I have completed all revisions on this story and touched up the final chapter and holy shit if I didn't completely change the tone of the ending. It went from kind of upbeat to kind of... not upbeat. I think it works out better given the shape of things to come.
A quick note on Barry's characterization. I wanted to get away from the Awkward Uber Nerd Who Doesn't Know How to People because I find it kind of insulting to the character. I know "Nerd" has been synonmous with "No Social Skills" for a long time, but it's the 21st century. The nerd character is no longer the quintessential social outcast. You can been a huge nerd with great people skills. Fic writers, by and large, don't seem to grok that.
Instead, I present Barry Allen the Socially Competent Introvert with some shades of Bitter Millennial.
Chapter Seven: Dirty Little Secrets
Barry Allen wasn't very tall or even very big. He was a full five inches shorter than Clark, but skinny and lanky with the physique of a runner or a cyclist. He had pale gold-blonde hair that needed a trim. It curled at the tips and straggled down over his ears and forehead in a windblown manner and several times already Clark had seen him reach up to reflexively brush away a stray lock of hair. His eyes were a shade of pale green that brought to mind the new spring leaf-buds. His skin had that pasty pale tone that implied he didn't get outside nearly as often as he should have. He probably worked indoors, away from the windows.
There was dog hair on his clothes, mostly around the cuffs of his over-shirt and the thighs of his jeans. Clark could smell the scent of dog over the laundry detergent, so familiar he was with it from Krypto. He wasn't sure of the breed, but the color and length of the hairs suggested a Golden Retriever or a similar breed, and an affectionate one at that. The canine must have crawled all over its human before he'd been able to get out the door.
Barry was visibly nervous too, in a skittish kind of way, but Clark couldn't blame him. Lois had that effect on people. Reporters were expected to be a little tough and unforgiving when it came to stories, as it was how they made their living. But Lois was more confrontational than the rest of her ilk and she didn't like being fobbed off with lies, blatant or otherwise. She pushed and poked and prodded as hard as she could until all the words came gushing out of the target.
And Barry Allen didn't look like a guy who liked dealing with confrontational people. Oh, he definitely could and he did, but he preferred not to. It was just easier to get through the day when he didn't have to argue with people. He coasted by on the power of 'meh'.
There was something odd about him too that Clark couldn't put a finger on. It was something in his eyes or even his hair, like both bore the mark of having been touched by something that was greater than both of them.
They had come to the Bean Counter, Lois's favorite coffee shop on Hell's Gate Island. It was Clark's favorite too. It was the only place in Metropolis where he could find a perfect European blend that he had very grown fond of in his two years abroad traveling the world, but barely existed back here in the States. There was a fine ambience to the shop that soothed frazzled nerves and smoothed over ruffled feathers. The scent of coffee drifted through the air, rich and dark. They made fresh bread and various baked goods to go with the coffee. Lois had extolled their pumpkin bread to great lengths. Clark hadn't really had the chance to savor it last October, so he was looking forward to trying it again this year. Their seasonal Valentine's Day bread -- red velvet vaguely flavored like cherry -- and the peppermint spice treats at Christmas had been irresistible
Lois had sent them to a table so she could place the drink orders. The two men had sat in a tense silence since.
Underneath the table, Barry's leg bounced with a restless energy that occasionally kicked his knee into the underside of the table. Fingers pulled absently at the edge of the bandages around his right hand with the kind of fervor that suggested he wanted to yank them right off, but knew better than to. He looked everywhere except at Clark and soon settled his gaze out the window to watch Metropolis go by.
"First time in the city?" Clark asked conversationally, hoping to set the other man at ease before Lois came back like a wind-storm and flattened everything to the ground. She was still working on the soft touch.
Barry's head swiveled around. "What?"
"You've got the look of someone who's never been in a big city before. Or at least not Metropolis." Clark explained, smiling pleasantly. "I know. I've worn that look myself. You're from Central, aren't you? I've been there. Spent a few days exploring. It's not much like Metropolis."
It was widely agreed that residents the Midwest and the Great Plains states didn't have distinct regional accents, but when you lived in one place for long enough, it was easier to pick out the more muted and subtle variations. Barry Allen spoke with a slight southern drawl that reminded Clark of life in Smallville.
"Central really isn't as compact." Barry replied.
Central was a typical Midwestern city: an urban core surrounded by a great swathe of suburbia. The downtown area was big in the sense of footprint, as it was spread out more than a small-ish island like New Troy. Metropolis packed its skyscrapers together whereas Central parceled out its towers like it only had so many to go around.
The side-eye returned with Barry tilting his head back at a slight angle, giving Clark the vague impression of a concerned lizard. But it was a more discerning stare than a suspicious one.
"Southwest Kansas, I think. You sound like you're from Edge City." the blonde-haired man observed.
Clark nodded. "Smallville. It's further to the southwest. If you reach Oklahoma, you've gone too far. So, Mr. Allen--"
"Call me 'Barry'." the blonde-haired man requested, a little more forcefully than he'd intended. "Sorry, but any time someone tacks on 'Mister', I end up looking for my dad which is weird because he was a doctor and no one called him 'Mister'."
Clark blinked. "Was a doctor?" There had been a lot of past tense usage in that sentence.
Barry seemed to sober a little. "He died thirteen years ago. He and Mom both. Robbery went wrong." he said quietly.
"I'm sorry. That must have been rough." Clark said sympathetically. "You can call me 'Clark', if we're going to be on a first-name basis here. I'm just curious. What do you do for a living?"
"Forensic scientist with the CCPD." Barry answered, pulling his shoulders back and smiling in a proud way and Clark realized that the other man wasn't much older than him. Thirteen years ago would have made him very young indeed. "I just started training for field analysis. It'd be a lot more interesting if one of my coworkers wasn't breathing down my neck at every second of the day." He added, scowling sourly.
"Is that coworker the one training you?" Clark wondered. "Because if he is, then he's got a reason to be breathing down your neck. His job security might depend on your success."
Barry shook his head. "Well, that'd make sense if Thawne was the one training me, but he's not, Harris is." he drawled. "But Thawne's all up in my business anyways like his job depends on it. This guy is ten years older than me, a professional, and actually really good at his job, but he has the coping mechanisms of a spoiled three year old. It's like my success offends him. Like I peed on his sofa, the way he acts around me. And I'm gonna stop before I vent my spleen on you."
Almost reflexively, as it give himself something to do instead of complain about work-place woes to a complete stranger, Barry snatched one of the straw-stirrers out of the cup and started to bend it.
"It's alright." Clark assured him, not quite able to keep the smile off his face. He was starting to get a feel for the sort of person Barry Allen was. Intelligent, quick with his brain, full of promise and potential, probably an up-and-comer in his field. It took serious dedication to succeed in the field of forensic analysis, but to be hired to a police lab directly out of college was a feat all by itself. One usually had to bum around as an intern or an assistant for a year or so before taking that step up.
"Is the lab where that happened?" Clark wondered, gesturing to the brace on the other man's hand. The bandages wrapped a little ways around his wrist to keep them secure.
"Huh, this?" Barry stopped fussing with the edges and raised his hand. "Yeah, this is what happens when some moron-- Thawne!" He coughed falsely. "Decides to trip and fall almost right across your workstation and I didn't have my gloves on at the time."
Clark winced sympathetically. Thus far, electricity had proven to be his only real weakness. His body operated on electrical impulses just the same as a human's did and too much electricity could disrupt his heart rhythm. He still had no idea if something like that could actually kill him, though.
"Chemical burn? Are you alright?"
"Yeah. Feels a little crispy, but it was easier to get the time off to come up here."
"I'm sure your friend appreciates you being here."
Lois bustled back over to the table with a cardboard carrier of drink orders and a pile of baked goods.
"Okay, mocha for me, fancy European for Smallville, and hot chocolate for this strange person over here." She threw an annoyed look at their guest like he was insulting the great gods of coffee by ordering hot chocolate.
"I don't drink coffee." Barry informed her with a cheeky, cheery smile. "Love the smell, hate the taste. Should have considered that before you abducted me out here."
He took the cardboard cup and saluted her with it. Lois tried to scowl and smile at the same time, the latter quite unbidden, and ended up looking she had just swallowed a glob of horseradish. That was the expression she made when she wanted to be slightly impressed, but didn't want to show it. She sat down and pushed the pile of assorted baked goods into the center of the table.
"Alright, Mr. Allen--" she began, opening her notebook.
"Whoa, whoa. Before you even start, I want to lay something out." Barry interrupted.
Lois canted an eyebrow, her expression curious. "Go ahead."
"This can't get creepy. Creepy like invasive and weird and probing." Barry said firmly. "If you start asking really creepy questions about Meredith -- Ms. Furie to you -- that are not vaguely relevant to the thing you want to talk to me about, I'm out the door. Got it? She's one of my friends and I keep the serious shit I know about my friends to myself. You'd have to pry the information from my cold dead hands and even then."
"We're not here for any sordid details--" Clark started reassuringly.
"There is literally no way I can be reassured on that." Barry pointed out with that concernd lizard side-eye. "Meredith has gone all her life limiting her enounters with the press as much as she could. Her first car was practically a tank because she thought she might run over the papparrazi who sometimes camped outside the school hoping for a photo-op. And she wasn't even doing anything back then. Just the daughter of a CEO and an actress trying to get through high school. I have bony elbows." He held up his elbows in demonstration. "And I made great use of them sometimes."
"Noted." Lois said with an expression that was a weird mix between a scowl and a smirk. "But we're from the Daily Planet."
"It means nothing if I don't read the Daily Planet." Barry told them, shrugging. "I live in Central City. The Daily Planet is usually not relevant to what's going down in my backyard."
Lois scowled more fully this time.
"He's got a fair point, Lois." Clark pointed out to her, and got a hand waved at him for his trouble.
"For your information, the Daily Planet is not a tabloid rag or a tell-all dirt-sucker like the Metropolis Star." Lois snapped defensively. "We are a legitimate newspaper that cites sources, verifies information, and doesn't heave crap all over the people we talk about. It's the news, straight up and raw. No frills, no plug-ins, no add-ons, and no bullshit. You got me?"
Barry's expression remained largely passive. He didn't even try hiding a frown behind the cup as he took a sip. His expression reflected his thoughts with such clarity that Clark didn't even have to guess at what they were. Barry didn't trust them for the sole reason that they were reporters and he seen enough of the worst over the years to build up a healthy distrust. Meredith Furie had grown up in a spotlight whether she liked it or not. After a while, even that would grow tiresome and her friends, most likely, had started jumping to her defense, swinging pointy elbows and any other assorted body parts.
'Convince me, motherfuckers' was the other thing that frown seemed to be saying.
All right then. Clark thought.
Lois saw it all too and opened her mouth to unleash whatever was on her mind, but Clark reached over and grabbed her hand. The unexpected contact made her look down and start frowning, but she didn't start jumping down throats.
"Mr. Allen-- Barry, we're not here to slam Ms. Furie in any way. We're not looking for any dirty little secrets or creepy tabloid stories or anything that would harm Ms. Furie's integrity. That's not what we do." Clark told the forensic scientist calmly. They were dealing with someone who had a good reason not to totally trust the press, so a calm approach was needed. "We believe there's a very good chance that she's innocent of the crimes she's been accused of. But we don't have the facts. That's why I'm hoping that you can help us help your friend. You didn't come all this way up from Central City just to stand by supportively. It's admirable, but I think you want to do more than that."
To one side, Lois wasn't sure who to watch intently. It was truly magic to watch Clark polish up the charm and go for the down-on-the-farm, small-town-boy act that appealed to some sort of inner goodness. It had the city slickers falling all over themselves and treating him like the naive newcomer who really didn't mean any harm and just needed a helping hand. His voice was warm, his expression earnest and... Wasn't that the same tactic that Superman had used trying to convince people to come out and help plant trees for Arbor Day?
While it was worth it to keep an eye on Clark for any more slip-ups on his own dirty little secret, Lois also couldn't help but watch Barry too. He was a city boy, but Central City was known for its practicality while Metropolis had laced the water supply with liquid optimism. So it didn't surprise her that Barry Allen was visibly less receptive to the farm boy charm, even if the two of them were from the same geographic region. The side-eye was starting to look like his default expression, so intently was he searching the sentences for trap-like statements.
And who do you know that constantly gives you crap day after day? Lois wondered. A person only reacted with that level of paranoia if they spent their days dodging trivial criticism over things that had nothing do to with the matters at hand.
"Remember, go off topic too much and I'm out of here." Barry warned one final time.
"Noted." Lois nodded briskly and laid out her phone to record the session. "The thing is, you said back at the press conference -- I'm assuming that was you, at least -- that you could corroborate the claim that Ms. Furie was in Central November last year, the twenty-seventh. The same day of the bomb attack."
"I have pictures. I was going to take them to the police later."
"And how long have you known Ms. Furie?"
"I met her in sixth grade, first week of school. She was networking. I met Hannah too." Barry wrapped his fingers around the cardboard cup, frowning. "You said Hannah was also at the press conference."
"We saw her. She slipped out when the man fired the bullet." Clark confirmed.
"Any insights into what she might have been doing there?" Lois wondered. "Ms. Furie didn't think there was going to be a family reunion."
Barry rolled his eyes. "There wouldn't be." he said, his tone weary and speaking of a rather lengthy term of animosity. "They're twins, you know. First half of sixth grade, it used to be you couldn't find Meredith without Hannah and vice versa. But they fell out."
"Can you tell us what happened?" Lois inquired. "If that's not going off topic."
"Only if you hate context." Barry said wryly. "I don't know what the whole problem. I think a lot of it got started in elementary school and none of us were around for that." He thought for a moment, going back over the memories of the earliest days of sixth grade. "Hannah had problems. Like, something you could give a definitive diagnosis to."
Lois's eyebrows went up. "Oh, those kinds of problems."
"Yeah, those kinds. The way Meredith reacted, I think it was new behavior." Barry said, shrugging. "Well, maybe not new-new, but a lot more extreme than she was used to."
"What sort of behavior was it?" Clark wondered.
"As far as I know, Hannah really liked the whole matching twin thing, but there was this one day she had a complete blow-up because Meredith wore sparkly purple nail polish instead of sparkly pink. I remember that because I thought it was such a stupid thing to get upset over." Barry explained, with this expression that suggested he still thought it was stupid. "Meredith didn't think Hannah really adjusted all that well to the whole thing about middle school. I don't know if it was just there were more people or the classes or whatever. I just know by Christmas, they weren't really talking to each other anymore."
He was leaving out a ton of the details, Lois could tell. The juicy, telltale ones that would have shed the right shade of light on the deteriorated relationship between the Furie twins. But the Daily Planet wasn't a trashy gossip rag like the Metropolis Star.
"Did Meredith coming out as a lesbian affect their relationship any?" Clark asked. Being gay was still quite taboo for some and the mindset was prevalent among the Baby Boomer parents. The Furie parents were/had been old enough to fit the late end of that demographic and it was likely they had held views like that, causing the young Ms. Furie to be out and proud in retaliation.
Barry made a face that said 'That is an incredibly stupid question you just asked me', but he shrugged and said out loud: "Yeah. Definitely. Hannah actually outed Meredith as gay in the middle of a school assembly in seventh grade, before any of the rest of us knew. Then she started dying her hair, wearing crazy gothy clothes, and basically doing everything she possibly could to make herself visually distinct from Meredith short of plastic surgery. Like I said, she was pretty hung up on the identical part, so I guess she figured if they couldn't be the same, they shouldn't look the same."
"There's a logic there I could almost recognize if I squinted a lot." Lois commented. She could sort of get it, wanting to visually separate oneself from the twin, but she couldn't imagine behaving towards her own sister the way Hannah behaved towards hers. "So if there wasn't going to be a family reunion, what's your best guess for what Hannah was doing around here today?"
"Schadenfreude?" Barry guessed. It was all he could think of. "When she wasn't ignoring Meredith, she tried to make her life miserable."
"What about Lance, the man with the shoulders? How does he fit in?" Clark asked.
"Okay, first of all, Hannah was twenty pounds of crazy in a wet paper sack. She had this overwhelmingly high opinion of herself, stalked my friend Malcolm for over two months because she declared she was in love with him despite starting a rumor about him being a dirty trash hobo with gangrene on his balls, and had this psycho idea that she was a special magic snowflake fairy princess that almost got her sent to Middle Haven Psychiatric, but she guilt-tripped her parents out of the idea but it still says something that they were seriously considering it and almost did it. Hannah was delusional and a moron." Barry said dryly, pushing his fingers into his hair. "And that was on a good day."
"What a delightful, charming young woman. I can see why her sister wants nothing to do with her." Lois commented, just as dry. "And about Lance? Did you know him too?"
"A little bit. He was a senior when I was freshman and we were on the cross-country team for half a season. He got kicked off for doping and apparently there is something about Malcolm's face that compels people like Lance to punch it. The school expelled him before the end of the semester." Barry explained. "He was an ugly chunk of ugliness. Nature could not make him pretty."
"Were his shoulders always that big?"
"Actually, I think they're bigger."
"Alright," Lois looked at Clark. "Roid-rage might give him the super-shoulders, but he's plowed Superman over like a bowling pin before and that wasn't normal human speeds. We'll tak about that later." She turned back to Barry. "How do he and Hannah fit together?"
"They joined the same gang. It made them feel special." Barry answered, and that was really about all the explanation he had to give. Anyone who had been ostracized from the greater community wanted to feel like they were a part of something. Something that catered to their hurt feels and gave them a sense of entitlement over the people who had shunned them.
"Around junior year, Hannah started hanging out with Lance and these other people after school. I remember because she went out of her way to call attention to her 'cooler friends'. Like they were actually cooler than Meredith. Okay, we weren't high school royalty or anything, I mean, there was no way. My graduating class was four thousand people big and--"
"Whoa, whoa!" Lois cut him off. "Did you just say that your graduating class had four thousand people in it?"
Barry shrugged. "Central City does not believe in multiple high schools, so yes, there was roughly... sixteen thousand students in the entire school the last I knew."
"What? How do they keep track of that many students? Did they tag you like migratory birds?!" Lois demanded.
Barry grinned. "Y'know, Iris asked me that exact question once." he said. "Anyways, Meredith was pretty well-liked in our-- home-room? They called it something else, but it was basically home-room for a hundred people. So we weren't unpopular and Hannah was the person to whom locker-stuffing happened, so..."
"These people. Like, delinquents? The bad kids your parents warn you about?" Lois prompted.
"Pretty much." Barry nodded. "We never saw them do anything, but they always looked like they would start vandalizing things. They did threaten a few students. The principal had to ban them from the school grounds because they were making the parents nervous."
Lois looked thoughtful for a moment. "Alright, let me see if I've got this one. Hannah had undiagnosed issues that I'm not even going to try and guess at. Behavior gets weird around sixth grade. Meredith became one of the cool kids. Hannah did not. Hannah wanted to be one of the cool kids and just ended up looking crazier than usual. Then she fell in with the wrong crowd, disappeared off the face of the planet, falls into an even worse crowd, and possibly turns up in a terrorist's home-video."
She looked at Barry for confirmation of accuracy. He nodded towards her and held up a hand as if to say 'there you go'.
Lois fist-pumped briefly. "Furthermore, Hannah does not like her sister and has actively attempted to make her life miserable in the past, before they stopped talking completely. Would it be out of character for Hannah to go as far as to show up in a terrorist video just to get her jollies on screwing over her twin?"
"Depends on how psychopathic she's gotten in the last five years." Barry guessed. He grabbed his bag and made to stand. "Is that it? I should go. I wanna swing by the police station before it gets too late."
"A few more questions, if you don't mind." Clark said, making a motion for him to stay seated. "There's been something we've been trying to investigate recently. Actually, a man named Jason Trask. Reports put him in Central City around May of oh-two, when there was an attack made on the Furies. I was wondering if you knew anything about that?"
For a second, Barry went absolutely stiff from head to toe, like a shiver had just gone up his spine. It passed by quickly, but Clark still heard the man's heart-rate pick up a beat or two.
"No, I really don't." he said, and Clark just knew it was a lie. He had no idea what the man's tells were, but his body language and his posture just screamed that it was a lie.
"Are you sure? It would have been graduation day for Central City High School. The papers corroborate the day as Ms. Furie's open house." Clark said. "You're her friend. I imagine you were in attendance."
"I was. I remember an explosion, but I was knocked out almost right away. I don't think I know anything that could help you." Barry said, perhaps a little too quickly. "Now, is that it? I really want to get down to the police station before lunch."
"Yeah, go." Lois waved a hand impatiently.
Barry gathered his bag and with a hurried 'thanks' and tossed down a five to cover the cocoa and the muffin he snagged on his way out the door. The bell above jingled with his exit. They didn't lose sight of him immediately, as he turned left down the sidewalk and walked in front of the windows, already fiddling with his phone to get his bearings. Then he was around the corner and gone.
"He lied." Lois muttered.
"I know." Clark nodded. "He also could be legally barred from saying anything. The info was smothered. That probably includes all individuals who were present at the time of the attack."
"He could have just told us that." Lois said, still frowning in the direction that Barry Allen had disappeared in. She could completely understand his reasons for being defensive. Meredith Furie was a friend and he didn't want to see her get put in jail for something she wasn't at fault for. He was clearly someone who didn't like talking to reporters and the nature of his job probably had something to do with that. Even forensic scientists who worked with the police were likely to with-hold some details from the press.
He had spoken like he was used to giving reports, though; succinct with the relevant information right there on the surface, expressed in simple terms that put the message right through.
She slapped Clark's arm lightly. "We should head back to the Planet. We got some research to do, Smallville."
The day was proving to be one of those long days. It was the curse of being a reporter. In addition to current assignments, you also had to deal with whatever cropped up over the course of the day and they usually took priority over the long-term assignments. The story on Ms. Furie was far more immediate and demanded proper attention, so they poured their energy into researching what history they could of Meredith Furie and Atlas Industries.
When the mid-afternoon rolled around and they both still at their desks and the coffee-intake was wearing off, Lois promptly announced her intention to order them a pizza.
Since the nearest pizza joint wasn't far and was insanely delicious, she took the opportunity to make the stroll down there to place her order directly. It was always good to step away from the desk for a moment or two and get the blood moving again. A few minutes of activity did wonders to un-frazzle a brain. She slipped into a corner store to buy a few things and eventually returned to pick up the pizza order.
"Pizza's here." Lois announced -- unnecessarily, Clark had been able to smell it when she'd passed the fortieth floor. "Find anything useful?"
Clark grinned proudly. "I did a lot of digging into the Central Tribune's website. I actually found an article that pre-dated the privacy agreement Mrs. Furie placed on the guests. They yanked it from the main archive, but they didn't delete it fully. Addie did her magic and pulled it up for me." he said, turning the computer monitor towards her so she could see it.
"All right! Score one for Lane and Kent!" Lois cheered, swapping a high five with him.
She placed the pizza box on the corner of his desk, along with the shopping bag that contained foam plates and cups, a packet of chocolate chip cookies and a two-liter of soda. They helped themselves to pizza and mozzarella sticks, and spent the next few minutes in hungry silence.
"So what turns up in this wonderful article that I will thank Addie for finding?" Lois asked, once her stomach was no longer quite so demanding and some of the fog had cleared from her head.
"Well, the day of the attack wasn't just Ms. Furie's graduation open house, but also it was her nineteenth birthday." Clark explained. "Barry Allen actually has no idea what happened. He wasn't lying; he did get knocked out. The concussion put him in the hospital for a day or two. Furthermore, he actually went missing during the attack."
"Whoa!" Lois drew back in surprise. "For how long?"
"Three full days." Clark answered. "Someone out for an insomniac walk at five in the morning found him on the fourth day, on the banks of the reservoir. Mild hypothermia and short-term memory loss to go with that concussion."
"Ooh, he wouldn't remember what happened!" Lois complained. "Who found him by the reservoir?"
"The name was with-held from all reports for privacy reasons and Mr. Allen actually signed an agreement with the Keystone City mayor's office stating he wouldn't mention the name under any circumstances. He could have been jailed for telling us, for the remainder of the contract period, if someone found out. I checked; they're twenty-year contracts and he's only twenty-three, so he'd be looking at fifteen years in a maximum security prison."
Lois grabbed her old battered D-ring binder off the desk, where it had made a semi-permanent home in the last nine months. She flipped through it until she found the right purple tab.
"The morning of May twenty-ninth, two-thousand-two in the Windsor Heights neighborhood of Central City. And another one in the Leawood neighborhood near the hospital, same day. An alleged sighting of Jay Garrick. Precedes Zoom by at least a year." she reported. "Garrick's the only Keystone City resident whose privacy is being so insanely looked after to the point that mayor's office would be handing out privacy agreements. The reservoir is also north of both cities, if memory serves, and Garrick is said to have a house on the north side of Keystone."
Clark shrugged. "It fits."
"Damn right it does." Lois flipped the folder shut. "Any other important pieces of information, or is that it?"
"Atlas Industries wasn't always Atlas Industries." Clark answered, though he wasn't sure how relevant it was. But they had to start somewhere. "When it was headquartered in Central City with Gregor Furie at the helm, it was Precision Horizons Incorporated: Today's future is tomorrow's reality."
"Classy."
"Ms. Furie re-branded the company when she took over after her father's death. According to her statement, the name-change was supposed to separate it from the tragedy."
"Huh, that's what Luthor said about LexCorp." Lois commented with no small amount of suspicion. "It sounds strange, doesn't it. Gregor Furie dies on his daughter's nineteenth birthday and she takes over the company shortly afterwards."
"You're just biased after the LuthorCorp/LexCorp debacle." Clark pointed out.
"Hey, any smart person knows that it's highly unlikely that Lionel Luthor actually committed suicide." Lois reminded him. "It's still a little suspicious, no matter how you look at it. Meredith Furie graduates high school. The very same day, her open house slash birthday party is attacked and her father is killed in all the chaos. Obviously Mom has no interest in taking over the company. The only person who could have fought Ms. Furie for CEO was her own sister who, by all reports, just walks off the face of the planet."
Clark frowned. "I thought you were suspicious about Hannah."
"I am, but I'm considering all angles." Lois said, picking off a pepperoni. "Ms. Furie might not be all that squeaky clean herself."
"I think you're off base a little, Lois." Clark said, making Lois sit up with a 'prove it' expression. "It was planned, but not by Ms. Furie. In March two-thousand-two -- this is from the same article, by the way -- several experimental weapons were reported missing from a Precision Horizons secure storage facility. One of them was an ultra-sonic device. It would emit high-frequency sound waves to disorient the opponent."
"Hmm, why does that sound familiar?"
"Probably because it does. It was inspired by a metahuman vigilante from Star City, way back in the day, the Canary. She could scream at ultra-sonic pitches." Clark explained. "Literally, in the same week, Hannah Furie runs away from home. Her parents filed a missing person report after it was clear she hadn't been seen in twenty-four hours. They said she had a habit of disappearing from dawn to dusk, so they had to be sure she wasn't coming home this time."
Lois went: "Hmm..."
"Then, two and a half months later, the same ultra-sonic device reappears on May twenty-fifth, graduation day. According to the report, the device appeared to be 'juiced up past eleven'. The autopsy reported that Mr. Furie's internal organs were pulverized into pudding, like they had been beaten with a sledgehammer." Clark finished.
Lois was halfway through a bite of pizza and she just froze a little. It seemed to take some effort for her to swallow it.
"Okay, that's something. And now we're back to being suspicious about Hannah." she said. "Now, let's see if we've got this sequenced right. Weapons are stolen, Hannah runs away. Two months later, Daddy is killed in a planned attack on what was undoubtedly a public and probably high-profile party. I imagine there were some senior executives there and Mrs. Furie had some friends in high society. Hannah was last seen in the company of some very shady people and there's an implication that she might have been involved with the attack and the theft, but never shows up ever again, not even for her dad's funeral. At the very least, no one saw her."
"It's possible the other Miss Furie planned the attack out of overblown homophobia and her father was just an unfortunate victim." Clark suggested. The 'twenty pounds of crazy in a wet paper sack' description was still echoing in his head. Hannah had also been lined up for a stay in Middle Haven Psychiatrict, if she hadn't talked her way out of it. "Guilt could be the reason she didn't show up at the funeral. She might be back now to finish the job."
"And starts by throwing her sister down as hard as she can, possibly destroying Atlas Industries in the process because why not." Lois beamed proudly. "Good job, Smallville. We'll make a proper investigative reporter out of you yet. Have another mozzarella stick."
Clark fought down the flush of warmth at the praise, but accepted the cheesy bread.
"Okay, it sounds like there might be a pretty solid case against Hannah Furie, but I still think we need to eliminate Meredith Furie from the suspect pool. Call it Luthor-induced paranoia, but let's just make sure she had nothing to do with the bombing or the attack on Future World." Lois declared.
"How do you want to do that?" Clark asked.
"I'd tell you to put on your running shoes and meet me in the Atlas Plaza at midnight tonight, if I didn't have other plans forced upon me. I'm having dinner with the General." She still wasn't very enthused about that.
"I'm sure it'll be fine, Lois." Clark told her. "I thought you and your dad were making progress."
"We ain't the Brady Bunch, Smallville." the reporter reminded him. "Dad's still working up the guts to get the stick out of his ass and I have some General-related wounds that still need healing over. I didn't get lucky like you did."
There was a tinge of hurt in her voice that made Clark wince internally. She resented him a little -- just a little, for having loving parents who could function emotionally and didn't consider filial love a deadly sin. General Lane had stayed at a distance throughout Lois's life growing up and her mother had filled in the gap. After Ella Lane had passed away, Lois's first instinct had been to fall back on her father for that emotional support, only to find him even more lacking than before. They had made progress in the last six months towards something that resembled a family dynamic instead of a general and his soldiers, but that wasn't going to make up for the first twenty-four years of Lois's life.
"Come out to Smallville for Thanksgiving."
The offer slipped out of Clark's mouth before he could think about it.
Lois blinked, bemused. "What?"
"You and your sister. Smallville for Thanksgiving. With me. And my parents." Clark elaborated, deciding to run with it. "I think you'd like it. My parents have been trying to convince me to convince you to come to Smallville. They think it would be good for you."
He wasn't sure if showing Lois a healthy family dynamic would be rubbing it in her face what she might never get or if it would make her explode again in a fit of jealous anger again, but there was no taking back his words now.
She didn't have to accept.
Nonetheless, her face twitched like she wanted to smile. She had met the Kents when they had come up to Metropolis last year for Thanksgiving and they had treated her very kindly and quite enthusiastically. Thinking back, Lois wouldn't mind getting to know them a little better than those few hours had allowed. They were nice people. They had raised Clark, after all.
"Well, if Ma and Pa Kent think so, I'll have to give it serious consideration." she said. "But I don't know... Smallville for the holidays? Isn't that like visiting a prison for a vacation?"
"It won't be like that." Clark said, smirking nonetheless. Lois was bound and determined to make fun of Smallville's remote-ness and location until her dying breath. He still couldn't figure out what she thought was so hilarious about it, but at least she was showing some kind of interest in his home-town.
"So what would it be like? Smallville for the holidays." Lois wondered. "I keep picturing a Thomas Kinkade painting with this Norman Rockwell vibe. Sloping cottages and snow-covered streets with a heavy nineteen-fifties nostalgia."
Clark smiled slyly. "You'll have to come and find out."
Lois's first reaction was a grin. Clark had thrown down the gauntlet, challenged her in a way. She didn't sit there and ignore challenges, even one as petty and pointless as this. Pointless, because Lois rarely made plans for the holidays -- never anywhere to go, anyways. The offer was out there and it was too nice and thoughtful to leave dangling in the breeze.
But where was the fun in taking it up right away?
"We'll see, Smallville."
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