The Many Shades of True Heroes
by
L Mouse
Chapter 4/9
* * * * *
Clark stood on the building's roof, staring out over the city. Lois hesitated, watching him, uncertain if she really wanted to approach him. But mad curiosity propelled her forward. The man was intriguing.
He'd purchased a change of clothes that day -- jeans, sneakers, and a casual long-sleeved shirt. Despite the hot weather the shirt was buttoned up to the collar. In the stifling afternoon heat he should have been sweating. He wasn't.
"Any luck at the library?" She asked, finally. He didn't jump or seem surprised she was behind him.
He glanced back at her. "Hi, Lois. I had some. I got in touch with some people in Sunnydale and found that my double was a foster child. He wasn't raised by my -- by the Kents. His name's William Clark Smith. Other than that, I'm no closer to finding him."
"I'm sorry," she said, and was surprised to find that she meant it. He was clearly bothered by the difficulty in locating his double.
"He may not even be under the same name now. They put him in a foster home run by realigious zealots, according to one of his teachers. He ran away when he was fourteen. At a guess they were pretty horrible to him." Clark ran a hand through his hair. His brown eyes were dark and troubled.
Lois knew Clark wasn't entirely human and was probably at least part demon; how miserable would it have been for a demon child to live with fundies? If he'd done anything to make them suspect he wasn't a normal boy that experience could have been bad indeed. She mentally winced at the thought.
She wondered again what, exactly, Clark was. And what his talents were. A sudden idea occurred to her and she acted on impulse without really thinking it through. "Hey Clark, would you do me a favor?"
"Sure," he said, with a smile that was genuinely friendly. "What do you need?"
"I never have anyone to spar with who can hold their own against me. I work out at a gym but I've always got to pull my punches when I'm sparring with the guys at the gym. I've seen you fight -- you obviously know at least some hand to hand stuff. And you're a bit stronger than normal humans. Would you ..."
He blinked at her, arms folding. He seemed very wary. "You want me to be your sparring partner?"
"Sure. It's like dancing, only we hit each other. I'll show you some moves ..."
He clearly wanted to say no. She gave him her brightest, sunniest, smile and said, "Pretty please?"
"I don't think so ..."
"C'mon. You might learn something!" She swung a sudden kick at him, to see how quickly he would react.
The answer was, *very* quickly. He caught her foot and held it until she pulled free and hopped backwards.
"Sorry ... Lois, this is a very bad idea. I don't want to fight with you, even a pretend fight."
"Don't be sorry! That was great!" She bounced back to her feet and spun another kick at him. He dodged back, and she kicked again and nailed him with her other foot in the chest.
"Ow!" Kicking Clark was like kicking concrete. She'd pulled the blow to avoid hurting him, and he'd been ducking so it was only a glancing strike anyway, and that turned out that was a good thing, but more for her own sake than his!
He gave her an apologetic look. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea... Lois, I really think this is not a good idea ..."
"Nonsense. You're perfect!" She caught his arm and tried to flip him over her shoulder. Except she couldn't budge him. She tried to ignore the terror in his eyes as he backed away from her and focused on getting him to fight back. This was going to be harder than it looked!
* * * * *
Lois was limping a bit, and very sweaty, when she stepped into her apartment half an hour later. Clark had said he'd be down in a minute -- he'd never even perspired. He'd also never fought back. He'd been a rather uncooperative partner, all told, but she'd learned quite a bit about him in the impromptu and one-sided match.
Buffy and Willow were both plowing through stacks of books on her kitchen table, researching something. Possibly more information about the spell that would send Clark home. She cleared her throat, "Buffy?"
"What's up?" Buffy looked up.
"Clark? Is 100% definitely not human." She rolled her neck. Her muscles felt like jello; she'd be sore in the morning.
"We know that," Willow said, without looking up. "That spell would not have picked a normal human man to bring through."
"I just beat on him with full Slayer strength for half an hour. He doesn't even have a bruise to show for it." Lois had a few bruises of her own on her hands.
"You got into a fight with Clark?" Buffy sounded alarmed.
"Sparred with him. Or tried to, anyway. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was trying very hard to hide how strong he really is," she splashed cold water on her face at the kitchen sink. "He never hit me back, never tried to fight me. Just let me whale on him. And I don't think it hurt him much, if at all. He was faking pain."
"I'd sure like to know what he is," Willow said, thoughtfully.
"I think I'm going to take him out on a patrol with me this afternoon," Buffy said, after a moment's thought. "You're right, Wil. We need to know more about him. And I'd like to discuss the nature of vampires with him -- I'm not sure that he really gets it yet."
* * * * *
"Aren't you hot?" Buffy asked. She was roasting even dressed in shorts and a spaghetti top. The nasty humid heat was making her hair frizz as well; she was so ready for summer to be over.
Clark, in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, shook his head. "I'm fine. So we just walk around in the graveyard until we find a vampire?"
"Yeah, that's the plan." Buffy grinned at him. Convincing Clark to patrol with her had been fairly difficult until she mentioned she'd go alone, otherwise. Then he was willing to tag along. She wasn't sure if that was chivalry or chauvinism on his part. Chivalry, her gut said.
"Lois says you sparred with her," Buffy said, conversationally.
"She didn't give me much choice ..." Clark trailed off. He was wary about her intentions now. "She's a lot like my Lois in many ways."
Even though he was suspicious of her motives in mentioning the sparring match, when Buffy lit into him with several no-holds-barred blows he was so surprised he landed on his butt in the dirt. Buffy stuck her fingers in her mouth and sucked away the pain and looked at him with new respect -- Lois was right, hitting him with anything resembling Slayer strength was not a wise idea. She'd nearly broken her hand punching him. He should have at least said, "Ow!" and he didn't appear bruised at all.
"C'mon," she crouched, "I bet you can't take me down."
He held his hand up, not rising, "I'm not going to spar with you, either, Buffy. This is completely silly."
She offered him a hand up, wordlessly. He accepted it without hesitation -- and obviously wasn't expecting it when she flipped him over her shoulder. She grunted in surprise at his weight, which was significantly more than a human should have weighed. He was *dense.* She added that bit of knowledge to his enhanced strength and speed that they'd already noted.
"C'mon, Buffy," this time he stood up on his own, "I don't want to do this. If ..."
"I need to know what your capabilities are if you're going to patrol with me and hang out with my Slayers," Buffy said, quietly. "C'mon, hit me."
"No." He stood with his hands down, refusing to cooperate.
Buffy said shortly, "Got something to hide?"
"Yeah," he said, grimly. The worry in his eyes was warring with a sense of general pissed-offedness. She suspected it took quite a bit of provocation to make this man angry; she knew she was getting close to the line. That didn't bother her much -- if he wanted to go home he couldn't exactly stalk off and never speak to her again. "And I'd like it to stay secret. I'm starting to get annoyed with this, Buffy."
*Tough*, Buffy thought. "I'm not letting one of my girls get hurt, which is quite possible if you're as strong as I think you are. What are you, part demon? If you are you should know that I've got plenty of demon friends. I only slay bad demons."
"And you're the judge, jury, and executioner all rolled in to one," he said, shortly. His tone matched the look in his eyes. "How do you determine who's a good demon and who's a bad demon? Ever make a mistake and kill a good guy? Would you even know if you had? I like you, Buffy, but I don't like your methods. They could use some ..."
"Generally speaking, the bad demons are the ones who are killing people and the good demons are few and far between." Buffy launched a kick at his stomach. This time he caught her foot and shoved up. She had to hop backwards to keep from falling over.
"I'm not a demon," he said, quietly, arms folded.
"Then what are you? You're not fooling any of us by claiming you're a man." She kicked at his head. He deflected her foot with a hand, this time less gently. She landed on the ground on her back.
"I am a man!" A bit of his anger at this interrogation touched his voice. He folded his arms and favored her with a cold glare. She'd touched a nerve.
"And something else. I don't like not knowing what you are, Kent. I've had too many surprises in my life." She lashed out with a foot and kicked him in the knee. He fell with a startled noise and she launched across the grass at him and tried to pin him down. Except that he was faster than she was and far stronger it was she who was pinned down. He held her down by the shoulders.
"Will you stop it?" He snapped in her face. Yeah, he was mad now. "Look, I don't want to talk about it."
"You could be a threat to us," Buffy pointed out. She wasn't scared, somehow, but she wasn't happy to be on the losing end of the fight. *Some fight -- he's not even trying.* She tried to knee him in the gut -- he was holding her down with enough strength to genuinely scare her. She connected, but his reaction was decidedly less than she'd expected. He just gave her a dirty look. She should have launched him airborne. Her knee would be black and blue tomorrow.
"I am NOT a threat to you!" He growled. "I'm not a bad guy, Buffy! Knock it off!"
She asked, "What are you going to do now?"
"Let you up as soon as you promise to stop hitting me. I'd like to be friends with you but you don't seem to have much respect for me." Clark started to release her.
At that instant a vampire barreled into Clark with a ferocious snarl. Clark was knocked off her and into the moonlit grass; the vampire rolled to his feet first and growled in gameface, "What are you doing to Buffy?"
Clark reacted faster than she would have believed. He leaped to his feet, lunged at the vampire, shoved him against a tree and reached over his head to snap off a dead branch. Then he hesitated, vampire pinned, hand pulled back, every line of his body tense. She was truly impressed by the speed and power he'd shown; the vampire had no chance at all when Clark had gone after him. She could see Clark's face -- his eyes were wide and full of emotional agony. This was not a man who liked to kill anything, even vampires.
The vampire looked at Buffy and said, "Buffy! A little help would be a good thing here ..."
The vampire had long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She almost didn't recognize him, he looked so different. But his voice hadn't changed, that wonderful British accent, and one eyebrow was scarred, and she'd seen his game face often enough that even with the different hair style she knew.
Clark started to make a killing blow. The vampire's eyes widened in horror. Buffy didn't know she could move that fast. She covered the distance faster than seemed humanly possible and caught his wrist. "Stop! Woah! Not this one!"
Clark gave her a confused look over his shoulder. "I thought you said all vampires are evil."
"They are! This is Spike. He's a good guy! Let him go." Had she explained Spike to Clark? No, she hadn't. Giles had given him a very abbreviated version of Slayer history and had left out both her vampire lovers. Giles had never approved of either of them and he tended to gloss over mention of them when explaining things to newbies.
Clark, with something akin to a sigh of relief, did so. He stepped back, dropped the vampire, and gave her a look that begged for an explanation.
Spike adjusted his shirt, rolled his neck, and said, "Buffy? You okay?"
"I'm fine." She stared at him. Spike. Spike was dead. Spike was dead for three years. Spike had died in Sunnydale. This was indisputably Spike even if he was wearing his hair weird. He looked like he'd been missing meals lately, too.
"I saw Spandex Man here had you pinned down. I thought he was hurting you," Spike said. He glanced at Clark. "What, was that just some kind of foreplay?"
"What?" Clark said, blushing in embarrassment. Buffy's own cheeks grew hot. Yeah, this was Spike all right, and he was even at his obnoxious best. He might be alive, however, killing him on general principles seemed like a viable option.
"Buffy here likes it rough." Spike laughed. "What, you haven't figured that out yet?"
"I'm married!" Clark held a hand up, displaying his wedding ring on one finger. Buffy thought that anyone less polite than Clark Kent would have lifted a *different* finger at Spike. Spike's tone of voice was downright insulting -- only Spike could add that extra edge to his words. Clark, by contrast, sounded indignant, mortified, and quite angry.
"And you're supposed to be dead." Buffy breathed at Spike.
He shrugged and asked sardonically, "Are you going to hit me now?"
"That all depends on what your excuse is for not being dead." Buffy glanced at Clark. Clark was watching the interchange with utter fascination now that he was no longer the target of Spike's snarking.
She turned her attention back to Spike. He gestured loosely at Clark, "So now it's aliens?"
"Aliens?" So her earlier guess about Clark's origins, based on his inadvertent slip, was right. He wasn't human at all; he was some kind of extraterrestrial. "Spandex Man?"
Spike laughed again. She noted he was also standing out of slugging distance -- that actually bothered her, because she wasn't seriously considering punching him. Slaying him, maybe, but not beating him up. "Ask him about his Halloween costume. I take it he hasn't told you."
Clark looked like he was sucking on a lemon. "What I'd like to know is how you figured it out."
Spike tapped his nose. "Vampire senses."
Buffy translated -- though she wasn't sure what she was translating -- "Vampires do this gross thing were they sniff people's scents like dogs. And Spike, Clark's so not my boyfriend. So cut out the jealous macho crap."
"So he is a vampire. But he's a good vampire. I thought you said they were all evil." Clark still had the sour citrus expression on his face.
"And that is a very long story. I'll tell you later. Umm -- Spike, you do have a soul still, right?" Buffy turned her attention back to him with some concern. She searched his face for some clue. Unsouled Spike wasn't the disaster that Angelus was, but it would give her a clue what precisely she was dealing with here,
"Yeah. Unlike Peaches, mine doesn't have a return policy." Spike folded his arms and gave her a glare that she wasn't sure she deserved. What had she done to him to piss him off? Well, what had she done lately, anyway. Last time she'd seen him they'd been on excellent terms.
"I thought you were dead. How could you let me think you were dead? You're dead, Spike!" She took a step towards him. He took a step backwards. She stopped. "I'm not going to hit you. I might kiss you."
Spike took another step backwards. He held his hands up in a fending gesture. "Sorry, Buffy. I'd rather you not."
"Spike?" She stopped short, stunned by the rejection.
He turned on one heel and walked away. She stared after him with her mouth open. She wasn't sure what to think -- too many things had been thrown at her in a very short order. Finally, she found her voice. "Spike! Wait!"
"Don't follow me," he tossed over his shoulder at her and kept going.
"Damn him," Buffy growled.
"Old boyfriend?" Clark hazarded a guess after a moment's silence.
"Something like that." She turned her attention to Clark and frowned at him. He was wearing the long-sleeved shirt buttoned all the way up to the collar, sleeves buttoned at his wrist, and his expression was exceedingly wary.
She reached out -- as fast as she could because she'd seen how quickly he could move and knew that she'd need to catch him off guard -- and grabbed his collar and gave a good hard yank. Buttons popped. Blue spandex was revealed. She folded her arms and looked up at him. "Superman, hmm?"
"Yeah.." He admitted. He scratched his head and eyed her warily. "What are you going to do now?"
"Well, I can't blame you for not wanting to tell me the whole story," Buffy said wrily. She hadn't exactly been receptive to the idea of a nearly invincible hero. History and experience told her to be afraid of him; her instincts and Slayer intuition told her he was a nice guy. "Umm, can you really fly? Because that's weirdly cool."
"Want me to fly you home?" He offered. He was still looking at her with some trepidation.
"No, thank you." Buffy found that idea remarkably unappealing. He looked vaguely relieved that she'd turned him down. As far as she was concerned she had no desire whatsoever to fly with him. What if he dropped her?
"Look, I didn't want you to know because I never tell anyone. In my world the only people who know are my parents and Lois and that's it. I don't tell anyone the secret because it's dangerous for them to know and it's dangerous for me and for my friends and family." He paused. "Plus you made it pretty clear you thought Superman might be an enemy. I don't want to fight with you."
He hesitated and added, "And it's not even my secret to tell. It's this world's Clark's. He should decide who knows what he is, not me."
Buffy said in a tone that was somewhat apologetic, "Well, you'd have a hard time in this world keeping a secret identity, as Spike just demonstrated. Half of the demons out there have enhanced senses. They'd figure it out."
He exhaled sharply. He'd never thought of that complication. "And I assume there's a fair amount of communication between demons and humans?"
Buffy nodded. "Afraid so."
She paused, "Are you mad at me for prying?"
"Not really. I understand your motives."
"Do you ever get really mad?" Buffy asked, which was an actual and honest question.
"I live with Lois Lane," he pointed out, lips twitching into a smile.
Buffy snorted a laugh. "That makes you an angel, not an alien."
He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and didn't answer that comment directly. Instead, he said, "So Spike's a good vampire?"
"Yeah," Buffy said. She exhaled a long sigh. "He is. He's saved my life on several occasions, and saved my sister a few times too. He's been loyal beyond the call of duty and beyond all expectations I've ever had. He's one of a kind."
"You love him." It was a statement, not a question. Clark was looking at her, watching her through his unfashionable glasses.
"Yes, but not at first. At first he was just a useful tool. He was implanted with a behavior modification chip by the government -- the government had this secret program where they were dissecting demons and they made this really icky frankendemon called Adam -- what?"
Clark had gone pale in the moonlight. He swallowed, found his voice, and said, "Sorry. My father used to warn me that if the government ever found out what I was they'd dissect me like a frog."
"Oh. And they might have, at that," Buffy said, darkly. "I'm not sure they'd see much difference between you and the average demon. But -- the Initiative is dead, thank God. So's Adam. That's a story for another day ... anyway, Spike was chipped by the Initiative and he got these headaches if he tried to hurt humans. But he could beat up on demons all he wanted. And he wanted. And he was useful in other ways. And he was harmless -- or mostly harmless, anyway. So we used him. I couldn't kill him; he was helpless against me."
She glanced up at him; he was listening intently. He was, she thought, a remarkably handsome man. His wife was a lucky woman. For a moment she wondered why she was telling this stranger about Spike. But Clark was quiet, listening. He had a sympathetic feel to him. He was just a decent guy -- she wondered again how he'd ended up married to Lois "Mad Dog" Lane, of all improbable people. His Lois *had* to be a nicer person!
After a moment, she continued. "I ... died ... to stop Glory. She was a Hell God. They brought me back, but I hurt so bad, inside. It was so hard to live in the world after being at peace ... Spike was ... Spike loved me, by that point. He truly did. As for me, he was convenient and I was not in good state of mind. If you know what I mean."
Clark shot her a surprised look. Then he blushed when her expression -- which was slightly embarrassed -- confirmed the meaning of her words to him.
She gave him a wry look. "Don't look so shocked, Kent. And ... I'm stronger, now. Lots stronger. I was really just a kid; that was a long time ago."
He shoved his glasses up his nose with one finger and said, "You didn't love him then?"
"He wasn't the man then that he is now, either. I ... I finally rejected him. Drove him away. He was madly in love with me, Clark, and he decided to *make* himself worthy of my love. He found some way to get a human soul and he went and he did it. For me. Because he loved me." She blew a stray bit of hair out of her eyes.
"Did you fall in love with him when he came back?" Clark asked, quietly.
Buffy was silent, thinking quietly to herself. When had she fallen in love with Spike? She grimaced. "I'm not sure, honestly, when I fell in love with him. I think the seeds were there before he ever got a soul. After -- that last year, when we were fighting The First -- sometimes he was the only person who stood by my side. He was there for me even when everyone else turned against me. He's really a remarkable man. I know when I actually realized I truly loved him, though."
He made an encouraging noise.
"About a minute before he died. Or before I thought he died, anyway. And I had time to tell him. And Clark -- I'd pushed him away so very many times that he said I didn't mean it. I've lived these last three years thinking he'd died without ever knowing I loved him." Buffy kicked at a clump of grass. "I've prayed for another chance to tell him. To convince him. Maybe to kiss him, one last time, with real feeling. I'd have given up years of my life for one last talk with him ..."
She grinned, but it wasn't entirely a happy expression. It was a crazy, feral, mad grin. "And now I find out the bastard survived and he never told me!"
Clark suggested, "Perhaps he had good reasons for not contacting you. He's obviously still protective of you."
"Maybe," she sighed, and ran her hands through her hair. The look she gave him was bleak. "Maybe. I'd like to sit down and talk to him about it."
Clark said softly, "Buffy? Don't give up on him. If you really love him, don't give up."
She glanced up at him. He gave her a smile that said he'd *been* in her shoes at some point in his life. She wondered just how complicated his romance with Mad Dog Lane had been. Very complicated, if Lois' temperament was any indication.
She sighed. "I'd be happy if he just gives me a chance to talk."
* * * * *
