A/N: Thanks so much to Sara Kraft for giving me some beta on this part! sloppy

From Part 1:

A sense of peace came over him that had been missing before, when he’d been packing all those boxes. He didn’t need thirty boxes, he realized, and for a few seconds, the realization left him almost dizzy with relief. He only needed one. One box for a few spandex suits and a couple of pairs of boots. He’d made the wrong choice before, and it had felt wrong. But this felt like walking out of prison and into the sunshine.

It was a moment of astonishing clarity, and he wished he could somehow take a snapshot of it – wished he could always remember the exact way the afternoon light slanted through his windows, the golden patterns it left on his gleaming hardwood floors. He wanted to remember the sweet scent of Lois’s hair and the way each silky strand felt against his cheek. He wanted to remember the surge of exhilaration he felt, the way the smile just seemed to bloom across his face. He had pulled her close again and tucked her head beneath his chin, so she couldn’t see his smile, and thank goodness, for how could he possibly explain that he was smiling because he felt like he had just witnessed his own resurrection?

He already had an appointment set up with Constance Hunter for the following day so that they could discuss a strategy for dealing with any copycat lawsuits. Well, he had a new strategy: Superman was going to announce his retirement, and Clark Kent and Lois Lane were going to live happily ever after.

He wrapped himself tighter around Lois and sighed with relief and happiness, whispering the one word again: “Yours.”

____________________________

Part 2:

“Clark, what on earth are you doing up?” his mother asked sleepily as she entered the kitchen, still knotting the sash on her robe.

Clark was startled, nearly upsetting the glass of water in front of him. “Sorry, Mom,” he said softly. He could hear the rumble of his father’s snores coming from the direction of his bedroom, which was probably why he hadn’t heard his mother’s approach. Or maybe it was just that he was lost in thought. He gave his mother a guilty smile. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Did you have to go out on a rescue?” Martha asked, dropping into the chair next to him.

“No.” He shook his head and reached for his glass, fiddling with it as he wondered if he should tell his mother what he’d decided. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to confide in her. He did want to, very much. But his decision had already been made. The promises he’d made to Lois were binding and could not be taken back. To tell his parents about them would make them feel they shared the responsibility for whatever consequences arose – and he wasn’t foolish enough to believe there wouldn’t be any. Since he had been old enough to understand the words, his mother and father had told him that all they wanted was for him to be happy. He didn’t believe they would begrudge him his happiness now.

“Thinking about Lois?” his mother prodded, giving him a knowing smile.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I guess I’m pretty excited. I can still hardly believe it.”

“Well I can believe it. You two just needed to talk things out.” She gave him a teasing look. “Though as close as you were sitting on the couch when we came in, I don’t think it was all talking.”

Clark looked a little sheepish at that. “No, not all.”

“Well, that’s okay. You have your whole lives ahead of you for talking.” She reached for Clark’s hand and held it between both of her own. “I have to tell you, honey, your Dad and I are awfully glad things worked out the way they did.”

“I know, Mom.” His parents had not wanted Clark Kent packed away, had not wanted their son living in a secret lair.

“All we’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy,” she reminded him.

And there it was, that refrain from his childhood – sweet and pure in its simplicity. He felt it wash over him like a benediction.

“I know,” he said again, because it was all he could manage just then. He flashed his mother a grateful smile and for a moment really took her in; her blond hair was mussed from sleep, and her blue eyes blinked at him myopically. Her hands were holding his, and he looked at them – really looked – and for an odd moment he saw them not as her son but as a stranger would see them. They were not beautiful, his mother’s hands. They were the hands of a poor farmer’s wife – scarred and callused, with short, practical nails. They were hands that had spent his entire lifetime gardening and cleaning and doing a thousand rough chores. If they’d ever had a manicure it had been a lark, something someone talked her into doing once, not an indulgence she would allow herself on any sort of a regular basis. And her hands showed it – showed the effects of all those years and all that work.

But those same hands had reached into a tiny spaceship in a lonely field, clasped him to her heart, and carried him home. They had changed his diapers and soothed him to sleep when he was a baby, newly arrived from a distant world. They had clapped at a thousand Little League games, had made cupcakes for his birthday parties, had tucked him in at night. Those hands had, in a very real way, given him life, even if he had not been born of her flesh. He had been prepared to cast all of that away, everything those hands had worked to give him. And then her hands squeezed his, and he felt a swell of love and gratitude he knew he could never adequately express. He was searching for the words to try, though, when his mother gave him a tender smile and he realized that he didn’t need to say anything. She knew.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said softly.

“It’s going to be all right now, honey,” she promised, releasing his hand. “I know these last few weeks have been hard, but you’re on the right track now.”

The right track...

His secret almost spilled out of him then. If he were going to tell her about the decision he’d made, this would be the moment he would do it. He looked down at the table and swirled his finger around in the circles of water his glass had left behind. He’d been sitting there long enough for most of the ice to melt, he realized. How long was that? An hour or more? An hour or more of sitting with his thoughts and listening to the soft nocturnal sounds of his apartment. “I want to make Lois happy,” he blurted suddenly, raising his eyes to his mother. “I... haven’t lately. I have to do better, Mom.”

She cocked her head at him quizzically. “You will, Clark,” she said simply.

“I have to... make some changes,” he said, a little desperately. “I can’t live the same way I did when I only had myself to consider. I love her, Mom. I have to think of her now, too.”

“Of course you do,” his mother said. “Clark, we know how you feel about Lois. We’ve always known this day would come. Children grow up, they find their own lives, and now Lois is a part of yours. We understand that, honey. We understand that she’s going to be a part of our family, even if it’s not official yet. We know what that means.”

He knew she didn’t understand, not really, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. Those same beloved hands had made his suit, he remembered suddenly. They had dusted off the old sewing machine and stitched together his disguise. They had covered his chest with the shield of the house of El.

“You do what you think is best, and you know your father and I will support you one hundred percent.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” he said, almost to himself.

“I know, honey. But it’s time.”

They were not talking about the same thing, he knew, but he just nodded. “Thanks, Mom. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“You didn’t,” she said. She nodded in the direction of Clark’s bedroom. “It was your father’s snoring.”

He laughed softly. “Sorry. Can’t do anything about that.”

“It’s all right.” She winked at him and pushed back her chair “We women can forgive a lot in the men we love. Remember that, okay?”

“I hope you’re right, Mom.”

“Of course I am.” She ruffled his hair and bent down to kiss his forehead as if he were still five years old. “’Night, honey.”

“Goodnight,” he answered, watching as she went back to bed, her slippers making soft shuffling sounds against the floor. He should sleep, too, he realized, glancing at the clock. The night was half over, and he had yet to close his eyes. He left the glass on the table and switched out the one light he’d left on in the kitchen. As he was making his way to the sofa, his father’s snores ceased abruptly, a sudden silence falling over the apartment. Then he heard a muttered apology and his mother’s answering giggle in the darkness. It was a ritual he’d heard before, and it comforted him now. He snuggled into his sofa and let the sounds of his parents’ soft breathing lull him to sleep.

_________________________________

The next morning found him tired but still resolved as he stood before his astonished attorney and told her of his decision.

“You’re going to do what?” Constance Hunter stared at her famous client.

“Retire,” Superman said firmly. “Leave Metropolis. Leave...for good.”

He was pacing around her tiny, cluttered office, too keyed up to be still. He could hardly believe he was taking this first step toward freedom, but somehow, saying the words out loud to Constance Hunter had helped to make them real. He was retiring. He was leaving. It was really happening. He had talked to his mother, had slept on it for a few hours, and he had awakened with his mind unchanged: He owed this to Lois. He owed it to himself.

Constance watched him, apparently waiting for some sort of a punch line. “You’re gonna go home to Krypton, play a little golf, do a little fishing….”

Superman grinned. “Something like that.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Well, not about the golf,” he admitted. “But about leaving... yes.”

“These lawsuits….” She gestured at a pile of folders on her desk. “They’re not that big of a deal. I know what I said before, but after what happened with Calvin Dregg, we can probably get most of them dismissed.”

“Look who’s Ms. Confident all of a sudden.” Superman seated himself in the chair in front of her jumbled desk and smirked at his lawyer.

“Look who’s not,” she fired back. “What happened to wanting to help? What happened to knowing why you’re here? Silly me… I actually believed all that stuff.”

That wiped the smirk off of his face. “I did mean it. It’s just… things have changed, Ms. Hunter. I can’t do this anymore. It’s not about the lawsuits – those just made my decision a little easier. This is… personal.”

“Personal.”

“Very.”

She stared at him for the space of perhaps twenty seconds and then shrugged. “All right. I work for you, so if you say you’re retiring, you’re retiring. If you announce that you’re going to fly away in your spaceship, that should put an end to any lawsuits, but if it doesn’t, we’ll handle them and then you can go. Good enough?”

“Uh, no. Actually, I wanted to ask you about something else.” He passed her an envelope addressed to “The Superman Foundation” in the care of Murray Brown of the Galactic Talent Agency.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a bank statement. Murray Brown is my… representative, I guess you’d say. He handles all the merchandising of Superman products, and I’ve had him putting the profits into an account for charity. I haven’t actually done anything with it, though. I don’t know much about setting up a foundation.”

She opened the statement and her eyes widened as they tracked down the page. “Superman…this is a checking account.”

Superman frowned at her, confused. “Uh, yeah. In case I wanted to, you know, give some money away, a check seemed like the easiest way. Should I have done something else?”

“What, you mean like stuffing it in your mattress? A ceramic piggy bank, maybe? You have millions of dollars here! In a checking account that’s earning…” She skimmed down the page again. “Three percent interest.”

“Oh. I guess I should have invested it?”

She sighed. “You weren’t kidding when you said you didn’t understand greed, were you?”

“Not really, no. But now that I’m leaving, I want to get the foundation set up properly. Don’t you see, it’s a way I can go on helping without having to…”

“Fly around and save people?”

“Well… I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. But, yeah.”

“Listen, I definitely think you should get your foundation organized and do something worthwhile with this money, if you don’t want it yourself. But the thing is… anyone can do that. Even I can do that. You’re the only one who can fly through the ceiling with a briefcase full of C-12 and save a courtroom full of people.”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Ms. Hunter, but my mind is made up about that. Superman is leaving. But the other thing you said… about you being able to run a foundation.” He gave her a hopeful look. “Did you mean that?”

Her eyes widened behind her glasses, giving her an owlish look. “Are you offering me a job?”

“You don’t seem to want to be a trial lawyer, and I could use someone with a legal background, someone who could protect Superman’s image and uphold his values. I think you’d be perfect to run my foundation.”

She cocked her head at him. “Do you often talk about yourself in the third person?”

Superman froze momentarily and then forced himself to relax. “In this context, it’s appropriate. I’m not talking about me as a person, here. To most people, I’m not a person at all.”

“Because of the alien thing, you mean? Because I don’t think….”

“No.” He smiled to relieve her obvious discomfort. “No, not because of that. Because I just don’t seem real to them. Superman is an icon… larger than life. He’s not the guy you ate bagels with last week, is he?”

She nodded. “Okay, I guess I see your point.”

“You know, no one else has ever told Superman to bring the bagels before. One of the reasons I’m asking you to do this is that from the first time I set foot in your office, you seemed to see me as a real person. I need someone heading up the Superman Foundation who can represent the image but still understands that there’s a real man behind it. Does that make sense?

“Yeah,” she said slowly, “I guess it does.” She looked at him again in a way that made him want to squirm like an errant schoolboy. “You’re not going back to Krypton, are you?”

He reminded himself that Superman did not squirm. “Is this conversation privileged?”

“Of course.”

“Then, no.” He shook his head slowly. “I know it sounds selfish, but I don’t want to be the icon anymore. I’ve promised someone the real man. This is the only way I know of to keep that promise.”

Constance gave him a wry smile. “She must be something special.”

“She’s the most incredible woman in the world,” he said softly.

“Does she know what you’re giving up for her?” Constance’s eyes seemed to pin him to his seat, and there was a part of him that resented it – that wondered just who she thought she was to be questioning him this way – but he knew that the fact that she wasn’t intimidated by him was part of the reason he’d gone to her in the first place.

“I... I don’t think of it as giving something up. I’m making a change. A change that will make both of our lives better, I think.” He glanced at Constance Hunter and saw that she was still giving him that same, steady look. “No, she doesn’t know. She will one day, though.”

And he was smart enough to be dreading that day already, but it was none of Constance Hunter’s business, and he had no intention of discussing it with her any further. She nodded, seeming to accept that.

“Well, then.” She tucked the bank statement back into its envelope. “Let me think about the job offer, but even if I don’t take it, I can still get you started in the right direction – especially now that I know you can pay me.” She flashed him a quick smile. “Let me call this Murray Brown and hire an accountant to go over the financial end of things, and I’ll go ahead and start pulling the paperwork together to apply for 501(c)(3) status. You need to be thinking of a list of potential board members. I’d like to start with at least eight.”

“What will these board members need to do?”

“In the beginning, we’ll probably want them to be instrumental in setting up the foundation – determining our mission, in accordance with your wishes, of course, approving the articles of incorporation, adopting bylaws, establishing a staff – all that sort of thing. Later, they’ll probably only meet a few times a year to make decisions about investments and to award grants. We can work out of my office at first, but we’ll probably eventually need to lease something larger, and the board would have to approve those kinds of decisions as well. Here….” She rummaged through a drawer and tossed him a Chamber of Commerce directory. “This might give you some ideas of who the movers and the shakers here in Metropolis are… unless you already have a board in mind?”

“Not a whole board, no, but I’d like to ask Bill Henderson with the Metropolis PD.” He paused as she jotted down the name. “Mike Lane… he’s a small business owner on the South side. Clark Kent with the Daily Planet. And Judge Angela Diggs. She threw me in jail once.”

“I remember. Kind of an odd way to recommend herself, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “She was just doing her job. I liked her.”

“I like her, too. OK, we’ve got a police inspector, a small businessman, a reporter and a judge. It’d be good if we could come up with someone from one of the big manufacturing companies over by the river, and maybe someone from over at Met U, especially if you think you’ll be making educational grants.”

“Definitely, but I don’t really know any of the faculty over there. There’s John West in the physics department,” he said thoughtfully. “I interv…ened in uh, a situation he was involved in once, but I don’t really know him.”

Clark tensed at his near slip-up, but Constance only gave him a slightly confused look. “OK, well, maybe we’ll keep working on that one. Let me ask around.” She made another note. “We should probably try to get at least one more woman. We want the board to be as diverse as possible.”

“What about you?”

“If I take this job, I’ll work for the board, so I won’t be on it. But if I don’t take the job, I’ll be happy to sit on the board.”

“I really hope you’ll do this, Ms. Hunter,” he said earnestly. “It would mean so much to me to know I’d left all of this in good hands.”

“I’ve never thought about running a foundation, but I have to admit, your offer is appealing. I like the idea of being involved in something so positive. When do you plan to announce your retirement?”

“I’m calling a press conference on Friday morning. Not looking forward to it much, but…” he shrugged.

“Friday’s soon,” she said, looking troubled. “We’ll need you involved in establishing the mission of the foundation, but we won’t have time to do much more than make initial contact with these potential board members before Friday.”

“You don’t need me for that. I’m going to ask my friend Clark Kent to help you with the mission of the foundation. Clark knows me, knows my values. He can speak for me.”

“You must really trust him. This is a lot of money…your legacy.”

He smiled. “I do trust him, and you can, too. If you need anything, call Clark.”

She took a deep breath. “OK, then. I’ll look forward to meeting him.”

“Thank you, Ms. Hunter.” He stood and offered his hand, and she shook it, looking slightly dazed. Superman smiled as he said his goodbyes and then whistled on his way out of the office. He ducked into a nearby restroom and spun into Clark Kent, taking a moment to straighten his tie before heading back to the office - back to Lois.

But there had been a moment there in that restroom when he had thought about how many times he had spun in and out of that suit. How many places he had ducked into as Clark Kent and dashed out of as Superman, and vice versa. For just a moment, he felt a whisper of... something. It wasn’t quite regret. He wasn’t sure what it was. But it hit him as he spun out of that suit that he’d just set something in motion – something momentous that would change his life, and Lois’s, and perhaps even the course of history. He had thought of all that before, of course – had stayed up half the night thinking about it – but it hadn’t seemed real until he’d spun out of that red and blue suit and realized that he might only do that a few more times, and then never again. It didn’t feel like a death – not in the same way that packing up Clark Kent had – but it felt like an ending.

But it was a beginning, too, he reminded himself, as he exited the building and turned toward the Daily Planet. Not only was he beginning something with Lois, but he had just taken the first steps toward forming a foundation that would continue Superman’s work long after he was gone. His life would be different without the suit, but it would be a change for the better. The world would be different without Superman in the skies and on the streets, but it had gotten along without Superman before, and it could do it again. In the meantime, Clark Kent would help where he could – surreptitiously with his powers, sometimes, and always with his pen and his partner.

It would be enough, he told himself firmly, and then he turned his attention to his date with Lois that night.