“Clark…” Lois began.
“They’ll just keep doing this,” Clark said. His eyes were still glowing. “Killing people, taking things, doing whatever they want.”
At least he wasn’t setting anything on fire, but the light from his eyes cast a reddish glow over the inside of the vehicle.
Lois squinted, trying to see whether the agents in the front seat were ok. Both of them hung limp, although one of them coughed. As far as she could see they were alive but hurt.
She only hoped that they stayed out of it for a little bit longer. The last thing either of them wanted was for one of the agents to look in the rear view mirror and see Clark doing something inhuman.
“I’m choking,” Lois said.
It wasn’t true, of course. People who were actually choking couldn’t talk. The seat belt WAS biting into her neck and she suspected that the agents in the front seat weren’t in any better shape.
The look on Clark’s face was frightening her. He’d controlled his anger as long as she’d known him, and after their talks she knew why. He lived in a literal world of tissue paper, and he’d learned a long time ago that getting angry had consequences.
He glanced at her, and seeing the blood on her face he grimaced.
The world blurred around her and Lois found herself leaning against the wall of an alley, the two agents beside her. She turned her head and she could see the door to the SUV still flying through the air. The back of the vehicle was on fire.
“Clark…” she said.
He was standing, facing away from her, his figure upright and tense. His fists were clenched.
“Don’t do it,” she said, in a whisper.
Turning slightly, he stared at her. “They tried to kill you. They’ll happily kill your family, Brother Wayman, Charlie, everybody I know. They’ve got to be stopped.”
“Please.” She said.
Earlier she’d thought that she’d be able to kill to protect her family. She still did, although she suspected that it would leave a void in her soul that would never heal.
Clark couldn’t take that step; once he decided to stop one criminal by killing him, what would stop him from doing it again and again? The thing about rage was that indulging in it simply made you better at being angry. She’d learned that, if nothing else from her mother.
“Leave it to the law,” she said. “They’ll be punished.”
He laughed harshly. “Like I was? I broke a kid’s bones and all I had to do was cross state lines and nobody even bothered to try to find me.”
“You are a good person,” Lois said. “It was an accident.”
“Was it?” he asked. “You act like I’m a saint, but I wanted to hurt him. He was a bully and he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. I didn’t want to hurt him as badly as I did, but…”
“Stopping when you saw how hurt he was wasn’t the act of a bad person,” Lois said. “The important thing is that you learned from it and won’t do it again.”
Lois could see that three vehicles had pulled behind the burning SUV. Men with guns were getting out of the black vans.
She didn’t have much time. In the mood he was in, Clark could hurt the lot of them in ways that would permanently damage him.
He stepped toward the men, but notably only at normal speed.
“Remember how ashamed you were?” Lois called out.
He stopped.
Lois had done some reading about her mother’s condition once, and she’d read something about the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt was the feeling that one was a good person who’d done a bad thing. Shame was the feeling that a person was worthless.
His shoulders slumped. “What do you want me to do?”
“You were raised by good parents,” Lois said. “I can hear it in your voice every time you talk about them. What would they tell you to do now?”
He was silent for a long moment. “People are already calling the police.”
“Make them think we’re dead,” Lois suggested.
He relaxed and smiled slightly. He turned back to the SUV, and a moment later it exploded into a fireball. The men who had been approaching stepped back, and some of them began to file back into the vans.
One of them, a tall man in a black shirt and jeans with a ski mask stopped. He pointed a gun in Clark’s direction and fired.
************
“We’re just leaving the agents behind?” Lois asked.
They were back on Clark’s bicycle, which he’d blurred away for a second before retrieving. Lois couldn’t even remember where in the city he’d stored it, and she couldn’t imagine what the world must look like when he moved at that kind of speed.
“They’re after us,” Clark said. “All of them. The police will be there within two minutes and both of them have strong heartbeats. They’ll probably wake up on their own soon, although they probably shouldn’t drive.”
As far as the thugs in the vans were concerned, Clark had just grabbed a bike off the streets.
Lois could hear the sound of guns being fired and sometimes Clark grunted. Once he plucked something out of the air by her ear.
In the darkness there was no way for the men to know whether they’d hit anything or not, and shooting moving objects was notoriously difficult, whatever Hollywood said.
Still, the gunfire behind them sounded a little like a bag of popcorn in the microwave; without Clark, Lois would have been dead long ago.
Again, she was struggling to hold herself up. If they got out of this she promised herself she would work out more.
“I can’t keep this up,” she said. “My hands are going to slip.”
“The police are close,” Clark said. ”I’m leading them toward them.”
Lois was silent for a moment. “Are you sure they won’t outgun the police?”
“They’re going through ammunition quickly,” Clark said. “By the time the cops get here, they’ll have to surrender. Just give them a couple more minutes.”
He grabbed at something before it could hit her shoulder.
“I don’t think I can hold on for two more minutes,” Lois muttered.
Before Clark could reply, they heard a roar from in front of them. The Impala came squealing around the corner and Clark cursed under his breath. Apparently he’d been so busy with the bullets and keeping up with the police that he’d missed this.
The Impala charged straight toward them and Clark swerved to miss it.
They went over a curb and Lois screamed as they plowed down an embankment into a construction area. Someone had left a gate open and Clark swerved for that. If Lois wasn’t on the front of the bike he could easily have plowed through the chain link fence, but this way was better.
Undoubtedly he looked out of control from behind, and Lois could hear the Impala swerving to follow, along with the black vans.
She had a moment to wonder what was being dug out as they plunged downward into a large pit. Maybe it was the basement for a large building or a large building.
All she knew was that they were heading for a large mound of dirt in the middle of the pit. Clark picked up speed, heading for the ramp of dirt leading up to the top of the mound. Her hands were slipping and she screamed.
A moment later they were in the air. Clark’s arm wrapped around her stomach as they launched off the ramp, and she heard a crashing sound from below as the Impala and vans tried unsuccessfully to follow.
They didn’t come down. Instead they simply hung in the night sky motionless against the stars.
“Don’t worry,” Clark said. “I’ve got you.”
“Who’s got you?” Lois couldn’t help it that her voice sounded a little shrill and hysterical.
“Uh…I don’t know,” he admitted. “This is new.”
The bicycle dropped from underneath her and a moment later they were dropping. He grabbed it with one hand.
Lois could see police cars surrounding the construction site. Apparently assaulting the FBI merited a big response.
The men in the vans were spilling out of the vans, which were wrecked. The Impala was totaled.
Lois twisted around in Clark’s grasp until she could stare at him. “You didn’t know you could do this?”
“I thought I’d make the jump,” he said. “I planned on grabbing you and ditching the bike on the other side. I kept thinking I just needed a little more altitude.”
“Well you’ve got it now,” Lois said.
“This changes everything,” Clark said, seeming stunned.
****************
“So you just happened to find a bicycle unlocked in Metropolis at 10:30 at night,” Agent Pierce said. “And you managed to outpace three vans full of armed men for ten minutes, leading them to the construction site for Lex Luthor’s new skyscraper.”
“I’m a professional bicyclist,” Clark said. “Sort of. I’ve been dodging traffic in Metropolis for almost a year now.”
“Then you made what had to be a fifty foot leap in the dark without so much as a bruise.”
Clark shrugged. “We got lucky.”
Agent Pierce stared at them for a long moment then shrugged. “It works for me. We caught twenty of Bill Church’s thugs; at least one or two of them would have been happy to testify.”
“Would have been?” Lois asked. She couldn’t help having her voice rise in pitch. “What do you mean would have been? You can’t be dropping the case. There are two FBI agents in the hospital and my parents are in danger. Who’s…?”
Agent Pierce shook his head and frowned. “It’s a moot point now. When we went to the Church residence to arrest them, we found Bill Church and his two sons dead. They were killed execution style.”
Lois sat back in her chair slowly. “What?” she asked flatly.
“There have been rumors of a new player in town,” Agent Pierce said. “Someone in competition with Intergang. Apparently, when Bill Church pulled some of his bodyguards from the protection detail to come after you, they took advantage of the situation to take out the head of the competition.”
Clark was pale, and Lois knew how he felt.
She was responsible indirectly for the deaths of all three men. Counting Joe Malloy, four. If she hadn’t been so determined to show her father she could do it on her own by writing her article and getting the Internship, all of those men would still be alive.
“I hope you’re cleaning up his organization,” Lois said.
Agent Pierce shook his head. “We’re trying, but the new player is snapping up Intergang’s members faster than we can catch them.”
He hesitated, looking suddenly self-conscious. “None of this is for publication by the way.”
Lois shook her head. “I’m not writing any more articles for a while.”
She would eventually, but she’d have to do a little soul searching about the effect her words had on people’s actual lives.
“Is my family in any danger?” she asked quietly.
The last thing her mother or Lucy needed was some thug coming after them bent on revenge.
Agent Pierce shook his head. “If it had been the Mafia you’d have some problems. Those organizations are all about family bonds and loyalty. Intergang, from what we’ve been able to see was set up like a business. The only loyalty was to whoever was in charge.”
Agent Pierce leaned forward. “Whoever the new guy is, you’ve done him a favor.”
***********
Lois stared in the mirror for the twentieth time.
The weeks after Joe and Tom’s deaths had been difficult at Metropolis High. People had been stunned so much that even the suspension of a large part of the football team had been eclipsed by the scandal.
Opinion toward Lois had wavered back and forth, but the Coach’s resignation had kept the team from being completely unable to play. Principal Hardwick was still under investigation.
Lois had been surprised at how involved both her parents had been in the case; apparently almost losing her had brought them together in some ways. Her mother only complained about her father every other time she called. They were both united in their decision to push for Hardwick to be fired.
The assistant coach had turned out to have unexplored talents. Although he was a quiet man, he’d been to every game and he helped several of the suspended members get their grades up to the passing mark in time to play.
Clark was still something of a pariah, but he really didn’t care. Now that he could fly, there was a strange sort of joy that she could see in his eyes every time she looked at him.
The doorbell rang and Lois took one last look at herself in the mirror. She’d spent more than she could afford on the dress, and she’d dabbed a tiny amount of perfume. She couldn’t smell it, but she knew Clark would be able to.
“Pumpkin!”
Her father’s voice came from downstairs, sounding as irritated as it always did these days.
He didn’t approve of Clark at all; the homeless criminal who’d almost gotten his precious daughter killed. As far as he was concerned, Clark wasn’t worth the effort to step on.
Yet she’d overheard him tell her mother that she was different when she was around Clark. Her step was lighter and she was happier.
It was true, of course.
She ran down the stairs and stopped. He was standing at the base of the stairs in a tuxedo, a large corsage in his hands. He’d never looked so handsome.
***********
They landed in the darkness outside the school.
“Wait,” Lois said.
Clark stopped and turned toward her.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lois said slowly. “What if I DIDN’T go to Ireland in January?”
Clark frowned. “Haven’t you been planning that for longer than I’ve known you?”
Lois looked down. “Yes, but…”
“Why would you even say something like that?”
Lois looked up at him. “We’ve just started this, and long distance relationships don’t work very well.”
Clark chuckled.
Scowling at him, Lois said, “I don’t know what you think is so funny. This is important to me.”
“You’ll never know how much it means to me. Lois Lane giving up something she wants?” He grinned. “But you don’t have to.”
“Not seeing you for four months,” Lois said. She shook her head. She’d never understood how girls could be so stupid as to give up their dreams for a boy, but now that it was her turn it seemed to make perfect sense.
Clark was unique, and if she lost him she’d never find another person like him.
“I can fly,’ Clark said. “I’ve already flown to Dublin three times; I got lost the first couple of times, but it’s a five minute flight now.”
He was silent a moment. “I wouldn’t ask you to give up anything for me. You’re the one who’s giving me the gift.”
“Shut up,” Lois said. She pulled him down and kissed him.
Homecoming this year wasn’t going to be the usual easy win, not with the team decimated as it was, but Lois didn’t care. She was with Clark and he was with her.
She’d struggled since her mother and father had separated, never feeling like she belonged in either of their houses. They loved her, but she already knew she was going to leave them as soon as she could. When she was with Clark, though, she felt different.
Being with him felt like she was coming home and she felt sure that he felt the same way about her.
No matter what happened, homecoming was going to be grand.
They stepped forward into the light.
