Chapter 37: Between Husbands and Wives

Argo City, Krypton

High Council Compound

"General Ranu has her team combing the compound and surrounding area for Zod, Faora, and the other escapees."

Despite his quiet and brief conversation with Billy during the general's report to the High Council, Clark hadn't missed one thing the woman had said, including the fact that her squad still hadn't one clue as to Zod's whereabouts. Clark didn't like it, no more than his father did.

Eyes shrewd, face lined with frustration and tension, Clark watched as his father paced the living room, his fists balled at his sides, thumping on Jor's thighs every time he stopped and spoke.

Like Billy, Clark just stood there, in the middle of the room, wound too tight to sit. As long as those remaining escapees were on the loose, no one in the compound was safe, especially Clark's parents. From the little he knew of Dru Zod, the former general had an arrogant barbaric streak, revenge and desperation a lethal mix in a man born and bred to lead men and women into war.

"I don't think I've said so before, young man," Jor stopped his pacing in front of Billy, "but you did fine work here on my family's behalf." Jor extended his right hand to Billy, who wasted no time taking the hand and shaking. "Thank you. If there is anything you ever need, please don't hesitate to ask."

"Umm, well, thank you, sir." Billy grinned, a boyish smile with traces of re-earned pride. "I would do anything for Dr. Kent. When I landed in Gotham, I had no family, no friends, and no job. I had a few bucks in the bank from miscellaneous jobs, but no real prospects for the future."

Billy's hand fell away from Jor's, which he then jammed in his pants pocket, reminding Clark of an ignored kid suddenly thrown in the spotlight—thrilling yet frightening.

"I owe the boss lady more than she will ever know. When she hired me, Dr. Kent gave me more than a job. And when she forgave me for screwing up, trusting and having faith in me when I had none in myself" —Billy lowered his eyes then head, staring down at his rather large feet— "it made me feel both utterly worthless and extremely valued." He lifted his head, his eyes finding Clark. "No woman should have that impact on a man, especially not one she hasn't slept with. You're her husband, you have to know what I'm talking about."

Yes, Clark knew. Diana had that effect on people, drawing them into her life and heart with her honesty, intelligence, and strength. Having Diana as a friend made one feel as if they'd won the lottery, even if the only gamble they'd taken were daring to put themselves within her powerful, sometimes overwhelming, orbit.

"She's unselfish and kind in a way that's intimidating as hell. But she's also fierce, loyal, and a real down to earth person once you get past her beauty and ruthless business persona.

Yeah, Clark knew all of that as well. But he'd also had the pleasure of knowing Diana Prince, the sweet, naïve college student, long before she became CEO of Wayne Industries, respected, but feared woman of business and billions.

"Well," Jor said, "when it comes down to it, we men are still cavemen enough to think it our responsibility to protect our women—be them mothers, sisters, wives, or friends. When all is stripped from us—technology, fancy clothing, money, we are but primal beings, intent on making it to the next day and destroying anyone who dares to threaten that basic survival instinct. Women like to think they have civilized us. In some ways, they have. But when they are threatened, the truth of that so-called civilization is revealed."

"Are you saying, Mr. El, that men are beasts, barbaric and violent at our core?"

"Beasts are unthinking in their barbarism, men, young Batson, are far worse because we plan, plot, and annihilate with deliberation and extreme cunning. Let's be honest, we've all thought of or wished H'el, Non and his men dead. Hell, I would even say we've envisioned doing the vile deed ourselves. When men are pushed, when their hearts are threatened, they will eventually push back, and not always in the most un-violent of ways."

This Jor El was yet another side of Clark's father he hadn't known. The depth of this man kept growing, shocking and illuminating. For a man of noble birth, raised to lead his country and rule over millions, Jor El's life hadn't gone at all how it should have. The assassination of his parents and Zod's ascension to High Councillor had not only robbed Jor of his birthright but had threatened all Jor held dear. How many times, during Zod's reign, had Jor felt powerless to shield his family and countrymen from Zod's despotism?

Countless, Clark surmised. Then he'd felt compelled to leave his son behind in the hope of protecting him, losing another piece of what it meant to be a man in Jor's eyes.

"Do women have any idea what they do to us?" Billy asked, his question full of youthful innocence.

He would do well to get that under control if he intended to survive being in a relationship with Lois, Clark thought, pitying the young man in only the way Lois Lane's ex-husband could.

"Without a doubt," Jor answered, his voice holding the years of maturity and experience Billy's had lacked. "They know exactly what they do to us."

Billy looked to Clark for confirmation.

Clark nodded.

Billy scratched his head and sighed.

The door to the suite opened then closed. A moment later, Lara rounded the corner, finding the three of them standing there. Her eyes first landed on her husband then Clark.

He didn't like what he saw there. When Lara spoke, he liked her words even less.

"Tell me, son, what in the world did you think your wife would say when you brought Nuria the Chambermaid home with you?"

How in the world had his mother found out about Nuria? It didn't matter, Clark knew, but his mind only seemed to process one thing at a time, the first being whether Diana also knew. Hell, he didn't even notice Billy's silent retreat until after he heard the door close again.

Both his parents were now staring at him. Actually, frowning would be a more accurate descriptor of the way Jor and Lara were looking at Clark.

"What did you do?"

What in the hell did his father mean? Surely Jor didn't mean what he seemed to be implying.

"I didn't do anything. Why in the hell are the two of you staring at me as if I've— Wait, what did you hear, Mom?"

Lara's arms rose to cross over her chest, reminding him of Ma Kent when he'd done something stupid as a boy.

"H'el is under the impression you slept with that girl, and he's eager to tell it to anyone who will listen."

"What!? He thinks I did what?"

Clark couldn't believe this. Sure, Nuria had hit on him, making it clear to Clark her willingness to become his lover. And, yeah, he'd used her interest in him and desire to leave Krypton to convince the young woman to help him. But that's all there was to it-plain and simple.

"Clark did no such thing, Lara," his father defended, despite the hard daggers he kept shooting his way. "That's just one of many of H'el's lies. Besides, when did you speak with him?"

Now it was Lara on the receiving end of Jor's glare. But Lara ignored her husband, her focus and ire still directed at Clark.

"But you did promise to take her back to the States with you if she helped get you access to a phone so you could call home."

"Well, yeah, but that was it."

Lara threw up her hands. "That was it? That was it? Gracious, Clark, do you have no idea how that sounds, how such a promise would appear to others who don't know you? Do you have no sense of political propriety?"

"What I did had nothing to do with politics. It was personal. I needed to reach home, and Nuria was the only one I knew who was willing and able to help me."

"Son," Jor began, "everything a lord does is political, even when he thinks matters are of a personal nature and no one else's business. I thought I explained that to you when we first arrived in Krypton."

He had, but why was his father acting as if he hadn't known what Clark had done? Hadn't Jor been the one to warn Clark that Diana wouldn't understand, that she'd be angry and jealous if she ever learned the truth?

"Stop pretending, Jor." Lara skewered her husband with a look that had Jor stepping back until he found a chair and sat.

"What do you mean?"

Clark almost laughed at the sight before him. For all Jor's talk of men being primal and uncivilized, he wilted like a flower under his wife's fiery heat.

"You had to have known that girl had her sights on our son. And I've no doubt Clark told you what he promised Nuria. You should have stopped him."

"I didn't know until after he'd already made the deal. Besides, you still haven't told me why and when you spoke with H'el. Oh wait, that's where you're coming from now, isn't it?"

His father stood, on equal footing with Lara now that both their secrets were out in the open.

"You have no moral standing here, Lara. You told me you couldn't attend the Council meeting because you wanted to watch over Diana."

"I did watch over her."

"And then?"

"Then she slept."

"What else?"

"I left."

"And went to the subbasement to speak with H'el."

"Yes." Lara raised her chin in challenge to her husband's slow probing. "There is no place in this compound off limits to Lady El. I am free to go where I please."

"Indeed you are, Lady El. And Clark was free to make a promise to Nuria, no matter how short-sighted that promise may have been. Just as I'm free to protect myself from your wrath by pretending I knew nothing of Clark's stupidity."

With that, Jor sat back down.

"Thanks a lot, Dad."

Jor snorted. "One failed marriage and a second one still in its infancy doesn't make you an expert on wives and marriage, Clark. Trust me, sometimes it's best to sit down and let them have their way."

"Are you saying you've 'let' me have my way whenever we disagree?"

As Lara scowled down at her husband, annoyance pulsing off her, Jor, ever so subtly, gestured to the door with his right hand.

Taking the hint, Clark began to back out of the living room—one slow, soft step at a time.

"I'm saying that I love you and hate arguing with you, Lara. Furthermore, I really enjoy our lovemaking, which you tend to withhold when you're angry with me."

Clark slipped from his parents' suite, not wanting to hear his mother's response to Jor's cunning and deliberate taunt. His father really did know more about being married than Clark. And Jor, the shrewd and loving father that he was, had just thrown himself on the proverbial marital sword for Clark.

There, across from the suite stood Billy. Clark had forgotten all about the bodyguard.

"I guess your services don't extend to protecting me from Lady El."

"No offense, but your mother could castrate a man with a look alone."

"Yeah, I'm learning that."

In silence, they walked down the hallway and toward the elevator.

Clark shook his head. His parents were nothing like the people Clark had envisioned them being when he was a boy. Back then, Clark had conjured up images and personalities from his favorite television show families, assigning the traits he liked best. But none of those imaginings, wonderings, came close to the truth.

Lara and Jor El were as wonderful and complex as Clark had always thought himself as being. On the surface, they appeared unemotional and standoffish, even staid and arrogant. Yet the depth of the two ran much deeper than superficial assumptions. Today, yet another example of how much more there was to learn about his parents. About myself.

Getting on the elevator, Clark pushed the button that would take him to Diana's floor. Lara said she'd left Diana asleep. He wondered if she still slept. If she knows about Nuria. Mom wouldn't have told her. No, no, I'm almost positive she wouldn't have done that.

As Clark and Billy approached Diana's door, another thought came to him. Diana had assigned one of her Furies to Lara, which meant one of Diana's friends had been with Lara when she spoke with H'el. When he lied and said I had sex with Nuria. Dammit.

Before Clark could raise his hand to knock on the door, it opened. In the doorway and smiling up at him was Helena.

"Hey, Clark. Billy. We were just leaving."

She opened the door wider, revealing Zatanna, bed ruffled hair and wrinkled clothes.

"I was told Diana took a nap, but it looks as if she wasn't the only one."

"Yeah, well," Zatanna said, "that wife of yours is a bed hog."

"I don't recall inviting either of you to share my bed." Diana strolled from the bedroom, looking well-rested and as gorgeous as ever. "Hi, you," she said when she spotted him.

"That's our cue to leave. Come on Zee, our own beds are calling us."

Clark stepped aside and let Helena and Zatanna pass.

"When I get to my room, I'll dispatch one of the Wayne security guards to this location," Helena said to Billy. "Stay at your post until your relief arrives, then go to your room and get some sleep. You've earned it, kid."

The Furies smiled at Billy in a way Clark had never seen them do before. This mission had changed something important between them. Billy Batson had done the unthinkable. He'd earned the trust and respect of Diana's Furies—no small feat.

"I will. No problem."

The women waved and set off down the hall.

"Are you coming in?" Clark asked of Billy.

The younger man shook his head, his eyes skirting into the room and at Diana, who sat on the sofa several feet away, her eyes glued to her cell phone.

"My services also don't extend to my boss. Good luck trying to explain whatever in the hell your mother think you did with Nuria." Billy whistled low. "I've seen that maid, and she's one fine piece of Kryptonian asset, if you know what I mean."

Of course, Clark knew what the idiot meant.

"I mean, who wouldn't want to tap that—"

Clark slammed the door in Billy's face. Clark may have only been a decade older than Billy, but the younger man had a way of making him feel ancient.

"That wasn't very nice."

"Saw that, did you? I thought you were on that computer you call a cell phone."

"Not anymore." She patted the cushion beside her. "Come sit with me."

He did, reaching Diana in four long strides. Sitting, Clark couldn't help but stare at his wife. She wore no makeup, just a bit of lip gloss that gave her mouth a sexy, shiny appeal. Hair pulled into a ponytail, blue eyes sharp, nose regal, Diana was beauty personified.

Clark preferred Diana this way—free of makeup and power suits that hid the sweet, innocent woman underneath. But this version, the Diana in exercise pants, an oversized shirt and bare feet, reflected one of her many layers. Like his parents, his wife was complex, multidimensional. And, in some ways, Clark didn't know Diana at all. But he had the rest of their lives to learn everything there was to know about the woman he'd given his heart to so many years ago.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I was just thinking that there is still so much about each other that we don't know."

Diana's sweet innocence gave way to beguiling worldliness when she smiled at him. Rising onto her knees, she moved to straddle his thighs. Hands on his shoulders, she leaned in and pressed a tantalizing kiss to his neck.

Then her tongue was on him, sliding over pulsing neck, licking and tasting Clark with a sensuality that had Clark moaning.

"What is it you wish to know about me that you don't already?"

The question, delivered in a low, erotic tone, caressed and tempted for all the innuendo Diana said it with, her exploring tongue a punctuation mark.

"I'm an open book, Clark, all you need do is thumb through my pages for the answers you seek."

God, the woman knew how to push all his sexual buttons. Worse, this time, he didn't think he had the fortitude to reject her advances, if she continued toying with him. Hell, he didn't want to turn her down. What Clark wanted, what he needed involved getting himself and Diana naked, right here on this wide, plush sofa.

Her lips found his, soft and pliant. The kiss, tender and ripe with longing, with need, burned between them. Clark wanted this, wanted her, wanted to evade the inevitable conversation about Nuria by giving in to their shared desire to be together.

"We need to talk," Clark said against her lips, his aroused body not at all pleased with the brain that refused to allow Clark to submit and enjoy. "There's something I need to tell you."

"I don't need or want another lecture on why we can't have sex until after I'm cured and feeling better. It's a good thing I know you so well and trust you, Clark, or I'd be convinced you were having an affair, so many times have you turned me down lately."

With a rejected growl, Diana slid off him. Putting a cushion of space between them, Diana crossed her legs and glowered at Clark.

Clark gulped, not liking the way his wife stared at him or how close she'd been with her last, disgruntled statement.

I didn't have an affair, but if H'el's rumor gets out many people will believe I strayed, that I cheated on my wife.

Clark gathered his courage and took the frosty plunge, telling Diana all about Nuria, their bargain, his promise, and what H'el had told Lara. Throughout it all, Diana remained silent, neither interrupting nor moving. In fact, she stared at him, her face an unreadable mask he hadn't seen since he'd reentered her life after Bruce's death, uninvited and unwanted.

Clark hated that mask, hated all the emotions Diana hid behind the damn thing. Worse, it saddened him that she now felt a need to pull it out, dust it off, and don it once more.

"It's all a lie, by the way. I didn't sleep with Nuria. You have to know I would never do that to you . . . to us."

She said nothing, just continued to appraise Clark with those fathomless blue eyes of hers. He chaffed under her silent scrutiny, not appreciating the cold, distant questioning of his fidelity. Sure, he'd callously used Nuria for his own ends, played on her obvious attraction to him. But Clark saw no other way, had no better option back then than to align himself with a woman who, if Clark weren't careful, would've taken liberty after liberty to seduce him into her bed.

Clark had indeed been a fool, now seeing his kindness as a weakness a woman like Nuria could have easily exploited once she had her freedom, in the United States and away from Krypton's constricting caste system. He would've felt obliged to take care of her until she managed to get herself on her feet and settled, which meant Clark would've given Nuria money, helped her find a job and place to live, and hired her a lawyer to work out her immigration issues. At the time, none of this occurred to Clark. He saw it now, and, apparently, so did Diana, the tangle he would've unknowingly placed their marriage in, a spider's web of Clark's making.

"I have a plan," Diana began after a lengthy silence in which she'd turned away from him and stared at the wall, at the floor, at anything in the room but Clark.

"What kind of plan?"

"A plan that will bring all of this nonsense with Zod, H'el, and your parents to an end."

Even though they were speaking to each other, Diana's eyes remained cast away from Clark, her voice laced with a thin layer of anger, perhaps even unwarranted jealousy.

"I guess now is my turn to listen while you speak. I won't like it, though, will I?"

"No, you won't."

"Will my consent be my penance for the misstep I took with the maid?"

Diana stood and finally faced Clark.

"I don't wish to argue, about your maid or my plan."

"Dammit, Diana, Nuria means nothing to me. Everything I did, I did for you. I didn't think about the repercussions, the impact of my decision or how it might appear to others if they knew. But I swear to you, I've never been unfaithful to you, not with Nuria, not with anyone."

"Don't you think I know that, Clark? Don't you think I know the man I married, the father of my children? But this situation has the potential of blowing up all over us, our family, and the plan we have for uniting Krypton. You would have brought that woman home with you, a woman you knew had no compunction about hitting on and sleeping with a married man. Sometimes you're so gullible, Clark, unable to see the forests for the trees."

He had no response to that, because, a part of Clark knew Diana to be right. But she was also wrong, everything in life wasn't calculations and cost-benefit analysis.

He stood.

"We're going to argue, whether you want to or not, about Nuria and the plan you have yet to tell me about. We're going to argue and piss each other the hell off. Do you know why, Diana?" He didn't wait for a reply, Diana's face no longer an emotionless mask. No, it was glowing with frustration and stubbornness. "Because I refuse to make a business deal with my own damn wife just so she can have her way, and I can hide from my mistakes and naiveté."

"So you'll argue with me but not make love to me. That makes a whole hell of a lot of sense."

Oh, but Diana was so good at this.

"So we're arguing."

"Hell yes, we're arguing, Clark. You wanted an argument, well, now you've got one. But understand this," Diana said, poking him in the chest with a finger much stronger than it looked, "once we're done and I've won, we're having make-up sex. And don't even think of telling me no."

Clark wouldn't dream of turning his wife down again.

"Fine. Now, about your plan."

She poked him again, with her fist this time. Damn, they really were going to argue, and Diana no longer looked the least bit innocent, nor particularly sweet.

"I know where Zod, Faora, and the other escapees are hiding, and we're going to give them the opportunity to have their revenge."

"What?"

Clark's jaw dropped.

"You heard me. I'm going to put you, your parents, the High Council, Kara and Lor right in the killers' paths."

Diana smirked, a beautiful, deadly viper.

"You're out of your plotting Grecian mind if you think I'm going to allow you to use our family as bait."

"And you're out of your Pollyanna mind if you think there is any way to change Krypton's fate and future without all of us taking a stand, risking ourselves, and openly dealing with the virus that is General Zod and his legacy."

And the argument was on.

TO BE CONTINUED