Disclaimer: I do not own Superman.
Previously on The Window Washer: Luthor loomed over him, a dark shape in his rapidly receding eyesight, "Well, so long! I must be going—I have bigger fish to fry now." He motioned to his henchmen, several of whom ran towards the stairwell while others continued to keep the Planet employees subdued; he spoke quietly into a small radio that suddenly appeared in his palm. Luthor dug his Italian-made wingtips into Clark's side once again for good measure then leaned down to whisper harshly, "I ohpe you enjoy your life now, Superman."
"You'll never get away with this!" Lois shrieked as she ran forward toward Clark's prone form, rolling him onto his back and attempting to staunch the blood flow from his chest with the tattered remains of his jacket.
"Au contraire, my sweet; I will get away with this since HE won't be here to stop me!" he crowed triumphantly as he followed his thugs to the stairs. Sirens pierced the air as he opened the door, heralding the arrival of Metropolis' finest, and Luthor waved jauntily before disappearing from sight, a small explosion and gunfire quickly following. Richard and Perry made to run after him, but the smoke from a canister billowed throughout the entire stairwell precluding anyone from entering.
Richard coughed violently as he retreated, commenting offhand that the reason help hadn't appeared before then was because Luthor had probably disabled the elevators and they were on one of the uppermost floors. Perry absentmindedly corrected his nephew as he focused on shutting the door against the smoke, "The elevators are most likely still working. SWAT teams are trained not to use them in hostage situations because unfortunately elevators herald the arrival of help with bells and floor indicators. Luthor knew that—which is why he most likely had someone expendable at the bottom of the staircase."
Turning back to the scene at hand Perry stood at a loss for words, unsure of how to help the superhero that was bleeding out on his floor. Lois sobbed quietly as she tried to keep pressure on the wounds but she shrugged off help from her fiancée and motioned towards their son; Richard quickly moved to gather Jason up into his arms and soothe him, carrying him away from the dying man. Perry knelt next to Lois and found that Clark was drifting in and out of consciousness. "What can I do to help?"
Lois looked at him and shrugged helplessly. Their patient coughed violently then and blood splattered everywhere. It was then that the Editor-in-Chief realized the young man was trying to talk. He bent closer to Clark's mouth to make out what he was saying.
"Mom," he whispered, choking and writhing on the floor in pain.
"I'm sorry, Son, I didn't hear you. What about 'Mom'?" He noticed then that Clark was struggling to retrieve something from his pants pocket. Perry's eyebrows leapt into his hairline when a bloody cell phone was placed into his outstretched hand.
"Call …om."
"Call Mom?" Clark nodded before coughing again and slipping into blissful unconsciousness.
"Perry!" Lois shrieked, "He's bleeding from his nose! HURRY!!"
"He can't really mean Mom, though, can he? Everyone knows Superman doesn't have a mother."
"You heard the man earlier," Richard interjected, making sure to keep Jason's eyes averted from the awful sight. "He's got parents here on Earth. Call them!" He ran a hand over his son's head as the boy renewed his sobs, telling him that Superman would be alright and praying he wasn't lying.
"Chief! Check his call log!" Jimmy's voice piped up from the back of the crowd that had crowded closer to the action. His thick fingers fumbled with the phone as Perry searched through the recent calls looking for a familiar name while gunfire continued to echo quietly from the stairwell. "Doesn't he have any numbers labeled in here? Ah ha! I'll be damned. 'Mom'. It's in here."
"Well call it already, we don't have time!! The paramedics aren't here yet and nobody else knows what to do for him—call it!" Lois cried, panicking, "He's not breathing steadily anymore! Put her on speakerphone!"
Perry hit the button and sharp ringing sliced through the air. It seemed everyone was holding their breath, afraid to breathe lest the call be interrupted. No one was making any moves to leave, not wanting to miss any of the drama.
"Hello?" A kindly voice answered.
"Martha Kent?!"
"Yes, who is this? And why are you calling from Clark's phone?" Her voice got distant and Perry could imagine the woman was double-checking the caller ID.
"Mrs. Kent, this is Lois Lane. Clark's partner at the Daily Planet—I don't know if you remember me…"
"Of course I do! It's been a few years and I thought I told you to call me 'Martha'..." Lois interrupted the older woman and felt only a modicum of guilt for doing so.
"Mrs. Kent!" Lois' nearly sobbed and the other woman picked up the emotion in her voice even over the speakerphone. Perry, numbed the shock of it all, found himself wondering if she had super-hearing as well.
"Something's wrong—what is it? What's happened?! Where's Clark?!" Martha's voice wavered. "CLARK!! Where's my son?!"
"He's right here, but you've got to help me! He's been shot!"
Silence reigned over the phone as the older woman seemingly digested the news. When she spoke again, her voice was strangely flat, "Clark? Shot? I'm afraid you must be mistaken..."
"Martha, please! I know! I know everything now, and Lex Luthor just shot him with Kryptonite bullets!"
"Oh God!" The warbling cry on the other end of the line did nothing to alleviate the slowly growing panic in the room as Clark's breathing grew even more labored.
"He told us to call you just before he lost consciousness—he's having trouble breathing. I don't know what to do! What do we do?!" Her voice became shriller as she started to hyperventilate. The panicking of the young woman on the phone galvanized Superman's mother into action.
"First, you need to calm down," Martha barked from the phone, her years and experience as a volunteer nurse in the Army finally kicking in as she took control of the situation from hundreds of miles away. "You'll be of no use to anyone if you don't; take a few deep breaths, okay? Next you'll need to get into the bottom drawer of his desk. There's a medical kit in the back." Lois nodded at Jimmy, who quickly followed orders; she focused on her breathing and morbidly wondered if Clark and his mother had actually prepared for this type of scenario or if Martha was winging it. Jim lugged the kit back and set it down on the floor with a hard thud.
"We've got it; but Martha…" Lois' stated worriedly as Perry popped open the kit, "…there's nothing in there."
"I know—it's lead lined. You're going to put the bullets in there once you dig them out."
"Dig them out!?" Perry parroted incredulously.
"Who's that?!" Martha demanded tinnily.
"That's Perry, our boss. Clark got shot at work. Everyone here knows."
The muffled swearing that came from the phone caused a small smile to spread across Lois' strained features. "Dammit! That means I have to start packing. I'd hoped that this day would never come to pass."
"Packing?"
"No time for that now! You'll need something long, skinny and strong—preferably metal. And rubbing alcohol."
"Will a letter opener and whiskey work?" Perry asked candidly.
"That'll have to do. You'll need towels too." The Planet employees jumped up to fetch the needed items. Jimmy collected dishtowels from the break room while Perry fished his liquor and a letter opener from his desk.
Martha continued with her instructions, "You need to take off his shirt. Does he have the suit on?"
"Suit?" She replied dumbly.
"The blue suit, does he have it on?"
Lois frantically yanked his tie from its knot and unbuttoned the bloody, white shirt. Nothing but a pale, muscular torso tinged with green and mottled with ugly black bruises and blood met her eyes when she finally pulled it open. "No. He's not wearing it." She quickly wadded up what was left of his shirt and pressed it against the worst of the two wounds on his chest once it was bare; the other was bleeding sluggishly although what that meant, she didn't know—she suspected it probably wasn't a good sign though.
"Thank God. That thing's a pain in the ass to get off." Snickers erupted from the back of the crowd. Several wondered aloud how such a colorful old woman raised such a mild-mannered man like Clark who said 'Gosh' and 'swell' on a daily basis.
"We've got everything."
"Okay. Take the letter opener and douse it in the alcohol." Perry dunked the strip of metal straight into the bottle. "Get three or four guys to hold his arms down." Jimmy, Perry, Frank and Gil all moved into position as instructed. "Okay—Lois, pour the alcohol on the wounds. His immune system has been comprised—everything has to be sterilized, I don't know if he can be infected by all the germs and viruses out there, so we have to treat him as if he were human." Lois did as she was told and the effect was immediate; still not fully conscious, Clark screamed in pain and tried to flail in reaction to the fiery alcohol being poured over his bullet-riddled chest. The strength with which he moved took Perry by surprise—even wounded as he was, he managed to nearly lift all four men off the ground.
"Done."
"Now you're going to have remove the bullets."
"WHAT?!"
"It's the only way. The longer the Kryptonite is in his body the worse it's going to be. Feel around the wound—you should feel a lump. Hopefully, there're no broken bones."
"I feel it!" She exclaimed excitedly; Clark moaned in pain. "It's lodged up against a bone just below his shoulder. It doesn't feel like anything's broken there."
"Good. Now, try to get the tip of the opener under the bullet. Once you do that, apply gentle upwards pressure until it comes out."
"I'm sorry, Clark!" Sucking in her breath sharply, Lois slowly but surely dug the bullet out of her partner. More than one employee ran gagging to the bathrooms, but she remained completely focused on her task, covered in Superman's blood, knowing exactly what would happen if she failed. Several long minutes later, it landed with a hollow plop into the bottom of the medical kit and glowed a venomous green though covered in blood before Jimmy snapped the lid shut to contain the radiation. She had started in on the other side when he stopped breathing altogether. "Oh damn! Martha, he's not breathing!"
"Get the other bullet out, Lois! It's the only way!" The young woman worked feverishly to free the other piece of Kryptonite; her haste making her slip several times and she winced as she jostled his broken ribs more than once. It seemed an eternity later that the second bullet joined the first and Jimmy snapped the lid shut a final time, shielding Clark from the rock's poisonous green glow. The effect was almost immediate; the deathly grey-green pallor to Clark's skin seemed to abate although he still wasn't breathing on his own. Richard stepped in then, dropping an abnormally quiet Jason into Perry's arms and pushing an exhausted Lois out of the way to begin CPR.
"Why aren't you pushing on his chest?" Tired as she was, Lois still had to have the answer to everything.
In between breaths, Richard panted, "Can't…not with…broken…ribs."
Even though she knew she should clean up in the bathroom, Lois couldn't bring herself to leave; she wanted to be there no matter if Superman lived or died, if only so that he'd have someone who loved him close. After several minutes, Richard was getting ready to give up when Clark coughed up more blood and began breathing on his own, albeit shakily. A collective sigh of relief and a few whistles came from the crowd of employees as the superhero's breathing became stronger.
"Lois!? Lois, what's going on?!" Martha's voice chirruped loudly from the phone, having waited in tense silence on the other end for some sort of sign.
"He's breathing—Omigod, I can't believe it. It worked! He's still unconscious, but he's breathing."
"He's still unconscious? That's not right—he should be awake by now."
"What do you mean by that? He was out for three days after New Krypton."
"From the little that Clark and I have discovered, it appears as though his body puts him into a comatose state to heal itself. The length of that state varies depending upon the severity of his injury; with New Krypton, he drove himself to the very edges of all of his limits, mentally as well as physically. Of course he'd need three days to recoup from that." Martha was still on speakerphone and several of the less moral reporters in the back, including Frank and Gil, were scribbling notes as she talked.
"Did I hear you correctly—the worse his injuries are, the longer he's unconscious?"
"Yes."
"Oh crap."
"What's wrong?! Hello?! Lois?!"
"Martha, he wasn't just shot—he was beaten," she took a quick breath as if wondering how much she should divulge to Clark's mother. Glancing over at her own son, she realized her decision had already been made. "He was worked over by three huge guys with chairs and clubs and…Martha? They had brass knuckles and I could've sworn they had a green tint to them. We underestimated Luthor's resourcefulness big time…" she trailed off, sniffling slightly.
"Listen to me and listen carefully: this was not your fault. No one is to blame except for Lex Luthor, understood?"
Brief silence met her declaration, followed by a meek, "Yes, thank you."
"No, thank you for saving my son—he counts himself lucky to work with people he considers his friends. Now I see why he trusts you." Martha paused and cleared her throat as if beating back tears; it was a testament to her will that her voice only trembled slightly when she issued her final instructions. "You need to get him into sunlight; it will help him heal faster."
"Okay, we'll do that right now."
"Oh and Lois?"
"Yes?"
"Tell that son of mine to call my cell when he wakes up." That elicited a small giggle from the Planet's star reporter, which was no doubt Martha's intention.
"Wait—what are you going to do?"
"I am going to pack and then I'm catching the next flight to Metropolis." She rang off and Lois stared at the phone in her hand, marveling at the woman who raised Superman.
"Alright, you heard the woman," she barked, finally getting control of her emotions now that she had to be the strong one. "We need to move him into some direct sunlight! Chief! We're using your office since it has the most windows." And with that, she recruited a group of her co-workers along with two paramedics that had finally shown up, to move Clark into sunlight. After some arguing with Lois and without recognizing the bruised and bloodied man on the floor, they reluctantly agreed to strap him to a backboard and move him into the office twenty feet away. She managed to persuade them to give her ten minutes before they were going to haul him to the waiting ambulance and the ER.
"Mommy?" Jason had found his way to his mother and he threw himself into her weak, exhausted embrace, burying his face in her shoulder. She gently rocked him, murmuring soothing words and making sure he was facing away from the comatose man on the floor in Perry's office. She didn't want to traumatize her son any more, although she knew there would be nightmares for months. She nearly missed his next comment, "Mommy? When is Mr. Clark gonna wake up?"
"I don't know, Honey. Soon, I hope." He pulled away from her enough that he could look at her. His blue eyes seemed to bore into her soul as he searched her face; for what she wasn't sure, but a sob lodged in her chest at how much he looked like his father just then, with his eyebrows knitted together in concentration and his lips pursed into a thin, questioning line. Suddenly, he smiled and it was like the sun broke loose from the clouds because soon she found herself smiling and relaxing in response.
"He has to get better soon, Mommy. He promised he'd take me to the park tomorrow!"
Lois tensed. "Jason, I don't know that Mr. Clark will…" She broke off when she recognized that he needed to have the reassurance and normalcy right then. Besides, knowing Clark, he wouldn't miss taking Jason to the park for the world; he could be in a hospital bed and he'd still find a way not to disappoint his son. His son. The lump was back in her throat as the enormity of the day's events finally hit her. It was a good thing she was already sitting down. In typical Lois Lane fashion, she felt her blood pressure go through the roof as she stewed over everything she wanted to make Clark suffer for, which was quite a laundry list. Halfway through visualizing his punishment for leaving her alone and pregnant, she realized the absurdity of her thoughts and chuckled aloud. Lois tightened her hold on her son: she wouldn't change her life for anything.
While waiting for Clark to wake up, Lois watched in subdued amusement as the Editor in Chief confiscated everyone's notebooks and pocket recorders, saying that if an article about Superman's identity were to run in the Daily Planet, it would be written by the man himself—if he ever woke up.
Clark became aware of a warm, soothing feeling as it bathed his battered body and he slowly opened his eyes…or at least he thought he did; he blinked but most of the room remained pitch black while lightening to a dark grey at the very edges. He thought he was at the Planet, but he couldn't be certain; he strained his ears to see if he could hear anything but he might as well have been in a vacuum. Tired, so tired, was his last thought before he slipped into unconsciousness once more.
Clark opened his eyes a second time—the world was still blurry, however, he could recognize the shapes above him as people. He could barely make out Lois' features hovering most prominently above him. Her mouth moved but no sound came out. All too soon he realized he had exerted his still-limited hearing in trying to make out what she was saying, and now a low, annoying buzzing sound filled his ears. What were once normally forgettable background noises suddenly became headache-inducing, ear-tearing nuisances; muffled voices speaking excitedly sounded like a dull roar, but what was worse was the squeak of someone's rubber-soled shoes on the floor that truly hurt. It felt as though someone was pounding on his forehead with a hammer every time a person moved and he wanted to tear the shoes right off their feet.
He tried to focus again on his partner and, as if in slow motion, Lois opened her mouth to speak again, "Squeeeeeeep!" The squeaking pervaded everything, even overpowering speech. Puzzled, Clark was vaguely aware of moving his own lips and saying something to her. She made to speak one more time. "Squee-e-e-e-e-eep!"
A/N- Sorry, you're gonna have to wait for it...next Thursday. :-P