Rating: T
Where else can I find this story? All five parts are on the first page of Part 5 of the original Young Justice Anon Meme on LiveJournal.
Hero
Masks, Part V
Chapter 14: Story's a Bust
They find Clark and Robin sitting on the floor in Clark's hotel room playing a videogame off of Robin's wrist computer.
"Hey, what's up?" Clark asks without looking up from the screen.
"Not much. Story's a bust."
Clark turns his head at that, giving Robin the opportunity he needs to shoot Clark's character dead. "What do you mean the story's a bust?"
"I mean," Lois says, "That while you were playing video games with Boy Wonder over here, I was snooping around at the hospital. I talked to Batman and Superman—there's no story to publish, so we should high-tail it out of here before it's too late to head out for Metropolis. Perry's already going to give me an earful for spending so much of the paper's money without getting anything good out of it."
Clark pushes his glasses up. "Well, we got the Joker story… that was pretty exciting."
Lois crosses her arms and fixes him with a glare. "Clark, you think watching corn grow is exciting."
"Nah, Lois," Robin intercedes. "Clark here's too good at videogames."
"It's called hyperbole," Lois counters. "Anyway, we need to go. You can stay if you wanna help pack."
Robin laughs. "Yeah right." He gets up, unplugs his computer from the TV, and jumps out of the window dramatically.
"Show-off," Lois mutters under her breath, then she goes to Clark's closet and pulls out Clark's small suitcase and throws it on the bed. "Start packing Smallville. I'm going to go yell at the hotel manager until he allows us to cancel tonight's stay."
Once she's out the door, Clark turns to Conner: "So, there's really no story?"
"You heard the woman."
They arrive at the train station half an hour later to find out that due to inclement weather all the flights are cancelled and all the trains have sold out.
Lois groans in frustration. "Ugh. I can't believe this! And after all the trouble I went through to get the manager to let us check out early!"
"I have an idea," Conner says, "but I have to check first."
So he calls Robin to see whether Robin can arrange to have his car shipped to Gotham.
"Yeah," Robin says. "I'm at the Batcave right now. If you don't mind me driving it, I can zetabeam it to the Batcave and then drive it to you guys at the station."
"Sounds like a plan. Keys—
"Tcha! Like I need keys!" Robin exclaims dramatically before hanging up.
Conner turns to Lois and Clark. "Robin'll be here in a while with my car. We can drive up to Metropolis."
"You have a car?" Lois asks.
Conner rolls his eyes. "Yeah. Gift from Superman, because nothing says, 'Did you know you can't fly?' like a car."
"I really don't think that was what Superman was trying to say," Clark tells him.
"Yeah, well, that's because you like cars. But what the hell would Superman want with a car?"
"So, why don't you get rid of it," Lois asks, "if you hate it so much?"
Conner shrugs. "M'gann likes it. And, it can occasionally be useful. Plus, by now, Batman's got it all decked out. It's not exactly the Batmobile, but it does have a handy lead lining… not that I've ever needed to use it for that, but you know Batman. He likes to be prepared."
It takes Robin a while, but he does finally show up with the car. When she sees it, Lois lets out a long wolf whistle. "Kid, I think Superman likes you a lot more than you think he does. This is a really nice car."
Robin gets out. "Yep, this is a beautiful car. Asterous. Safe driving," he says and sprints away. Conner's relieved to see that Robin found the spare keys in the glove compartment rather than hotwiring the car.
"In fact, isn't this your dream car?" Lois asks Clark.
He pushes his glasses up. "I can't afford a car like this."
"Not on a reporter's salary you can't. But I remember that time we covered the auto show—you couldn't keep your eyes off this car."
Clark shrugs. "Yeah, well, a guy can dream, right?"
"You know, Clark, if you want it, I can give it to you," Conner offers.
"What? No. I…" Clark stumbles a step backwards. "It's your car. Superman wanted you to have it. I couldn't take it."
"Well," Conner says with a smile, "you can still drive it to Metropolis." And Clark's face lights up like the Fourth of July.
"I call shotgun," Lois says, and really, Conner isn't going to argue with her for the privilege of sitting next to Clark.
An hour away from Metropolis, they stop at a little roadside restaurant for dinner. Lois makes Clark chose between fries and desert, but she lets him get a burger, even though she vetoes his attempt to get the burger cooked medium rare. "After that expose you did on E. coli Clark, you're seriously going to get undercooked ground chuck at some highway joint?"
It's a pleasant uneventful dinner, though Conner sort of wishes the waitress were a little less friendly with Clark. She adds a scoop of ice cream to Clark's apple pie without Clark even asking for it, and when he points it out, she winks at him and tells him it's on the house.
When the waitress leaves the check, Lois smiles widely at Clark.
"I think our waitress likes you," she tells him. "You should leave her a nice tip, and ask her for her number."
Conner can tell that it's through a concentrated effort that Clark manages not to frown. He puts down his company credit card and a twenty for tip. "Excuse me," he says evenly, "I need to go to the restroom."
Once Clark is safely away in the bathroom, Conner turns to glare at Lois. "Why did you do that?"
"First, I wanted to see if you were right. Which, you were. Second, look, if Clark is into me, he needs to know that I'm not interested. He's a really nice guy, and I really like him, and any woman in the world would be incredibly lucky to have him, but he's not my type.
"What you want me to do is settle for him because Superman's not attainable. But, you know what? First, there are plenty of men who aren't Superman out there. I dated Bruce years after I first met Superman. Second, Clark's a coworker. Office romance never ends well. And third, I think settling for Clark, especially when I know how Clark feels about me now, would be really unfair to him."
"I don't get it, what does Superman have that Clark doesn't?"
"You mean, besides the obvious?" Lois says with a raised brow.
"Yeah, besides the superpowers."
"Well, there's the physique of a Greek god. With the way Clark eats, it's a wonder he's not morbidly obese. But… Look. I know Superman's not perfect. And I know that when you showed up, he freaked out and screwed up, and that's on him, totally and completely. But Superman is brave and kind and wonderful smart and determined. He's the best person I've ever known: he can take on gods—and he does, when he needs to—but he's just as willing to help a little girl get her cat out of a tree. I saw him talk a man off a ledge once. Superman could have just grabbed him by the collar and set him down, but instead he just talked to him for hours, until he talked the guy out of it, and last I checked, Superman still occasionally has coffee with the guy to see how he's doing. He helps alcoholics get sober and hobos get homes, and more than once he's vouched for an ex-con to help him get a job. Superman's the exact opposite of Lex Luthor.
"And I mean… Clark's kind too… he always has spare change for the pan handlers, and once I even saw him treat his would-be mugger to dinner and now that kid's got his GED, but…" She sighs, "It's not the same. Clark's a shy klutz who disappears at the first sign of danger. And, like I said, he's a great guy and I'm sure he'll make some woman a wonderful dependable husband, but… that's not what I want, and you know, the heart wants what the heart wants."
"And your heart wants Superman," Conner says with a frown.
"Or, you know, Batman, apparently. I might have a bit of a kink for superheroes." Lois smiles, "Hey Con, you legal yet?"
"Ugh," Conner groans. "Not funny. Besides, I have a girlfriend."
"Yeah, no, you're way too young for me, not to mention, way too kinky."
"What? And you think Batman's vanilla?"
"Oh, no," she teases. Then she leans over and whispers in his ear, "But somehow, I don't think he roleplays as Alfred."
Once again, Conner blushes red. "I told you, that was for Halloween."
"Uh-huh..."
"Shut up," Conner begs.
"Not until I get my new voice recorder."
But Conner's saved by Clark coming out of the bathroom. Clark seems to have regained his composure and waves at them. He's not looking where he's going, so he bumps into their waitress, causing her to spill water down his shirt. The woman cringes and starts to babble apologies as she rushes to wipe him down, but Clark stops her and tells her it'll be fine.
"You can make it up to me by giving me your number," he tells her, flashing his white teeth at her.
Conner can hear the waitress's heart speed up. She giggles and takes a pen and Clark's hand and writes her number on it.
He displays his hand proudly to Lois as he sits down. The waitress comes and takes the card, and when she comes back, she's brought another slice of apple pie, in a doggie bag for Clark. She leans in, over his shoulder as she puts the pie and the card down and lets him know in a flirty whisper, "And there's a lot more sweetness where that came from."
The next few days are a bit of a mess. After everything that's happened, the novelty of the Daily Planet news room's worn off. Unfortunately, Jimmy Olsen can't say the same about Superboy, and the intern takes every opportunity to pester Conner, oblivious to what Conner's fairly sure has to be an obvious lack of enthusiasm on his part.
Investigative reporting turns out to be significantly less glamorous than he had thought. Lois and Clark spend an awful lot of time on the phone, on email, or just typing up a story. There are meetings too, but Conner's not invited to those, which, lucky him, leaves him with Jimmy Olsen who isn't invited either.
Conner gets very excited when Clark finally declares that he has to go someplace and calls it a field trip. And then it turns out that it's just a trip to the municipal archives so Clark can check some old property records, and Clark spends two hours combing through ledgers from the 1980s, and Conner can kind of see why Lois said Clark thought watching corn was exciting.
A bright spot comes four days after their return to Metropolis, when Batman's released from the hospital.
Wayne Enterprises releases a press release explaining that Bruce Wayne is recovering beautifully, but will be taking an extended leave from the company, and Lucius Fox will step in as interim CEO until Bruce Wayne is once again restored to the picture of vigor.
Paparazzi manage to get a shot of Bruce Wayne in a wheel chair, which confirms that Lois was right: he's able to move his hands. And behind him, the adorable redheaded young nurse pushing the wheelchair looks slightly less exhausted than he remembers, so that's something particularly comforting. Best of all, Dick Grayson and Robin are both at the scene, which accounts for the two shape shifters on the League. It really is Batman twiddling his thumbs in that chair.
The downside is that Clark finally decides to call the waitress, and after a half hour of the most painfully inane chit-chat on the phone, Clark asks/begs Conner to take the evening off.
"I thought I wasn't supposed to get sexiled until I went off to college," Conner says with a groan, because he does not approve of Clark's date with this woman, who is probably perfectly lovely, but suffers from the major personality flaw of not being Lois Lane.
"I'm not sexiling you, Superboy," Clark retorts with a strained smile. "I just… it's kind of awkward to have a date with a lady when you have to be chaperoned by a teenager."
"She might be an assassin hired by Lex Luthor, for all we know," Conner points out as he crosses his arms, "I really can't, in good conscience allow you to go out with a strange woman unescorted."
Clark groans, but neither one will give. Finally, Clark comes upon an idea: "Why don't we call Batman, and have him decide?"
Conner's about to stop Clark, but before he can properly come up with an excuse as to why they shouldn't bother Batman, Clark's already called, and Batman seems to be in another dark mood.
"Superboy, let the man go on his date. I don't very much care who he fucks."
"But—
"You could use a break. Clark has a distress beacon, if he needs it. Batman out."
Clark doesn't look half as satisfied as a person who's just won an argument should, but he smiles anyway.
Still, Conner decides to trail after Clark and his date, because this woman who is not Lois is almost certainly with the League of Shadows, or something, whatever… she's not Lois Lane, and that's the main thing.
It turns out to be an amazingly boring date. They go to an Italian restaurant and then they go to the opera, which is so not Conner's cup of tea. After four hours of watching some screechy people sing in German, Clark ushers the woman out of the opera, and then, Conner notes with a sense of satisfaction, he shakes her hand, calls her a cab, and sends her off into the night. Then he sits down by the fountain in front of the opera house and looks down at his shoes. Conner takes it as a sign to stop his little sabbatical.
"So, it didn't work out?" he asks, as he sits down next to Clark and offers the older man one of those McDonalds apple pies, which he picked up during the second act.
"She's really nice," Clark says wistfully, as he opens the pie. "But, I asked her out for all the wrong reasons, and… I just felt really crummy about it. I could have taken her to Bruce's place, you know. She would have been really impressed. And then… but… that's not the kind of guy I am."
"Course you're not," Conner tells him with a smile. "Martha Kent raised you."
"Oh, that she did," Clark agrees, and takes a bite out of the pie. "Wanna bite?" he asks.
"Nah," Conner says. "They were two for a dollar," he tells him, and shows Clark the other one. "Besides, I don't like apple pie, except the one your mom makes."
"I still don't get that."
"I know you don't Clark."
Clark finishes his pie and eats the other one, and then, they head back home.
To be continued...
Author's Notes: Super hearing's a bitch, ain't it?