A/N: This is a sequel to Newcomers.
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In another timeline, Cat Grant would have been annoyed at how the hunky new guy at the Planet ignored her while practically drooling over Lois. As it was, she found it fascinating; even amusing: Lois had no idea that she had the full attention of a man who not only looked like that, but supposedly could also cook like a four-star chef and bench-press planes. More than once, she had to keep herself from cackling out loud; Lois had started giving her funny looks as it was.
While it was fun to speculate on whether Perry's pet investigator would be oblivious forever to her new one-man fan club, Cat decided that she didn't have to keep guessing. After all, she had a source. Why wonder about the ending of a story when she could just peek at the last page?
So, when Cat finally came home that day, she immediately looked around for her roommate. He turned out to be sitting in the kitchenette, staring intently at a thick book that lay open on the table in front of him. After a moment, he jotted something down on a notepad and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Cat sauntered up to him and gave his shoulder a little shake, but this time his smile was brief and his wave half-hearted. He gave her a questioning look, and she recognized the signs for “how” and “work”.
“Good,” Cat replied, hoping that she wasn't accidentally cussing him out again with the hand-motion. He smiled brightly instead of giggling at her, though, so that boded well. “Work was good. Um...What…” She remembered the sign for “what”, but the one for “reading” eluded her; so she settled for pointing at his book.
With a nod of understanding, he lifted it so she could see the title on the cover:
Hypothetical Physics and the Possibilities and Paradoxes Relating to Time Travel
Cat felt her brain melt a little. “Wow.”
He nodded again, grimacing, and set the book back down with a deep sigh. The poor guy could probably benefit from a good distraction, but first things first…
Cat reached for the notepad beside him and flipped to a clean page. “Is Lois Lane your mother?” she wrote.
He stared at her, his eyes seeming to nearly pop from their sockets. “How?!” he signed.
“Obvious,” she wrote. “Your father is so smitten with her!”
He looked adorably flustered and eventually took the pen and notepad back from her. He returned it after adding the line: “I never said that Clark Kent was my father.”
“I never said his name was Clark Kent,” she wrote beneath it.
He slumped in his chair, utterly defeated.
Cat tapped her initial question again, and this time, he nodded. She dragged the notepad closer and wrote “What's your real name?” before pushing it back.
“Jordan,” he printed neatly. Well, that was certainly a more plausible name than “Red Tornado”, though the accompanying sign he showed her wasn't quite as memorable.
“Kent?”
He nodded.
“Are you a reporter, too?”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he took back the pen. “No, but I'm sure my parents wish I was. I create websites and computer programs for people. Much more fun.”
Oh great, he was one of Jimmy's kind.
He wrote on the notepad again before she could reply. “Maybe it's just as well. Trying to be like my dad always backfires. Look how my first day with the Justice League turned out!” The notepad finally slid towards her and he leaned back with a sigh of despair.
Cat had no idea what the Justice League was, but apparently it had something to do with how she recently came to meet a stud with a weird outfit and an even weirder story. In her book, that was a very, very good outcome indeed. She might not have the exact words to tell him as much, but then, Cat didn't really need words. She slid onto his lap and proceeded to keep his hands and mouth thoroughly occupied.
In another timeline, Cat might have been annoyed at the new guy wasting his attention on a fuddy-duddy like Lois Lane. In this timeline, she had no complaints.
-The End...For Now-
