Superman.
How could Clark deny it any longer?
The evidence was there. He’d seen himself flying.
But it terrified him, rather than comforted him.
“No…no…no,” he moaned, his hands on the sides of his head. “This can’t be right.”
“I’m sorry, but…it’s the truth,” Lois said, going around behind the couch to where he was kneeling on the floor. “It’s okay.”
But Clark hadn’t been speaking to her. He found himself in a memory. He wasn’t seeing the walls of Lois’ living room any longer. He didn’t see or even hear her as she knelt before him to offer her support.
He was in Arkham Asylum, strapped to a chair with bonds so tight he felt sure they would cut off his circulation. Dr. Fulton hovered before him, checking the restraints.
“Tell me, who are you?” he asked, peering into Clark’s scowling face.
“Superman,” Clark growled defiantly. Because that’s who he was. There was no one else he could possibly be.
Dr. Fulton clucked his tongue in a disappointed fashion. “Well, well, I see we haven’t made any progress yet. Curious,” the doctor said, partly to Clark but mostly to himself. “I may have to increase the voltage after all.” He grinned maliciously at Clark. “Don’t worry though. Eventually we’ll get the voltage correct. And then Superman will vanish and plague you no more.” His voice was syrupy sweet, almost a sing-song, like he was talking to a toddler.
He shoved a gag into Clark’s mouth with such force it was a wonder Clark’s jaw didn’t break. Then he turned, and with a swish of his lab coat, fiddled with the knobs of some computer panel and threw the lever that sent sizzling pain into Clark’s brain. Dr. Fulton laughed; Clark screamed as every molecule of his body felt like it was torn apart and set on fire.
“No….no…no…no!” he kept repeating aloud as the scene played out in his head with such clarity that he could feel the pain, not just remember it. “Stop!” he pleaded to the ghost before his eyes. “Leave me alone!” His eyes squeezed shut, as if that would banish the memory.
“Clark? Clark?” Lois and Martha were practically screaming, but Clark did not notice. They gently shook him by the shoulders, desperately trying to get him to snap out of it.
But Clark only felt Dr. Fulton’s hands on him as the memory continued to torment him. In Clark’s mind, it was the doctor who rattled his body to and fro, screaming for answers Clark didn’t have.
“Who are you?” Dr. Fulton demanded to know once more, the crazed sneer in his voice as clear as if Clark was hearing it in real time.
“I’m Superman. Can’t you understand that?” Clark flung back venomously at the phantasm leering at him behind his closed eyelids.
Clark watched the memory play out as Dr. Fulton shook his head and hit the switch again. Clark went blind with agony. He screamed louder than before and wretched his body from side to side trying to escape the torture.
Subconsciously, he was aware that he could move, and wasn’t shackled down to the chair like in his memory. He cradled his aching head in his hands and pushed himself up as he tried to escape the memory he was trapped in. Lois touched his shoulder to try and comfort him, but he was beyond the point of knowing anything but the past. He wobbled as he stood up, then blindly fled the room.
Lois heard a few things in the hall fall over in the wake of his passing, then the thump of his racing footsteps as he mounted the stairs. With a slam, the door to his room shut and Lois was left behind in bewilderment.
***
For the better part of three hours, Clark sat huddled on the floor of his bedroom, his back against the bed, on the far side from the door. He’d locked it in his panic, as though it would keep out the images in his head. It didn’t. For a long while, he sat trapped in his memories, blind to the world around him, deaf to the pleading cries of Martha and Lois as they called to him and banged their ineffectual fists on the door. He sat with his knees up to his chest, his arms wrapped about them. He rocked back and forth, trying to self-soothe, even if he wasn’t really aware of it.
Bit by bit, the past came back to him.
He remembered his time in the asylum. He remembered every cruel thing Dr. Fulton had said or done to him. He remembered every jolt of electricity as Dr. Fulton tried to “cure” him by purging Superman from his identity. He remembered knowing only that he was Superman. He remembered the void where Clark Kent had once been. Slowly, pieces of the puzzle locked into place. But much of it was still cloaked in shadow.
He knew he had come from somewhere. He could remember being dressed in a cheap, knock-off Superman costume and dropped off at the asylum. He remembered the presence of some guy handing him over to the asylum staff, though he couldn’t picture the man’s face. Beyond that…darkness. But not the darkness of missing memories. Actual darkness, so deep and black he couldn’t see the hand in front of his face. There was the occasional pain, so vastly different from the pain brought about by Dr. Fulton’s electrical torture device. That anguish had come from outside to invade his body. This other agony was more ethereal, less concrete in a way, originating in every cell of Clark’s body all at once and leaving him to roast alive from some inner fire.
Where it came from, he wasn’t sure. He did remember being locked in a cage. He could feel the cold, heartless steel beneath his hands as he gripped the bars in the times when the crippling torment wasn’t present. There was a heavy feeling in the air, something oppressive though it wasn’t really tangible. It was in his mind, sapping his sanity. He could almost hear some sort of mantra running through his mind, but he could not make out the words. Something about Superman…
Frustrated, Clark finally pulled himself from his dark pathway into the past with a bestial roar. No matter how hard he tried, whatever lay behind his captivity and the depression he knew he’d experienced lay just out of reach. In fact, the harder he tried to focus on it, to bring it into clearer view, the more it slipped away into the swirling mists of his mind. He shook his head, trying to dispel the darkness that he’d been wandering in.
Slowly, his bedroom coalesced before his eyes. He realized he was shaking like a leaf, with balled fists and tears on his cheeks. His breathing was ragged panting, like he’d run a marathon under the broiling sun, without the benefit of his Kryptonian genetics. His heart was hammering in his chest so violently he was concerned he might be having a heart attack. He was light-headed and felt woozy, his stomach was balled up in knots, and he felt like the world around him was spinning in dizzying circles.
“No…” he said in a half-choked sob. “No…”
But it was the truth. He had to face the facts. Even if they made him uncomfortable or dredged up memories that would have been better off forgotten in his still-damaged brain. He was Superman. And, at one point, that was all he’d been.
“I forgot who I was,” he whispered to himself tremulously, as if speaking it aloud might somehow trigger a return to his catatonic-like state of having no identity at all. “How could I have forgotten?”
Torture, his mind hissed in a sleepy, disgusted way.
He had to admit it made sense. If torture had forced out his memories of his super side, it stood to reason that torture had burned away his Clark side too.
But the question remained – how?
He knew he hadn’t lost that part of himself in the asylum. He remembered clearly now how he’d been brought there, against his will, raging at everyone who dared to say he wasn’t Superman. Clark had been stolen from him sometime prior to that. And, what was more, he had an indistinct feeling that Clark had been ripped away from him a long time before he’d ever been dumped at the asylum, like an unwanted dog at the local animal shelter.
But he couldn’t remember anything more than that. He knew it would drive him absolutely crazy if he continued to focus on it while it skittered away further into the locked recesses of his mind.
Instead, he forced himself up off the floor and washed his face in the bathroom sink, ridding himself of any trace of his fear, tears, and uneasy admittance that he still was missing an important part of his past. When he thought he looked presentable, he squared his shoulders and left the room. He could hear Lois and his mother talking quietly amongst themselves in the living room, thanks to a quick check of his super hearing, which brought him up short. Now that he remembered, it seemed like a door in his mind had opened, giving him access to his abilities. Using his super-hearing had been so reflexive that he hadn’t even been aware that he’d triggered its use.
Better go someplace safe, and soon, to test out my control over my abilities, he told himself as he severed the connection. Before I use any of them again.
He didn’t need his enhanced hearing now as he got closer. Lois sounded worried. Martha sounded numb.
“What if he never remembers?” Lois was fretting.
“We’ll make him remember, one way or another,” Martha said tiredly, sounding not entirely convinced of her own words.
“We tried that and look what happened,” Lois said despondently. “He saw himself floating. And still denied it.”
“What about one of the other supers out there?” Martha wondered. “Didn’t you say that Martian guy can read minds or something?”
“Martian Manhunter,” Lois confirmed, and Clark could see her nodding as he peeked around the door frame. “And he can only read minds, he can’t make anyone believe anything. And he can’t unlock missing memories. Otherwise, I would have asked Batman or Wonder Woman to send him over as soon as Clark was found in that damn asylum.” She spoke bitterly about the asylum.
“You don’t have to convince me of anything,” Clark said softly as he padded into the room, his voice soft, tired, and apologetic. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to believe you earlier.”
“We were worried about you,” Lois said, rather than reply to his words. Instead of rushing to his side, like she usually did, she warily eyed him from her seat and kept her distance, making no effort to approach him. “When you ran off screaming. We thought about jimmying the lock to your bedroom open. What happened?”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Clark admitted, flopping tiredly down on the couch beside Lois. He absently rubbed at his temples. “I was sort of stuck in a memory. I guess that’s the best way to describe it. It was like I was actually back there, in Dr. Fulton’s lab.”
Lois shivered slightly and Martha scowled at the name. But neither of them spoke.
“I remember now. I was brought to the asylum as a man who believed he was Superman. An average, not at all infused with powers, boring, delusional man who swore up and down he was Superman. Because that’s all I was. Something happened before that to make me forget I was Clark. I only knew I was Superman. Dr. Fulton would electrocute my brain in an effort to ’cure’ me,” and here and made air quotes with his fingers, “of my delusion. Only I guess, even without my powers, I was a little more…resilient. Against the electroshock treatment. He did it over and over again, sometimes back to back, sometimes with a day or a week in between, until it finally fried my brain. I remember losing more and more of the world as each treatment happened, until I was stuck inside a body I could no longer control, aside from basic functions, with a mind as hollow and brittle as an empty eggshell.”
Martha’s face was the picture of heartbreak. Lois’ was nothing more than naked rage.
“He’s lucky he’s already dead,” she swore. “I’d kill him.”
“It wasn’t his fault. Not entirely,” Clark quickly added, not defending the doctor but wanting to explain. “How would you react to a normal man – who could bleed just as easily as you – dressing in a cheap Halloween costume, insisting he was Superman? Would you believe him? Or would you think he was insane? You saw how many nuts came out of the woodwork all claiming to be ‘the real deal’ after Superman made his debut!”
When had he remembered that? he wondered.
“Well…” Lois hedged.
“You wouldn’t believe him,” Clark asserted. “I had no idea I was Clark at the time. Something happened to me before I ever got to the asylum. Something that made me believe I was only Superman. Something that took Clark away from me.”
“When I was first brought to you, you were emotionless,” Lois said slowly, as if reliving that first encounter. “I called you by name and you reacted as if I’d knifed you. The terror on your face…the way you recoiled from me…” She shook her head and sighed sadly. “It took you a long time before I could call you Clark without sending you into a mute panic.”
“I think I was tortured before I got to Gotham,” he said flatly.
“Well…yeah, that makes sense. The terror associated with your name…the countless wounds and broken bones…” She ticked off the points on her fingers.
“No, I mean mentally tortured,” Clark clarified, running a hand through his hair uneasily. “Yeah, okay, the physical stuff makes sense too. But I remember being left in the dark for a long, long time. I remember something being said to me about Superman. I remember pain if I denied it. I think. But, beyond that…nothing.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Martha gasped in horror.
“And why?” Lois asked sharply, looking for all the world like she was ready to strangle whoever was responsible.
“Search me,” Clark replied helplessly with a pitiful shrug. “I can’t pinpoint anything yet. I know there was a voice but I can’t really hear it, per se. I know it tormented me about Superman, but I have no idea what it actually said. I can’t figure out who said it, if they were a man or woman or if it was robotic. There’s just…nothing. Not even a reason for why it was happening.”
“I’m sorry, Clark,” Lois offered sincerely.
He shook his head. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have called you a liar. I should have known better that you wouldn’t lie to me. I did know better. I acted like an absolute jerk,” he apologized. “Forgive me?” He sighed and pulled off his glasses to rub at his eyes. He felt exhausted by the emotional toll of the day.
Lois scooted a little closer to him and patted his knee affectionately. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
“There’s everything to forgive,” he gently argued.
“No, there’s not. I think I get it now. It was a knee-jerk reaction. If someone tortured me for saying I was a reporter, for example, I think I’d learn to deny it after a while too. Consciously or not,” she added.
“It was easier to think Superman let me down than that I couldn’t save myself,” Clark neatly tacked on with another sigh. He fell silent a moment, then ventured to take the conversation in another direction. “You said something about the other supers? Are there many others? Do they know…about me?”
Lois shot Martha a nervous glance. Martha returned the look, but it looked ambiguously reassuring at the same time.
“Well…yes, there are others now. I’ve lost count of how many, mostly because none are Metropolis-based, so I don’t cover them the way I used to cover Superman,” Lois hastily explained. “If I’m being honest, I’ve mostly been in contact with Wonder Woman and Batman over the years.”
“Bat…man?” Clark asked, envisioning a bat with vaguely humanoid features and powerful wings to fly with.
“Oh, he’s just a regular guy who dresses in black, uses a bat symbol as his sort of ‘brand,’ and who sticks to crimefighting at night. He’s the one who found you, by the way. Gotham is his city,” Lois replied somewhat dismissively. She waved her hand, as if banishing smoke from her presence. “I’ll fill you in on all the details later.”
“Fair enough. So…there’s a lot, then,” Clark tried to confirm.
Lois nodded slowly as she thought. “More than I ever dreamed possible, and still fewer than this world really needs. They’ve kind of split themselves into different organizations. The Avengers, the Justice League…you know, lofty titles that proclaim how important and powerful they are. Anyway, the Justice League is more modeled on, well, the legacy Superman left behind when he vanished. You’d like them, I think. I know they’ve been waiting to meet you. All in good time, of course,” she rambled on a bit.
“Meet me? Do they know…?” he asked again.
Lois blushed guiltily.
“They had to be told,” Martha interrupted. “Lois ran herself ragged looking for you. Chased false leads all over the globe. Exhausted every human avenue open to her. And even with the cooperation of that network of heroes – and despite their choice to work as separate organizations, they do help one another – it still took twenty years for you to be brought home.” There was a hitch in her voice but she swallowed it down. “When Lois first asked if she should tell Wonder Woman that Clark Kent – and that’s who Lois was searching for, not Superman – was Superman, your father and I thought it was for the best. We hated it, don’t get me wrong. But by withholding your real alias from them only hurt the search, in our eyes. For all we knew, Superman was lying wounded or captive or,” she gulped hard, “dead somewhere. Or it could have been Clark out there. We didn’t want either of your identities to be overlooked because they were looking for a normal man, not a superhero…or vice versa.”
Clark thought over the logic to this. Slowly, only half convinced, he nodded. “I guess…”
“It was the only way,” Martha insisted.
“I’m not mad,” Clark defensively replied. “It’s just a lot to take in, you know? Apparently, everyone except me knew that I was Superman, until a couple of hours ago at any rate.” He cracked his knuckles in thought. “Um, awkward question?” he finally said after clearing his throat.
“Hmm?” Lois asked.
“So…I don’t really remember too much yet. Did I tell you I was Superman or…?” He shrugged, knowing he didn’t really need to fill in the rest of that question. He scratched an itch on his wrist idly, not knowing what to expect. He could well imagine Lois being angry with him, regardless of how the information had come out.
“I figured it out myself,” Lois admitted calmly, stunning Clark. He’d anticipated all the fire and brimstone of Hell falling upon him for not telling Lois such crucial information. But perhaps twenty years to stew in her anger had tempered it somewhat. “Not long after you vanished, in case you were wondering.”
“Actually, I was,” Clark confessed. He scrunched up his brow. “Um…can I ask? How? And…why are you so calm about this? Uh…not that I’m complaining, mind you,” he rushed to amend.
Lois laughed, but bitterly. “I’m not mad. I never was, not really. I was too busy being scared. Even before I figured it out, I knew it was totally unlike you to disappear without a word. I used your spare key to check your apartment and accidentally found your suits in the hidden rear compartment in your closet.”
“I guess I should have picked a better spot,” Clark remarked blandly as shreds of memory swirled around him. He thought he could almost recall putting that false back into the closet to conceal how deep it went.
Lois shrugged. “I was confused at first but it didn’t take a Mensa scholar to make the connection. You were missing and so was Superman. As far as I could figure, both of you dropped off the map at roughly the same time. I went to my roof and called for Superman every day and night, thinking he could help me find you, and for the first time in since he’d appeared, he didn’t answer my call. Not even the media had seen him around. It was a no-brainer that the suits were yours, rather than his and just being stored at your apartment.”
“Smart,” Clark admitted with a nod. He loved to watch Lois’ mind work. It gave him a thrill to see the vast intelligence mingled with her fiery spirit beneath the exceedingly attractive façade.
“Lois brought the suits to us,” Martha supplied from her own seat. “Your father and I didn’t see much use in denying the truth, especially to Lois. We knew it could only help her try to locate where on Earth you’d gone.”
Clark nodded again. “Like with giving the other supers my identity. It was a bold move and a smart one.” Then he sighed. “I’m glad I had you all on my side.”
“You still do,” Lois promised.
“Thanks,” he acknowledged as something tugged at the back of his mind. “Wait…didn’t you have a crush on Superman back then?” he asked Lois, carefully keeping any accusation out of his voice.
Martha subtly cleared her throat and slipped out of the room.
“I did,” Lois replied.
“Is that why you’ve…?” He couldn’t finish the question. It was too painful to think that Lois had admitted feelings for him and agreed to give him a chance in the dating world once his memory came back fully, only because he’d once been Superman.
“No.” She seemed to know exactly what his worries were. “The truth is, I realized how much I care about you…how much I like you…before you went missing. I might have been too stubborn to acknowledge it, but it was there. And when I couldn’t find you, even before I found your suits, suddenly this…this yawning abyss appeared before me where I had to come to terms with the fact that I might never see you again. It scared me, Clark. It scared me to know that I might never see you or hear your voice or explore the feelings I’d been having for you. Superman wasn’t even a blip on my radar, except for one thing.”
“What?” He could hardly force the word out of his throat, fearing what the exception might be.
“As soon as I realized you were Superman, it made me go from scared to full-on panic. Because I knew that something had to have gone very, very wrong. If you were in trouble, you should have been able to get yourself out of it. Superman doesn’t get into trouble unless he wants to. But the fact that he didn’t reappear meant you had to have been at the very least hurt, if you were even still alive.”
She shuddered as though a chill had run down her spine. “That’s why I tracked down the other supers, including Wonder Woman, and asked for help in finding you. I knew you could be literally anywhere – tied up in a flea-ridden motel in Hobb’s Bay, in trouble at the summit of Mount Everest, laying dead or dying on some deserted island…” Her voice trembled and trailed off, as though she was experiencing the terrifying race to find him all over again.
He hung his head, realizing for the first real time, just how much Lois had suffered emotionally as she’d searched for him. He felt ashamed, though he knew there was nothing he could have done to get home quicker.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized.
“Don’t apologize,” she told him with a shake of her head. Her gaze went to steel and ice was in her words. “Let whoever locked you in Arkham Asylum be sorry. Let whoever brought you to that hellhole be sorry. Because, one way or another, we’re going to figure out what happened in the ten years before Gotham, and we’re going to make whoever is responsible for it pay.”
To Be Continued…
