“Most of the kids I know have parents who are divorced,” Lisa said. She stared at her hands. “It happens a lot.”
Her father nodded. “I saw it a lot when I was in the foster care system. I even lived through it a couple of times.”
“So why does it happen? I thought love was supposed to last forever.”
That’s what it said in all the stories anyway. Part of Lisa desperately hoped it was true, even if a more cynical part realized that it wasn’t.
“Sometimes it does,” Clark said. “I think if Mom and Dad had lived, they’d have been together until the day they died. Before the accident I didn’t know hardly anybody who’d been divorced.”
“So why did you get divorced?” Lisa asked.
Her father hesitated, then said, “When Lana found out what I was, what I could do, it changed things between us.”
“She didn’t like it?”
Lisa had thought long and hard about telling someone, anyone. She’d known better than to tell Janice, because after Janice’s experiences with her brother, she’d have been sure to tell.
Anybody else would look at her like a freak, and that was the last thing Lisa wanted.
“Not at first. I think it bothered her a lot, until I started getting rich.”
Lisa nodded. She’d seen and heard enough of what went on between adults to know a little about how that went.
“She liked having nice things.”
“She liked being looked up to,” Clark said. “People admiring her because of her car or house or position as a trophy wife…I think she grew up that way and didn’t know any better.”
Lisa stared at him dubiously.
“Her father was the town banker, and the whole family always wanted people to treat them like they were something special.”
“That’s why you aren’t worried about her telling about you.” Lisa said.
Her father nodded. “She has as much to lose as I do. If people knew she’d been slee…married to something that wasn’t human, they might look down on her, and she won’t tolerate that.”
Lisa shuddered. “She gave me the creeps. She smells wrong.”
“She’s not well,” her father said quietly. “She hasn’t been in a long time.”
**************
“The car was registered to the Centavos Corporation. That’s a shell company owned by Gatestar Limited, which is in turn owned by Luthercorp.” Joshua stared down at the printout.
“Lex is dead, right?”
Joshua nodded. “He committed suicide after his criminal misdealings were mysteriously revealed to the police.”
“Clark?” Lois asked.
Joshua nodded. “Clark and Lex had clashed over a number of business decisions- companies they both wanted to buy, deals they wanted to make. Lex always wanted to get a leg up on Clark, so when he found a chance with Lana…”
“So that’s why Clark divorced her?”
Joshua shook his head. “She divorced him and took half his net worth with her. It was a major coupe for Lex. Lex loved rubbing it in whenever they’d meet.”
“So Clark went to the police with information about dirty business dealings?”
“He was running guns to Africa and he was being paid in conflict diamonds. He was responsible for burning down much of the dock district in Metropolis so he could rebuild it, and he was the one who blew up both the Messenger and Prometheus shuttles.”
“So he could build the Luthor space station.”
For all that Clark claimed to be a ruthless businessman, Lois couldn’t imagine him killing innocent people in the name of profits.
In fact, she’d been doing some digging, and from what she could see, he’d made a lot of changes since his divorce from Lana. His mines were considered some of the safest in the country because of new safety regulations and expensive equipment.
He’d instituted progressive policies in the workplace, and efficiency was up in most of his companies.
Oddly enough, the people who worked in his subsidiary companies seemed more loyal to him than his own staff did.
The people working for the Superman Foundation seemed most in awe of him. They described him as motivated, driven and even charismatic.
Joshua said, “Clark bought up a lot of the companies piecemeal after Lex Luthor died. With the stocks plunging like they were he got most of them for a song.”
“That seems…a little ghoulish.” Lois said uncertainly. Clark had as much as admitted that he hadn’t always been a good man, but still…
“He kept a lot of people working who otherwise wouldn’t have,” Joshua said sharply. “And he turned a lot of the businesses over to the Foundation. Luthor Labs is now working on curing cancer, on spinal chord injuries, on actually curing diseases instead of just finding expensive long term treatments.”
Lois blinked, surprised. She hadn’t realized Joshua was so passionate about the Foundation.
“A long time ago Clark promised me I’d walk again, and I believed him.” Joshua hesitated. “I believe in him more and more every day.”
“What happened to him?” Lois asked. “With Lana?”
Joshua looked quickly down at his desk and said, “It’s not my place to say.”
Even Joshua was loyal to him. It was strange, the difference between those working for him outside the home and those closest to him. It was almost as though he were a different man at home, as though he felt the need to push them away.
After having met Lana, it didn’t surprise her. She didn’t need a sign to realize that Lana had betrayed him terribly; when he’d heard her voice the other night he’d visibly shrunk into himself.
To have married Clark’s biggest competitor and flaunt the relationship in his face would have been bad, but Lois had a feeling that there was more to the story than she’d been told.
Joshua wouldn’t have felt the need to be so secretive otherwise.
Although she wasn’t a reporter, Lois did have a sense when someone wasn’t telling the entire truth.
Clark had dismantled her second husband’s financial empire, and a woman as money driven as Lana would resent every penny, even if in the end he’d been kinder than other corporate raiders would have been.
Their problems with Lana weren’t over, and if Lana was stockpiling this material that was poisonous to both Kal El and her daughter, things could be really dangerous.
Everyone believed the Superman Foundation was important to Clark Kent. What better way to get back at him than to do something to the one person who was the figurehead for the Foundation?
She was going to have to warn Kal El.
**********
As Lois saw Kal El bringing Lisa in for a landing, she wondered what the servants had been told. It had to be a little suspicious, the costumed hero spending so much time with a little girl.
Lisa was laughing, and Lois felt her heart constrict. It had been too long since she’d heard her daughter laugh.
The hunted look in her eyes was almost gone, and she was starting to finally relax. She seemed happier here than she had in a long time, and it wasn’t the surroundings, although she had to admit that the food was exceptional.
Lois blinked as she realized that the heavy black rimmed glasses were gone, replaced by one of the stylish frames Clark Kent had bought for her. Apparently Clark or Kal had managed to get the lenses made and fitted.
They looked good on her.
“Mom!” Lisa said. She ran up the hill and hugged her mother. “I can make holes in things without burning them!”
“I can do that too,” Lois said, making a punching motion with her finger at her daughter.
Lisa giggled and twisted out of the way. “I’m not perfect, but Da- Kal says I just need to practice.”
She’d almost said dad. Lois smiled slightly and said, “Why don’t you go wash up for dinner?”
Why did she feel a pang of jealousy? This was a relationship Lisa needed. It was one that appeared to be more than good for her, yet Lois couldn’t help but feel the same pangs she’d felt when she’d seen Lisa responding to Clark Kent, but worse this time.
At least Clark Kent didn’t have any sort of real bond with her other than kindness.
Kal El, though, was her father, and for some reason, Lois felt a little threatened.
Lisa nodded and raced up the hill. She had more energy too these days, as though the urge she’d had to constantly hold herself in was slowly unclenching.
Approaching the man slowly, Lois said, “You seem to be doing pretty well with her.”
He watched her, his expression unreadable. “She’s going through some of the same things I went through. We can relate.”
“Is there anything I need to watch for?”
“She’s going to need less sleep the older she gets,” he said. “She won’t need to eat as much. Eventually, she may not need to eat at all.”
This surprised Lois and worried her a little. The need to eat was one of the most fundamental things about being a human being, or alive for that matter.”
At her expression, he rushed to say, “She’ll be able to eat if she wants to, but after she’s done growing, she’ll get most of her energy from the sun.”
If Lois had been on her own, she’d have worried that Lisa wasn’t sleeping or eating. Those were signs of depression that she was familiar with after having lived with Ellen Lane.
“Cities are bad until she gets her hearing under control. She’s already seen and heard some things she shouldn’t.”
Lois had suspected this; she was going to have to do some work to try to put the things Lisa had seen into context. Hearing the neighbors next door making love was one thing if you were a college student with thin walls. It was something again if you were a thirteen year old girl.
“How long will that be?” Lois asked.
It was nice being here, but she didn’t want Lisa to have to grow up in an isolated life with tutors and nannies. Lisa had friends back at home and a life.
“It’s hard to tell,” he said. “She’s developing some things quicker than I did and others more slowly.”
“How did your people deal with these powers?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He hesitated and then lowered his voice. “I don’t remember much about them.”
Lois blinked. The implications of that were huge. Was he saying that losing his homeworld was so traumatic that he’d blocked most of it off? Or was he saying he’d been too young to remember his people?
Either way, she had to downgrade her estimate of when he’d come to earth. He’d been wearing the glasses when they’d first met. She had a few vague memories of those heavy lenses. She’d assumed that meant he was still new to his abilities.
But if he’d been on earth since he was Lisa’s age…that suggested that he’d once lived as a human being. It meant he might have another name, another family, other children, a whole other life.
It explained why he was around so rarely, even when the news reports were empty of suitable disasters.
“You need to watch out,” she said at last. “Someone has been buying up necklaces and bracelets before your people can get to them, and at least one of them was driving a car owned indirectly by Luthorcorp.”
She almost thought she saw his face pale for a moment.
“Watch out for Lana Lang.”
