All eyes went to Clark. TV cameras swung in his direction. He set his jaw so hard the muscle ticked and his teeth ached with the effort.
“Don’t believe me?” Luthor asked and the eyes went back to him. “This might convince you.” He plunged his hand into his ash-gray suit pocket and pulled out a small box. He popped the lid before anyone could react and held aloft a jagged, broken piece of Kryptonite about the size of a silver dollar.
Clark couldn’t fight the effect the stone had on him. Before the lidless eyes of dozens of cameras and the millions of viewers watching live at home, his knees buckled and he collapsed, panting and struggling to keep himself from pitching face first in the grass. Lois was instantly at his side, kneeling in the grass, helping support him so that he stayed somewhat upright. But his strength failed quickly, as the Kryptonite worked its savage devastation. He sagged in her arms.
Luthor grinned and his eyes flashed with the thrill of victory. He gestured to the fallen man.
“Security?” he said by way of invitation. “You know what to do to this…threat to national security.”
“No!” Clark yelled, his voice hollow but loud enough for everyone to hear.
His protest fell on deaf ears. Two security guards whipped out their sidearms and trained them on Clark. Just a glance told Clark that if they discharged the weapons, they would tear his skull in half. Even if the Kryptonite hadn’t robbed him of his ability to move, he now could no longer risk any kind of wrong move. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Diana and John frozen in place, also not daring to make a false move, lest it prove fatal to Clark. Where J’onn was in the crowd, Clark wasn’t sure.
“Stand down,” Clark told them anyway, more for Luthor’s benefit than anyone else’s. He knew his friends weren’t foolish enough to attack the guards, but he wanted Luthor to think that he was cooperating in order to buy time for the others to make a plan.
“See?” Luthor gloated. “There is your enemy. An alien who abandoned you. A creature so utterly inhuman that he seeks to undermine the authority of the President.”
“That’s…not…true…” Clark wheezed.
Luthor stepped away from the podium, still holding the piece of radioactive rock aloft like a trophy. He came at Clark with easy, long, confident strides. Lois threw her body half over Clark’s in a desperate attempt to shield him from the poison. Luthor grabbed her by the hair and backhanded her across the face, sending her sprawling on the ground. Instantly, Lenny Rosenthal, from the Central City Chronicles, was kneeling down to help her. Or so it appeared.
“Do you want me to…?” Clark barely heard the man ask Lois.
“If you do, he’ll kill Clark,” Lois replied, shaking her head and holding a hand to her reddened cheek.
“You’ll pay for hurting her,” Clark growled between gritted teeth.
“You see? The alien threatens me!” Luthor cried and Clark wondered through the pain if the rest of the world realized how unhinged he sounded. “Let’s see, hmm? Are you wearing the blue today, alien?”
Luthor squatted down on the grass before Clark and set the Kryptonite down just out of reach. Then he reached out and grabbed Clark’s dress shirt. With a burst of strength, Luthor tore the shirt open, making buttons pop off in all directions. His smile went from merely evil to criminally insane as the stylized S was exposed. He picked the Kryptonite back up and held it before Clark, watching was it beat Clark down without him having to raise a single finger.
“There! You see? Clark Kent is nothing more than a pathetic cover for your so-called ‘hero,’ Superman!”
“You son of a…”
Luthor cut him off. “He’s nothing more than a non-human creature out on a perverse mission to destroy me. And this woman,” he said, spitting out the words venomously and pointing accusingly at Lois, “is a co-conspirator. She is working with him,” he said, jabbing his finger at Clark, “to defraud all of you into branding me a criminal. They have no proof. They seek only to sabotage my chances at reelection. They want to prey on your impressionable minds, filling your heads with falsehoods.”
“Okay, I’ve seen enough,” came a young man’s voice from the crowd. “It’s time for you to shut up.”
Clark blinked and the security guards were standing, dumbfounded, at their empty hands. A heartbeat later, the Flash stood leaning against the podium, the pilfered handguns in hand. He crossed his legs as he leaned, looking very much at ease. Clark wondered when the younger man had arrived. He hadn’t noticed him in the crowd earlier.
“He’s all yours,” the Flash said to Green Lantern and Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman was already on the move. She shoved aside Luthor’s slack-jawed security detail and ripped the stone out of his fingers, exerting more effort than was absolutely necessary as she placed pressure on his wrist to loosen his grip. She tossed the stone to Green Lantern, who neatly encased the stone in a green energy bubble. It wasn’t enough to help Clark. Lantern quickly made the energy bubble float, then conjured up a huge green baseball bat. He swung the bat, hit the bubble, and sent the Kryptonite hurtling into space.
The vice around Clark’s chest vanished as the stone soared beyond reach. The taut muscles in his neck relaxed and he could breathe again. Shakily, though he could feel his strength returning, he stood. Everyone, even the security guards, looked at him in mute shock. For a few precious moments, it was as though he alone could move in a wax museum of unmoving figures.
He squared his shoulders and faced Luthor, his face hard but emotionless. Clark was nearly boiling with rage for having his identity irrefutably exposed before the world. But he would not let Luthor see that. He wanted the billionaire to fear the calm collectedness he forced onto his face. Because, as Clark was so intimately familiar with, fear of the unknown was worse than knowing exactly what to be afraid of. Besides, the world was watching, and Superman or not, he held himself to a higher standard than the soon-to-be-disgraced President.
Luthor squirmed, trying to back away, but Wonder Woman had a tight grasp on the collar of his imported shirt. He sputtered and growled threats. Clark let each one roll off his back. Instead, he nodded at Diana.
“Thanks for keeping ahold of him,” he said. Then he looked at the others. “I owe you all.”
“Don’t mention it,” John said grimly.
Diana looked at the billionaire with disgust that she did not bother to conceal. “My pleasure.” She hesitated for a few seconds before adding, “I’m just sorry I wasn’t a little quicker to prevent that stunt he just pulled.”
“Yeah, same. I kinda got here about two seconds before I took Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum’s weapons,” Flash said with a casual shrug of apology.
“It’s not your fault,” Clark reassured them both kindly.
“We can’t make it up to you. However, I think I can save the taxpayers a little money,” Wonder Woman said with a twinkle in her eye. With her free hand, she liberated the golden lasso at her hip. Then she looped it around Luthor’s midsection and chest. She tugged at the rope around him and led him back to the podium.
The Flash moved out of the way, barely concealing his delight. “Oh, she’s got the lasso out. Things just got really interesting.” He leaned in to the microphones set there. “Listen up, world. This is going to be pretty eye-opening.”
In the audience, the reporter with Lois was missing, and Clark caught movement out of the corner of his eye. It had to be J’onn, and it looked like he was going for more help.
Clark followed behind Diana. Now that the Kryptonite was gone, he felt back to normal. He grabbed Luthor’s expensive Italian jacket tightly in both fists to free up Diana’s hands, twisting the fabric around his hands, letting Luthor know without speaking that he had no chance of escape.
“Go ahead,” he encouraged Diana. “Use it.”
She hesitated only for a moment, gauging his expression, looking for something only she knew she was looking for. “Are you sure? There’s no telling what he might say…”
Clark gently interrupted, gesturing to his torn attire and blown identity. “There’s nothing else he can say to hurt me.”
She nodded. “All right then, if you insist. Alexander Luthor,” she commanded as the lasso awoke at her voice and began to softly glow. “You will stop struggling.”
Luthor’s body went limp against his will. “You will regret this,” he promised through gritted teeth.
“Enough of that,” Diana said sternly, and his mouth shut with a snap. “Tell the people the truth about the allegations made against you.”
Luthor scowled and gnashed his teeth as he tried to resist the lasso’s power. He failed, though Clark had to admit that Luthor had fought for longer than he would have thought was possible. That idea scared Clark more than he wanted to admit. It only drove home how completely psychotic the billionaire was.
“I…did it. All of it. It’s…true,” Luthor got out from around his clenched teeth. “I did everything I’m accused of. And more.”
“How much more?” Clark demanded, tightening his grip, ignoring how his fingers were tangled in the thin, strong lasso.
“You know very well what I did,” Luthor spat at him. Then he grinned evilly. “Superman.”
“Besides that,” Clark asked evenly, though his heart was hammering in his chest.
“Don’t you want to tell them?” Luthor asked, tossing his head in the direction of the gaping reporters, still dutifully recording the exchange. “About how I nearly erased your presence from the world? About how I destroyed you? Or did until Lois Lane, that traitorous, wretched, vile woman played nursemaid to you and brought you back from oblivion.” Every word was snarled and Clark felt what little privacy he’d retained collapsing around him. “About my sporadic, strategic, though ultimately useless, assassination attempts on you both. Go on. Tell them, Superman.”
Too late, Clark realized that his fingers were trapped in the lasso’s golden threads. A strange sensation came over him and he felt compelled to speak. Diana saw and tried to warn him, but the words were already forming in his throat.
“Clark, no!” she cried.
But she was half a second too slow. The first words of his confession came spilling out from between his unwilling lips.
“It’s true,” he said, his shoulders slumping. A short burst of feedback from the microphone almost blotted out the words, but by the way the media spoke amongst themselves, he’d still be heard clearly enough. “This man captured me, held me prisoner, and tortured me for ten years before having me shipped off to the Arkham Asylum, where I was held in a tiny cell in the basement and subjected to another ten years of torture,” Clark confirmed.
“Clark…” Diana said softly, in dismay.
Clark took a moment a moment to unwind the lasso from between his fingers. Then he squared his shoulders and faced the bank of microphones before him. Free from the lasso’s influence, he knew he didn’t have to say anything else he didn’t want to. But he also knew this opportunity would not present itself again.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly and regretfully. “I know I’ve probably let you all down. Making you believe I was two different people when I first adopted the character of Superman. And I know what it must have looked like, to see Superman everywhere one day and utterly gone the next. It was never my intention to make it seem like I’d abandoned the people of Earth. This is my home and I would do anything to protect it. I also know what some of you are probably thinking right now. I was rescued almost two years ago. So why hasn’t Superman returned?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lois making her way up to where he stood, a bruise already darkening her cheek where Luthor had struck her. She stayed to one side, silently giving him support, but also giving him the space he needed to command the attention of the media and, by extension, the viewers around the world. He nodded at her – just a shallow dip of his head – and gave her a reserved, minuscule smile.
“The truth is…I wasn’t sure how to explain my absence. I never wanted this,” he said, pulling his torn shirt open more to expose the S adorning his chest, “to be made public. Because Superman isn’t who I am. It’s just something I can do to help people. And, since I have nothing else to hide now - thanks to the President - I want to be completely honest with all of you. There have been other factors in my hesitation to resurrect Superman. I wasn’t sure I would be welcomed back after being gone for more than two decades.” He paused and moved his gaze to Lois, and an entire conversation passed between them in that look.
“But now that the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, I’m looking forward to bringing Superman back…and joining forces with the rest of the Justice League,” he said, giving both Wonder Woman and Green Lantern a nod and a smile. He was struck by how much approval and excitement he saw in the smiles and nods they returned. “If the world will have me.”
“And as for you,” he said, turning to Lex Luthor, making sure his voice was lost to the microphone’s reach, “you lost, Luthor. Badly.” He nodded at the police officers who’d just arrived on the scene, thanks to J’onn. “He’s all yours, Officers,” he told them as one of the men reached the podium and swiftly handcuffed Luthor while Diana uncoiled the lasso from around him.
“I’m sorry, Clark,” Lois said as she came to stand next to him. “I know this isn’t how you wanted today to go.”
Clark sighed, suddenly tired. The media – for the moment – had let him out of their sight while they covered the President’s arrest, each of them clamoring for a statement from either Luthor himself or one of the arresting officers. He knew it wouldn’t last. As soon as Luthor was out of sight, he knew the onslaught of questions would be aimed at him.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” he said, trying to convince her as much as he was trying to convince himself. “No more hiding. No more wondering how I can bring Superman back.”
“It’s dangerous,” Lois pointed out.
He nodded thoughtfully. “We’ll have to be more careful than we otherwise would have needed to be. But we’ve been targeted before, simply because the public saw that we had a connection to Superman. We can handle this.”
“Kent and Kent,” Lois said with a bright grin.
Clark chuckled. “Even stronger than Lane and Kent ever were,” he agreed.
***
One Year Later…
For once, all was peaceful and quiet in Metropolis – especially in the townhouse on Hyperion Avenue. A place that had once been an alien world to Clark after what had felt like a lifetime of imprisonment in the dark. A building that had been nothing more than four walls and a roof over his head. A place that had become a sacred refuge when he’d been no more than a shattered, mindless, skeletal shell of a man, having been freshly rescued from a fate worse than death in the Arkham Asylum. The sanctuary where Clark had slowly recovered from two decades of torture. The house where he’d finally found his way back to his memories and life. The home where he and Lois had solidified their life as husband and wife.
House?
No. It wasn’t just a house.
It was home.
“Are you upset you’re not covering Lex’s sentencing?” Lois asked from the bed as Clark emerged from the shower, already dressed and with his hair neatly combed.
“Not a chance,” Clark replied, giving her his biggest smile and sitting down on the bed next to her. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ve had more than enough of Luthor to last a lifetime. Besides, Martinez will do a great job covering it for us. He’s been invaluable to us since the trial first began.”
“Still, we worked hard for this moment,” Lois pointed out, reaching for the remote and flipping through the channels until she found one of the news stations. “I thought the trial would never end. We gave the feds everything they needed on a silver platter,” she gently complained, though her voice remained soft and low.
“Honey, you know they had to make sure everything was iron-clad. And Pete found more than we could’ve dreamed of getting on our own. My superpowers notwithstanding,” he added, giving her a tender look.
“I know. I guess I just never really thought about how long the process would take when we flew down to D.C. to give Pete our evidence,” she said. “You know, I have mixed emotions about this whole thing,” she said a few minutes later as Clark watched the muted news anchor talk endlessly, filling the air before the sentencing could begin.
“Really?” he asked, surprised.
Lois shrugged. “We did something amazing, Clark. We took down the President of the United States. That’s a feat that has only been achieved once before. It’s…a whole other level of accomplishment. It makes our Kerth award seem like a participation trophy in a kid’s foot race. I mean, this is Pulitzer stuff here. But even that seems…I don’t know. Insignificant compared to the history in the making that’s been happening ever since we gave Pete our evidence.” She sighed and shrugged, her excitement softening to something that bordered on contemplativeness. “On the other hand, we took down the President. There’s a certain…notoriety associated with that. There will be those…are those…who hate us for what we exposed. They rather live in ignorant bliss than see the corruption right under their noses.” She looked at him questioningly, as though trying to gauge if he understood her conflicted emotions.
He did. “I know. I’ve had the same thought. But, it’s a good notoriety. Okay, sure, select groups of people hate us. Whatever. We’ve dealt with that before. This is no different.”
Lois smiled. “And he’s facing justice for what he did to you too, not just the things he did to erode society.”
Clark frowned slightly. “I’m glad. But a part of me would have preferred if he got off scot-free on that and I’d been able to keep my secret intact.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, no point in wishing for the past to change. In a way, he wound up digging a bigger hole for himself by outing me.”
Lois chuckled quietly. “He instantly lost whatever support he might have still had, even with the criminal investigation looming,” she said brightly.
“And he gave me the opportunity to bring Superman back,” Clark mused, a mischievous smile curving his lips ever so slightly. “He thought he was hurting me, but he wound up helping me instead. Weird how that turned out,” he said with the barest hint of sarcasm in his words. “I still can’t believe how incredibly supportive the public has – mostly – been of me.”
“Karma’s a witch and Luthor got exactly what he deserves,” Lois agreed with a grin. “Still, are you really, really sure you wouldn’t rather be at the sentencing?”
“I’m sure,” Clark assured her. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here.”
At that, a tiny cry rang out, breaking the fragile quiet of the room. It was followed by another and Clark got up off the bed.
“Sounds like these little ladies are hungry,” he said with a smile, peering over the side of the pack ‘n play on the opposite side of the bedroom. He reached in and tickled the bellies of his one-month-old daughters, Lara and Samantha. “Hi there. Are you hungry? I’ll bet you are!” he cooed to them. “Let Daddy just give you a quick diaper change, hmm?”
“I’ll get the bottles ready,” Lois offered.
“No need, I got it,” he said, changing the two babies with lightning speed. He picked up first one, then the other and brought them both to Lois. “Here we are. Safe and sound with Mommy. Now, let me just get your brother and we’ll be all set to have some breakfast.”
He returned to pack ‘n play and lifted out the last of the triplets - his son, Jonathan. As he’d done with the girls, he changed the baby’s diaper in the blink of an eye, then brought the boy to Lois. “Be right back,” he said with a wink, before zipping out of the room at super speed. He returned less than half a minute later with three bottles in hand. “I’ll take the girls this time,” he told Lois, handing her a single bottle.
Lois hummed her assent, then let Clark take each of the girls. She settled back into her pillow, cradling Jonathan in her arms. Clark got Lara settled on his lap before gently getting Samantha into position.
“Breakfast is served,” he announced in a sing-song voice as he brought the nipples of the bottles to their hungry and waiting mouths.
For a long time, the only thing that could be heard was the sucking and slurping noises of the triplets as they devoured their bottles. Clark sat entranced as he watched them eat. How had he gotten this lucky? Although he and Lois had both expressed a desire to have a child, they hadn’t really known if it was possible for them. The combination of Earthling and Kryptonian DNA was something that had never happened before. It was possible that the chromosomes were incompatible for recombining into a new life. Their age had been another factor. Both had been in their upper-forties when Lois had gotten pregnant – surely their biological clocks had been working against them.
What neither of them had realized was that, while it had certainly been a possibility that they had missed their peak fertility window, the older a woman was, the higher the chance for hyper-ovulation and the chance for multiples. To say they were shocked when they’d gone for their first ultrasound was an understatement. For almost three months, they’d envisioned their future with their son or daughter and started planning appropriately. To be told that there was not one but three babies on the way blindsided them in the best way possible. In an instant, their entire world and future had been turned upside and pulled inside out. And, while initially worried about the logistics of going from zero children to three, they’d embraced the chaos to come with open hearts and excitement.
The day those three had arrived – remarkably full term – had been the happiest day of Clark’s life. It had been nothing short of a miracle watching as the doctor had gently pulled each one from Lois’ womb, all within seconds of one another while a skilled team of nurses had silently divided the tasks and babies amongst themselves to tend to each squalling newborn’s needs. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, they were a family of five and Clark was a father.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Lois asked in a near-whisper as Jonathan drained the last few drops of milk from his bottle.
“I’m a lucky man,” Clark said, wiping his daughters’ faces with a burp cloth and hoisting Samantha onto his shoulder first. He gently patted her back, helping her to burp. “Look at my life,” he said with a grin, and setting Samantha down to pick up her sister. He repeated the burping process.
“A never-ending sequence of dirty diapers and hungry mouths and barely enough sleep to function?” Lois lovingly joked, burping Jonathan, who spit up a small portion of his breakfast. She quickly wiped it off his chin. “Which I’m grateful for. I never knew I could love being a mom so much.”
Clark chuckled and, after putting Lara down, he crooked his finger and placed it beneath Lois’ chin. “I’ve always thought you were the most beautiful woman on the planet,” he told her sincerely. “But seeing you as a mom? You are absolutely radiant.”
“Smooth-talker,” Lois murmured, leaning in for a kiss that he happily supplied.
When they broke apart, Clark carefully rearranged their yawning daughters so they could lay on his chest as he reclined in the bed.
“What I meant was…I’ve been through a lot, Lois. Lex Luthor tried to destroy me. He swore to erase all traces and memory of me from the world. Locked up in his wine cellar for so long…beaten, starved, tortured…I believed him.” He paused, his breaths coming shakily. “But look what happened. He failed. I have my life back – both Clark’s life and Superman’s. I have you back. And now I have these three perfect children. I have more than I ever thought was possible, even before I got caught in his trap.”
He grinned broadly as his son and daughters yawned one final time before falling asleep one by one. “I’ve gone from being erased to being on top of the world. And all because of the four of you,” he said with a contented sigh. “I haven’t been erased at all. I’ve been cemented as a permanent fixture in this world.”
He closed his eyes, breathing deeply and contentedly, and listened to the four heartbeats that gave his second chance at life meaning.
The End.
