ToC - for previous parts.
Waking a Miracle -- (04/??)
Clark stepped off the elevator and allowed himself a long,
deep pause. Putting a hand on the railing over the bullpen,
he overlooked the bustle below. The newsroom of the Daily
Planet seemed wholly different now that he was officially a
part of it, rather than a vagabond passing through, and he
wanted to take a moment to absorb it all.
A deep inhalation brought him the sharp scent of already
cooling coffee wafting over from the nearby drink station.
There was a dull electrical whir of computers and other
electric equipment drifting around on the air, over scored
with random staccatos of telephones, typing, voices, and
television sets. A copy boy pushed past him, apologizing as
he ran down the ramp, but Clark was looking elsewhere and
barely noticed getting hit in the first place.
He had spotted Lois at her desk down below. She was typing
something up, sipping at her coffee, unaware she was being
watched. She paused to stretch and then went back to her
task.
Dedicated, he thought.
"Olsen!" Mr. White poked his head out of his office, his
voice rumbling through the air. Most people in the newsroom
seemed to duck their heads further into or behind whatever
they were working on when they identified the source of the
yell, but Lois seemed unperturbed.
Clark turned his gaze and squinted, resisting the small urge
to pull down his glasses and zoom in on Mr. White. There
was something bundled in his hands that Clark couldn't
really identify. It looked like a horn... But...
"Olsen!" Mr. White repeated. "I asked for this to be
fixed!" A horrific sound emanated from the thing as Mr.
White raised it and squeezed the round end. "This sounds
like a stampeding whoopee cushion, not a golf cart horn!"
"Coming, Chief," came a groan from elsewhere in the pit.
Clark saw the boy who had motioned Lois out of the office
yesterday pop up near one of the Xerox machines in the
corner, shoulders slumped and a small frown on his face. He
ran a hand through his short hair and headed towards Mr.
White to grab the offending item.
Lois still hadn't even looked up from whatever she was
doing, engrossed and either unaware or in possession of good
focusing skills. Her coffee mug went up to her lips
again.
Centered, too.
Clark smiled and walked down the ramp, across the pit, and
to Mr. White's door. He knocked lightly.
"Don't come back til that's fixed!" Mr. White's voice
filtered through the glass, somewhat muffled. Clark peered
through the cracks in the blinds and saw that the editor was
sitting behind his desk, pouring over some copy with a fat
red pen. A desk lamp cast a harsh glow on the sheet of
paper and on Mr. White's face. In the light, dozens of
markings screamed upwards like flames from the edited piece
of copy.
Clark opened the door after some hesitation and poked his
head in. "It's Clark Kent, sir. You asked me to be in at
eight-thirty today."
"Oh, Kent." Mr. White's tone was apologetic as he looked
up. "Well, I just sent Jimmy to fix that damned horn so
your intended tour guide is tied up. Oh, and call me Perry,
or Chief if you have to. Mr. White makes me think of the
suits upstairs. Let me see, who could...?" The rest
trailed off in a mumble as the editor thought to himself.
He got up from his chair and Clark took care to step aside
as he ambled to the door.
The fat editing pen nearly rolled off Mr. White's desk, but
it caught on the lamp. Clark traced its movement with his
eyes.
"Lois!" Mr. White yelled in a similar tone to the one he had
just used for... Jimmy? Olsen. The shocking volume made
Clark wince -- it sounded like a jackhammer to his head at
this distance, but it did seem to get the job done.
Clark turned to glance beyond Mr. White's shoulder. Lois
looked up and stood, unmoved by the editor's terrorizing
intonations beyond what appeared to be simple curiosity.
"What's up, Chief?" she asked as she walked up a few seconds
later.
Bold.
Mr. White pointed back to his office with a tilt of his
head. Clark backed up a bit and all three of them shuffled
in to the editor's office. Lois flicked her gaze to Clark
as she walked past, and Clark felt his heart jump a bit.
"Well?" she asked.
Mr. White, no... *Perry*, Clark reminded himself, turned to
him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Clark, you just go
with Lois for today while I figure out what desk to put you
at. Have her show you around and then you can shadow her to
start learning the ropes. You two remember each other from
yesterday, right?" He didn't really give them a chance to
answer. "Good."
The speech was so quick Clark almost thought it seemed like
Mr. White was trying to avoid talking with him, but it was
Lois that the editor was ticking his gaze to every other
word.
"Yes, thank you, sir. I mean Chief," Clark said.
"What?!" Lois snapped at nearly the same time. Things began
to sink in. "But, Chief!" Her arms folded over her chest
and she looked decidedly more hostile than curious.
Clark grinned. It seemed the Chief hadn't been trying to
avoid talking with him, but rather with her. He watched the
editor bolster up his posture as if he were preparing for
physical blows.
Argumentative.
"Lois," Perry sighed. "You told me yesterday that the
Messenger story was a dud."
Lois's eyes grew wider. "But the Thompson story--"
"--Hasn't got a leg to stand on until you locate more than
hearsay," the Chief finished for her, his tone low and his
pronunciation slightly elongated.
Lois flushed a bit and threw up her hands, starting to pace
a bit. "Which I can't do if I'm giving office tours!"
The papers on Perry's desk let loose a shrill ring.
Growling, the editor rushed over to his desk started moving
aside documents trying to find the phone. The red pen which
had so precariously hung on to the desk cascaded to the
floor as papers shifted back and forth. "Lois," Perry
grumbled, "I really don't have time for this. Take Clark
around for the day. Hell, maybe he can help you with the
Thompson thing."
The Chief finally found what he was looking for and lifted
the phone off the hook. He held the receiver to his chest
with one hand and with the other used the butt of the phone
to corral Clark and Lois out.
Exiled to the bullpen, Lois turned a one-eighty and raised a
hand of protest. "But--" she growled, only to be met with
the door closing in her face. She reached for the doorknob
and turned it, her body lunging forward as if she planned to
charge back in, but Perry had planned for that.
The doorknob didn't budge, and she almost slammed into the
door before she stopped her momentum. Clark, through the
slits in the blinds, could see Perry chatting on the phone
with his back turned to them.
Lois cursed up a streak, ending the sentence with an
"arrrgh!" for good measure. Quiet for a moment, she stood
there trying to catch her breath. The pink in her cheeks
and ears receded, but her eyes narrowed dangerously when she
looked over at him.
Gorgeous.
"What are you smiling at?" she snapped.
Clark held his hands up and shook his head, indicating he
hadn't meant to provoke her. Gorgeous, yes, but she was
definitely *not* happy. He heard some very quiet chuckles
far back in the bullpen that Lois was most likely unable to
hear. Everyone closer to their position was making an extra
special effort to appear busy and inattentive to a one Lois
Lane. This was apparently not an unusual occurrence.
She looked at him for a long moment, either oblivious of the
inattentive attention she was receiving from the bullpen, or
not caring. She then spun on her feet with her index finger
outstretched, rotating through all the points of interest
with a speed that he hadn't thought even he was capable of.
Air buffeted him as she whirled around. "There's the
copiers, there's the televisions, conference rooms are over
there, bathrooms up that way, locker rooms are down a floor
along with the mailboxes -- I'm assuming you're smart enough
to know how to use the elevator."
He opened his mouth to thank her but she was already gone
when he looked back at where she had been standing, and he
stood there with his hand outstretched and mouth gaping for
several moments before he caught up with the situation. He
closed his mouth and looked around. The click of her heels
on the tiles of the floor allowed him to follow her trail
back to her desk, but when he arrived she was already
sitting and working again, sipping coffee as if nothing had
happened.
He faced the front of her desk for several moments. She
didn't look up.
He took the moment to examine her working area more closely.
It was fairly organized on the writing surface -- a bent and
torn notepad that seemed veritably ready to burst with
scribbles sat to the left of her keyboard, a stapler here,
tape roll there, rolodex next to her monitor, and a small
dying plant in the corner, but the rest was a mess of
article pinups and tape. Headlines screamed back at him:
Miracle Man Saves Air France Flight 402. Miracle Man Averts
Oil Spill. Spree of Alleged Arsons Rocks Metropolis --
Miracle Man Saves the Day. And more. Dozens more.
Obsessed?
He blinked. Lois was still 'not noticing' him.
"Ah," he cleared his throat, suddenly at a complete loss
about what to say. He felt heat cross his face as he
imagined himself a lone flagpole in a parking lot of working
people, and more pointedly, *sitting* people.
"Ms. Lane?" he hazarded as he glanced around.
The clackity-clack of her typing stopped and she finally
looked up. Her eyes flashed like fire and an eruption was
imminent.
"Let's get something straight," she began. "I didn't work
my butt off to become an investigative reporter for the
Daily Planet just to baby-sit some hack from Nowheresville."
Courageous.
He opened his mouth to respond but she cut him off. "And
another thing. You're not working with me, you're working
*for* me. I call the shots. I ask the questions. You're
low man. I'm top banana. That's the way I like it.
Comprende?"
"You like to be on top," he grinned. "Got it."
Something about her... If it had been any other person on
the planet he probably would have found himself annoyed at
the rudeness, but with Lois Lane, it just made her seem more
wonderful, and he had no earthly idea why... His
observation earlier that she was domineering seemed to
short-change what she was in actuality. In *actuality*, she
had airs worthy of a goddess.
Snobby.
She sneered at him, not amused. "Don't push me, Kent. You
are *way* out of your league."
Well, that was certainly true.
And yet, even with the voice chipping in, he didn't feel
appropriately debunked. He felt... happy. At least he
managed to stop the stupid grin that was spreading across
his face to keep her from snapping at him again.
Silence ticked away until the clackity-clack of Lois's
typing began once again. He looked around the news room for
a while until it became painfully obvious she didn't intend
to engage him in conversation any time soon. "So what's
with all the Miracle Man memorabilia?" he hedged, hoping to
regain conversational footing.
"My Pulitzer, if I ever figure out where he went." She
didn't stop typing, nor did she look up from her screen, but
she apparently saw his mouth open. "And no, you can't help.
He's *mine*."
With such vehemence, he had no doubt of her sincerity on
that topic. She had sounded downright possessive.
Dedicated. Insecure.
"I wasn't going to ask that."
That gave her pause. It almost seemed to him as if she
expected him to try and horn in on her work. "Oh," she
replied, her voice quiet.
"I was going to ask what this curiosity about Thompson was?"
"A contact called me the other day and told me there might
be a connection between Miracle Man's disappearance and him,
among other things."
Clark shook his head. "That's impossible."
He remembered vividly the tortures that had been exacted
upon him, the face that laughed at him each time he was
forced to fall. It was a wholly different visage than
George Thompson, whose was old, thin, and angular. No...
Trask was younger, heavier, and rounder, and it had *always*
been him. That, he was sure of.
He closed his eyes a moment, but it seemed as if the image
of his tormentor was burned on the undersides of his
eyelids.
"How would you know?" Lois's eyebrows raised in inquiry and
she finally stopped typing. Her chair creaked as she leaned
back in it.
"Because..." Clark fought for an explanation. "Well..."
Grasping at straws. He should have known better than to
interject statements like that that were based entirely off
his first-hand experience. "If this man was so miraculous
what could an ordinary human have to do with his
disappearance?"
He knew it sounded a bit lame, but what else could he say?
Miracle Man disappeared because he's a big flaming coward?
Because Jason Trask acted out one threat too many? He
doubted he could have explained either with any level of
ease, even if she had known who he really was.
You're quite possibly the strongest man in the world,
rumored unkillable, and you let a human bully you?
Coward...
"Well that would be the point of me investigating it," her
voice dropped in pitch and she spoke slowly as if she were
catering to an idiot. "To find that out."
He swatted the voice away before the queasiness began.
"What makes you so sure Thompson's a bad apple?"
He mentally ticked off confident as well.
"What makes you so sure he isn't?"
"Not every politician is corrupt, Lois."
The last word had slipped out unintentionally. He hoped she
didn't mind that he'd called her by her first name,
especially since she seemed to be distancing from him as
much as possible, but she didn't appear to notice.
"I'll bet you this one is." The conviction in her tone was
stronger than steel. One look at her face told him that
strength extended outward into every part of her. He felt a
buzzing heat of admiration set down upon him and he sighed.
If only he were able to stand up to the world the way she
seemed to want to. But even so, he hadn't meant to light
this particular spark -- enthralling though it was to watch
it burn.
"Lois," he tested again. He was delighted to see she
genuinely didn't seem to care. "I wasn't trying to make
this a competition."
His words only seemed to kick start her further. Her chair
shot backward and she was on her feet. "JIMMY!" she
shouted. "Get me all the stuff you can on George Thompson
and a Bureau 39."
"On it," came a mumble from somewhere off to the right,
followed by the strange blurping moan of the horn Perry had
spotlighted earlier. Clark could hear whispered curses from
Jimmy as he peered back at Lois.
"Lois--"
She held up her right index finger to her lips. "Shhh--
Hello, my name is Lois Lane, I'd like to set up an interview
with Antoinette Baines about the Messenger malfunctions.
Yes thanks, I'll hold."
When she turned he saw the phone clasped in her other hand.
How this woman moved between tasks so fast was beyond him.
Driven. His list of adjectives was growing so long he
feared he'd end up with a dictionary soon.
She hazarded a glance his way. "Might as well formally
finish this story so I can move on," she explained.
"Mind if I pull up a chair?"
"Just don't get in the way."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Good because-- yes thanks. What time is good for you?"
Had he mentioned thrilling in his list yet?
He sat down and watched her as she chatted into the phone,
her voice mesmerizing him into a dull, relaxed state. All
in all, today was a pretty good start, he supposed.
*****
TBC...
(End Part 04/??)
