If Clark was standing naked in front of her, he couldn’t have felt more exposed. Lois couldn’t have any idea what he was doing. He had shattered an asteroid once, but this, this was really scary.
“Where? I don’t see.” Tirade over, Lois was on her knees next to him. “Turn to the light.”
Clark gulped and obeyed. This wasn’t exactly taking off his glasses, pulling out the red cape, but it came close. It felt dangerous, reckless, and a frightening kind of wonderful.
Lois’ deft finders swept his hair aside. She leaned in so close he could feel her breathing on him.
Clark closed his eyes, slowed his thundering heart-rate, and concentrated. Her hands in his hair, her scent surrounding him…
“Ah ha!” she cried, delighted. “Man, Clark, I would never have known that was there.”
“Is it really so…invisible?” He didn’t recognize his own voice. But something in it seemed to hold Lois in her place. Still on her knees, fingers in his hair, she moved a mere inch to kiss the scar.
“There.” She smiled broadly down into his heated face. “All better.”
The die was cast. Irretrievably. Now it was just a matter of time.
***********
He had shown her the scar. Clark Kent’s scar and Superman’s scar. Just lifted his hair and pointed it out to her, like the crazy man he was. But this wasn’t a problem. It didn’t have to be. Because Superman wasn’t going to go anywhere near Lois Lane. He hardly did anymore anyway. Well, not too often. But now, after…well, anyway, now, Superman was going to keep his distance. A from-here-to-Siberia type distance. No more casual fly-bys to Lois’ apartment. A bad habit he had fallen into that was really hard to kick. He’d kick it now. Cold turkey. No more staying behind at rescues and taking “just one more” question from the press corps, not if she was among them. So, there was really no problem with Lois knowing about Clark Kent’s scar, since she’d never see Superman’s. It was as easy as that.
If there was a vast, sucking black hole set squarely in the middle of this logic, Clark choose not to look at it. Lois really had been unusually careful during these last months. Not to say she didn’t occasionally court disaster, just not on the thrice daily basis she once did. So, if he, Clark Kent, stuck close to Lois, the chances of her needing the services of Superman ever again, were, well, he didn’t really need to do the math.
There were millions of people in Metropolis. Most of which would never need him. If they did it would be a once-in-a-saved lifetime sort of thing. And if you added up how many times Lois had needed him, divided by the one tiny person that she was, what you came up with was irrefutable numerical proof that Lois had more than used up her Superman rescue allotment, and therefore probably wouldn’t need anymore saving until well into the next few lifetimes.
“She’s going to fall down a well, any day, now,” he muttered to his computer screen, after once more checking to see that Lois was where she was supposed to be. Clark had taken to shamelessly eavesdropping on her phone calls and her conferences with Perry. Just in case. He didn’t let himself dwell on how inappropriate it was.
“Get trapped on a broken ice flow.
Tied to the railroad tracks.
Ride piggy back on a torpedo…”
This was agony. He gritted his teeth and returned his pained thoughts back to the story he was supposed to be writing for Perry. If he had just bitten the bullet and told her. She might still be screaming, but it would all be over now. But that was the root of it, wasn’t it. It would be over. Completely. Forever. And this tortured dance they were doing was so much better than no dance at all.
“God help me, I am so stupidly, helplessly in love with you,” he groaned softly as he watched Lois disappear into the elevator. He forced himself to wait ten seconds before leaping to follow her. Discreetly, of course.
Two hours and various non-life threatening errands later, the object of his misery darted off the elevator and into the bullpen. Even at superspeed, he had only beaten her back by minutes.
“We’ve finally got a lead on that so-called holding company,” she sang out.
<So happy. So full of energy. So obviously well-rested.>
As she approached, Lois was shedding coat and bag and laptop. Dumping all of these into his outstretched arms, she pushed Clark towards the conference room.
“Look at this.”
Lois grabbed the top lot of papers from him and spread them on the table. “I started thinking if we just looked from an different angle, then we could see…”
“…the unseen…that which is so faint as to be barely there?”
“Very poetic. But yes, like here.”
Lois turned to find Clark still standing, arms full, pressed against the conference room doors. She grabbed him and steered him, none too gently, into a chair.
“You’ve got to see this.” She leaned over his shoulder. When her hair brushed against the side of his face, he turned his head into it and inhaled, deeply, shakily.
“You’re weird today,” Lois told him matter-of-factly.
“I haven’t been sleeping,” was his truthful, if lame, reply.
“I just got a new mattress, Clark,” answered Lois in that way she had of always having something to say on any topic. “You wouldn’t believe the difference. Now I can just stretch out,” Lois demonstrated by raising both arms far over head and bending back slightly, “and I’m out like a light.”
Clark sat, too flustered to answer, angry at himself for letting the moment pass without committing it to memory. Could he ask her to do that again?
“Hello in there, Clark! Come on. Here’s the pattern I’m seeing.”
Lois’ pages were highlighted in shades of yellow. She looked at him expectantly, willing him to see what she saw.
This was much easier for her, he reminded himself. Lois was firing away on all cylinders, like always. That was only because she had no idea of the grenade that sat between them, its pin out, the timer winding down. She didn’t see it. She never saw it.
“So,” he said slowly, stalling for time. “There is a connection, a hidden thing right here, under our nose?”
“Good grief, yes, Clark! That’s what I’m saying. You are not even looking.”
“I’m not looking. I’m not looking! Which one of us doesn’t look, Lois?! Just for once, ask yourself, which one of us is the non-looker in this relationship?!”
“Hey…guys?” Jimmy’s tentative voice called through the closed doors. “I have the numbers Lois wanted. Maybe I should just…slide them under?”
They spoke simultaneously.
“The non-looker?! What the…what are you…what?!”
“Jimmy! Come in! Come right in! Take a seat and stay!”
“What the heck is a non-looker? What is the matter with you.. you…Clark?! You have been strange for weeks now, Clark! And I have been nothing but understanding and nice!”
Clark could have pointed out that she was shaking her fist at him, even as she pronounced the word “nice,” but he didn’t have a death wish. And he knew that she was right. Lois had been bearing the brunt of their assignment while he had been wallowing in his own misery. So, he wouldn’t interrupt her, wouldn’t cut her off with a quick, though heartfelt, apology. He had this coming, and Lois was more than ready to dish it out.
Jimmy, who had been foolhardy enough to come in on Clark’s invitation, shuffled his file, shuffled his feet, seemed engrossed by the crack in the floor they had once agreed looked kind of like the Mississippi river on the map.
Of course, there was a cry for help.
“Clark…Clark! You are getting that look on your face. The one where you disappear to who knows where…” Lois’ voice trailed off with a tired air of resignation, all the fight gone out of her.
“Look…um…Lois, Jimmy. Sorry, I just remembered a thing. A big thing. And…” One hand went straight to his tie, his eyes scanning the obstacles between himself and the stairwell. “…by non-looker, Lois…” He started to move. “…I didn’t mean anything at all. Just that it’s great you have an angle…” said with a reassuring squeeze on her arm, a pat on Jimmy‘s back, “..and great you have a new mattress…” said from outside the conference room doors. Now into the bullpen, and stated over his shoulder, “Since I’m late, I’ll just go and be back…right away.”
Slow jog to the stairs. And finally, up and out. Once on the roof he spun, ordered his tortured heart to beat again. Then with a whoosh, Superman was up and away. Cool. Calm. Collected. In no way crazy.
Back in the now very silent conference room, Jimmy ventured a look at Lois.
“Do you…want those numbers?” he asked in his friendliest I-just-work-here tone.
After an extra seconds pause, that might only have been in Jimmy’s imagination, Lois answered flatly, “Yes, Jimmy. Thanks. I’ll take them. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”
Jimmy exited in triumph. He wasn’t sure exactly how or why, but he had walked right into the lion’s den, and come out without a scrape.
“Score one for the researcher and God help CK.”
***********
Superman’s emergency was such a minor one, Clark was almost disappointed. Not that he wished anyone ill; no injuries, no major damage. It was just that in short order there wasn’t much else for him to do, besides go back to work, back to Lois, the non-looker. He considered a quick side-trip to Smallville and the chance to unload the whole chicken pox scar dilemma on his parents. Clark knew, however, that his dad wouldn’t like it. And more so, that his mom would like it all too well. With a sigh, the Man of Steel rocketed back to the Daily Planet to take his lumps.
Spinning into his clothes on the roof, he allowed himself the luxury of a pep talk.
“Stop being an idiot. Stop being an…”
“Hey,” came a soft voice from behind. “I figured you came up here.”
“Lois?!” Clark whirled. So intent on his own problems had he been, he hadn’t checked for anyone before landing. “Did you…? Have you…? Were you…?” Clark couldn’t find the end to a single question.
“Is that how I sound sometimes?” Lois asked, her head tilted to the side as she studied him. Sweating. Clark was sweating, and something else. “You know, when you tell me I’m babbling. Is that how I sound? Clark, are you ok? You really, really don’t seem ok.”
“I…I…I…”
<No stammering, remember?>
“Ok. Yes, I am. Ok, that is, Lois. And sorry, too. Sorry about the um…non-looker thing which wasn’t nice and wasn’t tru…truly nice.”
“Something is going on with you, Clark. And you look like you need a friend.”
Lois let the pause string out between them. She was offering him amnesty and a chance to say whatever he needed to say. This was their secret. One that nobody else would have dreamed possible. That whenever Clark lost it, or came apart, Lois made room for him to do so. She didn’t dismember him on the spot, as popular opinion would assume, though that sometimes came later. Lois knew, more than anyone, how rarely Clark gave way, and how little Clark really did say. And how much got bottled up inside and stayed there. Held in by his small town ethics, or the boy scout code, or by a fear of Something. For a while now, Lois had taken to calling the fear “intimacy.” As kind and open and loving as his nature was, Clark would just hit a wall at some point, a line he couldn’t cross, a place he couldn’t reach. Sometimes he retreated quietly, and Lois would watch him do so with sadness for him, and a feeling of loss for herself that she didn’t quite understand. And other times he banged up against it noisily, almost desperately, like today. So, here was Clark. Hiding on the roof of the Dailey Planet, where he had obviously run to get away from her, struggling with It, and looking so lost.
“I’m your friend, Clark. Your best friend.”
Lois wanted to say more, but knew she couldn’t. Not until he summoned up whatever he needed to step across…to her.
Lois knew they were hung up somehow, somewhere. They had never managed to recapture the honesty, the emotional intimacy of that night they had spent together in her apartment, the night she hadn’t married Lex Luthor. She faulted herself for that. Clark, in the months following, had remained as warm and supportive as he’d been that evening. But for Lois, the weeks leading up to that night, and the months following it, had been too painful to think about, let alone examine too closely.
And there was that other night. The one so full of revelation for her. The one she’d never told him about. She had spent that one with Superman. She’d thought Clark was…gone. Their reunion had blotted out much of the pain, but not all of it. And it hadn’t blotted out the things she had learned about herself, about the two of them.
Clark, other than emphasizing how glad he was to have his life back, and how very much their relationship meant to him, had been resolutely unwilling to talk about what he’d gone through. So neither had she.
That nightmare grew distant at the same time a barrier grew between them. And they remained where they had been for some time, stuck in the in-between. If there was ever going to be a break-through, a forcing of the issue, she knew it was going to have to come from her.
***********
The very next day, she fell from the observation deck of the Metropolis Planetarium. Up until Lois nearly died, it had been a wonderful night. Clark had picked her up on time, no rushing off, no strange outbursts. She had worn something new and a tiny bit eye-catching. They had danced and dined and listened to the speaker’s long-winded explanation of the newest Something recently discovered, in the vast reaches of space, by STAR labs. Lois hadn’t worried too much about the details, trusting that when the time came, Clark could recite it all back to her, correct spelling included.
Over dessert, Lois was certain she had seen one of the shareholders in that holding company they were still tracking. She had turned to point this out to Clark, only to find him inexplicably gone. His seat was still warm and his dessert only half-eaten, which just wasn’t right. After finishing for them both, Lois had gone looking for her shareholder. It was just bad timing that the building had been plunged into complete darkness just as Lois made her way out onto the observation deck. The presentation was underway, and the planetarium’s speakers had reached a bone-rattling crescendo, when someone shoved her over the railing.
For just an instant Lois had been too surprised to scream. But thankfully, that all familiar in peril feeling brought her back to her senses, and her “Help Superman!” saved the midnight buffet and her new dress from certain impact.
Then Lois was floating up, light as a feather, though for some reason Superman’s arms seemed to trembling.
“It’s ok. It’s fine. No harm done.”
Odd that she would be the one saying those words to him. After all, she was the one who didn’t fly.
“Superman, are you ok?”
Lois and Superman had landed in a dimly lit balcony across from the observation deck. While he had put her down quickly, Superman still hadn’t spoken.
“Someone pushed me, I think,” Lois offered, just in case he was standing there thinking she was clumsy, or worse, that she had just been missing his company.
After an awkward pause, he spoke in a perfectly controlled voice. “Are you ok then, Lois?”
His eyes were serious. His expression just the right amount of stern and bemused. This was the Superman she knew so well.
“Yes, I’m good. Thank you, by the way. And maybe Clark and I are getting closer to the bad guy. Unless, of course, this was a new bad guy, or a formerly locked up bad guy with a grudge, or, you know, just an honest-to-goodness accident.”
At this Superman smiled a real smile. “Lois, with you, there are no honest-to-goodness accidents.”
With a degree of shyness Lois was certain only she ever saw in him, he offered his arm. “Walk you down?”
Their pace was slow as Lois navigated the steep staircase in her too-high heels. Once in the brilliantly lit lobby, Superman released her and rose into the air.
“Be sure Clark walks you home, ok?”
With a gentle smile and a whoosh, he was gone before Lois could thank him, again.
***********
The weight of the world was off Clark’s shoulders. He indulged in a few barrel rolls during his evening patrol. Lois had seen Superman. She had looked right at him. Just as always. And the world was still spinning on its axis. All his agonizing over the Night of the Scar, as he’d come to call it, seemed ridiculous now. That one night’s conversation had no real significance. It was just one of a million conversations about nothing that had passed between the two of them. And that was all it was. Not the pre-cursor for the end that Clark had somehow convinced himself it was. It was one night, one talk, one confession, now
shrunk down to its proper size, now in its correct place, in context with all the others.
Like the time Lois showed him how her second toe was longer than her big one. Which had prompted a debate over the practicalities of open-toed shoes in the city. Who even remembers stuff like that? Lois’ toe, his chicken pox scar; they were merely window dressing in the broader “getting to know you” conversation.
Except, of course, that he did remember Lois’ toe, and ever since had vaguely noted her choice of shoes, especially in the summer. Sandals just were not a part of her wardrobe. And he refused to concede that they would be any less practical than some of those high-heeled ones she wore. In fact, if they were the kind that slipped off easily, she could sneak that much more quietly while breaking and entering.
Where was he?
Superman had lost a little altitude, along with his inner compass. He righted himself and headed back towards Metropolis. The point he had been making, Superman reminded himself, was that he was safe. Unexposed. Superman was Superman and Clark Kent was just an ordinary guy. This was good. No doubt about it.
Ok, so maybe he had shown his scar in hopes of Lois…connecting the dots. That was only because he did want her to know. Someday. If he wanted a life with her, she had to know. Eventually.
Clark was hovering over Lois’ apartment now. High enough above the clouds so as not to be noticed. Low enough to see that she was there. And he was torn, again. Torn from the inside out over how and when to tell Lois, the one person in the world who made him feel he belonged on the ground.
Clark flew slowly home. The night had gone so well. Granted, Lois had plunged from a great height after dinner. But he had been there. He had forced himself to stay near her in the Suit. And afterwards, she had sought him out, confessed with no real remorse to eating his dessert, and ordered him to take her home. Lois was probably sleeping soundly by now, and maybe, finally, so would he. After all, the weight of the world was off his shoulders, right?
***********
There was no good explanation, at least not one city management could offer, for the loose manhole cover. Nor was there a logical reason that is should be Lois, off all people, as lightweight as she was, and just the morning after the planetarium incident, who should overturn it and plummet beneath the street of Metropolis. For an instant Clark wondered if that was how he looked to her- there one minute and gone the next. They had been walking back from another fruitless interview, bickering over their next move, and with barely a whisper, Lois was gone.
Clark found her immediately with his x-ray vision. She looked stunned and was wearing the jelly-filling from her donut in her hair, but seemed otherwise, ok. Therefore, he was caught off guard when Lois opened her mouth and yelled for…
“Superman!”
Clark jumped back a pace or two, casting quick glances around for passers-by. It was early and they were quite alone. Changing and flying down to scoop Lois out would be an extremely simple procedure.
Only, Lois wasn’t really hurt.
“Help!”
And it was broad daylight. They would be in such close proximity. Lois might see…
“Hello?!”
This was, after all, a very minor emergency. Not so much an emergency as an inconvenience.
“Anyone?”
And Superman couldn’t always be around for every little rescue.
His mind in turmoil, Clark kneeled down and shouted into the void. “Lois, are you down there? It’s me…Clark.” He knew that sounded a little silly, so before she could answer he rushed on, “Can you reach my hand? I could pull you up.”
“It’s too far. I see your hand, barely, but there’s no way.”
Clark lay on his belly, lowered his head and shoulders in as far as he dared, trying not to look like a guy who could easily hang upside down. “What if I drop down there? You could climb on my shoulders…”
“And how exactly would you get out, then, Clark?”
“Well…” He hadn’t quite thought that far. “Ok, hang in there, Lois, help is coming.”
He voiced that last bit with great confidence, then sat down next to the overturned cover to figure out just what form that help would take. If he had just changed as soon as she had called, they’d be headed back to the Planet by now. And on the day that she finally knew everything there was to know about him, did he really want her first question to be, “So why did you leave me in the sewer so long?”
This could be it. He could drop down, help her out, and when she voiced her concern that he was now stuck, he could say, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to…”
The Fire Department! They’d have a ladder!
Clark x-rayed the area around Lois much more thoroughly this time. There were no rats hidden in the darkness. No evil geniuses, either. She’d be fine where she was for a while longer. He could go call 911.
“Clark? Are you still there? My ankle…”
He spun. Had her out before her next word.
“Your ankle…what…Lois?” He cursed himself for his selfishness. “Are you hurt?”
Superman didn’t set her down, just in case.
“Well, nooo,” Lois began, somewhat sheepishly. “I was just going to tell Clark, that well, it was just really cramped down there, and I felt a twinge. I’m fine. I can stand. Thanks. This must get really old for you. Where’s Clark?”
Superman hesitated before setting her down gingerly, discreetly x-raying her ankle, shin, thigh…
“Um…what? Oh, well, Clark had a thought about the Fire Department. You know they have a ladder.” He grabbed the manhole cover and set it in correctly. “This sort of thing fits their job description.”
And that was completely truthful, he congratulated himself.
“Ok,” said Lois, with that bright smile and easy friendliness she only showed to Superman. “I’ll just head back to work. He’ll probably find a million things to do between here and the Fire Department. If you see him, will you tell him I’m out?”
“Lois!” he sputtered. “Clark would never leave you down there while he…he…ran errands or…anything else. I’m sure the Fire Department will be arriving any minute.”
Clark stopped and adopted his far-off listening pose, pretending to hear the sirens.
“In fact, I should just go tell them it’s all taken care of. That is, if you’re ok?”
“Yes. That sounds like a good idea.” Lois agreed easily. “And Superman, it’s nothing against Clark. You might never have noticed, but he’s easily distracted, that’s all.”
He bit his tongue and shot straight up. He was halfway to the Fire Department before he realizing what he was doing. Was he losing his mind? Maybe this wasn’t his fault? Maybe this was red kryptonite at work? Or a previously undiscovered shade? An evil master scheme? A government conspiracy? Something, anything besides his own ridiculous stupidity and insecurity.
Superman had stood and talked to Lois in broad daylight. He had held her mere inches from the scar that she had kissed to make better. And she had treated him as she always did. Everything was as it should be. Landing on the roof of the Daily Planet, he straightened his tie, checked for missing buttons, and told himself, once more, that the status quo really was a good thing. Then he went down to make his excuses, which he hadn’t come up with yet, to Lois.
That afternoon, Perry called a meeting in his inner sanctum and in very few words removed Lois and Clark from their stagnant investigation.
“You have to admit we really weren’t getting anywhere,” Clark said reluctantly, his loyalty to the chief warring with his survival instincts. “Perry had a point. We’ve been down one blind alley after another, with absolutely nothing to show for it.”
They were standing in the deserted bullpen. Lois was furiously packing her briefcase.
“Right, right. You’re right. Perry’s right. I get it. Holding company investigation closed. I think I’ll just go home, spend an evening away from,” she waved her hands over the room, “all this. It’ll be good. I’ll be good. Good is the operative word here, Clark.”
On a sharply turned heel, she was off to the elevators.
“Lois…you’re not thinking of…doing anything, are you?”
“Doing? What?” She didn’t have to turn to know how he was looking at her. “I’m going home, Clark. I’m doing nothing. Good is the operative word!”
***********
The STAR labs alarm went off at an unholy hour. Deep in sleep for the first time in weeks, Clark nearly missed it. The droning chimes had worked their way into his troubled dream, in which he had been trying to pull his cape from quicksand, only to find that each tug carried it further under. He was thinking how his mom was going to kill him. “Another cape ruined. This material is not inexpensive, Clark…” when the droning began. At first, he’d thought it was Martha.
Minutes wasted, Clark finally sat up, coming to awareness. “STAR Labs,” he yelped as he spun out of bed and into the Suit. In seconds he was hovering over the complex of buildings, slowly x-raying, not wanting to rush, not wanting to miss…Lois.
Lois?
Lois?!
Yes, dammit, Lois. The small, quick moving figure rifling through the contents of files which had certainly been locked away just minutes before….that Lois. She was photographing the pages smoothly and methodically, with a singleness of purpose that belonged to her, and only her.
Superman saw the police converging on the parking lot. Hesitating only briefly, he flew down to meet them
“Officers,” he greeted them.
“Don’t you ever sleep, Superman?” A grumpy, disheveled Henderson hailed him as he exited his cruiser and trotted towards him. “Have you looked?” he continued in a lower tone as the two men stood side by side.
“Yes…well,” Superman studied Henderson’s left ear, fully aware of how shrewd the detective was. Able to squeeze a world of meaning out of any statement, no matter how trite.
“And?” Henderson prompted, not the least fooled by the superhero’s obvious reluctance to talk.
“I think, maybe, a…technical glitch…or something,” Superman told Henderson’s left eyebrow, not quite able to meet the Inspector’s eyes.
Henderson seemed to consider this for a moment. “ A false alarm, then?”
This time Superman looked directly at the other man, having heard what sounded like amusement in the question. “I could shut it off for you,” he offered.
A long look passed between them. Just long enough for Clark to consider breaking down and confessing all his sins.
“Ok, then” Henderson finally replied. “If you can do that, I’ll just send the men away. Is that about right?”
Superman was already in the air. “Yes, sir. No problem. And thank you. I’m really grateful you’re letting me…um…help.”
The night mercifully hid his flushed face as he heard Henderson’s snickered, “You’re welcome. No charge. Say hello to Lois for me.”
***********tbc-
