Thank you so much for the reviews! And over 270 visitors in six days! I feel flattered! (And inspired.)
I edited this chapter but it is still kind of long. Anyway – enjoy :D
2: Three is company
"I'm going to kill him."
Her announcement met with silence. Lois tried to wriggle her shoulders free where she was sitting wedged into a closet. It was his closet, to be exact, and it was packed with all kinds of clothes which only had one thing in common – they were all either gray or black. Lois had her flashlight on to keep the stifling darkness at bay. She didn't hear anything outside the closet – not any facility guards poking around outside or inside the house and not even him, although she knew he had to be somewhere in the same room. He probably didn't want to leave her alone with his things.
"Don't you want to know who?" she asked after a while.
Another twenty seconds passed before she heard him speak somewhere on her right hand side, "Okay. Who?"
"Green Arrow."
"Ah." He lapsed into silence again.
Lois leaned the back of her head against the wood of the closet and glanced at her watch. "Really. I've been sitting here for half an hour and not so much as a single word from him!" She snorted. "We were a team of two, you know, trying to break into the facility. But I probably should have known better than to rely on him!" It was hard to convince herself now that her situation could have been worse. At least it was pretty warm in here, and her soaked clothes were slowly drying.
What's more, the perimeter guards hadn't entered the house yet. Hopefully they'd given up on finding her by now.
The young man's voice was low, "That's a strange name. Green Arrow."
Lois smirked. "You know of course that it was me who named him that, do you?"
He sounded confused now, "No. I didn't."
What? Did he never read a newspaper? "Alright. I guess I forgive you."
She heard him sneak over to a window to look outside. "They're still there," he said quietly. "It's really bad luck that you tried to break in on their shift." A pause, "Why did you try to break in?"
So now he was beginning to wonder about that? She almost giggled – god, she was getting tired, wasn't she?
"I'm Lois Lane, ace reporter," she said, unsuccessfully trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, "and I've been working on bringing down Luthor for years." She sighed, "You really don't read newspapers that often, do you?"
Again, a moment or two passed before he answered, "No."
Lois, stashed away in a dark closet as she was, had time to interpret that short reply. "You … you do know that's a 33.1 facility out there, right?" she asked, suddenly convinced that he really had no clue as to her motivations.
"Um. Yeah," he cautiously said.
"And you are aware that what they're doing with the people in there isn't … you know – legal?"
He hesitated to answer; Lois winced when her earpiece unexpectedly came alive again. "Lane?" Green Arrow's voice asked, "where the hell are you?" He sounded out of breath.
"In the farmhouse," Lois replied curtly. "And where the hell have you been?"
The Arrow panted; he seemed to be running. "I ran into some problems with my equipment," he said. "I should have known that changing the chemicals in my gas darts would –"
"Alright, alright," she interrupted impatiently, "now –"
"And then I lost my headset," the Arrow continued. A crackle, followed by, "Did you say farmhouse?"
"Yes, I said farmhouse. You should get here so we can plan together how we get back to my car." Even though she was angry at him she felt obliged to warn him, "Those two guards are still haunting the lawn outside, and they love their guns. You have to be careful. I think there's a backdoor to the house."
"Understood," he replied briskly, and with a final crackle was gone.
Lois estimated he'd need another four or five minutes until he reached them. This gave her an opportunity to reflect on just how disastrous this whole evening had turned out to be.
Really, the plan hadn't seemed so difficult to execute at first – even if they'd decided on it rather spontaneously. This facility was located above ground, the security measures weren't as tight, and there wasn't much personnel hanging around. They'd stumbled upon it almost by chance when researching some of the earlier Luthorcorp projects and, inspired by the sheer luck, had decided to infiltrate it that same week. Really, if compared to some of the other facilities they'd broken into this one should have been a piece of cake.
Maybe they should have delayed the plan when first Cyborg and then Aquaman had pulled out due to other obligations so that Lois suddenly had only one hero – er, vigilante – at her side. But she knew she'd have to land another big article soon or her editor would begin to think she was resting on her laurels. And there was a fierce competition for that corner office. Lois Lane had won her reputation through her courage and her hard work. She wouldn't lose it because of a little risk.
And who could have known that the one time they needed tranquilizer dartsthe Arrow didn't have them because he wanted to test something else? That he would run into problems with his stuff this night of all nights? Really, how much bad luck could one person have?
But, no, that was a feeble excuse. The truth was that she, Lois herself, had certainly acted unprofessionally. She'd run headfirst into this adventure without any guarantees. And it was her fault alone that those guards were after her now.
Admit it, Lane. You've messed it up.
Right. It wasn't the first time, though she liked to think she was getting better these last few years.
She wondered if she had enough material to at least write a short article on the facility. It would be difficult if she considered all her Rules of Reporting, and it went against her code of honor not to stick to them.
So no article. All her efforts for nothing.
That was when she realized she had a potential source at her disposal.
"Hey – you!" she called softly.
"Yes."
"You – are you an employee of Luthorcorp? I mean I should think you aren't, because you helped me and are in fact hiding me in your own closet but anyway this farm is within the facility perimeter and you said you knew it was 33.1, but I just wondered if you knew anything about it and maybe would be willing to answer a couple of questions, seeing as you don't seem to mind the investigative journalism taking place here, so –"
She broke off; realizing that she'd probably overwhelmed him with her Lois Lane-type line of questioning. She swallowed and noticed the beam of her flashlight was trembling, along with her hands, with her sudden excitement. "What do you say?" she asked.
After the moment of silence she was slowly getting used to he stated, "I'm not."
"Not what?" she asked, frowning.
"I'm not an employee of … Luthorcorp." He seemed to shuffle around a little. "I'm a farmer."
"Right." Lois smiled. "One who happens to be the direct neighbor of this Luthorcorp facility. Good enough for me." A sudden thought crossed her mind, "So if you aren't an employee of Luthorcorp, then why are you living here all alone?"
"I'm not. There's a woman. She comes every day."
Lois wasn't too sure she was really interested in his daily life, but before she could think of a way to make him reveal more about the facility a sharp creak sounded through the house from somewhere downstairs.
"It's the back door; it always creaks," the "farmer" said and apparently scuttled out of the room.
"Hey; wait!" Lois hissed, crept out of the closet so fast she almost tripped and followed him down the stairs, remembering in the last second to slow down so she wouldn't be heard outside. Since there wasn't any light on in the house she could only barely make out the outlines of furniture. When he'd led her upstairs three quarters of an hour earlier she'd already noticed that the interior of the farm house was furnished simply and functionally. Now she had the opportunity to verify an impression that had surprised her earlier – while there certainly was electricity, there were hardly any modern amenities. No TV, no computer – the most sophisticated piece of electric equipment seemed to be the coffee machine.
Weird.
"What are you doing here?" his tentative voice reached her. "You were supposed to … to stay upstairs. Bob and André are still out there."
He was hovering next to the back door. He now wore a black jacket over his pajamas, but his feet were still bare.
With a frantic movement of his large hands he warned her not to come any closer. He really made a point of keeping at least a couple of meters between them at all times.
Lois tried to find out where Green Arrow was. It seemed like he'd tried to open the door from outside, thereby making it creak, but evidently without much success since it had an impressive electronic lock, just like the front door. Lois corrected herself in her assessment of the amenities; surely these locks were the most sophisticated pieces in the house.
"Let him in!" Lois whispered. "It's okay. He's my ally."
His shadowy face looked uncertain. "But –"
Lois rolled her eyes. "It's really okay. He's a hero. You know, those guys who patrol the streets at night, fighting crime! Some call them vigilantes, too." It was starting to get on her nerves to always speak this quietly.
"What's the difference?"
Well, that wasn't a question she'd been expecting.
"Um … I think they're heroes because they help people without asking anything in return. But some don't like it that they hunt criminals on their own. It's probably because they're actually better on their job than the police. My guess."
His eyes gleamed softly in the pale light coming from outside. "I didn't know."
"Didn't know what?"
"That there are these … vigilantes. Fighting crime."
Lois snorted disbelievingly. "What is it with you not being up to date?" she blurted, probably a little louder than was wise. "Where have you lived these past years? The vigilantes have been around a long time."
She didn't need light to see she'd snubbed him. Okay, so that had been pretty impolite of her. Just keep the mad dog in check a little longer, Lane. He's a source.
"Alright," she said, trying a more cheerful tone, "will you let him in now?"
One minute later, a hooded, wet, green-clad figure was crouching on the lowest step of the stairs while Lois's dark-haired farmer cautiously closed the door again.
"Are you okay?" she asked Green Arrow.
His face under the hood turned to her. "Why is it I think I should be asking you that?"
She closed in on him, intent on making him understand just how disappointed she was, "It's you who disappeared on me! And by the way, how come your equipment acts up now when –"
"It was your stubbornness which got us into this mess," Green Arrow interrupted, unimpressed. He motioned in the direction of the dark-haired young man. "Who's the big guy?"
"Oh. He lives here. He hid me. In his closet." She leaned closer to the Arrow, lowering her voice. "To be honest, he's something of a weirdo." She hesitated, "but a nice weirdo. He helped me after all."
Green Arrow seemed to grin, "I wonder how you made him do that."
Before Lois could slap him, he rose to walk over to said weirdo, but that one backed away from him quickly – even though he'd been watching them up to now, apparently fascinated with the Arrow's outfit. "Don't come closer," he warned. "I'll infect you."
"Huh?" Green Arrow looked to Lois for an explanation. She shrugged, "He seems to have some sort of sickness."
"I think he's perfectly healthy. He's a weirdo, I told you," she mouthed after that. The Arrow nodded, glancing at the other man.
"Alright," he said, then, "so let's see how we get you to your car, Lane."
She smiled sweetly. "And you, you're going to walk back to Metropolis, or what?"
oOo
The making of plans went well for all of five minutes, in which Lois and Green Arrow contemplated various possibilities to get out of the house and back to the opposite side of the grounds without alerting the stalking guards – who'd surely called more of their colleagues by now to go and look for possible intruders – to their presence. The situation was actually far from hopeless; the only condition for success was that neither of them slipped up again.
Their host was watching them silently with both suspicion and obvious curiosity. Lois chose to simply ignore him but it was becoming increasingly difficult.
Did he know that the way he was eying her from out of the shadows made her shudder time and again?
"Alright," the Arrow said looking up from the short projectiles he'd been checking, "I'd say we go now before you get too tired to –"
That was when Lois did slip up.
It really couldn't be foreseen. She was sitting unsuspectingly when suddenly something soft and living brushed her back out of nowhere. In a panicky movement she leapt to her feet and screamed.
Green Arrow stared at her in horror. The farmer scuttled closer and looked for something at the top of the stairs; Lois followed his gaze and spotted a dark cat hiding away there.
A cat! Lois thought, almost rolling her eyes. Oh please! That's ridiculous Lane. You can do way better than this.
But the mishap couldn't be rewound. Five seconds later, a voice rang out outside the back door, its owner apparently running low on patience, "Who's there?"
The three people in the house looked at each other in the dim light, none of them speaking.
"Hey!" the guard yelled and pounded on the door. Lois suspected he was so soaked by now that he didn't care much for subtlety anymore. "Open this door!"
Lois realized that her farmer was looking askance at her. She quickly shook her head.
"I've never been to this part of the facility before," they heard the other guard, who'd apparently joined the first, say hoarsely. "Who lives here?"
"This is the supply farm," the first one told him. "There's a woman, but she only comes during the day. The old Luthor's teen sweetheart or something like that, ya know?" He laughed grumpily. "As far as I know, there shouldn't be anyone here right now."
Lois frowned. And what about him? she thought, watching her dark-haired farmer in confusion.
The rest of the guards' conversation went unheard, but they apparently settled on searching the house after all. A series of sudden blows against the door made Lois automatically back away.
Before anyone could decide what to do about the guards, who apparently hadn't expected the door to be locked electronically, their host stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Stop that," he said, with more self-confidence than Lois would have ever guessed he possessed.
The blows stopped, "Who's there?"
"I live here," he answered coolly. "You're damaging the door."
A brief pause, then, "Would you please open up – sir? We'd like to see who you are."
The ever more mysterious young man turned to Lois and Green Arrow and nodded for them to sneak over into the kitchen area so as not to be seen. As they did so, Lois couldn't help but notice the weirdly determined expression on his face.
A moment later, he'd opened the door by keying in a code. Two very soaked and very cross-looking men appeared in the doorframe, guns loosely by their sides. "And you are?" one asked warily.
"I live here," the young man repeated. "There's no one here except for me."
The guard looked at his colleague, who had a messy bandage around his arm. "I've never seen him before."
That one, however, blinked and frowned. "I think I have," he said. "Once. Long time ago. I think that's the ghost."
The other guard grinned, "Ghost?"
Lois was confused as well. What?
"Our team, we hardly ever see him," the bandaged guard told the other one. "He works with the freaks … never comes out to the perimeter. Might be you see him from the corner of your eye from time to time. Someone labeled him the ghost and the name stuck I guess." He gazed cautiously at the young man. "Didn't know the ghost was haunting this farmhouse too." He seemed to find that pretty funny, but the man so entitled clearly wasn't amused.
Neither was Lois. What were they talking about? From what she could see with her own eyes their host had been living here for at least a couple of years. And he looked solid enough to her.
Well, you probably couldn't work at a 33.1 facility without losing it at some point.
"I'm no ghost," the young man clarified, "and there's nothing here for you."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," the unbandaged guard said. "I think you're hiding something. What do you think, André?"
"I agree." And André stepped forward, clearly intent on invading the house.
Lois was torn between sobbing and laughing hysterically. Why did these things always have to end messy?
And she was really starting to get tired. It had been a darn long day.
She waited for Green Arrow to act but before he could, her dark-haired farmer did something valiant but also very stupid – with a determined expression on his face he abruptly engaged the obviously surprised guards in a harsh exchange of punches.
Lois could only watch, her mouth agape. What was he doing? Was he defending them? But – why?
It surely wasn't right of them to expect him to fight for them?
For all of fifteen seconds it actually seemed as if the farmer had a chance against the guards but then one of them brought his gun up, his fingers closing in on the trigger.
"Oh for god's sake." Next to Lois Green Arrow finally moved. Before the trigger-happy guard knew it he was being slammed against the wall, sliding to the floor unconscious. The Arrow turned to the farmer in time to see him land a fist directly in his opponent's jaw; the guard sank to his knees, moaning.
Lois, who'd been watching, felt weirdly tempted to grin. "Well!" she said, "that was easy, wasn't it?"
Both men looked at her incredulously for a second before Green Arrow turned to nod his approval at the young man, "You've got a mean right hook there, buddy."
That one looked slightly baffled about his own achievement. Then he visibly relaxed, and the new expression on his face could be almost called smug. "I've had to subdue the Red Twins a couple of times," he said conversationally before he suddenly lapsed back into silence, his mouth firmly shut.
"Right," Lois announced, grabbing her bag, "let's go now."
Green Arrow hesitated while the farmer was fingering a scratch on the left side of his neck which was slowly beginning to bleed.
"Lane," she heard the Arrow's deep voice, "wait."
"What is it now?" Her patience was starting to run thin now that they had a potential chance to escape. "If you didn't notice – those men have radios. I bet if they don't check in with their colleagues at regular intervals the grounds will be swarming with guards very soon!"
"Yeah, but …" The Arrow leaned closer toward her, "What about him?" He nodded in the direction of their unexpected helper.
Lois blinked. Damn it. She'd forgotten all about her source. What's up with you tonight Lane?
"He – he … we're going to take him with us," she decided. She gifted her farmer with a big smile. "Since you've been very willing to help us," she told him, who was looking uncertainly at her, "and have in fact defended us against your own co-workers, which I assume is an indication that you don't like your job here that much, it's time now for you to decide if you want to stay here wasting away your life or if you want to come with us to expose what's going on in this facility and – well … become an honorable citizen or something … I'm not saying that you aren't honorable," she added quickly, "you fought for the freedom of the press after all –" She stopped when Green Arrow put his hand on her shoulder, "What?"
"Lane. Leave him some room to breathe, will you?"
But the young man didn't react to Lois's litany; instead he backed away in the direction of the stairs. Lois noticed the trickle of blood running down the side of his neck. "You don't want to?" she asked, mightily disappointed. "Why not?"
"I can't," he said so softly she had to strain her ears.
Lois frowned, "Why?" She tried to grin, "It's not like you're a prisoner here, right?"
He blinked, looking at his feet, "I am … a prisoner," he said very quietly and Lois hardly heard him because she'd stepped to the still open door to look out into the rainy darkness. "Whatever," she shrugged, "now's your chance to fight for a better world." But as she turned around again, he'd moved away into the shadows even farther. That was when a thought occurred to her, "It's because of your sickness, isn't it?"
When he only looked at her in silence, Green Arrow chimed in, "Whatever that sickness is, you seem to have it pretty much under control, buddy. I wouldn't worry about it so much if I were you."
No response. Lois felt the soles of her feet tickle with impatience. "I'm going to explain it to you one more time," she said, "so listen. You can either come with us and be my star source for my upcoming article on the evilness of this facility. Or you can stay here and go on supporting the evilness. Although in that case it would be nice of you to at least give me your phone number for a later update …" Oh shut up Lane. I bet he doesn't even have a phone.
He looked more torn than ever, the dim light accentuating his frown. "Come with you," he slowly said.
"Yes! Why is that decision so difficult?" The blood trickling down his neck was getting to her. Absent-mindedly, she rummaged in her bag for a tissue and stepped forward to push it into his hand; he flinched, but their fingers brushed briefly.
"See?" Lois said, raising her eyebrows, "I touched you and I didn't drop dead!"
Green Arrow was standing in the door peering out into the night. "I'm sorry lad, but we'll need a decision now," he chimed in, not turning around. "I'm seeing more flashlights out there; they're quickly coming closer." Using a more even tone, he added, "And just as a hint, I don't think that whoever manages this facility will be very pleased with you having helped intruders and having knocked out a couple of your own colleagues. So what do you say?"
"I don't kn–" He broke off in the middle of the word. Very slowly, his uncertainty seemed to dissipate. He lifted his chin, "Alright."
"Good," Green Arrow said, readying his crossbow to protect their exit. "There's no time to get your things but if I were you I'd maybe take some shoes."
Their host scurried around a corner; when he came back half a minute later he wore black boots which Lois had to admit were kind of stylish. Although they did look a little ridiculous in combination with pajama pants of course.
"Right," Lois said, "now all we have to do is keep out of sight of all those little devils out there. Come on, let's go!"
She was surprised when her dark-haired farmer spoke up hesitantly behind her, "I know a better way."
oOo
After somehow dodging all the swarming guards by keeping close to the small supply buildings at the back of the facility grounds Lois was extremely relieved when they finally reached her faithful car. Their new companion, however, was staring suspiciously at the wetly glistening metal in front of him. Lois, holding the passenger seat door open for him, frowned incredulously; he'd climbed every wall and fence without complaint and now he was distrustful of a car?
"What's up?" she asked, severely pissed off by the failure of her plan and by the rain and her tiredness and now also by him. "You look as if you've never been in a car before."
His reply consisted of a weird glance before he silently climbed in, folding his long legs awkwardly against the dashboard.
"Right. I gotta go," Green Arrow announced, "and you should too. I guess I'll see you –" He paused, looking at Lois, "what was his name again?"
She opened her mouth, then faltered, "I … I didn't ask …"
She felt herself blush, possibly more deeply than ever before. "Oh my god. I forgot to ask. I can't believe I forgot to ask your name – I'm so sorry!" she blurted, looking embarrassedly at her farmer.
What had happened? It surely wasn't like her to forget to ask the names of people. Always know your source, wasn't it?
What was it with her acting out of character all night?
More likely than not she was already calling him something subconsciously when she referred to him in her thoughts. But what?
"Um. It's okay," he was shyly saying as an answer to her excuse.
Gorgeous. Hot stuff. Had to be something like that. Even with the ugly pajamas …
"So what is it?" Green Arrow inquired.
"Huh?" the object of Lois's contemplation asked. Apparently she wasn't the only one with her thoughts far away.
"Your name."
He cleared his throat, "Clark."
Weird name. But it suited him for sure.
"And …?"
"And what?"
"You have a last name too?"
"Oh." He hesitated, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Kent," he said, then. "Clark Kent."
"Okay, Clark Kent. So where can we drop you off?"
This time he didn't hesitate as long. He even smiled a little. "Smallville."
A/N 1: I know Green Arrow or his equipment never fail on the show, but I figured even superheroes might have bad luck from time to time ;)
A/N 2: As you may well have noticed by now English isn't my native language, and I know that I have some issues. That's why I'm looking for a beta reader – so if there's someone interested in the job out there please let me know :)
