A/N: This story came to me the other day and has utterly consumed me since then. I still can't believe how many pages I pumped out in Word just trying to put the idea on to paper. Thank you, Kelly1142 for having a quick glance at it. It was much appreciated.
I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
"Line one Lois," one of the interns called out from the bullpen. "It's your kid's school."
Lois' eyes widened as she jumped to her feet and looked over her cubicle wall at Clark. He gave a shrug and a shake of the head as she picked up the phone. "Lois Lane-Kent speaking."
Clark leaned back in his chair and listened to his wife's end of the conversation. "Uh-huh. Yes. Really? Is that so?" Lois shook her head in disappointment and gave Clark a look. It was a look that was becoming all too familiar these past few weeks. It was a look that said that their teenage daughter, Martina had gotten into trouble at school again.
Clark stood and mouthed that he'd tell Perry that they'd have to leave work early. Again, they would have to pick her up at school and deal with Principal Reynolds lecturing them about Martina's attitude and unwillingness to follow school policy. Each time Lois was forced to bite her tongue while Clark played the sympathetic parent.
"Yes, we'll be there to pick her up." Lois hung up the phone just as Clark returned to his desk. She gathered her coat and tucked her laptop into her bag which she slung over her shoulder.
"Well?" Clark prompted.
Lois sighed. "We've got a bigger problem this time." Clark raised his eyebrows. "She got into a fight and gave a senior a black eye."
Clark couldn't help himself as a laugh escaped his lips.
"Clark Kent!" Lois chastised. "This isn't funny!" She moved toward the elevator and pressed the down arrow.
"You're right! You're right," he admitted, following close behind. "It's just that it's so you. It sounds like something you would've done in high school."
"For the record I never punched a senior." She crossed her arms and glared at her husband.
"Yes. But what about a junior? Or a freshman for that matter?"
"Fair enough," she conceded as the doors to the elevator opened. "Either way, this isn't good Clark. She can't keep getting into trouble like this. Perry's going to have a fit with all the ducking out we do on a regular basis, never mind this trouble with Martina."
Martina had come into Clark and Lois' life when she was just over 18 months old. One year Superman had been invited to distribute Christmas gifts at a local orphanage while Lois covered it for the Daily Planet. Both had fallen desperately in love with the bubbling toddler with her large green eyes and curly mop of brown hair. Unable to have children of their own, Lois and Clark quickly realized that they wanted more than anything to share their love with a child—with that child. Following a grueling interview process and an at-home inspection, the Kents welcomed Martina into their lives. She'd fit in perfectly, maturing into a beautiful teenager who'd taken on Clark's compassion and Lois' tenacity. However, lately Martina was only a shadow of her former self.
"You don't suppose they're going to expel her do you?" Lois asked as the doors to the elevator closed, fearful of Clark's answer.
"I'm not sure Lois. This isn't exactly the first time she's gotten in to trouble like this."
"You'll probably have to employ your powers."
"Powers?" He questioned, curious as to which she was referring.
"Your powers of persuasion. We're going to need all the help we can get for this one."
...:::...
"Martina Kent you are so lucky your father convinced Principal Reynolds to let you stay at Metropolis High," Lois lectured as they exited the school and made their way to their car. "This is your third fight in school? You're lucky your father dealt with the other two because if I'd know about them I'd—"
"Lois—"
"—have made certain you never left your room after the first one. What has gotten in to you lately? Talking back to your teachers-"
"Lois—"
"—and now you're getting in to fights with kids at school. Kids older than you, mind you. Are you begging to go to Smallville High, because you're pretty damn near getting kicked out! You realize that if you end up at Smallville High you're going to be living with Grandma Kent and I guarantee you she'll have you shovel manure on a daily basis."
"Lois!"
"What Clark?" Lois exclaimed, her face red as she turned on her heels to face him. Martina continued toward the car, pulling out her cell phone. "Can't you see that I'm—?"
"I've got to…" Clark made a motion with his hand and jerked his head to the side. "…Meet with a source."
"Oh!" Lois said understanding his code for a Superman call. "Right. I'll see you at home then!"
When the Lane-Kents had decided to adopt Martina, they'd made a conscious decision to protect their daughter from the Superman side of their lives. While Martina had never personally encountered the Man of Steel, she was aware that her parents called him a friend and on occasion had been themselves saved by his heroic actions. She was, to Lois and Clark's relief, oblivious to the fact that her own father moonlighted as Superman.
They had initially kept Clark's secret identity from Martina in order to ensure that she didn't accidentally reveal it to anyone; but as she grew older they hoped to protect her from becoming a likely target if they were spotted together.
Clark leaned down and gave Lois a quick peck on the lips. "Be nice. She's just a kid and she's had a rough day."
"I'm always nice," Lois said stubbornly. "Be safe. Love you."
"Love you too." Clark jogged back toward the school building, rounded the corner and a split second later Lois saw the familiar flash of red and blue in the sky.
"Will you put that stupid cell phone away?" Lois cried out, returning her attention to her daughter. "I swear if I didn't want a way to keep track of you, I'd confiscate that thing so fast…!"
Martina tucked the cell phone into her pocket and tugged on the door handle of the car and climbed into the passenger's seat. "Where'd Dad go?"
"He had a source to meet," Lois replied simply as she climbed into the driver's side.
Martina pulled her seatbelt on and brooded in silence, arms crossed against her chest.
"You realize you've been suspended, right?" Lois asked as she moved the car into gear. "You will get kicked out if this happens again."
"I know, Mom. God!" She said annoyed. "You can't just leave things alone can you?"
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing."
"It had better have been nothing, missy, because I've seriously had it with you today." Martina huffed and turned her face away from Lois and watched as the tall buildings of Metropolis passed them by.
...:::...
Clark tossed his keys on to a nearby counter and called out for Lois. "In the bedroom, Smallville," she replied.
"How are things with Martina?" He asked, undoing his tie and tossing it on a chair.
"About the same. She's in her room stewing right now." Lois pushed her reading glasses on to her head and closed her laptop, moving it onto the nightstand. "How did things go with Superman?"
"No big deal. Just a hostage situation at a bank in Wichita. Everyone got out safely-"
"Thanks to Superman," she finished giving him a congratulatory smile. In a blur, Clark changed into a t-shirt and pajama boxers and joined Lois in their bed.
"What are we going to do about Martina?"
Lois sighed. "Well she's suspended for tomorrow. I was thinking of taking her to see Dr. Evans."
"Your old therapist?" Clark said with a surprised chuckle. "Are we sure this isn't just teenage angst?"
"You tell me. As I recall you were the one who'd go up to his loft at the farm, brooding for hours on end. You should be an expert in teenage angst," she teased.
"Hey! At least I didn't steal a tank and bulldoze a prom when I was a teenager."
"I didn't bulldoze. In war there's often collateral damage. Besides they never had any proof that it was the tank that caused that one wall to collapse," she defended.
Clark shook his head, laughing. "Okay, okay! We need to focus on the problem here. What are we going to do about Martina?"
"Maybe we take her to the Planet tomorrow, have her answer phones, fetch coffee, make photocopies…"
"I like it. Hopefully it'll teach her to take some responsibility for her actions."
"Perry might even let her come out on the field with us. See what we really do on a daily basis." Lois suggested.
"Sounds good," Clark said curling up next to his wife. Lois set her glasses on the nightstand and turned the light off, both hopeful that their growing issues with Martina could soon be resolved.
...:::...
The next day at the Daily Planet Lois worked on finalizing a story, reviewing the draft with a red marker. Occasionally she'd check on Martina's progress in the conference room. Her daughter had been helping Jimmy Olsen search through binders of archival photographs for a mayoral retrospective that the Planet was putting together. Her iPod was probably the only thing keeping her sane at the moment.
"Lois," Clark whispered sharply, calling her attention. "I've gotta… run. 4-alarm blaze at Elm and Cumberland."
She nodded at his urgency and sent him on his way. "See you there," she added. Grabbing her bag, she rushed to the conference room to call for Martina. "C'mon! We've got ourselves a story, grab your jacket."
Once they arrived on the scene, Lois was relieved to see that Superman had successfully managed to curtail the blaze and was being interviewed by the local news station.
"Today's your lucky day. You're going to get to meet Superman," Lois said brightly to Martina. The young girl gave a sardonic smile and crossed her arms against her chest, unimpressed. "Oh, here he comes!" Lois gave a light wave to Superman who joined them.
"Ms. Lane," he said, his voice deeper than normal, hopeful that Lois knew what she was doing in having Martina in such close proximity to Superman.
"It's Mrs. Lane-Kent," Martina snarked, her eyes narrowing at the superhero before her.
"Martina!" Lois chastened.
"No, no! Its fine," Superman interjected, apologetically. "She's right. How are you Mrs. Lane-Kent?" Clark corrected.
"Superman, I'd like to introduce you my daughter, Martina. Usually she's politer than this." Lois gave Clark a hopeless look.
"Martina, it's nice to finally meet you. I've heard many wonderful things about you from your parents." Clark held out his hand, which Martina glared at and ignored.
"Whatever," she said miserably.
Lois gasped in horror at the shocking display of rudeness her daughter was expressing. Superman retracted his hand and raised his eyebrows, giving Lois a sidelong glance.
"Martina! That's enough!" Lois huffed in frustration. "Go over there and help Jimmy. I need to interview Superman for a minute."
Moodily, Martina moved in the direction of Jimmy who was photographing the firefighters as they smoldered the last of the fire.
Lois pulled at Superman's arm, leading him into a nearby alleyway where they were concealed from passersby and could talk privately for a minute.
Clark drew his wife against him and peppered kisses along her neck. "Clark!" She whispered sharply, smacking her hand against his arm. "Did you not see what just happened?" Lois lifted a corner of his cape and wiped an ash stain from his face. "She had no right to speak to you that way."
"I thought it was sweet," Clark said honestly. "She was trying to protect her mother."
Lois rolled her eyes. "That's not the point, Smallville. She shouldn't have been so rude to Superman. Do you really want your daughter to treat our friends that way?"
"Of course not!" He said. "But at the same time it was kind of nice to see that our daughter didn't just fawn over Superman."
"Oh Clark! You're impossible, you know that?"
"That's what I've been told," he said teasingly, pulling Lois closer and wrapping his arms tight around her. "Did I tell you how gorgeous you look today?" He said whispering against her ear.
Lois' breath hitched as Clark's hand cupped her buttocks, temporarily forgetting the theatrics that had occurred moments earlier. "No. Not today," she said breathless.
"Well you do." Clark nibbled at her lip, slowly daring her into a deepening kiss. Lois leaned into her husband, her arms snaking under his cape and along his back.
"How could you?" A familiar voice rang out, pulling Lois and Clark from their reverie. "How could you do this?"
"Martina?" Lois detached herself from Superman and quickly moved toward her daughter. "Were you—." She looked to Clark for help, but knew that there was nothing he could say that would help the situation. Her daughter had caught her red handed kissing Superman, someone who was- as far as Martina knew- decidedly not her father.
"I defended you!" Tears began to cascade down Martina's face. "How could you do this to me? To us?"
"Honey, you don't understand!" Lois moved toward Martina, but her daughter stepped back.
"Don't touch me!" Heartbroken, Lois let her arms fall at her side. She felt a rush of wind at her back and knew that Superman had disappeared.
"Martina, you need to listen to me. It's not what it looks like." Lois willed her daughter to understand, to listen for just a minute.
"What it looks like, is that you were kissing Superman." She said angrily, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. "And that everyone was right about you. That you've been cheating on Dad all along." Martina turned to walk away and instead came face to face with Clark who'd just rounded the corner.
"What's happening?" Clark said feigning confusion, tugging his tie back into place. Lois threw her hands up, unsure of how to respond, looking for his help in defusing the situation.
A hysterical Martina collapsed against Clark's chest, her arms wrapped around his waist. Clark held her tightly as she cried; telling her repeatedly that everything would be alright. He looked over his daughter's head to Lois who stared helplessly at the scene before her. They both knew that there could only be one way to solve this problem and the thought scared them both.
...:::...
The ride home had been filled with silence, the occasion sniffle echoing from the backseat. Lois clutched Clark's hand for much of the ride in an attempt to calm her frazzled nerves. When Clark finally parked their car in the driveway, Martina leapt from her seat, threw the car door open and ran up the front steps and into the house leaving her parents behind.
"What are we going to do Clark? We're going to have to tell her," Lois said at last, deflated.
Clark nodded. "You're right, we'll probably have to. But is that such a bad thing? I mean she's old enough to understand the importance of keeping everything a secret."
Lois could feel her own tears beginning to sting her eyes. "But what if people connect Superman and her together? I wouldn't be able to live with myself if anything happened because she knew."
Clark reached and wiped a stray tear from Lois' face. "I know Lo. And it's scary. But I think it's a risk that we should take. She's more than capable of handling herself; you've seen her and Oliver spar before. We'll just have to make sure she's prepared in every way."
She nodded. "You're right. I know you're right. But she's our little girl, you know?" Lois sniffled. "I mean wasn't it just yesterday that we brought her into our home and we were baby proofing the house?"
"And what did we swear we'd do? We swore we'd love her and make her feel like she belonged—that she was part of our family. And by being apart of our family that means we need to embrace her completely, with all of our skeletons out of the closet."
"Or in the case of our closet, all the Superman suits we have," Lois said with a small smile.
Clark grinned. "That's the spirit!"
Once they'd entered the house, Clark offered to speak to Martina first. He tentatively knocked on her door. "Teeny?" He asked using a name he hadn't called her since she'd been a little girl.
"Yeah?" He heard her say weakly. Taking it as a cue to enter, he turned the handle and found Martina sitting at the foot of her bed with her knees at her chest clutching a family photo. A litany of Kleenex tissues surrounded her.
"You wanna talk about what happened?" Clark offered, joining her on the floor.
She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. "Not really. I mean there's not much to say." She handed Clark the framed photo.
"It's your 16th birthday," he said taking the photo from her. "We took you to Gotham City and your mother let you go on a shopping spree." He offered a light chuckle to break the tension. "I still don't think my wallet has fully recovered."
Martina shook her head. "It was all a lie," she said flatly.
"It wasn't a lie, Tee."
"You weren't there. You didn't see her and him together," she spat out. "Those stupid kids at school were right all along."
"Wait, what?"
"It's nothing," she replied gathering herself to her feet. She walked over to her bookshelf and began to haphazardly rearrange the books upon it.
"It's not 'nothing'." Clark moved behind her and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Tell me what you meant."
Martina turned and faced him. "About three weeks ago in Family Studies class we were talking about marriage and divorce and all that stuff." Clark nodded, encouraging her to continue. "And one of the kids said that I should know all about divorce because her mom read in the Inquisitor that—that…"
"Go on."
She shook her head, almost disbelieving. At last, she said, "That Mom was secretly in love with Superman."
Clark's face remained still, unwavering at her revelation. "And that's the first time we were called to the school, isn't it?"
"I hit her right in the chin," Martina admitted sheepishly. "But I thought she deserved it. I mean, the way Mom always looked at you… There was no way Sophia was right."
"And the second and third time?" Clark pressed.
"They kept calling her Superman's secret lover. And… and then I just snapped. I couldn't take it anymore. I mean you two… you guys were always so…"
"Sickeningly in love?" Clark offered with a small laugh.
"Yeah," she said disappointedly.
"We are in love, Tee. I love your mother more than I could ever even try to explain to you."
Martina shook her head, her eyes beginning to fill with tears again. "You don't understand. You didn't see them together! He's supposed to be a superhero and he was… he—he -." She threw her arms around Clark and buried her head into his chest, her fresh tears staining his shirt.
"Shh," he offered, patting lightly at her long hair. "It'll be fine. Really."
"Nmmenmm demenvm," she mumbled into his shirt.
Clark smiled softly and pulled her away from his chest. With his hands on her shoulders he leaned down to look her in the face. "I'm going to get your mom. There's something we need to talk to you about."
Martina nodded and waited as Clark returned to her room, hand in hand with Lois.
"Hey Sweetie," Lois said meekly. Martina offered no response, choosing instead to stare at her fingernails.
Clark looked toward Lois who nodded. She stepped next to Martina and reached out for her hand. Reticent at first, Martina eventually allowed for the gesture.
Clark stood tall, squared his shoulders and removed his glasses. Before his wife and daughter, in a flash of colour and wind, Clark Kent became Superman.
"What the-?" Martina said shocked, her mouth agape.
Lois smiled encouragingly. "That's what I said the first time too."
Martina slowly moved toward her costumed father, reaching out to touch his cape, all the while staring at his face. "How… I mean… what…?"
Clark's features softened and the stoicism of Superman melted away before them.
"They're just glasses!" She said stunned, picking up the dark frames that had been discarded on her bed. "How…How does no one know?"
"That's the same thing I wondered," Lois said. "It seems so obvious, doesn't it?"
"It works," Clark said simply. "Do you understand now what you saw in the alley?"
Martina nodded awestruck as Superman turned back into Clark Kent. "So those kids at school were right?"
"Technically speaking, yes," Lois said. "We've probably been too careless lately. But you realize that no one can know about your father's secret, right?"
"But why didn't you tell me sooner? I mean, how was I so blind? All those times Dad ran off to the convenience store, or the farm, or to meet a source… he was—"
"Being Superman," Lois offered. "We've thought about telling you for so long, but you have to understand that the people who surround your father when he's Superman are targets. You know first hand about all the times I've wound up in hospital because some villain or another has targeted me because of my relationship with Superman."
"We didn't want that to happen to you," Clark added. "But if we're going be a family, we need to do this together. We need to work together. No more secrets between us." Both nodded at his statement.
"The world needs Superman," Lois said, looking at her husband and daughter. "But we need Clark Kent."
Martina nodded wrapping her arms around Lois, hugging her. "I know. I'm sorry about earlier."
Lois brushed the hair from her daughter's face and kissed her forehead. "I know you are, sweetie. But it's not your fault, you didn't know."
Clark lessened the gap between himself and his family and ruffled Martina's hair. "Next time when someone pushes your buttons at school, you can't be punching them. You understand?"
Martina smiled and nodded her head.
"And if they talk about me and Superman again, what are you going to do?" Lois asked, testing her.
Martina rolled her eyes. "Ignore them."
"And no tanks at prom, okay?"
"What?" She asked, startled by her mother's demand.
"Just humour me," Lois demanded, her eyes narrowing.
Martina threw up her hands. "Fine, fine. Whatever you say." She turned to Clark and asked, "If I promise to stay out of trouble, will you let me fly with you sometime?"
"Sure!"
"No! Clark!" Lois threw her fist into Clark's arm, shaking her head. "It's too high up. It's not safe."
"Says the woman who is constantly begging me to take her flying," Clark teased.
"We just finished telling her that we wanted to keep her and Superman separate and you want to take her flying?"
"I'll do it at the farm. No one will see us," Clark rationalized.
Martina grinned watching her parents lovingly bicker, relieved that the tension had been broken and her fears had been pacified. Happily, she hugged her chest realizing that not only was she the daughter of the two best reporters at the Daily Planet; but also the daughter of Superman—the greatest superhero on Earth. She was, without a doubt, the luckiest girl.
.:FIN:.