Well folcs, It only took one positive remark for me to continue with this one! Enjoy!
Disguise Failed pt 2
Lois Lane sat at her desk, pulled out her keyboard and began to type. The Godlike hero, now named Superman by her own doing, had saved the Messenger. Everything he had done, however, was not as interesting as just who he was. And she knew that. This was 'her' story. The story that woudl make her career. The story that would win her the pulitzer. She knew all about Superman. He was from Smallville Kansas. He worked at the Daily Planet. His name was Clark Kent, the mild mannered reporter.
He was a pretty decent guy, pretty good looking and had excellent muscles. He lived on junk food. He didn't own a tuxedo. He was close with his parents. He wrote touchy feely stuff. He didn't like being chased by leud women, Cat for one. He also was a real character, meeting her put-downs with his own versions.
She wrote it all out. It looked good. Should it be published? The thought crossed her mind as she looked across at Clark Kent who was sitting at his desk looking at her over a pencil he held between his two sets of fingers.
She pressed Send and LAN'ed it to Perry. Done. Pulitzer would be in the works.
She grinned at Clark, then walked over to his desk. "Let's go Farmboy."
His eyebrows went up. "Where are we heading, now?"
She slapped his arm with her bag and headed to the elevator. "I'll fill you in on the way."
In the elevator, she turned to him. "So where do you keep the cape?"
"Excuse me?"
She took hold of him and unbuttoned a button in the center of his chest. "I thought so. But where's the cape?"
She walked around behind him and felt the back of his shoulders, then tugged his shirt up out of his pants to look for the cape beneath it. Bingo.
"But doesn't it get all mashed up in the legs of your pants?"
"Lois, do you have to know EVERYTHING?"
"Yes. You're my story."
He caught her hands and dropped them to her sides. "I am not your story Lois Lane. I work with you. I am your co-worker. Period."
"Oh yeah? Well I saw you first, and those are the rules."
"Whose rules?"
"Mine. So may i have an interview now?"
"LOis, you have every intention of telling everything about my life in that story of yours. My life is my life. I only put on that suit so i could help people without having to hide. Everytime I saved someone before, people wanted to trap me and study me. I thoguth with a disquise i coudl still have a life, still work at the Daily Planet, still live in Metropolis and be normal."
"Ah, but you're not Normal, Clark Kent. You're not anything like normal. YOu're Superman. You're..." she couldn't find the right word without sounding like a total groupie.
For some reason that didn't sit too well with him, judging by the look on his face. "What's wrong?"
He shrugged. "Normal is good."
She looked at him incredulously. "You can fly, but you want to be NORMAL?" It was beyond her comprehension. "Clark KEnt, do you have ANY idea how many people have wanted to fly? How many people would love to be able to lift a space station and carry it up into orbit? Do you have any idea how boring 'normal' is?"
He'd not considered those thoughts. "Well, I...um...I have always wanted to be normal."
"Trust me Farmboy, normal isn't all it's cracked up to be." She patted him on the chest and stepped off the elevator as the doors opened into the lobby.
"Lois, please don't tell everyone who I am. Please?"
"Are you begging me?"
"Do I have to beg you Lois? Have you any idea what will happen to my parents if this gets out? Everyone will be trying to harm them to get me to do what they want. It'll be an extortionist's dream come true. Every criminal element that finds out what I can do along with what my weaknesses are, will see me as fair game."
Lois stopped walking down the sidewalk and turned to look at him. He looked helpless, hardly a shadow of the Superhero she'd seen in the skin tight outfit earlier in the day. "Are you serious?"
"Dead serious, Lois. You know I told you I'd traveled?"
She nodded and started walking again. "Well, everytime I left, it was because people started to figure things out. I couldn't stay in one place for any time at all. I don't want to keep moving. I just want to stay in one place. Can you just let me do that?"
"Look Clark. I'll give it to you straight. If I don't publish the scoop on you, someone else will. It's my career we're talking about. I could let this story slide, but how many other people are going to recognize you now and publish it? Clark, I was there, I saw you first, it's my story...and I'm goign to get the credit for it."
"Fine, Lois. Fine. Could you just please leave any reference to my parents out of it please? And where i come from so they won't be kidnapped?"
With that, he turned and headed down an alley and around the corner. When Lois had caught up to him, the alley was empty.
Perry read the article that appeared in his computer with interest. Fascinating story. And Clark Kent worked right here in his newsroom. He got up and opened the office door. "KENT!" He looked around but didn't see the pair working on teh prometheus story. He'd talk to him later.
Clark arrived back at his apartment at the end of a long day. He'd been furious with Lois. How could she do this to him? But what did he expect? She was a hardnosed reporter. She didn't let a story slip through her fingers.
He eyed the newspapers in the stand on the sidewalk, walked over and dropped some change in the slot, pulled open the door and lifted out a paper. Half the top of the front page was covered with a picture of him carrying the Messenger into space. His red cape billowed out behind him. He looked closely at the picture. It did look like him, but not that much.
He tucked the paper under his arm and took the stairs up to his apartment door two at a time. It was a seedy hotel. He'd find a new place to live tomorrow. Well, depending on what Lois had published. He sank into a chair at the small table and laid the paper out in front of himself. There it was. The story he'd never wanted to see published. He couldn't bring himself to read it. His secret was public now. His life was ruined. How could she have crushed him under her foot like that? Didn't she have any normal feelings?
She was stubborn and pigheaded, opinionated and selfish, but she was beautiful and brilliant. She also exposed the truth. Something for which he stood. How could he be mad at her for doing the same thing that he did, bringing the truth to light.
"Mom and Dad. I guess you heard?"
They both nodded, looking up from the television. "You're the top story. They've got everything on there about you except for your ship landing and our finding you." Jonathan looked devastated. His mother's cheery smile was gone.
"I'm sorry Mom and Dad. I had no idea she'd do this to me."
"Who?"
"Lois Lane."
"That reporter you work with?"
"Yeah. She recognized me right away. I don't know how I could have been so stupid as to think that a pair of glasses could disguise me. It just seemed so right when I looked in the mirror before."
"I had my doubts about those glasses." Jonathan had spoken up about it, but Clark had asured him that it would work. Well it hadn't. Now what should he do?
He tossed and turned and awoke, fully alert, falling back down onto his bed. It was only a dream. what a relief.
His superhearing picked up a sound. It was a low knocking at his door. In a flash he was out of bed and opening the door to the tear-streaked face of Lois Lane.
"What's wrong?" He ushered her into his apartment and led her over to the couch.
She was blubbering, her nose in a handkerchief. "I'm ssssss...orrrrry, Clark." she wailed.
"You wrote the story?"
She nodded. "I couldn't ssssss...top myself...I wwwwww...anted the ssssssss...tory."
For some reason far beyond his comprehension, he was rubbing her shoulders saying, "There, there, Lois, don't cry."
"I'm ssssssss...orrrrrrry, Claa...rrrrrrrrk."
Clark rubbed her arm gently. "I didn't read it. I couldn't bring myself to find out what you said."
"Every...thing Clark. You must haaaaaa....te me."
"I could never hate you, Lois."
She met his eyes in wonderment. "Really?"
"Really."
"What are you going to...do now?" she choked the words out.
He looked away, through the ceiling at the star-lit sky beyond. "I don't know."
There was silence as the enormity of what had happened hung in the air between them. She was crying again. He remembered the look of bliss in her face as he had flown with her from the Messenger back to the Daily Planet yesterday. He couldn't bear to hear her cry like that. What was done was done. Water under the bridge. He'd deal with it in the morning.
"Would you like to go flying, Lois?"
She looked at him through reddened eyes. After a moment's eye contact, she nodded. He walked over to his closet and took out a suit, then spun into it. He came back and stood in front of her, noting the look of amazement on her face. He leaned down and scooped her up off the couch. She put her arms around his neck and felt the strength of his muscles as he held her, walking to the balcony door. Moving his hand at the speed of light, he turned the door knob and pulled the door open before she felt the lack of support under her back. He stepped through the door and lifted off into the night sky.
The warm fall wind blew through her hair as they sailed low over the city lights. She was speechless. Her tears were forgotten as she took in the sights of the city below. She'd seen the city from the air during airplane takeoffs and helicopter rides, but it was much different now with the wind in her face, the smell of Clark Kent's aftershave, the feel of his strong arms and hands on her body. She felt safe. Safer than she'd ever felt in her entire life.
He looked down at her face. "Are you okay?"
She nodded, sighing.
"Warm enough?"
She nodded again, at a loss for words.
"Superman?"
His deep brown eyes met hers.
"Don't you hate me?"
"I told you, I could never hate you, Lois."
"Why not?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. That's not the way I deal with things. I'm here to help. Hating doesn't help anything." He didn't let on there was more to his feelings for her, his admiration for her many good qualities, her sincerity being one of the top of them.
"What was it like? Flying the Messenger into orbit?"
He tilted his head again. "Heavy. I've never lifted anything that big before. It wasn't too heavy, though. It was only heavier than other things i've lifted."
"Was it hard to fly that far?"
"No. I've flown further. I just have to hold my breath when I get beyond the earth's atmosphere."
"Oh."
"Why can you fly? What happened to you?"
A small smile crossed his face. "It's a power that I just developed when i was a teenager. Are you going to write this?"
She shook her head. "I've learned my lesson."
He nodded, "I'd rather you don't tell people about my life on earth. Just that I just arrived from another planet, and that I came to help."
"Well, it's a little late for that, Superman." tears were forming against her nose again. "I'm so sorry. I should never have done it. Do you think your parents are okay?"
Clark nodded, he'd have felt something if there had been trouble with his parents. But maybe it would be a good idea to check on them later. But not with Lois, just in case she decided to tell anything else she found out about him.
"How normal are you? I mean, do you have to eat and sleep and go to the bathroom?" she blushed, wishing she'd not asked that last part.
"I don't have to eat or sleep. But if i eat i have to go to the bathroom." He added that part with a smile. "You do ask the difficult questions don't you Lois Lane?"
Her countenace changed to one of pride, "I'm the best."
He nodded silently, meeting her smile. She was so beautiful when she smiled, when she was crying about her failings, when she was asking the searching questions.
