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Reflections in Primary

Looking over the city from the Daily Plant globe was a pastime which was a pleasure and an honor those five years ago. He would survey his adopted home, listening to the hum of activities several floors down. He would listen to the bustle that took weeks for him to get used to. He kept his ears perked up to potential petty crime and the larger scope of things. In an hour he was going to ascend far above the heavens to listen to the rest of the world, but for the moment he listened to what had once felt like his home. And now, five years later, he felt as fresh as he did when he first left Smallville.

And, all eloquence aside, it sucked.

The world's greatest superhero heaved a sigh and scowled. Five years were wasted. He had a life…well, Clark Kent had a life. Well, Clark Kent had something, what it was he really wasn't sure these days. He had an apartment, an OK apartment, which housed all of his things which were now on his mother's farm. He had a sandwich place, a grocery store, and a suit place that housed all things old fashioned and large enough to hide the Suit. His sandwich place became a laundry mat, his grocery store was now a trendy monstrosity, and his hideous suit place was replaced by a chain store. Oh, and he had no apartment in which to have these places surround him anyway. In a sick way he was glad that Lex lost his mind on a destructive scheme; that meant the housing market for downtown Metropolis will go down and he may be able to find an affordable apartment where he didn't spend his meager alone time zapping cockroaches and hearing neighbors screwing as close as next door.

Tomorrow he will go down to the classified section and see if they'd give him any tips on a new place. That's how he found an apartment he was going to move into before Zod and Co. came and sent the dream of a bigger place to the crapper. So long as he could get away from the excitement of puff pieces and obits. Why the hell did Perry hire him back if all he was going to do was talk about death and fluffy stuff? He could have hired an intern; interns are free and would have thought that obits and fluff were the single step into the short ladder of success. Maybe if he crossed his T's and dotted his I's like a good boy he could maybe get back into City and be able to get in on the action convincingly. He could only run to the bathroom but so much before people worried about his prostate. Maybe if he talked to Jimmy or Lois…

Lois…fuck …

Only Lois Lane could drive a good country boy like Clark to curse. Five years pass and that woman… she was as infuriating and captivating as she was in and before the height of Superman frenzy. Of course time put its stamp on her. She held herself in a more womanly way, not at all like the attack dog she was when he first met her. Motherhood fleshed out her hips and breasts in a generous way, though her figure was still slim and toned. She grew her hair out and it curled down in an alluring way and gave off glints of reddish lights amidst the brown. She even wore her glasses more now, that was something. Five years and Lois Lane grew up. Grew up, had a son, and was married to a guy who seemed smart and nicer than Clark expected. Man, he wish he could hate the man but to be fair he didn't know him and Lois was never a silly or stupid woman; she would have found a good one.

When his mind shifted to think of Jason and Richard he had to refrain from a jag of nervous laughter not in keeping with his Superman persona. He had a son; Clark Kent was a father. Superman was a baby's daddy. Though, as he made Lois forget who he was it wasn't exactly like she could really storm at The Man of Steal and ask for back child support. For a brief moment he could well imagine Lois on some sleazy show demanding a DNA test. This whole situation was too freaking tabloid. And to have his son, his blood, the second one like him have someone else to call daddy…Richard better be glad he's a good man. But he had a son. He went away for five damned years, left his love, his mother, his job, and even his ugly suit store to find himself and those like him and it was growing in Lois all along. Jason was a smart boy and Lois and Richard were doing a good job with him. He couldn't dare break that up, no matter how much he wished the kid would call Clark Kent Daddy and Lois would look at him as a the father of her child out of the Suit.

Or in the least like a man she'd see herself procreating with. If anyone would have been able to see the top of the Daily Planet globe they would've seen their savior repress a very human shudder. He was gone for five years and all Lois can think to ask him after the same old pleasantries was whether he could give up his stapler. His desk wasn't even properly set-up yet; she didn't even think to ask about it. Hell, Jimmy made him a cake! Granted, someone took a fair chunk of it…but still! Though, in all fairness, for the longest time Clark Kent wore hideous suits and thick glasses picked expressly for their look. No one cared to look twice at someone who looked in their twenties but dressed in their fifties. Now that his favorite crappy suit shop closed he was left with what he had before leaving and even that seemed too old fashioned. No, he had to get new clothes. He also had to get a new apartment and new places that will be as familiar as his grocery store and sandwich shop.

He had to be a new Clark.

That was a thought. He was Clark Kent, had been since his mother and father found him in the field. Clark Kent was a good boy, a decent son, and a dedicated employee...save frequent delinquency to save the world, of course. If someone were to ask him under hypnosis what his real name was it wouldn't be Kal-el, it sure as hell wouldn't be Superman, it would be Clark Joseph Kent. But he warped Clark Kent into some mockery of himself, if that made any sense. When he wasn't being careful growing up he was an athlete, a vivid reader, and a No one could possibly be as clumsy as he tried to fake being. He was born in the same decade as everyone else he knows well at work and at times he doesn't think things could be "swell". Hell, all the years he'd been around Metropolis and people like Lois he really needed to forgo the wide-eyed innocent act. Moreover, Superman was gone for five years and in theory Clark Kent was searching the world trying to find himself. It'd be quite simple to change his entire image so that he wouldn't be merely "good ol' Clark" and yet still hide who he was. It wasn't all about Lois; he was getting sick of it all. But if she could change and make assumptions that he hadn't then why not prove her wrong? As it were, he was getting tired of not even revealing himself in fear of THAT being discovered.

As he rose above the skyline and through the clouds he wondered vaguely about Lois and how she would possibly react to a new him.

Or, at least, a more real him.