Chapter Three
He'd arrived in Gotham, windswept and ragged, his clothes torn and hanging off him from the speed he'd been traveling. He'd never moved that fast before; in the past he'd always been able to arrive fully clothed.
Bruce came to the door, which was strange in and of itself, and the expression on his face nearly broke Clark's heart. His eyes were wide and red rimmed, and he looked shocked, terrified. Clark drew him into a hug which he expected Bruce to protest; it was a testament to how broken up he really was that the man simply let himself sink into Clark's arms.
"Clark, buddy," he said finally. "I'm not sure if you have the best or worst timing in the world. The funeral's this evening."
"God, Bruce," Clark said, and he followed him inside. He watched the man walk, and by the way he limped, Clark guessed that he'd been throwing himself into his work as Batman. He expected if he looked at the newspapers, they would be screaming about Batman's new recklessness; more criminals seriously injured, more civilians jeopardized.
"Chloe left this for you," Bruce said, and a key was flung at him. There was a tag attached to it, with the name of a bank on it. Clark pocketed it and followed Bruce into the living from.
Bruce sat loudly on a couch, and Clark settled himself across from him. "You've been out of touch a while," Bruce said. "Where have you been?"
"Africa," Clark replied. "Mozambique. Just helping where I can."
"You stopped visiting," Bruce said. "Chloe really missed you. It's not like it would have taken you more than ten minutes to fly back over here—"
"National security was on my back, Bruce," Clark replied. "If I'd kept on breaking the sound barrier four times a day, they would have caught me."
"I think we both know that's bullshit," Bruce said. He looked like he wanted to stand up, to yell, but didn't have the energy. "You could have suited up. You could have gone public."
"Not so soon after Clark Kent's disappearance, I couldn't have," Clark said. "In case you've forgotten, Clark Kent is dead. Calling myself Kal Elliot and putting on a suit—"
This time Bruce did stand up. "You could have worn a mask, you could have booted up some Kryptonian technology and made yourself undetectable, you could have put a paper bag over your head for all I care; you should have come home. Your mom missed you, and Chloe, and Lana coming around all the time like a broken puppy, convinced that you were going to land any minute in your flying saucer."
"It was too close," Clark said. He couldn't decide whether he wanted to scream at Bruce, or start crying; the two of them had been inseparable for the time Clark had spent in Gotham, kindred spirits, both haunted and trying to get their lives back on track.
And now: arguing just hours before Chloe's funeral.
"It was too close," he repeated, yelling this time. "Too close to Lex and to Lana. It was too goddamned close to that laboratory; I could still smell the blood and fire, I could still hear the wind whistling through the holes I'd punched in the walls and squeaking as it blew through the equipment that they tied me to. Whatever training, whatever torture you put yourself through so that you could become this vigilante hero, you had control, Bruce, and you could return home. You could remember the lessons and forget the pain. Your home wasn't tainted with this smell, or the sight of my caves where they abducted me, or every Kansas road looking like the Kansas road I looked out on when I escaped, every forest looking exactly the same as the one that surrounded that prison. You didn't—"
"Okay," Bruce said quietly. "Okay."
"Do you not think that I blame myself for this?" Clark said, the volume gone. "I should have been there."
"Yeah," Bruce said. "You should have."
"I'm a surgeon, Bruce," Clark said quietly. "I could have helped her; given her longer."
"Don't remind me, I'll hate you more."
"My mom knew how to reach me," Clark pointed out. "She's the one who sent the letter that brought me back for this."
Bruce looked surprised. "No, I didn't know that, actually. Your mom hasn't been talking to us lately."
"What?" Clark exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
"Have you gone to see her?" he asked. Clark shook his head. "It's a long story, but essentially your mom is pushing through a bill that will require the registration of all masked superheroes."[kji1]
Clark's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?" he said, incredulously.
"There was an incident in Star City," Bruce explained. "Nasty business; Green Arrow was convicted of the accidental killing of an eighteen year old girl named Cindy Charles. There was a hostage situation and Oliver had to shoot the girl through the shoulder in order to drop the bad guy. It was a clean shot, she should have been fine. Autopsy showed that it didn't even knick the bone, or any arteries or nerves. But she had some sort of heart condition, and she dropped faster than the guy with the arrow out his forehead."
He paused; Alfred had just entered the room, looking older and more ragged than Clark had ever seen him. On the tray was, unexpectedly, a mickey of whiskey and a glass of ice. Bruce thanked him, and Alfred left again, without even greeting their visitor.
"Ollie showed up for his court dates, let the judge reprimand him, listened to the witnesses, let the girl's family blame him, and didn't even flinch when the jury brought back a guilty verdict. But when the cops came at him with the cuffs, he used a spring-loaded concealed bow to rappel up and out through the stain glass window of the court room."
"Shit," Clark swore. Bruce looked at him in surprise, as though the cuss word were the strangest thing that had happened that day.
"Has he been underground?" Clark asked.
"No, he just carried on as usual, just avoided sticking around too long at any one crime scene. He did issue a public apology on the news, but I'm pretty sure that Chloe just hacked it over top of the regular news cast, which probably pissed off the state government officials even more. So Senator Kent thought that the best way to placate the people would be to have an Identification Act. Any person or organization acting in the best interests of the general public must identify themselves and register for license to fight crime. Furthermore, they must submit to mandatory training days and agree to receive an e-newsletter twice a month."
"I sure hope you're joking," Clark said.
"About the newsletter? Yeah. Not about the rest though."
"Shit," Clark said again. "If this bill goes through?"
"There aren't that many of us out there, Clark. People with power are far more likely to end up corrupt and criminals than as do-gooders. But there are enough of us. We could fight this."
"Do we all want to? How do AC, Victor and Bart feel?"
"Victor is legally dead, and up until about three years ago I don't think he would have had issue with it. But he got himself a new identity, Victor Vance, and he's fallen in love with this pretty girl named Angelina and Angie's two daughters. He needs to protect them before anything else. Bart just finished his law degree, and he's fairly certain that the law firm that just hired him wouldn't be interested in a super-powered lawyer giving them all sorts of weird PR. AC… well," Bruce laughed. "Strangely enough, AC has kind of dropped off our radar. He's been swimming with the fishes for half a decade, only checks in around Christmas."
Clark sighed. "I'll talk to my mom. I'll convince her out of it."
"Well, we'll be seeing her soon," Bruce said, and all at once reality returned.
Clark nearly always wore black lately, and he glanced at himself in the mirror, expecting to find himself looking fairly suitable for a funeral. He was shocked – he had forgotten that his clothes were mostly in tatters. He borrowed one of Bruce's suits and the two of them headed out, driving in Bruce's red Lamborghini. No matter the occasion, Bruce explained, he still had to be Bruce. The very act of being engaged, he told Clark, had seriously compromised his reputation as a playboy, jeopardized his secret identity.
He was distancing himself. Clark remembered Chloe's wide smile and her bright eyes; he wished—and he'd never wished this before—that he hadn't moved to Europe. This could have been home. Chloe and Bruce and Lois and Mom, they could have been home.
Q
Clark stayed near the back for the funeral. He watched Lois and Lana and Martha shuffled into the front row and wished that he could be sitting beside them. Lois hugged Bruce long and hard, and Clark saw her back tighten, just once, with a muffled sob.
His mom reached out and touched Bruce's arm, but Bruce pulled away and sat down between Oliver and Lois. Clark saw Bruce whisper something to Oliver and the two men glanced back at him briefly.
It was a beautiful ceremony. Bruce spoke, and then Lois did, and then her father all of them barely able to take their eyes off the photo of Chloe that rested on the coffin.
Lois mentioned him in her eulogy. It shocked him, to hear her speak so fondly of him. Rather than feeling devastated at the idea that Chloe could be gone, the people who spoke seemed at peace; they spoke as though they had loved her, and would continue to love her. The priest took over and motioned for the pall bearers to stand; Clark turned and left the church. He didn't want to see the hearse drive away with her body—God, her body, he almost laughed—so he went around to the back garden where the caterers were stationed, setting up just inside.
He stood outside the reception hall and listened to Chloe's closest friends—some that he knew, some that he didn't—as they talked about her. After a while, Oliver, Victor and Bart stepped out of the fray. Clark frowned when he realized that he hadn't noticed the other heroes earlier. He supposed, working from left to right, that he'd come across the photo of Chloe in the center of the church and not even thought to look any further.
Oliver gestured towards where Clark stood near a tree. They approached him somberly, Bart still holding an hors d' oeuvre in his hand.
"Clark," Oliver said.
"Just for the day," Clark corrected. They shook hands and Oliver pulled him into an embrace.
"Victor, Bart," Clark greeted them. They watched him, a little dumbfounded. "Did you not get the memo?"
"About your obvious lack of deadness?" Bart asked, his voice hoarse. "No, afraid we missed that one."
Clark looked accusingly at Oliver. "What?" Oliver asked. "You told me to keep it on the down-low."
"I'm pretty sure that anyone who is part of the 'Clark Kent Is an Alien' club is also allowed to be a part of the 'Clark Kent is not really Dead' club."
Victor gaped at him. "You're a what?" he asked.
"Seriously?" Clark said.
"Your secret, your responsibility," Oliver pointed out. "I'm not going to yell at you for abandoning Chloe in her time of need; I assume that Bruce already did that."
"He may have done," Clark admitted.
"And I'm not going to complain at the complete absence of superhero activity coming from your side of the earth lately," Oliver continued.
"Fair enough," Clark muttered.
"As long as you tell me what the hell you've been doing with yourself for the past, what, seven years?"
"Six and a half," Clark grumbled. He glanced up at the three men watched him intently. "Wait, did you mean now?"
They looked expectant. "You guys, we're at Chloe's funeral, shouldn't we be—"
"Chloe's had cancer for over a year now," Bart said. "We've been in mourning since the day they said 'metastasize'. We all made our peace with her a long time ago."
"Can we at least go somewhere? I can't really risk being spotted."
"Have you talked to your mom yet?" said Victor, accusingly.
"No," Clark said, sounding offended. "People keep asking me that."
"Do you know what's going on?" Victor asked. "I have my girls to think about."
"I know," Clark said. "And I'll deal with it." Suddenly he heard Lois' voice and he stepped behind the tree. "Where should we go to talk?" he asked.
Bart grinned. "Follow my lead, Boy Scout," he said, and he took off.
Clark was able to easily keep up with Bart, which surprised both of them. They ran off course, exploring, having fun. Clark laughed, and shocked by the sound. Bart turned his head, and gestured for Clark to try to catch up with him. Clark powered ahead, shooting past Bart and launching himself into the air a bit. For the moment, running and jumping with someone who could keep up with him, forgetting about his problems, like really was just Clark again and that man, Kal Elliot, was only a scarred, serious mask that he wore for special occasions.
They reached a lake, and Bart took off across it. Clark jumped into the air and closed his eyes for a second as he let gravity drop away, no longer pressing him towards the earth he propelled forward, leaving a wake of hot, vibrating molecules behind him.
Bart, glancing behind him and undoubtedly hoping to see Clark stranded on land, was so shocked to see Clark zooming right behind him, disturbing the water into colourful arcs in the sunlight, that he stopped moving and fell into the water.
"Need a hand?"
"Since when can you fly, Clark?" Bart took a deep breath and disappeared under the water. Less than a second later he was at the shore, pulling himself up out of the weeds. Clark floated over to him.
"Since I left," Clark said. "If it makes you feel any better, I can't do that walking on water trick you have."
"It does not make me feel better," Bart said. "We're almost there, it's just over the hill. I'm going to do another lap to dry off."
They were inside Oliver Queen's mansion just outside Starr City moments later.
"It's worse than we originally thought," Oliver explained as he stepped from the helicopter. Victor and Bruce followed him. "I don't want you to take offense," he continued, "but it seems like your mom is being manipulated."
"By whom?" Clark asked.
"Lionel Luthor," Bruce interjected.
"Of course," Clark said, unsurprised.
"They're a couple, now," Oliver said. Clark looked up sharply. "One hell of a couple," he muttered.
"This comes back to Lex, actually," Victor said. "I hacked into Lionel's computer system a few weeks ago. Stole a pdf file of Lex's will, and needless to say, there are some interesting requests. He went all martyr when he got out of jail, and his will allots a bunch of his money to battered women shelters, free clinics, orphanages, the works."
"He left his dad something else," Oliver said, moving forward and handing Clark a folder. Clark flipped it open and stared in amazement at a list of names.
"Who are these people?" Clark asked.
"People with abilities," Bruce said. "Superheroes and their identities. I guess we'll never know how he got this information. All of us here are on that list."
Clark flipped through the pages; his name, Clark Kent, stared back at him from the fourth page.
"The computer files are extensive," Victor said. "That's just the list with the names filtered out. Lex has details on abilities, aliases, known locations, family members; there's enough information to make your head spin."
"Had," Clark said quietly.
"What?" Victor demanded.
"Lex had, not has."
There was a silence.
"What does my mom have to do with this?" Clark asked.
"She's pushing through this bill that requires that people with abilities register with the government, as I mentioned," Bruce said. "But she's not letting anyone know about this list. She's giving the impression that any differently-abled people who want to simply lay low and refrain from public use of their powers will remain unprosecuted."
"What makes you think that my mom even knows about this list?" Clark asked.
Bruce and Oliver exchanged glances. "They're living together, now," Oliver said. "We were only able to get Victor access to Lionel's computer for a limited amount of time, but on his way out of their condo, he swiped this laptop." He pulled out a computer from a drawer in his desk. "It's your mom's computer. She has duplicates."
Clark swore and ran his hand through his hair. With a burst of wind, Bart appeared in the doorway, looking tousled and dry. "Did I miss Boy Scout going all Hulk on us?" he asked, looking apprehensively at Clark.
"It didn't happen, Bart," Clark muttered. He shook his head. "Not yet."
Q
"Lois Lane?" Clark said into the phone. He heard a sipping noise and imagined her drinking coffee from a large Styrofoam cup, her hair frizzing out and her eyes red-rimmed from the sleepless nights.
"Yeah," she said. "Can I help you?"
"My name is Kaleb Elliot," he said. She jumped in before he could finish.
"Bruce Wayne's new boy toy?" she asked. "I read in the Gotham Times that you'd returned to the country. You have a story for me?"
"Well, I—"
"It better not be some human interest piece about your adventures overseas saving the dolphins or whatever," she said. "I'm an investigative reporter. I can forward you to another—"
"I want to see you, Miss Lane," Clark said, glad to be the one interjecting and not the one getting cut off this time. "It's about Lex Luthor."
There was a silence on the line, and Clark could hear the familiar noises of the news room.
"Quick question," she said. "For the protégé of a playboy like Bruce Wayne, how come there aren't any pictures of you anywhere?"
"Miss Lane," Clark said, his voice deep. "Did you Google me?"
"I like to know who I'm dealing with," she snapped. "How soon can you meet me?"
"How does right now sound?"
Moments later, Clark was sitting at the coffee shop that Lois had suggested. He ran his hand nervously through his hair; since his speed had increased, he'd been having trouble arriving anywhere without it sticking straight up. He wondered if she'd recognize him, after all, he was dressed in a smart black button up shirt and jeans that had cost him nearly half of his monthly rent, the last time he'd had a flat.
He glanced down, checking himself out again. In Africa he'd only had one pair of jeans that had survived until the end of his trip, and those had been ripped at the knee on one leg. If Bruce wanted to give him spending money, he sure wasn't going to complain.
However, there was also the small detail that Clark Kent was supposed to be dead. He knew Lois, and Lois only saw exactly what she expected to see. There was no way that she was walking into this coffee shop expecting Clark to be waiting for her.
A waitress stopped by his table, and Clark took some time to flirt with her. His existence as Kal had been equal parts somber and carefree; his past would take hold of him for weeks at a time, and then one day he'd wake up and feel as though he'd just rolled out of bed that morning in Kansas before Lex had run him over with his Porsche. Back in Metropolis, with Chloe's death and seeing all of his friends again—he couldn't help but be overwhelmed with the past.
But he was getting very good at pretending.
When Lois walked into the store, she approached the hostess and asked directly and a bit rudely if she knew where she could find Kaleb Elliot. She found herself wishing that she'd asked him for a description, or even what colour shirt he'd be wearing, but the hostess didn't hesitate.
"He sure disappointed my girls when he told them he was waiting for someone," she said. "Now that you're here, maybe they'll get some work done."
Lois felt her heart sinking, and she scanned the room, settling her gaze where the hostess was pointing. There was a blonde sitting across from him, and Lois could only see his messy dark hair and his broad shoulders.
"Get lost," she said to the waitress; the blonde stood slowly, taking her hand off his and picking up her tray. Lois sat herself heavily on the chair and started to pull out her notebook and pen.
"Mr. Elliot," she said as she riffled through her purse. "You had better have some decent information, because I left a very important case hanging to come see—"
She stopped talking. The pen fell to the floor.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You just look like someone I used to know."
And Clark stared back at her. The eyes were different, Lois told herself. The eyes were all wrong, they were closed off, distant; an alien shade of blue. Clark's eyes had always been green and so very warm, so welcoming.
Clark waited for her to recognize him. He didn't know what he would do if that was all he got—the shock, the vague detection, it wasn't enough. He wasn't sure why he'd called her, but it wasn't for this. He was suddenly itchy to get out of his skin, to be Clark Kent again, to let Kaleb Elliot fade away. He wanted to be Clark for her.
He'd been wrong, he mused. She didn't look tired or worn at all.
He touched her hand. "Can we go somewhere more private?" he asked her.
She flinched, pulled her hand away.
"What are you trying to pull, wise guy?" she demanded loudly. "I'm here for a story."
He looked at her for another moment, trying to figure out if she was honestly going to just brush this under the proverbial rug.
"Of course," he said, finally. He sighed. "Lois. Miss Lane—"
"Lois is fine," she snapped. Her notebook and pen were ready again. She looked calm, unaffected.
"Lois," he said. "I was so sorry to hear about Chloe. She was your cousin."
Lois was shocked to hear the hitch in his voice. He sounded as though he were truly sad about her death. "How did you know?" she asked.
"I'm very close with Bruce Wayne," he explained. "But you knew that."
"Lex Luthor," she said. "What do you know?"
Clark slid his hand into his pocket and fingered the DVD case. After Bruce had given him the key to the safety deposit box, Clark had gone immediately to the bank to retrieve the contents. He'd been expecting something sentimental, maybe some old articles that they'd written together, or a picture of them when they were younger and more carefree. What he found horrified him.
All the research from when he'd been kidnapped; it was all there. Files, case studies, data, diagrams and videos; the entire chronicle of his visit to Lex's lab.
He'd gone through the videos and taken enough. He'd copied what wouldn't reveal Clark Kent as a test subject rather than a torture victim. The part where Lex beat him up, shortly before bringing out the black Kryptonite; clips of Clark in his room, his chest scarred and bruised, looking emaciated and sleep deprived.
His hands shook as he put the DVD on the table.
"Lex Luthor died and the world forgot about what a monster he was," Clark said. "He was acquitted of the rape of his wife, and all the allegations about the labs and the illegal experiments were dropped when no one could find any connection between him and the hell hole he died in."
He slid the DVD across to Lois. "I can't give you originals," he said, "but there's more where that came from."
Their eyes met, and they stared at each other.
"There's more going on here," she accused. "What's your personal stake in this? What did Lex do to you?"
A million thoughts ran through Clark's head. He wanted to tell Lois what Lex had done to him in excruciating, second-by-second detail. He wanted to finally have someone hear the truth, but his mind fled instead to a lie.
It was the cover story that he and Bruce had concocted years ago, before he'd even gone to Europe. Bruce had forged birth certificates, adoption records, school records, and all with such expertise that Clark had started to wonder if Bruce didn't invent people on a regular basis.
They'd chosen a birth date, and on that day, at a hospital in Metropolis, twins had been born. They'd been given names, which had been irrelevant because, according to the records, the woman who had birthed these twins had gone septic and died within the hour.
They'd gone to a foster home, which had only existed for the three years that they'd lived there; then the foster home had disbanded and the babies had gone missing. One, apparently, had turned up in a Kansas cornfield. The other had been taken in by an elderly couple who had moved to Gotham city and died of old age when young Kaleb had been twenty.
"Lex Luthor killed my brother," he said, letting Lois take the DVD from him. His hands were still shaking, which didn't make sense to him; as a surgeon, his hands never shook. "His name was Clark Kent."
Lois pushed herself back from the table and the chair squeaked in protest. "Are you fucking with me?" she demanded.
"You said I reminded you of someone," he said. "Clark Kent was your friend."
He expected a sarcastic remark from her, spiteful and biting, declining any friendship with any such farm boy. He was surprised, therefore, when her eyes dropped into her lap and her fingers tangled into her hair, leaving the DVD unprotected on her lap.
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, he was."
