Again, Lois was the one to break the silence.
“You can't be Superman. You're injured,” she pointed out sceptically.
“Remember the green rock?” he reminded her.
“Kryptonite? It's real?”
“Yes, it's real. Trask was right about one thing. It does exist, and it does hurt me. It... drains my powers, and then I'm just as vulnerable as anyone else.”
“But this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you injured,” she commented scornfully. “Then there were your allergies in Smallville, and that was before we even knew Trask was there.”
“That was the first time I was exposed to it. Wayne Irig found it… he broke a piece off and sent it to the lab to be tested. The rest of it, he gave to my dad for safe keeping. We’d never seen it before, didn’t know what it was. Dad opened the box he had it in, and I collapsed. It took two days to get my powers back.”
“I don't believe it,” she stated baldly.
***
No, she didn’t believe it for one second.
No way was Clark- Clark Kent, the hack from Nowheresville- capable of pulling the wool over the eyes of the entire world.
Especially not her.
Not for this long.
Not her. She was willing to bet she’d spent more time with Clark in the year since Superman arrived in Metropolis than anyone on the planet.
She would’ve known.
So why tell such an obvious falsehood? What did he have to gain from pretending to be Superman? Would he step it back now that she’d called him on his lie? The fact that he’d lied at all annoyed her. He was supposed to be Superman’s friend; did he know what Clark was doing?
***
She didn’t believe him.
He’d just offered her the biggest scoop of her career- and she didn’t believe him.
Despite himself, Clark was amused by the situation. He began to chuckle, a reaction that was met with bemusement by the other four people in the room. Gaining a modicum of control over himself, he explained. “I'm sorry. It's just... I've spent my whole life being afraid that someone would find out about me, and then I actually tell someone and you don't believe me.”
The paroxysm of mirth departed as quickly as it came. More soberly, he continued. “If only everyone else's reaction was the same, I might be okay.”
He thought quickly. Without his powers, there was no way he could prove his identity with a demonstration of ability, but...
“I can prove it.” He focussed his attention on Lois, knowing that she would be the hardest to convince. Jimmy was more inclined to take things at face value; Jack had already known, or at least suspected, before this anyway. Perry was one of the most hard-headed newspapermen he’d ever met, but Lois had the dual problems of being furious with Clark and almost worshipful of Superman- both of which he’d have to get past if she was to believe him.
“How?” she challenged.
“Remember the earthquake in your dad’s office? Jimmy tried to tell you that there’d been no earthquake, and he was right. If you check with the Geological Service, you’ll see. Mencken and Tommy Garrison were heading right for the office and I had to create a diversion. There are other things too. How did Superman know exactly which one was your desk, the morning after the colonists' launch? How did I get free of the chains when Toni Baines tried to kill us? Why was I the only one that could hear Jimmy’s signal watch? Jimmy couldn’t hear it. Cat couldn’t hear it and she had it up to her ear!”
Clark saw the first flickers of uncertainty cross Lois’s face and pressed on. “The two days that Superman was missing after he tried to deal with the Nightfall asteroid? It was because of the amnesia. I didn’t remember that I was Superman. Then there was the heatwave… I had to leave. If I’d given up Superman, if I’d stayed in Metropolis as just Clark Kent, eventually I would’ve slipped. I would’ve used my powers to help someone.” He sighed, remembering those few days when he’d been convinced that he was the cause of the unseasonable heat.
“Do you want me to go on?”
“No,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. Clark let out a silent sigh of relief. If she believed him about Superman, he might have a shot of convincing her about Luthor- and he needed her help if he was to have any chance of bringing Luthor down.
***
Clark was Superman.
*Clark* was Superman.
It couldn’t be true… and yet it had to be.
He’d lied to her.
Lied to her, made her think he was two people, let her follow him around and drool over him, fantasise about him…
Oh god. She’d been fantasising about *Clark*. She felt her lip curl in distaste even as the blood ran to her cheeks at the memory of some of those fantasies.
All this time she’d been holding Superman up as the ideal man, putting him on a pedestal, and he’d been deceiving her. Letting her make a fool of herself over him. Probably laughing at her behind her back.
Scooping her- by writing about himself!
The scowl on her face deepened. Liar, fake, fraud, cheater… the list went on as her fury grew. A hundred different memories assaulted her. His disappearances, flimsy excuses, things that she’d told Superman in confidence…
He’d betrayed her.
He was no better than any other man she’d ever known. Paul, Claude, her father… their betrayals all paled in comparison to this.
***
Jimmy shot Lois a look. How could she possibly be angry about this? CK was Superman? That was so cool!
“I believe you, CK!”
Clark- Superman? No, Clark, turned his head and gave him a tired looking grin, and for a moment Jimmy could see the old carefree CK again. Then his friend turned back to Lois and the frown settled back across his face.
“Do you believe me now?”
***
“I don’t know what to believe any more,” Lois snapped back at him.
"I knew I was right," Jack put in. "I've known since the night we were taken hostage." He shot Lois a mocking, condescending look. "I thought you were supposed to be the hotshot investigator, Lois. How come you couldn't figure it out?"
Clark groaned inwardly. Jack infuriating Lois even further was the last thing he needed right now, and with his usual unerring aim, he’d struck right for the sorest spot possible- Lois’s investigative skills.
“Not now, Jack.” Clark tried to quell the younger man before Lois’s fury could reach incandescent rage, but it wasn’t enough.
“You think you’re so much better than the rest of us, so why couldn’t you work it out, huh? Losing your touch?” the young copyboy taunted.
“That’s enough, Jack!” Perry came to his feet, the fiercest scowl Clark had yet seen on the editor’s face. The gopher leant back in his chair, silenced but unrepentant.
Lois spared him a scorching, withering glance before turning her attention back to Clark.
“So, who is it?” she burst out scathingly. “Who is it that you’re accusing? That you *say* has been attacking you?”
“Lois…”
“No, I want to know. Who is it that managed to get a hold of this rock that only *you* has ever seen? Well?”
“I’m sorry, Lois.” And he was; she was furious with him and he with her, but she was still someone he cared about. She cared about Luthor, that much was obvious; this next revelation could only cause her pain.
“It’s Lex Luthor.”
Her eyes flashed. “You’re wrong,” she spat back.
“No, I’m not,” he replied firmly. “He came to my apartment with a piece of Kryptonite… he could’ve killed me that night. Instead, he had his thugs…” he trailed off, the memory of his few bouts with Luthor’s band of flunkies and the helplessness they engendered still raw.
“When was that?” The question came from Jimmy, and the belief in his tone was like a balm after Lois’s determined rejection of his revelations.
“The night before the crane collapsed. It’s happened three times since then.”
Lois made a scoffing noise.
“And you expect us to believe that?”
“Lois…”
“You just admitted that you lied to us! That you’ve been lying to us for a year! How do we know you’re not lying to us now?”
He stood up, ready to defend himself verbally as he hadn’t been able to defend himself physically from Luthor’s attacks.
“Yes, I lied to you. I lied to the whole damn world! To protect my family and let me live a normal life, that’s all! And I've been trying to tell you all of this for weeks now if you'd only deigned to listen to me for ten minutes! But you've been too blinded by whatever it is you feel for-
“I thought you wanted me to be blind,” she shot back. “Or is that only to *your* lies?”
“Lois, I-“
She cut him off.
“No. You come in here, tell us that you've been lying to us, and then just expect us to help you tear down a man that's only ever done good for Metropolis- purely because *you* say he's been doing these things?”
“ENOUGH!” Clark thundered, unaware that he was fixing Lois with the glare he usually reserved for criminals. “I've been your boyfriend’s personal punching bag for weeks; I am not going to be yours too!”
“Sounds to me like you're no better than what you say Lex is.” Lois put in, determined to get the last word.
He drew himself up, ignoring the shaft of pain that resonated through his shoulder, goaded to rage by being compared to an evil monster like Lex Luthor.
“If that's how you feel, there’s no reason for you to be here,” he snapped coldly.
Aware that she’d crossed the line, Lois looked around the table for support. Encountering only hostile eyes, she got to her feet and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
