The Bombshell
Chapter Seven
The physicists from Australia arrived three days early, and while Bernie Klein was taking them on an impromptu tour of Star Labs, Clark had to collect Robin and her few possessions and find another place for her to stay. He knew without asking that there was no room for Robin at the Kent townhouse, so he had to come up with an inexpensive alternative.
The Daily Planet kept a small house in a semi-rural area on the north side of the city as a combination safe house for witnesses and sources and the occasional personal getaway for its reporters. The location of the house was a closely guarded secret from most of the staff and from all but a very few of the executives, since the deed to the property was actually owned by a corporation whose board of directors consisted of Perry and Alice. Perry had originally arranged the purchase after a very close call involving Lois and a female witness to a gang rape, and there had been several times when the house had probably saved someone’s life.
They all knew better than to let Ralph know where the house was.
Perry hadn’t smiled when Clark had asked for the key to the house, but he also hadn’t asked any awkward questions. Clark hoped he assumed that he and Lois were either getting away for a few days for some up-close and personal time, or that Lois was going to bunk there for a while to decompress. Perry didn’t need to know that Clark was going to let another woman stay there. Wouldn’t that just start some tender Elvis tales?
Clark drove his mother and Robin to the house on Monday afternoon and opened the place up. He apologized for the dust, joking that Lois hadn’t needed to hide out recently so the place hadn’t been used much.
Robin waved him off and headed into the den to check it out. “Looks okay to me, Clark. Long as I got HBO and a VCR, I’m happy as a pig in slop.”
Martha tapped him on the shoulder. “Clark, is there room in your budget for a few groceries? I’ll be glad to get them if you’ll do a little super-cleaning for me.”
“No problem.” He pulled out his wallet and gave her a handful of bills. “I think we should plan for a five-day stay, and if Robin needs to stay longer I’ll buy more food.” He handed her the keys to Lois’s Jeep, then gazed at the dusty room and sighed. “It’ll look better when you get back.”
Martha smiled at Clark as Robin returned from her excursion to the den. “I’m sure it will. I assume you’ll want to start Robin’s instruction as soon as possible, so I’ll make myself scarce after I drop off the groceries.”
He smiled at her. “Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”
“Oh!” Robin burst out. “Cain’t you stay for a while, ma’am? Please?”
Martha’s surprise was evident to Clark, as he was sure his was to Robin. “I thought you’d want my mom – that you’d want to work with just the two of us.”
Robin stepped closer. Her manner gave Clark the mental image of a rookie employee trying to suck up to the boss. “Yeah, well – I’d kinda like another woman here to, you know, help me if’n I get stuck on somethin’ you cain’t explain.”
Martha reached out and patted the girl on the arm. “Of course, Robin. And I promise not to interfere.”
“Oh, I know you won’t do nothin’ like that.” She turned and glanced at the stairway. “They put the bedrooms up thataway?”
Clark nodded. “Why don’t you go pick one out and get unpacked? I’ll get the materials spread out on the kitchen table. We can start as soon as you’re ready.”
Robin grinned and ran up the stairs. Martha put her hand on Clark’s elbow. “I’ll be back as quickly as I can, Son.”
Clark met her gaze and nodded. The words were innocuous, but her eyes said so much more to him. He knew his mother was telling him to be very, very careful.
The problem was, he wasn’t sure what else he could do if he was to instruct Robin on being a superhero.
*****
“You gotta be kiddin’ me, Kal. Bible study?”
“No, I’m not kidding. This is important.”
Robin huffed out a breath. “This after two hours of American history and basic physics and modern economics – which I don’t get at all – and you want me to read the Bible?”
“Yes, I do.”
She flipped her hands in the air. “How come we don’t we just study modern law? Why do we hafta dust off a ol’ book nobody reads no more?”
“Because the code of laws contained in the Law of Moses formed the underlying basis for English common law from the thirteenth century through the seventeenth, and by extension did much the same for American law. One of the required readings for nineteenth century American lawyers was by a man named Blackstone, and he based a lot of his legal arguments on the Old Testament canon.”
She frowned slightly and sighed. “Okay. So, this Blackstone guy wrote a lot of laws?”
“No, he just wrote about them. A great deal of what he wrote would be classified today as legal theory, but he wrote about real-life application of the law, too.”
“Huh. So you’re sayin’ that learnin’ about what Moses wrote back then will help me understand the law today?”
Clark nodded. “Yes. The purpose of law in a society is to protect the rights of the individual citizens while protecting society as a whole at the same time. It’s referred to as a uniform code of justice, and Moses’ law is as good a place to start as any other. You’ve heard the saying, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’?”
“Sure I did. Who ain’t?”
“Did you know it’s part of the law of Moses?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so. Why?”
“Many people today view that as barbaric and violent, but in the context of the times it wasn’t. Remember, the nation of Israel had just left Egypt, a land where justice was whatever the local judge or ruler – or, ultimately the Pharaoh – said it was on that day. The law could change with no notice, and sometimes did. Punishments for crimes like stealing was harsher for those without money to bribe the judge and for those without influential friends.”
Her expression finally showed interest. “You’re sayin’ Egypt was a bad place to live back then?”
“If you weren’t rich or didn’t have powerful friends, it could be a very bad place to live.”
“And the law there was whatever the rich folk said it was?”
“For the most part, yes, especially for the poor and weak. Egypt’s law was fluid, while Moses’ law was absolute.”
She frowned in thought. “So, what Moses give to Israel was a – a law that applied to everybody? No matter who they was?”
She was getting it! He tried not to seem too excited. “That was the intent. From the rulers on down the servants, the punishment for any crime was spelled out in detail. No matter how much money you had, no matter who you knew, no matter what political position you might hold, the law was intended to treat everybody the same.”
“Still, that was kinda harsh. You poke someone’s eye out by accident and they still come and poke your eye out?”
He shook his head. “No. That particular penalty was for doing it on purpose or while you were breaking another law. For example, if a man accidentally tripped and knocked down a pregnant woman who lost her baby because of it, he wasn’t liable, but if he did it while he was fighting someone else, he had to pay a big penalty.”
“Oh.” She sat back, apparently lost in thought. “So, if someone did something bad that ended up killin’ someone, it was like they murdered that someone, even if they wasn’t tryin’ to kill no one?”
“Almost. And the code of Hammurabi was similar, even if it wasn’t as even in the application of punishment across social class lines. In fact – Robin, where are you going?”
She slowly stood and turned away, then walked to the stairs and up to the bedroom she was using. He glanced at his mother, who was standing in the kitchen doorway, but she just shook her head.
Wonder what that was about, thought Clark. He was certain she’d turned pale just before she’d left. He hoped she was getting enough sunlight.
He stood and moved towards the stairs, but Martha shook her head. “Let her think about it, Clark. She needs to digest everything you’ve told her.”
He hesitated, then nodded agreement. “You’re right. Besides, I need to go fly a patrol before it gets too late.”
“Oh? Is Lois expecting you to be back for dinner?”
“Not – exactly, no. She’s – well, she’s – um – “
Martha touched his arm. “You’re saying that your relationship is still – oh, how did you put it before – complicated?”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes. That’s a very good word for it.”
*****
When he walked through his front door that night, Lois was sitting on the couch with a legal pad in her lap. She looked up and saw him, but she didn’t speak.
“Hi, honey,” he assayed. “I’m home.”
She nodded without smiling. “I see that.” She turned and crossed out something on the pad. “How was your tutoring session?”
Suspecting a trap, he hesitated for a moment, then said, “I thought it went well.”
She frowned at the pad and wrote something else. “Good.”
He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss atop her head. She didn’t respond in any way.
Clark licked his lips and headed for the kitchen. “I talked to Bernie Klein today.” There was no response. “I asked him if his research on Superman’s compatibility with human females was complete and definitive.”
“Hmm,” Lois murmured.
He pulled sandwich makings out of the refrigerator. “He said he’d have to review his case notes and maybe perform some more tests.”
“Hmm,” she repeated.
He’d hoped she’d react positively to that bit of news. Not.
Try something else, he urged himself. “Would you like a sandwich, Lois?”
“Already ate.”
“Something to drink?”
“No thanks.”
He heard the pencil scraping against the paper. Whatever she was doing, she was actually writing and not just doodling or trying to pretend.
For lack of a better subject of conversation, he asked, “What are you working on?”
“Pro and con.”
That didn’t sound promising. “Pro and con what?”
“You.”
She’d said the word quietly but directly, with no hint of anger or recrimination, but it still sounded ominous to him. “Oh.”
She looked up at him and lifted her eyebrows. “What?”
“Um.” He didn’t want to ask, but he felt that he should. “How am I doing?”
Her gaze returned to the pad. “Not too badly.” She scribbled something else. “Not as well as you have in the past.” She looked up again, and this time there was the hint of a smile in her eyes. “But it’s not as bad as you might think.”
He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Clark walked to the couch and sat down beside Lois but without touching her until he took her hands in his. “I love you. And I know I haven’t been as open and honest with you as I should have been. I’m so sorry.”
She squeezed his hands. “I love you too, Clark.” She pivoted to face him. “Will you try once again to explain to me why you feel so – protective, I guess is the word – towards Robin?”
He sighed. “It’s hard to explain. But I think it has something to do with the fact that I’ve never met anyone from Krypton.”
“What about the New Kryptonians?”
He shook his head. “They’d been apart from the home planet for so long, they’d developed an entirely different culture. There’s no way Nor would have been allowed to do what he tried to do if they’d stayed on Krypton. And that whole political marriage thing was something out of a bad soap opera.”
“I see.” She kissed his knuckles. “You’re saying that you didn’t really feel that close to Zara and Ching.”
He frowned. “Like I said before, I felt sympathetic towards them. Even duty-bound, at least a little bit. But close?” He shook his head. “No. Not even when Zara and I were – uh, married. So to speak. I think we established a little bit of a friendship by the time they left, but nothing like – like our friendship before we started dating.”
She grinned a little. “I know, Clark. It’s okay.” She wiggled a little closer. “So, you feel responsible for Robin?”
“A little, yes.”
She lowered her head and peered up into his face. “A little?”
He smiled. “Okay, a lot, yeah. And I think she’s made some progress.”
Lois raised her head and lost her smile. “She threatened to kill me, Clark. How can you forget that?”
He ran his fingers through her hair. He still didn’t believe that Robin had actually made such a threat, but telling Lois that one more time would be pointless. “I haven’t forgotten. Please trust me on this, honey. I won’t let her hurt you.”
She looked up again. “I trust you. I really do. But I don’t trust her.” She leaned closer. “Can you tell me truly, sincerely, honestly, that you trust her completely, knowing how powerful she is and how few restraints she has?”
Clark looked inside himself, but he had no answer for her.
*****
Clark woke up early, before dawn had fully broken, and he slipped out of bed without disturbing Lois. He ate a cold breakfast and sat down on the balcony to watch the sunrise.
Almost before he realized it, Lois was standing behind him with her hands on his shoulders. He turned his head and kissed her fingers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She knelt beside him. “You didn’t.” She leaned her head on his arm, and that’s when he realized she was wearing one of his sweatshirts. “I woke up early and realized you were gone, but I didn’t think you’d left yet.”
He lifted his arm and gently tugged her closer. “Why not?”
She shrugged. “I could feel you. I could tell that you weren’t in any distress and that you weren’t anxious about anything, and you were relaxed so I knew you weren’t flying.”
He frowned at her. “You got all that through our mental link?”
She grinned. “That, and I peeked out the bedroom window and saw you sitting here.”
They chuckled together, then Clark kissed the side of her head. “You want to sit down, Lois?”
She turned her head and kissed his lips. “No. I like it right here.”
He kissed her back softly. “Now that’s what I call a great way to start the day.”
She moved her lips close to his ear. “I know a better one.”
“Ohh,” he breathed. “What – what is that?”
She cupped her hand behind his head and pulled him into a deeper kiss. “We watch the sun come up and then go back to the bedroom.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “That sounds like a perfect morning to me.”
She nibbled the side of his neck. “I figured you’d want your sweatshirt back.”
They shared another warm chuckle as the sun peeked over the tops of the buildings to the east. Then they walked arm-in-arm to the bedroom where Lois returned the borrowed sweatshirt.
*****
Lois heard the double “swoosh” from the kitchen and frowned. Clark had brought Robin for what Lois hoped was a brief chat. The girl wasn’t a problem to have around, but Lois didn’t want Robin in her home. It was just too domestic a situation, and Robin was welcome to visit but not to move in.
For that matter, she shouldn’t visit too often. Maybe once every three months or so, and then only for a quick cup of coffee. The girl shouldn’t get too comfortable around Clark.
Lois decided to put on a hospitable face for Clark’s sake. No sense in making his job of training Robin any harder than it had to be.
She opened the cabinet and took down three coffee cups as the balcony door slid open. She heard Clark say, “Yes, but we can’t fly around grabbing people just because they’re acting suspicious.”
“The cops do,” Robin pouted.
Lois tipped the coffeepot and poured three cupfuls. “They have the legal right to. I don’t. I won’t interfere unless someone’s actually in trouble.”
“So somebody gotta get mugged afore you help ‘em?”
Lois poured extra sugar into Clark’s cup. It sounded like he could use it. She turned and slid a tray from its resting place, then loaded the cups onto it.
“I’m not a vigilante, Robin! I want to help people, but only if they want it or need it!”
Lois paused and decided that a plate of snickerdoodles would help calm things down.
By the time she’d loaded the cookies on the tray, she’d heard Clark stride firmly into the bedroom. Robin was standing beside the dining room table with her hands on her hips, frowning and huffing air through her nose.
“Hello, Robin. How about some coffee and cookies?”
The girl turned a hard face towards Lois, but it disappeared before Lois could react. Robin’s quick smile seemed forced, but it hid whatever was really going inside her mind. “Sure! Hey, is them snickerdoodles? They’s great!”
Lois smiled back. “Help yourself. Here’s a cup of coffee. We have diet sweetener and sugar, and I can go get the creamer if you’d like some.”
“Naw, this here’s just fine far’s I’m concerned. Thanks.”
Robin sat down as Clark returned from the bedroom. “Hi, honey. Hey, thanks for the coffee and cookies.”
Lois smiled and reached out to take her husband’s hand. “I know what kind of sweet tooth you have. This is your coffee.”
Clark lifted one eyebrow at the cup. “You’re sure?”
“If I drank it, Clark, I’d fall into a diabetic coma.”
He grinned lopsidedly. “Then it ought to be pretty close to just right.”
He and Lois sat together, and as he tasted his coffee and made yummy noises, Lois noticed Robin’s expression and her body language.
The young woman wasn’t adept at hiding her feelings. Lois could almost trace the longing on her face as she gazed hungrily at Clark. The look was almost the same one Lois had worn when Clark had flown out the window of the Daily Planet with Zara and Ching. The only thing lacking was the tears.
Lois turned her attention to her husband’s enthusiastic consumption of her cookies. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw Robin’s glare settle on her.
And it wasn’t pleasant. The look fairly screamed ‘Danger!’ at full volume. Only the shift of Lois’s head towards the plate wiped it from Robin’s face.
She knew she’d never convince Clark of the truth, but Lois knew in the pit of her stomach that Robin wanted Clark. She also knew that Robin considered Lois the main barrier to that relationship. And one other thing was plain, that if Clark hadn’t been here with them, Robin might have taken steps to eliminate her only competition.
That decided her. She needed to talk to Bernie. And she needed to do it as soon as humanly possible.
