Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Cluechie Quiz Resurrected!

"Who IS that masked man?" the lady in the Victorian garb asked, drawing Lois's attention away from the scene in front of her, if only for a moment. As far as anyone in that room was concerned, he was just Zorro, the mysterious hero in black. This woman surely had no idea that underneath the facade was an ordinary farm boy from the heart of the nation's breadbasket, as normal and average as anyone else. He wasn't the prototypical hero; in fact, Lois wouldn't have known before tonight that Clark had it in him to face down something like this.

"That's just..." Lois started, intending to tell the woman that it was her partner up there, a mild-manner journalist, but suddenly he wasn't there anymore. In a blur of motion, both Clark and the gunman were gone, although the gunman quickly reappeared again, dazed, tied to one of the chairs at Lois's table. In a matter of moments, before anyone in the room could comprehend what was going on, all the other gunmen disappeared, reappearing only after being bound to other objects around the room. After a moment, another figure also materialized, this one dressed in blue and red, his uniform unmistakable, although his eyes were obscured by a black mask and his head was covered in a black hat.

"Superman!" the woman said, completing Lois's sentence, which was just as well, because Lois could only manage a squeak as she looked at him. In his arms were the guns that had previously been pointed at various dignitaries, guns which were now twisted and mangled, guns which were being dropped to the floor with a dull thud even as she watched. As soon as his hands were free, Superman reached up and pulled off the hat, revealing dark, slicked down hair, then removed the mask. He had never had his glasses on, Lois realized as his face was revealed. That whole night, there had never been lenses between his eyes and hers, and she hadn't even noticed.

Confused, she looked from Clark to the glowing rock in Hendricks'hand, then back again. Then her eyes grew wide with sudden realization and she gasped as things began to fall into place.

Clark was Superman!

The room started to spin crazily and the blood drained from her face. Instantly, everything began to make sense: all those times when Clark had made a hasty retreat whenever some crime or disaster was taking place, all thosse ridiculous excuses, and most of all, why she'd never seen the two men together.
But before she had time to sort out the flood of emotions that threatened to everwelm her, a loud shout brought things around her back into focus. She saw that once again Hendricks was moving toward Clark, causing Clark's tormented cries to fill the air.

"Stop!" Lois shouted frantically, finally understanding what was happening. "Get away from him! You're killing him!"

Superman," she whispered. Lois stared into his eyes, unable to look away. Her mind whirled and her words came out in an incoherent jumble. "Your eyes." They were Superman's eyes. "Your voice." Clark's voice. "How?" They were in Clark's bedroom, and she had immediately assumed she was sleeping with Clark, but those steely muscles had to belong to Superman. She reached out to touch his hair. His dark, thick, silky, sleep-mussed hair. Superman could get bed head? "Your hair. It moves. I thought it was stuck to your head." He flew at speeds faster than a speeding bullet without one hair falling out of place. "Bed head. How can you get bed head?" She shook her head wildly. Then she abruptly stopped, surrendering to the pain coursing through her skull, stopping her thought process. "But Clark. Clark can get bed head."

She blinked, trying to merge the images of two separate men into one. They eyes. The hair. The body. The voice. Everything began to fall into place. Clark and Superman. Superman and
Clark. Each man was someone she knew so well, but didn't know at all. Or did she know them both all too well? "Oh my god," she breathed. "You're Clark. And Superman." And she needed to get out of there. She was humiliated, frightened, betrayed, yet intrigued. With him so close, she had no time to digest everything that had happened in the last few seconds.

"Lois . . ." Clark stared at her blankly, frozen in place. After staring at her speechless for what seemed like an eternity, he found his voice. "Yes," he said simply in a voice no louder than a whisper. "I am Clark. And Superman."

Eventually, though, the hot water had soothed away his aches and
pains, yet it had done little to dispel his tiredness. He'd just
stepped out of the shower and had pulled on a pair of jeans when
Lois stormed into his room. He stopped drying his hair and looked
up at her.

"How can you be sick? I thought you were invulnerable."

"I thought so, too." He froze when he realized what she'd said
and how he'd answered her. "What did you say?"

"I said, I thought you were invulnerable." She placed her hands
on her hips in what Clark had come to call her 'full battle mode'
and glared at him, daring him to call her on this one.

"That's what I thought you said."

Same chin.

Same nose.

Same ears.

Same mouth.

Same warm, softly pleading, deceptive eyes.

He began to speak but she didn't hear a word he said. She couldn't do anything except stare at his practiced expression. She could see nothing but deceit in his face. Hear nothing but lies in his low, sonorous voice. She wanted to shut him up, tell him that she knew and demand a reason for his lies, but she held her tongue.

"Don't worry, Lois. I've got him. He likes it, see," he
said nodding at Jake, who was indeed gurgling and waving
his arms.

Lois willed her heart to stop pounding. She opened her
mouth to speak, but before she could form any words
Superman tilted his head to the side and turned to Lois
apologetically.

"I have to go," he said, handing Jacob to her, and with one
last smile he was out the window.

Lois staggered to the sofa. "Oh my God. Oh my God. How?
I mean..."

Finally, it all made sense. The constant disappearing act,
accompanied by the incredibly lame excuses... He wasn't
afraid of commitment, he didn't have a secret wife, he
didn't have an illness that made him need to use the
restroom every half hour, and he wasn't just the most
forgetful man on the planet. He was Superman.

Same chin.

Same nose.

Same ears.

Same mouth.

Same warm, softly pleading, deceptive eyes.

He began to speak but she didn't hear a word he said. She couldn't do anything except stare at his practiced expression. She could see nothing but deceit in his face. Hear nothing but lies in his low, sonorous voice. She wanted to shut him up, tell him that she knew and demand a reason for his lies, but she held her tongue.

As she entered the side door she could hear the soft murmur of voices in the kitchen.

"...Doesn't work like other people's." That was Clark. What didn't work like other people's? She froze just short of the kitchen door, listening.

"How do you feel?" Jonathan's voice was clearer than Clark's. "That's the important thing."

"Better." Clark's voice again. "I think I feel better."

Didn't he know? Lois shifted slightly. Concern for Clark warred with curiosity. He must have been taken ill very suddenly, for this
afternoon he had been the picture of health. Whatever had caused it somehow must be connected to the green glow she had seen in the shed.
Something very odd was going on here. Almost like a scene out of those grade Z science fiction movies on the late, late, late shows on
television.

A popping sound, and there was a faint scream, then Martha's voice exclaimed, "Oh, my...!"

What had happened? Lois strained her ears to hear. Something clinked, and Jonathan's voice said, "What do you mean, you 'think' you feel
better? Don't you know"

"He's never been sick before, Jonathan," Martha said. "It's a new experience!"

Lois frowned, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. Never been sick? Everybody got sick at some time or other!

More sounds, then Clark's voice again: "I've lifted a rocket into orbit before. Now I can't even lift this."

What was she hearing? Was Clark crazy? No one could lift a rocket into orbit except Superman! The thought hit her with such a shock that she
missed the next part of the conversation.

"You want me to swear on my badge? It won't mean any more, because when I give my word, it's binding. Simple as that."

"Okay." Clark pulled his glasses off and looked steadily at Henderson. "The reason I need the investigation stopped is because I have an identity to protect. The kidnappers weren't after Clark Kent, reporter at the Daily Planet, they were after Superman."

Henderson frowned. "Superman? So you were the bait?"

Why was it that when he wanted to tell someone, they never caught on, and when he didn't want to tell someone, they figured it out right away? "No, I was the target."

"But you just said Superman was the target."

Clark nodded. "Exactly."

"So you're trying to tell me that you're...?"

"Yes."

Henderson stared silently at Clark for so long, Clark began to wonder whether he was planning how to contact the nearest mental hospital and have him admitted without making him suspicious. He stared steadily back, trying to look as much like his alter-ego as possible and as little like a deranged lunatic as he could. "I always knew he had a secret identity," Henderson began slowly, seemingly still half-musing to himself.

Lois and Clark followed her out and saw her sit back down on the couch and watch the movie as she stuck handfulls of popcorn into her mouth.

Lois waved her hand aimlessly about for a couple seconds before she could speak. "You mean you know?"

Lucy turned and gave her sister the Lane raised eyebrow. "Of course I know, have since shortly after the wedding."

"How?" Clark had finally decided to join in the fun.

Lucy transferred her raised eyebrow to Clark. "Come on Clark, a pair of glasses and some hair gel? Really, what did you think, that I was galactically stupid?"

Even after it had struck her like a thunderbolt, standing there in Clark's apartment, what the superhero had been doing there - even after she'd somehow managed to drive herself home, without being aware of a particle of her surroundings - she'd still hoped that Superman would arrive to tell her she'd just been jumping to ridiculous conclusions. Or, better yet, that Superman would bring Clark, and they could laugh together over her overactive imagination and then pick up where that kiss had left off at the airport.

Instead Clark had arrived alone, looking grave and concerned, and making no attempt to pretend it wasn't true. And kissing was right off the agenda.

But she put her hand on his chest, stopping him. "Clark, take your glasses off, you can't cheat."

He tensed.

"Don't be afraid, Clark, I won't hurt you," she added, reaching up to take them off his face. "See, it wasn't that difficult. You could have done that sooner, it would have been a lot easier. I wouldn't have yelled at you. Naked truth sure is better."

"You *know?*"

She just smiled and kissed him. Her Clark... her own private Superman... And he was a lot better at that than at playing poker...

But why had Clark written her a letter, pretending it came from Superman?
To make her feel better that Superman hadn't said goodbye?

<Oh, stop being stupid, Lois!> she told herself angrily, no longer willing
to ignore the truth: the truth which had probably been staring her in the
face for some time. <The answer's obvious!> And that was why Clark had told
her that she would be able to figure it out; he had left her the clues in
the letters. He'd been confident that she would see what he hadn't been
able to tell her outright: that he was Superman.

"What? Clark, it's the middle of a work day. We can't just..." Her voice trailed off when Clark suddenly became a blur. When it finally stopped, Superman was standing in front of her, hand stretched out to her.

"What... How... Omigod!" Lois gasped as the implications of what she had just seen began to sink in.

"Lois!" Clark exclaimed, reaching out and catching her as her legs gave out from under her. He lowered her into a chair before kneeling in front of her.

Lois' hand came up to his face, tracing the lines as she struggled to see her partner in the superhero. "Why did you do that?" she asked after a moment. After all, Clark had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to conceal his identity - or was it the other way around? Why was he revealing this to her now?

"So that makes you... a Kryptonian?"

"Yes," he answered, biting his lip. Would that bother her?
The other Lois had never expressed any revulsion for him
because of his heritage, but he was certainly learning that
each Lois so far had been a very different person.

"And you can fly?"

He relaxed a little. She'd moved over that topic pretty
easily and gone back to the evidence of his powers.
"Yeah," he admitted with a small smile. "By the time I was
seventeen or so, I knew I was a lot stronger and faster
than everyone else, and I was starting to be invulnerable.
I don't get sick or hurt. And when I was eighteen, I
learned to fly."

"Wow..." she said, dropping her gaze to the water again as
she thought it all over. He was an alien. He'd come to
Earth in a spaceship. He was faster and stronger than a
normal person. And he could fly!

"Lois," Clark interrupted. "Lois - stop. Please."

She drew a long breath again, trying to blink back tears. "I really don't want to hurt you, Superman, but this is the way it has to be."

"No, Lois," he insisted. "There's something I *have* to tell you, now. Please, won't you turn around and look at me?"

Slowly, Lois turned to face him. But what she saw was... Clark, in the clothes he had been wearing when he'd left her apartment. Only he wasn't
wearing his glasses, and his hair was slicked back.

"Lois - do you understand now?" he asked her, in Superman's voice.

"I - Clark - Superman..." Lois tried to form the words, but couldn't.