Mazollo handed Clark a surgical gown to put over his clothes then sat him in the rocking chair. The baby still had several monitors attached to her and Mazollo took care not to disturb them as she handed her tiny charge to over to him.
“She’s quite a fighter,” Mazollo commented.
“Yeah, she is… Do you have any idea what made her sick like that?” Clark asked.
Mazollo shrugged. “As far as I know the lab hasn’t come up with anything aside from it being a virus of some kind, but sometimes it takes them a while. But that medicine Superman brought for her seems to have done the trick. Plus having him here… I don’t remember reading anything about him being able to do that.”
“I’m sure it’s something he just found out,” Clark told her. “I’m also sure it’s something he’d rather not have spread around.”
“He did say it didn’t always work,” Mazollo admitted. “Maybe it’s better not to get people’s hopes up… He must be a pretty good friend of yours then, to risk letting people know about it.”
“Yeah, I guess he is,” Clark admitted slowly. “My partner and I do a lot of writing about him and we’re pretty good at getting interviews out of him.”
“Your partner?”
“Lois Lane, Daily Planet?” Clark explained. “She’s my writing partner.”
Mazollo checked the clock on the wall as another nurse walked in. “Shift change. I’ve got to brief the next shift.”
“Look, please don’t mention him being here.”
“I won’t,” she promised then headed toward the newcomers.
Clark settled back to watch the small being in his arms. He hadn’t really studied her very closely before. Her eyes were dark and almond shaped. Her hair was also dark and straight. She was so small. He hadn’t really noticed how small she was earlier.
“Hello Esperanza,” he said. She seemed to try to focus on his face, her mouth making a little ‘O’.
“You’ve had a pretty rough time of it. First your mom dies then you get sick,” he continued softly. “But everything’s gonna be okay now. You’re gonna like it here. There’s all sorts of people, and there’s green grass and trees and blue sky and cities and forests and farms. I don’t know if you’re going to grow up to be super, but you have a big brother named Jason… He’s all excited about being a big brother, too. You have a grandma in Kansas, even though she’s moving to Montana pretty soon… Last week she thought she’d never see any grandbabies and now she has two…”
The ID band Marzollo had put on his wrist caught on the blanket and he peered at it in bemusement. ‘Kent, Clark.’ It matched the ID band around Esperanza’s ankle, identifying him as her parent. “And I guess I’m your daddy. At least that’s Lois has decided. We certainly couldn’t leave you there. I’ve never been anybody’s daddy before, so we’re going to have to work through this together…”
He watched the new shift of nurses go through their paces, checking on their charges, wheeling some of them out to their mothers. Soon he was going to have to give Esperanza back to the nursery nurses and get to work. He had only been back at the Daily Planet for a week and wasn't qualified to take parental leave yet and he couldn’t afford to take time off without pay, especially since he’d only been back to work a week.
“We’ll get this figured out,” he promised. She yawned.
The door to the main nursery opened and a stocky man with curly brown hair and glasses walked in accompanied by a shorter man with close-cropped hair and flat, cold eyes. Both were wearing white orderly uniforms. The short man was reading something off of what looked like a PDA. The taller man appeared annoyed at whatever the short man was saying.
There was something familiar about the taller man and Clark watched him, trying to identify him. The taller man spoke to one of the nurses who shook her head, then nodded toward the intensive care nursery. The men started toward the glass door and the nurse stepped in front of them. The shorter man shoved her aside and Clark realized he had a gun tucked into his waistband. Clark had also placed the taller man – Lex Luthor.
Clark felt a frisson of fear run down his back as his heart sped up. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to fight down the panic he felt rising. Panic would do no one any good.
Luthor opened the door and walked in, his eyes flicking over the small room, the equipment, and finally to Clark holding Esperanza. Clark was reminded of a snake, its tongue flicking about as it tasted the air.
“Where’s the flying freak?” Luthor demanded.
“I beg your pardon?” Clark stammered out. That was the last question he’d expected to hear out of Luthor.
“Superman,” Luthor hissed. “He was here. Where is he?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clark managed to get out. Esperanza was starting to fuss, her tiny face screwing up in distress or pain. “Superman hasn’t been here. I saw a Superman impersonator, but not Superman.”
Luthor took a step forward and Clark felt burning in the wound on his back and in his joints and temples. Kryptonite. The baby began to scream and Clark was sure it was pain. He put her up to his shoulder, carefully supporting her head as he patted her back and cooed in attempt to calm her, even a little bit.
“Shut the brat up!” the shorter man yelled.
“And what do you suggest?” Clark yelled back. “I don’t know where the hell Superman is and my daughter is sick. So kindly get the hell out of here and leave me alone. I can’t help you.”
“Can’t or won’t, Kent?” Luthor asked, stepping closer. The pain in Clark’s head and joints got worse, but he realized it wasn't so bad that he couldn’t stand. With any luck Luthor wouldn’t notice his discomfort or would attribute it to the baby’s wails.
“Can’t,” Clark stated as firmly as he could.
“I think you’re wrong,” Luthor said taking the PDA device from the shorter man. The other man grabbed Clark’s arm and he felt the muzzle of a gun in his side. “Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You come along quietly and I keep my associate here from shooting this place up.” Luthor made a show of looking around the small room. “I don’t think this equipment would take kindly to bullets. Neither would the bassinets.”
“You are a monstrous, sick old man, Luthor,” Clark said, trying to keep his voice from shaking.
Luthor chuckled. “So I’ve been told.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Come on. And bring your brat with you.”
With a sigh of resignation, Clark shrugged away from the hand of Luthor’s ‘associate’ and removed the various sensors from the baby’s body. He wrapped her in the blanket, hoping it would be enough. Then he followed Luthor out of the inner room and then out of the neonate nursery to the elevators.
“You know the police are probably already downstairs, don’t you?” Clark told them.
The doors to one of the elevators slid open and Luthor ushered Clark through, flowing at his heels. Clark went to the far back of the elevator car, leaning against the back wall. The feeling of weakness wasn't as bad as usual from kryptonite poisoning and he wondered a little at that, although he did feel beads of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead and back.
Luthor nodded to his associate, who pushed the stop button on the elevator control panel then pulled a multi-tool out of his pocket along with another, different, PDA looking device. He opened the panel and spent a few moments clipping wires and splicing them together before running wires to the PDA. He tapped a series of instructions into the device and the elevator began moving up.
“Wonderful, all this technology,” the associate said. “The more complex the system, the easier it is to break.”
Luthor turned to Clark. “Of course the police are downstairs. But we’re not going down, are we?”
“What do you want, Luthor?”
“What I’ve always wanted,” Luthor said blandly. “Superman out of the way. He cost me five years of my life. Five years I spent in a hellhole.” Luthor’s voice had gone distant, as though he was repeating something he’d memorized.
“And you cost him more than five years of his,” Clark stated quietly. “I’d say you were even.”
“You’re not the one saying, are you,” Luthor spat. “Superman was at the hospital for whatever reason. And now he’ll come to me.”
“As far as I’m aware, the last time anyone saw Superman was at the refinery fire last night,” Clark told him.
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Luthor stated. “That little black box my friend has detects alpha waves. Not the normal low-level ones from humans, but the ones Superman’s muscle-bound brain puts out while he’s flying or doing ‘super’ things. The little black box says Superman was flying around last night. After he was exposed to a little surprise I left for him at the refinery.”
“What sort of surprise?” Clark asked as the elevator doors opened onto the small glass enclosed lobby that looked out onto the roof helipad. There was a helicopter sitting there, rotors lazily turning. The side door was open and Clark could see a woman in a white uniform sitting beside the door – Kitty Kowalski. Beyond her were other figures he couldn’t make out in the shadows of the helicopter interior.
“Let’s just say,” Luthor said, pushing Clark ahead of him toward the helicopter. “I’m astonished he can still fly. But I promise, he won’t be for long.”
