I don't know how I missed the posting of this story. It's fantastic! The whole paragraph in the beginning where Clark was musing over "lairs" and whatnot was so well written. And the rest of it was wonderful too. But yeah. I'm thinking Lois might have a thing or two to say about this whole "retiring" Superman thing. Kind of reminds me of Spider-Man 2. I wonder if Clark saw it. It didn't work then either! Hopefully Lois either beats Clark with a stick until he realizes he NEEDS to be Superman (Fig. 1 below)
( Clark -->

<-- Lois )
Or Clark heads out to the nearest Blockbuster and rents Spider-man 2! Can't wait for the next part!
--Laura