I'm assuming most people skip author's notes, so I'm going to try and make this quick.
First of all, I have not actually written a story in a long, long time. If you see any errors, grammar mistakes, etc it's probably because I haven't noticed. I went over this chapter twice and removed every error I could spot. Second, I do accept criticism, but I will NOT tolerate flames. If you have a problem with my story, then don't read it. Third, this story is HUMOUR. It's not meant to be serious at all. Disclaimer: I do not own Superman Returns or any of the characters.
Richard wouldn't dare admit it to his fiancé, Lois Lane, that he constantly imagined the moment she would leave him to go back to her returned ex-love, Superman.
It all started a month ago when Superman returned to Metropolis. He would sit in his office and space out, only thinking about that moment.
Richard began to feel like his days with Lois and Jason were numbered. Each day that went by was another step closer to the day Lois would announce her leaving him.
Richard knew that there was nothing he could do. Lois would do just fine supporting herself and Jason without him.
Some days he felt like going up to Lois and shouting, "Woman, you're using me!" but he didn't have the guts to. He loved Lois too much.
Sometimes he wondered if he should've known better than to fall for Lois Lane, the Daily Planet reporter who had been in love with Superman five years ago and still possibly was.
It was another day at work for Richard and Lois at The Daily Planet. Lois sat at her desk, typing out yet another article about Superman and Richard sat in his office looking in Lois' direction. Richard got more and more frustrated by the second.
"No… I can't be second best again!" Richard thought to himself. But competing with Superman wouldn't be easy. "I… maybe Lois isn't the woman for me… Wait a sec… who am I kidding? Duh! Of course she is! Superman will soon see that!"
Richard eventually stopped staring at Lois and tried working. He was supposed to write an article about his recent trip to Europe, but he didn't do anything but sit in his hotel room and wonder if Lois was with Superman. Richard phoned her nearly every hour and asked her what she was doing. Richard knew she wouldn't admit it, but she must've been him. He felt it. Or maybe it was just jealousy.
"They were planning their new life with MY son!" Richard said angrily, luckily nobody heard him.
Richard grabbed a black pen off of his desk began chewing on the back of it nervously. He had to watch over Lois very closely, but how could he do that without her noticing? If he tried flying his plane around the city and following her, she'd notice, no doubt.
"Richard!" A loud, familiar voice said. Richard jumped and turned his head to see Perry White, his uncle, standing in the doorway of his office. "What is the meaning of this!?"
"What? What's the meaning of what?" Richard asked, confused and afraid that Perry had heard what he was saying to himself. Perry shook his head in disbelief.
"This!" Perry pointed at the black stain in the new white carpet Richard had begged Perry for for months. Richard looked down at the floor and noticed the black stain and then he looked at his new brown shirt which also had a stain. "What's that?"
"Uh… I think my pen exploded." Richard said.
"How in the heck could that happen?" Perry asked. Richard suddenly tasted something disgusting in his mouth and started spitting all over the floor. It was ink. Richard wiped his tongue on his sleeve in attempt to remove the sickening flavor. "Chewing on pens again, I see."
"P-Perry I-" Richard began.
"No. No more of this." Perry said. "You will clean up this mess and from now on you can use pencils."
"But- HEY! I'm not a little kid." Richard said rudely. Perry walked over to Richard, snatched the pens off of his desk, and shoved them in his own pants pocket.
"And don't be bringing any to work tomorrow or any other day until I see that you can handle them and be responsible!" Perry said. "Now clean this mess up before your carpet is completely ruined!" Perry turned away and slammed the office door behind him.
"Richard, what happened in your office earlier?" Lois asked that night at the dinner table. Richard wasn't in one of his happiest moods. He, for one, was ticked off that his new expensive white carpet had a large black stain in it and he wouldn't be able to get a new one for a while.
Richard also didn't have such a great day at work after the pen incident. He found himself constantly in embarrassing situations due to talking out loud to himself about Lois and Superman.
"Nothing." Richard grumbled. Lois put her fork down loudly on her plate and waited impatiently for a real answer. "Okay, okay… another one of my pens exploded everywhere but it wasn't my fault."
"We've talked about this chewing habit, Richard." Lois sighed. Richard had been constantly chewing on things since Superman had come back. He'd chewed on the garden hose, Jason's headphone wires, and even one of Lois' shoes by accident. Richard couldn't help it. "Perhaps you should consider professional help." Richard looked up and shook his head quickly.
"That, woman, is the LAST thing I need!" Richard said. "I can control the habit. Seriously. It's just that when I worry or I'm nervous it happens. I'll try--"
"What are you worried about?" Lois interrupted. The room went awkwardly silent and that's when Lois assumed it must've been something to do with Superman. This frustrated her, especially since it seemed to be a reoccurring topic during meals. "Richard, would you just drop it?"
"Lois, that's the thing, I just can't!" Richard responded. "It's just too much to compete with. I think we should just… call it quits."
"Compete?" Lois repeated. "Richard, you're just going to end this relationship because you think I still love Superman!? I've told you one too many times that I DON'T!"
"Okay." Richard said, dropping his fork and putting his hands in the air. "I just…I don't want to be second best anymore."
"You're not second best," Lois said as she got out of her chair. "and you never were!" Lois put her plate on the counter and stomped up the stairs leaving Richard and Jason at the table. Jason looked up at Richard with a look of misunderstanding on his face.
"Want some more broccoli, son?" Richard said quickly, hoping Jason would forget what he witnessed.
Richard was a lucky guy. He rarely got thrown out of his own bedroom by Lois, but tonight was different from most. Lois tossed his pillow outside the door, along with his pajamas and toothbrush as if to stay, "You're on the couch tonight, buddy!"
"Lois!" Richard cried, banging on the door. "Come on! The couch makes my back hurt real bad in the morning." Lois opened the bedroom door a crack.
"You should've thought about that before you started thinking things!" Lois responded and slammed the bedroom door in his face. Richard sighed. He knew arguing would do nothing but make it worse, so he went to the closet to get a blanket and headed down to the couch. He knew it'd take time for him to fall asleep, but he had no choice, it was the couch or the floor.
The next morning when Richard awoke, Lois was already gone. He figured she went to drop off Jason at school and then head off to work.
Richard struggled to get up off of the couch. His back ached worse than ever before. Once Richard was sitting up, he rubbed what he could of his back gently with his hand. It hurt so much he thought someone had come and beat him on the back while he was asleep.
"Darn couch…" Richard shouted angrily.
"Lois, can we just please- I don't think you understood what I meant last night-" Richard said to Lois. She was sitting down at a desk, on the computer, trying to concentrate on something.
"Richard, I understood perfectly." Lois said, focusing on the computer screen. "You think I love Superman and so you've decided that you're going to just flush a five year relationship down the TOILET!"
"But-" Lois looked up at him, got up and walked away. Richard watched her as she stomped off, and decided he'd better get back to his office before he got into more trouble with Perry.
Richard sat at his desk quietly for a few minutes before thinking up an idea that might get Lois to listen to him. He'd write a note. Richard grabbed a white piece of lined paper, a sharpened pencil and began writing her a letter…
Dear Lois
I know you think you know what I meant last night, but you don't. Since he returned, I can hardly control my feelings and I need you to understand. Sometimes relationships just don't work out. I need to follow my heart, I can't just keep being with you and pretending like it would be the same because it's not. He's back and things are different now.
Lois, please understand. I don't want to hurt you but my heart tells me it's time to just… let go. I will always love you but being the second best man in your life won't work.
Love from,
Richard White.
P.S. Please meet me on the roof!
Richard rolled up the letter, wrote "FOR YOU" on the outside with a black permanent marker, put an elastic around it, and dropped it off on the desk that Lois was sitting at earlier. Richard smiled satisfyingly and skipped off to the elevator. He decided he'd better be the first on the roof.
Richard waited on the rooftop of The Daily Planet. He felt sad inside, however, he also felt that this was the right thing for him, Lois and Jason. Little did Richard know, his wait would be much longer than it had to be, because Lois hadn't received the letter from him. Someone else did…
Jimmy Olsen was surprised to see a note on his desk after lunch. He grabbed it, reading the words "FOR YOU", and smiling. He pulled the elastic off excitedly, unrolled the letter, and read it. Jimmy wound up reading it three or four times before realizing it wasn't for him-- it was for Lois.
Jimmy looked around fretfully, and quickly rolled the letter up and put the elastic back around it. He made sure it looked exactly as it did when he found it. It did, except for the wrinkles here and there on it. He scanned the room swiftly and spotted Lois at Clark Kent's desk, figuring that if he just put the note beside her hand, she'd notice it and grab it. After all, it was for her.
Jimmy tiptoed over to the desk and slipped the note beside her hand. He sighed a sigh of relief and then crawled over to his own desk, causing a few of his co-workers' heads to turn.
Lois noticed something had fallen on the ground after she removed her hand from Clark's desk. She had no idea who it was for, especially because of what it said on the outside, and just assumed someone had left it there for Clark.
"Oh, uh, this is for you, Clark." Lois said, picking the note up off the carpet and handing it to him. How was she supposed to know it was for her? She found it rather strange that someone would just write "FOR YOU" outside of it rather than a name.
"Uh, thanks, Lois." Clark said, hesitantly taking the note from her hand. Lois nodded and smiled in response and walked off. Clark began unrolling the letter, wondering who could possibly be sending him a note.
Meanwhile, Jimmy sat happily at his desk looking around through his camera. Jimmy spotted Lois walking to her desk, but didn't notice the note wasn't in her hand. When he turned his camera towards Clark, he was shocked to see him reading the note to Lois from Richard. Jimmy put his camera down and rushed over to Clark's desk.
"Oh, hi, Jimmy!" Clark said, trying to hide the note under his desk.
"Hey Clark!" Jimmy said with a nervous smile. "What's that you got there?" Clark briefly looked down at his hands, realizing Jimmy was talking about the note.
"What's what?" Clark asked. He was obviously nervous, too.
"I found that on my desk earlier." Jimmy confessed, looking straight at the note.
"Found what?"
"Uh, that note you're holding." Jimmy said, pointing at the note Clark was trying to keep hidden. Clark sighed and pulled it out.
"Oh, t-this?" Clark asked, holding it up. "It's f-for Lois."
"Yeah, you see the thing is I thought she'd notice it if I put it over here where you guys were talking but she ended up giving her personal mail to you." Jimmy explained. "We both read it and I don't think she's going to like that too much." Clark, after hearing this, immediately rolled up the note and put the elastic back around it. The paper was already pretty badly wrinkled, Lois would surely notice that someone else had been reading it.
Jimmy and Clark stared down at the note for a minute before saying anything.
"You take it to her." Clark said, breaking the silence and handed the note to Jimmy. Jimmy pushed it gently back.
"No way!" Jimmy said. "You do it!"
"No because then she'll k-know I read it." Clark said.
"But she'll know I read it!" Jimmy whined.
"Read what?" Lois interrupted. Clark and Jimmy froze and looked her way. She was standing right beside Jimmy with one of her hands on her hips.
"Uh…uh…" Clark stuttered.
"Really… read what?" Lois pressed. The constant silences were making her impatient.
"L-Lois, this is really for y-you." Clark responded, handing her the rolled up note that Richard wrote.
"Oh." Lois said, bewildered. She took the note out of Clark's hand. "W-who's it from?"
"It's from Richard." Clark answered.
"You read it?" Lois asked quickly.
"No, no, of course not." Jimmy said, laughing nervously.
"Y-yes." Clark admitted. Lois looked over at Jimmy and raised her eyebrow, he was lying.
"BUT in our defense, we thought it was for us, not you!" Jimmy added. Lois blushed uneasily, thoughts rushing to her of all sorts of things that Richard could've written.
"Um.. Uh.. Please don't repeat anything you read." Lois said. "Just try to forget it." Lois began backing away cautiously.
"Right. In one ear a-and out the other!" Jimmy responded. Clark looked away from Lois and up at Jimmy, giving him a weird look. "What?"
Richard was getting fed up with waiting for Lois and right before he was going to leave, Lois finally came up in the elevator. Richard watched as she walked out of the elevator with the note in her hand.
"Why?" Lois began. "Why the roof, Richard?" When Richard didn't respond, she added in, "You know, Jimmy and Clark read this.". Lois held up the note that Richard had placed on Jimmy's desk earlier. Richard's jaw dropped and he snatched the note out of Lois' hand.
"So, like, what!? You let your little 'buddies' read your PERSONAL mail?" Richard asked.
"No. It was an accident!" Lois snapped. "Anyway, why did you want me to meet you up here?"
"I just wanted you to know that this is the last place where we'll ever speak of our relationship." Richard said, smirking. "You and Superman are always talking up here, I thought I'd make it a little more painful for you so you'd stay away from here for a while." Richard walked up to Lois, breathed in her face and took the elevator back downstairs.
To be continued...