Title: Unmasked

Author: Nadia Mack

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing

Summary: Post Superman Returns. Behind the hero is a man longing to be free.

Author's Notes: Thank you again for the fantastic feedback. I wanted to clear up and answer a few things so here we go: 1938 Sullivan Lane is a reference to the apartment building that Lois and Clark reside in the comics, a building also owned by Bruce Wayne. Speaking of Mr. Wayne, he is a supporting character here. The whole Bruce/Clark exchange was a sort of shout out from their interaction in the Batman/Superman comics. Love that!

Chapter 3: Rooftop Rendezvous

"How many T's in constitution?" Lois bellowed as she typed furiously on her keyboard. She received a very resounding "Three!" from multiple co-workers just as they were all finishing up their assignments for the morning edition.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw her son, Jason, drawing away on Clark's desk and smiled.

Once living the life of a general's daughter, she had always been described as rebellious and strong-willed, independent and self-sufficient; and while she had made her fair share of mistakes throughout her life, Jason Lane was the only consequence she had welcomed with pleasure.

"Jason, what are you drawing, sweetie?"

"Superman!" he answered in a lively voice.

Again, she mused. As complicated as life was, especially hers, it was still nice to know that her son held the man nobody seemed able to touch, herself included, in such a good light. Ever since that dreadful experience on the Gertrude, there wasn't a day that went by that Jason hadn't talked about him.

Her special little boy had fallen for him.

Just as she had.

Somehow, she wasn't at all surprised. Superman was the kind of man who welcomed everyone, whether they be good or bad. She didn't even think there was a person out there that he outright hated… well, maybe perhaps Lex Luthor, but she could hardly blame him for that.

Lex Luthor.

The name brought chills to her spine. Flashes of her time on his yacht holding onto her son as he tested his theory on Jason with a wave of his Kryptonite cylinder made her sick to her stomach and more than a little scared. Regardless of what she felt for Superman, her… their son came first.

For the past week, Superman had been missing in her life, but not missing from the world. She understood though, after the threat against the United States' eastern seaboard, Superman was needed elsewhere, providing relief and aid to the city.

Thinking of this, she was ashamed to have ever written a story called 'Why the World Doesn't Need Superman.'

"Mommy," Jason interrupted her with a guilty look on his face, holding out her colleague's stapler, broken in half.

Lois gasped but suppressed her reaction almost immediately, grabbing the stapler from his hand and dumping it in the trash can right underneath her desk.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Oh, sweetie…" She pulled her son into a loving and maternal hug, rubbing his back up and down to assure him. "It's okay," she whispered by his ear as he nodded into her shoulder. "Just be careful next time."

"I don't know how it happened," he said, confused by how easy it was to break a stapler. "I don't want to get in trouble with Mister Clark. I like him."

Lois smiled despite of the situation. Contrary to popular belief, she had always respected Clark, and these past couple of days wouldn't have been easy for her if it hadn't been for his help.

Back to being the new guy on the block, Clark was able to look after Jason while Lois and Richard ran all over the city to get a more accurate view of the disaster that almost fell on Metropolis.

She reminded herself to take him out to lunch or something, to say thank you. It was the least she could do.

"I'm sure he won't be upset," she said, squeezing her son's hand a bit to assure him.

"Promise?"

Lois chuckled. "I'm sure he won't even notice that it's gone."

"Um… Lois. Have you seen my stapler?"

Her eyes widened almost immediately, and if it wasn't for motherhood, she would've cursed out loud by now. She turned in her chair and looked at Clark in ignorance. "Stapler? I don't really… here," she grabbed a fellow reporter's stapler off their desk and handed it to Clark. "They won't miss it."

Clark lifted his eyebrows, and when Lois turned back around his vision focused on her trash can. The image of his stapler broken in half buried deep inside it. He looked up and saw Jason hanging out in Richard's office and he realized what had happened.

He took a piece of paper, and scribbled a note to Lois. Then he quickly placed it underneath her mouse pad while her attention was occupied elsewhere. He hoped she found it in time before the next call for help took his attention away. He needed to talk to her, at least for a little bit.

After a meeting with their editor, several shouts, half a dozen cups of coffee and a newly set deadline, they were all finally free to head home when Lois noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under her mouse pad. When she pulled it out, she recognized the handwriting and knew right away where it had come from.

With a look of urgency, she looked back to Perry's office and saw that Richard was in deep conversation with his uncle. A few offices away, she saw her little boy napping on the sofa inside Richard's office. Soon after, she left for the elevators to head to the roof. Unbeknownst to her, someone else had already beaten her to it.

When she stepped out onto the roof, she didn't expect Superman to be waiting for her. It was normally the other way around.

"Good evening, Lois."

She inhaled deeply, taking in the sound of his voice. Even after all these years, he still managed to affect her like no other, not even Richard.

"Superman," she greeted in return, keeping her distance from the man she once and still loved.

"How are you?"

"Good," she gulped. She hadn't been this nervous around him for a long time. "And you?"

He smiled. "How's Jason?"

"He's fine," she replied. "A little confused, and that's probably because he's a little too smart for his age." She remembered the first time Jason was introduced to mathematics and how quickly he started to learn it, and she wondered what else her son could do now that she had accepted plenty of things she had regrettably avoided for many years.

"I don't think so," Superman said. "He is his mother's son."

Lois smiled appreciatively, but the time for mere chit-chat had to end. They really needed to talk.

"What do we do now?"

Superman honestly didn't know how to respond to that. To be honest, it was all his mind had ever really been able to think about. So far he'd had very little success with an answer let alone a solution.

"Have you told Richard?"

She shook her head. "I don't know how."

"Just tell him the truth, Lois," was his only reply. "I don't… I don't want to come between you two," he admitted with great difficulty. "And I'm not going to get in the way of that. He is Jason's father."

Lois sighed. "I don't know how you can say that and make it sound so easy."

"It's not," he said. "Believe me, it's not."

"I can't even imagine what he'll think," she said, covering her face with her hands before brushing it over her hair. "He's always wondered about us, but I always told him that…" It was hard for her to even think about the past without falling apart. "Anyway, he doesn't know that there was ever really an 'us' to begin with."

"I understand."

"Do you?" she questioned gravely. "How do I tell my fiancé that I was once involved with Superman? How do I tell him that the son he's loved and raised is really your son? And to top it all off, how do I tell our son that he's…" She felt the need to sit down but instead chose to lean back against the ledge.

"It'll take some time, but Jason will understand, and so will Richard," was his only answer even though he knew it wasn't going to be that easy. Right now, all he could do is to show her that this time, she wouldn't have to do things alone, at least as far as their past was concerned.

"But how do you know that?" She sighed in exasperation.

A sense of recognition appeared across Superman's features, and the sight didn't go unnoticed by Lois as she stopped to take a really good look at the man she'd tried to move past for all these years. For the first time since they'd known each other, Lois Lane questioned his identity.

"What aren't you telling me?" she added.

"There are things about me that you don't know about," he said, his voice filled with more emotions than she could describe.

"What kind of things?"

"That I'm not as different from people… from Richard…that people have come to believe."

Just as Lois was going to inquire further, Superman's attention suddenly fell elsewhere, and her mind raced at his words. What did he mean by that? She looked back at Superman with concern.

"When can I see you again?"

"Soon… I hope."

"Be careful out there," she said and he smiled.

"Always." And then he was gone.

Lois returned to her desk, her mind reeling with questions as she went over the events that occurred just a few minutes ago. Superman said something about understanding, but did that mean he could relate to people at ground level as opposed to seeing us from the sky? She didn't know, and all that was left was further confusion.

"Are you ready to go?" Richard asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"Yeah," she responded half-heartedly, looking between Richard and her son.

She lived the life she could easily assume everyone wanted. She had the pleasure of having a job she loved, of having friends she cared for, a good man to share it with, and even an amazing child to fill it with happiness. But even with all that, there was still something missing.

Shamefully, she knew exactly what that was, so every time she looked into her fiancé's eyes, she was reminded of her mistakes, and the love she couldn't have. It was unfair to the family she had created, and unless she could put away her fear of hurting Richard and putting Jason in an uncomfortable situation, she had to come clean or else she would be trapped in marriage where her heart wasn't committed 100 percent.

It suddenly dawned on her, that no matter how she went about it, they were all going to be hurt by this.

So she knew what she had to do.

To be continued…