I'm glad to announce to anyone that I have a beta reader to help me, now. So, that part was beta-readed. My beta deserves applause because she edited that part on only 24 hours, and with my writing, that's hard work! Anyway, she have all my gratitude for what she did.
On the story, I decided that a break on the A-Plot would be welcome to lighten the mood of the story, so I wrote that part, looking for some fun. And I hope you'll have as much fun reading it, that I had to write it.
Enjoy!
Previously, on Part 2:
And then, in the silence following the end of the explanation, Superman thought again about the situation. If Lois was into their hands, and if he couldn’t do a thing to find her and save her, and they will probably make sure that he don’t, he knew he’ll do anything to keep her well and alive. Sure, he’d try anything to find and save her, until he succeed, but in the meantime, he knew that he’d do what they wanted him to.
<But that’s because it’s Lois! I’m nothing without her!> he argumented with his conscience.
Finally, resigned, Superman break the silence.
“Why had it always to be Lois?”
The question was totally rethoretical, but Henderson looked almost embarassed to have heard it. After a few seconds, Andrea took the parole for the first time since the beginning of the conversation. Softly, she answered the question as if she was expounding an evidence.
“Because she’s your girlfriend.”
And now, Part 3:
PART 3: IT’S NOT WHAT IT SEEMS
In the silence of the office, that easy assertion seemed to echo. Anyway, that was the feeling Superman had, as if the words kept repeating themselves in his head. He was stunned for a moment before the implications of being linked that way to Lois sank in.
After a few seconds of shocked silence, he recovered enough to deny the assertion.
“No, she’s not. Miss Lane isn’t my girlfriend.”
He hated himself. He couldn’t even keep his voice steady while denying it. She really wasn’t her girlfriend, so why was it so difficult to sound convincing? And he obviously failed to convince that woman, who looked back at him with her eyebrows raised, doubt clearly written on her face. Even Henderson looked doubtful.
Superman felt himself reddening, but he persisted.
“Really. We’re not together. We don’t have that kind of relationship. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend. Sure, she’s a girl…”
<Great! I’m babbling, now! I spend too much time with Lois!>
He stopped in mid-sentence, not wanting to say things he would later regret, and blushed even more when he realised that Henderson was now frankly amused by his attempt to deny any love story with Lois. His face probably matched his cape by now, he thought.
Mildly exasperated, Andrea sighed and took up the argument again, clearly ready to ruin his denial. In an overly patient tone, she began to make her point.
“Superman, I’ve been working here for a year and half. So I came here a little before you. The first time I actually saw you, there was a hold-up at a bank, staged by “invisible men”. You made them visible, so we could arrest them. You want to know what else I saw that day? I saw you destroy a wall in the bank to enter the safe-room. There were hostages in it, and they were suffocating. You saved their lives by breaking the wall. Some colleagues and I walked into the room just after you to help the victims get out. And you didn’t even seem conscious of the fact that there were people there, except for the woman you had in your arms. You were just hugging her as if your life depended on it. She was obviously very special to you. At the time, I didn’t know who she was, except that I’d seen her many times before at various crime scenes. Later, I knew that she was Lois Lane, a famous reporter for the Daily Planet. You never looked at the others who were prisoners with her. You just took her in your arms and left carrying her as if she was the most precious thing in your life.”
Superman remembered that very well. He was so afraid that she could have died that he was maybe a little careless about the others, but not that much! He was perfectly conscious that there were other people there as well; it was hard enough to keep himself from kissing her in front of them all because he was so glad he hadn’t lost her.
But Andrea didn’t give him time to protest and defend himself. Without giving him the time to talk, she continued to lay down her arguments.
“I was there too, when you were ordered by the judge to leave Metropolis because everyone thought that you were responsible for the heatwave. I was there to contain the crowd. And I saw you stop just in front of Lois Lane. She was about to cry. You took her face in your hand and you stroked her jaw. A very sweet gesture. The gesture of a man in love, you can’t deny that.”
Superman remembered that day very clearly too. Yes, that was the gesture of a man in love, just like the kiss he gave her later that day at the Planet. But…was he really that obviously in love? Heck, there were a lot of journalists there, as well as the crowd of demonstrators. Wow. Maybe he should be more careful in the future.
“Superman, I was even close enough to you in that crowd to hear you sigh when you were doing that.”
At that, Superman felt himself blush even more furiously, but Andrea kept talking without letting him respond.
“And the day after that, I was at the Lexcorp nuclear power plant to assure the security of all the officials that were here for the inauguration. And I saw you flying in with Lois Lane in your arms.”
This time, he interrupted her.
“But she was the one who discovered that there was a leak!”
“Yes Superman. But you didn’t need her to be there to stop that leak. Taking her with you wasn’t necessary. I’m even pretty sure that that slowed you down. You can’t fly as fast as you can when you have a human with you, for his or her safety. So why bring her with you if not because you like her to be with you?”
He stayed silent. He didn’t know what to say. She had a point. He hadn't needed Lois to be there. He just took her with him without thinking about it. That seemed to be the natural thing to do when she explained to him what she discovered. And he definitely liked her to be with him.
Luckily, Andrea didn’t wait for him to answer the question. She resumed her speech.
“More or less a week later, I was sent to the airport with some of my colleagues to arrest a woman whose name I don’t remember. Lex Luthor warned the police that that woman wanted to spray the entire city with a toxic compound. And when I was there, I heard you, like everybody else who was there, declare your love for Lois and I saw you kissing her passionately.”
Superman interrupted her a second time.
“I have an explanation for that one!”
He stopped abruptly at the sound of the chuckle that escaped Henderson. The old man tried immediately to hide it with a cough.
<Great! Now, I made it sound as if I don’t have explanations for the rest! Think!>
Before he could explain himself much, Andrea spoke again.
“Yes, that toxic compound made the people crazily in love…”
Glad that that point at least was clear, he exclaimed “Yes, exactly!”
But maybe he agreed a little too quickly with her, he thought, when she continued with what she was saying.
“… but only the people already attracted to each other, if we believe what our scientist said.”
He felt a heatwave overwhelm him, and he knew he had reddened even more. And the sound of the laugh that Henderson was trying to hide wasn’t helping. Was it possible to be redder than his cape, he wondered briefly before she once again resumed her chronological testimony of his relationship with Lois.
“Actually, that wasn’t the only time I saw you two kiss. You remember that meteor you destroyed, of course. I was there, too. I was forming the police cordon to prevent all the reporters and the crowd from getting too close.”
<Oh God! I really kissed her in front of reporters from all around the world? Oh God!>
Apparently unaware of the agitated mind of Superman, Andrea kept speaking.
“I was the one you told to let Lois Lane through. You said, and I quote, that 'she was with you'. And you kissed her just before…”
“Okay, that’s enough. I see your point. I know what happened, I was there too. And actually, SHE kissed me. But, really. She’s NOT my girlfriend. It’s not what it seems…”
Even he could hear how weak that sounded after all she’d witnessed, but nevertheless, that was the truth. Lois wasn’t his girlfriend. He would like it... but she wasn’t.
Andrea was still insistent.
“Superman, maybe you’re not a couple, but she is in love with you, and you’re in love with her. That’s enough to…”
Henderson entered the conversation soothingly.
“Superman, it doesn’t matter what the police think about your relationship with Lois. We’re on the same side. We don’t want to harm her to control you, don’t worry. What matters here is that Intergang thinks that she IS your girlfriend. And I don’t think that your denial will be enough to convince them to let her alone.”
Superman thought about it a moment and proposed:
“I can stop being friendly with her in public like I did, and stop giving her exclusives, but she’ll make my life a nightmare. You know Lois, Inspector… She’ll chase me to death to have exclusives… What can I do?”
“Yes, I know her. Anyway, we need you to do more than just stop giving her exclusives. To convince the criminals that Lois Lane isn’t your girlfriend, you’ll need to do much more than that. But lucky you, I have a plan.”
**************************************************
Clark reminds me of my nephew! "She's a friend. I mean, she's a girl, and she's my friend, but she's not my girlfriend!" So cute!