From Part 15:
“Wow.” She was quiet for a moment. “I want to believe you, Clark. But I quit believing in fairy tales a long time ago.”
“Then I’m just going to have to make you believe again,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He pressed his lips to the crown of her head, breathed in the sweet fragrance of her hair. “Someday, Lois Lane, I’m going to show you magic. I’m going to slay your dragons or fly you to the moon or whatever it takes to make you believe in fairy tales again.”
She laughed softly and relaxed into his embrace. “You’re pretty sure of yourself, Farmboy.”
“No,” he said, as serious as he’d ever been in his life. “I’m sure of us.”
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Part 16
Clark paced around his cramped hotel room, every now and then darting a glance toward the bed and feeling a stab of nervousness. For the first time in days, the bed didn’t inspire memories of his night with Lois, with all their attendant feelings of guilt and arousal. No, now when he looked at the bed, all he could see, all he could think about, was the bright red and blue suit spread out upon it – the hollow trappings of a hero.
Could he really fill that suit? Was he crazy to try? The suit itself seemed like a bold statement of pure confidence, but Clark felt anything but confident. Just the thought of putting on that suit made him feel like a sham, a fake. That was the suit of a different sort of man. A cool, level-headed hero. A stern enforcer of the public good.
A man of steel.
But Clark Kent was made of flesh and blood. This he knew. Could he don that suit and pretend otherwise? Could he pretend to be cool and stern and made of steel? Because if he couldn’t, if he let even the smallest bit of Clark Kent seep through, then the suit would be nothing more than a ridiculous costume. He might have been inspired by Lois’s outing as ‘Wanda Detroit’, but he realized that this was about a million times more dangerous than that. He was stepping out onto a public stage and assuming a role before a single line of dialogue had been written for his character.
He pulled his eyes from the bed and paced some more.
Glanced at the suit again.
Felt the nervousness sprouting like thistles in his belly.
He wasn’t ready for this – wasn’t ready at all – but he had the feeling that if he put it off, if he let the nervousness continue to grow, that he might never muster the courage to wear the suit. And there was still that feeling that this was a part of his destiny, something he was meant to do. Somehow the sight of the ‘S’ emblem on the suit reinforced that feeling. He didn’t know what it meant, didn’t know anything about Krypton at all, but he had the feeling that he had been born to wear that emblem. That one day, he would know what it meant and would be proud to be associated with it. It drew him to the bed, and he reached out to touch it reverently, wondering if he could ever be worthy of it...wondering if it was something to be ‘worthy’ of at all. It had been on his ship and on his blanket, but did that automatically invest it with higher meaning? Maybe it was just a logo, like the BMW propeller blade or the Mercedes star, something that would be found on many Kryptonian spaceships. It could mean anything or nothing, really, and as he fingered it, he remembered what his mother had said, that since he didn’t know what it meant, he would need to be the one to make it mean something.
And that was almost scarier than knowing it was something he needed to live up to. He was on his own in this. There would be no script, no direction, no Greek chorus to back him up. There would just be Clark Kent, a flesh-and-blood man in a suit his mother had made out of remnants from the Fabric Hut.
He touched the ‘S’ one more time and then stepped back and peeled off his shirt and jeans. He stood there in his white briefs and socks, feeling unbelievably foolish and about as un-heroic as it was possible for a man to feel. He reached for the suit – anything was better than standing around in his underwear – and stepped into it, twisting awkwardly to work the zipper. The cape buttoned on (though his mother had promised to work on a better system for that) and that, too, was awkward, his large fingers fumbling with the small buttons along the back of the suit. And finally, he reached for the red briefs, which, when layered on top of his regular briefs and the blue suit, made him feel as though he was wearing an iron girdle. It wasn’t entirely comfortable, but neither did he object to keeping his bits and pieces firmly subdued while he was wearing such a revealing outfit. Likewise, he thought the cape was extremely silly, but he appreciated that it covered that part of his anatomy about which women at the office were apparently already composing poetry.
He glanced at himself in the mirror... and saw Clark Kent looking back at him, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other. He took off his glasses – that was better – and pushed his hair back off his forehead experimentally. It helped, but still there was something missing.
The solution, when it came, was simple: He thought of Lois. He didn’t think about her alter ego Wanda Detroit – didn’t waste time analyzing the differences between Wanda and Lois or wondering how she’d created her character. No, he just thought of Lois as she was right then – on a date with Lex Luthor. For all her reassurances, the thought of Lois in intimate conversation with Lex Luthor by candlelight was enough to make Clark clench his jaw and square his shoulders. It was enough to put a cold look in his eyes that bore very little resemblance to the easy-going Clark Kent.
He rested his hands on his hips, and right there... that was the guy. That was the man of steel. The suit didn’t look foolish anymore because he wore it with the air of a man whom no one would dare to question. He wore it like a second skin, as if it were as much a part of him as his brown hair and dark eyes. He wore it as if the emblem on his chest already meant something – and maybe it did. He wanted to believe it did, anyway, and for the moment, that would have to be enough.
It took another few minutes to work out how to cover the suit with his regular clothes, and he had to remind himself not to squirm beneath the unfamiliar layers. There was a scratchy place on the zipper, and he made a mental note to ask his mother to fix it. It was one of the mysteries of his body that though his skin was invulnerable, he still hated itchy clothing and was as irritated by it as the next guy. And men of steel didn’t fidget. He was pretty sure of that.
He didn’t have much of a plan. In truth, his big “debut” had begun as nothing more than a way to fill the evening, a way to take his mind off of Lois’s dinner with Luthor. So there was no big catastrophe to rush off to. He hadn’t heard so much as a single siren since he’d gotten into the suit. But in a city the size of Metropolis, surely someone somewhere needed help. Surely. So he’d go find him...or her...or them...and help. Hopefully it would be something small. Something where he could practice his persona without garnering a lot of attention. Something that might start rumors but wouldn’t generate huge amounts of publicity. He was new at this, after all.
So he took to the streets as Clark Kent, keeping one eye open for trouble while most of his mind was working out the best way to shed his outer layer of clothing when the big moment came. He noticed a number of dark alleys and hoped that one would be nearby when he needed it. He had a theory that he could spin out of his shirt and jeans, but he hadn’t actually tried it yet.
Maybe he should have tried it.
His steps faltered as he imagined one disastrous scenario after another, most of which ended with him mother naked on a Metropolis street corner, and he almost turned back, almost convinced himself that he should practice some more in the privacy of his room before making any public attempt at a transformation.
But no, that was just cowardice talking. If he was going to do this, he needed to just do it. So why didn’t Metropolis seem to be cooperating? Why had every citizen of this huge city suddenly decided to embrace peace and goodwill? Where was a robbery in progress, a mugging that needed stopping? Where were the bad guys, for crying out loud? And how was a good guy supposed to rehearse without them?
Without consciously thinking about it, he walked in the direction of the Stardust Lounge, his steps slowing as he heard the music and realized where he was. He considered going in and getting a beer, but he rejected the idea almost as soon as he had it. The person who had made that night magical wouldn’t be there. She was across town, having dinner with Lex Luthor, and without her, the Stardust would lose it’s magic and be nothing more than a slightly run-down bar with a better-than-average singer. So he walked on by with nothing more than a sweet pang of memory, and he kept walking until finally, nearly two hours after he’d set out, he heard the squeal of brakes followed by the sound of impact and glass breaking.
Instinctively, he took off running, finding the accident two streets over. A car had hit a telephone pole – had hit it so hard that it had splintered and was listing crazily to one side. The front of the vehicle had collapsed like an accordion, and Clark saw as he peered through the window that the driver was unconscious, his face a mass of blood.
The front door was jammed, so Clark ripped it from the car and reached in to switch off the ignition. By then, a crowd was beginning to form, and he heard sirens wailing in the distance. He surreptitiously blew on the engine to cool it.
“Hey buddy, ya need some help?” a man called, jogging over to the side of the car.
“He’s unconscious,” Clark said, reaching into the doorway and putting his fingers to the driver’s neck, feeling for a pulse. He had heard the man’s heartbeat already, of course, but the gesture provided him with cover while he x-rayed, looking over the top rims of his glasses for the source of the blood.
“Should we get him out of there?”
“Better not to move him,” Clark answered. He knew that unless the car was in danger of exploding, it would be better to let the paramedics assess the injured man before he was moved. Clark could x-ray, could identify obvious injuries, but he hadn’t had formal emergency training. The sirens were getting louder and help would be there in minutes if not seconds, so waiting was the best of his choices just then.
“Sheesh,” the other man said, crowding Clark and peering over his shoulder. “Lotta blood.”
“Yeah.”
“Think he was drunk? Betcha anything he was drunk.”
Clark turned and glared then, fiercely enough that the man backed off. “Maybe you should wait over there,” Clark suggested coldly, nodding in the direction of the small gathering.
The man was still backing away when they were surrounded by a swarm of police cars and ambulances, their lights bouncing around in the dark, their sirens screaming in Clark’s sensitive ears. In seconds, Clark was pushed out of the way by paramedics and hustled off to one side by two police officers. He unable to give them much information, however, since he hadn’t actually witnessed the accident.
It wasn’t until he was walking away from the scene that he realized he’d forgotten to change. He’d spent the night trussed up in the clothing of two separate identities, and when the moment finally came to cast off one and become the other, he’d reacted instinctively as Clark Kent and forgotten the other guy completely.
With a sigh of disgust, he found a dark alley and shot into the sky. He’d just go flying - as Clark Kent, good Samaritan.
As for the heroic man of steel... apparently, it just wasn’t his night.
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“Grrrr!” Lois slammed the door and then tossed her purse onto the kitchen counter with a good deal more violence than necessary, causing her sister to blink at her in surprise.
“Should I not ask how it went?” Lucy asked.
“It was a big fat waste of time. That’s how it went.” Lois hurled herself onto the sofa and then kicked off the black heels that had been pinching her toes mercilessly for the last three hours. What had possessed her to buy the stupid things in the first place, she wondered, as she rubbed one foot. “I hate these shoes,” she said out loud.
“Can I have them?” Lucy asked hopefully.
“If you like being crippled in the name of fashion, be my guest.”
“Cool!” Lucy picked up the shoes and examined them with all the pride of ownership. “So why was your evening a waste of time? Didn’t he ask you out again?”
“Oh, yeah. He asked me out again all right. He just didn’t tell me one single useful fact for my story. I dodged his smarmy come-ons for hours and walked away with nothing.” Lex Luthor had been as slippery as one of Clark’s stir-fried eels and just about as appealing, she thought with disgust.
“So he was hitting on you?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Lucy gaped at her. “Let me get this straight...an incredibly rich, handsome man was hitting on you – wants to see you again – and all you can think is that you didn’t get the story? Lois, I think we need to work on your priorities.”
“My priorities are just fine,” Lois snapped.
“Yeah, if you happen to want to be alone for the rest of your life. You don’t even give guys a chance, Lois. For all you know, Lex Luthor could be Mr. Right.”
“Lex Luthor is not Mr. Right.” She spoke the words with the utmost conviction.
“Because you won’t give him a chance to be!” Lucy exclaimed.
“No, because I think I might have met Mr. Right, and he’s not Lex Luthor!” Lois fired back. She regretted the words the minute they left her mouth. Lucy’s exasperated expression was immediately replaced by one of consuming curiosity.
“You’ve met Mr. Right?” she repeated, dropping the shoes and giving her sister her full attention. “And when, pray tell, did this miracle occur?”
“In the last week,” Lois admitted. “And if you tell Mother, I will disown you. Toss you in the street. Take back my shoes.”
“Jeez, Lois. I’m not a monster!” Lucy gave her an insulted look. “So tell me absolutely everything. Each little disgusting detail. Is he rich?”
Lois thought of the Apollo, of the threadbare carpet and bare bulb swinging from the ceiling. She shook her head. “More like...poor as a church mouse. But he has prospects, as Mother would say.” She smiled at the outdated phrase and Lucy giggled. “He’s new at the Planet, and from what I’ve seen so far, he’s very good.”
“Wow. I haven’t heard you say another reporter was good in, like... ever. He must really be good – or you must really be in love.”
“I think it’s a little of both. Objectively, he is good, but I probably wouldn’t admit it if I didn’t like him.”
“You like him,” Lucy said, grinning from ear to ear. “Which means, once we put it through the Lois Lane translator, that you’re hopelessly, passionately in love.” She giggled and began to sing-song, “Lois is in luu-uuve, Lois is in luu-uuve!”
“Would you shut up!” Lois reached for a throw pillow and swatted Lucy over the head with it. Over the sounds of her sister’s laughter, she added, “I just met the guy. It would be ridiculous for me to say I was in love with him. Some of us like to take more than, oh, five minutes to make those kinds of decisions.”
“And that’s your problem right there,” Lucy said, wrenching the pillow out of her sister’s hands and bopping her back with it. “Falling in love isn’t a decision, Lois.”
“You’ve been reading too many romance novels, Luce.”
“Yeah – from the stash right under your bed,” she retorted. “C’mon. Why can’t you just admit that you might be in love?”
“I’ve already admitted that he might be Mr. Right, which means that I think I might, possibly, one day know him well enough to be in love with him.”
“Which is about as romantic as overgrown armpit hair.” Lucy rolled her eyes.
“Well it’s all you’re going to get from me.” Lois made to stand up.
“Oh no you don’t,” Lucy said, grabbing at her. “We’re not done here. So he’s not rich, but he has prospects. Is he handsome?”
Finding this topic rather appealing, Lois allowed herself to be tugged back onto the sofa. “Gorgeous,” she admitted on a sigh. “Tall, dark, muscles in all the right places. But he has kind of a wholesome, boy-next-door thing going on, too. He grew up on a farm, and it’s so much a part of him that you can practically still see the hay in his hair. He falls all over himself to open doors and calls any woman five minutes older than he is ‘ma’am’.”
“You’re attracted to a farmer?” Lucy hooted. “Does he know that your idea of a day in the country is a trip to Centennial Park?”
“He’s not a farmer, nitwit. He’s a reporter. I said he grew up on a farm. But after college he traveled all over the world.”
“An itinerate reporter,” Lucy said, sounding skeptical for the first time. “Do you think he’ll stay in Metropolis?”
Lois nodded slowly. “I think so. He’d be a fool to walk away from a job at the Planet.”
“And from you,” Lucy added loyally.
Lois laughed. “No, walking away from me would be the smartest thing he could do, but for some reason he doesn’t seem inclined to do it.”
“So all this like is mutual?”
“Uh...yeah. It seems to be.” And that was still a wonder, but if she wasn’t quite ready to believe in love at first sight, she was at least convinced now that Clark believed in it.
“Have you been on a date?”
“Not exactly.” She immediately thought of the Stardust and the night they’d spent together. Her sister certainly wasn’t going to get that story. Lois had lectured Lucy for years about her willingness to fall in bed with men she hardly knew, and she would never hear the end of it if she admitted that she’d slept with Clark the night she met him. “Work has been pretty busy with this Messenger story. We had lunch together yesterday, though, and he brought me Chinese food to the newsroom last night. It wasn’t quite a date, but it was a lot more fun than tonight’s dinner with Mr. I’m-So-Rich-and-Charming-and-Important.”
“Did you just say fun?” Lucy stared at her. “I’m sorry – I was just talking to my sister, Lois. Did you happen to see where she went?”
“Oh, ha ha, Lucy. I can have fun.”
“Yeah, you can. You just haven’t chosen to in a decade. Seriously, Lois, you need to marry this guy. If he can make you quit working long enough to eat Chinese food and have fun, then he’s definitely Mr. Right.”
“Maybe,” Lois conceded. “He’s not perfect...” She thought of his protectiveness and his jealous tendencies, which could be annoying, but she also realized that they both stemmed from the fact that he cared about her – cared about her more deeply than anyone ever had. Was he too protective, too jealous, or was she just not used to having anyone love her enough to be those things? “...but he just might be perfect for me.”
“Oh!” Lucy clapped her hand over her heart and pretended to swoon back onto the sofa. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard! I think I’m going to cry!”
“Luce. Come on.” Lois gave her sister a shove.
Lucy laughed. “So does Mr. Right have a name?”
“Clark,” Lois said softly, giving her sister what she suspected was an embarrassingly goofy smile. “Mr. Right’s name is Clark Kent.”
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A/N: Did you notice how I skipped right over the date with Lex? That could have just been a fit of laziness on my part, but I prefer to think of it as an early Christmas gift to Ann/TOC. So Merry Christmas, Ann! Also, I didn’t make this explicit, but please note that Clark was *not* hovering outside Lois’s window in an incredibly squicky, peeping-Tom way. I absolutely hate that scene in the pilot and think it’s completely OOC for Clark to spy on Lois that way. So it’s not happening on my watch.
As always, thanks to those who have taken the time to leave feedback. It is much appreciated !
