Thanks to Mark, Carol, and Beth for their help BRing!
From Chapter 43
Superman nodded. “Can I ask you two a question before Clark gets here?”
“Of course, honey,” Martha said.
“What happened to Clark? I mean, Herb told me that our pasts were similar; Clark just never considered staying in Metropolis until he met Lois. But I get the impression that's not true, that something happened in Clark's past to make him scared of helping in public.”
Martha and Jonathan shared a glance. “I think you should ask Clark,” Martha said softly.
“So, there is something?” Superman confirmed and Jonathan gave a small nod of his head. “I've tried to ask him, but he doesn't seem to want to talk about it.”
“It's hard to talk about,” Jonathan said. “For all of us. But I'm sure Clark will open up and tell you about it eventually.”
“Okay,” Superman said, feeling even more curious now. If Martha and Jonathan said they had trouble talking about it, it must be big.
Chapter 44
“I had this thought,” Clark said as he sat down. “I mean, I know we have a ton of things to work on for me, but… what?” he asked as he noticed that Superman looked nervous. “Is something wrong? Did I do something wrong with the elevator rescue?”
“No,” Superman was fast to explain. “Did you feel okay doing it?”
Clark paused for a moment before answering. “I guess. I just… Well, I was fine when I was alone. It was just in front of the cameras. The lights starting going off and I sort of panicked. I thought… well, that I had been caught. I know it was silly and I'm sure with time I'll get better at it.”
Superman smiled. “I am, too.”
“And I know I didn't stop and talk to the press. I should be feeling fully press-ready – it's hardly like I've never been to a press conference before, but …”
“It's different on the other side,” Martha offered and Clark nodded.
“Lois came by today,” Superman said quietly.
“Oh… did she recognize me?” Clark asked and like Jonathan, the words carried a note of panic.
“No,” Superman immediately reassured him. “But she thought I looked nervous and asked if something was wrong.”
“Oh,” Clark looked dejected.
“Clark, I saw the coverage. No one but Lois would even notice,” Superman said, trying to be supportive.
“But even if it's just Lois…,” Clark said. “I don't know. I don't feel ready for her to know my secret. I mean… aside from the fact that we're barely getting along right now, she's dating Luthor. What if… I don't know. Do you think he'd do something to her to find out information about Superman?”
Superman sighed. “I don't know. I had the same fear myself, and the same doubts. He seems to sincerely care about her. But he's… well, he's evil,” Superman said and Martha laughed.
“Sorry, honey,” she said, placing a hand on Superman's arm. “I've just never heard you use such a strong negative inflection before.”
“It's Luthor,” Clark said.
Superman smiled, glad that Clark understood his hatred of the man.
“Anyway, I agree with you. As long as she's dating Luthor, it's best that she not know about you. Or me,” Superman said.
“What did your wife think about that?” Martha asked.
Superman looked at her for a moment, remembering the rather loud argument he and Lois had about it.
“I'm sorry. I know I should let this go, but every time I remember anything from the first two years I knew you, it's overlaid with this feeling of deceit,” Lois said. There was no anger in her words, no fire, just hurt. It was a much more painful tone for Clark to listen to than when she was angry.
“I don't know what to do, Lois. I should have told you sooner. I know that. I'm so sorry. But I can't go back and change that.”
“When?” she asked him. “When should you have told me?”
“When I got shot at the club?” Clark said, but it came out as a question rather than a statement.
“So, more than a year after you had met me,” Lois confirmed, the anger Clark had been expecting coming through loud and clear now. “You would have been happy lying to me for an entire year about who you were. Or, scratch that. You were happy lying to me for an entire year about who you are.”
“No,” Clark said. He hated the fact that he sounded beaten down, but he just could not seem to work up the anger to rail back at her. “I wasn't happy. But I couldn't tell you…”
“You couldn't tell me?” Lois asked, her voice purely acidic now. “What? Did kryptonite come out whenever you started?”
“Lois,” he pleaded. Maybe he did not really prefer when she was angry rather than hurt.
“What?” Lois asked, standing up now while her anger grew. “I want an explanation, Clark. Why couldn't you tell me?”
“You were dating Lex Luthor!” Clark exploded, his anger coming to the fore. “Let me rephrase that – you were engaged to Lex Luthor.”
“So? I didn't ask you to tell him. Just me. I was supposed to be your best friend. Of course, the way you abandoned me when I got engaged should have made it clear to me that you weren't.”
“That's not fair!” Clark yelled, his voice finally as loud as Lois'. “I was in love with you and you were engaged to someone else. Maybe just for a moment you could think about how I might have felt about that?” Clark's anger seemed to dissipate as he continued. “Even if I didn't hate Luthor, even if I had liked the man you were planning to spend the rest of your life with, can't you see how painful that was for me?”
“So you didn't tell me the truth about you because I had hurt you? Are you saying it's my fault you didn't tell me?” Lois asked, her anger still clearly in place. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I would have felt differently if I had known?”
“Yes,” Clark said quietly. “I thought about that a lot. But Lois, I didn't want you to love Clark because he could fly or catch bullets.”
“Do you always talk about yourself in the third person?” Lois asked, seeming to calm down as she giggled a little.
Clark smiled slightly. “Sometimes it's easier.” He took a deep breath, hoping they could maintain their current calm. “Lois, I wanted to tell you, I did. But I was scared. Scared that if I did, Clark Kent would disappear and be taken over by Superman in an effort to be who you wanted. And scared of what Lex would do. If I had said yes to you that night as Superman…”
“Then I never would have gotten engaged to Lex,” Lois said, her voice still calm, but a note of accusation in her voice.
“But you would have gone to see him,” Clark pointed out. “You would have gone to tell him no. And I don't know what he might have done to you. If you had known I was Superman and somehow Luthor got that information out of you… It just seemed like one more thing I had going for me – that I could show up as Clark and not rouse suspicion.”
“Did you really think Lex would hurt me?” Lois asked, a chill running down her spine.
Clark shrugged. “I don't know. But I couldn't discount it. It wasn't exactly out of the realm of possibility.”
“I'm sorry I keep bringing this up,” Lois said, snuggling closer to his side. “I don't mean to, but…”
“It still hurts,” Clark finished her thought. “I know. And Lois, I am so sorry.”
“I know,” she said as she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I know you are.”
Something was off about the memory. Superman was not sure what, but something about it felt wrong. Whatever it was, though, was irrelevant to Martha's question. “She didn't exactly agree,” Superman finally said. “But over time, she understood.”
Clark nodded. “So, given enough time, Lois becomes reasonable?” he asked.
“Clark Kent! What a thing to say!” Martha said.
“Sorry,” Clark said, not sounding all that sorry.
“You said you were barely getting along now,” Jonathan pointed out. “What's going on?”
“Some rival of hers from college is in town. And Lois is on a rampage.”
“What's that got to do with you?” Martha asked.
“Nothing,” Clark said.
“Except for your picture on the society page of the Star with Lois' rival,” Superman teased.
“What?” Martha asked.
Clark shook his head. “It was nothing. Linda invited me to a party last night to meet Preston Carpenter. The editor of the Metropolis Star,” he explained to his parents.
“And you accepted her invitation?” Martha asked with raised eyebrows.
“It wasn't a date. Linda was already going with Preston. And I took Lois,” Clark set the record straight. “But Linda and I danced – or sort of danced – we didn't even finish out the song before I realized Linda was just trying to put me in the middle of whatever is going on with her and Lois.”
“But it was long enough for someone to snap a picture,” Martha confirmed, trying hard not to laugh.
“It's not funny,” Clark said with a smile as he tried to contain his own laughter. “Lois is really upset.”
“Oh, I'm sure she is,” Jonathan laughed.
“Didn't the elevator cable calm her down?” Superman asked.
“What elevator cable?” Martha asked.
“From the rescue I did. Because I was off being Superman, Linda got the story for the Star and the Planet was scooped again,” Clark explained. “Only I found the end of the cable in the elevator shaft and took it as it looks cut, not ripped.”
“You don't think it's an accident?” Jonathan asked.
“No,” Clark said. “Carpenter has editorials written up that always end up in the same edition as Linda's articles on the news and on the same topic. The afternoon edition of the Star today had an editorial on having tighter regulations on safety for building elevators. I think Carpenter and Linda are staging these "accidents', and that's how they're scooping us.”
“And why would the cable calm Lois down?” Martha asked. Clark shrugged and looked at Superman.
“Well, because when Clark told… You did tell her about it?” he asked as understanding dawned.
“When?” Clark asked. “Between when she was yelling at me for taking up with her mortal enemy and when she was yelling at me for putting her job in jeopardy?”
“So, you didn't tell her,” Superman said.
“Of course not,” Clark said. “I planned to, but then she wouldn't stop lecturing me, so I changed my mind.”
Superman laughed. “I can't say I blame you,” he admitted.
“So,” Martha said, trying to bring the conversation back to what they were all here for. “How do we prevent Lois from recognizing that something is wrong with Superman whenever Clark takes over?”
“I have an idea on that,” Clark said, looking a bit hesitant. “But try to hear me out, okay?”
“Why?” Superman asked warily.
“I know that a large part of that will be my getting more comfortable being Superman and not freaking out when someone takes my picture, but I keep thinking – what if Lois shows up some time when we don't expect her? I don't think we can do much to fool her, and so I think we should avoid that if we can, but in an effort to try, I had this idea…”
“So you said,” Superman said. Why was Clark taking his time bringing it up?
“I was thinking that aside from the glasses and the hair which I've been able to copy without a problem, we still look different. Not a lot, but you are older than I am,” Clark said hesitantly.
“Go on,” Superman prodded him. He somehow just knew he was not going to like what was coming next.
“So,” Clark said taking a deep breath. “I thought maybe you could wear make-up. Not a lot,” he rushed to explain. “Particularly not at first. Just to look a little younger.”
“Until I look more like you,” Superman said slowly, hating the idea and hating even more the fact that it made sense.
“Right.”
Superman turned to Martha. “Is it possible?”
Martha laughed, “That we can use make-up to make you look younger? What do you think it's for? The entire industry is built on trying to help women look younger.”
“So, what do we do?” Superman said.
Clark pulled something out of a bag he had brought with him. “I bought foundation. I'm not sure if this is the best way to go, but I stopped by a make-up store and asked. I got some strange looks,” Clark smiled, “but I'm told this matches my skin tone the best.”
Martha took it from him and opening it up put a small amount on her finger and leaned over to spread it on Superman's cheek. “Perfect,” she said.
Superman glared at her.
“You'll get used to it,” Martha assured him.
“Really? You don't wear any make-up,” he pointed out.
“Well, no, but on the farm? That would be silly. But I do for special occasions. Trust me – you forget about it after the first few minutes it's on.”
Superman looked at her dubiously. “Well, let's try it now,” he suggested.
Martha moved over and rubbed the foundation on, taking special care around his eyes – which certainly was one place where the age difference between him and Clark had taken a toll.
When she had finished, she stepped back and took a look. “Just give me a second,” she said and ran upstairs.
“How's it feel?” Clark asked,
“Like there's gunk on my face,” Superman said with a smile.
Martha came back downstairs armed with more make-up. Superman did not even want to ask what it was she was using, he was afraid it would be too mortifying to know. A few minutes later and Martha stepped back. “What do you think?” she asked Jonathan.
Jonathan looked back and forth between Clark and Superman. “Wow!” he said. “Are you indistinguishable from each other? No. But darn close!”
“Can you show me how to put this stuff on?” Superman asked, already praying Martha was right and he would get used to it.
“I don't think he should wear it all at once,” Clark said. “Or at least so much. It will look weird if he suddenly looks ten years younger. I was thinking, maybe doing it in stages, so on any given day he doesn't look noticeably different from before, but over time, it's harder and harder to tell the differences between us.”
“That makes sense,” Superman agreed.
“Why don't you go upstairs and wash it off and then I can show you how to apply it?” Martha suggested.
With a whoosh, Superman was gone and back a second later. Martha suggested they go to the bathroom and a few minutes later they came back, Superman looking just slightly younger than normal.
“Perfect!” Clark said.
“Easy for you to say!” Superman said. “I suppose I should make sure to wear this all the time in case I bump into Lois.”
Clark nodded. “I'm sorry,” he said.
“It's not that big a deal,” Superman said. “Martha can you write down the stuff you used so I know what to buy.”
“Just keep it,” Martha said. “As you pointed out, I barely ever wear make-up. I'll just buy more next time Jonathan takes me out for something fancy,” she said, winking at her husband.
“Should we look at the elevator rescue now?” Clark asked. “I have the video clip of it ready.”
“Yes,” Superman said. “I definitely think it's your turn to be tortured.”
************
“What are you doing here?” Lois asked as she walked into the restaurant to pick up the food she had ordered.
“I have a date,” Linda said.
Lois looked around for Clark, but did not see him. Then again, Linda was alone right now. Maybe he was meeting her later. “Well, have fun,” Lois said in an effort to get away quickly.
“What, no barb?” Linda asked.
Lois rolled her eyes. “No. Although a warning – stay away from Clark. He's a nice guy and a little naïve.”
“First Superman and now Clark? Do you own all the men with great bodies in this town?” Linda asked.
“I'm serious. I know you're just using him to get back at me and I'd hate for him to be hurt.”
“For me to want to get back at you, you would have had to do something that mattered to me,” Linda said. “Which you didn't. Besides, if you think that's the only reason I'm interested in Clark, you must be blind, deaf, and dumb. He's smart and kind, in addition to being one of the hottest guys I've met in Metropolis. What's not to like?”
