Disclaimer: Standard rules apply.
Chapter II : Inquiry
Elizabeth placed the cup of coffee along with a cheese streusel danish on Clark's desk, smiling as he jumped slightly at the intrusion. She clasped her hands in front of her and waited until he leaned back to look at her curiously.
"Do you always give your coworkers new articles of clothing as gifts?" she asked without bothering to give him a greeting. Clark had entered the office almost an hour ago and Elizabeth waited this long to confront him.
He smiled a little. "Only the ones whom I accidentally cause to spill their coffee on themselves," he replied.
Elizabeth laughed and leaned sideways against his desk. "Does that happen a lot?"
Clark fumbled with his pen and ended up dropping it on the floor. "I'm a clumsy guy."
She picked it up for him and grinned as he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well, I came by to say thank you for the new shirt. Though, Clark, I told you to not worry about it. That was overly generous of you when you've only known me for less than a month."
He flushed and smiled at her. "I noticed that it was a nice blouse, and it must've cost you quite some money to pay for it."
"Assuming that I did the spending. I got it as a gift, so it wasn't my money." She gave Clark a hard glance. "You shouldn't have spent money on me, Clark."
He shrugged, his smile begging her to keep her plea of refunding. "I don't mind, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth fidgeted with his pen, unscrewing the cap and screwing it back on. She was flattered that he thought so much as to repay her for the shirt, but she felt bad for not thinking about even paying back for his vest.
"Well, um, the coffee and danish are to keep you at bay until I can get you a new vest."
Clark shook his head. "Elizabeth, don't worry about my clothes. It's nothing that a little washing won't remove. Your stain will most likely remain, so your shirt is worth more than my vest. And I appreciate the coffee and danish, thanks."
Elizabeth bit her lip and tapped the pen against her palm. "Clark, this just makes me feel so bad. Like I'm accepting something I know I shouldn't, but you're one of those people who won't take no for an answer, aren't you?"
His half-smile was eluding, yet attractive at the same time. "In a way."
She sighed, defeated. "Well, there must be some way I can pay you back. I can't think of anything right now that doesn't have to do with Superman, but when I do, you're going to accept it."
He laughed. "Alright. Seems that you're the kind of girl who doesn't take no for an answer, either, huh?"
"Yes I am."
Clark took a sip of the coffee and cleared his throat. "So uh, you have Superman on your mind?"
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and sighed. "Only because of the interview."
"How's that coming?"
She grimaced, thinking about the meager amount of questions and notes she's amounted in a day's time. "Horrible. I mean, you'd think that having an interview with Superman of all people would be easy, but for some reason, this is the hardest interview I've had to prepare for," she complained, gesturing with her arms.
"It can't be that bad."
Elizabeth scoffed. "But it is. I don't know what to ask him. I can't come up with questions that are impersonal without being boring but I'm not sure if I can even ask him personal questions. I mean, superheroes don't really care to have reporters pry into their lives, right? Not that you'd know or anything, but I'm sure nobody wants reporters in their faces all the time."
Clark raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth and stifled his grin. "How about you just forget about writing down questions and when you get him for the interview, you just talk."
Elizabeth looked at him questioningly. "Clark, that defeats the whole purpose of being an interview."
"Not if you can't come up with questions for it," he countered. "I'm sure Superman won't mind if you don't have a formal interview set up. Wouldn't it be more comfortable if you had a conversation with him? Maybe you don't have to write about an interview. You can just write about a chat."
She narrowed her eyes speculatively at him. "Have you met Superman before?"
Clark hesitated before answering, "Yes."
"So you're positive he won't mind if we just talk? Doesn't he have duties to the world? Maybe he won't want to waste his time talking with me." Elizabeth frowned and bit her lip.
"Elizabeth, don't worry about that. Superman's not aloof."
Somehow, that reassurance made Elizabeth realize that she didn't have much to lose in this casual interview. Hopefully, Superman is as nice as he's made out to be.
She laughed. "I'm going crazy over this, aren't I?"
"Just a little."
She looked at her watch and placed Clark's pen back on his desk, smiling down at him. "Thanks Clark. I'll let you get back to work."
He nodded and watched her skim a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Thanks for dropping by with breakfast."
"My pleasure. And don't forget, I'm going to think of something!" she said, waggling her finger at him as she turned back to return to her cubicle.
Elizabeth scribbled on the copy of Susan's article with a red pen and after skimming a few more paragraphs, adding various notes and crossing things out, she returned to her computer screen and continued reading the Planet's first article on Superman. She found herself now immersed with factoids and the various sightings that have accumulated about him over the years, and surprisingly, Elizabeth was hooked. Not worried about compiling strict questions for him, she decided to forgo that whole task and delved on information about Superman, taking random notes where her non-existent questions should be.
But not wanting to seem like just another floozy fan, Elizabeth also took on editing her coworkers' articles, just to fill her attentiveness with phrases lacking in the word Superman.
Being the almost managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, Elizabeth was grammar savvy and completed Susan's five-page article in eight minutes, not to mention that it was her tenth article to revise and edit, and it was barely twelve thirty. She stuck her pen behind her ear and continued to peruse through the collective articles of the Man in Steel.
She bothered to read with the stories with facts about him, and not the trivial and countless ones of his save-of-the-day. After picking through the database, she came across Lois Lane's "I Spent the Night with Superman", and shortly after she read the Pulitzer Prize winning article, "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman". She was further enlightened with the actual relationship between the two and her hunches were saturated with the feeling that Superman and Lois Lane had more romantic secrets than their professional relationship displayed. Elizabeth's reporter curiosity was overriding her writer consideration and she wanted to inquire into that issue, but as a woman with romantic values and a respect for personal boundaries, she pushed the thought down.
She now had numerous pages of articles collected on her monitor and was engrossed in them that she failed to hear the approach of someone at her desk.
"You like Superman, too?" the tiny voice asked and Elizabeth jumped in her seat, putting a hand to her heart as she quickly swiveled around.
A little boy who looked to be around five or six was standing at her side, peering curiously up at her. She assumed him to be Lois' son, as she noticed the picture sitting on the reporter's desk. Quickly calming her erratic heartbeat, she gave him a friendly smile.
"As a matter of fact, I do. Do you?"
He nodded his tousled head of hair. "He's my favorite superhero of all time! He even saved my mommy and daddy and me from drowning," he told her, bobbing his head excitedly.
Elizabeth grinned. "Well now, that's amazing!" She bent a little in her seat and held out her hand. "I'm Elizabeth."
His smile was charming as he tentatively placed his small hand in hers. "My name's Jason."
"It's very nice to meet you Jason. You get to stay here while your mommy and daddy work, huh?"
He nodded and clutched the straps of his book bag. "Only when they both have to work late. But today I got to get out of school early!"
"That's good."
Jason looked around her cubicle and took notice of her sparse walls while Elizabeth took notice of how bright blue his eyes were.
"Can I draw a picture of Superman for you, Miss Elizabeth, so you can put it on your wall?" he asked.
She smiled down at him and nodded. "I would like that very much, Jason." She pretended to think a little and creased her forehead. "Say, does your mommy allow you to eat candy, Jason?"
He bit his lip as his face pulled a concentrated look, nodding afterwards. "As long as it's not chocolate, then yes."
"Well then, you're in luck today," she said as she turned to one of the drawers and opened it, pulling a lollipop from her small basket of emergency candy. She held it out to him. "'Cause I have a big lollipop that has your name on it. Do you like cherry?"
Jason smiled a toothy grin as he took it from her. "Wow, thanks Miss Elizabeth! You're nicer than all the other people here, just like Mister Clark, 'cause he sometimes lets me draw pictures on his desk when mommy and daddy are busy. But he never gave me candy before."
Mister Clark, eh? Elizabeth made a note to inquire about Clark's babysitting habits.
Elizabeth shut her drawer and ruffled his hair. "You are very welcome, Jason."
"Jason! There you are!" Lois rushed across the bullpen to the cubicle and knelt down in front of her son, giving him a brusque hug before pulling back and looking at him sternly. "Sweetie, what did I tell you about wandering around the office without telling me or daddy? I've been looking everywhere for you!"
His guilt-laden face was his first expression, soon replaced by a bright smile as he held out the candy for his mother to see. "Miss Elizabeth gave me a lollipop!"
Lois straightened and looked at Elizabeth for the first time who was smiling uncertainly. "She did, did she? That's nice of her. Did you remember say 'thank you'?"
He nodded. "And she likes Superman too – she has his pictures all over her computer!" He emphasized his point by pointing behind Elizabeth at her monitor.
Lois followed the direction of his finger and raised an eyebrow at the blushing journalist. "Doing a little research?"
Elizabeth laughed lightly. "This interview with Superman has got me wrapped up with everything that has to do with him." She shook her head and waved at the screen. "I've been skimming through past articles, seeing if I can get a good stand-point for my interview."
Lois nodded, though Elizabeth noticed a slight change in Lois' eyes when her eye caught her own infamous article displayed on the screen. After a few seconds, Lois looked back at her and smiled. "Thanks for not pushing Jason away. He tends to get in people's way and not everyone here has a soft spot for kids, much less candy."
Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't mind. I've had plenty of experience with young children, so I've got plenty of soft spots in my heart for them," she explained.
Lois nodded and checked her watch. "Well, you've still got plenty of work to do, I'm sure, and I do as well so I'm going to drag Jason back with me."
She nodded and smiled at Jason. "Bye Jason, it was nice meeting you! And you're welcome to stop by anytime as long as you have your mom's permission, okay? I'm going to be waiting for that picture!" she told him and he nodded, smiling at her with his mouth full of cherry flavored lollipop as his mom led him to his father's office.
Elizabeth spun back around and after one last skim, exited out of the multiple pages of articles and spent the rest of the day alternating between editing and scribbling random questions.
Coming back to the newsroom from her lunch break, Elizabeth had a copy of the daily sports highlight in her hand as she walked to her cubicle. She glanced up from the paper and catching sight of Clark and Jimmy talking at the photocopier, she walked towards them, chastely interrupting their conversation.
"Hey Jimmy, does rebuttal have two t's and an 'a' or 'e'?"
"Two t's and an 'a'."
She grinned and corrected the word on the paper. "Thanks. Oh, and a quick question; do you guys think Superman would drink alcohol?"
They looked at her crossly and she waved her hands out, pen and paper flailing. "I mean, what do you think he drinks on his leisure time? Surely he must have working taste buds, so he should have a beverage preference, right?"
Jimmy nodded with wide eyes while Clark smiled at her, clearly amused.
"Um, actually, that's a fact not known to the world," Jimmy told her and shrugged as he retrieved his copies. "But if you were to ask me-"
"I did," she interjected.
Jimmy ignored her and continued, "I would say that Superman's a wheat-grass-with-raw-eggs shake kind of guy."
Both she and Clark gave him incredulous and disgusted looks. He looked at them pointedly and prepared to leave. "Well, you asked me."
Elizabeth smiled. "Thanks for your opinion, Jimmy. I'll be sure to ask him."
After Jimmy left, there was a pause as Elizabeth watched Clark copy some documents before she asked him, "So Clark, what do you think Superman drinks?"
He stood there with one of his hands in his trousers' pocket and a contemplative look on his face. "Well," he said as he pushed the 'Scan' button, "I certainly don't think he drinks a wheat grass and raw eggs shake."
Elizabeth laughed and made a face. "I don't think anyone who's not a body builder would."
"I think that Superman's either a tea or coffee drinking kind of guy," he said after a while and Elizabeth pondered on that thought.
"So no alcohol, right? I mean, I'm not saying that he should, because I think that no one really should, but I was just curious as to what Superman eats and drinks, and if he would perchance drink a martini if given one." Her eyes widened as a new thought struck her. She pointed the pen at Clark. "Or wait. Seeing that Superman is from another planet and is technically an alien, maybe his digestive tract is not of normal human make-up and he doesn't even have an appetite. Maybe he eats metal and puts the truth behind 'Man of Steel'."
There were a few seconds of silence before Clark laughed uproariously, causing Elizabeth to blush.
"Elizabeth, Superman may hail from a different planet, but he is a man, after all. I'm sure he has traits such as a man would have, like having a regular diet and appetite."
She bit her lip, slowly nodding. "Hmm, okay. But you have to give me credit for even wondering; it says that I'm actually going somewhere with this interview."
"Been doing your research, have you?" he asked.
"Well, I needed some background on the guy before I start shooting questions at him. SRP, Clark." She gave him a sharp look, as if to reprimand him.
He looked confused. "SRP?"
Elizabeth nodded. "Standard Reporting Procedures."
Clark nodded and smiled widely. "So you've been researching him? You honestly had no previous information that you already knew about him?"
Elizabeth shrugged sheepishly. "Only the absolute basics, like um, he can fly and has super strength. Back in Chicago I never had to do anything dealing with Superman, and any news on him was always in the 'In Other News' compartment. So basically I've been listening to hearsay about him my whole entire life. If by chance he ever came to Chicago, I was completely swamped with other issues. There were always other things thrown my way anyway, so I had a one-track mind."
"So you've never enlightened yourself with information about him? Such details like whether or not metal was included in his daily diet?"
Elizabeth scowled as he tried to stop his chuckles. "Honestly Clark, I never thought about him during my time at Chicago Tribune. But that's not to say that I completely disregarded him, because whenever his name happened to sweep into the newsroom after saving an entire country from drowning, or something worldly of the sort, I was always amazed at what people had to say about him. And he really did impress me. But I never stuck around to listen to the great detail on what he did, or who he was. Does that make me a bad person if I don't hold Superman close to my heart?" she asked and Clark shook his head with wide eyes.
"No, Elizabeth! It doesn't make you a bad person in the least. Truthfully, I think it makes you a bit better that you don't have such high expectations of him, unlike almost everyone in Metropolis."
"He does have a very noble character, and I appreciate him for that. So I guess this'll make for an interesting interview, huh? All things Superman coming to me in one day." She grinned up at Clark. "You know Clark, I'm actually excited about the interview! Wow, can you believe?"
He chuckled and tapped the stack of papers on the copier. "I can. And I'm glad you have a direction for the interview."
She nodded and noticed that she had the article still unedited in her hand. "Me too. Sorry for keeping you at the copier, Clark."
He smiled. "I don't mind. Keeps work at bay."
Elizabeth laughed and waved the paper in her hand. "Which is regrettably calling for me to return to." She grinned at him. "Thanks for your input. You're very nifty with Superman facts, Clark, did you know?"
He flushed and Elizabeth bit her lip to refrain from breaking into a broad smile at being able to make Clark flustered without any embarrassing incident involved.
"Oh, well…thank you."
Before she turned to go, she bit her lip thoughtfully. "And I think Superman's more of a tea guy than a coffee one," she said with a slight smile. "See you later, Clark."
He waved as she returned to her desk, still dressed in her overcoat.
"He's definitely a tea guy," he muttered before collecting all his papers and shuffling towards his own desk.
