A/N: I am resubmitting this chapter because I realized that the version that got published was the unedited one. I apologize about that. Please Review
Chapter 4: Exclusive
Metropolis glowed in the afternoon sun. Clark had found a new love in flying. Nothing felt more freeing than to take to the sky. He had never had the chance to fly freely in public before now with the Kryptonian clothing his mother had given him he was truly free from the constraints his secret had always held. It felt wonderful to let go and soar through the metropolis skyline.
Clark had always flown with purpose not giving to the extravagance of flight. He had always just flown straight and true not deterring form a set path. Now he could take full advantage of free flight. Keeping his legs straight and together with his feet tilted slightly back he spread his arms out imitating the wings of a plane. he noticed that the positions of his arms and legs would mimic the aero dynamic properties of routers allowing him to make small course adjustments by simply raising one arm a half an inch. His bright red cape flowed out behind him adding the illusion of wings fluttering in the wind. His cape seemed to catch the wind so that it filled full of air and spread out in full glory instead of just falling behind him in a wad of fabric.
The illusion of peace was broken by the wail of a police siren. Turning his arms to the direction of the siren Clark made a bee line for the emergency. Swooping through the buildings in a low flight path Clark could see two police cars chasing a yellow Cadillac. The caddy was being driven by a man in a green and blue tactical suit with a full face plate covering his face. There were three other occupants in the car as well all wearing the same get-up. Each of the criminals was carrying semi-automatic weapons. The passengers in the back of the vehicle were leaning out of the windows shooting at the patrol cars. Luckily for the police the crooks did not seem to be very good shots.
Using his x-ray vision Clark could tell that the criminals had a cache of gold in the trunk of their car. Upon further investigation he also noticed that they each wore chevrons in the shape of a globe with the acronym "I.O.C.S." stiched in the centre. Clark did not recognize the logo but they were obviously a well organized operation. Flying in even lower Clark came up level to the driver's side window.
Waving to the driver Clark tried to act as natural as possible. "Going awfully fast aren't you boys."
Looking over towards Clark the driver was driven speechless. Not paying attention to the road the car ploughed into a cement truck. Clark floated in place long enough to give the police officers a salute before flying off towards the daily planet.
Clark returned to the newsroom of the daily planet just in time to catch the brunt of the excitement he had caused. Reporters were buzzing around like crazy. It looked more like a bees nest than a newspaper. Clark walked to his desk before going to Perry's office. He had learned early on that his super speed could be used for more than just running. Sitting down at his word processor Clark hashed out a cover story on the interception he had made. Including a description of the logo on the thieves clothing. It dawned on him that he would have to tone back on using his rescues for stories eventually someone would put two and two together. Getting up from his desk he walked into Perry's office with a full account of the event.
When he entered the office he saw Lois and jimmy were already there. Lois was trying to get Perry to let her write the story. Walking up to his desk Clark placed his story down and turned to leave. Glancing over his article Perry stood up to call Clark back.
"Son where in the Sam hill did you get all of this intelligence." Perry was holding Clarks article in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other.
"I have a source in the police station" Clark explained.
Perry walked up to him and clapped him on the shoulder. "One day and you already make a cover story. You're going to do just fine around here Kent."
Lois's eyes grew three sizes as she realized Clark had beaten her to the story. "don't get to cocky Kent I'm going to get an exclusive with this flying man and when I do there wont be a cover page with out my name in it for a long time."
Lois stormed out of Perry's office dragging jimmy behind her. Clark simply shook his head and smiled
"Don't worry about her Kent you take the rest of the day and see if you can't get any leads on this crime organization." Perry turned from him and sat back down at his desk.
"Thanks chief." Clark turned and left for the roof.
Once in the air Clark scoured the city for Lois and jimmy. There was no sense in letting her do anything rash trying to get an interview when he would be more than happy to spend a few minutes with her. Clark had her heart beat memorized and flew over the city trying to get a fix on where she was. Flying low he heard some one on one of the sky bridges that sounded almost exactly like Lois. Listening in he could make out Lois talking to jimmy.
"Come on shutter bug there isn't any danger. He is bound to come for me if I jump." Lois said
"But what if he is saving someone else miss Lane?" jimmy was saying.
My god she is going to jump. That woman is completely out of her mind. Clark swooped down trying to locate which bridge she was on. When he finally found her she had flung herself from the bridge and was screaming at the top of her lungs. She had fallen several hundred feet already Clark couldn't waste any time flying at approximately two hundred miles and hour Clark swooped past jimmy making him drop his camera. Climbing steadily Clark finally matched Lois's decent and caught her in his arms.
Slowing to a hover the young man hung in the air with the irresistible Lois lane in his arms. Afraid of losing her balance she grasped his neck with her arms and stared up into his bright blue eyes.
"Wow" was the only thing she could muster. She was taken back by his Olympian beauty.
Flying back up to the bridge they found jimmy just as he had recovered his camera. Taking a picture of the pair jimmy grinned and waved at Lois.
"If you don't mind young man I'm going to steal miss lane here for a moment." Clark had added a richer more baritone quality to his voice. The effect was both mesmerizing and fighting. Neither Lois nor jimmy could produce any form of response. So with a smile Clark lifted Lois and himself higher into the air.
Straightening out he held Lois half in front of him flying with their heads even. After nearly thirty minutes that had covered almost all of the city and Lois had done nothing but stare into his eyes. He approached where he knew her apartment was and waited to land.
"So ma'am where should I set down?" Clark waited for her to realize that he was speaking.
"What, oh yeah, that my apartment right down there." she said pointing to the penthouse of a large apartment building.
Landing in the roof top garden Clark set down Lois and began to look around. "Some place you have here."
Lois blushed and began busying herself to find something to write with. "Yes well this was my fathers before he passed away a few years ago."
Clark was surprised he had not known that the colonel had died. "I'm sorry to hear it. Do you have any other family?"
Lois was embarrassed by all of the personal questions. But for some reason she did not mind telling him. She felt like she could confide all of her secrets in this strange man. "My mother is globetrotting the world some where. And my sister Lucy is a mess. She seems to always find herself in trouble."
Clark smiled "must be a family trait."
At this Lois became stern. She was nothing like her sister. Her whole life she had been forced to be the strong one in her family. "No its not."
Clark saw her face turn sour and she turned to walk into her apartment. "I didn't mean ay offence. I was referring to your little stunt on the bridge."
Lois caught herself half bent over her couch reaching for a pad. He was right she had acted like a complete idiot today not only on the bridge but with Clark too. She realized that she was supposed to be his partner not his competition. Walking back to the garden she tried to muster her best apologetic face.
"I'm sorry about that. It was kind of stupid wasn't It." she sat down on one of the iron wrought chairs and crossed her legs. "Pulling her cell phone out her pocket book she started to dial Clark's office line."You don't mind if I call my partner over do you?"
"Please don't." Clark had raised his hand in an urgent manner. Realizing that he must look a little suspicious he tried to act cool. "I mean there is no reason we can't do this in private. In fact I would prefer it." he gave her an alluring look hoping that she would forget about calling his desk phone. Crossing his arms he paced around in front of her.
"All right, I suppose Clark won't be too jealous." Lois said scribbling a description on her legal pad. She tried to not miss a thing from his red boots to the attractive way his hair curled making the semblance of an s on his forehead.
"Is he the jealous type this Clark person" Clark joked having a ball poking fun at himself.
"To be completely honest I haven't gotten to know him very well." she said continuing to jot down notes. "Something I plan on remedying."
"Good. Hope you don't mind my prying but you wouldn't happen to have a boyfriend would you." this elected a surprise from Lois making her cheeks blush
Lois was shaken "um, so what's your name?"
Clark chuckled and let a large grin spread across her face. "I doubt you would be able to pronounce it properly."
"Why is that?" Lois decided to trudge through the questions.
"It isn't exactly English." Clark stopped pacing and looked her in the eye. He could tell she was confused. "Let's see how do I break it to you. I'm not exactly human."
Lois furrowed her brow "what do you mean?"
"I'm not from this planet." Lois was still confused. "You see I'm from a planet close to the galactic core called Krypton."
"You mean you're an alien." Lois said a little louder than she intended.
"That is exactly what I mean." Clark resumed pacing waiting for her to catch up.
"But you look human." Lois said not sure if she should call star labs or arkham
"I know I do and surprisingly enough Kryptonians are the only other race in the universe that bares an almost exact match to human physiology." Clark said hoping that his response would ease her apprehension. "Although as far as I know I am the only person who escaped the planet before our sun went supernova."
Lois realized that he wasn't crazy or delusional. He was being completely honest with her. "So you are completely alone." the words were not as articulate as planed. She knew what it felt like to be completely alone.
"So should we start the interview?" Clark wanted to get past the awkwardness. "What do you want to know first?"
"Lets see, how about your age." Lois looked up at him and tried to be a professional as possible.
"I'm about 25 years old in earth years. However I won't age quiet like you do." Clark tried to stay light matching her professional tone.
"No kidding, you do not look twenty five." Lois jotted that down and kept think of another question. Alright how about tell me how your powers seem to work."
Clark thought about this for a while before answering. "The cells in my body act like natural solar batteries. So for example the cells in my eyes fill up with energy and then dispel it in various forms of radiation ranging of intense inferred or concentrated x-rays."
"You mean that you have x-ray vision." Lois had a knack for understatement.
"Yes, among other things." Clark said as Lois made more notes.
"So is all of this solar radiation why you can fly." Lois started to chew the end of her pen,
"More or less. The solar radiation gives me more minute control over flight." Clark said looking around at the roses in her garden. "Most of my speed and strength comes form my body's density." Clark looked at Lois and noticed that her brow was furrowed again. "You see Krypton has a much higher gravity. Making me lighter here on earth so I can lift things that you would think were very heavy and it not feel like more than a feather to Me." he looked around for an example finding a heavy plant potter. He took his index finger and placed it under the rim and lifted it straight up. "You see what I mean." Lois was in shock.
"You have to be pulling my leg with some of this. I mean sure I can see you holding that up but how could you possibly rove that you are from a distant planet." Lois had gotten up to examine the pot.
Setting the pot down Clark took Lois's arms in is hands and looked deep into her eyes. "The most important thing you should know Miss Lane is that I never lie."
Lois believed him she did not know why she believed him but for some reason she felt like he was the only decent man in the world. She could find no other name to call him but Superman.