From last time:
“Clark? Honey?”
The sound of Lois’s voice cut through the fog of his dream. He opened his eyes to the darkness and realized he was in bed, safe in his home, an eternity away from New Krypton. Clark rolled over to look at his wife. “You okay?” she asked. The concern was evident in her voice.
“Yeah,” he whispered, but he could taste the lie. “No. No, I’m not,” he confessed.
“Another nightmare?” she asked, gently encouraging him to talk about it.
“Sort of,” he replied. “Not like the usual. But it was still about Nor. Or maybe it wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nor was in it. Just taunting me about the fact that I can’t get over killing him. That I can’t…” He sighed, trying to make sense of it all in his head. But it didn’t make any sense. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep trying to wall off the different parts of my life from each other. When I’m with you, I feel like I’m me. Like I’m the guy I’ve been trying to be this whole time. But with Jiang…I spend so much time just thinking about what he did to us, what he could have done…and all I feel is rage. I spend a lot of my patrols just following him…and it’s so easy to imagine tearing him apart. I killed someone once…and it almost destroyed me. Now I want to do it again.”
“You would never hurt someone unless you had no choice,” she insisted as she reached out to touch his face.
“No, Nor was right….”
“Nor?” she asked incredulously. “Nor was a raving psychotic from the way you described him.”
He shook his head. “Not the real Nor. The one in my dream. How can I even be thinking of doing to someone else what I did to Nor?”
“Because he threatened your family. He could have killed us all,” she said simply. “It’s only because of you that he didn’t. Killing Nor still bothers you because no matter how awful he was, it goes against everything you are to hurt someone else. That’s why I know you won’t hurt Jiang. Even if that means you have to recuse yourself from the rest of this and let the police do their own work, then that’s what you’ll do.”
“Isn’t that just running away?”
“Clark, you have done everything superhumanly possible to make sure this guy never hurts anyone else again. You’ve done your job. You don’t have to do the rest. Let someone else handle it – someone whose family wasn’t nearly murdered by the bastard.”
He shrugged. “It still feels wrong; like I’m taking the coward’s way out.”
“Honey, you are the strongest person I know. And that has nothing to do with how much you can bench press. I would never have made it through these last few months if it hadn’t been for you. And I know it was just as hard for you as it was for me, but you pretended it wasn’t. Because you knew I needed you to. It’s because of you that Jiang will be spending the rest of his life behind bars. Who cares if you’re not the one who arrests him? Though personally, I wouldn’t believe for a second you were dangerous to him. You’ve had every chance to hurt him and you’ve never done it. Because you’re better than that. Because you still know what you believe in. And you know those things are worth fighting for. Especially when it’s hard.”
He opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t think of anything to say except, “I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right; I’m always right,” she replied matter-of-factly.
********
New stuff:
Jiang looked behind himself nervously. He changed his habits, his patterns, his routes. He never ate in the same restaurants, shopped in the same stores, or set anything resembling a routine. Without friends, with his access to funds gone, he moved from one cheap flophouse to another. And yet he saw the police everywhere he went. Not just the smart looking young men in crisp blue uniforms, but in the eyes of dozens of strangers who seemed to follow him as he passed: a homeless man on a bench, a banker at a café who couldn’t put down his mobile phone, a young couple walking in the park.
He found a rundown looking little laundry and dropped off the sack of clothes – the only possessions he had left in the world. Everything else—his home, his hand tailored suits, his cars and his wine cellar, his watches and cufflinks, his season tickets to the opera—had been abandoned along with a life of power and privilege he was never going to return to.
Jiang knew it was nothing more than a matter of time. He’d failed to kill Superman. In the process, his man had seriously wounded Ultrawoman. Neither of these things boded well for Jiang. The last the any man needed was an angry, vengeful superhero stalking him like a newborn foal.
There was no way to know whether Superman intended to kill him or merely apprehend him. At times, Jiang just wanted to turn himself in and confess everything. The constant looking over his shoulder, the acid that ate away at his stomach from all the worrying, the chronic insomnia all made him believe prison a better alternative to this mocking perversion of ‘freedom’ that he currently enjoyed.
But he knew that if he meekly turned himself in, the Triads would think that he was trying to cooperate with the authorities. He wouldn’t last two hours in a holding cell. Before anyone could even bother to figure out whether he was a threat, he would be dead. That was how expansive the organizations connections in the prison system were.
He hurried away from the laundry and ducked into a dingy noodle shop. His stomach growled painfully. His already lean frame had been grown thinner still since returning home to China cloaked in dismal failure. He was usually too nervous to eat and he only dared venture out when the hunger threatened to drive him insane. Dressed in cheap polyester pants and a worn cotton shirt, he looked like a pathetic day laborer. No one would notice him here. Perhaps if he were truly lucky, the whole world would forget he’d ever existed.
********
“I still think I need to do this,” he said as he paced in his therapist’s office.
“Why do you think that is?” she asked him from where she sat patiently in her chair, her tranquility a stark counterpoint to his agitated state.
Clark sighed. “I don’t know. To prove that I’m really me, I guess. Not the guy I was afraid of turning into.”
“And you think arresting Jiang will give you that proof?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You’ve been following his movements very carefully, haven’t you?”
He stopped pacing and turned to face Dr. Friskin, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “The Macau police have him under constant surveillance. But yeah, sometimes I follow him, too. Just to make sure he isn’t going to run.”
“And in all of that time you’ve been following him, you’ve never taken the opportunity to harm him. Isn’t that proof enough?” she asked. He wished it were that simple.
“But I think about it,” he replied. “And I keep thinking about it until I force myself to leave.”
“So you think if you got close enough to arrest him, you might actually take the opportunity?”
Clark dragged a hand through his hair and sighed again. “No. I mean, that’s what I want to prove. That I am in control. That I’m not some half-crazed guy with superpowers who might snap at any moment.”
“And if you allow the local authorities to complete the arrest without you, you think you’ll lose the ability to prove that?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering.”
“That situation would be unacceptable to you, wouldn’t it?”
Clark nodded silently. “I need to prove to myself that I can get past killing Nor, that it didn’t turn me into a danger to other people.”
Dr. Friskin removed her glasses and looked up from her notepad. “Personally, Clark, I don’t think you are a danger to other people. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to harm this man and you’ve never taken them. But I’m not the one who needs to be convinced.”
********
“You know how I feel about this,” she said as she looked up at him from her desk.
“I know,” he replied quietly as he closed the door behind him. “Lois, I need to do this.”
“And I don’t understand why,” she said stubbornly.
He sighed, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I don’t think I can explain it.”
Lois stood up and walked around her desk toward him. “Just be careful.” She straightened his tie and let her hands rest of the lapels of his suit jacket.
Clark placed his hands on top of hers. “You’re not going to try to stop me?”
“I could, but we’d probably tear apart the newsroom and not accomplish anything. I think you’re being a lunkhead, but you’re my lunkhead, which means I support you. Even if I don’t agree with you.”
“Thank you. I think,” he said with a weak chuckle.
“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked. “I mean, I’ll stay out the spotlight, just fly overhead or something.”
He shook his head.
“You need to do this alone, right?”
“No,” he said. “Not alone. I couldn’t do any of this without you. But I have to know I can trust myself, even when you’re not there to keep things from getting out of hand.”
She didn’t understand. She didn’t think she could understand. Lois knew he would never harm Jiang, no matter how despicable that execrable piece of garbage was. But she didn’t know why he needed the emotional pummeling that would doubtlessly come from having to arrest him, from having to control his reactions and check his anger at a man that he had every right to wish were dead.
********
“Superman, we appreciate your assistance with this arrest,” Commissioner Wan said politely as he pulled on a bullet proof vest marked “POLICE” in Portuguese in bright yellow letters and in Chinese characters. “We’re concerned Jiang may resort to…desperate measures when cornered.”
“I understand, Commissioner,” Clark replied, his arms folded across his chest. “And I will let your officers take the lead unless it appears they need my help.”
“Thank you, Superman. I’m sure the operation will proceed without incident, but it never hurts to have a little insurance,” Wan said with a smile as he holstered a weapon Clark was sure he probably hadn’t carried in twenty years. Clark followed the other man out of his large, wood paneled office. A half dozen senior police officers and investigators were waiting for them in the lobby. They crowded into the elevator and made their way to the subterranean basement where dozens of additional officers were piling into police vans and cruisers.
Undercover agents throughout the Special Administrative Region had been keeping a quiet, steady eye of Jiang’s every movement. They placed him in a cheap motel several miles away from the police headquarters. In the dark of night, the small caravan of police vehicles quietly slipped out of the garage – no flashing lights or wailing sirens to alert the sleeping residents of Macau to their movements.
Superman followed them, flying high overhead. The vans finally slowed as they surrounded the dirty, rundown hotel. Police officers quietly made their way out of the vehicles and manned every possible entrance and exit to the building. With his x-ray vision, Clark watched from above as the cops hurried into the building, securing the stairwells and shutting off the elevator. The night receptionist began to voice his alarm, but a few terse words from one of the officers, supported by all of the large automatic weapons being brandished seemed to silence him quickly.
Clark found Jiang’s room easily and using the radio Wan had given him, relayed the man’s position to the police commissioner. Jiang had apparently dozed off in the beaten up, threadbare upholstered chair in his room. He faced the door, slumped over to one side. On the table beside him was a bottle of cheap gin, half empty. Clark wondered briefly if the man had taken to drinking to calm his nerves.
But the thought fled his mind instantly. Though he slept, Jiang held a revolver loosely in one hand. The weapon hung precariously from his fingers and looked as though it might fall to the floor at any second. “He’s got a gun,” Clark said curtly. “I repeat, Jiang is armed.”
<<My men can handle it.>> Came the reply. In the hallway, the police were slowly approaching the door, their weapons drawn.
“No,” Clark said emphatically. “Someone’s liable to get shot. Let me take care of this.”
<<Superman, we have the situation under control,>> Wan said testily.
“I will not have anyone’s blood on my hands because I didn’t act.” Clark bit out the words forcefully. His heart thundering in his chest, his blood racing through his veins, he darted toward Jiang’s window in a blur. Before the man was even awake, Clark had wrenched the pistol from his hand and crushed it into a tiny hunk of useless metal. The shattering of glass had forced the police to react. They burst through the door, splintering it and knocking it off its hinges.
Clark grabbed Jiang with both hands and kept himself interposed between the piece of garbage and the dozen or so adrenaline driven police officers who stood ready to shoot the bastard if necessary. He stared at Jiang, seeing the look of fear he’d known would be on the other man’s face. His eyes were wide with horror, the acidic stench of fear rose from his skin as he trembled in Superman’s grasp. Clark could hear Jiang’s heartbeat, thundering like a frightened rabbit’s.
“Pu…please…” the man whimpered pathetically.
Clark fought against the burning need to tighten his grip on the other man, knowing that if he did, he’d snap Jiang’s arms like matchsticks. His jaw clenched rigidly, he stared at Jiang with all the hatred he’d ever felt in his life. His skin burned with the roiling, seething emotions that swirled inside him. The piece of garbage held in his grip had very nearly destroyed everything that Clark held dear. But now, in the grasp of the most powerful being in the universe, Jiang was less than harmless.
A flick of his wrists.
A dart of his heat vision.
A tightening of his grip.
Any of these things would have been sufficient to end Jiang’s existence.
And to end Clark’s.
‘I am Clark Kent,’ he said silently to himself, repeating the beginnings of the mantra he’d said over and over again when he’d been Nor’s prisoner, the silent affirmation that he had no intention of meekly surrendering to the darkened night. ‘I have a mother and a father and a wife and children who love me dearly. I will not die because they need me.’
In his mind, he could see Nor. He could see his sadistic smile and hear the cruelty drip from his voice. He looked into the other man’s eyes, devoid of any light of humanity, of any sense of compassion or empathy. He remembered what it was like to cower at the sound of Nor’s footsteps. To pray for death to bring an end to his pain. To shiver like an animal and wonder just how much more abuse his body was prepared to endure.
‘I destroyed you,’ he thought to himself. ‘I survived, not you. And I will not live my life in your shadow. You have no hold on me anymore, Nor.’
He let Jiang go and the other man, whether out of fear or disbelief, collapsed to the floor. Clark stepped away and allowed the police to haul Jiang off the floor and bind him with cuffs. A half dozen men wrestled the slender, broken man back to his feet and frog marched him into the hallway, though Jiang’s legs wobbled and buckled as he walked. With just a single look of disgust at the pitiful shell of a man who’d almost destroyed Clark’s world, he turned and flew out the window.
Landing beside the commissioner’s car, he walked over to Wan. “It’s done,” he said curtly before taking off and flying back toward home. Back toward a place that made sense to him and to the people who would take care of him.
********
“Excuse me,” Lois said as she stood up perhaps a bit too swiftly for a woman six months pregnant. No one said a thing, but she could feel everyone’s eyes following her as she left the conference room. Whatever, they could all just assume it was a pregnant lady thing. She headed toward the sound of his heartbeat, coming from the stairwell.
She forced herself not to run until she was out of sight, away from the curious looks of her colleagues. But once she was inside the stairwell, she literally flew up to meet him. Lois threw her arms around him and felt him embrace her just as tightly. He kissed her temple and for a long moment, they merely held each other.
“You okay?” she asked softly.
“Fine,” he said. As his heartbeat returned to normal, she withdrew reluctantly so she could take a good look at him. He gave her a weak, half smile as she regarded him curiously. “We arrested Jiang, pretty much without incident. Nothing happened. No one got hurt.”
“And you…”
He nodded his head slowly. “I was okay,” he said. She could tell he was holding back.
“Really?” she pressed.
“I flew in and disarmed him and yeah, I felt this overwhelming hatred for the guy, just like I have every time I’ve seen him. But I knew what I needed to do. He has to face justice, not vengeance.”
She put her hand on his chest and straightened his tie. “I’m proud of you,” she said softly.
Her husband hugged her once again. “I know this didn’t make any sense, but I’m glad I did it. I needed to know. I needed to be sure I could trust myself. I couldn’t go the rest of my life not knowing.”
“You should have just asked me,” she replied against his chest. “I know you. Better than you know yourself. You are the most fundamentally good and honest and decent man in the world. And I am so lucky to have you in my life.”
“I’m the lucky one,” he said softly. “Thank you. For having faith in me. For never giving up on me. For loving me so much more than any guy could ever hope to be loved.”
********
“You with me here, son?” Perry asked.
Clark shook his head and looked back at his boss. “Sorry, Chief,” he mumbled sheepishly. Perry had realized that Clark Kent had fallen hard for Lois Lane pretty much from minute one. And now, almost nine years later, the young man still had it just as bad. Across the bullpen, Lois stood talking to her new research assistant, with one hand resting on the small of her back, and her abdomen protruding prominently, bearing testament to the fact that she was now seven full months along. Seemingly mesmerized, Clark apparently couldn’t help but stare.
“It’s amazing how even the most gorgeous woman in the world is more beautiful when she’s the mother of your children,” Perry said with a wistful smile. The sheepish look on the younger man’s face told him he was right on the money.
Clark coughed slightly. “Yeah, Chief,” he confessed, the color rising in his expression. Perry clapped him hard on the back, surprisingly causing him to lose his balance a bit. Clark stepped forward and regained his footing.
“Now, you can stare at your wife like a love struck puppy all you want on your time, Kent. But we’ve got a paper to put to bed, son,” Perry said with a good natured smile as they turned back to the mock up of the next day’s front page.
“Sorry, Perry,” Clark said, his tone chastened.
Perry laughed heartily, thrilled that after all they’d been through, his two top journalists were still just as much in love with each other as they’d ever been.
********
“So what do you think, Jon, is this a good color for the nursery?” Lois asked as she handed her little boy a cheery yellow paint sample chip.
He held the strip in his hands and looked at it for a long moment before nodding thoughtfully. “I like yellow,” he declared at last. Lois smiled as she took back the sample from him. They’d decided to let Jon take as big a role as he wanted in helping them get ready for the baby and that included decorating the nursery. The trip to the cavernous home improvement store to get decorating ideas was the first step in getting the baby’s new room ready. She hoped that they could finish the task of picking out the paint color and wall decorations quickly and avoid losing the five year old’s attention. Of course, the next stop was the baby section of the giant toy store in Planet Square, which meant he and Daddy could go pick out a toy while she figured out what they actually needed to buy in terms of furniture. Thankfully, for the sake of her sanity, most of Jon’s old baby furniture – the crib and rocking chair and changing table – were still in the attic of the farmhouse and would do just nicely.
“Hey honey, what do you think of these borders?” Clark asked as he wandered back toward them, his nose in a book of nursery-themed wallpaper samples. The presence of animals – farm animals, circus animals, jungle animals – dominated the selections. Lois took the proffered book from her husband and turned the pages slowly with Jon.
“That one,” Jon announced as he pointed at a pattern of teddy bears. “Little kids like teddy bears.”
Lois shared a proud and knowing smile with her husband. With the impending arrival of a new baby, Jon had decided to show all the ways in which he was ‘grown up’ and not a ‘little kid.’ He started taking showers instead of baths and indicated that he didn’t want any help. He was picking out his own clothes for nursery school (with an occasional intervention from Mommy or Daddy because galoshes weren’t appropriate when it was going to be warm and sunny) and tying his own shoes. She knew it was natural for him to assert some independence, but it was hard to imagine where the time had gone. Lois hadn’t yet begun to think of him as anything besides ‘her baby’ even as he was growing up. He was going to start kindergarten in the fall, and for the next fifteen or twenty years, carry a backpack with him wherever he went.
“Teddy bears sound good to me,” Clark said.
“Teddy bears it is, then,” she replied.
