of annoyance. He hovered just outside her two floor-to-ceiling windows, listening in anticipation.
“How was your date?” another woman’s voice asked Lois.
Clark hadn’t known that Lois had a roommate.
He heard Lois throw down her purse. “It wasn’t a
date, Lucy; it was supposed to be an interview!” She growled again. “I hate him. I hate him! I. Hate. Him!”
The superhero hardly needed his abilities to float at that moment. Lois
hated Lex Luthor. She had seen past the image Luthor projected to the jerk underneath.
“Really?” Lucy sounded surprised. “I have always heard that he was one of the most charming men in America.”
“Who? Oh, Lex. No, he’s okay. I’m talking about Clark,” Lois said absently. “Do you know what he called me? A snob. A snob! Me! Am I a snob?”
Lucy wisely ignored this question. “Who is Clark?”
‘He’s the man currently picking himself off the crushed pavement,’ Clark thought, dusting himself off.
“Clark Kent. Some nobody that Perry hired and then stuck me with. Ooooh, how I hate him!” Lois roared.
Clark had heard enough. Lois hated him. With a grimace of pain from his broken heart and shattered ego, he stuck one fist into the air and disappeared into the clouds.
*
Lucy sat down opposite her sister. “Do you, now? Why’s that?”
“Do you know what he said to me before I came home to get ready to meet Lex?” Lois yelled.
Her sister smiled and placed her fingers together. “Clark?”
“Yes,
Clark! He said that when
he had invited me to dinner that he hadn’t expected to sleep with me, but could I say the same of
Lex?” Lois raised her hands at the obviousness of her hatred for Chuck.
Lucy’s jaw fell open.
“Yeah, I
know!” Lois agreed with her.
Her sister snapped her mouth shut before cautiously asking, “Clark asked you out?”
Lois flicked that information out of the air with the back of her hand for its unimportance. “Once or twice.”
“Is that so? What does he look like?” Lucy inquired.
“Who? Lex?” Lois asked, confused.
“No. Even
I know what Lex Luthor looks like, Lois. I mean Clark,” her sister clarified.
Lois raised her lip in derision. “Clark?” What did it matter what Clark looked like?
“Yes, Clark. Is he good looking?” Lucy probed.
“Clark?” Lois thought this a strange question. She didn’t know quite how to answer it. “You know what he is? He’s unexpected.”
“Unexpected?” echoed Lucy.
“Yes, at first glance you might think he was mousey…Mousey? Can a man be ‘mousey’? No, I don’t think that’s the right word.”
Mousey? Was that like ‘Church Mouse’ or ‘Country Mouse’? ‘Please, Lois! Maybe Clark was right, perhaps you are a snob,’ she thought to herself with a roll of her eyes. No, of course she wasn’t. “Anyway, he’s taller than me and has dark hair and glasses and under his tweed jackets and simple Oxfords and some bland ties, he’s…” Lois paused for lack of the correct word.
Built? Yes.
Sculpted? Yes, again.
Gorgeous? Most definitely.
Lois closed her eyes and pictured Clark answering the door in just his towel and exhaled.
Perfect? Oh, yes! Yes! Yes!
But she wouldn’t say that out loud. She refused to let
that word cross her tongue to describe
Clark. Her lips pursed. “He’s okay.”
Lucy laughed. “How is
that ‘unexpected’?”
“Fine!” Lois admitted in defeat. “Clark’s got the best body I’ve ever seen on a real human being. You just want to reach out and touch those abs and see if they’re real or painted on. Happy, now?”
Lucy’s eyes were wide.
Well, Lois had warned her that Clark was ‘unexpected’.
Her sister swallowed and then spoke hesitantly, “You saw Clark naked?”
“Of course not!” Lois defended herself. “He was wearing a towel…” She gestured wildly. “Around his hips.”
“Oh.” Lucy nodded. “But other than his body…” Her sister breathed that word more than said it. “Is his face ‘mousey’?”
Clark? Mousey? Lois shrugged. “He’s okay.”
Lucy raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Fine,” Lois said with another roll of her eyes. “He’s cute.”
The smile returned to Lucy’s mouth. “But you ‘
hate him’?”
“Yes!”
Finally, Lucy understood. Lois wanted to hug her sister.
“Why?”
Damn! Lucy didn’t understand.
“Why?” Lois grumbled, jumping to her feet and starting to pace. “
Why?! Because throughout my entire interview with Lex Luthor, the one I’ve been trying to get for months now, all I could hear was Clark’s innuendo that Lex Luthor hadn’t wanted an interview, but only wanted to sleep with me! Every word Lex uttered came out as a double entendre. It was a dismal failure of an interview.” She pulled out her notebook from her clutch purse and threw it at her sister. “All those months of hard work trying to get a meeting with the man, and I didn’t get enough for even a sidebar!”
“So, was it a date?” Lucy inquired, leaning back and flipping open Lois’ notebook.
“No!” Lois shouted, wanting nothing more than to throttle her sister. Then she had to admit the truth to herself. “Yes,” she said dejectedly, pressing her lips together in disgust. “It wasn’t supposed to be.” She sat back down in a huff.
Lucy began to read from her sister’s notebook. “Let’s see. His goal in life is ‘the pursuit of pleasure’?” She looked over at Lois skeptically.
Lois crossed her arms and stared up at the ceiling with a pout.
“‘Power is a means, not an end’?” Her sister groaned. “‘My talent in life is not making money or juggling companies, it's character assessment. I sense things about you, possibilities, potentials. You have the intelligence, spirit, and vision to transcend the mundane.’ Wow! He said that about you?”
Lois shrugged, but a hint of smile crossed her lips.
“He
so wanted to sleep with you,” Lucy said with laughter, tossing Lois’ notebook back to her.
Lois caught her notebook and shot her sister with an icy glare. “See what I said about everything sounding like double entendres? Even when he offered me dessert, and I declined, he said, ‘Really? You don’t know what you’re missing.’ It could have been a totally innocent comment, but
no, I can’t think of it like that because of Clark.”
“Or it could have been an invitation to spend the night,” Lucy warned. “Rich men have an expectation to get whatever they want from women, just like on ‘Ivory Tower’.”
“Lucy, this is real life not that stupid soap opera of yours. I was there to interview Lex Luthor for the Daily Planet. He knew that, and I knew that. It wouldn’t have made either one us look good if he hadn’t taken me seriously. He treated me like…” Lois held up her head proudly. “— like any other reporter. I was just putting extra meaning behind his words because of what Clark said.”
“Did Lex kiss you?”
Lois shrugged and pulled a piece of lint off of her sofa.
“He did, didn’t he? Do you think if Clark Kent had interviewed him, he would have driven Clark home, walked Clark to his door, and kissed
his lips? Is
that how Lex treated you like any other reporter?”
“I don’t have to listen to this!” Lois said, standing up and marching towards her room.
“So are you going out with him again?”
“No!” Lois said, slowing her gate and crossing her arms. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“He is the third richest man in the world,” Lucy reminded her. “I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out a way to date him without coming off looking like a snob.”
Lois picked up a decorative throw pillow and did just that: threw the pillow.
Lucy ducked with a laugh. “I think the reason that you ‘hate’ Clark Kent is because he was right about Lex Luthor,” she said to her sister with a point of her finger. “And you don’t want to admit that he was right, and you were wrong.”
“That’s… That’s… That’s preposterous!” Lois sputtered. Hell would freeze over before she admitted to anyone that Clark Kent was right over her.
Her sister grinned. “Either that or you really like Clark Kent.”
Lois came after her with her hands extended. “Take that back!”
Lucy got up with a squeal and ran through the kitchen. “No, I won’t.”
“I do not
like Clark Kent!” Lois roared, pointing her finger at her sister. “He’s opinionated and stubborn and a know-it-all and obstinate. He’s good looking, and we both know that good looking men are nothing but trouble because they’re full of themselves, and he’s too polite, he’s too considerate, and too confident. It’s too suspicious.” She growled. And he was right! “I
hate him!”
“Lois and Clark sitting in a tree…” Lucy sang, dancing into her room. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
***********************
The Messenger Wreckage***********************
“Lois, I’m telling you, Perry’s not going to accept this,” Clark repeated, following her to the Chief’s door the next morning.
“On a first name basis with the boss already?” Lois quipped, her ego still raw from his correct assessment of her “interview” with the illustrious Mr. Luthor.
Clark ignored her barb and continued, “Platt’s dead. Only you and I believe that he was murdered because of this; everyone else thinks he was crazy. Our whole story, our entire theory, came from a man who everyone else thought committed suicide, whom everyone else thought was insane and who was discredited in the scientific community.
Mr. White is going to rake us over the coals for lack of cold, hard facts. We need independent verification of Platt’s theory, and you know it.”
Lois’ hand paused as she was about to knock. Clark was right. Dammit! Perry would kick them out of his office. They didn’t have the proof needed for the article. This was EPRAD, for heaven’s sake, with millions if not billions of dollars at risk, not to mention the lives of the colonists going to the Space Lab Prometheus. They needed the independent facts. There was too much riding on this.
Damn! Lois hated that Chuck had corrected her. She hated even more that he was right again, which made her wrong.
Again. If she knocked on the Chief’s door, she would be proved wrong, which would be even worse than last night because then Kent would have crowing rights over her. She was just thankful that Clark had been professional enough not to ask how her interview had gone.
Perry glanced up and caught her eye, but she turned away.
“Okay, ‘seasoned investigative reporter’,” she said to Clark with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “We need more facts. Dr. Baines is giving us the runaround, maybe because she was involved. Nobody from EPRAD will share the time of day with us. The lives of all the colonists depend on us.” She crossed her arms. “What’s our next move?”
This was a test to see if Clark had the right stuff. Lois already knew what
her next move would be. If he was the genius he claimed to be, she wondered if he had what it took to get the story. How much would he be willing to risk to get this story? His face had actually paled when she had spoken about the colonists. He cared too much, that was obvious. He would never make it in this business. Too bad. She hoped the revolving door didn’t hit his cute butt on the way out.
Clark held up a finger. “I have an idea,” he told her, and then jogged out of the office without telling her what his ‘idea’ was.
Lois shook her head and threw up her hands. Did he really think she was going to wait for him, because he held up a finger? Who did he think she was? A dog?
Weak! Yes, she would add that to the list of things that Kent was. And dictatorial. Most definitely!
She marched over to her desk and grabbed her briefcase.
“Where are you going?” Jimmy asked.
“Nowhere!” Lois snapped.
He snatched up his camera. “I’m coming too.”
***
Clark used his extra abilities to get behind the scenes at EPRAD and to take a closer look at the Messenger wreckage. He hated having to leave Lois behind, but to bring her along with him would not only put her at risk, it would also reveal too much. In this universe, it was up to him to keep his identity secret. He wasn’t going to reveal it to ‘the best investigative reporter’ Perry White had ever seen, only to get himself stuck in some lab somewhere to be dissected like a frog.
He would tell Lois someday, when she finally trusted him, but that day wasn’t today. There was something hard about this Lois that wasn’t there in the Lois who had made him Superman. She hated him for some reason, although Clark had no idea why. He sighed. It had really hurt when Clark had heard her say that she hated him. It rankled too. She
had been acting like a snob, but it had been petty and beneath him to mention it. He knew his mom would not have been proud of his behavior, and that thought doubled his guilt.
True, he shouldn’t have taken Lois already having a date with Luthor personally, but there was something about that man that Clark despised, and the thought of those two in a romantic setting, instead of him, lit his fuse. It was his fault for eavesdropping, his mother would have told him. He sighed again. That was probably why he ended up at the Kent Farm the night before, after flying off in huff. He had found a broken fence that needed mending in the west field and took care of it. The physical activity had helped him cool off and think about the matter more logically. He was in love with Lois and knew they were supposed to be together. Clark knew this, she did not. He needed to give her time to get to know him, the real him.
Perhaps it was just that she didn’t trust him, which was okay. He didn’t much trust her either. They were peas in a pod, in that respect.
Trust had never come easily to Clark. As soon as he had thought he had made some ground with one foster family, his emerging powers would set the couch on fire, put his fist through a wall, or freeze the fish tank. After a while, he had just stopped trying to fit in. He had been moved out of Smallville by the age of twelve, having gone through all the available foster families. Then he had made his rounds through Wichita.
By the time he was sixteen, and he had his powers mostly under control, he had been brought back to Smallville. The rumors, after all that time, were still there. No matter how well he had behaved, “problem child” and “trouble maker” were still the code words he heard bounced around with his name, mostly between the principal, the social services workers, and his foster parents.
Finally, more out of pity than anything else, Clark had ended up at the Irig’s. Mr. Irig had been his dad’s best friend, and he was willing to take a shot with Clark for Jonathan’s sake. Although Thomas and Walt – Wayne Irig’s sons – weren’t keen on their foster brother, Clark had been given the rare gift of a normal family for a year, until Mrs. Irig got sick, then he had been shuffled off to the Harris family.
Rachel was a year younger than him and – Clark smiled at this description – his first groupie. She didn’t know about his powers, but in her eyes he could do no wrong. She saw past all the words other people whispered behind his back and saw the man underneath. She was the one who had suggested he write for the school paper.
“
You be in charge of the story, and
you find the truth out before they start pointing their fingers at you. You’ve got a chance to use your invisibility for some good, Clark,” Rachel had told him. “Be the one writing the story instead of being the story for a change.”
She had been right about one thing: Clark Kent was invisible at Smallville High until something went wrong. Then it seemed as if he had been dipped in neon colors.
Rachel was a good friend. She had been there for him through thick and thin during his senior year. She had stood by him when he had been made quarterback when Hank had broken his leg – tipping cows of all things. There wasn’t much to do in Smallville entertainment-wise. There was working on a farm, horse riding, studying, and extracurricular activities such as: drama, music, sports, and school newspaper; then there were the non-sanctioned activities: drinking, drugs, petty crime, sex, and pranks. Some of these activities and crowds overlapped. Hank, and his best buddy Walt, had been in the drinking, sports, sex, and pranks crowds. Clark had been in the studying, working on the farm, school newspaper, sports, and trying to stay out of trouble crowd.
Rachel had stood by him when Lana Lang – head cheerleader – had informed Clark that they would be going to the Homecoming Dance together, because she thought the King and Queen should go together. Then Rachel had gone with Clark to the dance after Lana changed her mind and decided that Walt had a better chance at making King. Lana had been correct. She and Walt had won.
Clark had understood. He hadn’t taken it personally. Actually, he didn’t take any interaction between him and Lana personally; he was so beyond the moon for her.
They, he and Rachel, had enjoyed such a great time, he had made her his go-to date for all the other dances that year, including Senior Prom. It wasn’t like any other girl in Smallville would have agreed to be his date, anyway.
Rumors spread. He had been living with the Harrises after all, but Rachel knew that she and Clark were nothing more than friends – no matter how much it was whispered otherwise. Her parents, and even her twin brother Max, didn’t have as much faith in ‘that Kent boy’ and he had been moved to the Ross’ house. Even so, he and Rachel remained good friends.
Rachel had known about his crush on Lana. Actually, she was the one who had told him that “everybody knew”. Rachel had even warned him that Lana wasn’t good enough for Clark, not that he had listened. He had been a teenage boy after all. Even though he wasn’t from Smallville initially – or Earth at all – he still had the same hormonal urges as the other teenage boys. With Lana, he had never thought with his head until it was too late.
As his date, Rachel had understood when Clark had told her in the middle of prom that he was driving Lana home. Walt had gotten himself drunk; he was having trouble dealing with his mom’s cancer – not that his behavior was excusable, and had tried to press his advantage with his date. Clark had heard her trying to fight him off and intervened, something he rarely had done during those days; it didn’t fit in with his invisible personality.
That had been the first time that Lana had taken a second look at Clark, when he had saved her from Walt and saw the real Clark – not the football star quarterback. He didn’t know who it surprised more when she had seen something worth liking. She had asked him about college; Kansas State had offered him a football scholarship, which, with his finances, he couldn’t turn down. Lana had smiled at him and told him she was glad. She would feel safer knowing her guardian angel would also be at her college watching over her. She had even kissed his cheek before climbing out of the beat-up truck he had borrowed from Mr. Ross.
That night Clark had discovered he could fly.
That night Walt had also crashed his truck while driving back to the Irig farm. Witnesses had said he had been intoxicated and angry. He had broken his leg, dislocated his shoulder, broken his collar bone, and gave himself a concussion bad enough that he blacked out everything from that night. At least, that was what Walt had always said. Clark had always wondered if the punch he had sent across Walt’s face when he went to save Lana had anything to do with the accident as well. The only person who had seen the punch had been Lana and she never mentioned it to the Sheriff.
Walt seemed confused on why he and Lana had broken up. Lana felt no need to clarify matters. Clark was
her guardian angel and she was going to protect him, and keep him to herself at all costs. Yep, he had been over the moon and past the sun for Lana.
Ever since that night Clark had taken extra care never to physically hurt another human again. When that other Clark’s Lois had explained to him the other Superman’s credo, Clark had started to believe that the two of them – the two Clarks from different dimensions that was – indeed had something in common. Superman represented truth and justice. Clark had liked that. He liked that Superman never hurt anyone, refused to use his powers to kill, and that he represented the underdog, the victims, everyone who couldn’t save themselves. Superman was about control, dignity, and self-discipline. Unfortunately, Superman also wore that garish suit. The only thing that made that suit a little bit more tolerable was the knowledge that the other Clark’s mother had designed it. It made him feel closer to his own mom somehow.
Clark refused to change into the Suit to do undercover work, though. Superman wasn’t an investigative reporter, Clark Kent was. Superman represented Truth and Justice, Clark Kent bent the rules to find the truth. The last thing Clark needed was to have Superman brought out into the open while investigating the Messenger explosion. He wasn’t going to let
that happen. Luckily for him, he could use super speed over to the Messenger hangar to examine the wreckage without anyone noticing more than a slight breeze.
After taking a closer look at the wreckage, Clark was glad that they hadn’t taken their findings to Perry. The heating systems were intact and hadn’t been switched out for coolant tanks like Dr. Platt had said that they had been. Now, he just needed someone from EPRAD to officially verify these findings. It didn’t make sense. They had been one hundred percent sure of Dr. Platt’s report. Lois wouldn’t be happy about his findings. He wasn’t sure that he was either.
***
“Okay, people, let’s get this meeting started,” Perry said to the assembled reporters as he entered the conference room. “Sorry about the lateness of the hour; there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day.” He looked around, his eyes resting on Clark for a moment. “Where are Lois and Jimmy?”
Clark shrugged. He didn’t know. When he had returned to the bullpen after his exploration of the Messenger wreckage, Lois and Jimmy had already left. Hadn’t he asked her to wait? He couldn’t remember. Next time he would make sure he had actually said the words ‘Wait here’. At least, wherever Lois was, Jimmy was with her.
He got an odd sense of foreboding. Both Lois and Jimmy had died in his dimension. Clark stood up.
“Going somewhere, Kent?” Perry asked. “The meeting isn’t over.”
“It isn’t like Lois and Jimmy to miss a staff meeting. I’m going to call around,” he said, not knowing if his words were true or not. He didn’t know Lois well enough, but the Jimmy he had known had always made sure he was at every meeting.
“All righty then,” agreed the Chief, then mumbled, “Hell of a way to run a railroad.”
Clark left the conference room not knowing where to go, who to call, or what to do. What he
did know was that he wouldn’t be able to find them sitting at his desk.
In his dimension, he always made his comings and goings from the big windows above the newsroom. No doing that here without unwanted attention. There was always that large window in the store room. He had used that on occasion whenever the weather wasn’t agreeable.
Clark didn’t feel comfortable flying without the blue Suit. He was afraid someone would catch sight of him, or worse a photo, and he hadn’t felt inspired to put on the blue Suit this morning after hearing Lois’ rant the night before about hating him. His hesitancy at the window was the only reason he was still in the store room when Perry entered less than a minute later.
“Um… Kent?” the Chief inquired. “Someone had said that you had come in here. Did you need something?”
Clark felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Perry White had always been a good boss and one of his only friends after Tempus had outted him. Clark hated lying to him. Even though his words were true, it still felt like a lie. “No, sir, not really.” Now, he knew why it felt like a lie; he
did need something: privacy.
“Uh-huh,” Perry said with confusion and a raised brow. “Um… Are you coming out of the closet?”
Clark knew the Chief meant literally, but he couldn’t help answering, “I hope not, sir,” in reference to his secret identity as Superman.
His boss actually looked dumbfounded by this response. “You’re
not leaving the closet?”
Clark sat down on the windowsill and remarked, “I like it here in the closet. It’s comfy and private.”
Perry shook his head and pointed over his shoulder. “I better get back to the meeting.”
“Okay,” Clark said, standing up.
“Are you going to join us out there?”
“I need to find Jimmy and Lois, sir,” Clark reminded him.
Perry must have heard something telling in his tone, because he shut the store room door and said, “Kent, Lois said that you asked her out.”
Clark flushed, glancing down at his shoes. “Yes, sir.”
“You need to know that Lois is like a daughter to me, Kent,” Perry warned him.
“Yes, sir.” He nodded. He knew this only too well.
“I need to know that your intentions are honorable where she is concerned,” continued Perry. There was no getting anything past the Memphis Yodeler, as his old boss had used to call himself.
Clark raised his eyes to Perry’s and replied with honesty, “I have nothing but respect for Lois. She’s…” my world? My destiny? My true love? My reason for living? He hesitated, not ready to voice his true feelings. “I assure you that I will treat her with honor.”
Perry nodded with comprehension. “Uh-huh. Well, then…” He chuckled. “Good luck to you.” Then he mumbled under his breath as he left the room. “You’re going to need it.”
As soon as his boss had shut the door behind himself and walked away, Clark was out the window in a flash.
He headed over to EPRAD, back to the hangar with the Messenger wreckage. If Lois and Jimmy had done what he had, gone to verify Platt’s report, this was the logical first place to look. Luckily, dusk had come before he had left the Planet, and he was able to hover in relative invisibility above the hangar. One pass with his x-ray vision was enough to tell him they weren’t there. He closed his eyes, wondering where she might be, hoping to hear her voice through the din of workers and machinery.
First, he heard her heartbeat, a bit elevated from fear, then he heard her voice, boasting, “You’re never going to get away with this! Everyone at the Planet knows where I am.”
Oh, no! Lois was in trouble.
In his panic, Clark acted without thinking. A second later, he stood in a hangar with yet another Messenger wreckage and saying, in his best Superman voice, “Let Lois and Jimmy go. Put down those guns, or I’ll…” It was at this point his brain caught up with his words and actions. He saw the metal door on the ground beside him, knocked off its hinges. He recognized he was speaking in the wrong tone of voice for Clark Kent. “I’ll… I’ll…” he stammered in his normal voice. The henchman next to Lois cocked his gun and pointed it at him.
What would he do? Out himself as a super powered alien within a week of landing in this new dimension? ‘Good job, Kent!’ he reprimanded himself.
Lois glanced over her shoulder from where she had been tied to a pillar with an aircraft seatbelt. She looked at him with hope, tinged with a fear. It was enough to make him want to break all his steadfast rules just to rescue her, but one of the reasons he had come to this dimension was to have a secret identity. If he gave it up now, he’d never get it back.
“Or you’ll
what?” Antoinette Baines asked simply, condescendingly.
Clark was at a loss of what to say. Knowing he couldn’t do anything, he just shrugged sheepishly instead and held up his hands. “I don’t know.”
Lois scoffed at this answer. “Front page rescue, there, Chuck,” she grumbled with a roll of her eyes.
His heart fell into his stomach as he realized the bad light he had shown himself to Lois. ‘What a way to
not impress the woman you love, there, Kent!’ he admonished himself as Dr. Baines’ henchman led him to the pillar where Lois was tied.
***End of Part 4 *** Part 5 Comments
