The answer to "Does Lois know Clark is Superman?" is: Sort of. She has a lot of suspicions, but it's all circumstantial and there's nothing she can reliably prove. Up until a little while ago, she had no reason to think that Clark could be Superman. Like I said, she only started getting properly suspicious about two months earlier. Clark has also gotten a lot better at hiding his abilities since Trask rolled up into Smallville a few years back.
The funny thing is, I orginally wasn't planning to let Lois in on the big secret this early. But then I realized that some of the future storylines would be a lot less complicated to write if Lois already knew Clark was Superman. I figured that the nine-month gap between Crucible and Formation would be long enough for her to really start noticing the inconsistencies and getting suspicious.
Originally, Lois was going to have to wait until the "Jimmy Olsen story" which takes place about three years into Phase 2. You're actually getting this way early.
Chapter Six: The Gorilla Test
Today, it was a bright seventy-eight degrees and it was very tempting to just walk to the Metropolis Gold Hotel. But it was a bit too far from the Daily Planet building to make it there in time for the press conference.
The two reporters took the light rail to avoid the traffic.
"I thought Atlas Industries already released a public statement about Ms. Furie's arrest." Clark said. "Didn't they?"
Lois shrugged. "Oh, they did." she said. "But I don't think it's sticking. A lot of people don't like statements like what came out of Atlas Industries. It basically screams 'sanitized by the PR Department with the social equivalent of bleach'. Heck, I didn't trust it and I get the feeling Ms. Furie didn't have squat to do with attack or the bombing last year."
"I don't think word's gotten out about that one yet." Clark said quietly.
"Privileged information, Smallville. But once word does get out, the city will want someone to blame and she'll be a convenient enough target."
"Fair point."
Meredith Furie was the CEO of Atlas Industries. The company was new to Metropolis by several years, but it had branches in New York, Sacramento and Central City. They specialized in pharmaceuticals, military software, and greener fuel emissions, dabbling in other fields on the side to see what they could turn up. As a company, Atlas Industries had yet to go international, but the company itself was only around fifteen years old and it didn't quite have the footprint to compete with some of the international companies who had been in existence for nearly a century or longer.
"But it's getting there." Lois said, getting to the end of the history lesson she had started on the train ride over. They gotten off just a few blocks away from the hotel. "The last I heard, Atlas Industries was in contract negotiation with a Japanese company that would let them establish some roots overseas."
"Maybe this is an attempt to stop the contract from going through?" Clark suggested. "I think if a potential business partner got in trouble with the law, it would give the other company grounds to pull the contract."
"You're thinking smarter every day, Smallville." Lois praised, causing him to turn a little pink. "It's possible. We'll see if Ms. Furie has to say. Oh, I can't wait to see her in action. She has an attitude like a razor and the single-mindedness of a shark. I think it makes people hate her, but there is a businesswoman whom I have serious respect for."
"She's a role model for you?" Clark wondered.
Lois shook her head. "Not really. But wait. You haven't been in the same room with her yet. She's as cold as ice and twice as biting." the reporter said, practically dancing in glee.
Ms. Furie had been arrested by the police a little over thirty-six hours ago. The department had rebuffed all approaches by the press, saying that they would release an official statement. Now sprung by her lawyers, it seemed Ms. Furie was about to beat the police to the punch.
The problem, it seemed to Lois, was that Ms. Deirdre Merlo was a very publically liked figure, moreso than Ms. Furie could hope to be at the present moment. Ms. Merlo also had big jugs, a pretty smile, and was not at all politically incorrect. Also very, very heterosexual.
There was no ignoring it. Ms. Furie was as gay as the Fourth of July. The dichotomy of her being an influential business woman in charge of a nationally recognized company and one hell of a lesbian seemed too much for the mind of the average business analyst to grasp, to say nothing of certain traditional brackets within the general population. They scratched their heads and pulled their hair, overworking their brains trying to figure out how someone could be so gay and so successful at the same time. In their small worlds, such a thing could not-- should not exist.
It didn't matter how much natural charisma Ms. Furie had. The criticism on her was noticeable harsher, the comments more biting. The press didn't like her, no matter what. They called her too waspish, too strident. Unfriendly and prone to dropping (justified) lawsuits at a moment's notice. A harpy who screeched and shrieked and sharpened her talons on the annual reports. The woman who never smiled, just glared. The complete opposite of Ms. Merlo, whom the press painted as everyone's favorite maiden aunt.
The Metropolis Gold Hotel was one of the swankier venues in the city. A posh, upper-crust hotel, it was no stranger to press conferences and other large amounts of people descending on their luxurious ballrooms. Security was efficient and practiced. The two Daily Planet reporters got through the hastily-erected turnstiles without a fuss.
About a dozen press outlets swarmed through the lobby, waiting for the main ballroom to open. Lois stood up on her toes and looked around for any familiar faces. She spotted one in particular.
"Smallville, I see our best police friend." she declared. "Let's get a scoop before anyone else has the same idea."
The person she had spotted was Captain Maggie Sawyer, commander of the Special Crimes Unit, which handled quite a lot of the weirder stuff that plagued the city on an infrequent basis. They had a lot more to do these days. No longer were they being made to shadow VICE and track down drug-traffic, but now they basically trailed after Superman and cleaned up whatever he left behind. They had gained quite a few rookies in the past five months, taking a lot of the weight off the veteran members. Indeed, the captain looked a little better rested than the first few times Clark had seen her.
Maggie spotted them as they approached. The wild-eyebrow'd detective Dan Turpin was absent, but he was probably holding down the fort.
"Am I still your favorite reporter, Captain?" Lois called out teasingly.
"You're hardly the worst, Ms. Lane." Maggie replied, taking the reporter's hand in a brief handshake. She wore her nice clothes; a knee-length skirt and a fitted suit jacket, her badge tucked into her belt and her firearm on her hip.
"And Mr. Kent. It's good to see you again." the captain added, shaking his hand as well. "I hope you've managed to keep Ms. Lane out of trouble?"
"Eh, that's a bit difficult when she puts her mind to something." Clark admitted.
Lois grinned toothily. "There's a reason they call me Mad Dog Lane, Smallville. Always chasing that squirrel they call the truth." she said. "So what brings you out this way, Captain?"
"Security detail." Maggie shrugged. "No specifics, but Ms. Furie gave me the impression that she's worried about something more than the charges brought against her. I'm not sure if we're here to protect her or keep her from running, though."
"I was wondering, if it's not an issue," Clark started in the super-polite tone where he totally didn't mean to pry. "If you could tell us what perpetuated the arrest of Ms. Furie? Since the official statement hasn't come out..."
Maggie sighed. "Well, there's no point in with-holding information that's going to come out anyways. Just leave my name out." she warned. "I'm assuming you already heard that Ms. Furie has been implicated in last year's averted bombing."
"That's come across our ears once already. What do you know about it?" Lois wondered.
The captain reached into the satchel hanging at her other side and came out with a file folder that she flipped open, displaying the contents to the reporters. It was a high-resolution photograph and the colors had been altered to make the occupants stand out a little more, six shadowy figures that looked a bit brown rather than black and gray.
"Hey, is this a still from the terrorist video?" Lois asked, tugging the photo closer.
"Yes, it is. My techie Lyle messed with it until we got something to work with. This woman here." Maggie pointed to the person on the far right of the photo. "We got a partial of her face, enough to start running it for matches. Ms. Furie's was the closest." She lifted up the photo. "And this is the reconstruction."
The computer-generated image seemed a little lopsided to Lois, but the resemblance to Meredith Furie was unmistakable.
"Furthermore, records put Ms. Furie as being out of town when the crisis occurred. She went incommunicado. No calls unless it was an absolute emergency." the captain added.
"Suspicious, at best." Lois murmured.
"But not enough. It's all circumstantial." Clark pointed out, glancing at the captain for confirmation of that.
Maggie nodded. "I won't lie. Our boys jumped the gun on this one. That's why Ms. Furie walked this morning. Strictly speaking, we don't have enough evidence linking her to the crime. Face rec doesn't make perfect matches."
"So the reconstruction wouldn't be accurate either." Clark finished.
"Of course not. Face rec is about reducing the suspect pool to the most likely individuals, but it's still flawed in that regard. The technology matches up points on the face. The problem is the person might have the same symmetrical features as the presumed culprit, but anyone with a pair of working eyes could tell that they're not the same person." the captain said.
"Doesn't it match for hair and eye color?" Lois asked.
"Yes, but we couldn't make a match for hair and eye color. We had to go solely on what we could see." Maggie said, gesturing to the enhanced photo. It was a false-color photo; hair and eye color were indeterminable. She straightened her suit jacket absently. "I think we'll be lucky if Ms. Furie doesn't feel inspired to drop a lawsuit. But she mostly does that to the press anyways."
"Well, they bring that on themselves." Lois commented.
And that much was true. Ms. Furie didn't consider her latest fashion styles or her sexual orientation to be more important than her business accomplishments. She had barred half the press outlets in the city from interviewing her when all they wanted to do was talk about her sex life, but were actually supposed to be reporting on what Atlas Industries had done recently.
She had been the CEO for around five years now and she was still fighting an uphill battle for basic respect.
The main ballroom opened a moment later, before they could delve into small talk about the weather or sports or social lives. Captain Sawyer took up her position in the back of the room beside the blue-uniformed officers and the reporters took their seats. They sat at just about the middle of the room. Lois had refused to sit closer to the front upon spotting her nemesis, that lying bitch Lacy Warfield from the Metropolis Star. Such a look of vitriol had crossed her face that Clark thought it was best to keep them from doing much more than walking into each other's line of sight.
"Didn't you tell me that Meredith Furie was one of the names that came up when you were going through Trask's history?" he asked, partially to distract her but mostly because this could be important.
"What? Oh, yeah. Her name was in there."
"What about?"
"A fracas in Central City, two-thousand-two. Agent Stoolie Canary-- what was his actual name, something Trevor? Steve? I'm gonna call him Steve anyways. He mentioned it, but there wasn't much on it." Lois said.
"Why not?" Clark asked.
"Do you watch 'Night Witch'? TV show, set during World War Two, about the female Russian pilots who bombed Axis camps?" Lois prompted, and got a negative response. "How about 'Gilded Lilies, did you see that? Came out a few years ago, chronicled the life of a Jazz Age flapper right up to the stock market crash and then a few months after as she had to give up her luxurious lifestyle?"
Clark shrugged. "If it came out a few years ago, I was probably in Europe then. And I don't watch much TV either."
Lois gave him a tired look. "Well, Vivian Furie stars in both. Her career goes way back. She used to be a child star and made that successful transistion, so she's got plenty of influence. Chances are, she smothered the information. The Mrs. Furie doesn't like nosy reporters any more than her daughter does." she explained.
"Oh. What was there to find out?"
"An attack was made on the Furie's home back in two thousand-two. It killed Gregor Furie and injured a few guests. Ms. Furie was having her graduation open house." Lois replied. "Trask turned up by the next morning and the police reports indicated that he verbally and physically assaulted a few of her friends. The names were left out, though. And this wasn't too long after Smallville, right?"
"That was in nineteen ninety-nine. I was a sophomore." Clark corrected. He had been out of school in 2001. "It was the incident in the Florida Keys that happened right before the meteor shower."
"Right, fish people." Lois thought for a moment, tapping her fingers on her leg. "Well, Trask was as pure as compressed shit, but he had a habit of tracking meta-humans. If this is tangentially related, then I think we need a better read on what happened in Central back then."
"So we start digging into Ms. Furie's personal life?"
"She won't like it, but if she won't talk to the press, we'll have to find someone who will." Lois tapped her fingers on her leg some more, the thoughtful look persisting. Then she said: "Trask has left you alone too. I know he was court-martialed and dumped on a roadside somewhere, but it's funny how he hasn't resurfaced since Superman became a new national icon."
A nervous sweat formed instantly under Clark's collar.
Is she implying what I think she's implying? He wondered. Does she know-- or at least suspect that I'm Superman? Do I tell her?
He vetoed the idea immediately on the grounds that it would be foolish to jump the gun like that. On the outside, it was a casual comment. Trask hadn't been around since Superman had turned up on the scene to a great applause, but that could have been because he'd been tossed out of a car in the New Mexico desert and getting back to Metropolis was a bit of a hike. He also had no authority anymore to try and make an arrest. Even at this early stage, coming after Superman like a man full of revenge would just get him arrested again.
It was just a casual comment regarding two related facts, when viewed from a certain angle.
Deeper down, however, it was Lois saying that she had spotted the connection.
On another hand, this was the first time she had made such a comment, implying that she had only gotten the suspicion recently. Maybe Clark was being too obvious with his movements as Superman and it was setting off her bullshit detector.
I should tone it down a notch.
The conference started right on time. Meredith Furie walked into the small ballroom through a side-door to the furious clicking of camera shutters, the brilliant flashes putting her features in sharp relief. On the surface, it didn't look like the caustic rumors were effecting her any. It didn't even look like she had spent the past thirty-six hours as one of the Stryker's Ladies. Her chestnut-colored hair was styled, her make-up impeccable, her clothes dry-cleaned and pressed. Her wardrobe was its usual: a sleek fitted suit jacket that flattered the lines of her torso, the crisp white blouse underneath, and the long pencil skirt that pulled taut around her thighs and hips. Her three-inch heeled shoes were polished and they tapped lightly on the laminate floor.
Only Clark could hear the rabbit-quick beat of her heart, the anxious gurgle of liquid in her stomach, and the grind of her teeth. He could see beads of sweat gathering just at her hair-line and he was certainly much more capable of discerning the tightness in her jaw.
She was nervous, but she was putting up a confident front. That was thing that mattered. She was presenting herself as physically and mentally unruffled. She couldn't show any signs of nervousness, or else it would be all over for her.
Ms. Furie followed in by an entourage of older men in their fifties and sixties, with just one younger man. Atlas Industries's board of directors, no doubt. Unlike their CEO, some of them weren't looking so composed. A few were visibly sweating. One had a lopsided tie. Another seemed to be shaking, but he was so rotund the shaking could have easily originated from the act of walking, rather than nerves.
Lois made a face. "That's her board of directors?" she whispered to Clark. "No wonder everyone thinks she's a clawing harpy, if that's what she has to put up with daily. Fat ugly men. There must be so much misogyny in the boardroom just because she broke the glass ceiling, never mind the part where she's gay as hell. She can't afford for a second to let her guard down around them. I bet they're just looking for any excuse to get her out of the office."
She made another face, this one thoughtful.
"What are the odds this whole thing is a ploy by the board of directors?" she wondered.
"Our job is just to report the news." Clark replied.
"No, our job is to go out looking for the news before it happens. We're investigative reporters, not newsreaders." Lois corrected. She looked at the men following Ms. Furie onto the stage with a predatory gleam. "I'll bet you that any one of those ham-chops are up to their eyeballs in white-collar crime. Whaddya say, Smallville? Ten dollars?"
"No, I don't bet." Clark said.
"Fifteen? I'll throw in a coffee; that European blend you like."
"Lois, I'm not betting against you when the odds are that you'll win."
"Ooh, you're learning. I'm really starting to be proud of you, Smallville." Lois said, grinning. "Wherever there's a business man, there's good odds that white-collar crime isn't far away. No matter how honest everyone else is, there's always going to be that one person who thinks they can play the system."
She patted his arm and turned forward towards the front of the room as Ms. Furie took her place in front of the podium. The rest of the fat, old man oozed in behind her.
"Thank you for coming." Ms. Furie said into the microphone. "I'm holding this press conference for the sole purpose of informing everyone that neither I, nor Atlas Industries, had any involvement in the terrorist-organized missile strike against Future World Industries--"
Down in front, someone started to make rude interrupting noises.
"And I would like to set the record straight on the several of the newest charges that were filed against me, so if you would please hold your questions..."
The rude interrupting noises continued; a man making clicking sounds with his tongue and wiggling his fingers. Lois recognized the man as Avery Cothern, from the tabloid magazine Dirt Digger, which had the same amount of journalistic integrity as a cow had opposable thumbs.
The CEO gritted her teeth and looked down at the rude man.
"My question is important. I'm sure everyone wants to know why you aren't waiting for the court date to try and proclaim your innocence." Mr. Cothern went ahead anyways. "Why are you holding a press conference now? Are you worried that a jury will see right through your lies?"
"Questions are not being taken at this time." Ms. Furie said stiffly.
"So you're guilty of conspiring to commit an act of terrorism?" Mr. Cothern demanded. "Both against Future World Industries and the city of Metropolis? Do you admit that you have any involvement in the bombing attack last year?"
There was no collective horrified gasp from the entire audience; just a few people. Rather, it was a collective muttering. It wasn't news to the reporters. Perry White was hardly the only editor-in-chief in the entire city who had a few pals in the police department.
"What are you talking about?" Ms. Furie asked through gritted teeth.
"Ahem." Mr. Cothern stood amid and made a show of opening his notes. "According to reliable sources, you have been implicated in the terrorist attack that took place last November, in addition to the theft of the drones from LexCorp, the missiles of which struck the Future World building. There is a photo still from last year's terrorist video and another photo still from LexCorp security footage that clearly display your face. What do you say in response to these accusations?"
Ms. Furie arched an eyebrow sharply. "An accusation that is going to fall flat in the next ten seconds." she said. "Yes, I suppose it's my face in both photos, but among the reasons I arranged this press conference, one of them is to make public the fact I'm an identical twin."
That didn't silence just Mr. Cothern, but everyone in the ballroom to boot. Lois's pen hit the notebook so hard Clark swore he heard the paper tear. He glanced down at what she was writing: 'Twin sister. Probably innocent. Suck it bitches.'
"This is not a fact I routinely advertise. My sister Hannah and I have been estranged these past five years. We've had no contact whatsoever since high school and we barely got along peacefully while we still lived under the same roof." Ms. Furie said coldly, deploying a stare at the reporter so piercing that Clark briefly wondered if she too could shoot fire from her eyes. "So perhaps it is my face in the photos, but I was certainly not the one standing there. There is one other person in this world who shares my exact features."
"But you were out of town last year--" Mr. Cothern started.
"Yes, I was. I was visiting my mother. An old friend was having her birthday that weekend as well. I don't see enough of my old friends as it is and I don't like getting work calls while I'm trying to unwind and celebrate a birthday." the CEO explained.
That deterred Mr. Cothern, but only for a second. "Miss Furie, can your friends corroborate this?"
Before the CEO could give an answer, from the back of the room there came a "You fuckin' bet!" in a man's voice that sounded quite fed up with the proceedings. What was interesting to watch was Ms. Furie's face. The icy demeanor she had been holding melted away as her eyes ran over the crowd. Then it was surprise that she was wearing, followed by an amused smile. It made her look ten times more approachable than before. Like she was less an ice statue CEO and more a warm, breathing human being.
"Yes. All you have to do is politely ask." she asserted. Her smile regained its shark-like edge. "Now for the last time, I am not taking any questions at the moment and you will all hold your tongues until I have said my piece."
A nervous ripple spread over the ballroom and that seemed to kill the urge the to interrupt her with questions about her friends and various relations. Lois raised a hand like she was rubbing her nose, but it was to hide her smirk. She liked Ms. Furie for superficial reasons. The power to control a room with a single look and a hard word was a power granted to few. It was a power to admire.
An entirely different ripple went up Clark's spine; the same kind of ripple he used to get right before Whitney Fordman tried to punch him in the back of the head (tried to, because if Clark didn't dodge, Whitney would have most certainly broken his own hand). It was that warning of possible danger, that there was definitely something that needed watching.
He looked around the ballroom as subtly as he could manage, trying to find whatever had tipped him off. He found it quickly and it was so obvious that he wondered why he hadn't spotted it earlier.
It was a young woman, no more than twenty-three years old, standing on the opposite side of the door from which Ms. Furie had entered. She was dressed in a mini-skirt and a corset top with a bolero jacket and knee-high boots, lending her the unfortunate appearance of possibly being someone's hired escort for the night. Her hair was black, but it was the dull matte black of a dye-job and there was entirely too much dark make-up caked on around her eyes. Her eyes, which were the same warm honey-brown as her twin sister's up on the stage.
Hannah's eyes were riveted on her sister, oblivious to anything else. Clark wondered if this was the first time that Hannah had seen her twin since they had parted ways almost five years ago.
"Ms. Lane?" He nudged her gently.
"Smallville, I've told you. You have permission to use my first name." Lois reminded him. They had been work partners for nine months, friends for just as long. They had spent more than enough time together to warrant a first-name basis.
Though she did have to remind him from time to time. God bless his parents for raising such a polite, well-mannered young gentleman.
"Never mind that. Look over there by the wall. Just don't be obvious about it." Clark instructed softly, keeping his hand below the line of chairs when he gestured to the corner.
"What am I looking for?"
"Hannah Furie."
"Oh, you're kidding. She's here?" Lois whispered, sliding her eyes over to the door. "Oh, she is here." Her eyes narrowed and then she looked back at Clark. "There's cops here too, right? Other than the captain?"
"Um, a few." Clark had counted six police officers on the way in. This wasn't exactly a high-security event. "Do you think she'll try something?"
"You're from Kansas. You tell me." Lois shrugged.
"Er... Lois. People from Kansas are not aliens, creatures from another dimension, mole people, and not all of us are farmers. We're all just regular people." Clark informed her for what felt the hundredth time since they had met.
Well, I am an alien, but we're not talking about that. He amended in his head.
"Kent, despite the assurance that it is just twenty miles southwest of Edge City, I have yet to actually find Smallville on a map." Lois pointed out. "Don't tell me that's not weird."
"It's not." Clark told her. "It's called inattentional blindness. Sometimes you could be staring right at something and just not see it."
"I know what it's called, but I literally cannot find Smallville on a map. Right now, I have no proof it even exists."
"Have you tried the internet?"
Just then, the world slowed down.
Well, it didn't. But Clark's perceptions suddenly sped up so quickly it felt like the world was slowing down. As it always did whenever he was moving at Mach Three. Sometimes, it kicked in all on its own, like instinct.
Beside him, Lois was rolling her eyes and starting to speak, but her jaw seemed to take an eternity to descend half a centimeter and her eyes appeared to barely move at all. He saw the bulb of a camera flash just starting to gleam. He heard the grind of metal on metal from somewhere behind him.
Clark hated moving so fast that the world looked like a freeze-frame, because he always perceived himself as moving normally. He turned around in his chair, peering at the back of the ballroom. There had been more people than chairs, so about another dozen reporters from the small-time publications that only circulated neighborhoods rather than the entire city and then some had gathered in the back. By the table with its collection of plastic cups and silver pitchers of water, Clark spotted the problem.
The problem was a heavy-set man with the most disproportionate shoulders ever, so bulging and herniated that Clark sincerely hope that his poor mother had not been subjected to a vaginal delivery. That was a steroidal broadness that dwarfed even him. It was amazing his body didn't snap right at the waist, which was quite slim in comparison.
His breath caught.
It was the same top-heavy man whom had kicked him around in several Labrr department stores last year. The same man who had been trying to impersonate him. The man Clark had lost sight of over Lake Superior. Mr. Herniated Shoulders.
The more exact problem was that he was holding a gun and he had already pulled the trigger. The bullet was just leaving the barrel. The snapping, thunder-like sound hadn't even occurred yet.
I'm not sure who he's aiming at, but that won't do.
Clark stood up and crab-stepped out of the aisle. He went to the back of the room and plucked the bullet out of the air, merely centimeters from the barrel. Then he sat back down and, like being drenched by a wave, time returned to normal.
The thunderous *BANG!* went off practically the same instant his rear touched the seat. Half the congregation threw themselves to the floor and the other half screamed. The police who had been standing by in case anyone got it into their heads to try anything funny leapt at Mr. Herniated-Shoulders.
But there was only seven of them in total, including Captain Sawyer and this man's first action was to drop the gun and heave the water table into the center of the ballroom. Clark didn't know how much that table weighed, but surely it took a few people to move it.
"Look out!" Lois shouted in warning.
She herself didn't have the chance to move before she felt a broad hand impact between her shoulders and the push sent her all but flying out from the table's path, so fast the edges of the room blurred. She hit the floor, bruising elbows and knees on the way down but clear of the table when it crashed through the seats, breaking every chair in its way.
It's him! Lois realized. She could hardly forget the size of those shoulders.
Laughing triumphantly, Mr. Herniated-Shoulders spread his arms like he was presenting himself.
"Come on then, weaklings!" he bellowed, his baritone voice echoing loudly in the small room. He grinned nastily at the police who had drawn their guns, leered at the women, and sneered at the men. "Who wants to try and take me?! Who wants to try and stop me?! I'm stronger than fifty men!"
The officers shared uncertain looks, silently asking each other if they wanted to risk it and Captain Sawyer made a gesture for them to hold their ground. Lois couldn't blame them for being apprehensive. This guy had taken on Superman several times before and each fight had nearly ended in a draw.
"Well, I suppose you are," began a voice that Lois was happily familiar with and she grinned. "But then it's a good thing I seem to be stronger than a thousand men."
Superman had arrived.
He walked into the ballroom, crimson cape rippling out behind him and drawing the eyes of everyone to him. He looked just the same as he always did. The black hair swooped back with a funny little spit-curl over his forehead. Piercing blue eyes that looked like they needed to be glowing. His suit was royal blue, with red highlights up the inside of his thighs and then up his chest to the armpits, and made of a material that wasn't found on this planet. He was well-muscled, gorgeous, standing tall and straight and proud...
Lois glanced to her left, where Clark oughta have been. Where he wasn't.
Superman was here and Clark wasn't.
Well, well, well...
Mr. Herniated-Shoulders turned in the blink of an eye and became a blurry streak that crashed into Superman's chest. There was a follow-up *THUD!* that shook the floor underneath them and the walls around them. Lois scrambled to her feet, grabbing the broken-off table leg on her way out the door. When she got into the hallway, Superman was pulling himself out of a man-shaped dent in the wall and lunging at Mr. Herniated-Shoulders.
His form was far and away more superior than the first time Lois had seen him tackle someone. His stance was solid, his footwork much more on point. He no longer looked like he was flailing nearly as much. His movements were controlled, tight. He moved like a boxer, staying on his toes and always in motion. He still had a ways to go in the learning process, but sheer repetition would get him there.
But there was one other thing that Lois couldn't ignore.
Superman's form, the combos he threw, his style overall... They were virtually identical to Clark's.
And Lois knew that because she had taught him. Several months after the averted crisis, Clark had come up to her with a story of being nearly mugged and asked about learning self-defense from her, when she had the time to spare. She had taken him to a gym where one of the trainers had drilled him in the basics, but she had helped him to polish his style.
The fight between Mr. Herniated-Shoulders and Superman didn't last very long at all. It ended about five seconds after Superman bum-rushed the man. He was stronger and faster and much more skilled this time around. Lois had enough time to see the improvement before Superman dropped Mr. Herniated-Shoulders like a sack of potatoes, withdrawing his fist from the air and leaving the man moaning on the floor in a semi-conscious state.
"Here." Lois handed Superman the broken-off leg of a chair. "He's too strong for regular handcuffs, it looks like."
Superman gave her a look like 'oh you' - the fond, adorable variety that sent a tingle all the way down to her toes and didn't make her feel like she was being patronized -- and then bent the table leg like it was a fuzzy pipe cleaner. He easily wrapped it around Mr. Herniated-Shoulders's wrists, cuffing his arms together in a pair of make-shift manacles that he probably wouldn't be breaking apart any time soon.
Superman looked up at her again, this time with an accomplished smile that just-- Lois couldn't describe it. It was just one of the most gorgeous smiles she had ever had the pleasure of witnessing. The toothpaste ad smile, but so broad and sincere. For a second, she felt like the only person in the world, alone with the Superman.
Then the applause started, punctuated by the click of camera shutters and Lois jumped a little, remembering that this wasn't exactly a private moment. They had gathered something of a crowd. All the reporters were crowded in the doorway with their notepads, scribbling rapidly. Hotel staff and other visitors, drawn the sound of the ruckus, were hovering at the other end of the hall with their smartphones wavering the air. Several of the staff members just looked pained, probably at the thought of having to clean up the mess.
The police officers squeezed their way through the door, pushing aside reporters. Superman stood up and backed off from the downed man, a fluid movement that drew Lois's attention to his lower body -- she couldn't help it. She really liked those miles and miles of rock-hard muscles and they were all just right there.
It took three of the officers and two of the reporters to haul Mr. Herniated-Shoulders off the floor and started to Mirandize him on the spot while the news cameras hovered around the scene like mechanical vultures. This wasn't a live feed, but it would be all over the news by noon.
"Good work." Captain Sawyer turned to the hero and extended a hand. "Thank you for the assist."
"It was no problem, ma'm." Superman said with that brilliant smile and a humble tone. "It sounded like you needed some help and I was already in the area. But I'm sure you could have done it without me."
"No," Maggie shook her head. "It was good thing you showed up when you did. Not sure we could have subdued him, look at those shoulders. We could have, but we'd had to have waited for back-up to move and I imagine people would have gotten hurt in the meantime. So, thank you."
Superman took her hand with the utmost gentleness and the cameras went nuts.
"You're welcome, Captain Sawyer." he said.
"Hey!"
Meredith Furie came storming forward, pointing a trembling finger at Mr. Herniated-Shoulders, who had been forced on to a bench while the officers called for back-up and transport.
"I know you!" Ms. Furie shouted.
Mr. Herniated-Shoulders looked at her. His eyes were clear of any sign of concussion and judging from the way they widened, he recognized her too.
"You're Lance! Lance Blitzbeine!" the CEO spat in sheer disgust. "You're that fucking creeper who hung around my sister and perved on my underwear drawer and I know you stole some of my jewelry--"
She advanced on the man with a fist-swinging aggression and he actually recoiled in fear, but a pair of arms looped around her shoulders, halting her forward charge. They belonged to a blonde-haired man who wasn't much taller than the CEO.
"Whoa! Meredith! He could break you in half!" he warned, dragging the furious woman back and away, causing Lois to look twice because that sounded like the same fed-up man from earlier.
"I'll take him down with me!" Ms. Furie yelled, still struggling against the man's hold, regardless of the fact he clearly had the upper hand here. "And don't say shit like that, you massive hypocrite! I know you've taken swings at people!"
"Oh my god, that was one time." The blonde-haired man rolled his eyes in an aggrieved way like he'd been hoping that incident(s) would have been forgotten by now.
Ms. Furie made a growling sound. She jabbed a warning finger at Lance 'Herniated-Shoulders' Blitzbeine. Only then did she relent to being herded away.
"I assume you can take it from here?" Superman asked, looking at Captain Sawyer.
She smiled. "We've got this." she assured him. "I won't complain if you want to stick around for another few minutes, but we've got this."
As soon as the police officer stepped away to do her duty, that was when the press surged up around the alien man, lobbing questions like stones. Lois turned over her shoulder to see Superman scrunching up, raising his hands like he was going to swat at all of them and looking slightly scared for his life. Lois thought briefly about rescuing him from her like-minded fellows, but nah. Big strong man like that? He could take care of himself.
"Ms. Furie," the reporter started, turning to the CEO still nearby. The blonde-haired man had let go in the mean time, but he was making it a point to stand between the woman and the large-shouldered man. Lois wasn't sure who would be getting stopped if either decided to lunge at each other, or if the younger man would just get squished between two angry people.
"We spotted your sister just before the gun went off." Lois said to her.
Ms. Furie blinked. "My sister Hannah?"
"You've only got the one." the blonde-haired man pointed out.
"And she's your identical twin, isn't she?" Lois smiled wryly. Other than the hair and the make-up and the clothes, Hannah had been identical. Impossible to mistake.
"She was here?" Ms. Furie asked, less surprised by the news and more unhappy about it. "You saw her? Do you know where she went?"
"No, sorry. I lost track of her when someone started firing bullets and throwing tables." Lois admitted. "Clark- My partner Clark might have seen where she went, but I don't see him around..."
Frowning, the dark-haired reporter looked around the hallway for any sign of her tall, hunch-shouldered compatriot. Superman wasn't present either, having escaped the reporters just a moment ago.
Just wait. Superman's gone, so Clark's going to come back any second...
"But she was here. My sister." Ms. Furie said, searching for confirmation.
Lois nodded.
The business woman scowled heavily.
Lois could guess what that was about. Lance 'Herniated-Shoulders' Blitzbeine used to hang around Ms. Furie's estranged sister and they had both been spotted in the same room at the same time. One didn't have to look too far to see that couldn't exactly be coincidence.
Just then, Clark jogged up beside them, out of breath and looked strangely lopsided, from his glasses down to the laces of his shoes, a bit like he had undressed and re-dressed very hurriedly.
"Where'd you get off to?" Lois asked, sweeping her gaze up and down, searching for any sign of telltale blue or red. Anything that would let her corner him in telling the truth.
Superman was gone and Clark Kent was back.
This was also not a coincidence.
"I was trying to follow Hannah." Clark said, smoothing down his tie. "I followed her all the way out of the hotel, but I tripped at the end of the block and lost sight of her."
Lois canted an eyebrow. "You tripped? Fleet-footed you are, Smallville." she said.
"Is my sister still dying her hair black and dressing like a street-corner hooker?" Ms. Furie asked.
"Well..." Clark nudged his glasses straight. "I wouldn't describe her clothes quite like that..."
"Then she is." Ms. Furie nodded, crossing her arms. "But I want to know what she was doing here, since she couldn't be interested in reconnecting..." She looked sideways to her friend, the blonde-haired man, for his opinion on the matter. But it seemed he was just as baffled, shrugging and going 'pfft'.
"Ms. Furie?" A black-suited member of the CEO's own security detail approached. "We've brought the car around. For your own safety, I suggest we head back to the pent-house."
The CEO let go of a sigh and looked at the two reporters. "Thank your for the heads-up. I'm sure the police will be on the look-out for my twin now."
"It was no problem." Clark said pleasantly and Lois did a double-take.
I think that was the same inflection!
She grabbed Clark reflexively by the elbow and turned him away, half of her intention to argue the truth out of him because this was just getting ridiculous. But her brain worked faster than her tongue and instead she gestured to the blonde-haired man saying goodbye to Ms. Furie and said:
"Let's talk to him about Hannah Furie."
"Are you sure? He could just be..." Clark started, but the hug that ensued between the CEO and the man killed any chance of an argument.
"They're friends. It's a good place to start." Lois asserted.
She turned back around and snagged the strap of the blonde-haired man's bag before he had the chance to really turn and leave. He jolted, his step stuttering, and he looked down to see what had caught him.
"Hi there. Lois Lane, Daily Planet." The reporter gave her Grinchy smile. "Let's be friends."
He looked understandably concerned by this. "What for?" he asked, eyes flitting between Lois and Clark in suspicion.
Clark decided to cut in. "What she means to ask is, would you be willing to answer some questions regarding Ms. Furie's background with her sister?" he translated. He stuck out a hand and hoped Lois would stop smiling like that.
The blonde-haired man definitely looked wary of Lois and all the teeth she was showing, but the other half of his expression suggested he had decided Clark was cut from a saner cloth. It didn't stop him from giving Clark a side-eye as he raised his hand like he was going to return the handshake.
"Maybe. With the right persuasion." he replied, still leaving Clark hanging on that handshake.
"We'll persuade you right." Lois managed to make that sound like a threat.
"We'll buy you coffee." Clark corrected, nudging her aside. "I'm Clark Kent. What's your name?"
"Ah, Barry. I'm Barry Allen." the blonde-haired man said, finally returning the handshake. He eyed Lois hard. "I'd say it's nice to meet you, but with that smile, I'd swear you're planning to eat me."
Lois just grinned a little wider.
-0-
Barry Allen y'all! Don't get too excited though, this is only a guest appearance. Barry will get his own origin story with Lightning Storm, but there was a good opportunity to introduce him here and I took it.
On a slightly more serious note, hey guys who complain when I don't update and altenately beg me to update? don't do that. I appreciate the love and enthusiasm and support, i really do, but there are better ways to express it than by whining at me for an update (like a review that is more than just wondering about the next update - srsly, tell me what you liked best about the chapter, leave behind an incoherent keysmash, or just a plain and simple "kudos"). asking about updates doesn't work. it has the opposite effect. it actually makes me want to update less. keep it up and i may just delay an update out of spite. don't be the person who pokes my spite. don't ruin it for everyone else.
besides, i'm changing up the schedule once i get the revisions done.