"Superman is having who you are taken from you and given away to someone else, yet still retaining your gentle grace. Superman is supporting someone you could so easily resent or envy and selflessly teaching them how to take your place. Superman is refusing to be embarrassed at a lack of power while still doing what you must to ensure that justice prevails. Superman is stopping a mugging with powers or without, protecting someone else's life even at the cost of your own, and persevering even when I'm sure you felt too tired or weak or, I don't know, *human* to keep going. *You* are Superman, Clark Kent, and I don't think that has ever been illustrated so clearly to me."

She had hurt him, though, Lois knew. She had seen it, no matter how he had sought to hide it. Unused to the powers that had so briefly infused her body, she had seen him hide a wince from the clasp of her hand in his or the tap of her palm against his chest or the caress of her fingers against his cheek; she had seen him bleed when her temper had gotten the best of her and his powers.

In fact, it was only since Clark that she even *realized* there was anything to life besides work.

...She was also struck anew by how desperately Clark protected his secret identity. It had probably never occurred to him to call her to his side, not even when the timer was only seconds from frying him. Not if the cost would be the end of her private, *normal* life.

But then, he was used to lying about his alter ego; it was, in Lois's experience, the only thing he ever lied about-or at least lied *convincingly* about.

She hadn't needed to know he was Superman to know he was a hero.

But now she knew, firsthand, just exactly how *not*-normal he was. And she knew that anyone with his powers could be a hero. And she knew that without those powers, he was nothing exceptional.

Clark couldn't quite convince himself that his vibrant Lois would be happy to return to the deaf, blind, slow, and feeble world of normality.

A gust of superbreath knocked the two criminals to the ground, well away from Lois; a flash of heat-vision caused them to drop their weapons before they could land on them and damage themselves; a burst of superspeed saw both of the criminals bound together with a length of rusted pole that had previously been leaning against a garbage dumpster.

"No, Clark, they couldn't." Lois's voice was filled with such assurance that Clark couldn't help but meet her eyes. "Superman is more than a distracting Suit and some extraterrestrial powers. He's more than saving people from mudslides or bombs on planes, more even than taking down greedy robbers with a stash of red Kryptonite and a knowledge of lasers." She reached up to cradle his face between her hands. "Superman is having who you are taken from you and given away to someone else, yet still retaining your gentle grace. Superman is supporting someone you could so easily resent or envy and selflessly teaching them how to take your place. Superman is refusing to be embarrassed at a lack of power while still doing what you must to ensure that justice prevails. Superman is stopping a mugging with powers or without, protecting someone else's life even at the cost of your own, and persevering even when I'm sure you felt too tired or weak or, I don't know, *human* to keep going. *You* are Superman, Clark Kent, and I don't think that has ever been illustrated so clearly to me."