Summary: While investigating a fledging drug ring, Lois finds herself in the middle of a midnight stake-out with an unwilling new partner. A story set in Season 2, post-TOGOM, in a world where Clark didn’t make it back.
*****
Lois bit back a curse as she slid on loose gravel.
She’d worn sneakers to give her better traction tonight. It was just her luck she’d find the one surface in the city where they’d let her down, she groused mentally.
Intentionally keeping her footfalls as light as possible, she continued to creep quietly along the darkened side of the corrugated metal building beside her. Careful to leave at least two buildings between her and the car inching along in front of her, she stayed low as she moved. She checked the alleyway’s intersection before crossing, ducking out of sight of the car’s rearview mirror.
She caught a jolt of the early spring air as she crossed. It still held enough of a chill to make her wish that she hadn’t left her Jeep behind. But there was no way she’d have been able to tail the thugs this far in her brightly shining silver Jeep. The streets here were more akin to alleys anyway. They were littered with driveways and loading docks, but few places to hide an ostentatious SUV. Her quarry would have spotted her almost as soon as they’d entered the tightly constricted grid of crumbling streets that made up the warehouse district near the docks.
The car in front of her crept onward slowly, and she continued to follow. The alley was dark and she used it to her advantage. The absence of streetlights meant that most illumination came from the brighter lights of the high-rises beyond, although a few buildings had single bulbs above their main doors. With an abundance of caution, she ducked into the darkened alcove of an empty loading bay, staying well out of sight.
She’d finally learned to be more cautious this year. It turned out that rushing headlong into danger didn’t necessarily catch up with you. But it could catch up to those around you. It could catch up to the person you’d somehow least expect to ever be in danger. The person who was always cautious when you weren’t. The person you’d come to rely on to just always
be there.
And it could have immutably grave consequences.
The lesson of caution had been the hardest of her life, that night in the casino.
As she passed the space between two rusted buildings, a slicing breeze off Hobbs Bay distracted her from her thoughts. The wind stung exposed skin with cold and assaulted her nose with the scent of sulphur and trash.
Her protesting nose made her wonder if the bay’s pollution issues should be one of her next investigations. It shouldn’t smell
that bad! Wrinkling her nose against the tangy scent of the waterfront night, she hugged her jacket more closely and turned up the collar.
Ahead of her, the slowly creeping dark sedan finally rode its brakes to a stop.
She stopped, too.
Staying low, she backtracked to the corner of the building she’d been furtively navigating past. Turning around the corner, she slid out of sight of the car. She leaned against the crumbling exterior of the building and strained to hear what happened next.
The engine turned off.
Two car doors opened.
One closed, then the other.
Then silence.
Lois remained still.
It felt like the night held its breath along with her.
She fidgeted, knowing that she didn’t have the patience to wait it out. Plus, she reasoned with herself, cautious or not, she wasn’t in a safe enough position to just listen for whatever was going to come next. She had to see what was happening.
Dropping flat on the ground where she’d be less noticeable than at eye level, she army crawled a few inches forward. Slowly, she peeked around the corner.
Two shabbily dressed men had moved to the passenger side of the car. They stood, each looking down opposite ends of the street.
Smothering a gasp, she quickly pulled herself back out of sight. She counted to twelve, and snuck another look down the partially paved street.
This time the men were facing one another. She sighed in relief. She hadn’t been seen.
“…first ones here,” the first man was saying.
The second man walked toward the rusted warehouse directly in front of them and disappeared down a walkway at the far the side of the building.
She heard the thick metallic clunk of metal against metal.
Maybe a locked door being pulled?
A few seconds later, the second man reappeared and grunted out his agreement.
That meant they were meeting someone, then.
Bobby’s tip had been right on the money. There would be a handoff tonight. And that meant an exclusive for the Planet tomorrow.
She could only just make out their voices. The gently lapping water of the nearby Hobbs Bay swallowed most of their conversation, leaving her with bits of sentences. She’d just decided that she had to get even closer when the first man pointed down the street toward her.
“…look around,” she heard. She turned her ear toward them to hear better as the second man grumbled something under his breath.
“…both our heads if anyone sees…tonight,” the first one was saying. “Shake a leg …nobody’s around. …a couple of streets. …in the back.”
She had to guess at most of what they’d said, but it sounded promising.
“Yeah, alright,” the second man grunted back.
The first man turned away from her and started making his way down the street, but the second man headed in her direction. She pulled back again.
His steady pace indicated that he still hadn’t seen her. He would have to have been looking at the ground in order to see her move, after all.
She assumed he would turn down the street that separated them. So, she waited until she thought he was even with the corner of his building and then chanced another look out.
Surprised, she realized that he hadn’t turned to make a circuit of the warehouse as she’d anticipated.
Instead, he was headed right toward her!
She eased herself backward as silently as she could. Once out of sight, she immediately lunged to her feet. The slap of the man’s boots against the asphalt was loud enough to hear now. She began picking her way down the far side of the building, hoping to get to the next corner and out of sight before the tattered man turned his own corner and spotted her.
The gravel shifted beneath her feet with every step. The small stones sliding over one another sounded far louder than the chaotic pounding of her own heart in her chest.
She was moving too slowly! With one foot in front of the other, she cursed her sneakers, the gravel beneath them and the mayor’s office for its obvious neglect of city maintenance. This neighborhood’s road disrepair would be the story after the bay pollution, if she lived through this!
She was nearly to the corner, when she heard the man’s shoes crunch the gravel she’d slipped on earlier. That meant he was about to turn her corner. She’d have to take the chance of running now or he’d see her for sure!
She took three bounding steps to reach the corner, threw herself to the ground and rolled sharply out of sight. Fully around the corner, she froze and listened.
The crunch of the man’s boots was distinct. She measured the pace against her now furiously beating heart.
His pace was much steadier.
He hadn’t seen her. Otherwise he’d be chasing her.
But he would see her in another minute if she didn’t start to wind her way down this side of the building, too. Pushing herself to her feet, she found that she was standing on asphalt in much better repair that the adjacent street. No loose gravel meant she could move faster without making as much noise. Still stepping lightly, she sprinted down the side of the building, assessing her surroundings.
Once she reached the corner, it would put her at the back of the building that the men had stopped their car in front of. If she took the turn away from their building — and away from her pursuer’s most likely path — she’d probably have just enough time to get to the next intersection beyond. Then she could turn out of sight before her steady pursuer got to the corner she was running toward now.
She might be able to tuck down and hide there for a moment, and maybe even catch her breath. If her pursuer turned back toward his original building, she would have placed herself in position to come up behind him. It would let her chase him, instead of being chased herself. Then she’d be in a stronger offensive position, instead of the defense she was literally running now.
Satisfied with her plan, she directed her sprint on a diagonal across the street. She could only just hear the footfalls of the man behind her and it sounded like she was outpacing him. Though he was getting closer, his boots were thankfully still crunching the loose gravel on the far side of the building. Meanwhile, her jog had already taken her nearly to the next corner.
She was going to make it!
Suddenly, she ran smack into a solid mass, nearly knocking the wind from her. Two arms grabbed her, pulling at her from behind.
Fleeing from the second man, she’d forgotten the first!
One hand clamped over her mouth, and she was pulled backwards. She tried to twist away from the arm around her middle, but it was like steel. Bringing her elbow down hard, she pushed away from the hand over her mouth, only to find herself held in place.
She couldn’t move!
A fissure of fear raced down her spine.
She inhaled deeply through her nose to dispel the rising panic, and unexpectedly felt herself start to instinctively relax.
A familiar scent washed over her and she stopped fighting his grip, instead leaning securely back against a recognizably hard chest.
Safe.
She felt safe.
It had been a while. She indulged in the sensation, letting it engulf her completely, and exhaled a breath she’d been holding for weeks.
The hand against her mouth eased, but left one finger pressed gently against her mouth. His message to stay quiet was clear enough.
She nodded her agreement and the hand fell away entirely. The arm that had gripped her waist slackened, too, but didn’t drop away.
She twisted to look up at her sudden company.
His face was stoic tonight, as usual, his brown eyes alert. She gave him an accusatory ‘what are you doing here?’ look and he raised an eyebrow in return.
She rolled her eyes without bothering to hide the expression from him. Was he planning to be an accomplice or a wet blanket tonight?
These days, she never knew.
In the past few months, her hero in blue had kept himself aloof where she was concerned. The year prior, they’d taken a break from one another after she’d confessed her feelings and fled straight from his rejection to the altar. It had been at least a full month before she’d seen him in person again.
It had been torture. After running into him nearly weekly for the entire year before that, his absence for those long weeks felt like an eternity. Once the Planet was back up and running, they’d been reestablishing their usual rhythm. But all too soon tragedy had cut across all of their lives just before Thanksgiving.
She sniffed as her heart constricted. Before her thoughts could drag her under, she pulled her mind away from the mild-mannered man that they always seemed to stray toward.
Instead, she firmly put her mind back on the man currently holding her tightly against a wall.
The holidays this year had passed in a cold, heavy blur, and she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of spandex in the sky until a few weeks into the new year. His presence in Metropolis seemed to dwindle while one of the worst winters in recent memory raged on. She’d finally started paying attention again as they’d headed toward spring. By then his regular patrols seemed to resume.
Had he been grieving, too?
After all, Superman had been friends with both halves of the hottest team in town. She shook her head at the ad campaign Perry had been drawing up for the Planet’s star reporting team. Those plans, like so many others, would never be a reality.
With no way to ask the hero how he was feeling, she’d decided to tred lightly around him if they bumped into one another. Maybe they shared some common ground on this. She’d certainly spent the winter hibernating and licking her slow-to-close wounds. Maybe he’d done the same.
But the superhero seemed to be in his usual top form, possibly even better than before. In the new year, he’d expanded his reach far outside Metropolis, chasing the sun from one coast to another. As they headed toward spring, he’d been abroad more, too, circling the globe and leaping from one crisis into another. His rescues seemed to happen with much more alacrity, she’d noticed. He’d moved on from one rescue to the next quickly after every encounter.
She’d been able to observe this new trend up close. In the past three months, he’d still found the time to save her bacon from a fire, two robberies, a kidnapping gone wrong and a hostage situation. But as both the kidnapped and the hostage, he’d deliberately yanked her out of harm’s way and unceremoniously dumped her halfway across town before heading back alone to bag the bad guys. She’d missed details at both scenes, and nearly been scooped by the Star at her own kidnapping. Big Blue hadn’t even left her with a quote. In two instances, he hadn’t gotten in her way, though he’d kept his distance. Both of those times, she’d had to — again — publish her articles without a quote from the main character of the story. And she was still in the doghouse with Perry because of it. In only one scenario had he helped her get the story.
So instead of treading lightly around his feelings, she’d spent a significant portion of the spring deeply irritated at the suddenly all-business hero, who seemingly didn’t have time anymore for her, either as a member of the press or as a fellow grieving friend.
She appreciated him saving her life, such as it was these days, but contemptuously despised his affect on her stories. It particularly riled her since she
was taking more care these days. In two of the previous five rescues, she could have easily extricated herself. And so she was understandably wary when her spaceman showed up these days.
He’d known her for two years, and she thought he knew better than this by now. She’d thought he knew
her better. It left her unsure of exactly what kind of friends they were.
He’d save her, sure. But at this rate, his idea of a ‘safe' rescue during Planet business might cost her her job.
…which might not be the worst thing to happen to her, she thought wearily.
She heard footsteps approaching again, and sharply pushed aside her thoughts. Unsure of the hero behind her, she shifted her weight to take a step forward. Instead, she felt herself floating upward.
In a blink, she realized that they were on top of the building she’d been skulking around. Finally disengaging from the spandex-clad arm that had anchored her, she walked back to the side of the roof and cautiously looked down into the street. The two men that had been in the car were about to meet at the corner below her.
Clever of them, she thought. If she’d finished that sprint across the street to get away from the second man, he would have corralled her straight into his compatriot.
Superman had saved her from being caught.
And she was still in the neighborhood where she’d started the night! That was a good sign.
It looked like he’d decided to play hero tonight then, and not wet blanket. Casting a glance back at the man in blue cautiously watching her, she decided that she shouldn’t rule in his favor just yet.
“What are you doing here,” she hissed at a nearly inaudible level, knowing that he would hear her.
He shrugged in reply, a gesture that didn’t quite fit him. Something in her brain tried to catch hold of the inconsistency. But then his shoulders lowered, his arms crossed and he slid into his typical wide stance. The familiar pose chased away the twitch in her brain.
Still not sure if she had a partner in crime or a babysitter tonight, she looked back over the side of the building and crouched down to observe the two tattered men more closely.
They had met at the corner he’d flown her away from and were walking back toward the front of the warehouse. They then moved around to the front of the car, leaning against the cooling hood. The second man took a packet of cigarettes out, slipping one into his mouth before offering his buddy the pack. The first man checked his watch, and then pulled his own cigarette from the box. The lit up, settling in to wait.
“Can you hear any cars nearby?” she asked her super-powered shadow on a whisper.
“No,” came a voice in her ear.
She nearly jumped as she looked back over her shoulder. She didn’t realize he’d gotten so close.
She gestured to the building the men were camped in front of. “Can you get me down to the side door?”
He made eye contact then, assessing her. “What’s inside?” he asked in a tone that made her think he was going to be a wet blanket after all.
She couldn’t let that happen.
“Drugs,” she said flatly. “I’ve been following a trail that started at a couple of high schools on the west side. I think those guys are buying drugs to sell to kids. The police haven’t been able to pin anything down since the first kid OD’d on Christmas Eve.”
She clocked his expression as it changed. The criminals might think that Lois Lane was the hero’s weak spot. But she knew better. Superman would do anything to save children.
He still looked a little skeptical. That was fair, she supposed, given her track record.
She pressed on, “Henderson’s last partner moved over to narcotics. So he asked me if I’d keep an ear out.”
“And this is you keeping an ear out?” he asked.
Was that a grin or a grimace tugging at his mouth?
“Yes!” He was frustrating her. “There’s nothing to report to them if I don’t actually get in there and see what’s going on. And no report back to Henderson means no chance of stopping those drugs from putting another kid in the hospital,” she said direly. “Or worse.”
He finally nodded at her and glanced at the two men still smoking on the hood of their car. She followed his eyes. It didn’t look like the tattered drug pushers had any intention of moving soon.
Before she could process what was happening, his arm was around her waist again and she was standing beside the door she’d been looking at only a heartbeat earlier.
He released her on contact with the ground, but she hadn’t quite found her feet yet after the sudden change in location and gravity.
She pitched forward, hands landing on his chest as his arms came back up to steady her. Her forward momentum stopped. She glanced up with a grateful smile, and their eyes locked.
He must not have been expecting the sudden contact, because it left his expression unguarded. She recognized the look in his eyes and knew that it would be mirrored in her own. She’d missed that look.
Her heart skipped a beat.
She grimaced internally, knowing he’d be able to hear that. But he seemed as frozen as she was.
Drawing in a ragged breath, she took a half step back and tried to even out her breathing. Turning toward the door and trusting him to cover them, she reached into an inside pocket and drew out Jimmy’s old lock pick kit. Kneeling down, she examined the deadbolt and lever handle lock and got to work.
The handle lock gave way to her hook pick and tension wrench in about 30 seconds. But the deadbolt was another matter. She swapped out her tools and tried her C-rake. The pin refused to budge.
“You might want to hurry,” came a quiet voice above her.
She swapped tools again, feeling his cape flap against her leg as it was buffeted by the breeze off the bay. She’d assumed this was a single cylinder lock, but it was a double. Wishing she’d had time to tail the guys long enough to make a bump key, she wiggled the tension wrench.
“How’s it coming?”
“It’s coming,” she said, now hearing a car approaching in the distance. That must have been what caused him to warn her in the first place.
“Do you have a time estimate on that?” he asked with some urgency.
“It’s more of an art than a science,” she retorted.
The car was closer now, and she could see headlights playing across the asphalt of the street where the men were smoking.
“I could just break it,” he offered quietly.
“No!” she immediately rejected. “Then they’d know someone had been here! They’d suspect something was up.”
And that could cost her the story she’d spent months tracking down.
The second car came to a stop, and she heard the footsteps of the two men that had been waiting.
“Lois—“ he whispered, sounding closer to her than he’d been before.
“Just a second,” she stalled.
A car door opened and slammed shut.
“Out of time,” he said, just as she felt the lock turn.
“Got it!” she said over him, as she felt his arm wind around her again.
And then she was standing in darkness.
