Chapter 3: Clark’s Perspective
Clark’s morning started with walking to work with Lois, something he looked forward to every morning. She was talking about some story she was working on. It had something to do with her sister, Lucy. Clark wasn’t exactly sure about the details. He had stopped paying attention midway through Lois’ first few sentences when he’d heard a woman shout for help.
“I think I can handle babysitting,” said Lois. “Don’t you think I can handle babysitting?”
“Lois, I have to go to the mall,” Clark replied. “One of my favorite TV stars is signing autographs there this morning. Teri something or other from that superhero show. I completely forgot about it until now.”
Lois didn’t really seem to be paying attention to what he was saying, but there was no time for Clark to wait. He took off running towards the alley, ripped open his shirt, and spun into his Superman costume.
“Help! Somebody, please help!” the voice shrieked again.
Superman concentrated, using his super hearing to position the exact location of the sound. Within seconds, he had it. The scream was coming from Larson Street, just a few blocks away. He immediately flew off in the direction of the screams.
When he got there, he saw a man with a gun in one hand and a purse in the other standing over a middle aged woman. It wasn’t bad enough that he’d just mugged this woman. He was actually kicking her as he stood over top of her.
Superman swooped in and through the man against the wall. He may have been a little rougher than usual, but Superman could justify it this once because of the way the man was beating this woman. Once the man was on the ground, Superman walked over to him and picked him up by the collar.
“Thank you so much, Superman!” the woman said.
She had a lot of bruises, a bloody nose, and a black eye. It was clear that she’d taken quite a beating from this man.
“I need to get you to a hospital,” Superman said in a concerned tone. Then, he turned to the man and gave him a harsh look. “And I need to get you to jail.”
After dropping the man off with the police, he flew the woman to a hospital. He waited a while to make sure the woman would be all right, and once he found out that she would be, he changed into his secret identity of Clark Kent to interview the woman. After all, he’d spent so much time away from the office that he figured he might as well come back with a story in order to make Perry think he had been out working all this time.
When he got back to the Daily Planet, he saw Lois’ note on his desk. It mentioned that she was out on a story and that she’d see him later, if he ever bothered to show up. Clark crumbled the piece of paper up and threw it in his recycling bin. He could tell from the way she’d added “if you ever bother to show up” at the end of the note that she was a little annoyed with his disappearance.
His next few hours were fairly normal. He typed up his story about the mugging and submitted it to Perry. He left a few times to stop small problems as Superman, but nothing too important happened.
Then, a half-naked Cat Grant came to his desk, started kissing him, and asked him for a favor. She wanted an interview with Superman to ask him some questions about his love life. Obviously, Clark couldn’t give her something like that. Superman’s personal life needed to be nonexistent in the eyes of the world.
“I just want to ask him questions about his love life. Does he have a girlfriend? Has he ever been married? Has he ever experienced love? Is he compatible with earth women?” Cat said, trying to pressure him into contacting Superman for her story.
“I can’t ask him to grant you an interview like that, and that’s final,” Clark replied as he stood up and walked away.
He thought that would be the end of the matter, but he was wrong.
*****
For a while after that, things went back to being quiet for Clark, Lois still hadn’t showed up, Cat didn’t bother him anymore, and he didn’t have any more problems as Superman for a while. Then, he heard a radio announcer interrupt right in the middle of a song to say that the police were chasing a couple of men down Durance Street after they’d robbed a gas station.
He immediately got out of his seat and rushed towards the storage closet. Once he closed the door, he changed into his Superman costume and left his clothes in the floor. He figured he’d retrieve them once he got back.
Superman flew over to Durance Street and landed right in the middle of the road. In the distance, he could see a car coming towards him. It was being followed by a police car. Bullets were being shot from each direction. It was fortunate that the street just so happened to be clear at this time.
Once the car got close to Superman, the driver hit his brakes and tried to swerve out of the way, but Superman grabbed a hold of the front of the car and held onto the car. The driver kept pushing down on the gas for a few seconds, but when they realized the car just wasn’t going to go, they both jumped out of the door and started running.
The police car continued chasing them as they ran on foot. Superman finally decided to end the chase and flew directly in front of the two men. They were both running backwards when he landed in front of them, causing them to run right into him and fall to the ground.
Once they saw Superman standing in front of them, both men jumped back to their feet and shot at him a couple of times. Of course, the bullets bounced right off of Superman’s chest. Once they stopped shooting, Superman took the guns from, them and crushed them in his hands.
Once the two men were arrested, Superman headed back towards the Daily Planet and flew into the storage closet window. To his surprise, he was met by Cat Grant. She had his glasses, now broken, and put them on his face.
“As I waited here for the last half hour, I just kept thinking there was no reason Clark would take all of his clothes off and leave,” Cat explained. “Unless of course he was wearing something underneath. Clark Kent is Superman!”
“Shhhhh!” he said, trying to quiet her down. “I don’t need the whole newspaper hearing my secret identity.”
He didn’t know what to do in a situation like this. He probably should have just denied it. After all, what real proof did Cat have? Unfortunately, her discovery of his secret identity had caught him so off guard that he didn’t know how to react. Instead of denying the secret, he became more interested in making sure that nobody else found it out.
What Clark really needed was some time to think, and he couldn’t do that with Cat around. Since his glasses were broken, he made up an excuse that he needed Cat to get his spare pair of glasses at his apartment. He could have easily retrieved them himself as Superman, but luckily, Cat didn’t think of that and took off. That gave him some time to think his problem over.
Unfortunately, no matter how much he thought about the problem, he couldn’t think of a good solution. Soon enough, Cat returned with his glasses. Afterwards, he gave her the interview she’d asked for.
After the interview, he went to Smallville to talk with his parents about the problem, hoping they might have some useful advice. After all, they always had been able to help him with his problems in the past.
“Clark, the main question you need to ask yourself right now is whether or not you can trust Cat to keep your secret,” said Martha.
“Of course he can’t trust her,” Jonathan replied. “She’s a journalist. To make matters worse, she specializes in gossip! She makes a living out of exposing things people would rather keep quiet.”
“That’s true,” said Clark. “But Cat is my friend. I don’t think she’d expose me.”
“She forced you to give an interview you didn’t want to give,” Jonathan argued. “Some friend.”
“That’s true,” replied Clark. “And what she did was wrong. I don’t think she’d ever do anything to hurt me, though.”
“I don’t know,” said Jonathan. “I’m starting to think you working at a newspaper was a bad idea, son. Outing you as Superman would probably sell a lot of newspapers. How can you know for sure if any of these people you call friends would be trustworthy if they ever found out about your secret?”
“Because they’re his friends, Jonathan,” Martha piped in. “Anyways, he can’t do anything about it now. Cat already knows his secret.”
“What if I could do something about it?” asked Clark.
“If you could fix this in some way, then I think you should,” said Jonathan.
“How exactly would you fix the problem?” asked Martha. “It’s not like you can fly backwards around the world and turn back time.”
“Do you remember my first date with Lana Lang?” asked Clark.
“Of course,” said Martha. “You took her to a dance, and you looked so grown-up in the outfit you wore that night.”
“Lana doesn’t remember it,” said Clark.
“Why wouldn’t she remember it?” asked Martha.
“That night was also my first kiss,” explained Clark. “When I kissed her, she couldn’t remember where we were or why we were out. She couldn’t even remember that I’d asked her out.”
“You mean she had amnesia?” Jonathan asked in astonishment.
“Yes, and it was all because I kissed her,” he replied.
“Are you saying that your kiss made her forget?” asked Martha.
“Yes,” replied Clark.
“Why didn’t you ever tell us this?” asked Martha.
“It was a little embarrassing,” Clark admitted. “It was also a little scary. Lana lost about a week. What would have happened if I’d made her forget a longer period of time? What if she’d forgotten a whole month? A year? Several years?”
“We could have helped you through that problem,” Martha said as she gave Clark a hug.
“I know,” he replied. “I know now that I can come to you with any crisis. As a scared teenager, I thought this one was just a little too big to share with you.”
“Are you asking us if you should give Cat Grant amnesia?” asked Martha.
“Yes,” he replied.
“No,” said Martha. “Absolutely not.”
“I think he should,” Jonathan disagreed.
“What if he accidently makes her forget too much, though? He said that that was his biggest fear when he found out about his amnesia power,” Martha argued.
“I learned how to control it,” Clark piped in “After the first time, I tried it on Lana a few other nights when we went out. First, I made her forget just a few minutes. Then, I made her forget one minute. Then, I made her forget a few seconds. Finally, I was able to kiss her without making her forget at all. I’ve never accidently made a woman forget anything since.”
“What if you make a mistake, though?” asked Martha.
“It’s worth the risk,” Jonathan interjected.
“I agree,” said Clark. “Cat forgetting my secret is for her own good, anyways. If anybody ever found out she knows who Superman is, I hate to think about what they’d do to her.”
With that, Clark was confident he was making the right decision. He hugged each of his parents and flew off back to the Daily Planet. On his way back, he heard Lois call for help, so he made a detour and saved her and Jimmy before making his way to the Daily Planet. When he finally did make it there, he managed to arrive just as Cat was leaving Perry’s office.
As he stood at her desk dressed as Superman, he felt a little unsure about what he was about to do. He wasn’t sure if he should kiss her dressed as Superman, but he also wasn’t too eager to kiss her as Clark. After all, what would his coworkers think?
As Cat got closer to him, she looked at the box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses he was holding.
“What is that for?” she asked.
“Remember when I told you I was in love?” he asked.
“Yeah. With Lois, right? Did you decide you want to finally tell her how you feel?” she asked.
“No, I’m not in love with Lois,” he replied.
“Then, who?” asked Cat.
“I’m in love with you,” he replied as he grabbed her and held her close to himself. A crowd was beginning to gather. “Now that you know my secret anyways, I can’t bear to keep my feelings a secret any longer.”
He felt bad about lying to her, but he’d decided that this was the best way to keep his secret. He felt like just this once, he had to lie.
With that, he kissed her. They began hovering in the air as he held her in his arms.
“Superman!” he suddenly heard a voice call out.
With that he stopped kissing Cat and looked up. It was Lois, and she looked like she was ready to pass out.
“Lois?” he said as he sat Cat back on the ground. He looked a little rattled that Lois had seen him, but not as rattled as Lois looked. “I can explain this, really!”
He immediately felt stupid for saying he could explain the kiss to Lois. After all, Superman wasn’t dating Lois. Superman shouldn’t have had to explain anything to Lois. Unfortunately, the look on her face made him feel so bad that he couldn’t help but offer up an explanation.
“Then explain away!” Lois yelled as she stomped up to the two of them.
“What – what’s going on?” Cat asked. “Superman, what are you doing here?” The amnesia kiss had clearly worked.
“You’d better get out of my way before I hit you so hard you go flying across the room without Superman’s help!” Lois barked.
“Lois, calm down,” said Superman. He grabbed her arms and held them at her side, afraid that she really was going to hurt Cat.
The crowd was in complete silence at this point. This was huge! A catfight in the Daily Planet over Superman? That certainly didn’t happen every day.
“I can’t believe you just kissed Superman!” Lois shrieked.
“Lois, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Cat. “If I kissed Superman, I’d certainly remember it.”
“I just saw you with my own eyes. They just saw you.” She pointed out to the crowd.
With that, Superman scooped Lois up into his arms and flew away. He had to put a stop to this argument before things got more heated, and he had to explain to Lois when they weren’t in front of a crowd.
As they flew off, Jimmy approached Cat with a dreary look on his face. “So, about our bet?”
“What bet?” asked Cat.
A smile appeared on Jimmy’s face as an idea came to him. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
He moved on as a confused Cat stood in the middle of a crowd of people, not quite sure why everyone was gathered around her or why Lois and her had almost just fought in front of their coworkers.
*****
As Superman landed on top of a building, Lois began kicking her legs and struggling to get down. When he let her go, he noticed there were tears in her eyes.
“All I want to know is why her and why not me?” she asked.
He wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “I didn’t kiss Cat because I love her. I kissed her to make her forget something she found out.”
“What are you talking about?” Lois spat out.
“Cat found out a secret of mine that I didn’t want her to know, and I had to make her forget,” he explained. “I’ve never told you this before, but one of my powers is that I can make a person forget things. All I have to do is kiss them.”
“Really?” Lois asked. She seemed much calmer. “That’s all it was?”
“Yes,” he replied. “That’s the only reason I would have kissed Cat like that.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Lois replied. “I was getting a little jealous there for a minute.”
“Maybe this would help,” said Superman.
He bent over and kissed Lois on the lips. When the kiss was over, Lois felt like fainting for a whole other reason than earlier. She couldn’t believe that she’d just been kissed by Superman.
“Yeah, that definitely helped,” she replied as he picked her up to fly her back to the Daily Planet.
THE END
