I Won't Lose Tomorrow
Chapter Four: Moving Pieces
Despite Perry's order to get back to work, baby Conner was the top story in the office and it seemed to suddenly shine a spotlight on Clark. Jimmy had taken a surprising amount of photos to the point of leaving Conner disoriented. Cat, a single mother herself had been spending most of her time, grilling the man of steel on the do's and do nots of childcare. According to her death was at every corner with children. Even Perry had made several excuses to visit the child.
Lois on the other hand had refused to look at him once. In the past or in the future depending on how you viewed time, Clark would have let such an action ago and let her cool down. But when you die, everything
As it approached the end of the day, Clark saw Lois prepare herself for a fast exit. But even with a stroller, he was much quicker. He made his way to her and simply said. "We need to talk."
"No," she said, throwing her dark hair behind her as she stood up, "we don't."
Ignoring that brush off, he went after her, following her into the elevator. Luckily Conner had already fallen asleep in his stroller.
"Why are you so upset?" he asked her as they entered an empty elevator. Everyone else had quickly filed out as soon as they did, feeling the tension between them.
"I'm not upset," she lied.
"You haven't looked at me all day."
"How could you tell?" Lois spat. "You looked pretty busy playing superdad all day."
"Are you jealous?" he asked
"No! It's….I had respect for you," Lois said. "Thought you were better than Lombard and those other guys."
"So according to your logic because I slept with a woman," Clark said in disbelief, "I'm as bad as Steve? I'm still a person, Lois."
"If it was Lana or something," Lois said. "I'd understand. But whoever this woman was she must have been trash. I mean she gets pregnant, doesn't tell you and drops a baby on your lap. Honestly, the fact that you could find anyone like that attractive disgusts me."
"But why?" he pushed.
"Because you're supposed to be a good guy," she said. "You're supposed to be Smallville, white picket fence, nuclear family having Smallville with some perfect wife and perfect kids. You're not supposed to have a baby mama running around!"
"I'm sorry I can't live up to your standards. But you're being unfair," Clark said, well aware that he was being incredibly unfair as well.
The female reporter frowned but she didn't say anything more. She exited the elevator and Clark didn't follow.
He wanted to shout his identity from the top of the heavens to her. But more than that, the monster that held him back reared its ugly head once more. Before he told her, he needed to know if there was any hope for Lois and Clark, rather than just Lois and Superman.
After the conversation with Lois, Clark had decided to go to Bruce's..It was only five which meant he had about an hour of face time before they headed off into their nightly patrol.
After knocking twice, Alfred opened the door. The man showed no response at the toddler and gestured him inside. "Hello Master Kent, Master Bruce is downstairs."
"Hi Clark," Dick greeted cheerfully, bounding down the stairs. Eagerly taking the excuse to get away from his homework. Leaning down he turned his attention at the toddler watching him with wide eyes. "Who is this?"
Surprised that Bruce had omitted something as important as a superbaby to his sidekick, Clark brushed passed and taking the toddler out of his stroller once more, Clark handed Conner over to Dick who lifted the baby over his head. "Dick, this is Conner, Conner meet Dick. He's my son."
Almost dropping the child in his arms, Dick exclaimed, "what?"
After giving the sidekick a abridged version of the events, he headed downstairs to the batcave, leaving Dick and Alfred to entertain the super baby for him.
Bruce was already in costume, peering over data on the large batcomputer. "Clark," he said, without even turning around. "Who's watching Metropolis."
"Jon said he was willing to take care of Metropolis while I adjusted to my new schedule," he said. The green lantern's offer was a godsend.
Bruce just grunted.
"So how come Dick didn't know about Conner?" he asked. "he looked really surprised when he saw him."
"You brought him here?" Bruce asked, with a hint of concern. "We don't know anything about him."
"Conner is completely safe," Clark said. It was an odd feeling defending Conner to formerly one of his most stringent supporters.
"Because you "felt" him," Bruce said.
"And I also checked him at the Fortress," Clark lied, not having made a trip since he had come back. "There's nothing wrong with him at all. He's an ordinary baby. I'm also having J'onn examine him when he returns from Mars." The martian had taken a leave of absence to visit his sister on Mars and unknowingly pick up his white martian niece and wouldn't be back for a few months. The Martian would then
Bruce seemed to be more at ease at that information. "The investigation at Cadmus didn't turn up any leads."
Clark was well aware that it wouldn't.
"But we should be troubled that someone was able to clone a Kryptonian under our very noses."
"Whoever they are would have to be brilliant, rich, and immoral and have a big grudge against me," Clark said.
"You think Lex did it?" Bruce said. "I know you hate him and the man is a criminal, but this seems beyond his simple white collar crimes."
Clark remembered how surprised he had been when he realized just how depraved Lex actually was. He had thought he was a monster before with how poorly he treated his workers and rival companies. But a few years ago he would never believe he was capable of the sheer amount of crimes he had helped orchestrate with The Light.
Luckily, he had a silver bullet that would put the spotlight directly on Lex.
"Because he's Superboy's other parent," Clark said. "I checked the DNA myself."
End Chapter
Author Recommendation:
If you like Parent! Clark. Try The World Is Still Beautiful by Anru. The link is in my favorites. She was the one that gave me an idea that help me get out of the writer's block I had with this fic.