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Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Where we left off in Part 12…

“Uh-huh.” Her boss studied her for a moment. “Lois, you need to remember that the Daily Planet is a team. We all work together to get the newspaper out. You don’t steal the ball from a teammate, any more than you would steal a story. It’s a waste of manpower and a waste of your valuable time and mine. Remember how you felt when Claude stole your story? This jumper thing isn’t anywhere near the size of the gunrunning story, but still…” He took a deep breath. “I’m partnering you up with Kent for a while. You two need to learn to work as a team, and if you’re partners you can’t steal any of his stories.”

“No! You can’t do that, Perry,” Lois insisted, standing up.

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “I can’t?”

“No… You see…” Think, think, think. Perry said she couldn’t submit any Superman stories if she was sleeping with him. “Clark and I went on a date last night.”

A smile tugged on the corner of the Chief’s mouth. “Did you? Must have been some bad date, if you ended up stealing his story this morning.”

Crap, he didn’t buy it! She needed to convince him that she couldn’t partner up with her boyfriend. “No, no, not at all.” Actually dinner with Clark had been quite nice. Focus! “That was business, not personal.” Oh, God, that sounded bad even to her ears. Lois started pacing. She thought better on her feet. “The story, that is. I just don’t think it would be professional, if you partnered me up with my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Perry echoed, his eyebrows raising in surprise. “I didn’t realize it was so serious between the two of you. No wonder he was so upset when those agents thought you had slept with Superman.”

“Yeah… well… uh-huh.” Boyfriend probably wasn’t the correct term to use, she admitted to herself. “Well, when he wanted to kiss me goodnight last night, I just freaked, because the dinner had been so nice – perfect really – and I was worried that if we kissed it would ruin our friendship and our working relationship, which is very important to me, for there not to be any weirdness or extra stress between me and those I work with. I ended up saying we couldn’t see each other anymore and slamming the door in his face, but the truth of the matter was I really wanted to kiss him because there’s all this intense chemistry between us.” Where in the hell had that off-the-wall story come from? “I was also worried that I might end up in another Claude-type scenario – not to say that Clark is like Claude; he isn’t, quite the opposite in fact – but that’s why I stole his story this morning. I had to, before he stole mine. So, you see, you shouldn’t partner me up with a man I’m dating, it will be all awkward and stuff. I won’t know where to draw the line, and like you said about covering Superman stories if I was dating him…”

“Lois, you aren’t writing a story on Kent,” Perry reminded her, throwing a bucket of icy water on her theory. “You are more than welcome to be as biased about your work partner as you want, just make sure it doesn’t interfere with your ability to investigate and write up stories. You’re professional enough to keep your work stuff separate from your relationship stuff, right?”

Great, now if she said that she couldn’t work with Clark, Perry would assume it was because she wasn’t professional enough to keep her work and personal life separate. “Yes,” she said weakly.

“Good. I’ll tell Kent as soon as you two are no longer sequestered. Now, shoo, before those men come back and want to examine your body,” Perry said, waving her from his office.

“Yes, sir,” she said, her shoulders slumping forward. All in all, except for those five minutes floating in the clouds with Superman, this had been one very bad day.

***

Part 13

Lois pushed open the door to the hotel. She wished she had a better place to go, a friend to bunk with, a co-worker with a spare room, more mad money to spend so that she could have at least gotten a suite at the Lexor. She sighed. Yes, she was definitely going to save up and take herself to the Lexor for a weekend sometime, just take the weekend off and relax and pamper herself. She laughed, wouldn’t that surprise everyone at work. They would probably all assume she was leaving town on some story.

She dumped her briefcase and overnight-bag onto the full bed with monotone comforter cover. She could just picture telling Perry, Cat, and Jimmy… wait, that guy wasn’t Jimmy. Her brow furrowed. He was too short, and his hair was too long and too, she shook her head, blond? Who was that guy she was picturing in her head with Jimmy’s name, and why was she seeing him making fun of her with Cat and Perry? Well, it wasn’t important; it was just her imagination anyway.

From a paper bag, Lois pulled her dinner. Something to-go she had picked up somewhere, she couldn’t even remember where. Since leaving the Planet, all she could think about was that horrendous lie she told Perry to try to get out of being partnered with Chuck and how it had backfired on her. Ugh! What in the world had she been thinking? First she stole, actually stole, a story from Clark – a newbie, for crying out loud. She had never stolen a story in her life. Then, she practically told her boss that she was in love with Clark. She dropped her head into her hand. What was wrong with her?

She sat down at the small table in the room and dug into the… she opened the carton. Right, pasta. Italian food, that was what it had been. She didn’t know where her head was today. Lois took a bite of her penne and sighed, not because she was hungry, or because the food tasted that good, it was all right, but because in her mind she was floating in the clouds with Superman.

Oh, God! Superman! Did he know those government men were after him? He said that he would meet up with her later for her interview. Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! She had forgotten completely about that. Well, not forgotten forgotten, more like hit upon the side of the head with distractions forgotten. They never agreed on where or when they were going to meet up. What if he came by her apartment? What if he came by her apartment and she wasn’t there because she was here, hiding out from those… She clenched her fists and called those so-called government men every name in the book. If she missed out on her exclusive interview with Superman because of those guys…

Lois jumped up and grabbed the phone next to the bed. She hated making calls from a hotel, because they always overcharged, but this was an emergency. Luckily, it would be a local call, and reimbursed by the Planet. Be home! Be home! Be… “Lucy! It’s Lois!”

“Hi, Lois,” replied her sister casually.

Lois could just imagine her sitting on her kitchen counter. Well, there was an extra reason never to cook.

“How was your day? Did you talk to Clark?” Lucy continued.

“Clark?! Why? Did he call?” Lois snapped. The dolt! What was he doing calling her? At home, of all places? Didn’t he know she was off hiding, like he was supposed to be doing? Did he think they could hide out together because they were partners now? Oh, no, had he found out that she had told Perry they were dating? How could she have ever said such a thing at work? She knew those walls had ears.

“No, Lois,” her sister said with a chuckle. “Were you expecting a call from Clark?”

“No! Look, something happened at work today. I’m spending the night in a hotel,” Lois started to explain.

“You’re in a hotel room?” Lucy repeated back to her. “Lo-is, that’s so impulsive! So…”

Of course her sister would get the wrong idea. “Look, if Superman stops by…”

“Superman? Lois, why would Superman stop by our apartment?” Lucy inquired.

“For an interview! Why else?” Lois growled. Damned if she planned on spreading around rumors about her and Superman; Lois just knew she would end up in some examination room because those government men found out about it. It was best to keep her feelings for Superman on a need-to-know basis. She knew how she felt about him. She knew how Superman felt about her. Now Superman needed to know how she felt. “Look, we were supposed to meet up tonight and something came up, so if he flies by…”

Lucy gulped. “Flies?”

Lois rolled her eyes. “Yes, hello? He’s Superman; he does that.” Sometimes her sister could be so dense. “Just tell him…” What? Lois couldn’t tell him to meet her at this hotel room. What if someone saw him? What if someone saw them? Anyway, it was probably best to keep herself and Superman away from a room with basically just a bed in it, just to be on the safe side. Oh, yes, that could be a very bad… In such a good way.

Oh, man, what was she thinking? Yes, she was attracted to Superman, but it wasn’t just a physical attraction. There was more to it. He had an innate goodness to him that she sensed. He was a good man. It was the man underneath the Suit to whom she was attracted, not the Suit itself. He could take off the Suit… What if he took off the Suit?

Lois hit herself in the head. What in the world was she thinking? Was she really that hard up? Oh, that would be terrible. It would mean that Cat was right. It would mean that Cat Grant was right about her. She had never thought her desires would hit her upside the head like this, like Cat. Had it really been that long since she’d had sex?

Not that what Lois and Claude experienced was really sex, it was more like grand theft robbery. He had not only stolen her romantic daydreams, her youth, her naivety, her trust, her good standing at work, and her dignity, amongst other things, but most importantly he had also stolen her story, which she had clawed and scraped together on her own time.

“Lois? Lo-is? You still there?”

“Yes, sorry. Look, if Superman comes by, just tell him something life or death… no, don’t tell him that, he’ll misunderstand,” Lois corrected. Just what their relationship needed was her super powered hero to be flying around Metropolis, worried to death about her safety and doing who knew what trying to find her. No, that would not be good. “Just tell him to meet up with me tomorrow, okay?”

“Uh, okay. Sure,” Lucy reluctantly agreed.

“If anyone calls, don’t tell them where I’m at. Don’t even admit that I live there,” Lois told her.

“Okay, but I don’t know where you’re at,” Lucy reminded her.

“The less you know, the better. If someone knocks on the door, don’t open it, unless you’re absolutely sure you know who it is,” she demanded. “Don’t sign for any packages. Don’t accept any deliveries.”

“Lois? What went on today? Did something happen with Clark?” Lucy asked.

Lois choked back an unexpected sob. “I did something I have never done before in pursuit of a story.”

“Lois?” her sister said hesitantly. “What are you doing in a hotel room?”

“Not that!” Lois spat, and she heard Lucy exhale in relief. “I took a story from Clark.”

“You took a story? From Clark?”

“Yes,” Lois said through her sniffles.

“You stole Clark’s story?”

“I did not steal Kent’s story,” Lois defended herself, the hairs on her neck standing up at this unjust and accurate accusation.

“You stole it,” repeated her sister.

Lois could never pull a fast one on Lucy. “I competed for it,” she retorted, putting her own spin on the facts.

“Uh-huh.”

“I stole it!” Lois confessed, still mortified by her behavior. “I’ve never stolen a story before in my life. How could I do that? It’s him! It’s Superman!” Yes, she would let the blame fall where it belonged. It wasn’t her fault.

“Lois, you know how it made you feel when the French guy stole your story,” Lucy berated her. “How could you do that? And to Clark, of all people. I thought you liked Clark.”

The emotions that Lois had been keeping at bay for the last couple of hours rushed to the forefront of her mind, and the tears flowed easily from her eyes. “I know! I have no idea why I would do that. Clark’s such a nice guy.” Okay, maybe not friendly, nice, but small town Kansas nice. “It’s this Superman story. I’m obsessed!”

“That’s no excuse. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am ashamed of myself. I’m ashamed of myself,” Lois admitted through her tears. “Oh, Lucy, it gets worse. I told you I competed for his story. Well, I lost! Me! Two time winner of the Kerth award for investigative journalism got caught stealing Clark’s story, and now I’m being punished.”

“Lois, it sounds like you’re more upset at getting caught than actually stealing Clark’s story,” Lucy observed.

“Well, that’s ridiculous!” Of course Lois felt guilty for stealing Clark’s story, didn’t she?

“And you’ll never do it again?” Lucy coaxed her.

“I won’t. Never again,” Lois promised, wiping the tears from her cheeks. She would never steal another story from Clark again. She couldn’t. They were partners now. “Perry’s forcing me to partner up with Clark, so I can’t steal his stories.”

“Lo-is,” Lucy was starting to sound more and more disappointed in her big sister. Lois had always been the rock in the family and here she was, crumbling in front of Lucy. “Hey, that’s a good thing; better than being fired.”

Lucy’s words sent a chill through her body. She could have been fired?

“You should apologize to Clark Kent.”

“Not in this millennium,” Lois guaranteed her. She refused to admit to Clark that her actions had been… ugh… wrong. Admitting to someone like Clark that she was wrong would go against everything that she stood for.

“Lois, you need to apologize to Clark and move on. Otherwise this wound is going to fester and ruin your relationship. Do you want that?”

The reporter put a stern pout on her face and grumbled, “No.”

“Then?... Oh, hold on, Lois, the call-waiting is beeping,” Lucy told her and disappeared.

While she waited for her sister to return, Lois thought about Lucy’s advice. Tell Clark she was “sorry”? Never! She knew his type. Admit one thing wrong, no matter how minor, and he’d hold it over her head ‘til kingdom come. No, thank you. She could live without that in her life.

“Hey, Lois, there’s some southern guy on the other line with a real attitude. He says turn on your beeper, or you’re fired,” Lucy informed her.

“Crap!” Lois groaned, crawling over her bed to her briefcase and pulled out her beeper. Sure enough, it was turned off. Double crap! “I’ve got to go, Lucy. Tell Mr. Southern Attitude I’ll call him as soon as I’m off the phone with you.”

“Okay-dokie, and Lois,” Lucy confirmed and then, trying to get in one last word, said, “Apologize to Clark. Bye.”

Lois rolled her eyes and hung up the phone. She went over and picked up her now luke-warm take-out with a sigh. She took a bite of her food, carrying it back to the phone with her. She dialed and waited to be patched in to Perry, taking another bite of her pasta.

“Lois?”

“Hi, Perry,” she said with a full mouth.

“You were right,” he told her.

She did an ‘all right’ fist pump as she swallowed her food without having finished chewing it. “About what?” Lois said through her coughs.

“Nobody’s claiming those bozos. Get your butt down here. Where’s Kent?”

“How in the hell should I know? He’s a big boy.”

“Okay, I’ll beep him, and you can pick…”

“No!” Lois strongly suggested. “Why bother him at night? Let me see what you’ve got first and then, if it’s something we need to bring him in on, we’ll call him together.” She needed to be damn sure that the Chief didn’t speak to Clark without her around. Heaven forbid Clark think that she had stopped loving Superman for him.

********
The Deal
********

Cat walked into her apartment, dropped her purse and keys on the table by the door, and flipped on the lights. Clark slowly followed her inside, feeling more like he was entering a dragon or lion’s den than a single woman’s apartment. He wasn’t remotely interested in Cat Grant, but he was a man, and he’d have to be more than half brain-dead not to notice that she was a woman.

She pulled off her Muppet of a coat and tossed it on top of his head. “Uh… I’m going to change into something more comfortable,” she announced, heading off to her bedroom.

Terrific, just what he needed.

“No need to do anything special on my account,” he called to her, more hoping than expecting that she would heed his hint.

Clark had been thankful that he’d been able to steer the conversation in the cab to general topics. This wasn’t a discussion to have out in the open, or whispered in the back of a taxi. Cat had more than openly admitted to him, and the rest of the newsroom, if any of them had been listening, that he was in fact Superman. So far, she hadn’t outted him officially, as far as he knew. He wondered if she had mentioned anything to Perry, but he guessed that Cat wanted to steal Superman’s exclusive from Lois first and thus make herself the Chief’s new darling.

He looked down at her deep purple feather coat in his hands and shook his head. Looking around, he saw a mostly naked Greek statue – male, of course – and decided that he must have found Cat’s coat rack. He quickly covered the statue with her coat and hesitated entering further into her domain.

“Alien moves to big city in the disguise of a farmboy. He’s looking for a little piece of home,” Clark heard Cat murmuring to herself as the hangers slid back and forth in her closet. “That’s just what he’s going to get.”

“Cat!” Clark called to her. “You know I can hear you, right?”

She slinked back to lean against her bedroom doorway provocatively, still dressed in the hot pink and orange flower print jumpsuit. “Didn’t your Mama tell you it wasn’t polite to eavesdrop, Clark?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at him.

When he blushed, glancing down contritely, she laughed and shut the door again.

Clark moved to her bookcase and examined some of the titles there. It wasn’t at all what he had expected: nonfiction, political scandals, biographies, psychology, anatomy, sports, and some very thought-provoking novels. He recognized some of the titles, but most were new to him. Not one of them was a pink covered bodice-ripper as Lana was known to read. Of course, if one lived the life that Cat did, romance novels might seem quite trite.

He saw a book entitled “All the President’s Men” by Woodward and Bernstein. Weren’t those the names that Perry had mentioned when Clark had suggested an exposé of Lex Luthor, the day before? Had that only been yesterday morning? It had been a long thirty-six hours.

Clark picked up the book and speed-read it. Oh, right, he thought as he replaced it to the shelf. Now he remembered the government-toppling scandal. So, that was what his boss had meant by a story starting with a hunch. He picked up another biography, this one on a blonde woman who could only be described as a bombshell: Marilyn Monroe. He had never heard of her. Hmmm. He thought, Pretty in a Cat Grant sort of way.

“I think a Pinot Noir would be nice. I have one chilling,” Cat said, returning to the living room / kitchen.

Clark turned to see a jeans-and-sweatshirt clad woman removing a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, and he exhaled in relief. She had just been teasing him with that line about ‘something more comfortable’. Well, actually those jeans and sweatshirt did seem more comfortable. Maybe it had been him who had assumed the other meaning to her words. Cat wasn’t at all what he expected.

“You’ve got quite a library,” he said, turning towards her, still holding the biography in his hands.

Cat scoffed. “I do read,” she reminded him, uncorking the wine and pouring it into glasses.

“I know you do,” Clark said, somewhat taken aback. He was beginning to think he had misjudged her. “Maybe your place is different than I expected.”

He had never visited the apartment of the Cat Grant from his dimension. They had never had an opportunity or a reason to become friends. Actually, it felt kind of scandalous being there as if it implied some kind of relationship between them that wasn’t there. He knew that Lana had never liked Cat, and he had never liked how she threw herself at anyone male, within reason, including himself.

Cat smiled at him and brought him his wine, and mentioned suggestively, “Well, you haven’t seen the bedroom.”

Clark raised a brow. “Cat… uh…” he warned her. “That’s not why I’m here.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “Oh, Clark, relax. You’re too tense. I’m only joking. I may never even show it to you. I don’t hit on men who are in love with other women. Flirt, yes, but hit on…” She shrugged. “It’s a waste of time.” She tapped her glass against his.

“You’re full of surprises,” he said with astonishment, setting down the biography.

“Actually, Clark, I believe you’re the one with all the surprises,” Cat said, sitting down on her loveseat.

Clark smiled sheepishly. There really wasn’t anywhere else to sit in her living room, so he sat down next to her and, yet, as far away from her as possible.

Cat pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes. “Really, Clark, I’m not going to bite. Lois is the Mad Dog in the office, not me.” She took a sip of her wine and mumbled, “There’s no accounting for tastes.”

“You think you know everything,” Clark accused, and then realized she did. “You do know everything.”

She raised a shoulder as if admitting that ‘yes, indeed she did’.

He set his wine down on the coffee table and resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. “You want to interview me? Get the whole story? The exclusive! Have you told Perry yet? Is that why you were in his office earlier? Does he know? Oh, God!” His shoulders dropped. It was just like in his dimension. Only this time, he had really had a shot, a shot at a real life, a shot with Lois, a shot at happiness. It was all coming to an end. Again. “It’s all over.”

Cat stood up and went to the stereo. She put on some soft background instrumental music and then headed into her kitchen. She removed a box of crackers from the cabinet, a bar of cheddar cheese and a bunch of grapes from the fridge. “What’s over, Clark?”

“My life,” he said, throwing out his arm at the obviousness of it all. He stood up and started pacing. “My privacy. My chance with Lois. My freedom. You saw those men.” He sighed. “I always knew this type of life was a pipe dream and here it is, coming to an end.”

“And would you give it to me?” Cat inquired. “The exclusive? Even though you’ve already promised it to Lois?”

“What choice do I have? Lois, thank God, is still blissfully unaware that I… I…” he stammered, trying to find the correct words to say who or what he was without actually putting it into words before she did.

“Fly?” Cat suggested. “Look good in blue? Are a strange visitor from another planet? Am Superman?”

Yep, Cat knows.

Clark nodded. “If I don’t tell you the whole truth, you’ll just use creative journalism to fill in the blanks.”

“Hey! Hey! Hey! I don’t do that,” she defended herself, pointing at him with a cocktail toothpick. “I work for the best newspaper in the world. Perry White would never allow ‘creative journalism’ to sully his paper and you know it. All my stories are fact driven, just as much – if not more – than yours and Lois’ are.”

He sat back down on her loveseat and gazed at her skeptically. “More?”

“Yes, more,” she retorted, bringing the snack platter over to her coffee table. “I’m much more likely to be sued for my gossip, than you two are for your investigations. Slander suits, libel suits. I’ve seen it all.”

“So what made you get into the gossip business?”

“Clark, we’re all in the gossip business. Well, those of us who don’t have a side business’ as a shuttle launcher,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but…” Clark’s words got lost in the grape she stuffed in his mouth. “You get paid for it.”

“They don’t pay you?” she inquired innocently, rhetorically, taking a bite of green grape. “I get the best stuff. You wouldn’t believe some of the secrets people carry around with them.” Then she chuckled. “Well, actually, I guess you would.” She ate another grape and leaned her back against the armrest of the loveseat.

He joined her chuckles, amazed at how comfortable she was making him feel. “Oh, yeah,” he agreed.

“So, are you going to tell me how you became the way you are?” Cat asked.

“I was born this way,” he explained vaguely.

“So, no science experiment gone wrong?”

“Nope.”

“Alien, then?”

Clark grimaced. “I don’t really like that word, but…” He rolled his eyes. “Technically, yes.”

“Where are you from?” she asked, popping another grape into her mouth.

He noticed that she hadn’t set up a mini-cassette recorder like the one Lois used, nor was she jotting down notes. He shrugged. They all had their own techniques. He himself had what he liked to call a photographic memory. It wasn’t perfect, but nearly so. “Ka… er… Krypton.”

“Krypton? Never heard of it. Where is it?” She glanced over her shoulder at her window and out into the darkness, shrugged, and turned back, taking a sip of her wine.

“It isn’t anywhere. It exploded. I’m kind of planetless, homeless so to speak.” Clark sighed. He had thought, even if it was for the tiniest of moments, that he had finally found a place to call home, a place where he could do what he needed to do, have a wife, possibly a family, friends, and people who cared about him, accepted him, liked him, respected him for himself and not his extraordinary abilities. “It’s why I came here, to start anew.”

“Is there anyone else out there, like you? Also homeless?” Cat asked.

That was a good question. Not as far as he knew. “I don’t know. If there were any other survivors, I’ve never met them.” He took a sip of his wine.

“So, you’re not really a national security risk?” she teased, taking a toothpick with a piece of cheese at the end off the tray.

He scoffed. “Only to the women of Earth, apparently, whom I’ve come to seduce, ravish, and impregnate.” He shook his head in amazement. What would people think of next?

“Actually, there is only the one woman for you, isn’t there, Superman?” Cat questioned, pointing her toothpick at him.

“Clark,” he corrected, waving that other name out of the air. “Superman is what I can do, not who I am.” He sighed as he thought of Lois, all the possibilities, those missed opportunities. “You’ll let me tell her, won’t you? Before you publish? I can’t let her find out that way. I couldn’t do that.”

“I was teasing earlier, but you really do love her, don’t you?” Cat said as if that information was sinking in for the first time. “Out of all the women in the world, Clark, you… love… her… Lois Lane?”

“Yes,” Clark replied. He set his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face with his hands. “Fat lot of good it does me.”

Cat leaned forward and rested a hand on his shoulder. “What are you talking about, Clark? Lois adores you. I’ve never seen her act with anyone the way she acts with you.”

“With Superman, you mean,” he clarified, holding up a finger. “Me, I’m mud.” He sighed. “You’ll let me tell her first, won’t you?” he asked again. “Give me a chance to tell her the truth? To apologize? To say ‘good-bye’?”

“Whoa, there, Clark. Good-bye? Why would you need to say ‘good-bye’? Trust me, this whole secret identity thing won’t matter to her. As soon as she learns that you’re Superman…”

“As soon as the world knows I’m Superman, I can no longer stay here. Clark Kent will be no more. Everyone I’m close to won’t be safe: Perry, Jimmy, Lois, especially Lois, and even you, will be targets. Superman can’t have a relationship with any woman like Clark Kent can. Clark’s just some reporter, a nobody from a small town in Kansas. Superman fights against evil and villainy and such. He fights for truth and justice; he needs to be seen as better. Any woman associated with Superman will constantly be in danger; she’d be up for ridicule in the tabloid press, people would hound her night and day about her life with the hero, criminals and madmen would try to use her against me.” Clark ran his hand through his hair. “Men like Luthor,” he scoffed, knowing he would no longer be able to prove that man wrong. Clark had lost that battle already.

Cat shook her head, baffled. “Luthor? What does Lex Luthor have to do with Superman?”

Clark winced. Perry had told him not to voice her theory to anyone, and here he had gone and told Cat Grant. He was an idiot. “Nothing.”

“No, no, no. It wasn’t ‘nothing’. What’s going on?” she inquired.

He sighed, opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it.

“Clark, I’m already up to my navel in this. What do you have on Luthor?” she repeated.

“Nothing. A hunch. Perry told me not even to voice my thoughts to anyone, because the more people who knew about this…” He snapped his mouth shut.

“Clark!”

He looked at her. If he had to return to his own dimension anyway… or would once he was revealed to this world as a tights-wearing freak, he might as well have someone else carry on his exposé. “I think Luthor was working with Antoinette Baines on the Messenger explosion and… Damn!” He smacked himself in the forehead. He jumped to his feet and started pacing. “Of course! The bomb placed on the Prometheus. Perry had said that the transport had been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, so it must have been planted after the coolant problem was fixed. That in itself proves that Baines wasn’t working alone, because she was already dead. She must have been working with someone else, someone who still didn’t want the Prometheus Space Lab to be viable, someone with the money and the means to buy or steal C7 explosive, break onto the transport, or hire someone to do so, and plant a bomb without being noticed. Luthor!”

He glanced at Cat and noticed her jaw was hanging open. “Luthor? Do you have any proof?”

“Nope. Just conjecture. I’ve got to fly up the Space Lab and get access to that control panel of the bomb, take it to authorities, see if there were fingerprints, anything tying anyone to that bomb,” he said, and turned towards the door. “S.T.A.R. Labs would be able to…”

“Clark, we’re not done here,” Cat’s voice stopped him cold. “That can wait.”

He sighed, dejected. Right, her exposé on Superman. There was so much good that he could do, if he were allowed to keep on being both Clark Kent and Superman. He reluctantly returned to the loveseat. “Okay, what else? What else do you need to know about me?”

***End of Part 13***

Part 14

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Not that I need to explain this, but in case you were confused The Muppets are a style of puppet created by Jim Henson. Cat's purple feather jacket in "Strange Visitor" definitely resembles one.