Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Undercover Reporter: Resurrection (11/17)

“Lois?”

That level of untamed mischief in his voice was never a good sign.

All she wanted was a hot bath somewhere far away from all the gun-fire and broken glass, but she’d just bet that her impenetrable shield would continue to sit there immovably until he’d had his fun. It’s not like the bumbling thugs behind them were really a threat at this point. She could hear two of them trying to work out how the still-melting gun had become welded to the floor.

“Yes?” she ground out.

“Why are you barefoot?”

She could hear his smile, which added another layer of annoyance heaped upon this entire, awful, misbegotten day.

And honestly, were these punks ever going to stop shooting? All they were doing was keeping her pinned in place so that he could tease her. She wouldn’t forgive them for that as easily as she would for the bullets.

“I broke a heel,” she said, fully aware that it came out as a whine. She’d liked that pair.

“That means shoe shopping this weekend,” he replied cheerily. “You like shoe shopping.”

The words sounded placating, but she didn’t have to look at him to know that he was laughing at her again.

“Oh, shut up.”

He didn’t know it yet, but he was definitely flying her to Milan for those new heels after this was over.





The clock along the wall from the elevator hit the ‘one’ for the second time in Lois’ work day.

She picked her head up off the desk, shoving away the spreadsheet she’d been dangerously close to drooling on, and capping the open highlighter.

“Jimmy, how’s it coming?” she called, fatigued and impatient at the same time.

“It’s not like you asked for something easy, Lois!” came his frustrated voice from a few desks over. “This guy’s got 16 accounts across about a dozen countries, and those are just the ones I can find,” Jimmy stalled, gesturing briefly to the monitor in front of him, before his screen changed and he returned to his furious typing. “I’m not even getting into his Swiss account on my own and the encryption on the Cayman gateway times out and resets after a certain point, so I have to start over every few minutes!”

A breeze disturbed the papers on the desks around them.

“Lois, how’s it coming?”

“S-Superman!” No matter how many times he met the hero, Jimmy still sounded impressed.

“Hi, Jimmy,” Superman said, in as non-Clark a voice as he could muster in the all too-familiar settings.

He looked at Lois, “So? How’s it coming?”

In reply, she made a series of frustrated gestures toward their favorite office gopher.

“The engines are starting up on Chow’s private plane, and somehow Wayne just completely vanished,” he said in a rush. “Who am I going after?”

“Bruce Wayne?” came Jimmy’s astounded voice from behind them.

“We’re still working on Chow’s accounts,” she said, her already long night evident in her beleaguered tone.

“The meeting is set for tonight,” he said urgently.

“I know that!”

“I need to pick one.”

“I know–” she snapped back.

“Right now,” he prodded, motioning to the open window.

“We haven’t had enough time to get into their accounts!”

“If I don’t go right now, I’ll lose them both!”

She hesitated, digging for that reporter’s instinct that she trusted not to fail her.

“Lois!” he interrupted her concentration.

“I don’t know!” she all but shouted back.

He put his hands up. “Ok, ok. I’m sorry.”

They took a beat to exchange a silent apology.

He took a breath and said, “I’m going to go back to Gotham. Wayne keeps disappearing on me and I can’t figure out how.” He turned and started to float up toward the double window on the second floor.

Lois turned that over in her mind. She’d met Bruce Wayne in person once. He’d clearly cast himself in the role of entitled playboy, but there was something too intense about him for her to entirely buy it. He’d struck her as someone who wore his demons close to the vest, but not someone who was morally bankrupt. Maybe the opposite, actually. In fact, if she had to make the comparison, something about him somehow reminded her much more of Clark than of Lex. A liar, maybe… But despotic? …not quite. Everything in her mind screamed at her that Wayne felt like the wrong mark.

Chow, though…

“No!”

He turned back to her mid-air. “No?”

“It’s Chow.”

“You’re sure?”

She fretted, wringing her hands “No!”

“Lo-is!”

“It’s not Wayne! The timing of his disappearances doesn’t match up to any of this. Whatever he’s doing when he shakes you, it’s not this.”

Her instincts were good enough for him. “Ok, Chow, then. I’m headed back to the airport.”

“Stay safe,” she said on impulse.

His eyebrow quirked.

“If one corrupt millionaire had kryptonite, they all might,” she expanded, unable to quell a worry that she didn’t understand.

Tonight was important. They knew the meeting with the gun runners was happening in the next couple of hours, but they didn’t know where it was. They had to pick one of their suspects and follow them, hoping they’d guessed who was guilty correctly. Even knowing they could be following a dead end,she couldn’t shake the feeling that this whole investigation was coming to a sudden head.

“I’ll be careful, Lois,” he assured, his voice warming her sudden chill.

They shared another meaningful look before he blurred out of sight.

The paper in the newsroom fluttered, and a second later she heard his tell-tale sonic boom.

“Wow,” said Jimmy’s awed voice behind her. “I didn’t know we were working with Superman.”

Lois suppressed an eye roll. She loved Jimmy to death, but sometimes…

She shook her head ruefully. Then again, after that patented Clark-and-Lois newsroom exchange, she should be grateful that their only witness was the king-of-missing-the-obvious.

Taking a new breath, she turned back to him and said, “We still need a paper trail to back him up. Let’s see how many of those accounts you can crack before Perry sends you out for donuts.”







“Lois?”

She looked up from the coffee pot she was waiting on, still restlessly tapping her fingers against the top of the counter.

“Remember when you asked me to cross reference everything on that old Luthor hard disk for the ‘antiques’ tag?”

That woke her up more than the coffee ever would.

But she reminded herself to focus. ‘Antiqxes’ hadn’t been on the illicit activity shopping list for tonight. “I thought you were working on the Channel Islands account,” she said sternly, trying to keep Jimmy focused on the task she needed most.

He clicked into another window to confirm. “The decryption program is still running.”

She couldn’t resist. Flipping the switch back off the coffee pot, she crossed the pit toward Jimmy’s desk. “What did you find?”

“Well, on the list you’ve been working with, ‘antiqxes’ was listed twice. But yours isn’t the most updated version.”

“How do you know?”

“The timestamp on the digital file. There’s a newer version on the hard drive you brought me from Luthor Corp, and it’s dated a couple weeks after yours. Actually, it was updated the day before your wedd— I mean, the day before Luthor jump— uh, here, take a look.”

She leaned over his screen, ignoring the foot wedged in Jimmy’s mouth. He was right. The version she’d been working off of was nearly two weeks older.

“Can you tell what the changes are?” she asked.

“Yeah. I pulled up both versions and ran a comparison through the software. In the new version, it didn’t find the word ‘antique’ at all, even with your ‘x’ spelling.”

Her brows knitted together.

“But it did find a new word - fertilizer.”

She pieced that together. So the ‘antique’ code had been replaced by ‘fertilizer.’ Why would Lex have changed his code for this on the day before his wedding?

She felt suddenly apprehensive, wondering if it hadn’t been a mere organizational update that had driven the name change. What had happened? What fresh horror had Lex been planning as a lead-in to his wedding? She made a mental note to ask Clark later. She’d noticed that he was always cagey about the details when conversation about that day came up, but she’d never pressed him about what she’d assumed was just an old jealousy.

“Fertilizer?” she wondered aloud.

“Yeah. But it’s weird. He spelled it wrong, too.’”

Her heart raced. “What?”

“F-e-r-t-i-l-i-x-e-r.”

Lex’s code.

Her instincts launched into high alert.

“How many times is that word in the document?”


“Three.”

Three.

Three of Lex’s x’s.

“Show me.”

He clicked through the document for her. The first one was near Suicide Slum. That was the one she’d raced to first. The second one had been just a few blocks from Lex Tower, and she’d gotten to that one, too.

“C’mon, Jimmy,” she prodded impatiently. “Where’s the third one?!”

He clicked ahead again.

“It’s down on Baxter Avenue,” he said, reading from the screen.

X marks the spot, she thought.

She was already racing to her desk to grab her coat and keys before the thought was complete in her mind, heart in her throat.

There was a third stash of kryptonite.

“Keep working on Chow’s accounts! If you strike out, start on Wayne’s. Any suspicious activity in Wayne’s, start yelling your head off for Superman and don’t stop until he shows up or I get back!”

She grabbed her coat without stopping and picked up speed as she headed for the ramp.

“Where are you going?”

She punched the button for the elevator. “Baxter Avenue!”