Everybody Knows
By Bren Ren
~~*S*~~
Summary: Clark never thought he’d be the last one to know…
Rating: Teen, for mild implied sexual content
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be except in my dreams…
~~*S*~
{Late one evening at the newlywed Lane-Kent dinner table…}
“Lois,” Clark began with a hint of trepidation, “I think Perry knows.”
“He knows,” she replied, a little too nonchalantly. She made no effort whatsoever to hid her grin as she watched his Adam’s apple take a few bouncy dives up and down his throat. “I think he’s known for quite some time, sweetheart. In fact, I’m pretty sure he put it together well before I did. Knowing Perry, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s known since the beginning—or pretty close to it, anyway.”
“But… he never let on!” Clark sounded more than a little stupefied. Not without good reason, he mused to himself in chagrin.
“Well, he didn’t get to be Editor in Chief of the world’s greatest newspaper because he can yodel The King’s entire anthology, you know.” She wasn’t grinning now; it had blossomed into a full-blown smirk. “You do appreciate how funny this is, right?”
Clark stared at his wife through a couple slow, blank beats. “Perry knew, and I had no clue,” he finally said with carefully measured words. His composure only lasted a couple more blinks before he dissolved in chuckles, Lois joining merrily along.
“I guess I’m 0 for 2 now,” he grumbled good-naturedly. His wife just laughed all the harder until he silenced her with a kiss.
~~*S*~~
{The newlyweds have nearly finished their wedding-gift “Thank you” cards ritual when they find a belated gift from an old friend…}
“You won’t believe who this one’s from, honey!” Clark passed the accompanying card to his bride.
Lois took the card and read aloud the inscription scrawled in ornamental, decidedly feminine handwriting. “‘Congratulations, Lois & Clark! I’ve seen this coming since the moment I saw Lois Lane completely swept off her feet for the very first time—good job, Clark! Love and fur-lined handcuffs, Cat Grant.’ ” Lois barely finished reading the note before losing herself in a fit of laughter.
Clark knew Lois had something of an odd sense of humor at times, but he didn’t think ‘fur-lined handcuffs’ were the cause for such hysterics. “Uh, honey… Am I missing something?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Lois told him as her mirth began to ebb back. “Something Cat said the day you flew me into the newsroom after you lifted the space shuttle into orbit.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Clark deadpanned.
“She was more amazed that Lois Lane had been ‘swept off her feet’ than by a man who can fly.”
Clark barked out a laugh. “That sounds like Cat!” Lois stuck her tongue out at him. “You don’t suppose that’s her way of saying she knew all along, do you?”
“No!” Her harsh denial came out before Clark had even finished his question. “No way. Cat Grant did NOT recognize what took me two years of galactically stupid willful blindness to see through. Not in this life or any other—and that includes every single parallel universe that ever has or will exist.”
“Okay,” he agreed dutifully. “She must have figured it out some time later—
“A long, long, long time later,” Lois interjected.
“—and she just used that little flashback as a convenient, subtle, yet clear way of telling us she knows.”
“I can live with that.”
“Good. Now quit pouting.”
“I wasn’t pouting. I was glowering.”
“And pouting. Still are, too. Luckily, I know a sure fire way to make you stop!” Before she could draw a breath to fire a suitably pithy retort, Clark had her mouth otherwise occupied until long after she’d completely forgotten what they’d been talking about.
~~*S*~~
{Late in the evening the night of winning their first *married* Kerth Award, as the couple is preparing for bed…}
“Honey, Jimmy said something tonight a little… well, I think maybe he… he kno—
“He knows.”
“Jimmy knows. Jimmy. Knows. He knows??” As his wife cast him a smug little laugh, Clark was reminded that one of Lois Lane’s greatest joys in life was watching Superman sputter—almost as great as her delight in being the cause of it. “Please tell me *he* hasn’t known all along,” he begged with an uncharacteristic meekness that would have made even the lowliest street thug laugh at the superhero if they’d seen it.
Lois gave her husband an indignant “Hmmph,” accompanied by an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Puh-lease. In what universe could you possibly imagine Jimmy Olsen figuring it out before me?” At a sharp look from Clark, Lois hastily added, “Don’t answer that. No, it wasn’t all that long ago that he figured it out.”
Clark sighed in relief. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“That I couldn’t tell you. He didn’t actually tell me he knew, either. But he started asking some… well, unusual questions about you several weeks ago, and that’s when I realized that he’d figured it out; I think he was trying to work out whether or not to tell you—to tell us that he’d put the Clark Kent/Superman puzzle pieces together. He apparently decided not to, and we all just kept to the status quo. I think that should at least put your mind at ease about him keeping it secret.”
“I didn’t even think to worry about that,” Clark laughed lightly. “Just goes to show how much I’ve come to trust him, doesn’t it?”
“You’ve come a long way, baby!” Clark pulled his dearly beloved in close, wrapped himself tight around her, and kissed her soundly… all night long.
~~*S*~~
{Lois and Clark arrive home very late from yet another random crime scene…}
“Henderson was smirking.”
“Was he? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Sarcasm noted.”
“Actually, I was being facetious.”
“Semantics.”
“You can edit my copy, farmboy, not my conversation.”
“I can edit your copy?! Can I get that in writing?”
“No. But we can seal it with a kiss!”
“Deal.”
**Later.**
**Much, much later…**
“I think Henderson was smirking because he… he—
“He knows.”
“Of course he does.”
“He’s not leading the race for Commissioner on his dry wit, you know.”
“Ha. …So, he knows. How long, do you think?”
“I think it’s safe to say he beat me to the punch line, just like Perry. Looking back through super-hindsight, I can see why he didn’t bat an eyelash over that flimsy story the first time you rose from the dead.”
“You mean—when Clive Borrows shot me?”
“Got it in one, partner! Point blank in a crowded room, saving my life—again—at the cost of your own. For a little while, anyway.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you then.”
“I’m sorry you still feel like you need to apologize for it. We burned that bridge a long time ago, sweetheart. Plucking a girl from dangling over the jaws of death on a weekly—
“Daily—
“—basis goes a long way in balancing those scales.”
“Do you have any idea how amazing you are?”
“Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea… but you’re welcome to expound in great detail all my many amazing qualities.”
“Would you settle for an amazing pounding of Super-quality?”
**WHOOSH!!**
~~*S*~~
{Then there was that one time at the Band Camp Fundraiser Ball, after Jimmy and Lucy announced their engagement…}
“So… I guess we’re going to have to tell Lucy pretty soon.”
“Tell her what?”
“You know.”
“That? No we don’t.”
“We don’t? But… oh. Lucy too?”
“Clark, you had to see that one coming! What kind of hot-shot ace reporter are you?”
“Guess you’re right. I really should have known. Dare I ask how long?”
“Now that, even I don’t know. She won’t tell me, although I’m pretty sure she put it together well before she and Jimmy ever started dating.”
“That’s good to know. Funny, it hadn’t even occurred to me to think Jimmy had told her until you said that.”
“And to think there was a time you thought you’d never be able to trust anyone with the truth of who you really are.”
“You know better than anyone how hard it is for me, all the lying, the half-truths—
“—The lame excuses and disappearing acts—
“—and other evasive maneuvers of every conceivable kind… And the longer I’ve called Metropolis home, the more people have grown to become good friends… It makes it all the harder.”
“But you’re not alone anymore. *We’re* not alone anymore.”
“You realize that pretty much everyone in our closest circle of friends and family… we don’t have to lie or hide anything from them. We can actually be ourselves—completely ourselves!”
“*You* can be your complete self—and you know, you happen to be a pretty spectacular person of your own right.”
“We’ve said ‘anything is possible’ so many times, it’s a running gag. But I have to say, I am amazed to find it possible for a dream I never dared allow myself to imagine could possibly come true is suddenly the very life I’m living right here and now. With you.”
“You think your dream come true is impossible? I’m married to a man who can fly! Nothing can top that!”
“Nothing but you, honey.”
“And don’t you forget it!”
~~*S*~~
{T’was a dark and stormy stake-out…}
“BOBBY BIGMOUTH?!”
“Uh huh.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Say it isn’t so. Please.”
“It isn’t so.”
“Cute.”
“Always.”
“So Bobby knows. And he obviously hasn’t told anyone.”
“If anyone knows the value of secrets, it’s a professional snitch.”
“He is good at his job.”
“The best—but if you ever tell him I said so, I’ll—
“Carve out my spleen with a spoon.”
“I’ve trained you well, my love!”
“You’re lucky you’re so cute.”
“How lucky?”
“I think I see someone coming… we better start making out or we’ll blow our cover—Mmmph!”
~~*S*~~
{Another late night in the Lane-Kent boudoir after Jimmy & Lucy’s wedding…}
“Honey… you know how we thought that “Bummer Be Gone” machine wiped out all your parents’ knowledge about me being Superman…?”
Lois nodded with an indulgent smile. “Let me guess: You just realized that Daddy’s been playing along all this time.”
Clark sighed; his head dropped in hang-dog resignation. “I guess this really shouldn’t surprise me.”
“No, it really shouldn’t… but if you think that’s a shocker, you might want to sit down for this.” Clark complied mutely; dropping down on one corner of their bed, he gazed up at his wife expectantly, waiting for her to elaborate. “He’s known since your bout with that Kryptonian flu just before Christmas a couple years back.”
Clark groaned. Lois giggled. “Now that one I really should have seen coming.” That just made his wife laugh all the harder. “It’s not that funny,” he griped.
“Yes it is,” she countered between chuckles. “Perry, Jimmy, Lucy, even Bobby Bigmouth… and now my dad. You know, I’m not feeling nearly so bad about it taking me so long to figure it out myself anymore.”
“Because everyone keeps figuring it out long before I have a clue they’re on to me,” he finished with due humility.
“Welcome to my world, sweetie,” Lois told him with only a slight tint of smugness. She tempered her dry taunt further with a gentle kiss. Par for their usual course, gentle fast deepened into something far more intense, and they spared no further words as they eagerly let themselves be swept away with the rising tide of their shared passion.
~~*S*~~
{Inside Lois’s jeep, parked outside STAR Labs following a surprise-filled meeting with Dr. Bernie Klein when a certain test turned neither pink nor blue, but purple…}
Lois was the one to finally break the silence a full twenty minutes after they’d clambered into the vehicle in a state of shock from the news delivered by Superman’s primary physician—and now Lois’s primary obstetrician, apparently. “So much for incompatible physiology, huh?”
“I give up.” Clark stated with finality.
Lois’s eyes fairly burst with alarm. “Give up?” If the bug-eyed jaw-drop wasn’t clue enough to her misunderstanding, the shrill ring of her voice made that crystal clear.
Clark offered an apologetic smile. “He knows,” Clark clarified.
“We kind of had to tell him anyway,” Lois reasoned.
“But he already knew.”
“How many near-death experiences and other straight-from-science-fiction experiments have Superman and I shared in front of him? Times like that, we don’t really hide our feelings very well, you know. And Dr. Klein knows as well as everyone how completely in love I am with you, dear husband.”
Clark burst out laughing. “Now you’re talking about Superman in the third person like he’s not even here.”
“He’s not. I’m having a conversation with my husband, and nowhere on my marriage certificate does it say ‘Mrs. Superman’.”
“Nope,” Clark conceded with a grin. “I, Clark Kent, am married to the one and only Lois Lane. And she’s having my baby!” And then they shared a nice long celebratory kiss.
~~*S*~~
{And finally, at the Kent farm in Smallville, Lois and Clark arrive for a belated spring vacation…}
Ever the gentleman, Clark opened the door for his wife to precede him into his parents’ kitchen. “Mom! Dad! We made it, finally!” Clark called out in greeting as he entered.
Martha Kent was standing ankle-deep in countless dishes filled with every kind of homemade country cuisine imaginable, trying to arrange several stacks of yet more culinary delights on the counter into some semblance of organization when she heard the couple come in. She dropped the large glass bowl in her hands as she spun around blowing out a noisy gasp of surprise. Only Clark’s super-quick reflexes saved the kitchen from a very messy crash of dishes and food when he caught the bowl his mother had dropped just before it toppled the pile beneath it.
“What in the world is all this, Mom?”
Martha’s cheeks warmed with a shade of embarrassment over the near-disaster as she glanced around the room. “I made the mistake of mentioning to Maisie that your vacation got pushed back to this week.” Her expression indicated that the simple statement should have explained the situation clearly.
Clark, however, wasn’t clear at all. “Maisie sent all this for our vacation?”
Martha laughed out loud. “No, silly. Everyone in town brought something by.”
“Everyone?” Poor Clark was even more confused than ever. Lois, however, seemed to clue in right off, as she began chuckling while she discovered something chocolate and irresistible and helped herself to a serving. “Why?”
“Same reason they’ve been doing this every spring for the last five years.” As the gears began crunching through Clark’s muddled brain, Lois started sputtering, choking a little as the bubble of laughter tried to ripple through her chocolate-goody-filled mouth. Clark was at her side in an instant, helpfully patting her back until her breathing cleared.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered with a reassuring smile. Then she turned to Martha. “Five years, huh?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Martha replied.
“Five years…?” Clark’s muttered query was mostly directed at himself as he spent the next moment lost in a mental back-tracking through memory lane; the two most important women in his life had a very difficult time containing their amusement. The moment they saw the puzzle snap together in his eyes, they lost the battle. “Nor’s invasion. You mean… everyone in town’s been flooding you with enough food for an army ever since…”
“Since everyone’s favorite hometown hero sent the badguys packing,” Lois finished after Clark trailed off into stunned silence.
Clark turned his agape stare back to his mother, whose chuckles hadn’t completely subsided.
“Oh, honey, I thought your father’s reaction was priceless!” Martha carefully stepped around the stacks of dishes to pull her son into a fierce hug. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told him: Here in Smallville, we take care of our own.”
“And you are definitely one of our own, son,” boomed Jonathan Kent. He’d slipped inside the kitchen door unnoticed amid the merriment. He clapped one burly arm about his son’s shoulders for a firm, manly hug.
After his parents moved away, Lois closed in to wrap her arms securely around Clark’s neck. She urged him down to meet her for a slow, sweet kiss.
“Everybody knows,” he breathed in wonder as Lois pulled back. “All that time I felt like I never really belonged here… and all this time, nobody ever said anything. Not a hint. They just… continued to accept me the same way they always have.”
“I have to admit, Clark, you couldn’t have picked a better ‘Nowheresville’ to grow up in,” his loving wife told him. She gave him another chocolaty-sweet kiss as he finally found his own sense of humor and gave into soft chuckles at this most unexpected dream come true. “Of course, the best part of this…” She paused to shoot a smug grin at her husband before she declared victoriously, “It only took *me* *two* years to figure out the Big Secret!”
~~*S*~~
Fin!
