A/N: This is in the same series as Newcomers, The Best of Times, and Then and Now. I hope y'all enjoy!
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“Anywhere but home!” Perry had ordered them. “Don't be where they can serve you!”
Clark stared at his desk. The agents had gone through every paper in every drawer, leaving it looking as though a tornado had hit it. Worse still, he had a sense that the true storm was still coming.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Cat appear next to him. She seemed to hesitate briefly before reaching out to touch his arm. “Since you're a man in hiding, why not come have dinner at my place?”
He turned to look at her, studying her face to see if he could gauge her intentions. Cat had certainly been nothing other than friendly to him since his arrival at the Planet, but her reputation held that she was a man-eater. Perhaps this was the springing of a trap? “You and me?”
“Well...” Cat shrugged. “You, me, and possibly my roommate.”
Some of the saucier stories about Cat sprang to the forefront of Clark's mind, and his eyebrows raised.
“My male, straight roommate,” Cat clarified with a smirk.
Clark's cheeks felt warm.
She rested a hand on his arm again. “Just come by. It'll be...interesting.”
Clark wasn't sure he was up for “interesting”, but...going home was not an option. What else could he do?
**********
Clark followed Cat into the apartment and tried not to think about a trap closing when she shut the door behind him.
“Just let me see if he's home yet,” she said, heading to a room in the back.
Clark nodded and took the opportunity to look around the famous “lair”. The art on the walls certainly had a theme to them that fit with what he knew of the woman, but the pieces were surprisingly tasteful. Even more surprising was the wall of books which contained everything from “Portrait of a Lady” and “Lady Chatterley's Lover” to biographies of Mae West and Madame de Pompadour. A few more books rested on the coffee table, and Clark double-taked as he realized they were about time travel and quantum physics.
The sound of the front door opening caused Clark to turn around just as a man entered with an armload of groceries. He was about Clark's height, dark hair tucked under a baseball cap, and he sported a large pair of sunglasses despite the waning daylight. He froze, staring at Clark.
Clark stepped forward and held out a hand. “Um, hi! You must be Cat's roommate.”
The other man didn't acknowledge him, but instead looked around frantically. His gaze settled in the direction Cat had disappeared to. With a wordless yell, he stamped on the ground and reached over to the light-switch to begin flicking the lights on and off.
Cat ran back into the room, muttering under her breath: “You don't have to do that; I'm not the one who's deaf!”
The man set the groceries down on the coffee table, shoving some of the books aside, and turned to face Cat. With a look of distress, he launched into a flurry of complicated hand gestures, occasionally pointing at Clark.
Cat motioned for him to slow down.
He lowered his hands, then suddenly stiffened. With a glare, he waved two fingers back and forth between Cat and Clark, then—well, Clark had no idea if that next gesture was Sign Language, but it certainly needed no translation!
Clark felt his face warm up.
With an irritated look, Cat shook her head, then reached up and smacked newcomer on the back of his own. She looked over her shoulder at Clark. “Clark, this is my roommate.” She turned back to her roommate, who now looked rather contrite, and pointed to each of her shoulders. “We...” Her fingers moved back and forth. “...need to talk.”
*****
Jordan tried to keep calm. There was no doubt that his dad could tell his heart was pounding. Did he also know who Jordan was? Was that why he was here? He studied the man's face, but all he could discern was that his dad looked so very young...
Cat picked up the notepad from the table and jotted something down on it: “Tell him who you are?”
He shook his head and motioned for his father to leave. This was a bad idea and Cat knew it! So why—?
She wrote on the notepad again. “Gov't men at the Planet today looking for Superman”. After a thought, she added a word and turned the pad back around to show “HANDSY Gov't men”.
Appalled, Jordan immediately stepped towards her to see if she was alright.
She patted his arm and gave him a reassuring smile. “Fine,” she signed, then wrote another line on the paper. “HE needs to hide & we don't want them finding Anyone Else.” The last two words were underlined.
Jordan frowned. If the government just wanted Superman's help with something, it made no sense that his dad would be driven into hiding. Perhaps he was afraid that they wanted to use him as a weapon? But then, his parents had only ever mentioned one instance where Superman was approached about aiding the military: a sitting president had politely asked, and his dad had politely declined. None of this made sense...
Cat tapped the first line of the paper again. “Tell him who you are?”
He looked at his Dad again, his resolve fading. Maybe the timeline had already been broken, despite his efforts not to interfere? H.G. Wells clearly wasn't coming. Maybe his predicament was a job for Superman, after all. Maybe they could work together to figure out what went wrong and how to put it right again.
With a nod at Cat, Jordan straightened his shoulders. He turned to his dad and signed the words he'd practiced in the mirror since he was a kid: “My name is Red Tornado, and I'm here to help.”
His dad stared blankly at him.
The thought began to seep into Jordan's mind that his dad might not know any Sign Language yet.
His dad.
Couldn't sign.
For the first time since he'd realized he was in the early 90's, Jordan felt alone. It was one thing when he'd contacted Cat and found that she had to start from scratch; the older Ms. Grant had likewise chosen to learn after meeting him, so that was familiar. His own father, though... Jordan remembered some of his classmates who needed interpreters to talk to their own parents. It was a position he'd never envied, and now, here he was.
His dad studied his expression for a moment, then said something to Cat and took the notepad from her hands. He flipped to a clean page and wrote: “Hi. I'm Clark Kent. It's nice to meet you. What's your name?”
Jordan smiled a little and took the offered pad. “You can call me Red Tornado”, he wrote before handing it back.
His dad frowned at the page and looked at him in confusion. His mouth moved.
Jordan looked over at Cat, whose eyes sparkled with mischief, and a grin found its way onto his own face. He turned back to his dad, and then...spun. By the time he stopped, he was once again dressed in the red tights and head-covering mask that he'd first arrived in.
His dad's jaw dropped.
Cat started to say something, but then she and his dad both froze. His dad reached into his pocket, pulled out a strange, black device, and stared at it. After another exchange between the two of them, he went to the telephone, occasionally glancing back at Jordan.
Jordan took a deep breath. So far, he didn't feel like he was fading into nonexistence. That boded well, but he had no clue would happen next. As of now, the timeline had been thrown into a maelstrom of uncertainties, and there was nothing for it but to ride the storm.
What she playing at? Trying to mend fences?
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Michael