Disclaimer: I own nothing!!!!!!!!! except jason, and the plot.
“Are you going to tell me what the heck you think you’re doing in there farm boy. We’re supposed to be interviewing the Steels’ together!”
“Lois I can---“
“No! it’s not just the interview Clark. It’s you running off and investigating that Greer woman and not telling me. It’s you insinuating that Superman is hiding some big secret from the world. You can’t just throw that kind of speculation out there and not expect me to think about it. I mean what if he really is hiding something? What if he’s a member of an invading alien force, or some kind of Kryptonian scientist intent on capturing a select few members of the human race, and stuffing them in some strange alien zoo? I have all these scenarios running around in my head and it’s all thanks to you. I can’t believe I’m letting this bother me so much.”
“Well I—“
“And you know what else is bothering me? You kissed me barley forty-eight hours ago, and you haven’t done or said anything about it. It’s like it never happened, and yesterday in the parking garage…I don’t know what that was, but it was absolutely fantastic and you haven’t said anything about that either. What do you want from me Clark? What am I to you? You haven’t asked me out, you haven’t tried to kiss me since the ball. I mean are we friends? Are we more than friends? Did you suffer from two instances of spontaneous delirium? Are you---“
Lois was cut off in mid rant, as the very same pair of lips she’d been obsessing over landed firmly upon her own. For the second time in less than a week she found herself wondering how this hack from nowhere learned to kiss like Don Juan. He was gentle yet passionate, demanding yet accepting of her response, she felt him urge her lips apart, requesting entrance to the warmth of her mouth. She willingly complied.
His hands, god those hands had the power to turn a perfectly sane woman into a quivering mass of jelly with the slightest touch. Her breath caught as he brought one of his strong, yet gentle, hands to cup the side of her face. His thumb lovingly stroked her cheek, and she nearly came unglued when his other hand settled just below her waist to pull her closer to the warmth of his body. He was so solid, and muscular not for the first time she was reminded of the onetime she’d seen him nearly naked—freshly showered and oh so deliciously covered with tiny droplets of water. It was the one time in her entire life she’d ever been envious of a terry-cloth towel.
She’d kissed Clark before of course, but those other times had been either subterfuge, or fear induced. This was different, this was in a league all its own. Unlike the kiss at the Black and White Ball, she could sense that Clark was holding nothing back. It scared her a little, but excited her even more. Her, normally modest and quiet, partner was throwing caution to the wind and kissing her like his life depended on it.
She felt him start to pull away, and a small sound of protest escaped her throat. Clark obviously heard it because he pulled her closer, and began showering her face and collar with the same attention he’d given her lips. Lois shuddered, when she felt his lips descend upon the shell of her ear. Her hands, which at this point had made their way to the back of his neck, pulled him closer. Her ears had always been a very sensitive part of her body, and for some reason Clark’s mouth was making them ultra receptive.
Any passersby would most likely be treated to a most entertaining sight. Lois gave brief consideration to her own private distaste for public displays of affection, but quickly dismissed them as part of the old Lois Lane, the pre-Clark Lois, as it were.
With one final tug on her earlobe Clark pulled back, and halted his luscious assault upon her person. Her eyes slowly drifted open, her mind defogged, and her gorgeous partner gazed back at her with the most delectable gleam in his chocolate brown eyes. It seemed like such a dumb cliché, but she felt like she could drown in his gaze. His eyes, so warm so loving so…familiar, blinking a few times Lois finally got a good look at her partner up close and personal. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, but there it was, live and in glorious high definition, Clark Kent had Superman’s eyes, Superman had Clark’s eyes.
Like a whirlwind, pieces of a the puzzle began to fly into place, his absences, his lame excuse, the other night when he went to put money in the meter when he’d known full well that they’d taken a cab. His sudden departure later that same night, before his house blew to kingdom come, for sugar; not to mention his better than human lip-reading ability. How had she not seen this before, him and Superman arrived in Metropolis at practically the same time, and for some inexplicable reason he was the only one who could contact Superman at any given moment.
“Lois? Are you okay?” Clark’s voice snapped her out of her trance. He was looking at her with equal parts worry and apprehension. What should she do? If she let on that she knew he might distance himself from her, and she knew that wouldn’t help either of them in the long run. It was best to just let him tell her in his own time. In the mean time she would continue to feign ignorance. After all, she knew she was in love with him, and she had a pretty good idea about how he felt about her. Eventually he’d have to tell her right? Of course right, in the meantime she’d just have to reconcile with the fact that her best friend, partner, and not quite boyfriend was in fact Superman.
****
She’d been staring at him for quite sometime. Usually Clark didn’t mind Lois’s attention no matter how he got it, but right now she was looking at him like he was a stranger. Was it the kiss? Oh god what if he’d screwed up big time. Maybe she didn’t want him to kiss her. No she was rambling about how confused she was that he wasn’t kissing her more often. Okay so maybe he’d hurt her. He was pretty sure he’d heard a moan earlier on, but she’d pulled him closer just after that so clearly she was not in pain.
For a moment he was worried that she’d gone into some kind of a catatonic blackout, but a small light of recognition flickered in her eyes when he called her name. Good. She was starting to come around.
“Lois” he said again, gently this time “are you alright?”
“Huh…oh yeah sure Clark. I was just…stunned that’s all.”
Clark cleared his throat “I’m sorry about that. I just thought—well you were saying that you wanted me to kiss you, or something like that, and I guess I got a little carried away. Are you—did you not like it?”
Lois smiled mischievously “Like it? Clark I loved it. It was absolutely wonderful, some might even say…Super.”
A breath he hadn’t even known he was holding escaped Clark’s lungs. Good she didn’t regret it and, she had defiantly enjoyed it as much as he had. “Good, because I wouldn’t want to ruin what we have.” Not that he could clearly define what they had…exactly, but he knew they were more than friends—less then lovers, but not quite dating. Simple enough.
“As great as that was Clark it still doesn’t get you off the hook, I have questions, and I expect for you to come up with some answers quick.” So much for kissing her senseless. Oh well, that was his Lois, never satisfied with anything less than a complete answer.
“First I wanna know how you got that info on Margret Greer?”
“Jimmy e-mailed it to me just before we left the planet. I had some questions about Cretini’s associates’, she worked for him at one point, and she was in L. A. the same day the Steele’s left for Metropolis. I figured it couldn’t just be coincidence.”
“Alright” Lois, said seemingly placated with his answer “but why do you want to interview Steele alone?”
“I just thought he’d be more comfortable talking to me…”
“Why?”
“Because, Superman confided some things to me about Steele that I really can’t discuss in front of other people, it would be a breach of my sources privacy.”
“We’re partners Clark that means we investigate together, and we write the story together. It also means that we have to communicate our findings to one another.”
“Normally I’d agree, but this is something Steele hasn’t even told his wife—“
Clark could sense Lois’s agitation. She wasn’t going to let this go, and his reasons for hiding it, which weren’t very strong to begin with, were crumbling with each passing second.
“Clark!”
“Lois I can’t!”
“Yes you can. You just won’t. I’m not leaving until you tell me.” Her hands were placed firmly upon her hips and her chest was puffed out in defiance.
“Alright, but you have to trust me with this. No matter how far-fetched it may sound.”
“You’re my partner Clark. I trust you no matter what.” Clark sighed, in a way she was right. They were partners, and assuming this story was approved by Perry they’d be writing it together. She had the right to know everything. And since it was something he planned to tell her in the very near future anyway he decided to go with his gut and trust his partner.
“We both know Remington Steele wasn’t always the upstanding citzen he is today, and—well I started thinking. He was hired to find these stones, a task he really had no chance of completing, by some shadowy organization fronted by one of Cretini’s ex-associates. So why would a gang of blood thirsty criminals hire the world’s greatest detective to steal something for them unless…”
“Unless they knew about his reputation as a thief”, Lois chimed “Of course, why didn’t’ we see this before. This was never about the stones Clark, someone inside Cretini’s organization knows who Steele is.”
“I figured it had to be someone he’d dealt with in the past, someone who he outsmarted or outmaneuvered, or otherwise double crossed. So I had Jimmy pull up everything he could on Margret Greer, and Cretini.”
“What did he find?” Lois asked, almost salivating at the prospect of unraveling a massive criminal conspiracy.
“Well they both have one very good friend in common…your buddy Lex. Who, coincidently, happens to have a very murky past of his own, however there is one thing I know for ceartin” Clark pulled a fuzzy black and white photo from his suit jacket, and handed it to Lois for inspection.
“What is this?” she asked studying the faces etched upon the glossy photo paper.
“This was taken in 1978, the man on the far right is Nigel St. John a former operative for MI-5, the man in the middle is Remington Steele…and that’s Lex on the left.”
Lois was shocked, but she couldn’t deny what was right before her very eyes. A very young Remington Steele was beaming at the camera resting against an unknown building front. Standing next to him was an equally youthful Lex Luthour with a less benevolent look on his face. The man in the picture looked absolutely nothing like the suave, immaculately dressed man Lois had spoken with earlier this week. Young Lex was scrawny, and dirt smudged, his hands were jammed carelessly in his coat pocket. His clothes were tattered, and his hair was a mass of curls that fell to his collar and slightly covered his eyes.
“So Lex knew Steele, when he was still a jewel thief.”Lois concluded, her mind spinning with the implications.
“I think Lex hired Steele to take the fall for this heist. I think this entire investigation was a diversion, including, but I don’t think Lex wanted Steele to be attacked.”
“Well I think you were right Clark. You should talk Steele.” That certainly wasn’t the reaction he’d been anticipating.
“But…I thought you wanted to do the interview with me” Clark intoned, slightly confused.
“Well you seem to have a handle on that end of the investigation. I think I should head back to the news desk start writing up our notes, maybe double check a couple of things. After all Clark, this is big, this is Kerth level stuff.” Lois quickly stepped to the edge of the curb and whistled for a cab, digging around in her purse she snatched her car keys from the inside zipper pocket and tossed them toward her puzzled partner.
“You stay here finish the interview…I’m gonna go do all that stuff I said. Take my jeep back to the Planet and then we’ll compare notes.”
“Lois—“
“See ya Smallville”, and with a screech of tires she was gone.
****
“I could kill you right now you know. A simple adjustment of you morphine drip, maybe a little insulin in your I.V, or perhaps a nice pillow placed strategically over your face. I could do it, but mum wouldn’t like that she told me to stab you, she told me to put you in the hospital. She said you couldn’t stand up for yourself if you was in here, and I could make sure them reporters broke the story.”
“I wish you was awake right now, so’s you could see how weak you really are.” Jason flicked the blade of his knife open, and placed it against Steele’s cheek, in a twisted imitation of a lovers caress he moved the knife from just below his eye to the curve of his chin.
“The great Remington Steele is gonna be exposed for the liar he really is, I can’t wait for all those high class clients of yours to figure out that you’re really a thief, and a liar.”
The blade moved slowly down Steele’s throat, even in his morphine induced slumber he flinched at the sharp contact on his skin. “You’re gonna die Steele, but not now. First you’re gonna loose everything you hold dear to you. Starting with you precious detective agency, and maybe I’ll have a little fun with the missus before I…well you know” Jason chuckled, and moved the knife lower the blade was now grazing the left side of Steele’s chest just above his heart. He applied a slight pressure to the handle barley breaking the skin, but enough to produce a slight trickle of blood.
With a definitive snap he put the knife back in his pocket, and with a final look at his victim he left the room and strolled through the lobby of the hospital stopping briefly to gaze at his rival’s wife. She was quite beautiful, not the tallest or even the most well endowed of the women he’d seen, but she defiantly had potential. She was good enough for a toss around the bed room anyway.
The manic chirping of his cell phone broke him from his daydreaming—Nigel, of course. He decided to answer; he was still technically in the man’s employ.
“Where the hell have you been?” the older man groused, sounding not at all pleased.
“Been workin you should try it sometime.” Jason said with a smirk, obtaining considerable pleasure from Nigel’s frustration.
“If you’d been doing your job Steele wouldn’t be in the hospital, and Nowitski wouldn’t have gotten those stones.”
”You hired me to plant evidence, and make sure those nosy detectives followed the little trail of breadcrumbs you and your mysterious “Boss” was layin. Is it my fault the man went and got himself stabbed.” His grin broadened to an outright smile. Reaching into his pocket he extracted a smoke from the pack. “Besides if your so bloody perfect you woulda killed that Kent fellow with that apartment bomb, insteada hurtin the lovely miss Lane.”
“You insolent Mick, If I hadn’t found you hustling in that pub, you’d be strung out on some street corner in Brixton.”
“Well lucky for me the great Nigel St. John has a heart a gold, and an eye for exceptional talent.”
Nigel scoffed “Hardly, I was looking for someone with nothing to loose, and even less to live for.”
“Well you came to the right fellow” Jason said taking a drag from his cigarette “Now can I please get back to work, or did you actually have a valid reason for calling me?”
“We need to meet, there’s a situation and the Boss wants all of us together.”
“So I finally get to meet the man himself. Well, be still my beatin heart.”
“Is everything a joke with you?” Nigel sighed, exasperated at his companion’s flippancy.
“Not everything, I can’t sit through “The Miracle Worker” without breaking out the Kleenex”
“Be at the usual meeting place in half an hour, and I warn you Jason if you think you can be as impudent with our employer as you are with me you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Don’t worry Nigel I plan on being the picture of subservience.”
“See that you do!” Nigel snapped, and just as quickly he hung up the phone.
“Well, well, well. Looks like I’ve finally made it to the big leagues”
Jason snubbed his cigarette out, and flicked the remains into the trash receptacle to his left. With one final look at the edifice of the hospital he made his way toward the parking lot across the street, and got into his car. Smiling, he stuck the key into the ignition, and started the car. He quickly found his favorite hard rock station, and cranked the volume as high as it would go, throwing the vehicle in reverse he peeled out of the lot and sped off into the busy streets of Metropolis.
