No one can torment Clark as you do, Anti-K.
They’re talking about Superman. About the way he strode in through the door with two broken bodies and begged the doctors to do anything, everything, something to save them.
They’re talking about him.
They’re talking about him talking.
His parents are dying (one heartbeat slowing to a near-stop, the other blurring forward into oblivion), and all these people surrounding him can think about, all they care about, is the fact that Superman has broken his long, impenetrable silence.
It's so sad that in his misery, he has to hear everyone's critical gossip about Superman. As if Superman has to be above personal pain. Thank goodness that he has Lois to reassure him that his feelings and actions are allowed and valid (well, except for his all-consuming guilt for not saving his folks form the earthquake).
Sadly, though, this means James's plans to disconnect Superman from Clark Kent won't be able to come to fruition.
Sad, too, that he's still trying to hold on to those last frayed threads he created:
“Clark, you did every--”
“I’m Superman now!” he exclaims, and it would be a roar, a scream of defiance, if he were not holding himself so resolutely beneath the tempo of those beats. “I save hundreds of people every day--I should have been Superman for them!”
Yea for Lois not baking down and letting the truth make her weak when Clark needs her to be strong enough for the 2 of them.
Lois swallows. Opens her mouth. Shuts it. Swallows again. She does not look away. Does not let him look away. And then, like steel (like she is not afraid of him at all), she says, “They don’t want Superman. They want Clark--they love Clark--and Clark is--”
“Their son,” he says, and the words, spoken out loud, slice through everything he has managed to reclaim. They leave him weak and quivering and broken again. “I’m their son, and I didn’t even know they were in danger.”
Nobody did. Isn't better if Superman isn't all-knowing as well as all-strong?
By the time the surgeon finally comes out of the operating room, Clark is sure that an entire eternity has passed. By the time the surgeon finishes speaking, Clark wishes he could have that eternity back.
Oh, dear. That's not good.
