You can thank Carol for this. Even more than normal, that is. Not only did she do her normal great job reviewing this, but my original chapter 52 looked nothing like this. It looked a lot more like what is now chapter 53. But Carol demanded that there was more story to be told, so here it is.
From Chapter 51
“Well, whatever,” Lois said, dismissing my comment, “I’m sure whoever put the crest in your ship would be happy to have it on this suit,” Lois said.
Mom nodded. “I’m sure they’d be very proud of the choice you’re making,” her voice cracked slightly. “I know your Dad and I are.”
Dad didn’t say anything, but his arm tightened slightly around me.
“So this is it then?” I asked, gesturing to the crest.
“Well, maybe we should wait to put it on until you’re sure you want to wear this suit,” Mom said. “I don’t want to ruin the crest by sewing it on. You may want it some day.”
“I’m sure now,” I told her. Now that I saw the blanket, saw how well the crest matched the suit Mom had created, I knew I wouldn’t want to change to anything else. This was it. My costume would be the one my mother created decorated with the emblem or crest or whatever that someone before Mom and Dad laid over me.
a
Chapter 52
I put off making my debut for nearly a month. There were several reasons for it really. There was still a lot I needed to learn. Lois, Mom, Dad, and I had put together a list the weekend Mom created the suit; the most daunting of which was local laws around the world. I probably didn’t need to know the minutiae of every law, but a general sense of big ones made sense. I still needed to work on my geography skills and my language skills. Dad suggested I have some training on dealing with crime victims and Lois suggested learning how to work with criminals would be useful, too.
All in all, there was a lot to do before I could pass myself off as a full fledged superhero. Luckily with my eidetic memory, much of it could be learned quickly and without the need for classes, but it was still a lot.
The main thing slowing me down, though, was the fear of it all. The responsibility of being a superhero. Superheroes were the things of comic books and television shows. They didn’t exist in real life. Was I ready to be the first? Could I live up to everyone’s expectations considering that those were built on dreams rather than reality?
I wanted to, but it was a daunting task. The Boy in Black had been easy compared to this. At first Lois didn’t understand, she saw the Boy in Black as an undercover superhero of sorts – a bit of a Batman-like character. But eventually she started to appreciate my concerns. The Boy in Black went under the radar screen – no one had made the link between all my appearances. And as Mr. White proved, even a newshound wouldn’t think much of it even if he saw the link made. More importantly, most of the time, the Boy in Black was only notable for his being American. Even that was only slightly noteworthy much of the time.
This new Boy in Black, or Boy in Blue? I still needed to decide on a name. Anyway, this new character would use all of my strength, all of my special skills. There would be no more hiding who I was. And once I was out there, there was no going back. I mean, I guess if I really hated it, I could say I was an alien and needed to go back to my home planet, but that would just cause all sorts of questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. So I needed to be sure. Once I was out there, that was it.
Still, there was one argument for not putting it off too long. Lois’ internship opportunity hinged on my coming out. Without it, things stayed as they were, and I alone had the internship. As Lois started to understand my fears, she told me not to consider this – that the Boy in Black was bigger than an internship, particularly since we were both pretty sure she’d land an internship sophomore year easily.
Still it seemed unfair. It certainly felt like if I was going to do this sometime, I should do it now so Lois could write it up.
We had even started working on her article – both discussing what we would say and what not, but also working on the writing. Lois had a reasonable rough draft written, minus whatever the event was that would be my formal “coming out”, and we had spent almost whatever time we weren’t talking about the actual coming out honing the words. I say almost because we did sometimes divert activities from all the Boy in Black stuff. Sometimes we acted… well, Mom said we acted like typical college students in love. I guess that was accurate. Still, I would have been happier to have all the superhero and internship stuff over with so we could really concentrate on the “typical college student” activities. As much as I loved writing, making out with Lois was a lot more fun.
Given all the conversations we had about the Boy in Black coming out, and the even greater amount of time I spent thinking about it, it was surprising how it all happened. I had turned off my hearing thing after that weekend. I didn’t want to make a rash decision, and I doubted I’d be okay going out as the Boy in Black when I knew I had a costume all ready to go out and could really help without anyone knowing it was Clark Kent doing the helping.
So, I hadn’t been on a rescue in weeks, hadn’t used any super powers in that time at all. Well, okay, I did fly. Lois and I flew a lot. To Smallville to see my folks pretty regularly, but also all over the world, just because we could. I had never done that before, but Lois saw no reason not to. So on Friday afternoons, while the rest of our friends had class, we used the free Friday afternoons we’d arranged and traveled.
Aside from that though, I hadn’t used any super powers. That should have kept the issue of helping from coming up at all, but it didn’t.
My “coming out” so to speak hinged on something so small, so trivial, no one would have believed it if it actually been part of the newspaper article Lois wrote. It was a Wednesday morning, and Lois and I had gotten together for a late breakfast and were making our way towards the academic buildings for our first classes of the day – Nineteenth Century British Lit for Lois and Economics for me.
“Come on, Clark,” she teased me as we walked. “Name them all.”
“Sleepy,” I started and Lois nodded. “Dopey,” I added another. “This is silly. I know I know all seven dwarfs.”
“Good,” Lois said. “So list them.”
“I will,” I told her, already regretting the bet I had made. It wasn’t a big deal, I only owed her a brownie if I lost, but still. It was a matter of pride. “Sleepy,” I started again. “Dopey. Doc. Happy.” I smiled as I realized it was coming back to me. “Smiley?” I asked, realizing I’d lost it.
“Nope,” Lois smiled at me. She looked like she was tasting her success already.
“Ugh! I know them all!” I insisted.
Lois nodded knowingly.
“Fine. Tonight,” I told her.
“Tonight what?” she asked confused.
“Tonight I’ll take you to Angelina’s for your brownie.”
Lois smiled as she linked her arm with mine and we walked to class. When we reached the English building she leaned up to give me a kiss. “I have a late class tonight, so maybe I’ll meet you at Angelina’s?”
I nodded. “Okay. Seven?”
“Sounds good,” she said as I leaned down and gave her another kiss.
************************
We were eating our brownies and chatting. For once we were talking about classes and not the Boy in Black. I was completely relaxed, I could tell Lois was, too, and it felt like the best day of the year.
And then it all changed. There was a yell from the back. Everyone in the restaurant turned to see what had caused the commotion, but no further information came. Out of habit, I turned my hearing back on. I could hear a roar, but it wasn’t a sound I really recognized. I could see Lois looking to me to provide additional information, and I shook my head to let her know I had no idea what was going on.
Still, I could hear the panic of the people in the kitchen and so I turned my sight on. It was clear the instant I did. “There’s a fire,” I said to Lois. “A big one.”
“How big?” she whispered back.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure, but the campus buildings around here have already been hit. It’s headed this way.”
“As in we’re about to be burned alive?” she asked.
“Let’s go,” I told her.
“What do you mean?” she asked, indignant.
“This is it. My debut. But you need to get out of here before it hits.”
“I will not!”
I groaned. I should have known she’d say that. “Lois, I don’t have time to argue with you.”
“Then don’t,” she cut me off. “Go get the suit and do your thing before Angelina’s is hit.”
I started to argue, but then realized she was right. I was never going to convince her to go home, and I didn’t have the time to lose. I sighed, but gave her a kiss anyway, as I ran out the door. The instant I was outside, I ducked down an alley and took to the sky, landing on the roof of my dorm. In an instant, I had the outfit Mom had made on and was flying out the window at the end of the hall. I could only hope no one had seen me.
“Good luck, Clark,” I heard Lois’ whisper as I landed in the back of Angelina’s. “I love you.”
I nodded in reply, although I knew she couldn’t see me. And then I panicked. I realized I had no idea what to do. And it was too late to turn around and go back. People were pointing and staring. I could hear them whispering about my costume, about how they had seen me flying. It was all over. This was my debut as a superhero – complete with tights and cape, but I was no help whatsoever.
For a moment, though, the panic cleared and I saw the fire trucks nearby. I ran over, feeling stupid in my get up now, but went over to one of the firemen. “I’d like to help,” I offered, knowing I sounded like the teenager I still was, rather than the superhero I was pretending to be. “What can I do?”
The firemen shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me,” he said.
“We can’t get the hoses to reach up there,” one of the guys yelled back to him.
“Excuse me, kid,” the man said, clearing trying not to laugh.
“I can do that,” I said, making my voice firmer now, trying to sound older. I grabbed the hose.
“Hey!” he said. “You can’t…” but his admonition fell from his lips as I flew straight up, taking the hose with me, aiming the water directly at the fire. Within moments, I had mostly squelched the fire on this side.
“Wow!” I heard some of the other firemen saying, although the one I first approached was still staring at me in shock.
“There are people trapped in the building over there,” one of the people said as I landed.
I took off in the direction he had pointed. People rescuing I could do. And maybe, just maybe, I could do the rest of it, too, with a little practice.
************************
“You were amazing,” Lois said when I saw her later. She had been among the onlookers when the fire was out, but I hadn’t been able to go over to her; didn’t want to single her out in the suit. So instead, I had taken a flight around the world, making sure it wasn’t clear that I had flown from campus.
I had spun back into my regular clothes – I had spent some time in the intervening weeks learning how to adapt my old trick for the Boy in Black outfit to the new one, and had to admit it was a more comfortable way of putting on and taking off the spandex.
When I got back to campus, it was over a half hour later – long enough that no one, even if they had seen past the different hairstyle I had always worn as the Boy in Black or taking my glasses off as I had also done, would have really thought it could have been me.
I went directly to Lois’ dorm to find her waiting for me. “Thank you,” I told her. “It felt… well, amazing, once I got over being scared.”
“I know. I could see your face. You looked so happy,” she told me.
“Let’s go,” I urged her. “We need to finish your article. We need to get it to Mr. White before anyone else submits one.”
“It’s done,” she told me. “I just came back from submitting it.”
“What do you mean you already submitted it?” I asked her.
“I couldn’t wait,” she told me, grinning widely. “I was too excited.”
“But… you didn’t want me to see it?” I asked, slightly hurt.
“Well…” Lois hesitated. “Here,” she said thrusting the article at me.
I looked at it quickly and immediately saw why she didn’t want me to see it. “You shared the byline?”
She nodded. “You did so much of the work with me. It was only fair.”
“But what if Mr. White…”
“I know,” she cut me off. “He could have decided not to give me the internship since I said we worked on this together, but I decided I was okay with that. It was fair that you get the byline. If that meant I didn’t get the internship, than that was what was fair.”
“Except that I cheated to get the spot to begin with,” I reminded her.
“Well, whatever,” she brushed that off. “It doesn’t really matter, Clark. I talked to him already. And he didn’t give me the internship and he took yours away.”
“What?” I asked, completely confused.
“He gave the internship to Cat. Said he didn’t really see her as an investigative journalist long term, but he did see her in the newsroom, so thought the training would be good for her, and she had done a ‘bang up job’ on the application.”
“He took my internship away?” I asked, still confused. I knew it was petty – I still had cheated, but I couldn’t believe he had taken it away. And why? What had Lois’ article done? And maybe even a bigger question – why did Lois seem happy about it?
“Yup,” she said. “He said he couldn’t in good conscious give either of us internships. The internships are for doing grunt work, learning to understand the skills that make a great reporter. He didn’t see how he could claim we needed that when we had an article on the front page of the Planet before we even started. So, he’s giving us staff positions instead. Just for the summer, and we’ll be working with Norcross and Judd as sort of trainees, but it’s a real job.”
“The article is on the cover of the paper?” I asked, stuck on that fact. I mean, it made sense given the topic, but still…
Lois nodded with her smile wide. “And the staff job pays better than the internship in addition to giving us a chance to write.”
“That’s amazing,” I smiled at her, starting to grasp all that had happened.
“I know,” she continued to look like it was Christmas and her birthday all rolled up into one.
“Wait.” I suddenly realized. “Why couldn’t you show me your article before submitting it? I didn’t need to see the byline.”
“I know,” Lois said, looking confused. “That’s not why I didn’t show it to you.”
I took another look at the article, reading through the parts that had been done before, reading the new parts she had written more carefully. Still, I had nearly finished the article before I caught it. It was clear – this was the real reason she hadn’t shown me the article. “Lois,” I said. “I told you. I didn’t want to…”
“I know,” she cut me off. “But you were never going to decide on a name of your own. This one works.”
“But Superman?” I asked, still not sure I could handle the name.
“Yes. And you better get used to it, because with this on the cover of the Daily Planet, it’s only a matter of hours before it catches on.”
I shook my head at her. I shouldn’t have been surprised really. It was just like Lois to do what she wanted, what she knew was right. I chuckled. “I love you,” I told her.
“I know,” she grinned at me. “I love you, too.”
I glanced at her article – our article – again. The Boy in Black was dead. Or maybe he was just all grown up. Regardless of which it was, my new suit wasn’t black, and with Lois by my side, I didn’t feel so lost and like a little boy. I glanced at the article and then at Lois’ smile. Superman was born.
