Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Right Off the Bat [1/?]

Author's Notes:

This follows Elisabeth's "New Faces; New Year." You might want to read that first, else you won't know about Lois and Clark's first meeting, and you'll be missing a few facts that would be useful knowledge in order to fully understand this story.

Please note that this is an "elseworld" tale, so things are definitely different in this universe. For instance, don't look for Lex too much, because in this world, the resident reclusive billionaire is...well, yes...Bruce Wayne.

I obviously don't own these characters. If I did, I'd be filthy rich and probably not writing fanfic, I guess. I'm just borrowing from the talented people who came up with the characters, and those who wrote the show, and hoping they won't mind too much what I've been playing with their toys.

Huge, huge amounts of thank you: first to Elisabeth for agreeing to let me play in that universe she imagined, to Carol M. and to Jessi for poking and encouraging me, and for agreeing to beta this story. Believe me, were it not for these girls, you wouldn't be reading this story.

Enough babbling!

As you'll see in a second, when the story starts, we're still at the very beginning of the pilot episode...


~.~.~

Right Off the Bat

Lois barged into the editor's office, not bothering to knock first or even check whether or not he was busy. She was the Planet's star reporter and acted as such – if she needed to talk to someone about something, they'd simply have to make time to accommodate her.

"Chief, I think there's a story here and we should have this guy checked out," she announced. "You know, the crazy one from this morning. He was an engineer at EPRAD for ten years, and--"

"Lois! Can't you see I'm in the middle of something here?" Perry grumbled.

"Oh," she said, as though it would suffice for an apology.

That's when she noticed the man who'd just gotten up from where he was sitting, on the other side of the editor's desk. She froze in place, mouth gaping open. What was he doing here?

"Lois Lane, meet Clark Kent," the editor said in a rather frustrated sigh.

"We've, uh, we've already met," Clark replied. "Nice to see you again, Miss Lane," he added with a smile, as he extended a hand toward her.

"Um, yes, very nice," Lois muttered half-heartedly. She shook the man's hand briefly before turning back to Perry. "What's he doing here?" she hissed between her teeth.

The editor frowned. "Why, Lois, what do you think he's doing here?"

"Would you excuse us," Lois said to Clark. It wasn't a question. With a wave of the hand and an annoyed expression on her face, she showed him the door through which she expected him to exit.

"Oh- uh, of course." Clark left the office and closed the door behind him, letting them discuss the matter privately.

Little did they know how pointless this was, as he could easily listen in on their private conversation, even from much further away, should he choose to do so. Of course, Clark was too considerate to eavesdrop, so he concentrated his powerful sense of hearing on anything but the discussion that was taking place right behind the glass door.

"You're not hiring him, are you?" Lois barked at the editor, the moment they were alone in the office. "Tell me you're not hiring this... this... this guy."

"Now, calm down, Lois," Perry said in his best fatherly tone.

"No! No, I won't calm down," she retorted angrily. "I won't calm down unless you assure me that you're not hiring him!"

If Lois had been able to shoot fireballs from her eyes, Perry guessed that he'd have been toasted by now. Lois Lane had a volatile temper, as everyone in the newsroom knew very well by now. But she never usually got worked up this way unless she felt threatened, and for a moment the editor wondered if perhaps he'd just made a huge mistake.

Sure this Kent guy was talented, but if having him join The Daily Planet's team was going to prove to be a bad business move... Perry would never risk losing Lois. She was his star, his ace; the best investigative reporter he'd ever worked with. If hiring Clark Kent meant putting the newsroom's best asset in jeopardy, then the man would be gone before he even had a chance to see his name on a byline.

But Perry White wasn't one to let his reporters walk all over him. Not even his star reporter.

Especially not his star reporter.

He handled his newsroom with an iron fist; an iron fist in a velvet glove, of course. And he wouldn't even start considering the possibility of taking back his offer unless Lois could give him a very solid reason to do so.

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked her. "Lois, he's one of the best reporters The Daily Bugle has had in a very long time. I'd love to see Jamieson's face when he finds out he's lost him to us. The man's likely to have a coronary." Perry chuckled at the thought. "It'll be like that time the Colonel got--"

"Oh, oh, I get it. This is a case of editor rivalry, isn't it? You're trying to see if you can steal their top dog. To prove that The Planet is--"

"Wait, wait, slow down. Steal?" Perry frowned at her. "I'm not trying to steal him from them. He showed up here of his own accord. Said he hoped for a chance to work with the best of the best."

Lois all but snorted. "Well of course The Planet is the best! Our circulation numbers are by far--"

"Ah, Lois?" Perry interrupted. "He didn't mean us as in the Planet. He meant you."

"—superior to any other--" Lois stopped midway into her diatribe. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I said... when he told me he was hoping for a chance to work with the best of the best, he was talking about you; Lois Lane."

"Me?" She blushed as she took a quick glance at the man standing outside the room. "He's obviously done his research."

"As well he should," the editor agreed with a short nod. "Any more objections to my hiring him, Lois?"

"Objections? Oh, um, I--" She looked over to Clark again in an attempt to size him up real fast.

He looked back at her and smiled. Lois looked away almost immediately, feeling intimidated for no reason she could explain.

From what she'd been able to gather about him at the ball, he seemed to be a smart, educated man. And given that Perry apparently thought of him as one of the best reporters in New York City, they'd be nuts not to hire him, she knew.

"Yes?" Perry asked impatiently.

"No. No objections." Then she frowned. "But let's make this real clear: I'm top banana around here and--"

"No, Lois," he said firmly. "I am top banana. You work for me."

She was about to explain her position, but he didn't let her. "But, I get what you're trying to say," he told her in a gentler tone, "and you don't have to worry about the food chain. He's just the new guy. For the moment, anyway."

"But I've--"

"Worked very hard to get to where you are today. I know." He raised an eyebrow; he knew this little speech by heart. "And this is the great thing about it: you're going to continue to work hard."

"Because if I don't--" she started, indignantly.

"Because if you don't, you can stop daydreaming about Kerths, and Pulitzers." Perry gave her a smile and then signaled to Clark that he could come back in.

"Clark Kent," he said as the man entered the office, "welcome to The Daily Planet."

The look of pure elation on the reporter's face wasn't lost on Lois. A wave of pride rushed through her at the thought that the man had chosen The Planet, not because of the paper's reputation for quality or greatness, but because of her own.

As long as he didn't try to usurp her star-reporter position, she could at least try not to make too much of a fuss.

~.~.~

Lois had barely had more than a couple of days to get used to the idea that Clark Kent would be joining the Planet's news team when he finally showed up one morning, bright and early, for his first day on the job.

At first, she'd tried to convince herself that she might actually enjoy having him around the newsroom. At the very least, she'd finally have someone with whom she'd be able to have an intelligent conversation, as opposed to Jimmy, Ralph or Cat.

However, after scanning through a few months' worth of articles he'd written for The Daily Bugle, she'd started to be a little afraid that he might barge in newsroom and push her aside, quickly and easily. Any way she looked at it, she had to admit that Clark Kent was definitely a good reporter.

A very good reporter.

A little too good for her own sense of well being, actually. Not to mention he seemed to excel in writing those touchy-feely types of stories that she hated working on so much. Hard facts - that was her strength. But this guy...

Somehow, he seemed too good to be true.

Worst of all, he'd constantly been popping up in her daydreams since the charity ball. Her heart would start racing, a blush would creep up on her cheeks and she'd end up berating herself, every single time, for acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. How ridiculous!

But as much as Lois tried to get all these things out of her mind - that dance, the expression on his face when she'd slipped her hand in his pocket and taken his hand in her own, or the look in his eyes as he'd watched her from across the room at the stroke of midnight - no matter how hard she tried to clear her head of all of this, the images just kept coming back.

No matter how intelligent, good looking, muscular and - admittedly - an excellent dancer this man was, Lois had no need for a man in her life. It didn't matter how appealing he was. Even suave billionaires stood no chance with her. Especially suave billionaires who were known to be skirt-chasers, like Bruce Wayne for instance.

Of course, said suave billionaire was just a story to her. And Lois Lane never got involved with her stories.

Clark Kent, on the other hand...

When he'd walked into the newsroom, Lois had known with just one glance that she'd have to watch herself around him. Watch her back, first and foremost, but her heart just as much. This man had all the potential to be very, very bad news.

~.~.~

"I knew there was something to Platt's story," Lois complained, shaking her head at the images displayed on TV of the space shuttle, which had just exploded. "I just knew it!"

She should have taken Samuel Platt more seriously. He looked a bit like a nutcase, sure, but couldn't the same be said of many geniuses throughout history? Not to mention, a lot of her snitches appeared to be completely untrustworthy to anyone who didn't already know them - yet they consistently handed her valuable pieces of factual, verifiable information. The bottom line - and she knew it - was that judging a book by its cover was one of the worst mistakes a reporter could make. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Lois knew there wasn't a minute to lose; she needed to act now. There was a story here and, more importantly, there were lives at stake. Another catastrophe might even jeopardize the entire space program. She couldn't let that happen. Platt likely had some sort of evidence that would point to the culprit. She'd just have to figure things out and crack this story.

Somehow.

Minutes later, as reporters turned away from the television set and returned to their usual tasks, Lois took Perry aside and told him in no uncertain terms that this was her story. Samuel Platt had come to her, not to anyone else.

"But I'll need a task force," she said to her editor, knowing fully well that she'd need every bit of assistance she could get. "I can't cover this story alone."

He shrugged, unsure that Lois really had anything to go on. "You can have Jimmy."

"Chief, we're talking about the space program..." she argued. Images of a Pulitzer Prize suddenly started dancing in her head at the realization that this could be a story of extreme importance.

"Okay," the editor conceded. "Take Kent."

"Kent?" Lois's eyes grew wide. He couldn't be serious, could he?

"Kent."

"What about Myerson?" she suggested.

"He's busy."

Lois racked her brains, trying to think of someone else. "Burns?"

"Budapest."

"Forget Kent," she said firmly.

"Uh huh. He's a good man," Perry told her in a tone to match her own.

"I know! That's just the point," Lois complained nervously, the mental image of her precious Pulitzer Prize suddenly shattering in her head.

Clark Kent would want his name on the byline, there was no doubt about it. This wasn't a greenhorn she could walk all over or push around at will. He might be the new guy, but he had a good reputation and an already solid career; there was no way he would let her take all the credit and the glory while he worked in the shadows. That meant she'd have to share the recognition.

Share.

With him.

Perry eyed her suspiciously, then shrugged. As long as he lived, he'd never be able to follow this woman's leaps of logic, he realized. "Kent or nobody," he told her in an exasperated sigh.

"Fine. Don't ever say that I'm not a team player," she threw at him, walking away in a huff.

The editor's eyebrows rose all the way to his hairline. A team player? Lois Lane had never been a team player, and Perry was just about certain that no matter what he did, he'd never be able to turn her into one.

Unless it was a one-woman team, of course.

~.~.~

Reluctantly, Lois had walked over to Clark and explained that they were - for the time being - working together on this story. There had been something in the man's eyes then, which she'd found just as unnerving as she'd found annoying. Something like admiration, but not exactly. Perhaps it was just anticipation, she decided. This was going to be his first byline for The Planet, after all. And it would likely be a front-page one, to boot.

As the day had progressed, they had met with Samuel Platt, from whom they'd gotten a bit more information - and some form of a report. According to him, the particle isolators probably hadn't been manufactured to the original specifications. Heating devices had been installed as a preventive measure in order to keep the particles from freezing under extreme temperatures, and it was his belief that the increased heat around the isolators had caused them to malfunction.

They'd also managed to speak with Dr. Antoinette Baines, director of EPRAD who, contrary to the agency's former resident mad-scientist, hadn't been very cooperative at all. When she'd denied having been informed of any possible malfunctions - or design issues for that matter - involving the particle isolators, Lois had become convinced that the woman was hiding something.

Clark apparently agreed, much to Lois's satisfaction. However, she had been more than just slightly annoyed to bear witness to the blatant flirting that had been going on between the two, during the interview. Unless he'd just done it as a means of putting the woman at ease so she might trust them enough to open up to them? Either way, it wasn't very professional, though that wasn't really what had bothered Lois. She shrugged the thought away; she wasn't really interested in this man, so what did it matter anyway? Besides, as long as they agreed on the fact that Antoinette Baines had something to hide, there was no need make a big deal out of this.

"There's something about her, though," Clark started, deep in thought, as they were on their way out of the main hangar at EPRAD.

Lois rolled her eyes at what she took for a dreamy expression. "Typical." Just when she was starting to think that this guy wasn't all bad, he had to go and spoil it by proving, once again, that all men were the same. Show them a pretty girl and most of their brains would undoubtedly start spiraling downward.

"What?"

"Typical male response," she explained, looking at him with contempt.

"Lois, trust me on this, I am not your typical male," he said in a chuckle. There wasn't much about him that was typical, actually. But he couldn't blame her for thinking there was. In fact, he counted on it - he needed to be able to deceive people into thinking he was just a regular, ordinary Joe. If anyone ever found out what he really was, what he was really capable of, Clark knew that they'd immediately want to get him in a lab and study him. Dissect him like a frog, as his father always said. He couldn't take that chance.

"No? Just because she's okay looking..."

"Sure she's okay looking - if you like her type - but that's not what I meant when I said there was something about her, Lois," Clark explained. All he got for a response was a puzzled frown, so he went on, "I've seen her someplace before, I'm sure of it."

"What, like on TV or something?"

"Or something," he echoed, trying to conjure up the memory.

"She's been on the news a lot recently," Lois offered matter-of-factly. "Maybe that's what you're--"

"I've got it!" Clark exclaimed suddenly, and he pointed to a piece of equipment that was being fitted onto some sort of space exploration vehicle. "Wayne Aerospace!"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Wayne Aerospace," he explained. "That's where Dr. Baines worked, back when she received the Judith Resnik Award. I remember seeing the announcement in the newspaper a few years back."

"Yeah? So?" Lois answered, dismissively. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Well, for one thing, that means her ex-employer is now her biggest supplier of parts."

"Your point?" she asked, miffed. "They've been EPRAD's main supplier for over a decade. That's well before her time as director."

"I know," he conceded. "But what if those particle isolators are one of the parts they manufacture?"

Lois let out a frustrated sigh. "Look, Kent, if you're going somewhere with all this, I hope you'll get there before this century is out!"

"Good things come to those who wait," he told her with a teasing grin as they exited the facility.

She glared at him, furious. "Would you spill it, already? Or are you really just trying to make me hate you?"

"Oh, I already know you like me, Lois." Clark's smile turned smug, as Lois's expression grew even more enraged. "Come on, we have a report to look at."


To be continued...

~.~.~

Bottom Dweller's Notes:

-> EPRAD is L&C's version of NASA; however, I don't believe there's any such thing in the comics. According to DC lore, Wayne Aerospace is one of NASA's suppliers, though I'm not entirely sure what they manufacture for them (experimental planes, it seems, though the info I found is kind of contradictory.) I stretched it a bit and made them a supplier of parts for EPRAD - I'm pretty sure it's at least a little bit believable.

-> Regarding the Judith Resnik Award:
This is a real award, given for outstanding contributions to space engineering. Judith Resnik was an engineer and an astronaut. She died in the explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger, in 1986. For information about the award from IEEE, see: http://www.ieee.org/portal/pages/about/awards/sums/resnik.html