Dinner was not a success.
Oh, the food – fettucine marinara, plus or minus chicken for those who wanted it, along with green salad, garlic bread, and ice cream – was excellent. Wine was offered but everyone declined – Perry feared it was in acknowledgement of his drinking problem. He had no problem with other people enjoying alcohol, and he was at a point in his sobriety where he could see a bottle on the table and not obsess about it. The craving had certainly lessened as the years went by.
But conversation was stilted and desultory. Lois said almost nothing, sitting small at the table, looking almost wounded. Perry assumed she was brooding over her newly-discovered metahuman status and its implications.
Richard sat at the head of the table, Lois and Perry on one side, Clark and Jason on the other. Richard's gaze jittered between Lois, Clark, and Jason enough to make Perry wonder what the other man knew. Richard tried to draw Lois out, but she disregarded his conversational openers.
Clark had resumed the annoying nerdy persona that he'd given up using around Perry when the two of them were alone. Perry remembered now how much some of Clark's mannerisms irritated him – the high-pitched, whiny voice, the hunched, closed-in posture, the clumsiness. Clark managed to spill his ice water, soaking his own trousers. Jason laughed out loud before being chided by Richard about good manners. Clark shot Jason a conspiratory rueful grin.
Perry tried to include Jason in the conversation, asking him what he was learning in school, and what books he was reading, but Jason had years to go before he developed a competent line of small talk. Jason apparently saw Perry as the forbidding authority figure (no doubt from spending so much time in the newsroom, where he saw grown men and women leaping to do Perry's bidding and quivering at Perry's displeasure.) He shyly answered Perry's direct questions, politely, in as few words as possible.
Perry noticed that Jason did speak with Clark, though. Clark waited a decent time after Perry had asked Jason a question and then asked the same question. Jason set off into a long story about his kindergarten teacher and the book they were reading out loud in class. Perry sighed internally; he'd never signed up to be the Frightener of Small Children, but at least right now, that was the role he was cast in.
Clark and Jason continued their chat, and Perry noticed Richard getting a dour look on his face. With Jason speaking animatedly, and Clark's face relaxed into what Perry was coming to recognize as his "non-disguised Clark" persona, the resemblance between the two was evident for those with eyes to see. As dinner progressed, Perry suspected that Richard had seen the truth of Jason's paternity, and that he was only waiting for the awkward dinner to be over to be rid of his unwelcome guests. Then, Perry surmised, Jason would be sent to bed, and Richard would have a long heart-to-heart with Lois.
Richard grew progressively more dour, and in desperation, Perry broke up the Clark-Jason chatter with a question about the seaplane. Clark shot Perry an appreciative look – he was picking up on the unspoken subtext too – and drew Richard out. After a few minutes, they got Richard talking about how he'd gotten the seaplane, where he'd taken his pilot training, what he had to do to keep up his pilot's license, the mandatory FAA inspection every year on the plane, how he'd become (mostly) his own mechanic, and what were his favorite places to fly. Richard seemed grateful for the diversion as well, and the conversation among the three men began to flow more naturally.
Lois gradually emerged from her funk, and began adding her two cents, talking about the places Richard had taken her flying. Perry suspected this might be a not-so-subtle dig at Clark in some fashion. Having been flying with both men (as he knew Lois had done), Perry found that he preferred flying with Clark as Superman. It was quieter, you got door-to-door service, and you didn't have to take off your shoes to go through airport security. He wondered if Lois was trying to point out to Clark, obliquely, that she was going to stay with Richard. Clark seemed to be wondering, too, trying to puzzle out Lois' motivations, based on his apparent preoccupation and gradual disconnection from the conversation.
"I was glad that you had the seaplane when you went out and got Lois and Jason from Luthor's yacht," Perry said, the talk having turned to that alarming episode. Lois (and Jason with her, on his way home from school) had wandered onto the yacht as part of her investigation on the Metropolis blackout, and had stepped right into Lex Luthor's evil plot. Perry wondered again, how fate seemed to join Lois and Lex – the strangest circumstances tended to happen that brought them together.
"I wouldn't have known where to look if Lois hadn't faxed her coordinates to the Planet," Richard said, with the air of one giving credit where credit was due. Then, more somberly, he added, "We were lucky Superman was there. I still have nightmares sometimes…."
Perry caught Lois nodding, saw her shoot Clark a gaze, and mouth "Thank you." Perry had heard the story from Lois (pre-knowing), about how she, Jason, and Richard had almost drowned, trapped in the galley of a sinking yacht. Superman had lifted the yacht out of the ocean, opened the door of their prison, and pulled them out. Personally, if it were him, Perry figured he'd have post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of his life. But Lois seemed to be able to handle stuff like that….
Perry's mouth ran away with him. "Superman was lucky to have you there, from what I've heard," he said. He found himself curious. Richard and Lois had saved the superhero from drowning, after Lex Luthor had beaten and stabbed Superman. (That hadn't been printed in the Daily Planet.) They'd pulled him from the ocean onto the seaplane, and taken off for safety in Metropolis.
Richard had gone out for coffee with Perry a week after the episode, and had curled the hair on Perry's toes with his tales of the dangerous flying involved. Only the grace of God, and maybe skyhooks, Perry figured, had kept that seaplane up in the air when Richard was trying to escape from the expanding kryptonite continent. If he'd been there, Perry thought, he'd have needed a change of underwear. He had to admire Richard's courage.
"Why'd you go back for him anyway?" Perry asked Richard. "You were clear. All you had to do was fly back to Metropolis. I know you must have wanted to get your family safe."
Lois and Clark looked at Perry in surprise. It wasn't like Perry to stir the pot.
Richard shrugged. "He'd just saved our lives. What was I going to do, not go back? Let him drown?" He shrugged again, and Perry saw the essential decency and honesty in Richard, the underlying core that had attracted Lois. "Besides," Richard continued, in the air of one who said something self-evident, "Lois said to go back."
Perry caught Clark's rueful smile at that. Obviously, Richard wasn't the only man who did what Lois said.
Then Clark caught Lois' eye. It was almost as if they were telepathic, Perry mused. Lois gave a tiny nod, mirrored by Clark's. Perry saw Clark sit straighter, and begin to assume the posture, the presence, the personality of Superman. It was subtle, but Perry had begun to recognize the signs.
What? Perry thought. He's not going to –
"I want to thank you for coming back," Clark said in that deep voice.
He's going to. I can't believe it. In front of Jason and everything. What is he thinking?
Richard turned, knowing Clark was different in some fashion, but not knowing how. Clark still had the glasses on, but he'd dropped his voice, and he sat so that he seemed to take up much more space. Jason looked up in interest – he'd been drawing with crayons at his place, bored with the adult conversation.
"What?" Richard asked.
Clark drew his breath, Perry thought, prepared to make the big announcement. Perry found his own heart pounding. Inside was a devilish little flutter of anticipation, wanting to see someone else as flabbergasted as he himself had been. Then Clark twitched, turned his eyes to the wall, and asked, "Are you expecting anyone else tonight?"
Lois looked up. "No," she said.
Clark pulled his glasses farther down his nose and got that unfocused look. His face twisted in alarm.
"Luthor," he said. Clark took another look, through the wall, Perry assumed. "He brought men."
Lois froze.
Jason trembled.
"How do you know that?" Richard asked. Somehow, like Perry, he didn't doubt that Lex Luthor really was in the driveway. Clark's voice carried conviction.
Clark and Lois looked at each other.
"Jason," they said simultaneously, alarmed.
"Get him safe," Lois said, half rising out of her chair.
Clark nodded and got up from his chair.
"Lex Luthor is locked up in prison," Richard said, with the air of one who repeated a learned lesson.
"He must have gotten out," Lois replied cynically.
"He's out," Clark said flatly. "Lex Luthor is trouble. And he's here."
Perry's stomach dropped.
Clark blurred. When the blurring stopped, Superman stood at the dining room table. He went to Jason and scooped him up. "I'll be back," he said, and vanished.
Richard's mouth hung open.
Perry heard a bang at the front door.
"Richard!" Lois hissed. "Don't say anything." She looked at Perry and Richard, and said, "Gun cabinet." Perry found himself getting up and starting to run.
Perry saw Richard shake his head. If Perry's experiences were any guide, right now the younger man was pushing away what he'd just seen until he could deal with it. Perry had to give Richard credit – when he himself had realized who Clark Kent really was, he'd felt a sudden urgent need to sit down. He wouldn't have been able, as Richard was doing now, to race down a hallway while fumbling in his pocket for keys.
All the way down the hallway, Perry heard Richard mumbling, "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod." Perry would have laughed hearing this if he hadn't heard gunshots at the front door at the same time. But he was stuck in a nightmare – the bad guys coming, no way out….
They raced into the den, trying desperately to outrun the pounding of feet behind them. Richard pulled out his key ring, fumbled a moment, worked the key into the lock of the gun safe. Perry and Lois panted nearby.
A shot rang out. Richard continued fumbling with the safe door. Perry saw it open slightly. He moved to be near. Lois instinctively moved farther away from the men, breaking up the target the three of them presented.
"Stop," a cool voice said. It punctuated its command with another gunshot.
Everyone froze.
Perry turned around to see several heavily armed men lining up in the room. Their guns were pointed at Richard, Lois, and himself. Perry automatically backed up, bumping into the corner of the gun safe. He could feel behind him that the door was open a crack. He angled his body so the opening was obscured as much as possible.
The men – six of them, Perry counted – spread out over the den, keeping a wary eye on their three hostages. A motion at the door drew everyone's attention.
"Well, well, well, Lois, don't you want to say hello?" Lex Luthor said in a ghastly parody of bonhomie.
"Lex," Lois said flatly. "I thought you were in prison."
Lex smiled. He brandished a handgun. To Perry, it looked like a Metropolis Police Department issue weapon. Lex caressed its barrel and said, "Let's just say that I managed to get bail."
