from Part Three:
I closed my eyes for the second time that night, as I grew lethargic from my long night. I heard Clark grunt as he shifted into a more comfortable position in my bed; I think he had moved so that he had his back to me. His tired and sated voice drifted over to me. “‘Night, Lois.”
“Goodnight.”
*.*.*.
Part Four
*.*.*.
The next time I awoke daylight was streaming in through my curtains and someone was knocking rather loudly on my front door.
Feeling Clark stir beside me, I quickly threw on my night dress and robe, then walked through to roughly pull open the door before the person on the other side knocked a hole through it. Henderson was stood there, his face blank as normal, and yet he still managed to convey a hint of anger and worry. I opened my mouth to speak but before any words came out I felt Clark appear at my side.
“How are you?” Henderson asked him.
“Still a bit weak,” he admitted as I moved away from the door, back into the comfort of my apartment. He must have got some of his powers back as he’d managed to get his Superman suit on quite quickly; I was fairly certain he had still been naked only a few moments ago.
“There’s a blacked-out car waiting for us downstairs. That’ll get you back home unnoticed.”
Clark stepped out into the hallway and disappeared from my view, assumedly towards the building’s exit.
“Thanks Lane,” said the Inspector as he glared after the superhero’s back, almost as if he thought he was being rude by not speaking to me before he left.
I gave him a ghost of a smile, “What else could I have done? I wouldn’t have left him there, and I know it would be bad for the general populous to know that he’s not exactly himself so I couldn’t send him home helpless in that outfit. I don’t need thanks.”
Henderson didn’t say anything for a while, he just looked at me, obviously appraising me, but his expression gave no clue as to what he was thinking.
Finally he spoke. “Not everyone thinks that highly of Superman, you know. He’s still a naive man when you get down to it, easy to take for a ride. If a less scrupulous person had been in your position, they’d probably have found a way to exploit it for their own gain. Not to mention what the loonies who think he’s part of an invading alien army would have attempted to do to him. Don’t sell yourself short; you did good. And I assume this won’t make it onto the front page of the Planet?”
Exploitation, huh? I suppose there are those who would argue that I *had* taken advantage of him, although I knew it would be a cold day in hell before anyone found out that Superman had slept with me.
I had no intention of plastering his weakness across the front of the Planet, letting everyone know that kryptonite was real, but Henderson didn’t know that, not for certain anyway.
“Of course not,” I smiled sweetly at him. “And I’ll come down to the station later so that you can tell me everything you know about Intergang.”
He let out a deep sigh and shook his head, but he made no comment to deter me before he hurried after Clark. I closed the door and smiled properly for the first time in a year. It was only fair, really. After all, Intergang apparently had it in for me when I’d never *heard* of them. I *should* know all there was to know about them. And then I’d stop them.
*.*.*.
“Lois Lane?”
I looked up from my work at the sound of someone saying my name. I was shocked to see the blonde woman, Mayson Drake, standing beside my desk. She looked angry and for a second I returned that anger, not knowing what I had ever done to make her angry at me.
Then I thought of something.
Oh, no.
She was dating Clark, wasn’t she? Surely he hadn’t been stupid enough to tell her what had happened between us last night?
“Yes,” was the only response I ventured, my heart racing as I wondered what she was doing there, at my desk on the morning after the night before.
“Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
“Sure,” I grabbed a notepad and pen and hoped that my hands weren’t shaking. Obviously she didn’t want people to overhear whatever she wanted to talk to me about. Which was good. If she knew about Clark and me, then she didn’t want the rest of the newsroom to know as well. But I still had to make it look work related, even if it wasn’t.
“There should be an empty conference room,” I told her.
Drake said nothing, just followed me into the nearest room, which was luckily unoccupied. Some days you could spend forever looking for a private corner in which to talk to a source.
She closed the door behind her. “I know who you are.” Her voice was cold.
I gave a feeble laugh. “You did say my name.”
“I mean, I know that it was you who wrote the original article on Clark being Superman. I remember you from the station yesterday. Bill told me why Clark was so cold towards you. I had to wonder he’s normally so friendly.”
I sat down. She was beginning to thaw, not too much, but enough for me to question again whether or not Clark had told her about last night. “Except to me,” I agreed with a sigh, “and for the record, I don’t blame him. In his shoes I probably would do more than just give me the cold shoulder.”
“I might have done as well,” Drake agreed, sitting opposite me. “But luckily for you, Clark would never hurt anyone.”
<Lucky old me,> I thought.
“I know who you are as well.” I decided to tell her. If this was about Clark, I wanted to get it over and done with. Get it out in the open. I wanted to know where I stood.
“What do you mean by that?” Drake asked, suddenly looking suspicious and uncomfortable.
“You’re Mayson Drake, assistant D.A. I asked Henderson.”
“Oh,” she relaxed a little. “That’s all?”
I gave a small smile and looked away. “Officially. I did get the impression that there might be something between you and Clark, but that was neither confirmed nor denied.” From out of the corner of my eye I could see her agitation increasing. Of course, I cursed my stupidity, if I’d had no scruples in outing Clark then why would I think twice about printing anything about their relationship? “Luckily I’m not the gossip columnist and I can learn from my mistakes.”
“I’m not here to discuss Clark.” She said, her voice cold again.
I forced my body not to immediately relax. If she sensed my relief at her statement, she might question it. “So why are you here?”
Drake opened her bag and pulled out a huge file. She placed it on the desk and slid it towards me. “This is highly classified and you are not to let it out of your hands. It’s a copy of all we know about Intergang. Bill told me that they had tried to kill you and that as a result you wanted to know. He managed to persuade me that as they consider you a target and as you’re one of the best investigative reporters in Metropolis, it might be a good idea to let you in on our side.”
I flicked hungrily through the stack of paper. “What about Clark?” I asked. I knew it was stupid to mention him, but if I needed to know if he knew I was helping them. I’d been very cautious to keep away from stories he’d been involved with and so far had managed it without giving up too many big stories.
“He agreed that you were good at your job. Bill assured him that he didn’t need to come into any more contact with you than he wanted. That’s why I’m here. Clark spends most of his time at the police station, helping out. He won’t go as far as actually joining to force so that he knows what he’s doing but as he’s now on their payroll he’s technically acting legally as Superman.” There was a bitterness to her voice that surprised me.
“You don’t like Superman?”
“Not much,” she agreed. “I mean, I know Clark thinks he’s doing the right thing, but he’s still only trained as a journalist. There are piles and piles of documents and signatures from the government allowing him to continue his Superman duties, but I still can’t see Superman as anything more than a vigilante.”
“But I thought--”
“Please, Miss Lane,” Drake interrupted me and stood up. “Forget I said anything. My opinions are just that and if you write--”
“I won’t!” I exclaimed. “I promise. As I told you, I’m a journalist not a glorified village gossip. Superman’s secret identity was technically news. The fact that you don’t like your boyfriend is not.”
Drake gaped, opening and shutting her mouth like a goldfish as she fought to find the right words. “I-- He’s--”
She took a deep breath and started again.
“He’s not my boyfriend and I *do* like him. I’m just not entirely happy with the way he’s gone about his Superman duties, that’s all. Don’t your friends do things you disagree with?”
“No,” I told her, leaving out the small point that I didn’t really have any friends. “And if he isn’t your boyfriend, why not say so in the first place? ‘No comment’ usually means, ‘yes but I’m not going to admit to it’. I know it’s none of my business, and that I am not the first person you’d choose to confide anything about Superman to, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind. I saw the way you looked at him.”
“Bill was right; I don’t think I am going to get on with you. For some reason he seems reluctant to leave Clark’s side today but as out the three of us his opinion of you is highest, I think it’s safe to assume that you’ll being seeing more of him than of me or Clark. You would have thought that after all you’ve done, you would leave him alone but you can’t, can you?”
“Unfortunately for us, Clark is our only common ground,” I bit back. “And that’s what you look for in people.”
Drake, who was stood by the door and ready to leave by this point, looked a little guilty at her former outburst. “I guess. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad the truth about Superman is out. If I’m not happy with it knowing what a wonderful man Clark is, imagine what I’d be like if I didn’t know they were the same person.”
This, I felt, was the most shocking thing she’d said. “I ruined his life, Miss Drake. I know Clark too, or at least I knew him a little. He’s not the sort of man who wants to be centre of attention, but he’ll never be anything else now for the rest of his life. Nor will any woman he falls in love with. If he ever did get a wife or girlfriend, she wouldn’t even be allowed the smidgen of a life he gets. She wouldn’t be invulnerable but she would still be a target for villains and the press. If no-one knew, she could live a normal life with him.”
“I know,” Drake said sadly and I began to doubt that was the real reason their relationship was unknown, “but Clark would be worth sacrificing all that for.”
I wanted to ask her why she hadn’t. If it wasn’t the publicity keeping them apart, I had no idea what was. Maybe their arguments about Superman, but that didn’t seem right either. Clark wouldn’t be scared off by a disagreement, even if it was about himself. He hadn’t been scared off by Mad Dog Lane when he met her. Despite everything, I’d worked with Clark on two stories. I’d never had a partner last more than one.
Drake said something about keeping each other posted as she left and I wished I wasn’t so busy trying to figure out Clark’s personal life. Why was it so important to me? Why couldn’t I learn my lesson and keep my nose out?
*.*.*.
I had left the information at work in my locked draw. I figured it would be safer there than in my apartment, which had a strange tendency to be broken into in spite of how many locks I put on the door.
As I shut the door to my apartment, my gaze fell on the window. It was shut and locked, how I always left it except when it got really hot in the summer, and then I only kept it open for enough for ventilation when I was at home and awake. Some people would think I was overly paranoid when it came to safety, but they weren’t ‘Lois Lane - Danger Magnet’.
I found myself walking over to it. For a moment I just stood there, looking out over the bustling city, then I unlocked my window and left it ajar enough to look open, without being an obvious target for whoever was currently looking for a way into my home.
*.*.*.
For the next two days I carried on my new ritual, barely aware that I was doing it and never really considering why. I’d open the window when I got in from work and keep it open until I went to bed. It wasn’t the first time I’d done so. For those few weeks before I’d discovered that Superman was really Clark, I’d started keeping my window open in the hope that my crush would appear to sweep me off my feet. He never did, of course and as I far as I know Clark had only just found out where my apartment was. I’d never invited him there before and he’d never had to come to save me there for some reason, so it was a fair enough assumption. That probably *wasn’t* the reason Superman hadn’t come to sweep me off my feet after the Messenger explosion; it was more likely to be that he was really my work partner and wasn’t in the least bit in love with me. Which was probably for the best as it turned out. However, it did make it easier for me to slip back into the window routine.
Things changed on the third day.
As normal, my window had been opened as soon as I’d returned home without me really considering the purpose behind it. I was busy polishing off a tub of ice cream as I desperately sort to find some sort of pattern in Intergang’s behaviour from the information Drake had given me, when I felt a strong gush of wind enter my apartment. I couldn’t help but jump at the sensation and as I turned around I was surprised to see Superman standing in my living room.
He looked quite fierce, his fists were clenched by his sides and he wouldn’t look directly at me. I swallowed my immediate panic at his appearance.
“Your window was open,” he said, his voice strained as he kept all emotion out of it.
“I know,” I whispered, amazed that I could answer him at all. My heart was pounding as the truth of my actions flooded my knowledge. That was why I had been opening my window, because I really wanted to sleep with him again. And now he was here; and I was nervous.
He watched me as I got to my feet, unsure what to do. I really hadn’t expected him to come; I could see no reason why he would. He hated me, I was sure of it and there was no logical reason for him to desire a woman he hated, unless Superman was secretly a masochist. And yet there he was; standing in my apartment, watching my reaction to his appearance.
“I know I shouldn’t have assumed that I could come in, so if you want me to go..,” he began as I found myself rooted to the spot, unable to speak or move for what felt like an eternity to me, and from those words it appeared that it must have felt at least as long to him.
“No!” I exclaimed, then cursed the desperation that I heard in my voice. What on earth must he think of me? I spoke again, in a softer voice. “No, I’m just a little surprised that’s all.”
“Me too,” and he did look rather lost, as if he had no idea what he was doing here either, except he must have done.
I moved towards him so that I was close enough that I could reach out and touch him, although I refrained from doing so. In spite of what this appeared to mean, it didn’t feel like my place to be the aggressor. I just stood there and decided to take my cue from him, pretending that my thoughts hadn’t immediately leapt to the bedroom.
“Do you want a drink, or something? I’ve been looking at what Drake gave me on Intergang and--”
“Don’t,” he growled harshly, interrupting my pointless babble. “Lois, please don’t. I don’t want to talk. We have nothing to say to each other.”
I nodded, bit my lip and looked down at my feet. I felt his warm touch on my chin as he lifted up my head until I was gazing into his eyes. I was lost from the second we made eye contact.
His head bent down to give me a brief kiss on the lips. I opened my mouth to his and raised my hands to the back of his head, pressing my tongue deeper into the sweet depths of his mouth. His hands went to my waist and he lifted me up so that he didn’t have to bend down to kiss me, but we never broke apart as he walked us into the bedroom.
To Be Continued...
