"If I Were You" TOC, Parts 1-3 Part 4“Perry’s retirement dinner is tomorrow night,” Clark said, staring down at the shape he’d fashioned with his mashed potatoes. It resembled his S-shield, and he used his knife to neaten up the corners.
“So are you going to go?” Jonathan asked, after exchanging a quick look with his wife to determine who would be the one to take up the inquiry.
Clark sighed and traced the S into the potatoes. “I should. Everyone’s expecting me. They’ll worry if I’m not there.”
Jonathan and Martha glanced at one another again, and this time Martha got the nod. “Then you should definitely go, honey. Think of all Perry’s done for you this past year.”
“Yeah,” Clark said again, still sounding unsure. “But I could call him…give him some excuse.”
“Clark, we know why you don’t want to go, but Lois isn’t your only friend in Metropolis. What about Jimmy? What about poor Jack? Have you given any thought to him? Your father and I didn’t raise you to run out on your responsibilities just because things got a little tough.”
“You and Dad are my first responsibility,” Clark insisted. “Making sure nothing happens to you is more important than anything.”
“That’s sweet of you, honey, but I don’t think spending the rest of your life helping your Dad out around the farm is the answer. If Luthor is a threat to us, which I frankly doubt, the place to find out about it is going to be in Metropolis. You need to know what’s going on there, and that’s not going to happen if you’re hiding out here.”
“I have not been hiding out!”
“C’mon, Clark,” his Dad said gently.
Clark’s fingers tensed briefly on the knife before he caught himself and set it to one side before he damaged it. “Maybe I just needed a few days to… clear my head. Is that so wrong?”
“Not wrong at all,” Jonathan said. “But you’ve had your few days, and now it’s time to go back to Metropolis. If you want to move on, then you know your Mom and I will support you in that, but you need to do it the right way. You owe your friends better than to just disappear one night and never return.”
“I’ve done it before.” Clark felt depressed as he considered returning to the nomadic life he’d led before he’d settled in Metropolis.
“It was different then and you know it,” Martha argued.
“Yeah,” Clark agreed. “It was. Metropolis actually felt like home for a while.”
“And maybe it still can,” his Dad said. “It’s not like you to give up so easily.”
“You don’t understand, Dad.” Clark shook his head, unable to explain. He’d spent the last few days convincing himself that he didn’t love Lois, but he still doubted his own strength where she was concerned. His biggest fear was that she would recant her words in the park and throw herself at him, knowing as she now did that he was Superman, and that he’d be so desperate for her love that he would actually consider accepting her on those terms. It was far easier to just stay away than it would be to face that final indignity, however it played itself out.
“I think we understand more than you give us credit for,” Jonathan said. “Go to the party, son.”
“And give Perry our best when you see him,” Martha added.
Clark gave her a wry smile. “All right. You guys win.”
“Of course we do,” Martha said, sounding smug. “Now quit playing with that food and eat before it gets cold.”
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“Superman! Superman!” The reporters’ voices rose up in a clamor around him, and Clark searched through the throng and pointed to the man who covered the city beat for
The Metropolis Star.
“Mike.”
“Thank you, Superman. How many hostages were in the building?”
“Six,” Clark answered. “Two women and four men. One man had been shot by the time I arrived. He’s been taken to the hospital.”
“Is he going to make it?”
“I’m not a doctor, so I’d prefer not to speculate on that,” Clark responded smoothly. He pointed to another reporter. “Cynthia?”
He wondered as he fielded questions if it ever occurred to anyone that the average pod-living, rat-eating, visitor from another planet would probably not be able to handle the media as deftly as Superman seemed to. But no, no one ever questioned it. In the days when virtually no one was exempt from media speculation, Superman seemed to have been given a blank pass. He would like to think that it was because he’d shown clearly that he was on the side of the light, and that because he was polite and helpful, his colleagues in the media were willing to repay him with their trust, but despite what Lois had always said about him, he wasn’t quite that corn-fed and naïve. He suspected that his free pass owed more to fear than to trust. Either they feared him directly – feared that he would respond to harassment by using his powers to take over the world – or they feared that he would simply get so ticked off that he would quit coming when he was called, would find something better to do with his time than saving an ungrateful populace. The experience with the Nightfall asteroid had done wonders for his public approval, and since then the members of the press had treated him with kid gloves.
He carefully kept his face arranged in its usual, distant expression as he pointed to the one member of the press whom he’d given the power to ruin his life.
“Lois?”
“Thank you, Superman,” she said. “Do the police believe that the gunman was acting alone?”
Long familiarity with her habits made him notice that she wasn’t carrying her notebook; while she appeared interested in his answer, she obviously didn’t intend to write it down. “I don’t know what the police suspect, but I gathered from some of the hostages’ comments that the gunman was a disgruntled former employee. If that’s true, then it seems unlikely that he was working with anyone else. This is only my opinion, of course.”
“Thank you,” Lois said. She gave him a challenging look. “I was also wondering…you haven’t been seen in Metropolis the last few days. Are you helping out in other cities now?”
Clark felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. “I’ve always helped out when and where I could.”
There, was that vague enough for you, Lois?“But where have you been?” she persisted.
It was all he could do to keep from grabbing her and tossing her into another dumpster. Really, that had been one of his more brilliant moments, all things considered. “Nowhere, Miss Lane. I’ve been nowhere.”
Some hack from Nowheresville…“Nice place to visit,” Lois said, her mouth turning up a little at the corners, “but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
So far I’ve been given a glimpse of ritual crop worship, been treated as your girlfriend, and insulted your parents…The assembled press tittered a little, even as they looked at Lois in confusion.
“Fortunately,” Superman said coldly, “you don’t have to.” He watched just long enough to see her react and then looked away. “That’s all for today. If you’ll excuse me.”
He shot into the sky.
_____________________________________________
He rose above the clouds, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm himself after his public sparring match with Lois. He paused in midair once he was sure he was shielded from view, furious with himself, with her, with the whole situation. He’d acted impulsively – stupidly – when he’d spun into the suit in front of Lois, and he’d done it to be cruel. He’d wanted to hurt her. He’d wanted to taunt her with her own lack of perception, her own shallow desires. Somehow, though, in showing her who he truly was, he’d managed to lose himself completely. In thrusting Lois away, he’d also cast aside something elemental in his nature. Who was this Clark Kent with the ice flowing through his veins?
He remembered a time when he’d thought about the kind of woman who could make him happy. He’d painted her imaginary portrait in broad strokes: she’d have to be kind, and intelligent, and have a good sense of humor. She’d have to love and accept him for who and what he was. As far as he’d known, however, there was a whole wide world full of potential candidates. He wasn’t sure of the exact moment when that had changed, when he’d stopped seeing the potential in the women he met. Now he divided women into one of two clear categories: A woman either was Lois Lane, or she wasn’t. None of the not-Lois’s could cause his heart to pound and his palms to sweat. None of the not-Lois’s could draw his eyes across a crowded room. None of the not-Lois’s could rip his heart from his chest and still have him craving her like a drug. And none could make him behave so very badly in front of a crowd of reporters.
It was sick. So completely wrong. And he was determined to out-run it, whatever ‘it’ was. He refused to call it love. It was…a masochistic obsession, and one he refused to indulge in any longer. His instinct in Kansas had been absolutely right: He should never have returned to Metropolis. He wasn’t strong enough to face her…not yet. He would have to see her at Perry’s party, but other than that, he was going to stay as far away from Lois as possible.
________________________________________
She was sitting on his stoop when he returned to his apartment.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back here,” she said, standing and dusting her trousers off. “Thought maybe you would head back to Smallville.”
“I plan to soon,” he told her, shoving his hands in his pockets. “But there are things I need to do here first.”
“Like talking to me?” she asked.
“Like attending Perry’s party tonight,” he corrected. “Like clearing Jack’s name and seeing to it that Luthor gets what’s coming to him.”
“We need to talk about that, too,” Lois said. “You going to invite me in?”
“I hadn’t planned to, no.”
“Fine,” she said, plunking herself back down on his steps. “I’ll just sit out here until you’re ready to start acting like a mature adult, then. I’ll probably be mugged, of course, since this isn’t exactly the best neighborhood in town, but you don’t care about that, do you? You don’t care about anything but your own hurt feelings. You know, you should think about sulking professionally, Clark. You’ve got a real knack for it.”
“I’ll consider it,” he said, pulling out his keys and stepping past her, “seeing as how I don’t have any
other job these days, thanks to your boyfriend.”
“What, saving the world doesn’t keep you busy enough,
Superman?”
He let out a startled hiss and whirled to glare at her. “A little louder, Lois. I don’t think they heard you in Gotham City! And while we’re on the subject, what were you
thinking asking me those questions in front of half the press in Metropolis?”
She blinked up at him and spread her arms wide in a gesture of exaggerated innocence. “Gosh, I don’t remember being asked to keep anything secret. I remember a really offensive crack about my robe, and a spin thingy, but…nope, nothing about a secret. Of course, if you wanted to keep our conversation private, you might ask me in instead of leaving me out here on the stoop, where I might say just anything to anybody.”
He sighed and banged his head against the door a couple of times before muttering, “Why do I even bother?” He turned to her. “We’ll talk on one condition: I want you to promise me that you’ll never ambush me in public like that again.”
“It was the only way I could think of to make you talk to me!” she exclaimed, standing up again. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for the last two days. I’ve left messages but you haven’t called me back. Do you think I
liked having to chase ambulances in order to have a conversation with you?”
“I didn’t ask for an explanation – I asked for a promise. Repeat after me…’I will never ambush Clark in public again.’”
She put her hands on her hips. “I will never ambush Clark in public again,” she mocked, and then she added in a sharp tone, “as long as
you don’t disappear like that again when we have things we need to talk about.”
Was there no way to make her take him seriously? He’d spent three minutes with her, and already he felt as if his head might explode. “Lois, I’m very close to leaving you sitting on this doorstep,” he warned.
“Please, Clark,” she said, sounding sincere this time. “I won’t do it again and I wouldn’t have done it this time except I
really need to talk to you. Please?”
“Come in,” he said with a sigh, pushing open his front door.
“I thought you’d never ask.” She followed him into his apartment. It was, he realized, probably the first time since they had met that he’d preceded her through a doorway, but apparently a little thing like forgetting his usual chivalry wasn’t going to deter her from their conversation.
He stopped in the middle of the room with his back to her and lifted his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You don’t get headaches,” she said.
It wasn’t what he’d been expecting in the way of an opening gambit. “What?” He turned to stare at her, settling his glasses back into place.
“The way you were pinching your nose…it looked like what people do when they have a headache, but you don’t get headaches, do you?”
“Is that really what you came here to ask?”
“Well, no, of course not. I just was curious is all. Do you have a headache?”
He let out a breath. “I certainly do. I found it on my front steps. Now what is it, Lois? Let’s be done with this so we can both move on.”
“Move on. Is that what you want to do?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to marry Lex.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” His voice sounded cold, barely interested, and he was proud of it.
“Clark, if what you believe about him is true, then we need to be investigating him.”
“There is no ‘we’, Lois. There is I and there is you, but there is no ‘we.’ I have that on very good authority.”
She waved her hand at him in blithe dismissal. “Clark, I said that about a million years ago. Let it go, already. We’re partners. We need to work on this together.”
“We’re not partners, Lois. Thanks to Luthor, there’s no
Daily Planet, no Lane and Kent. Whatever partnership we had went up in smoke.”
“Do you hate me?” she blurted suddenly, her breezy façade falling away. Her eyes looked huge and worried and so very earnest, and they tore at his determination to keep her at a distance.
“No,” he said quickly. “I could never…I admit I haven’t
liked you all that well the last couple of days, but hate…no. Never that.” He paused a moment, looking down at the toes of his shoes. “I’m sorry for the way I behaved the other night. I should have found a better way to tell you that you and Superman…well, couldn’t ever happen. I was hurt and angry, and I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have. You’re entitled to your feelings, and you were honest about them. I accept that now.”
“My
feelings? How could you possibly know about my feelings? How could
I know, for that matter? I don’t even know you.”
He gaped at her. “Of course you know me, Lois – we’ve been partners…friends for the past year.”
“Friends, Clark? Am I your
friend? Your friend whom you just happen to have
lied to every single day since we met? Who you’ve shut out of half your life? You’ve told me again and again that I didn’t really know Superman – and you were right, I didn’t. But it’s equally true that I didn’t really know you. You’re him – he’s you. Without knowing that, there was no way I could ever know either of you.”
“I’m Clark Kent, and you
know Clark Kent,” he said stubbornly. “Superman is just a costume I wear.”
“Bull.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I’m not buyin’. Superman is more than just a costume. He’s part of you, Clark, and if he weren’t, you wouldn’t
need a costume. What you can do…what you
choose to do…it’s amazing. You’re not like anyone else.”
“I am in the ways that count,” he said quietly. “That’s what you’ve never seen – what you’ve never wanted to see. You wanted a perfect hero, and I can’t be that. God knows there have been times this past year when I’ve been tempted to try – when I’d have been Superman for you if it meant…well, that I had a chance with you. But I’m just me, Lois.” He held out his arms and let them fall to his sides in a tired gesture. “Just me. A few hours a day, I’m Superman. The rest of the time, I’m the ordinary man you overlooked.”
“And you’re not willing to give us the chance to change that, are you?”
He shook his head slowly. “I…can’t,” he said.
She gave him a long, serious look. “OK, then,” she said finally. “But that’s no reason we can’t work together. We need to talk about Lex.”
“No.”
“No?” she repeated incredulously. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean I’m not working with you on this. I’ve begged you for months to take me seriously about Luthor, and you’ve ignored me every single time.”
“So you’re going to punish me by getting the story on your own? That’s beneath you, Clark.”
“The story? The
story?” He was practically yelling at her, his brief moment of susceptibility completely over. “Lois, this isn’t about a story! For once in your life, can’t you see that there might be something more important than getting the
story? I don’t even have a job right now! I’m not after a story. I’m trying to see to it that one of the most dangerous criminals alive today is brought to justice, and all you can think about is your next award. And you wonder why I don’t want to work with you on this! Your priorities are completely out of whack.”
“How dare you!” She looked at him through narrowed eyes, her voice deadly. “You’ve made your living writing the same kinds of stories I write, Clark Kent, so don’t you try to act like it’s suddenly all about truth and justice for you. We catch the bad guys and then we write the story. That’s how it works. How many times did you zip back to the
Planet and write up Superman stories? Stories no other reporter ever had a shot at? Where were your priorities then?”
“That’s different. Superman’s activities are news, and often I was the only reporter on hand to write them. I didn’t do it because I wanted to top anyone else or because I wanted to win awards.”
“So when
you write, you’re being noble, and when
I write, I’m being selfish. Fine. You know what? I can live with that. So now that we’ve got that established, let’s talk about Lex. What does it matter
why I want to investigate him? The bottom line is that I’m good at what I do, and you know it. You may be Superman, but there have been plenty of criminals you wouldn’t have caught in the last year without my help.”
“And there have been plenty of times you’d have been
dead without my help,” he shot back. He saw her eyes widen and heard her sharp intake of breath, and he immediately regretted his harsh words. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Well why don’t you tell me how you meant it, because it sure sounded like saving my life has been a real
inconvenience to you.”
“No,” he said. “No. Of course that’s not what I meant. It’s just…you scare me to death with the risks you take. Yes, you’re incredibly good at what you do, but you’re not invulnerable. I am. So if one of us is going to take on Lex Luthor, it should be me. I can’t do what I need to do to catch him if I’m constantly worrying about what might be happening to you. Can’t you see that?”
“You said it yourself, Clark. You’re invulnerable. As long as we’re working together, nothing will happen to me. I swear, I won’t take any crazy risks.”
He shook his head. “You know, what’s funny is that you probably believe that. Lois, you wouldn’t know a crazy risk if it jumped out and bit you – and it usually does! It always seems perfectly rational to you at the time. It’s only when you’ve been thrown off the building and are half-way to the ground that you start to think that whatever hare-brained scheme you’ve hatched just
might not have been such a good idea.”
“Well, your opinion of me just gets better and better, doesn’t it?” Lois said bitterly. “You know what, Clark? Just forget it. I’ll investigate Lex on my own.”
“No!” he exclaimed. “Have you been listening to me at all? Luthor is ruthless, Lois, and no matter what’s gone on between you, he won’t hesitate to kill you if he thinks you’re suspicious of him. You
have to stay out of this.”
“I
can’t stay out of it!” she cried. “I’m already in it.
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, if you’d just quit fighting with me for five minutes and listen to me.”
He took a deep breath and for a few seconds they just stared at each other as she waited for his response. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “Let’s start over, OK?”
“Thank you,” she said, the relief evident in her voice. “Can we sit down?”
“Of course,” he said, motioning her toward the sofa and then perching on the chair across from her. There had been a time when he’d have settled next to her, as natural as breathing, but not now. “So tell me.”
“After you left the other night…well, I was really upset. I guess that was pretty much what you were going for, and hey – it worked. I was mad at you, and I still am,” she glared at him, “but I also believed what you’d said about Lex. I knew that you might have lied to me every single day about Superman, but you wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
“No, I wouldn’t. And I wasn’t lying all the other times I warned you either.”
“My turn to talk, Clark, remember?” she snapped. “You can do your ‘I told you so’s’ later. Anyway, I went first thing the next morning to tell Lex that I wasn’t taking the job at LNN and that I couldn’t marry him, and he…well, I don’t know quite how to describe his reaction. He wasn’t angry or anything, but he just wouldn’t accept that I meant it. He said he was going to continue to ‘court’ me and that he was sure I’d eventually realize that we were meant to be together.”
“Luthor doesn’t like being told ‘no’ about anything.”
“Yeah.” She clenched her hands tightly in front of her. “I’m getting that impression.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s…well…he sent me flowers. I found them in the middle of my living room. He’d somehow gotten into my apartment. Clark, you’ve
seen my locks, and no one but Sup…
you could possibly get in my windows. And since then, he’s been turning up wherever I am and acting like it’s all a big coincidence, but I don’t believe it and he
knows I don’t believe it and doesn’t seem to care. I had lunch with Perry yesterday, and Lex just ‘happened’ to be dining at the same restaurant. Perry and I had made those plans over the phone, Clark. There’s no way Lex could have known about them unless he’s…”
“Tapped your phone, bugged your apartment, had you followed,” Clark finished for her, sounding grim. “He’s probably done all three.”
She stared at him. “You’re not exactly making me feel better here.”
“You’re being stalked by a sociopath, Lois. I don’t know how to make you feel better about that.”
“I know. The only thing that’s going to make me feel better is knowing that Lex is behind bars. I need your help, Clark.” She turned to him with pleading eyes, and then she looked down at her hands, which she was now twisting in her lap, and added in a small voice, “I’m scared.”
He felt her last words pierce him, as he suspected they’d been intended to. Lois was a master at getting him to do what she wanted him to do, and he was too off-balance just then to sort out how much of her little speech was honest emotion and how much was manipulation. In his present frame of mind, it was easier just to assume it was all the latter.
“I’ll help you, Lois, but for once, it’s going to be on my terms.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I’m top banana this time. I call the shots. I do the investigating and you leave Metropolis – go somewhere where you’ll be safe.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “You’re crazy. I’m not leaving Metropolis!”
“Yes, you are,” he said firmly, invoking his Superman voice. It was effective, too; she sat up a little straighter and cocked her head at him slightly as if trying to make him out. “I’ll still work with you on the investigation, but you’re going to do your part from a distance.”
“Oh, right,” she said sarcastically. “I’m sure I’d be a big help.”
“You could be. A lot of what we’ll be doing is sorting through LexCorp’s financial records, and the Planet’s too. You can do that in Kansas as easily as here.”
“In Kansas!” she shrieked, jumping to her feet. He’d had a feeling she wasn’t going to like that part. “Are you out of your simple little farmboy mind?”
His voice was laced with steel when he issued his ultimatum: “Lois, either you stay with my parents while we investigate Luthor, or I fly out of here tonight and leave you to him. If I were you, I’d consider this decision very carefully.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t do that.”
He leaned forward and stared right into her eyes. “Just watch me,” he said softly.
It was a bluff, of course, but it was a powerful one, and he stood his ground. She blinked first, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I hate you, Clark Kent.”
He sighed, awash in a mixture of pain and relief. “Thank you, Lois. I’m going to do my best to make sure you can continue hating me for years to come.”
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A/N: The “A little louder, Lois, I don’t think they heard you in Gotham City…” line was lifted from the episode “We Have a Lot to Talk About,” written by John McNamara.
Thanks again to all who have taken the time to offer feedback. Your comments are sincerely appreciated! I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
