Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Wrong Clark (29/??)

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

Where we left off in Part 28 …

“Lois! CK!” Jimbo said, bouncing up to her desk, and causing Clark to step away from her first.

Lois hadn’t realized that they were standing so close in the middle of the newsroom. She must be more tired than she thought.

“I ran that plate CK asked about,” Jimbo continued, lowering his voice. “I had to hack into the DMV, so if some guys come by in sunglasses and suits and ask for me, you don’t know anything about it.”

“What did you learn?” Clark asked, trying to get to the heart of the matter. He was standing next to Lois, their shoulders still touching, causing a slow burning ache in her stomach… no, lower down.

“Stolen. Somebody reported the truck stolen two days ago. It was found abandoned this morning down at the docks. The police suspect joyriding kids. Sorry,” Jimbo said with an apologetic shrug. “Oh, and Lois, I’ve been checking out the stats on Menken’s top four contenders for you; you know the top billing for Saturday’s fight? They all are, like, undefeated in the past year. Each of them in his own weight class.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” she said, as her brow furrowed.

Jimmy nodded and bounced away.

“What are you thinking?” Clark asked, and she realized he was touching her hand again.

After months of little to no physical contact between her and Superman, just this little touch from Clark sent fireworks up her arm, but she could handle it. She hadn’t kissed Clark the night before, and he hadn’t kissed her. Sure, she had fallen asleep in his arms on the couch and he had carried her to his bed to sleep. He had taken off her shoes, tucked her under his blankets, and kissed her cheek goodnight, but that was all. If she hadn’t taken hold of his arm and asked him to stay with her, she knew he would have slept on the couch. Even so, he stayed on top of the covers with her underneath. He had been a perfect gentleman, and she hadn’t jumped his bones. She could do this.

Lois could be friends with Clark, and just friends. Not friends with benefits. Not anything more than friends, except maybe best friends. Her theory about Clark had been right. Maybe the more time she spent with him, the more control she would have, like with chocolate. If she denied herself any, all she would do was crave it. By allowing these little touches with Clark, she wouldn’t be craving him all the time. Why hadn’t she seen this answer earlier? Duh! Chocolate was the answer to all of life’s problems.

“Lois?” Clark asked, and she realized she hadn’t been listening.

She stepped away from him and sat down. Little doses, there, Lane, or you’ll become addicted. “There’s something I want to check out,” she told him.

Of course, there was still the problem with Clark’s weird factor, but maybe she’d be lucky and that would fade the more she got to know him. She shook her head. She couldn’t believe he didn’t have oolong tea on hand. That was just strange; even stranger than her knowing that he loved oolong tea, or that there was a oolong tea to begin with.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Clark asked, leaning over her shoulder to look at the files she had just opened on her desk, and she couldn’t miss that hopeful note in his tone.

She smiled up at him with a wink. “I’ve got this one covered, Chuck. Thanks.”

***

Part 29

Jimmy – Jimbo – Olsen walked past Clark’s desk and dropped a packet on top. “Here are those pictures for Lois’ story that she asked photo to rush.”

Clark glanced up and was about to ask why Jimmy had given them to him when he wasn’t working with Lois on the boxing story, but the kid was already half-way across the bullpen. Pictures? He picked up the packet and glanced over at Lois’ empty desk. She wasn’t in yet, so he set it back down. She had left the office early the day before, citing exhaustion from being up half the previous night, dealing with Allie’s death. Clark wished he could have left with her as he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep with her there lying against his stomach. But he would happily give up sleep entirely to have it happen every night.

The day before yesterday something had changed between them, although Clark wasn’t quite sure what. He didn’t mind and, frankly, he didn’t care what it was. When Clark had mentioned the morning before that he had spoken with the Man in Blue about the truck, she had reacted to his words as if he was talking about just any ol’ source. For some reason, Lois had become less obsessed with Superman, but as it occurred simultaneously with her new-found interest in being Clark’s bosom buddy, he was okay with that development. She was still convinced that Superman was the only man for her and that she loved only Superman, but her actions betrayed her.

Lois wanted Clark in her life, too. He was the man she called when she was depressed about Allie’s death. He was the man she came to for solace, when she discovered she didn’t want to be alone. He was the man she asked to hold her in his arms so that she could sleep. Him, Clark Kent. Not some flying guy in tights whom, he reluctantly admitted, was also Clark Kent.

If Lois asked him again to be her faux boyfriend, whose hand she held and whom she sometimes kissed, so that she could officially be with Superman, Clark would jump at the opportunity. He would kick himself from here to the moon and back again for the duplicity, but he’d still do it. The two months of hardly any physical contact and the casual conversation, except when she came to Clark after she and Superman argued about their ‘non-relationship’, had driven him almost to oblivion. He didn’t even want to think about these past two weeks, since the ‘ice cream incident’, when Clark didn’t think they would ever get together because of another one of his flaws, and Lois had ignored him completely and avoided him like the plague. Of all of the reasons why Lois would never date him, the fact that he didn’t eat sweets hadn’t even been on his list.

If Herb Wells had stopped by during the last week to take him back to Clark’s home dimension, who knew what Clark in his depressed state would have said? Would he have left Lois and this dimension without a Superman just because of a little personal setback? No, he didn’t think he would. Being in a dimension with a living breathing Lois, though at times might be torturous, was still preferable to living in one without a Lois. Besides, Lois hadn’t rejected Superman as a life partner, only Clark, and even that wall was starting to crumble. Not that Clark would ever wish more death or misery on Lois, so she’d come running into his arms. After what happened when Lois had gotten back from meeting with her dad about Allie, it didn’t look like he would need to.

He took another glance at the packet of photos that Jimbo had dropped on his desk. Curiosity got the better of him and he picked it up, and poured the contents into his hand. It looked like the inside of a doctor’s office with the medical charts and diagrams. Had Lois broken into her father’s office? Clark wouldn’t put it past her. So much for doctor-patient confidentiality.

As he flipped through the photos, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. This didn’t look like every day sports medicine, or even prosthetics. He turned a photo right side up. This was a clear case of robotics. Oh, God! What had Lois stumbled onto? The biggest scandal in sports history in her dimension and his combined, it looked like. Lois had just unearthed the tip of the iceberg, he bet. If it had been big enough to kill Allie over, what would Menken or whoever was backing him, do to her father, or to Lois?

As he went through the photos once more, he couldn’t believe that such technology would have been created to win just a few boxing matches. While boxing purses were big, they weren’t worth all this expense. The money that must have been fronted for this project must have been big – Luthor big.

Oh, no, no, no. Don’t go there, Kent, he told himself. He had not even the whisper of proof that Luthor was involved, but how attractive would it be to have even the hint of the whisper to prove to Lois that Luthor wasn’t all that he stacked up to be? The man was slick, too slick. Luthor had his finger in every pie in the city, in that he owned every oven, every flour mill, every orchard, but never had anyone ever seen him take a bite of pie, so neither Superman nor Clark could ever tie him to it.

Cat offered to help, to keep an eye on Luthor for Clark, so to speak, since she ended up at many of the same charitable events as Luthor. Clark didn’t want to involve Cat in Superman’s crazy ‘game’ with Luthor. He didn’t want her as an innocent victim, any more than he wanted Lois hurt, but like Lois, Clark could make suggestions to Cat until he was blue in the face, and she would do whatever she wanted anyway.

The angle that Cat picked to investigate should have been no big surprise: sex. She was curious where Luthor picked up his bedfellows. She figured that a man of Luthor’s stature in the city and in business meant that he had sex often, probably daily, just to relieve stress, but he didn’t have a serious or obvious girlfriend. Clark told Cat that he personally didn’t want to know, nor did he want to even consider Luthor’s paramours. Still, Cat went on with her theory after reassuring him that Lois wasn’t one of them. Thanks a lot, Cat, for that image.

Cat figured that since Dr. Baines had been a woman and Lex was a man that possibly there had been more between them than the space program. Perhaps even that Luthor had chosen Dr. Baines as his mole in the space program because she was a woman. Cat believed that Luthor seduced his victims or partners in crime with sex, lulling them to do what he wanted with the possibility of becoming his wife, and having access to all of his billions.

Clark had retorted by reminding Cat that not everything in life was about sex.

The gossip queen had merely patted his face and cooed at him for his innocent naivety.

Clark slipped the photos into the packet and glanced over at Lois’ desk. She had just arrived and was turning on her computer.

“Jimmy!” she called to Jimbo as he passed by. “Has photo processed my film yet?”

“I’ve got ‘em,” Clark said, holding up the packet and walking over to her desk.

Lois frowned at him. “What are you doing with my photos?” she accused.

“Isn’t CK working with you on this story?” Jimbo interjected in dismay, looking back and forth between them. “After yesterday, I thought…” He glanced at Clark with embarrassment.

Jimbo clearly had thought Lane and Kent were back together again. He hadn’t been the only one. Cat had even asked Clark if there was something he wanted to announce. He thankfully had been saved from answering by a call for help.

“You thought wrong. This is still my story. Clark and I are only friends, not partners, nor anything else your dirty mind might have been thinking, and if he tries to put a finger on my story, we’ll be less than that,” Lois said, grabbing the photos out of Clark’s hand.

Jimbo raised his hands in surrender and started backing away. He gave Clark a “Sorry, man” expression and then bolted.

Lois had returned to her computer and was pulling up her story, patently ignoring Clark, as if Jimmy’s assumptions had been his fault.

“It was just a mistake, Lois. I would never steal your story. You know that, don’t you?” Clark asked softly.

“Clearly I don’t know anything, Chuck,” she said, scrolling down her article as she reviewed it.

“Lois, does that really say, ‘Dr. Sam Lane is performing these surgeries secretly’?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder as he read.

“It’s the truth. You’ve seen the photos.” Her voice grew sarcastic with an edge of sadness. “Who knew that all this time, I’ve been Dr. Frankenstein’s daughter?”

“You can’t print that,” Clark said.

“Of course, I’m not going to include that line in my story, Clark,” Lois snapped, continuing to type without looking at him. She picked up the photos and leafed through them.

“What if those men who went after Allie come after your dad for leaking the story to the Daily Planet?”

“Well, he didn’t leak me the story. I found it myself by breaking into his office last night,” she corrected, setting the photos down on her desk.

Clark picked them up and slipped them into his pocket. “What if you hadn’t done that? What if you hadn’t been anywhere near your dad’s office because you’d come over and watched a movie with me?”

She held out her hand. “Give me my photos, Clark. I was there. My father did the crime, he can do the time.”

Clark knelt down next to her. “You don’t really mean that, do you?” he murmured. “I can’t believe a woman as caring as you would risk someone going after your dad by writing that story.”

Lois gazed at him. “You think I’m caring?”

“I know you are. The way you fight for truth, for justice, defending the little guy from dominance and the will of the corporation,” he explained, unable to stop the admiration in his voice from shining through.

“Truth? Justice?” Lois said with a broad smile. “Superman certainly has been a positive influence on my life.”

“Perhaps,” Clark said with a wink. “You’ve been a positive influence on his.”

***

“Allie Dinello’s death was a heart attack brought on by the fear of almost getting hit by a drunk driver?” Perry asked, setting down her story and staring at Lois with skepticism.

She shrugged. Maybe she shouldn’t have told the Chief the other day about witnessing the truck speeding through the intersection at Allie. Clark was right, damn him again for that. She didn’t want whoever killed Allie to go after her father. She might be angry at her dad ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, but she didn’t want him dead. Especially if it was her article, which put the final nail in his coffin.

“Now, now. Just a minute, yesterday you told me it was murder,” Perry reminded her.

Lois gulped. “I was…” She closed her eyes and hated with every fiber of her body to say it. “— wrong.”

“What about Dinello’s phone call? Did you find out why he was so upset?” her boss persisted.

She shook her head. She detested, more than anything, Perry’s third degree. “There’s lots of reasons why people get upset.”

“What about your father?”

“He says that he doesn’t know anything,” Lois said honestly.

Perry grunted, slamming his hand onto his desk and he rose to his feet. “What in the Sam Hill’s going on here, honey?”

“Sometimes a lead dries up, Perry, you know that,” Lois defended her choice.

“Oh, that’s just great, Lois. We’ll put that up on billboards all over the city. Lois Lane comes up with squat,” he argued. “On sale at your newsstands now!”

“Hey, now, that’s not fair,” Lois said, jumping to her feet. How dare he attack her integrity? True, she was lying to him about this one story, but all the others were solid. “I worked my butt off for this stupid boxing event you wanted me to cover. Sometimes there just isn’t a story where you think there is one. I’m sorry, but I refuse to create one out of thin air, Perry.”

“Oh, really,” Perry said through pressed lips. He marched over to his office door, pulled it open and called, “Kent, get in here.”

Lois crossed her arms and plopped back down in her seat. Great, Perry was going to ask Chuck his opinion, and that man couldn’t lie his way out of anything. Geez, they shared one measly hug out on the newsroom floor and suddenly everyone thought they were an item.

Clark came in with a puzzled expression on his face. “Yes, Chief?”

“Have a seat son,” Perry said, indicating the seat next to Lois before sitting down on the corner of his desk. “Did you see Lois’ story on Allie Dinello’s death?”

Clark glanced at Lois and then back at the Chief. “Very sad, sir. If only Superman had been able to get there a few moments earlier…”

“Superman!” Lois roared at him. “You’re blaming Superman for Allie’s death?” She couldn’t believe that she had gone to this man for comfort. The back stabbing…

“No, of course not, Lois,” Clark said, backtracking. “Clearly, if that truck hadn’t almost run Allie over, Superman wouldn’t have been involved, but…” He looked down at his hands in his lap.

“I thought you were his friend, Clark,” Lois said through pursed lips and with a shake of her head.

“I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear, Lois. I was only quoting Superman. He feels to blame for Allie Dinello’s death,” Clark said, his voice growing softer. “At least partly.”

“Well, if that’s true, he’s twice the lunkhead you are for believing that crock,” Lois harrumphed. “Does he blame himself for every death in the world ‘cause he can’t always be there to stop it? He did his best and that’s really all that matters, because that’s all that he can do. If Superman hadn’t have been there, Allie would have ended up squashed on the road. At least Superman gave Allie a fighting chance, which is more than you’re giving Superman by repeating that garbage.”

“Now, now, now,” Perry said, holding up his hands.

Lois tossed Clark a nasty glare and was surprised to see him staring at her like some moonstruck teenager. The shock at seeing that expression on his face, despite her ire at him, actually managed to knock out some of her anger. She shook her head. “You’re an odd duck, Chuck,” she mumbled under her breath.

She heard him issue a scoffing chuckle and remark, “But, hey, at least it works for me.”

“Kent, Superman gave you the license plate information on the truck that almost hit Dinello, right?” the Chief asked, gathering their focus once more.

“That’s right, sir. Jimmy ran the numbers, but it was a stolen truck, which has since been found abandoned at the docks,” Clark told him.

“Uh-huh,” Perry said with a nod. “If this was Lois’ story, why did he give the information to you?”

Good question, Perry, Lois thought. Why did he?

Clark coughed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I bumped into Superman that morning at the warehouse fire over in the West River district. He asked me to give the information to Lois, because he didn’t have a chance to see her after dropping Allie off at the hospital the night before, and he knows that we work together.”

Uh-huh. Likely story. Probably more that Superman didn’t want me to yell at him for thinking it was his fault that Allie died. Lois looked up to the ceiling and shook her head.

“And yet you gave the information to Jimmy to process instead of to Lois. Why’s that?” their boss asked.

Lois was wondering where her boss was going with this line of questioning. She had already told Perry everything there was to know.

“I knew that Lois was upset about Allie’s death and that she’d be busy talking with her father about what he knew about it, so I started the ball rolling for her,” Clark said, sounding a bit confused himself. He shot Lois a questioning expression, but she just shook her head with a shrug. She didn’t know what Perry was up to either.

“Now, that’s teamwork, Kent. Good job,” Perry told him.

“Thank you, sir,” Clark replied hesitantly. They both could feel that their boss was up to something, but neither of them knew what.

“You played football in college, didn’t you, Kent?” Perry asked.

Lois rolled her eyes. Great, more sports.

“Yes, sir.”

“You know that on a team, when one player fumbles the ball, how important it is for another team member to pick up the ball and keep on running with it, right?”

“Sure.”

No, no, no! Perry wouldn’t dare! Lois glowered at her boss. “This is my story, Perry,” she warned him.

Her boss shot a beaming smile at her. “If I recall correctly, Lois, I assigned ‘this stupid boxing event’ to you against your will; therefore, I can reassign it to Kent here, since he seems to be up to speed on where you were, before you fumbled the ball.”

Lois turned her glare on Clark about to give him her whatfor when she noticed he had his hands raised in protest.

“I can’t take Lois’ story, Chief,” he said with more determination than she had seen from him before. “I’m sorry.”

“You can, Kent, and you will,” Perry told him. “This isn’t a matchmaking service; this is a newspaper. Fight Night needs to be covered, and you’re just the man for the job.” Her boss turned to her. “The Police Academy graduation is this weekend, Lois. Why don’t you attend that and tell us how it was?”

Lois was on her feet in an instant. “Perry! I’m better than that… that…”

“Honey, you hit a stumbling block. You’re mourning the passing of your friend. It’s okay. This graduation piece is a good little confidence builder. I wouldn’t want you to spiral out of control after this one setback,” Perry said, circling around his desk to pick up the story on Allie’s death that she had given him and pulled out a pen to mark it up.

“Perry!” she whined.

“Or, if you prefer,” her boss said without looking up from her article. “There’s always the Auto Show, Lois; I hear that there have been some minor thefts out there.”

“Fine!” she grumbled, stomping out of her boss’ office.

Clark followed her meekly. As soon as he shut Perry’s door behind him, she pointed her finger in his face. “This is all your fault, Chuck! Your idea, your fault. Screw this!” Lois turned back to Perry’s door. “I’m marching back into the Chief with my original story. I bet this was just a trick of yours to steal my story.” Then she remembered she still needed to print out her story and spun back around only to run into Clark’s chest. She looked up at him with the full intention of pushing him away, but he was gazing at her with melancholy eyes like she had stabbed him with her words.

“Is that really who you think I am?” he asked, speaking so nobody else could hear him.

“Why not? Seduce your way to a great story. Isn’t that what all you guys do?” she snapped, pushing against his chest to get him to move, but it was like pushing against a brick wall.

Clark placed his hands lightly on her shoulders, causing her to look back up at his face. “I know you’re angry right now, and you feel like lashing out, but I’m not Claude, Lois. I’m not like other guys. I would never do that to you. The story is still yours. I’ll take the Police Academy graduation,” he said calmly, before a perplexed, somewhat skeptical expression streaked across his face. “How exactly have I seduced you? As you have pointed out to everyone from here to Gotham City, we are just friends.”

“You’re right, Clark,” Lois admitted, her shoulders falling with her drive.

“I’m right?” he echoed in amazement.

“I’m mad and I’m lashing out at the one person…” She cleared her throat before she said too much. “I don’t deserve Perry’s doghouse, Clark,” she groaned, moving around him to her desk. “I’ve got a great story, page one stuff. I’m just wondering if I’m doing the right thing here by sitting on it. I mean, I love my dad, but it isn’t like he’s done anything for me...” She sighed. “— ever.” Lois wished she could stop rambling, but there was just something about Kent that made her open up to him. It probably was what made him such a good reporter; well, good at getting all those mood pieces that Perry loved. She huffed down into her seat and typed into the computer search engine ‘Police Academy Graduation’.

“Your dad loves you, Lois,” Clark said. He was kneeling next to her desk so only she could hear him.

“Just because there are some fools out there who believe I’m loveable, Chuck, doesn’t mean I am to everyone,” she mumbled, refusing to look at him as her computer screen blurred in front of her damp eyes. She could still hear the cruel words her father had said to her when she told him that she didn’t want to go into medicine. “Make sure you brush up on your penmanship, Lois. You’ll need it when you fall back on a career as an English teacher for snot nosed brats, whose parents give them everything.”

“Don’t sell yourself, or us fools, short, Lois,” Clark replied, standing up. “If your father didn’t love you, he wouldn’t have told you to stay away from the story.”

“He thinks I’m a failure,” she mumbled.

“You? A failure? Lois, in the almost three months that I’ve known you, I have yet to see you…” He shook his head. “It hasn’t been three months already, has it? Wow, how time flies. June, July, August – gosh, in less than two weeks it will have been three months.”

Lois looked over her shoulder at him, wondering what his initial point had been. “You have yet to see me…?” She had seen Clark distracted before, but never like this.

“In the three months that I’ve known you, Lois, I have yet to see you fail at anything you set your heart to,” he said.

“Yeah, right. I could name a few,” Lois grumbled, thinking of her failure to properly interview Lex, her failure to go into space, her failure to convince Superman to kiss her and make their non-relationship real. She could see Clark trying to pull his focus back to their conversation, but failing. She wondered why that was; no one was a better listener than Clark. “What’s up with your three month anniversary at the Planet? Expecting a party? Or is your girlfriend supposed to show up?”

As soon as Lois said the words, her stomach dropped, and she hoped it was the former reason. Did Clark have a girlfriend? Was that what felt wrong about him? Why didn’t he have her picture up in his apartment? Was that why he denied his one-night, or had it been more nights with Cat, so his girlfriend wouldn’t find out? That would make Lois’ day a complete trifecta of misery: killing a page one story, ending up in Perry’s doghouse, and Clark being unavailable. She didn’t know why she felt this way. She should be relieved that he had a girlfriend, then he wouldn’t tempt her to cheat on Superman. Only she felt the opposite of relieved. How could he have a girlfriend? What if she wasn’t just a girlfriend, but a wife? Her guts tied into knots in her belly. She had thought Chuck was smitten with her. Maybe she didn’t really know him at all.

“Not this time,” he said with a mysterious smile as he moved towards his desk.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she griped, getting to her feet. Jealousy, an emotion she usually never felt, took her by the throat.

He shook his head. “Nothing, Lois. Absolutely nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing,” she said, following him. “Spill. Did you have a girlfriend when you first arrived into Metropolis? While we were dating? Did you cheat on her with Cat, too?” she accused, tossing her hand back in Cat’s direction. “Is that the kind of stand-up guy you really are?”

Clark groaned, grabbing his head in frustration. Lois checked his hands for a wedding band, but didn’t see one. Relief flood through her. At least, he wasn’t married.

“You really do refuse to let an idea go whenever you bite into it, don’t you? Cat and I are just friends, Lois.”

She pressed her lips together, set her hands on her hips, and scoffed, “Yeah, right.” Like she and Clark were just friends? “Cat doesn’t have friends.”

“Neither will you with that kind of attitude. Cat is funny and kind and very good at what she does…”

Lois raised an eyebrow. “I bet.”

“Even you would be impressed at her reporting skills if you gave her half a chance, Lois. Cat and I have only ever been friends,” Clark said, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair. “I can’t take any more accusations. I’m going for a walk.”

Lois sat back down at her desk and refused to watch him go. It was his fault for trying to steal her story. She shuffled papers around on her desk. The jerk still hadn’t given her back her photos.

Cat leaned over the partition separating their desks and gave Lois a grin. “You’re jealous.”

“Of you? Hardly,” Lois retorted.

“He really is one of a kind, isn’t he?” her nemesis purred. “If you only knew… how much he’s tolerated because of you.”

Lois glowered at her. She didn’t need reminding on how her and Clark’s little fake relationship and the break-up that ensued had made him the center of gossip around the water cooler. She decided to change topics to try to get rid of the annoying woman. “Here to gloat about me being in Perry’s doghouse? Well, you can just forget it.”

“For all of his abilities, he can’t see what’s right before his eyes. You actually like Clark,” Cat taunted, pointing a finger at her.

“We’re just friends.”

“Friends don’t get jealous, Lois,” Cat reminded her, sitting back down.

Lois would make sure that she and Clark remained just friends. Lois wasn’t going to do what her father did, and cheat on the person she loved. She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t.

***

Clark flew around the city for a while to let off steam, eventually landing on the roof of the building where Murray Brown had his offices. He had meant to stop by to see what was up after Lois mentioned Menken promoting a stand-off between his boxers and Superman. He zipped downstairs and was quickly shown into Murray’s office, where he was offered a seat.

“I’d rather stand,” he said with his arms crossed.

Murray pulled out a thick file and then several papers from the file, sliding them across the desk to him. “Here’s this week’s schedule.”

“No,” Superman responded.

“No?” Murray replied, confused.

“You do not book me ‘gigs’, Mr. Brown. You take offers from different charities. I review them and give you my answer. You respond for me,” Superman explained.

“Please call me ‘Murray’, Superman, and before you say, ‘no’, check out what I’ve got lined up for you,” Murray said, slipping back into salesman mode.

“I understand that you booked me to fight the winner of the Ultimate Street Fight this Saturday night,” he said tersely.

“It’s a great promotional venue…”

“What’s the charity associated with it?” Superman asked.

“Uh…” Murray coughed. “No, charity strictly speaking, Superman, but they offered you a boatload of money which we could put into…”

“No. Superman is not for sale to the highest bidder.” At least, not without a charity being involved and even then, Clark figured, he would never do that again.

“But, Supes…”

“No. You will call and cancel, and explain that there was a misunderstanding,” Superman told him.

“But, Supes…” Murray started to plead again.

Clark needed to find a way to get his point across quickly. He saw that Murray had a billiard ball on his desk, which had been flattened on one end to be used as a paperweight. Superman lifted up his index finger, which instantly shut Murray up. Then, only using his index finger and really no exertion at all, he pressed a dent about a centimeter down into the ball. “Superman doesn’t do anything for money, especially fight. I wouldn’t fight period, if I could avoid it. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, and someone could get hurt.”

Murray nodded, silent for the first time since Clark had met him.

“I attend charity functions, if and only if, my appearance is more likely to help the charity. I shall preapprove any and all function requests. I don’t speak for money. Neither I, nor the Superman Foundation, accepts money for me attending any event. All requests must be made in writing, and the charity must be verified as being authentic. I don’t perform for birthday parties, businesses, or functions. I don’t ‘perform’ at all. All of my acceptances must carry the waiver that I will attend ‘if possible’ as emergencies come first and foremost before anything else,” Superman said.

These were the same stipulations that Clark had given his social secretary at the Superman Foundation back in his home dimension. It was a much bigger organization, but then again, Superman had been out and about for over a year there. He had already had these rules in writing with Murray, but obviously the entertainment guru thought Superman might be easily persuaded to change his stance. “If this proves too difficult for you, Mr. Brown, I am more than happy to request that the post office hold my mail so that I can review the requests myself.” It would be a nuisance, but with super speed, easily done.

Clark glanced down at the ‘schedule’ that Murray had slid across the desk earlier, but did not pick it up. “I shall be back tomorrow to review the requests that fit that criteria,” he explained.

Murray nodded, lifting up the schedule. “I’ll fix this.”

“Please do, Mr. Brown. I didn’t set up the Superman Foundation to make money, but to help those who cannot help themselves,” Superman said, then turned and walked out the door. Clark would make sure he spoke with Cat about what to do about any fallout due to bad press over the mix-up in his schedule, as he was sure – from personal experience – someone Superman canceled on was sure to make a stink.

Lois had been right to be worried about Murray Brown. Except for the man’s over eagerness to promote Superman, Clark didn’t have any complaints about Murray’s work. He would be sure that Superman thanked Lois for her vigilance on his behalf.

Clark wondered what he could do on Lois’ behalf to get her story off the shelf and back onto the front page where it belonged. He sighed. It looked like he was going to have to introduce Clark Kent to Dr. Sam Lane.

***End of Part 29***

Part 30

Comments