Thanks to Beth, Carol, and Mary Beth!
From Chapter 13
Lois looked up with delight when she saw him floating outside her apartment. “Superman!” she exclaimed. “Come in.”
“No, thanks,” Superman said, deciding at the last minute that a brief stay might cause less disruption in the timeline. “I just wanted to say thank you.”
“For what?” Lois asked.
“I talked to Clark. He told me what you said. It made sense and so I've decided to return to Metropolis.”
“You did?” Lois said, her joy apparent.
“Yes,” Superman said. “Good night.”
“Wait, Superman!” Lois cried. When he turned around, she continued, “You're returning. It's big news. Can we talk about it for a few minutes?”
Superman smiled at her. Lois, always the consummate reporter. “I've already talked to Clark, Lois,” he said gently. “He's written up the story.”
“Oh,” Lois replied, dejectedly. “I guess that's fair,” she conceded.
“Yeah, I think it is,” Superman said. “But I'll be seeing you.”
Lois smiled at him slightly, “Yes. Good night, Superman.”
“Good night, Lois.”
Chapter 14
“You okay?” Clark asked, taking in Superman's slumped shoulders. It had been weird at first getting used to Superman out of his “Superman” uniform, but after a few weeks it had stopped feeling so odd.
There was a pause while Superman swallowed his oatmeal. “Yeah, I'm just not looking forward to today,” he admitted.
“Really?” Clark was surprised. “But isn't this a huge honor?”
Superman smiled, “Yes, and in that way, it is always fun. Metropolis is very friendly to Superman and that always feels good, but Luthor is the one who is bestowing the key to the city on me.”
“Oh,” Clark said, suddenly understanding completely. “So, I guess that means you don't like Lex Luthor any more than I do.”
Superman laughed, “No, it's hard to believe anyone dislikes Lex Luthor more than me.”
“Does that mean that he is as bad as I fear?” Clark asked, “His threat to you last week isn't an isolated incident?”
Superman stared off into space for a moment, “I can't really say,” he finally replied. “What I can say is that you should definitely follow your instincts where Lex Luthor is concerned.”
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The next few days, Superman hardly saw Clark. Clark was busy working on a story about an invisible man with Lois and Superman was trying to stay out of his way. It was weird, but with all the trouble he was having reliving his life as Superman, he found it equally hard to watch Clark relive his life as Clark. He was tempted to give Clark clues as to how things were going to turn out for some reason. So, sometimes it was easier to minimize contact.
Randomly, however, they both ended up home at a reasonable hour on Tuesday. Clark came in while Superman was getting ready to go out and was clearly in a bad mood. “Everything okay?” Superman asked him as Clark downed a glass of juice.
Clark shrugged, “Fine,” he replied listlessly.
“Clark?” Superman prodded, feeling a bit more concerned.
Clark sighed, “It's nothing. It's just the auction tonight. Lois is going and she's planning to bid on you. I know it's not your fault, but I feel like Lois can't even see me with you around. It's like she has blinders on and they only allow visions of Superman through.”
Superman said nothing for a moment. He had never thought it through really – how things would be with him here. He had thought a lot about what would be different, but had not for some reason really thought about what would be the same. He had competed with himself as Superman for Lois' affection. How would a separate Superman really make that better? He wished he could reach Herb and ask him about this. Make sure that this was really the right thing to do.
But since he could not do that now, he did the only thing he could do. “I'm sorry, Clark. I know it feels like we're competing, and honestly, we probably are in some ways, but I really won't encourage Lois in any way and I'm sure in the end, it's going to be Clark Kent that she wants.”
Clark smiled slightly at him to show his appreciation, but the smile did not reach his eyes. Superman supposed he would have felt the same way at that point in his life. Even if someone had told him that one day he would marry Lois, it would have felt hard to believe at the moment. At least he knew that at the auction, he did not need to worry about paying attention to Lois.
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But clearly, his memories of the auction were poor. What he remembered was that Lois had lost the bid for him and instead he had gone on a date with a woman who clearly had means but no brains. That date had been the longest three hours of his life.
What he had not recalled was how Lois looked at the auction. Actually, Superman thought this Lois must have worn something different than his wife had as it was hard to imagine he had forgotten this dress. It was red and hung to her ankles but had a slit on the side that exposed her left leg up to mid thigh when she turned just so. The top of the dress was simple – two pieces of material that came up from the waist to cover her breasts and tie behind her neck. It gave a tantalizing view of her from the side and left her back completely bare.
Just seeing her in this dress reminded him in a painful and very real way how long it had been since he had seen his wife. His only saving grace was that he had seen Lois before he had entered the room and was able to slip out to take a dip in the Arctic before making his entrance. When he returned, he kept his eyes off of Lois as much as possible. Thank goodness for small favors, he thought as he realized it was easy to recognize Lois from the corner of his eye in her red dress.
He kept his eyes off of her during the bidding as well, but was unable to do so when the bidding ended. The same boring blond did not win the bid here, but at least Lois did not either. The brunette he would be taking for a picnic seemed a bit more intelligent than his date from his universe and he hoped that would continue to be the case during their date.
Still, while he talked to her, his eyes found Lois and he could not decide who he felt worse for – Lois or Clark. Lois looked heart broken. She looked like she had lost her best friend, and it brought home more strongly Clark's point from earlier. Looking at her, Superman vowed to himself to make more effort to place bounds on his relationship with Lois so that Clark would hopefully be more visible. He promised himself that while he knew in his world he had gone to tell Lois that she did not need to bid for him, that she would always be special to him, he would not do that here. He would keep his distance.
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After they had finished the story on the invisible man, Perry had made Lois and Clark permanent partners. Lois had been tempted to argue with him, but she decided not to waste her breath. She had no chance of winning the fight and truthfully, she had been thinking of Clark in those terms already. Even if she did not want a partner and did not feel she needed one, Clark just always seemed to be around.
Still, it was hard not to feel annoyed when the first story they worked on as partners was about boxing. She knew she was mostly annoyed about Perry's assigning the story to them because of her connections, but that did not stop her from taking her frustration out on Clark.
Still after a few minutes of razzing him about his knowledge of boxing, which was good, just not as good as hers, she mellowed out. Seeing Allie, the manager of the gym, always did that for her.
“You've got four fighters going for titles this Saturday. Maybe the biggest night in the history of boxing, and we can't get to the fighters. They won't talk to us. I don't get it,” Lois explained to him.
Before Allie could respond, though, Tommy Garrison, the boxer who had been practicing in the ring when they entered, reacted. “You want to talk to me?” he said, throwing his towel down towards them where it hit Clark in the head. “Okay, but you can't learn anything from down there. Come up here, see what it feels like.”
When Clark hesitated, Lois pushed him. “Go on!”
Clark grimaced and Lois knew he was not happy, but she said nothing else and as she knew he would, Clark gave in a moment later.
The boxer looked Clark up and down. Even from the ground, Lois was starting to regret the decision to send Clark up there. Garrison had a predatory gleam in his eye that made her a bit uneasy.
“Ever been in a fight?” he asked Clark.
“I try to avoid them when I can,” Clark said back, sounding more sure of himself than Lois would have expected.
“How can you write about boxing when you don't know what it's about?” Garrison asked Clark. “Ever seen a punch like this?” He jabbed his fist into the air centimeters from the left side of Clark's face. No more than a second later, he did the same thing on the other side.
Lois was holding her breath, but to her surprise, Clark did not even flinch.
Garrison also looked surprised and started taunting Clark, “Come on, give it back to me. Come on, pretty boy.”
Clark resolutely stood there with his hands by his sides.
“Fine,” Garrison said huffily, “then try to avoid me.”
Lois watched the action up in the ring with trepidation. “What's he doing?” she asked Allie.
When she looked at her old friend, he was shaking his head. “He gets this way sometimes. Super aggressive or something, and he won't listen to anyone but Menken. I've tried talking to him. Almost got my ear ripped off.”
Clark continued to stand there while Garrison started throwing punches in the air around his head, so close Lois was sure Clark could feel them, but Clark never responded. The only sign that he may have been even the slightest bit upset was the fact that his hands started to curl into fists at his side.
“Come on, aren't you going to try to block me, honey?” Garrison asked. “A little closer and I might throw you through the ropes. What would you do then, sweetheart?”
Finally, Lois has had enough. “Clark, get down from there.” She could feel the tension in her body. If he did not come down, there was a good chance Clark could get hurt. This was not why she had sent him up there. She had thought going up there would enable Clark to get a couple of good quotes from the boxer, but now it appeared he would be lucky to leave the ring as just one big bruise.
Clark did not move at all. “You sent me up here!” he reminded her and in the retort, Lois could hear some of his frustration come through.
“Allie,” Lois turned to her friend. “He's just playing, right? You didn't mean what you said earlier.”
Allie did not respond and a second later, Garrison had Clark pushed up against the ropes, trapped by the boxer's body. “What now, Princess?” he asked.
Clark had finally reached his limit. At first he had not backed down as he did not want Lois to think he was weak, but he had played this game long enough. He gave Garrison a light push. It was enough to send Garrison stumbling backwards, though, and once the boxer recovered, it is clear he was livid.
Before Garrison could deliver a blow, though, another voice called out. “Garrison!”
Almost at once, the boxer backed off, throwing Clark a contemptuous look rather than the punch he wanted.
“Hit the showers!” the other man commanded him.
Garrison left the ring, throwing a kiss and a “See you later, Princess,” Clark's way.
Clark took a moment to compose himself and to his surprise, Lois seemed concerned for him when he joined her. “Are you alright, Clark?” she asked him, looking him over carefully to make sure he was okay.
“Fine,” he said before the man from earlier came over to join them.
“Menken. Max Menken,” he announced to them. “No press allowed in the gym, but come on Saturday and see the Ultimate Street Fight. The winner's gonna fight Superman.”
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Lois and Clark exited the gym a few moments later, nearly bumping into a middle aged man. He began to apologize to them when he looked up.
“Lois!” he said, excitedly.
“Hi, Dad,” Lois replied, less enthusiastically. The two share a brief kiss on the cheek, before Lois pulled away. There was an awkward pause before Lois remembered the man beside her. “Sorry. Sam Lane. Clark Kent.”
The two men shook hands, Clark trying to understand what was going on. He would not have expected Lois to be so cold to her father. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Lane. I work with Lois at the Planet.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sam replied. “Lois, you think you might have some time? We could get some dinner?” he asked her.
Lois' response was almost immediate. “Maybe. In a few weeks? I'm really busy right now.”
“Right,” Sam nodded his head. “Well, when you have some free time…”
“Yeah,” Lois replied.
The three stood in silence for another minute before Clark spoke up. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Dr. Lane.”
Lois, recognizing the opening, took Clark's arm. “Yeah, we better go. Good seeing you, Dad.”
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The next few days were awkward. Clark tried to get Lois to open up about her father, but she resented him for it. Then when Allie was killed, it was the same thing. Lois was clearly shaken by the murder, but was unwilling to show her emotions.
In fact, she turned into something of a workaholic and after a night where she convinced Clark that they should break into her father's office, she wrote a story exposing the whole thing. Clark was worried about her. That story could get her father killed. Who ever had hired Sam Lane to create those super-powered limbs would not be happy to have the secret exposed and that would put Sam at risk.
Clark tried to suggest that this was one time when Lois should not report what she knew, but she was stalwart in her decision. “So, he'll lose his license. Big deal!” she said in reply to Clark's suggestion. “He deserves it.”
“Lois, Allie was killed. Whoever killed him will want your father out of the way, too,” Clark said.
“Get used to it, Clark. We write the news. Sometimes that means making tough choices.”
Clark pinched the bridge of his nose trying to determine what he could say to make her see that this time reporting the news was not the right way to go. “Okay,” he finally said. “But at least sleep on it for one night? Send the story to Perry tomorrow if you still want to print it?” he asked.
With a sigh to show her annoyance, Lois agreed.
************************
“Oh, good. You're here,” Clark said at seeing Superman in the apartment when he returned.
Superman looked at him with a smile. Over the last couple of weeks things between them seemed to be getting better. He had kept his promise, keeping his distance from Lois and Clark seemed to really appreciate it.
“Something you need?” Superman asked.
“Yes, actually, a favor,” Clark laughed a bit self-depreciatingly. “Well, on top of the one you are already doing for me.”
Superman smiled in response. “What is it you'd like?” he asked.
Clark sighed, “Could you pay Lois a visit tonight? Talk to her?”
Superman sat up a little straight. “But… why?” he asked confused.
Clark sighed again. “I know. I was the one that asked you to keep your distance, but she won't listen to me and she's about to make a big mistake. I'm afraid that she won't listen to anyone but you.”
Superman thought, trying to determine what mistake Clark could be talking about, but could not. Finally, Clark explained. “It's her father. He's been developing limbs for boxers. Super limbs. Lois wants to write an article exposing him, but I'm afraid.”
“That whoever killed…” Superman tried to remember the man's name. “Allie? Will kill Sam, too?”
Clark nodded. “I tried explaining this to her, but she wouldn't listen to me.”
Superman stood up in surprise. “She wouldn't listen to you? You told her it could get her father killed and she still wants to go ahead with it?”
Clark looked up. This time he was the one who was surprised. “Well… yeah. I figured Superman needed to talk to her. Didn't you do that in your universe?”
Superman nodded his head, “No. In my universe, Lois listened to Clark. That's weird. You and Lois are so much closer than my Lois and I were at this time. I wonder why she won't listen to you.”
“I don't know,” Clark said, running his hand roughly through his hair. “But I'm afraid she won't listen to me and then when her dad is killed she's going to fall apart.”
Now it was Superman's turn to sigh. “Okay, I'll go talk to her. I'm not at all sure what I should say, but I'll go talk to her.”
“Thanks, Superman,” Clark said, his voice warm.
“Not a problem, Clark. You know that.”
